Ever, Dirk: The Bogarde Letters

by Unknown

  I am just back from a four-day Publicity Stint in London .. and that was pretty tacky too … Arabs and empty ice cream tubs at every bus stop … the dirt and the shabbiness were not to be believed. Or the prices. For my four days at the Connaught the bill came to £2.000 .... minus the air fares. Shit. It is slowly but surely turning a bright shade of Pinky-Red … and the resentment, the envy, the boredome is very trying to deal with. I stood for eight minutes (watched the airport clock) at a Tobacconists at Heathrow because I wanted one packet of ciggies … not a whole Carton .. had about twenty minutes to get the flight. A fat lady, in uniform, was behind the counter talking to a thin lady standing beside me, also in uniform. They had a long chat about someone called Muriel and Hal … angrily I waited. Eventually with many smiles she said ‘Tat Ta ..’ and the thin one left. Whereupon the fat one, tore a piece of paper in two and shoving a pencil at me demanded, without any apology or politeness at all ... ‘Your Autograph.’ I refused with ice white fury and said I wanted one packet of Kent. Which I got, from a glaring face of anger, and handed over my rotten Pence. Which she chucked on the floor! And that is syptomatic of England today.

  A small thing … but after eight years in France I am quite unused to that sort of behaviour. No wonder they are all striking everywhere. No one cares and Fuck You Charlie. Service is a dirty word … pity. It was’nt like that once upon a time.

  Off tomorrow to Germany … Munich for Fassbinder and then on to Lubeck on the Baltic Sea … which I look forward to as if it was pnumonia. We’ll be there until June 20th. Lu and George, thank God, arrived here yesterday to look after things. G. pretty ill … and almost crippled. Could’nt walk at the airport .. and was in bed in great pain until I got my local Doctor in who set him on a course of injections and pills … and the man is alive again and can walk .. sit, almost bend … he’ll be fit as a fiddle in another day. And in England he had been simply told that his case was hopless and ‘to rest’ .... Christ! The difference in him today, and in Lu for that matter, is shattering. Hope is back … and pain has finally gone … we hope for a time at least.

  Golden weather here .. hot and blue skies … I shall hate leaving for the unfriendly north .. but the lolly is good, so ..... and Mamma, or Ginny […]needs keeping. Ye Gods.

  It would be SMASHING to see you in the summer … anytime from July .. but you do remember, dont you, how dull it can be .. and since you dont drive, I suppose, you’ll be a bit isolated … and last time you came here you were little Dolly Starry Eyed .. that part of your life is over. So maybe you’d find it all dull and slow and too far from the tits .. However I would love to see you here … as you know … so it is over to you. I’ll do the fare. You bring the Tent and ten bound copies of Colette … or Wilde … or even Austen!

  And we wont play ‘A Chorous Line’ once … or fucking old ‘Chicago’ ...

  Tote is well and harassed, storing the BMW and so on away for the next two months … Lu is ironing … George lying naked in the sun … and Daisy and Labbo lie in snoring heaps under the olives. I need a beer [ … ]

  Glad the dancing1 was useful … and glad too that you are surprising yourself. Of course you have to work for it, nit. If I had told you that however you might not have tried so hard … and so successfully.…

  Your very fond Dirk –

  To Tom Stoppard

  (Postcard) Lübeck

  5 June 1977

  I DO HOPE I WASN’T TOO DOPED WHEN YOU SO KINDLY CALLED! SUPPOSE I WAS. BUT I’M PRETTY WHACKED. OUT OF 32 DAYS SHOOTING I HAVE HAD ONLY ONE FREE! FASSBINDER HAS MADE IT THE STORY OF ONE MAN – AND FUCK THE REST! I DONT IN THE LEAST MIND AND FEEL LIKE A ONE MAN BAND – R. DOTRICE, OR E. WILLIAMS, OR MAX WALL1 EVEN! 2 MORE WEEKS TO GO. IT REALLY IS AN EXCEPTIONAL FILM; BUT I HAVE NO IDEA HOW IT WILL ALL ‘GO’ TOGETHER. FINISH HERMANS FACTORY TOMORROW (ALL LILAC AND PINK!) AND ON TO THE MEETING WITH FELIX.2 THAT WILL FINISH THINGS. DID I TELL YOU THAT WE STARTED THE SHOOTING WITH THE VERY END? AND HAVE WORKED IT ALL BACKWARDS? NO? WELL WE BLOODY WELL DID. MUCH LOVE TO YOU BOTH. DB.

