Who is Cinéphilia?

Who is Cinéphilia?
About me... Let's see... How do I start?

I know! I'll give you a tour of my home. Well, of some of it anyway. Let's start with my night table. The piece of furniture itself is pretty homely, but the things on top of it are fascinating.

La Taverne de la Jamaïque (Jamaica Inn) by Daphne du Maurier. A used paperback that I paid $1.00 at the Colisée du Livre in Montreal. I bought it three months ago and I still have to read it.

Eight Weeks to Optimum Health by Andrew Weil.

Mont-Oriol a novel by Guy de Maupassant. Long before Dr. Weil was born, people went to the Mont-Oriol spa... Eight Days to Optimum Health.

Lon Chaney Jr. a library book full of photos. It's pretty old, but I'm the first one to borrow it. I wonder why. Doesn't anyone else in Montreal care about this actor?

Celluloid Mistress by Rodney Ackland and Elspeth Grant. Ackland, a playwright and screenwriter, was the friend of a lot of fascinating people: Alfred Hithcock, Greta Garbo, James Mason, Tallulah Bankhead, Robert Newton, etc. This 1952 volume of memoirs is very entertaining; it's also very informative about the British movie industry in the 30s and 40s. I bought the used volume at the Cinémathèque's latest annual sale for just $1.00. Used-books dealers are selling it at prices ranging from $20 to $45 U.S. on the Internet. I just love bargains like that!

The Stone Angel by Margaret Lawrence. Beautiful, so beautiful! Here's the novel's first paragraph: "Above the town, on the hill brow, the stone angel used to stand. I wonder if she stands there yet, in memory of her who relinquished her feeble ghost as I gained my stubborn one, my mother's angel that my father bought in pride to mark her bones and proclaim his dynasty, as he fancied, forever and a day."

Multi-vitamins. Advil tablets. Allergy tablets. A water bottle. A pad. Pens and pencils. Alarm clock.

The books on the floor, next to my bed:

Be Glad you're Neurotic! By Louis E. Bisch, M.D., Ph.D. My bible! My guru! This precious volume, first published in 1936, explains why us, neurotics, are really THE superior race! It's both witty and very wise, and very little of it is dated today. Okay, it's a bit campy, but the high camp value makes it even more entertaining and enlightening (camp actually defrosts my brain). I bought it for a quarter back in 1995. It used to belong to a prison library. It was borrowed 10 times in 50 years and one of the convicts who read it even underlined the wisest passages in blue ink. I'm sure that these ten guys never committed a single crime again. They went back to college, started to smoke the pipe and wrote a lot of wise essays about everything under the sun... most likely for the Reader's Digest.

The Larousse Illustrated Dictionary, 1996 edition. In French, of course.

Harraps-Shorter's Complete French-English, Anglais-Français, dictionary, 1986 edition. I'd really need to get a more recent one...

Le Guide Video de la Boîte Noire, 2000-2001. All the films currently available on video and DVD in Quebec.

Le dictionnaire des symptômes. The hypocondriacs' bible. Hypocondria can bring a lot of cheap thrills to these people who are both very imaginative and completely self-centered. Like me? NO! I'm just a sensitive genius! A fragile flower!

Various magazines: A few issues of the French Première, three issues of the French Marie-Claire, two issues of the American Marie-Claire, four issues of Lire (about French books), a 1966 issue of Films in Review.

The movies on top of my VCR:

Perfect Friday (1970) I paid very little attention to it the first time I watched it and I need to see it again in order to review it. How, how painful! The only interesting things in it are David Warner's decadent Goldylocks look and his velvet and silk cortumes.

Radio Days (1986). My favorite movie. A great alternative to Prozac. Wonderful music, wonderful characters...

Wuthering Heights (1939). Robert Newton was director William Wyler's first choice to play Heathcliff, but producer Samuel Goldwyn found him too ugly. The movie is good, but it's painful to watch Laurence Olivier in the role that could have made Newton a big star. So painful, in fact, that I haven't been able to watch more than 15 minutes of it.

Bedazzled (1967) and The Wrong Box (1965). A Peter Cook double-treat.

This Happy Breed (1942), a great movie with Robert Newton that I'm planning to see more than once... or twice.

The Mad Adventures of Rabbi Jacob (1973). Probably Louis de Funès' most famous film. As Salomon, the Jewish driver, Henri Guybet was perfect and got to play what remains his best movie role to this day.

The Dinner Game (1999). The game: you invite a dumb person to a dinner party. The contestant with the dumbest guest wins an undisclosed prize. I wonder why I've never been invited to such an affair... My 200-page essay on frisbees would make me a shoo-in!

Plus miscellaneous videos, blank tapes, pencil, post-it pad.

The CDs next to my sound system:

Lotte Lenya sings Kurt Weill, Hans Eisler, Cabaret, etc. I'm a Lenya/Weill nut. Please, someone, anyone, give me Lenya's boxed set for my birthday. Her complete recordings, for just $299 U.S. A real bargain!

The Threepenny Opera in German featuring Lenya. Same reason. And Mack the Knife has a sexy voice.

Astrud Gilberto's Greatest Hits. The first Bossa Nova diva. Listening to her is like giving a warm bath to your ears... Her official site.

The Wild Palms soundtrack. So eerie and haunting...

Marilyn Monroe's Greatest Hits. It makes me feel glamorous.

Leonard Cohen Live. My old favourite.

Carmen Miranda Samba. I bought it because I was curious about the "Banana Diva". To my great surprise, I love it. It's very lively and romantic.

Plus a Laura Nyro collection, a Josephine Baker collection, a Frehel collection, The Art of Noise's Debussy Album, a Cesaria Evora album, a Jacques Brel collection, a Billie Holiday collection of 1930s songs, various classical albums.

That's all folks! You know everything about me now! What? You also want to know what my hobbies are? Writing, drawing, daydreaming, website designing, watching movies, reading books, surfing on the Internet, walking in cemetaries (I find the old ones beautiful and some of the tombstones inspire me stories. I don't find them morbid or scary at all), etc. etc.

Thumbnails:

Jamaica Inn
(1939)