#the prime of miss jane brodie

[lamplitpages]

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie de Muriel Spark

"Dê-me uma menina em idade impressionável e ela será minha pelo resto da vida."

A grandiosa e nada modesta frase acima é obra da personagem que dá nome ao romance tema deste post. Ao lê-la, já conseguimos ter um vislumbre da sua personalidade e da forma como ela aborda a vida. Jean Brodie é uma professora que leciona em uma tradicional escola para meninas, a Marcia Blaine School for Girls, na Edimburgo da década de 1930. Seus valores, interesses e visão heterodoxa do que é a educação se chocam com os princípios que regem a escola, o que faz de Miss Brodie um alvo da direção da instituição. Por mais que tentem persuadi-la a deixar Blaine e lecionar em uma escola "moderna", que se alinhasse com seus métodos, Brodie se recusa, afirmando que aquele lugar é exatamente onde ela precisa estar.

A mulher, que diz estar vivendo o auge de sua vida, não se satisfaz com aquele currículo convencional, centrado nas ciências, que exige das alunas uma mera capacidade de memorização, visando apenas passar nas avaliações. Brodie acredita que a arte, a religião e a filosofia estão acima das ciências, e devem reger a educação de suas pupilas. Dessa forma, a mulher busca dar a essas garotas uma instrução que rompe as barreiras da convenção, uma educação quase espiritual, tendo como objetivo torná-las indivíduos excepcionais, mulheres com uma vocação, que flutuam acima da massa de pessoas sem instinto e sem entendimento introspectivo. Nas suas palavras, Miss Brodie quer que suas pupilas sejam o crème de la crème, e está disposta a dedicar o auge da sua vida a essa empreitada.

No entanto, nem todas as garotas matriculadas naquela instituição tem o direito de se juntar ao grupo especial de alunas da excêntrica professora. Na visão de Brodie, o educador não coloca nada na cabeça do pupilo, apenas o ajuda a desenvolver um potencial pré-existente. Dessa forma, ela escolhe a dedo quais garotas terão o privilégio de serem educadas por ela, tomando sob seus cuidados e orientação apenas aquelas em que vê potencial. Essa aura de exclusividade e o fato de possuírem uma rotina de estudos tão diferente – Miss Brodie leva suas alunas ao balé e ao teatro, as convida para tomar chá consigo em seu apartamento e usa as aulas de aritmética para contar suas histórias de vida ou fazer um elogio dos fascistas – fazem com que as meninas de Brodie se tornem um grupo anômalo e apartado do resto do corpo estudantil. O fato de a professora reprimir ideias acerca do espírito coletivo e incentivar o individualismo também contribui com a alienação das garotas do resto de suas colegas.

Como expresso na frase que abre o post, as garotas de Brodie são escolhidas ainda muito jovens, aos 11 anos. Dessa forma, elas crescem sob a influência da professora, maravilhadas pela sua aura impositiva e romântica, capaz de "transfigurar o prosaico" (nas futuras palavras de uma de suas pupilas). Portanto, passam a admirá-la, vendo-a como o modelo ideal daquilo que precisam se tornar e esforçando-se para agradá-la. Esse culto à pessoa de Miss Brodie, bem como o isolamento do resto das discentes e o sentimento de que o grupo é especial, e portanto incompreensível para aqueles que estão do lado de fora, fazem com que o conjunto de Brodie ("the Brodie set") se assemelhe a uma seita.

Entretanto, conforme as meninas crescem, se aproximando da maturidade e perdendo a inocência, elas – ou pelo menos algumas delas – passam, aos poucos, a ver Miss Brodie de uma maneira diferente. Aquela mulher extraordinária, que aparentava ter saído das páginas de um romance, começa a parecer uma pessoa iludida e até tola. Os cuidados reservados às pupilas se revelam apenas esquemas de Brodie para viver através delas, de forma muitas vezes imoral. Seus aforismas e convicções, sob o olhar crítico que a criança deslumbrada não era capaz de ter, parecem delírios de grandeza. De repente, a luz do teatro se apaga e as cores da pintura desbotam, mostrando Jean Brodie pelo que ela realmente é. Esse desencantamento leva à queda de Miss Brodie e, consequentemente, ao fim prematuro da primavera de sua vida.

