#Brian as Cecil

[gatabella]

Greta Garbo by Cecil Beaton, 1946

"After dinner I told Brian Aherne that it must be thrilling to have Garbo staying in his home. “My dear boy, it’s not at all a thrill,” he said. “It can be goddamned embarrassing. When I go down to the pool in the morning to have breakfast, she’s already out there sunning herself, stark naked. I never know which way to look.”

-William Frye, Vanity Fair, April 2010

[iolaussharpe-24]

I've realized something.

Brian Petsos movies don't have a lot of fans. Oscar Isaac fans like his characters in Brian Petsos movies. We don't talk about Revenge for Jolly!; we talk about Cecil. We don't talk about Ticky Tacky unless we're praising Lucien and/or comparing/connecting him to Anselm. We don't talk about Lightningface; we talk about how pathetic Basil is and compare him to Steven Grant. We don't talk about Big Gold Brick unless it's to bash it, talk about the cast, and obsess over Anselm. I didn't think this at first, because I just assumed I was the wrong kind of viewer for Petsos projects (I previously mentioned that they kind of reminded me of Jim Jarmusch movies), but the more I've looked around online at reviews and discussions, I've been finding this pattern of negativity. It seems like everyone just kind of agrees that Brian Petsos doesn't really make good movies, but Oscar Isaac makes them worth seeing at least once. And, yes, I am aware that there are things Petsos has done without Isaac, but when you search 'Brian Petsos' the first things that come up are the ones that Oscar Isaac is a part of. This includes The Letter Room, which was written and directed by Elvira Lind but Petsos does have a part in solely as an actor. Even on his IMDb page, there's little to nothing about him but half of the available information is, and I quote, "frequently works with Oscar Isaac". In my opinion, that's pretty telling on it's own. I'm not trying to be mean here, I just think this is kind of an interesting thing to note. If you disagree, please let me know. I'd be happy to debate this. Personally speaking, I've watched Revenge for Jolly!, Ticky Tacky, Lightningface, and a tiny bit of Big Gold Brick. (For the record, I know that Petsos didn't direct Revenge for Jolly! but he wrote and starred in it.)

One thing I will say in Petsos' favor: There's very clearly a lot of genuine passion and love in his work and it does show. Interviews with him, the proud displays of nonsensical strangeness, and the fact that he's able to keep making movies all reflect that. You can tell that the people involved are having fun and I think that's the most important part. I think his weakness (to me) is that his projects feel like they lack something. Revenge for Jolly! didn't feel like it was going anywhere for most of it's runtime. Like it wanted to be and do something but didn't know how. It had fairly decent moments... in the first half. But those moments only landed out of shock value, and they very quickly became predictable. (Also, what was up with that bar scene?) Ticky Tacky and Lightningface felt flat. Like bread that didn't rise. Maybe they needed more time to really explore their premises and characters. Like, if we saw Lucien and Claire together before he finds out about the cheating, or if we get to know Basil before the lightning strike. Both of these are about people going crazy, but without that sense of who they used to be, it doesn't really hit that hard and leaves you wondering 'what the hell did I just watch and why?' This is one thing I think Revenge for Jolly! understood, because we get to see Harry, Jolly, and Cecil before the inciting incident of the movie. We get a sense of their relationships with one another. I can't speak for Big Gold Brick because I haven't seen it in full so I'm not going to bother saying anything for the bits I saw either. That's just not fair for anybody.

[omg-hellgirl]

Photographer Cecil Beaton saw them all loose, exhausted, around the pool, listening to loud music and wondering what to do. When they returned to England, the newspapers were filled with the history of drugs.

Willi Winkler, Mick Jagger and The Rolling Stones.

[radianttruthsii]

Portrait of Brian Jones and Anita Pallenberg in Morocco, 1967, by Cecil Beaton

[theghostofsalem]

Whose more Cecil? Brian David Gilbert or Neil Cicirega?

-

[theatrepup]

Lux Radio Theatre's radio performance of A Woman's Face (1942), starring Ida Lupino, Brian Aherne, and Conrad Veidt (who also appeared in the 1941 movie). Featuring Cecil B. DeMille and some banter with the stars afterward.

[crippledaro]

LOOK WHAT I GOTTTT!!!!

[ID: a photo of a pair of crutches leaning against a rollator]

[chaoticdesertdweller]

[4eternal-life]

Brian Jones and Anita Pallenberg in Morocco, 1967

ph. Cecil Beaton

https://flashbak.com/anita-pallenberg-the-greatest-rock-muse-of-them-all-381535/

[mariocki]

The Diary of a Nobody (BBC, 1964)

"In the evening, Cummings unexpectedly dropped in to show me a meerschaum pipe he had won in a raffle in the city and told me to handle it carefully, as it would spoil the colouring if the hand was moist. He said he would not stay, as he did not care much for the smell of paint, and fell over the scraper as he went out. Must get the scraper removed - or else I shall get into a scrape. I don't often make jokes."