  Late at night on 20 June, after the completion of shooting on Despair, Fassbinder pushed a note of thanks under the door of Dirk’s hotel room.

  To Rainer Werner Fassbinder Clermont

  24 June 1977

  My dear Reiner –

  Forgive me that I type this to you instead of writing to you in my own hand … you would never be able to read it I fear, and it is important that you read what I want to say to you. After all, we have never been able to ‘speak’ to each other, so I must take the chance of writing.

  Your abscence at the Farewell Party of course saddened me … you are the Boss and you were expected by us all … however I did’nt expect you myself, for I know you just a little bit now, and I knew that you would perhaps not have the special kind of courage needed for that sort of evening! However your letter gave me great happiness as well as great sadness too. Paradox? Perhaps.

  I suppose I have never worked ever with anyone before who had a ‘Death Wish’ … and being a very adventerous, curious, believing kind-of-person myself, I find it very difficult to understand. Although, God knows, I do understand the athmosphere in Germany after only three months stay … it cannot be easy for a person of your age and generation to bear easily. But you must fight that terribly dangerous athmopsphere .. and push it aside … You say in your letter to me that ‘More likely there is more despair than anything else ..’ I assume you mean Life? That is fundamentally NOT TRUE! Life is full of hope and promise.

  A minor example, if you like, is our recent work together. Nabakov, the odd Mr Stoppard … myself, Andrea … all of us together, with you, under your controll, making a film of which we will all, I know, be tremendously proud. Sharing ideas and emotions among so many different ages and beliefs … but all united under the splendid ‘umbrella’ of your particular form of Genius. And that is not too strong a word. Though often misapplied. In your case I dont think that it is. I did’nt actually ‘learn’ anything from you, I suppose … that is not important … but I hope that I was able to bring to you some of the learning or teaching which I have had from people like Cukor, Milestone, Clayton, Losey, Visconti and Resnais and the rest of them … and to SHARE that learning with someone like you is quite wonderful. To see it used and re-used, as you did, to see you ‘eat’ literally, the training which I brought you, was magical for me. I was simply handing on the ‘baton’ in this extraordinary business of the Creative Cinema. And to see you take that ‘baton’ is HOPE, Reiner … NOT ever despair! You must realise by now how devoted to you both Andrea and I were … and how much we respected you and wanted to do our very, very best for you. At the beginning I admit it was far from easy and I was almost in despair myself! But we struggled on together, you and she and I, and I have no doubt whatsoever that we have made an extraordinary film together.

  But we could not have done it without you … is’nt that a hopeful sign? Surely? To recieve, and to give, love, and trust, in work as difficult as ours takes more than despair, my dear fellow.

  I have probably bored you shitless by now, with all this. Anyway you can tear it all up and I will never know.

  One thing more before I go … you say in your letter that I have taught you Authority without Fear. I dont know if that is so .... But did you ever realise that that is exactly what you have NOT got? You have Authority with fear .... everyone, from Minx1 down to the Publicity Frau was shit terrified of you. And your Authority. So if I have, by any chance, taught you what it is to have it WITHOUT fear, then for Gods sake use it soon! It will make your life slower, more irritating, and generally take longer. But it is well worth while winning. You create it wonderfully well for yourself … from your chain cap to your heavy boots … the too loud music the too fast car … the Death Wish I suppose … but I know, and you know, that all that junk really conceals a very pleasing ‘soft center’ as Herman used to say … but be careful of it. It can rebound in your face so damned easily. And with your blinding talent y
ou really dont need too much. Just enough to keep the Front Office worried. But not too much.

  The Cinema needs you very much. You have a tremendous amount to give it … there are marvellous people waiting to work with and for you … stay with us! There is so much for you to do, to give, so many roads for you to take … Life is not just one boring round of Clubs and Discos and Pills … and Pot. Use them, of course, for the relaxation you need from time to time … but not as often as you do. Dont live by them, or by the mindless people who exist in that world. They will only swamp you and kill you off far, far quicker than your own feelings of dissilusion or so-called Despair.