Esse livro é bastante interessante e denso, apesar de suas poucas páginas. Além dos temas tratados acima, ele aborda ainda questões acerca da religião, de classe, do espírito e da identidade de Edimburgo, do zeitgeist daquele período em que a Segunda Guerra estava prestes a eclodir, entre outras. Dessa forma, é um romance cheio de camadas, que tornam propícias futuras releituras. Ademais, a prosa da autora é fluida, agradável e elegante, fatores que contribuem para uma experiência de leitura prazerosa.

[philipkindreddickhead]

100 Fiction Books to Read Before You Die

The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri

The Book of Margery Kempe by Margery Kempe

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid

The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Sparks

The Girl by Meridel Le Sueur

The Kitchen God's Wife by Amy Tan

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

The Color Purple by Alice Walker

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

Veronica by Mary Gaitskill

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

Kindred by Octavia Butler

Middlemarch by George Eliot

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

Passing by Nella Larson

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin

Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh

Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather

Play it as it Lays by Joan Didion

The House of Spirits by Isabel Allende

Wuthering Heights Emily Bronte

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

White Teeth by Zadie Smith

The Power by Naomi Alderman

The Street by Ann Petry

The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

Mary Barton by Elizabeth Gaskill

An American Marriage by Tayari Jones

Small Island by Andrea Levy

The Idiot by Elif Batuman

The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton

The Price of Salt/Carol by Patricia Highsmith

Room by Emma Donoghue

The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch

Garden of Earthly Delights by Joyce Carol Oates

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys

Wise Blood by Flannery O Conner

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsey

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

The Awakening by Kate Chopin

Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg

The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros

The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall

House of Incest by Anaïs Nin

The Mandarins by Simone de Beauvoir

The Lottery by Shirley Jackson

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

Corregidora by Gayl Jones

Whose Names are Unknown by Sanora Babb

Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

See Now Then by Jamaica Kincaid

The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri

Beloved by Toni Morrison

The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy

To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

My Antonia by Willa Cather

Democracy by Joan Didion

Black Water by Joyce Carol Oates

The Violent Bear it Away by Flannery O Connor

Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn

My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier

The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand

I Must Betray You be Ruta Sepetys

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

The Mare by Mary Gaitskill

City of Beasts by Isabel Allende

Fledgling by Octavia Butler

A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula Le Guin

The First Bad Man by Miranda July

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

Moses, Man of the Mountain by Zora Neale Hurston

Disobedience by Naomi Alderman

Quicksand by Nella Larsen

The Narrows by Ann Petry

The Blood of Others by Simone de Beauvoir

Under the Sea by Rachel Carson

Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee

Under the Net by Iris Murdoch

The Birdcatcher by Gayl Jones

Desert of the Heart by Jane Rule

In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez

The Memory Police by Yōko Ogawa

@gaydalf @kishipurrun @unsentimentaltranslator @algolagniaa @stariduks @hippodamoi

[justforbooks]

Maggie Smith: the magisterial star of Harry Potter and Downton had the courage and talent to do absolutely everything

The real-life dame and on-screen dowager countess, who has died aged 89, earned fame in her 70s and 80s for blockbuster roles. But her early work at the National Theatre marked her out as a talent for the ages

Dame Maggie Smith’s trophy cabinet reflected her extraordinary achievements across theatre, film and television – and in the biggest arenas of British and US culture, from the BBC to Hollywood, the West End to Broadway. A measure of her versatility and durability is that, in the 1960s, she played nine major roles in the formative years of the National Theatre, but also, from the start of the 2000s, appeared in five series of Downton Abbey, the ITV Sunday night series that became one of the biggest popular hits of the new millennium.

Her role in that show was Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham, who lived in such a bubble of exclusive comfort that, in trademark one-liners, she would drawl in mystification, for example: “What is a ‘weekend��?” That acerbic superiority was a signature throughout Smith’s career, including the part that brought her first Academy award in 1970, against a shortlist also featuring Liza Minnelli and Jane Fonda, for the title role in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, adapted from Muriel Spark’s novel about a maverick, arrogant schoolteacher in Edinburgh.

Smith consistently had the courage and talent to do unexpected things. Her second Oscar, in 1979, was for California Suite, with a script by Neil Simon and a cast of high Hollywood talent including Alan Alda and Walter Matthau. Introducing an element of postmodernism to a mainstream comedy, Smith played exactly what she had been at the start of the decade: an English actress up for her first Academy award.