[nonesuchrecords]

DownBeat has published its list of the Top 10 Jazz Albums of the Year, including Joshua Redman, Brad Mehldau, Christian McBride, and Brian Blade’s LongGone (“A breathtaking reunion of four of the brightest stars in jazz.”), Brad Mehldau’s Your Mother Should Know (“The music of The Beatles channeled through the mind of one of our greatest living pianists.”), and Cécile McLorin Salvant’s Mélusine (“The leading lady of jazz vocals creates a masterpiece of thoughtful, adventurous music.”). You can read the list here.

[therobertfrasergang]

Robert Fraser and the Rolling Stones, Marrakesh, 1967

Robert Fraser, Brian Jones, Mick Jagger, and Michael Cooper (filming)

Michael Cooper (filming), Robert Fraser, Anita Pallenberg, Mick Jagger

March 11, 1967: Keith Richards, Mick Jagger and Anita Pallenberg fly down to Tangier, Morocco, where they join Brian Jones. The group then drives down to stay in Marrakesh.

Brian Jones is holding a tape recorder - he was taping Moroccan street musicians during this trip.

More about this trip under the cut.

Marrakesh: March 1967 On the Tuesday evening I came down to dinner very late, and, to my surprise, sitting in the hotel lobby, discovered Mick Jagger and a sleepy looking band of gipsies. Robert Fraser, one of their company, wearing a huge, black felt hat and a bright emerald brocade coat was coughing by the swimming pool. He had swallowed something the wrong way. He recovered and invited me to join them all for a drink. - Cecil Beaton, The Parting Years: 1963-74 (Cecil Beaton's Diaries)

We decided to get out of England and not go back until it was time for the court case. And it would be better to find somewhere where we could get legal drugs. It was one of those sudden things, “Let’s jump in the Bentley and go to Morocco.” So in early March we did a runner...

We visited Achmed, a legendary hashish dealer of those early drug days. Anita had met him first with Chrissie Gibbs on her previous visit, a small Moroccan man with a Chinese jar on his shoulder walking along, looking back at them, leading them through the medina, up the hill towards the Minzah, opening the door into a tiny little shop that was completely empty except for a box with a few pieces of Moroccan jewelry in it and a lot of hashish...

His shop was on the stairs, called the Escalier Waller, going down from the Minzah, little one-story shops on the right-hand side that backed onto the Minzah gardens. Achmed started off with one shop, then he had two above it. There were steps between them—internally, it was a bit of a labyrinth—and the higher ones just had a few brass beds with gaudy-colored velvet mattresses on them, on which one could, having smoked a lot of dope, pass out for a day or two. And then you’d come in and he’d give you some more dope to make you more passed out. It was almost like a basement and it was hung with all of the wonders of the East, caftans, rugs and beautiful lanterns… Aladdin’s cave. It was a shack, but he made it look like a palace. - Keith Richards and James Fox, Life

Brion Gysin, one of Tangier’s most celebrated residents, was the one who announced, ‘The Rolling Stones are here, the Stones are here!’ Hearing that the band was in town, he’d run round to his friend Paul Bowles to spread the news. Bowles had never heard of the band, but not much was happening in the city so he dropped in to see the group, crashed out in Gysin’s apartment, remembering that they were ‘very much rolling (in money) . . . and very stoned’...

It was all a little too much for Bowles, who was there only briefly. The same applied to Christopher Gibbs, who missed out on the drama. Mick and Robert Fraser arrived later, while Marianne returned to London for more rehearsals...

When the troupe moved on, out of the crammed streets of Tangier into the wider open spaces of Marrakesh three hundred miles further west, Gysin joined them, disturbed and fascinated by their excesses. He would later initiate Brian into some of the most potent music of his life; and during this trip he would be an unwitting player in his fall...

[At the Es Saadi resort] By now, Gysin was well aware of the tensions around the band. ‘The action starts almost at once. Brian and I drop acid. Anita sulks and drops sleepers. [She] goes off to sleep in the suite she shared with Brian. Keith has plugged in and “sends great throbbing sounds winging after her and on out into the moonlight over the desert. Robert [Fraser] puts on a great old Elmore James record out of his collection. - Paul Trynka, Brian Jones: The Making of the Rolling Stones

These photos, by Michael Cooper, seem to have been taken on the same trip.

[ministerforpeas]

Pompous Debate with Kinnock and Parkinson!

[elementhomex]

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[musicmags]