  As you say at the closing of your letter … ‘life is not, maybe, so sad like it seems’ .... you are Fucking right, R.W.F! Life is bloody marvellous and you should be so damned grateful that you have the youth and the brilliance to storm it.

  Now I’ll stop. God knows what you will make of this. I dont know. But it comes with my warmest respect and affection, and gratitude, for all the kindness you have shown me in the last few weeks, and all the security which you gave me during, for me at least, a very difficult and bewildering (at times!) assignment. It is something I will never forget and a period of time which I would never have missed for anything. Thank you.

  Remember; Despair comes when you have nothing. – you have everything – & everything to gain.

  Affectionately

  Dirk

  PS. WHATEVER YOU DO, DO NOT DUBB THE CAST IN ENGLISH VOICES. IT WILL BE DISASTER. D.

  To Dilys Powell Clermont

  24 June 1977

  Most dear Dilys –

  I am simply silly with fatigue: three months with magic Fassbinder and his Leather Gang, and all in German too .. (I mean they were … I just had to use a vague German Accent) .. but found it hard to follow what was actually wanted, if you follow me.

  Got home two days ago .. and am just thawing out. I am really too old for this caper. Fourteen hours, sometimes twenty four depending on the ‘problems’… a day, and hemmed into crummy hotels, smothered with gherkins and ‘mixt salate’ and everything fried or frozen or dead or both. Oh To Be In France I kept wailing … anyway: it was a stupifying experience, marvellous and terrible and one I would not have missed for anything. So I am really not complaining, just collapsing. I have never ever worked with a man who has an in-built Death Wish. And this I found a scrap trying. However living in Germany, and very close all the time to the Eastern Border with ‘Russia’ … makes one realise, drastically, that Youth there has it’s serious problems. The very obscenity of that Wall … all 700 miles of it … shakes your head until what teeth you have rattle. They are so terribly near. And all is so fearfully fragile across the mine-fields and the wire. The hysteria of Berlin is one thing … abnormal but copeable with … the sadness and horror of the countryside, the blocked in windows, the savaged meadows sowen, sewen (?) with mines, the Watch-towers .. the warnings at the end of gentle country lanes where the roadsurface filters out into overgrown rank weeds and then the startling horror of the anti-personel mines strung along on wooden posts … sun slanting, blackbirds singing .. wind in the un-cut hay. And across the track of death, for that is what it is, a watching man with binoculars. And all silent. No wonder Herr Fassbinder does’nt believe in anything at all. After three months there I dont either. Now.

  But your letter here to cheer me and worry me. What CAN you mean about my being ‘annoyed’ with your wonderfully generous, warm and loving review of my dotty book? I was only ‘annoyed’, and NOT that anyway, that you had been so good and kind to me … I basked in your approbation and care. Everything I do, as I have told you before so often, is done FOR you … even if you dont care for the result much … it does’nt matter … you are always, and always will be, my steady councillor … my balance. You may even have seen ‘Your’ film by now, ‘Providence’ … and DETESTED it … but I dont care. For whatever mistakes it might have it was all made for you … and if I failed you … simple! I try again!

  […] I have decided now to give the Movies a rest .... It all seems to be piling up on me once again, and it is not something that I like any more. I DETEST the work, I detest the job, and most of the time I detest the people. I started over thirty years ago … and it is not one whit better. The fact that I have been chosen by Resnais, or Visconti, or Fassbinder helps tremendously … of course … but really, when all is said and done, it is what my Father always said. ‘No job for a man.’ .... it is’nt. So now I settle down, or hope to after I have got the hay in and the place cleaned up … almost abandond since March … into Volume 11, that looks like eleven, I mean 2 .... of ‘Postillion’ .... and then Ican really say what I feel about the Movies!