Another surprise on her CV demonstrated an ability to play it straight and dark. In 2019, after 12 years away from the stage, Smith, at the age of 84, performed a 100-minute monologue at the Bridge theatre in London. A German Life was adapted by Christopher Hampton from a documentary movie interview given, at the age of 102 (the show was a rare case of an octogenarian ageing up for a part), by Brunhilde Pomsel, who worked for the Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels during the Holocaust, but who continued to deny complicity or guilt. With typical meticulousness, Smith refused to accept the part until she had proved to herself at home that she could memorise an extended solo. Combining enduringly impeccable technique with the guts to test it again at such an age, it was a late triumph in an astonishing career.

Margaret Smith – she preferred her full first name, the “Maggie” imposed on her to distinguish from another performer on the Equity register – was born in Ilford, Essex. Her mother, who worked as a secretary, was Scottish, so useful for the creation of the Brodie brogue. Her father, Nathaniel, was a pathologist, whose academic posting to Oxford led to his daughter attending the city’s girls’ high school.

Despite joining the Oxford Playhouse Company at 16, rather than going to college, Smith benefited from the local varsity theatrical privileges, cast in Oxford University Dramatic Society productions, including revues, which, at the time were attended by national critics.

Such was the impact she made in comedy skits and songs that, aged 21, she was part of an ensemble recruited to appear on Broadway in a revue called New Faces of 1956. In London, during the following two years, she appeared, with co-stars including Kenneth Williams, in an English show, Share My Lettuce, billed as “a diversion with music”, with a script by Bamber Gascoigne.

At that point, Smith seemed set to be a sketch-and-music comedian, especially when Strip the Willow, a play about the survivors of a nuclear war in the UK, failed to transfer to London from a UK tour. It was written by Beverley Cross, whom Smith had met at the Oxford Playhouse. He wrote the play for her as an attempted seduction, the first description of her character being “beautiful. As elegant and sophisticated as a top international model. A great sense of fun. A marvellous girl.’’

However, at that stage, no lasting relationship occurred. And Smith’s serious dramatic career was launched when she appeared, again paired with Kenneth Williams, in a double bill of plays, The Private Ear and The Public Eye, by Peter Shaffer, in 1962. These won Smith her first Evening Standard best actress statuette, at the age of 27, and caught the attention of Sir Laurence Olivier, then establishing, at Chichester, the first attempt at a National Theatre. Crucially to the development of her reputation, Olivier trusted her not only with comedy – such as The Recruiting Officer, George Farquhar’s early 18th-century farce – but also tragedy: she was Desdemona to Olivier’s performance in the title role of Othello.

Also at the National, Smith formed a relationship with the actor Robert Stephens, who became her first husband, and father of her sons, who, as Toby Stephens and Chris Larkin, followed their parents into acting.

Dramatic Exchanges, a collection of correspondence from the National Theatre archives, shows the close creative relationship between Olivier and Smith. A habitual nicknamer, he addressed her as “Mageen”. He had long told her that her perfect role would be Millamant, a strong-willed woman conspiring to achieve a desired marriage, in William Congreve’s Restoration comedy The Way of the World. But, in 1968, with Smith having left the company following her marriage with Stephens and pregnant with their first child, Olivier proceeded to stage the play with Geraldine McEwan as Millamant.

Olivier’s letter of apology to Smith contained elaborately verbose admiration. Smith wrote a reply of pained regret concluding: “Well, what’s the point of trying to tell you my feelings. They obviously count for so very little. It was nice of you to say you will devote your energies to my return but really I do not think it would be wise of me to believe that either. Margaret.”

There is a waspish, unforgiving tone in that letter that was part of Smith’s personality; some of those who worked with her, especially younger actors struggling with their roles, were wounded by witty but cruel putdowns.

That bad casting luck at the National, though, was more than balanced out. Had Julie Andrews, in the same year, not turned down the Jean Brodie movie, Smith would never have played the part that redefined her career. With her American bankability increased by a US tour of Noël Coward’s Private Lives, Smith used it to go into a kind of theatrical exile from Olivier and Britain. From 1976 to 1980, she played four summer seasons at the Shakespeare festival in Stratford, Ontario, conceived as a sort of ex-pat RSC-National, where she finally played the part of Millamant and other roles that might have been expected in London, such as Lady Macbeth.

