LIFE IS A
DREAM IN CINEMA ? POLA NEGRI
.
USA.
2006. 89 min.
Director
? MARIUSZ KOTOWSKI; Screenplay ? LYNN MORAN; Cinematographers ? SIMONE
ZIMMERMANN, ELKE STAPPER; Music ? FREDERIC CHOPIN, performed by Mariusz
Gorz; Producer ? HEIDI HUTTER; Narration ? CINDI WILLIAMS. Bright Shining
City Productions.
Pola
Negri's
place in cinema history cannot be underestimated, as she was the beginning
of many firsts in the movies, including popularizing European films in the
United States, opening the way for international film artists in
Hollywood, popularizing fashions that are with us to this day, and
broadening the expression of sex on the screen. She was the first European
star to come to America and paved the way for Greta Garbo and Marlene
Dietrich. Yet few people today know this magnificent actress or the
dramatic events of her life, including her liaisons with
Charlie
Chaplin
and
Rudolph Valentino
.
What does
it mean to be a star? Why do some actors become stars and legends for all
time?
Life is a Dream in Cinema: Pola Negri
brings
the story of the great actress back to life and shows the incredible range
she demonstrated through the silent films and into the talkies and from
black-and-white into color with clips of her films, photographs of the
star from throughout her life, interviews with people who have made a
study of her life and times, and recollections of the people who knew her,
including Academy-Award Winning actress
Hayley Mills
and actor
Eli Wallach
, who performed with Negri in THE MOON-SPINNERS (1963),
her final film. Many other experts in their fields shared knowledge
and insights about Negri:
Professor Jeanine Basinger
, author of
Silent Stars
;
A.C. Lyles
, producer for Paramount Pictures;
Alfred Allan Lewis
, ghostwriter of
Memoirs of a Star,
Pola's
autobiography;
Emily Leider
, author of Rudolph Valentino biography
Dark Lover
;
Anthony Slide
, film historian;
David Gasten
,
webmaster of The Pola Negri Appreciation Site; and
Scott Eyman
,
author of
Beyond Laughter: Ernst Lubitsch.
POLA
NEGRI
(Barbara
Apolonia Chalupiec) was born in December 1896 or January 1897 in Janowa,
Poland. Miss Negri had a flair for self-publicity, so she gave her
birthday as December 31, 1899
? perhaps to lessen her age, but also to add the drama of being born on
the eve of a new century. After her father was arrested by the Russians
and sent to Siberia,
she and her mother moved to Warsaw in
1902. She was to spend her formative years in dire poverty. As a teenager,
Pola auditioned for and was admitted to the St. Petersburg Imperial
Ballet. Because of an illness which ended her dancing career, she soon
switched to the Warsaw Imperial Academy of Dramatic Arts and became an
actress. She made a spectacular debut in 1913 in the play HANNELE at the
Rozmaitosci Theatre. By 17, she was a star on the stage in Warsaw,
but World War I would soon change the theater scene.
Pola
turned to films. Her first main role was in the film
THE BEAST
, in
1915. She made eight films with director Alexander Hertz in Poland. Max
Reinhardt spotted her during a visit to Warsaw and convinced her to move
to Berlin.
With her new career in pictures and her stage success in SUMURU, she went
to
Berlin
and was
teamed with her fellow actor,
Ernst Lubitsch
, who then became her
director in her early European films. The Lubitsch-Negri combination was
very successful and the roles that Pola played were of earthy, exotic,
strong women. The films
SUMURUN
,
CARMEN
and
MADAME
DUBARRY
established Pola Negri as a box office sensation in Europe.
It was no surprise that Hollywood
came calling. One of her films,
MADAME DUBARRY
(1919), was optioned
and retitled as
PASSION
(1919) for presentation in America.
The film
was such a success that by 1922, Pola and Lubitsch were both given
contracts by Paramount Pictures. Negri had in fact made 9 films in Poland
and 17 in Germany by the time she joined Paramount, for whom she went on
to make 20 movies, all of which were box office successes. The best known
are
THE SPANISH DANCER
,
FORBIDDEN PARADISE
,
MEN
,
HOTEL IMPERIAL
,
BARBED WIRE
, and
A WOMAN OF THE WORLD
.
Negri?s publicity increased with her reported romances with such stars as
Chaplin and Valentino
.
FORBIDDEN
PARADISE
(1924),
made with director Lubitsch, and
HOTEL IMPERIAL
(1927) were two of
her most successful films.
But
things conspired to end her career in Hollywood. Pola made a spectacle of
herself when she threw herself on the late Rudolph Valentino?s coffin at
his funeral in 1926. The fans felt that she was acting in public and began
to turn away from her. The Hays Office, which regulated film content,
would not allow her to portray the vamp roles that made her famous
elsewhere. And finally, the era of sound pictures ended the career of many
silent stars. She returned to Europe after her contract expired to perform
in vaudeville shows and a film in London titled
THE WOMAN HE SCORNED
.
In 1932, she returned to Hollywood and made her first talkie titled
A
WOMAN COMMANDS
.
Pola even sang in the film and her song,
Paradise
,
became an international hit.
Negri
then returned to Europe to work at UFA in Germany from 1935 to 1938. Her
best-known films from that period are
MAZURKA
,
TANGO
NOTTURNO
,
MADAME BOVARY
and
FROM
MOSCOW
TO SHANGHAI.
Pola
never appeared in any propaganda films. Resisting mounting pressures from
the Nazi propaganda machine, she finally fled from Germany to France where
she worked for the Red Cross and then, via Portugal, returned in 1941 to
America, penniless. In New York she was befriended by the heiress Margaret
West.
Pola
Negri spent the next 46 years of her life living quietly with her friend
in Los Angeles and then in San Antonio, Texas. She made only two more
films:
HI DIDDLE DIDDLE
in 1943 and
THE MOON-SPINNERS
in
1964, with Hayley Mills. Negri became a US citizen in 1951. In 1970, her
autobiography,
Memoirs of a Star
, was published. All in all she had
acted in 62 movies. Retiring to San Antonio, Texas, she died on August 1,
1987.
She is buried at Calvary Cemetery in Los Angeles. Her star on the Walk of
Fame is at 6933
Hollywood Blvd.
She was the 11th Hollywood star in Hollywood history to place her palm and
foot imprints in front of Grauman?s Chinese Theatre.
Miss
Negri was married twice; first to Count Dambski and then to Prince Mdvani.
Both marriages ended in divorce. Miss Negri always said that Valentino had
been the love of her life.
MARIUSZ
KOTOWSKI, film director
Mariusz
Kotowski with film historian Jeanine Basinger during the filming of his
documentary
Life Is a Dream in Cinema:
Pola Negri
.
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Born in
Olsztyn, Poland in 1967. As a child in Poland, he was exposed to film and
developed a love of the art form. He pursued his training in the arts as a
dancer and choreographer and also attained his Masters in Education while
sill in Poland.
He studied in London and became the first person from Poland to be awarded
a triple Fellowship in dance by the Imperial Society of Teachers of
Dancing in London. He performed and competed throughout Europe.
In 1988, he moved to
America and ultimately achieved his Certificate in
Film Directing from New York University. Soon thereafter, he began work on
his first film,
Life is a Dream in Cinema: Pola Negri
, eventually
investing three years of work and a considerable personal fortune into
bringing this documentary to the screen. He is currently in production for
his first feature film, and has two additional feature films planned for
2006 and 2007. He lives and works in Austin, Texas. His production
company, Bright Shining City Productions, can be reached at
www.brightshiningcity.com
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