Vincente Minnelli: Hollywoods Dark Dreamer

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He became sophisticated and a snob and cultured, and this came across when he met Judy, who was exactly the opposite. Can you explain the initial attraction between Minnelli and Garland? Well, I have a theory that runs contrary to the one developed in the biographies -- and there are, like, 50 books about Judy as you may know -- and it is that Judy always wanted to look beautiful. It sounds very simple, but that's one of the reasons.

If you look at Meet Me in St. Louis, she has never been more beautiful than Minnelli made her look, and Judy was very, very sensitive about her looks. Plus she was attracted to older men, but not for sex. She has a complicated history too, you know. She slept with women occasionally. However, she never acknowledged that she was bisexual. So did they have some kind of understanding or an open marriage?

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The marriage between Judy and Minnelli was not open. Although during the marriage she slept with Frank Sinatra and other men. But Judy was very insecure, paranoid, and jealous; at one time, during the making of The Pirate, she accused Minnelli of being in love with Gene Kelly, her costar, and favoring him over her. Apparently, she threatened him with suicide when she caught him in compromising positions. She caught him twice -- once with a bit player and once with the gardener. For the most part, during his marriages Minnelli repressed his homosexuality, and after Judy his relationships with women were more social than erotic.

Can you put that relationship in historical context in terms of tabloid presence? Well, you know, I interviewed Jane Fonda when her book came out and I asked her what the difference was between being a star back then compared to now.

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She said there was no scrutiny -- "We could do drugs and have orgies and there was no press. But someone like Cukor would have been three times as careful today as he was in the '30s and the '40s because of the Internet. He had been surrounded by the Gershwins, by Dorothy Parker, and they could care less if he had a boyfriend. But I found a note that the studio was upset about [the makeup] and so I think he immediately changed his lifestyle.

Instead, he channeled his homosexuality or his sexual phobias and tensions and anxieties directly into his work. You can read his movies for their sexual politics. In which of his films do you think the channeling is most obvious? Of course the prime example is Tea and Sympathy. That's a personal film about masculinity. There's one scene in which the lead character's roommate instructs him in how to walk as a man. What's most fascinating is that Minnelli was very good with color schemes and he played with shades of blue in the film.

The darker the blue, the more masculine the character. When Tom [John Kerr] goes to see a prostitute to prove his masculinity, he's wearing a dark blue suit. So light blue is for sissies, dark blue is for macho. I also get a kick out of analyzing An American in Paris -- the character played by Nina Foch is like a sugar daddy. Her character's name, "Milo," is even masculine.

Gene Kelly's basically a gigolo -- a painter supported by a rich woman. Also interesting is Home From the Hill, in which there are three types of masculinity. There's Robert Mitchum, who is the ultimate macho patriarch, then there's the bastard son, George Peppard, and then George Hamilton, who's the mama's boy.

The whole movie is about Hamilton detaching himself from his mother and standing on his own.

The way in which the gun is used in the film is like a penis. Even in Designing Woman, the comedy with Lauren Bacall, her best friend is a choreographer who's basically Minnelli, somebody who Gregory Peck puts down because he's too sensitive.

Minnelli always suffered from being effeminate. What was Vincente's relationship like with Liza? A man who worries so much about flower arrangements and the drape of a woman's dress can't belly up to the bar with Ford and Hawks. So Emanuel Levy's biography must immediately take the form of a counterargument. Don't hate him, in short, because his movies are beautiful -- or because his whole life was dedicated to beauty. This spiritual urgency extended to his own birth name, Lester, which he discarded for a Latinized version of his father's name. One of Vincente's first jobs, fittingly, was dressing windows at Marshall Field, and his road to eminence took him straight through the Deco splendor of Radio City Music Hall, where he served as art director.

From there, he was promoted to producer and then director, and by he had three shows running on Broadway and a roster of pals that included Lillian Hellman and the Gershwins. Minnelli's first real assignment was helming the all-black musical "Cabin in the Sky" , featuring Ethel Waters and Lena Horne, where he acquitted himself so well that MGM gave him the combined gift of "Meet Me in St. Louis" and reigning singing star Judy Garland. Director and actress formed an improbable and ultimately doomed union, but they both survived its dissolution, and Minnelli remained a moviemaking force through the s, eventually winning an Oscar for "Gigi.

What he couldn't survive, in the end, was the collapse of the studio system, and we can see in retrospect how much he relied on MGM's corporate expertise for his effects. We can see, too, how specific those effects are to him. The swirling camera, the gorgeously orchestrated color, the teeming foregrounds and backgrounds: No one had a gift for imagery quite like Minnelli's. Minnelli started out as a set and costume designer in New York, where he first notably applied his aesthetic principles to the Broadway stage des Vincente Minnelli, Hollywood's Dark Dreamer is the first full-length biography of Vincente Minnelli, one of the most legendary and influential directors in the twentieth century, encompassing his life, his art, and his artistry.

Minnelli started out as a set and costume designer in New York, where he first notably applied his aesthetic principles to the Broadway stage design of Scheherazade. As a film director, he discovered Lena Horne in a Harlem nightclub and cast her in his first movie, the legendary musical Cabin in the Sky.

Louis and directed in such landmark films as The Clock; their daughter is actress-singer Liza Minnelli. Hardcover , pages.

Published April 14th by St. Martin's Press first published February 17th To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about Vincente Minnelli , please sign up. Lists with This Book. This book is not yet featured on Listopia. Apr 27, Ed rated it did not like it Shelves: I read this book because I've actually seen a number of movies directed by Minnelli.

So I figured at least I'd know what was being talked about. And I read the whole thing, cover to cover.

Which makes it more exasperating to have to condemn the book's sloppy writing and editing--is it the author's fault or the editor's fault? I'll let them duke it out for egg on the face. I've washed my hands of the whole affair. But I can say with no word of lie that the book can lose 50 pages -- 50 pages or mo I read this book because I've actually seen a number of movies directed by Minnelli.

Book Review: 'Vincente Minnelli: Hollywood's Dark Dreamer' by Emanuel Levy

But I can say with no word of lie that the book can lose 50 pages -- 50 pages or more! There's too much repetition in there! Creation , this book much more than once! Were they alternate drafts of the same section, but both were mistakenly retained. He jumps too much to maintain a narrative line. When you think we've moved ahead 5 years, and certain films are things of the past, we are suddenly discussing the preparations for one of those films as if it just leaped out of the mouth of LB Mayer.

Bizarre nonsense two examples that stick out -- if I cared the list could be much longer: The section about The Bad and the Beautiful ends with a multi-paragraph discussion of the issues regarding filming the movie in color. A section focusing on the aging director's relationship with daughter Liza talks about being together on the night of her first Academy Award nomination. The next chapter begins with her already receiving her Oscar for Cabaret!

Wouldn't it have been nice to know what her relationship with Daddy was like for the win as well as the loss? The material in the appendix could have been worked into the body of the work for a more comprehensive take on the works movies themselves. And certain details repeated separately, but ad nauseum, could be axed out and honed for maximum effect in one spot: Okay, we get it, he dealt with complex psychological issues in his films and one of his wives was kooky. Stop repeating it all over the place. It is sporadically illuminating, scattershot, piecemeal, skirting contradiction, exasperatingly incomplete.

Read at your own risk. Although as the author reminds us more than once, his is the first attempt at a "real biography" of the director. Jul 30, Isidore rated it it was ok Shelves:

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