Smith fell into a happy rhythm of filming gigs split with Canadian acting sabbaticals. While she rehearsed or acted, Beverley Cross wrote to her, having become Smith’s second husband in 1975 following her divorce from Robert Stephens.

When Smith returned to London theatre, she took over from Diana Rigg as the troubled modern colonial wife Ruth Carson, in Tom Stoppard’s Night and Day. She confirmed her resurgence with two more Evening Standard awards, in 1981 and 1984, for London runs of shows she had premiered in Canada. In Virginia, by Edna O’Brien, she was the writer Virginia Woolf, for whom Smith’s gift for haughty wit made her natural casting. Then, 16 years after the disappointment with Olivier, she finally played the coveted role in The Way of the World in her own city.

Smith, in contradiction of the standard professional graphs, had, after that slight mid-career dip, a third act even more glorious than her first. Shaffer wrote for her Lettice and Lovage, a comedy maximising her command of sardonic superiority, as Lettice Douffet, a tour guide who begins to embellish history. She took the play to New York, where she won a Tony award. Smith also became an Alan Bennett specialist. She co-starred with Michael Palin in the movie A Private Function in 1984, as a Yorkshire woman using a black-market pig to prevent wartime rationing thwarting her upward mobility. In the 1988 first series of Bennett’s Talking Heads monologues for television, she was a vicar’s wife, anxious about private sins, in A Bed Among the Lentils. On stage (1999) and screen (2015), she was memorable as The Lady in the Van, a fictionalised version of Miss Shepherd, a Catholic evangelist tramp who for some years lived in a caravan on Bennett’s driveway.

There was a trio of West End appearances in plays by the great American dramatist Edward Albee: as the oldest (90-something) of three versions of the writer’s imperious mother in Three Tall Women (1994); playing a vicious drunk in a family menaced by an unnamed “plague” in A Delicate Balance (1997); and a mysterious matriarch visiting a deathbed in The Lady from Dubuque (2007), a rare flop that put Smith off theatre.

Another reason for her retreat from theatre was, unusually for a septuagenarian performer, a vast demand from movie studios. Between 2001 and 2011, she appeared in seven of the eight Harry Potter films, as Professor Minerva McGonagall, transfiguration teacher at Hogwarts, her embodiment of the formidable Scottish academic seeming to contain affectionate nods to Brodie. The part brought Smith considerable wealth – she joked about the “Harry Potter pension fund” – and a vast new fanbase that, she complained, made it impossible for her to shop in Waitrose any more.

Her cinematic renaissance had also included Robert Altman’s Gosford Park (2001). In this English country house drama, written by Julian Fellowes, Smith’s character was at least a first cousin to her Downton Abbey countess. Appearing in a TV series with an average audience of 10 million made it even harder for Dame Maggie (as she had become in 1990) to go shopping. But this late superstardom, half a century or more after her first major theatre and movie successes, confirmed that she was an actor with the rare ability to do anything she wanted anywhere.

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[scotianostra]

The actress Rona Anderson was born August 3rd 1926 in Edinburgh.

Rona was born in Edinburgh, started acting at an early age, training at the Glover Turner Robertson School in her home town. From 1945 until 1949, she was a member of the Citizens' theatre, Glasgow. Her first film role was as one of the passengers in the spy thriller Sleeping Car to Trieste. Her second was opposite her future husband, Gordon Jackson in Floodtide, a romantic drama set and shot mainly on Clydeside.

Rona Anderson acted with her husband again in The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie and in a BBC2 version of Somerset Maugham’s Rain, with Carroll Baker as Sadie Thompson. A 1983 episode of the action series The Professionals, in which Jackson starred as the head of the unorthodox law enforcement agency CI5, featured Anderson as the mother of a stalking victim; her casting was kept secret from Jackson until the first day of shooting.

Anderson took fewer roles after her marriage to Jackson, to concentrate on bringing up their two sons. From time to time through her career, Anderson returned to the stage. At the 1960 Edinburgh festival, she appeared in the Scottish poet Sydney Goodsir Smith's epic historical play The Wallace; she was in the first stage production of Brian Clark's Whose Life Is It Anyway? at the Mermaid theatre, London, in 1978, in a cast headed by Tom Conti and Jane Asher; and in 1981, she played the mother of Diana, princess of Wales in the Ray Cooney comedy Her Royal HighnesS at the Palace theatre, London.

