An exquisite but bittersweet madeleine of a memoir, sublime in the tasting but ultimately unsatisfying.
The legendary Deneuve, between takes.
The French icon’s film diaries project the very qualities that made their author an international figure of fascination: They are elegant, suffused with sensual beauty and intriguingly remote. The actress proves an impressive writer, waxing lyrically on her time in Vietnam filming the acclaimed Indochine, describing the exotic landscapes, energetic people and the oppressive heat with the observational acumen of a born novelist. Deneuve is surprisingly engaged in the technical process of filmmaking, keenly aware of the myriad variables that contribute to the success or failure of a scene, and she is not shy about making suggestions to her directors. She is particularly good on the subject of directors: very sympathetic to Roman Polanski, admiring of Régis Wargnier and riveting on the idiosyncrasies of surrealist director Luis Buñuel (whose Belle de Jour made Deneuve a world-wide star), her observations affectionate and full of fascinating insights into his work habits. The consistency of Deneuve’s tone is remarkable; the earliest diaries included date from the production of the 1968 romantic comedy The April Fools, and the 25-year-old Deneuve’s perspicacity is in full flower. But while she is amusingly critical (she reveals a low opinion of America) and tetchy (she hates air conditioning and frequently complains of sleepiness and sore throats), there is something fundamentally reserved about Deneuve that chafes a bit: This ravishing, talented woman bore the children of Marcello Mastroianni and Roger Vadim, was a critical part of more than a few shocking, boundary-bursting films, and she survived Lars von Trier and Björk—but the emotional tone of her record remains cool and measured, excluding the passionate messiness that must have marked such a life. Whether this indicates dignity or an ungenerous reticence is the reader’s call. Also disappointing is the relatively small pool of films reflected in the collection—her recollections of the filming of such classics as Belle de Jour, Repulsion and The Umbrellas of Cherbourg are sorely missed.
An exquisite but bittersweet madeleine of a memoir, sublime in the tasting but ultimately unsatisfying.Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2007
ISBN: 978-1-933648-36-1
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Pegasus
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2007
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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