Rufus Wainwright talks about Louise Brooks

Though Louise Brooks passed away 25 years ago, she is not forgotten. Her surviving films are still shown with regularity, and with each screening, the actress continues to find new fans. One of them is the acclaimed singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright.

“I have always wanted to be her” is the way Wainwright puts it, referring to the silent film star best known for her riveting performance as Lulu in the 1929 silent film, Pandora’s Box.

“I’ve seen that film at least 8 times. I watched it recently – we have it on the bus,” Wainwright adds. And then, with equal parts seriousness and self-irony, the singer-songwriter declares, “I am the victim of such a lascivious beauty.”

Wainwright is not only a self-described victim of the celebrated cinematic femme fatale, he is also a fan – and a follower, of sorts, in her footsteps.

Wainwright’s celebrated 2009 live album, Milwaukee at Last!!!, was recorded at the Pabst Theater in Wisconsin – the same stage where the teenage Brooks danced alongside Martha Graham, Ruth St. Denis and members of the famed Denishawn Dance Company. The Pabst is also one of three stops on Wainwright’s current 16 city American tour which directly follow in the footsteps of Brooks’ early years as a touring dance prodigy.

These days, Wainwright is himself on tour to support All Days Are Nights: Songs for Lulu, his new CD. When asked about its allusive title, the singer-songwriter stated “I’m referring to Louise Brooks and the movie Pandora’s Box, where she plays the character Lulu . . . . What is fascinating about the character, the movie, and the opera Lulu by Alban Berg – I have to admit I haven’t yet read the [Frank Wedekind] play - is that she is pretty much an innocent. Yet, disaster reigns wherever she treads her little foot. For me, that is such a fabulous example of the nature of chaos - where terrible, terrible things happen and it has nothing to do with morality. It’s a force of nature. Chaos happens in nature, and in mankind.”

Long a fan of European cinema, the 37 year old Wainwright discovered Brooks when he was 18 years old. And apparently, the lascivious beauty who left a trail of broken hearts on two continents made an impression. [For me] “she has always been a vision of the decadent, carefree, bohemian flapper who tears down the world where ever she goes, with a smile.”

“She has become a kind of symbol of the dark world which I love so much – but can’t really spend much time in,” Wainwright adds with a laugh. He’s likely alluding to his own troubled past, which included widely-reported drug use, the pressures of celebrity pop-stardom, and the recent death of his mother, acclaimed folk singer Kate McGarrigle.

For Wainwright, Brooks’ own chaotic life and the unfulfilled promise of her careers as a dancer and actress serve as a kind of warning shadow. “Every time I am a little bit vulnerable or under pressure or tired, I see her [Louise Brooks] as a vision, as a phantom, and I need to watch out – these new songs are a sacrifice to her spirit.”

The new songs on All Days Are Nights: Songs for Lulu are, according to Wainwright, the “the toughest songs I have ever had to play and sing.” For the singer-songwriter, they represent a “mountain range of personal and artistic exploration” whose peaks and valleys are “grief and pain and also transcendence and also a certain spiritual knowledge.”

Besides Milwaukee, Wainwright’s tour also brings him to Minneapolis, Chicago, Kansas City, Denver, Los Angeles, Oakland, Seattle, Portland and then Japan, Australia, New Zealand and back to Europe.

What’s next for Wainwright? When asked if he had ever thought about scoring a silent film, Wainwright, praised by The New York Times for his "genuine originality" and referred to by Elton John as "the greatest songwriter on the planet," answered in the affirmative, “that’s a very interesting idea. Perhaps Pandora’s Box.”

More info: Dates for Rufus Wainwright’s national tour and more can be found on his website at www.rufuswainwright.com/.

Thomas Gladysz is a longtime fan of Louise Brooks, so much so that in 1995 he founded the Louise Brooks Society, an internet-based archive and fan club devoted to the legendary silent film star. Gladysz has contributed to books on the actress, organized exhibits, appeared on television, and introduced her films around the country. Recently, he edited and wrote the introduction to the “Louise Brooks edition” of Margarete Bohme’s The Diary of a Lost Girl (PandorasBox Press).

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