Rona passed away on July 23rd 2013 in London, she was 86.

[hairtusk]

tagged by the lovely @saintmelangell <3

rules: list your five all time favorite films and have people vote on which one matches your vibe

[steelycunt]

same book anon i'm just looking for anything interesting.. i got the handmaids tale, normal people, and little women already but i dont really mind about genres just annyything you've got!

ah okay!! well firstly i hope you enjoy those three!! i really loved little women and the handmaids tale : ^ )) as for recommendations!! sorry they are a bit all over the place...i was not sure how to organise them so sort of gave up trying

at the risk of sounding like a broken record some of my absolute favourite books which i will just always recommend are. giovanni's room by james baldwin, young mungo by douglas stuart and my brilliant friend elena ferrante!!

classics i would recommend in particular are another country / james baldwin, wuthering heights / emily bronte and emma / jane austen (+ 300 pages) and then a single man / christopher isherwood, franny and zooey / jd salinger, bonjour tristesse / francoise sagan, and the prime of miss jean brodie / muriel spark (< 300 pages).

for speculative fiction i recommend the archive of alternate endings by lindsey drager (particularly if you enjoy the handmaid's tale) which i read in one sitting and cried over!! for thrillers i'd recommend these violent delights by micah nemerever and the secret history by donna tartt if you havent read it already (i'd also recommend her other book, the goldfinch--whichever one interests you more!!)

for historical fiction (or at least what my storygraph chart lists as historical fiction) id recommend the marriage portrait by maggie o'farrell (or her other book, hamnet, if it sounds more your thing!), nobber by oisin fagan, and the passion by jeanette winterson (not for everyone but i really enjoyed it--historical fiction with a bit of magical realism). i'd also recommend swimming in the dark by tomasz jedrowski (particularly if you happen to read + enjoy giovanni's room!), and douglas stuart's other book, shuggie bain, which is also wonderful--i expect if you read one of his books and enjoy it you will also love the other!!

for other literary fiction + contemporary fiction + just anything i havent mentioned yet! for 300 + pages i would recommend duck feet by ely percy, mr loverman by bernadine evaristo, and trainspotting by irvine welsh.

and then for < 300 pages, i'd recommend the end of loneliness / benedict wells, anything by claire keegan but particularly her book foster, juno loves legs / karl geary, the virgin suicides / jeffrey eugenides, mayflies / andrew o'hagan, and panenka by ronan hession.

i hope you find something here you fancy!! let me know if you do!! : ^ ))

[bookquest2024]

100 Books to Read Before I Die: Quest Order

The Lord Of The Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien

In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford

Under The Net by Iris Murdoch

American Pastoral by Philip Roth

The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera

Animal Farm by George Orwell

Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

Atonement by Ian McEwan

Crime And Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The Grapes Of Wrath by John Steinbeck

Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie

Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

A Passage to India by EM Forster

Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon

If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller by Italo Calvino

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

1984 by George Orwell

White Noise by Don DeLillo

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner

The Stranger by Albert Camus

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

Oscar And Lucinda by Peter Carey

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami

Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner

To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Lord of the Flies by William Golding

The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James

The Call of the Wild by Jack London

Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov

Beloved by Toni Morrison

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by John Le Carré

Austerlitz by W. G. Sebald

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh

Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller

The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers

The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster

Ulysses by James Joyce

Scoop by Evelyn Waugh

Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

Middlemarch by George Eliot

Are You There, God? It’s me, Margaret by Judy Blume

Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

Moby-Dick by Herman Melville

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

Herzog by Saul Bellow

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

Don Quixote by Miguel De Cervantes

A Bend in the River by V. S. Naipaul

A Dance to The Music of Time by Anthony Powell

The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

Go Tell It On The Mountain by James Baldwin

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

The Rainbow by D. H. Lawrence

Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison

I, Claudius by Robert Graves

Nostromo by Joseph Conrad

The Tin Drum by Gunter Grass

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger

Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White

Tom Jones by Henry Fielding

His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman

Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Little Women by Louisa M Alcott

