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May 8, 2014 | Theatre,
CHECK OUT THESE FILMS, BOOKS AND MUSIC RELATED TO SONTAG: REBORN…AS SUGGESTED BY SONTAG HERSELF!
By James Blaszko
FILMS
While aboard the Rhinedam in 1957 en route to her Fullbright fellowship at Oxford, Sontag watched many films in the ship’s cinema. In her journals it is clear that she generally disliked many of its offerings. Among the various “stinkers,” however, she wrote that Courte-tête, a recently released French film, was “rather clever.” The comedy follows a phlegmatic crook as he preys on racing enthusiasts to make a fortune.
This classic film proved an escape for Sontag when she was in Paris, France. While struggling with her lover at the time, referred to as “H” in the diaries, Sontag “fled, weeping” to the cinema to “plunge” herself into the passionate love story of the many characters that meet in the Berlin hotel. Reviewed by Variety as a drama “with a speed that never loses its grip… a captivating pattern of unexpected comedy that runs through it all, always fresh and always pat,” it seems as if Sontag did find the distraction she was looking for.
The Devil is a Woman (1935)Sontag praises this film as “one of the most extreme films I’ve ever seen. Dietrich is completely object–almost lacquered, embalmed.” She refers to Marlene Dietrich, who plays the star role in a film about a man’s obsession for her amidst the surreal Carnaval in Spain. The film also interests Sontag in that it explores “relation of parody and self-parody in camp,” a topic that would envelop Sontag when writing Notes on Camp.
Sontag: Reborn will play at the Emerson/Paramount Center Mainstage from May 06-18. Find tickets and more information here!
BOOKS
Young Sontag, at only sixteen years of age, passionately embraced this rich novel of intellectual ferment, sexual tension, and ideas. Author Terrence Mann met Susan at his home in California, the star struck moment captured in her journals. As she puts it, at that moment she “interrogated God.”
While traveling through Germany by train, Sontag writes of re-reading the “marvelous” Melanctha, the second novella-length story in Gertrude Steins’ Three Lives. In the story, Melanctha is an African American woman who struggles for fulfillment, raises bids for sexual freedom, and is depicted as too progressive for her time. The themes in the novella can easily parallel to Sontag’s life, especially at the age of 25 when she wrote of re-reading the piece after her separation with her husband and struggles with her new lover.
The Group (1963)In Mary McCarthy’s most celebrated novel, eight Vassar graduates grow into adulthood while gaining, losing and restructuring their connections with one another. Sontag writes of the author while in London, saying, “she is her novel…grey hair—low-fashion red and blue print suit.” Like the women in McCarthy’s book, Sontag writes that McCarthy “can do anything with her smile; she can even smile with it.”
Sontag: Reborn will play at the Emerson/Paramount Center Mainstage from May 06-18. Find tickets and more information here!
MUSIC
Fritz Busch, lauded music director and Mozartian, conducts this particular recording of Don Giovanni that soothed young Susan Sontag as she began to struggle with her own philosophy and growing intellect. While listening to the various arias she exclaims, “if I could always hear them how resolute and serene I would be!”
Yet another opera that soothed the brooding inquiries of Sontag’s mind, she witnessed a “mediocre” production of it while in Paris. She writes that she, alone, was “riding the crest of erotic fantasy, the tide of the familiar gorgeous music.”
The Orlons (Best of 1961-1966)
Perhaps a bit of a leap from the classical cannon Sontag often wrote of in her journals and diaries, The Orlons are the artists behind “The Watusi,” a song turned dance craze that could make even the most strict intellectuals dance along. The Orlons are just one of the many pop culture staples that Sontag enjoyed, along with The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, and Dave Clark 5.
Sontag: Reborn will play at the Emerson/Paramount Center Mainstage from May 06-18. Find tickets and more information here!
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