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

Portnoy’s Complaint by Philip Roth

Watchmen by Alan Moore

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez

Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne

On the Road by Jack Kerouac

The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler

The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen

The Trial by Franz Kafka

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

Money by Martin Amis

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

[byneddiedingo]

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (Ronald Neame, 1969)

Cast: Maggie Smith, Robert Stephens, Pamela Franklin, Gordon Jackson, Celia Johnson, Diane Grayson, Jane Carr, Shirley Steedman. Screenplay: Jay Presson Allen, based on her play and a novel by Muriel Spark. Cinematography: Ted Moore. Production design: John Howell. Film editing: Norman Savage. Music: Rod McKuen.

Maggie Smith in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969)

[flapperdame16]

1960s Movies Id on't care for

1960

Home from the Hill             Robert mitchum, Eleanor Parker

Inherit the wind                    Spencer Tracy

Midnight Lace                      Doris Day, Rex Harrison

Let’s make love                   Marilyn Monroe,

Ocean’s 11                            the rat pack

The Grass is Greener     Cary Grant, Robert Mitchum, Deborah Kerr, Jean Simmons D: Stanley Donen

The Unforgiven               Audrey Hepburn, Burt Lancaster, John Saxon D: John Huston

1961

The Children’s Hour           Audrey Hepburn, Shirley MacLaine, James Garner D: William Wyler

The Deadly Companions   Maureen o’hara brian keith

1962

The Lion                                William Holden, Capucine

Mr. Hobbs takes a vacation   James Stewart, Maureen O’Hara

Boys’ night out                                    Kim Novak, Tony Randall, James Garner

1963

Irma la Douce                      Jack Lemmon, Shirley Maclaine D: Billy Wilder

Spencer’s Mountain            Henry Fonda, Maureen O’Hara

The VIPS                               Maggie smith, Richard burton, Elizabeth Taylor, Rod Taylor, Orson welles

Toys in the attic                   Dean Martin, Gene Tierney, Geraldine Page

1964

A Hard day’s night (CC)                    beatles

Father Goose                                        Cary Grant, Leslie Caron

My fair lady                                         Audrey Hepburn, rex Harrison

Night of the iguana                             Ava Gardner, Richard Burton, Deborah Kerr

The Americanization of Emily         James Garner, Julie Andrews

1965

The Great Race*                                 Natalie Wood, Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon

The Rounders                       Henry Fonda, Glen Ford

The Art of Love                   Dick Van Dyke, James Garner, Angie Dickenson

36 hours                                                Eva Marie Saint, James Garner, Rod Taylor

The nanny                            bette davis

1966

7 Women                              Anne Bancroft JOHN FORD

A man for all seasons        

Any Wednesday                 Jane Fonda, Jason Robards, Dean Jones

Arabesque                             Gregory peck, Sophia Loren

Blow up (CC)

Penelope                                Natalie Wood

The Chase                             Robert Redford, Jane Fonda, Marlon Brando

Torn Curtain                         Julie Andrews, Paul Newman HITCHCOCK

The sand pebbles                 steve mcqueen

1967

Thoroughly Modern Millie                 Julie Andrews, Carol Channing, Mary Tyler Moore

Guess who’s coming to dinner          Katharine Hepburn spencer Tracy

1968

Madigan                                                Henry Fonda, Richard Widmark

The lion in winter                 Katharine Hepburn, Peter O’Toole

The Thomas crown affair  Faye Dunaway, Steve McQueen

Bullit                                                      Steve McQueen

The legend of Lylah Clare                 Kim Novak,

Romeo and Juliet (CC)

Bandolero!                                            James Stewart, Dean Martin, Raquel Welsh

1969

The wild bunch                    William Holden, Ernest Borgnine

The prime of miss jean Brodie          Maggie smith Robert stephens

[smithlibrary]

Read More 2023 Hello, My Name Is

Fiction The Mystery of Mrs. Christie by Marie Benedict The Inheritance of Orquidea Divina by Zoriada Córdova The Last Confessions of Sylvia P. by Lee Kravetz Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout Mrs. Pringle of Fairacre by Miss Read

Romance Lady Derring Takes a Lover by Julie Anne Long Desiring Lady Caro by Ella Quinn

Mystery Miss Kopp Just Won't Quit by Amy Stewart The Talented Mr. Varg by Alexander McCall Smith Mrs. Mohr Goes Missing by Maryla Szymiczkowa

Science Fiction and Fantasy Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke How Rory Thorne Destroyed the Multiverse by K. Eason

Horror The Haunting of Leigh Harker by Darcy Coates Carrie by Stephen King The Death of Jane Lawrence by Caitlin Starling

Classics Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra The Curious Case of Benjamin Button by F. Scott Fitzgerald Eugene Onegin by Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

Graphic Novels Battle Angel Alita by Yukito Kishiro Emma by Kaoru Mori

[goryhorroor]

oscars best actresses 1968-1986

• katherine hepburn / the lion in the winter (1968)

• barbara streisand / funny girl (1968) (TIE)

• maggie smith / the prime of miss jean brodie (1969)

• glenda jackson / women in love (1970)

• jane fonda / klute (1971)

• liza minnelli / cabaret (1972)

• glenda jackson / a touch of class (1973)

• ellen burstyn / alice doesn’t live here anymore (1974)

• louise fletcher / one flew over the cuckoo’s nest (1975)

• faye dunaway / network (1976)

• diane keaton / annie hall (1977)

• jane fonda / coming home (1978)

• sally field / norma rae (1979)

• sissy spacek / coal miner’s daughter (1980)

• katherine hepburn / on golden pond (1981)

• meryl streep / sophie’s choice (1982)

• shirley maclaine / terms of endearment (1983)

• sally field / places in the heart (1984)

• geraldine page / trip to bountiful (1985)

• marlee matlin / children of a lesser god (1986)

[letterboxd-loggd]

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969) Ronald Neame

February 2nd 2020

[aliteraryprincess]

Book Haul: UK Vacation

Here are all the books I bought for myself while in the UK.  I’m sure I could have bought most of these here, especially the novels.  But I just really like to buy books as souvenirs when I’m on vacation, okay?  It gives me an excuse to spend the money.  I got The Pre-Raphaelites and Lizzie Siddal at the Tate Britain, How to be a Victorian at the Victoria & Albert Museum, and Playing Jane Austen from the bookshop at the National Theatre.  I found the gorgeous edition of The Twelve Dancing Princesses at a little bookshop in Bath.  The rest are from Waterstones.  I’ve already finished The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and started Learn Latin, and I’m excited to read the rest!  

[theoscarsproject]

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969). A headstrong young teacher in a private school in 1930s Edinburgh ignores the curriculum and influences her impressionable 12 year old charges with her over-romanticized world view.

This is....a lot. Not only does it make light of some pretty deplorable behaviour - namely a teacher having sex with one of his 12-year-old students, but it’s also just kind of silly. The plot never really hits home, and the character of Jean Brodie is scattered to say the least, even if Maggie Smith does imbue her with her usual charm. 5/10.

[mogwai-movie-house]

The 100 Best Films of The 1960s

1. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) ★★★★★★★★★★ 2. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) ★★★★★★★★★★ 3. Psycho (1960) ★★★★★★★★★½ 4. Blow-Up (1966) ★★★★★★★★★½ 5. A Fistful of Dollars (1964) ★★★★★★★★★½ 6. My Fair Lady (1964) ★★★★★★★★★☆ 7. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) ★★★★★★★★★☆ 8. The Virgin Spring (1960) ★★★★★★★★★☆ 9. The Birds (1963) ★★★★★★★★★☆ 10. El Dorado (1967) ★★★★★★★★★☆ 11. Two Women (1960) ★★★★★★★★★☆ 12. Le Doulos (1962) ★★★★★★★★★☆ 13. Le Samouraï (1967) ★★★★★★★★★☆ 14. The Great Escape (1963) ★★★★★★★★½☆ 15. Cool Hand Luke (1967) ★★★★★★★★½☆ 16. For a Few Dollars More (1965) ★★★★★★★★½☆ 17. Onibaba (Demon Hag) (1964) ★★★★★★★★½☆ 18. Peeping Tom (1960) ★★★★★★★★½☆ 19. The Battle of Algiers (1966) ★★★★★★★★½☆ 20. Federico Fellini's 8½ (1963) ★★★★★★★★½☆ 21. Planet of the Apes (1968) ★★★★★★★★½☆ 22. Redbeard (1965) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 23. The Executioner (1963) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 24. I Am Cuba (1964) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 25. The Sound of Music (1965) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 26. The Italian Job (1969) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 27. The Jungle Book (1967) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 28. To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 29. Dr. Strangelove (1964) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 30. Belle de Jour (1967) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 31. Alfie (1966) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 32. Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 33. Mary Poppins (1964) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 34. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 35. The Graduate (1967) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 36. A Man for All Seasons (1966) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 37. Lawrence of Arabia (1962) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 38. Bonnie and Clyde (1967) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 39. Rosemary's Baby (1968) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 40. The Magnificent Seven (1960) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 41. Wait Until Dark (1967) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 42. True Grit (1969) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 43. The Hustler (1961) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 44. The Ipcress File (1965) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 45. Andrei Rublev (1966) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 46. Hamlet (1969) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 47. Murder She Said (1961) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 48. What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 49. The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 50. Army of Shadows (1969) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 51. A Taste of Honey (1961) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 52. Goldfinger (1964) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 53. Kuroneko (The Black Cat) (1968) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 54. Mademoiselle (1966) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 55. Two Way Stretch (1960) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 56. Take the Money and Run (1969) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 57. In The Heat Of The Night (1967) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 58. 101 Dalmatians (1961) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 59. Electra (1962) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 60. Kwaidan (Ghost Stories) (1964) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 61. Mouchette (1967) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 62. My Night with Maud (1969) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 63. Cape Fear (1962) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 64. The Railrodder (1965) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 65. Harakiri (1962) ★★★★★★★½☆☆ 66. Midnight Cowboy (1969) ★★★★★★★½☆☆ 67. Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) ★★★★★★★½☆☆ 68. The Apartment (1960) ★★★★★★★½☆☆ 69. Hunger (1966) ★★★★★★★½☆☆ 70. The War Wagon (1967) ★★★★★★★½☆☆ 71. Lolita (1962) ★★★★★★★½☆☆ 72. Last Year in Marienbad (1961) ★★★★★★★½☆☆ 73. Woman In Chains (1968) ★★★★★★★½☆☆ 74. Whistle Down the Wind (1961) ★★★★★★★½☆☆ 75. The Trial (1962) ★★★★★★★½☆☆ 76. Privilege (1967) ★★★★★★★½☆☆ 77. The Servant (1963) ★★★★★★★½☆☆ 78. Yojimbo (1961)  ★★★★★★★½☆☆ 79. From Russia with Love (1963) ★★★★★★★½☆☆ 80. A Hard Day's Night (1964) ★★★★★★★½☆☆ 81. Night of the Living Dead (1968) ★★★★★★★½☆☆  82. Kes (1969)  ★★★★★★★½☆☆ 83. The Bride Wore Black (1968) ★★★★★★★½☆☆ 84. Divorce Italian Style (1961) ★★★★★★★½☆☆ 85. Shame (1968) ★★★★★★★½☆☆ 86. Zulu (1964) ★★★★★★★½☆☆ 87. They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969) ★★★★★★★½☆☆ 88. Zorba The Greek (1964)  ★★★★★★★½☆☆ 89. The Unfaithful Wife (1969) ★★★★★★★½☆☆ 90. Dr. No (1962) ★★★★★★★½☆☆ 91. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) ★★★★★★★½☆☆ 92. Oliver! (1968) ★★★★★★★½☆☆ 93. Knife in the Water (1962) ★★★★★★★☆☆☆ 94. Spartacus (1960) ★★★★★★★☆☆☆  95. Repulsion (1965) ★★★★★★★☆☆☆ 96. Birdman of Alcatraz (1962) ★★★★★★★☆☆☆ 97. Carry On Up the Khyber (1968) ★★★★★★★☆☆☆ 98. Quatermass and the Pit (1967) ★★★★★★★☆☆☆ 99. Marnie (1964) ★★★★★★½☆☆☆ 100. Lord of the Flies (1963) ★★★★★★½☆☆☆

[curseofmxcbeth]

Female centric dark academia novels: 

Picnic at hanging rock, Joan Lindsay

The prime of miss jean brodie, Muriel Spark

The little princess, Frances hodgson burnett

Miss Marple mysteries, Agatha christie

Pride and prejudice, Jane austen 

Wuthering heights, Emily Bronte  

Matilda, Roald Dahl