  I have been reading some of the Critics for ‘A Bridge ..’ .... what bothers meis that most of them are so young! Next, that so many of them appear to be right. 25 million on someone elses suffering seems excessive. I wonder if the Dutch cared for it? I did not. I was there at the time … the only member of the entire Group who was. One day, standing miserably on an airstrip near Deventer a small, tubby, Dutch pilot came up to me and asked me if I had really been present in ’44. I said that I had. ‘Was it just like this?’ he asked very quietly … Trying to be loyal I said ‘No; not quite … not even just … a bit.’ He smiled and put his arm round my shoulder. ‘I was fifteen, I was here … too. A Boy Scout. It was’nt really like this at all, was it? This is just the Cinema …?’ I remember just smiling at the chap, rather helplessly … ‘It’s just the Cinema’ I repeated and we went our ways. He contented, I think. I irritated by the splendour being poured into something we had both seen ‘for real’ thirty two years before. I suppose it does’nt matter really.…

  I must stop. This has bored you far too long and we have got a PACT.

  …] So much love –

  Dirk

  To Dilys Powell Clermont

  Wednesday: 6 July 1977

  Dilys dear –

  Dont for God’s sake panic … I’m not starting to break the Pact we made … and I do not expect a reply to this. So there. And this machine, ages old, is’nt a bit Magic!1 It is, I regret to say, German … called an Adler, and I was deeply in love with it from the first moment I recieved a pleasant letter from some Agent in Hollywood. I did’nt do the Job for him, but did get the name of the machine. Better? Awful to believe in Magic.

  I feel EXACTLY like you about the Germans. It IS a bother. I so liked many of them working there … individuals on the Troup .. Make-Up, Hair, the adorable and brilliant Dagmar [Schauberger] in the wardrobe who designed all the magnificent, odd, Fassbinder-Nabakov costumes. (Berlin ’29–30 again ..) but generally I found myself musing on people of MY age and just wondering what Daddy (or Mummy for that matter) did in the war. And then I felt hostile and uncomfortable. And guilty about feeling so crass and unforgiving. But under it all lay a deep compost of fear and distrust. The Japanese for me are as bad … it was simply years before I could pull myself to even meet one during all those ghastly luncheons which Rank used to hold at Pinewood, and to which one was summonsed like a mechanical doll … and I still cant travel in an Elevator with more than one! The voices terrify me still … I only hear them through thick, glossy leaves, and in a sweat of steamy sweat [sic] … lying trying not to breath.2

  All this, of course, has to go into bloody Vol. 11 [ … ] Nora Smallwood the Devine insists on ‘lots more war, dear’ and I am as reluctant as a cat near a bath .. all claws out … I so dislike other peoples wars .. in books … and mine was not worse and no better than hundreds and hundreds of others .. well, in fact, better … because I survived it intact. But Vol 2 is horridly difficult … it is the leaving out of people which I find so difficult … selection is frightfully tiresome and hurtful, of course, to people who tear out to read the index and find, angrily, that they are not included when they all ‘did so much’ for me. Oh bugger! Perhaps I’d be better employed with a novel.

  That is no less difficult, I know … but you
can chumble up the facts and personalities and get away with all kinds of mischief … In a Bio. it all has to be correct … I’ll jog on. It IS a bit hard what with the hay .. not all in yet .. and the bloody dogs grub .. and weeding the potager and deheading my miserable (because we are too high here, and the soil is sparse and full of limestone, which I gather Roses hate … anyway Edith Piaf and Champes Elysees do … bitterly) Roses. But I promised Nora and she is not one to be fobbed off for long .... ‘Try and get this Cinema Thingamajig part over, and settle down, dear boy … we dont want to wait all year …’ Awfully bossy. Very lovely. A glorious New Friend. How lucky one is …

  Resnais telephoned two days ago .. ‘’Ow are you, Durk? ’Ow is your German Accent for Fassbinder? Is he really marvellous … do you like ’im better than me?’ He says that ‘P’ cant get a showing in England because no one will buy it … they have, I dont know who, offered to ‘take’ it in and give the Company whatever percentage may come from whatever Profit. This they, the Frogs, rightly find un acceptable … and Television wont buy it because it is full of four letter words .. and that wont do. John G. uses every one I think I know … with a beauty and delicacy only he could muster … someone here said that he made the nastiest words sound like Shakespear or Molier … and he does. Are’nt they silly? So we just wait … Resnais feels that something may happen in what he insists on calling The Fall … he ADORES America … without Television Sales. But I doubt it myself. And if it IS shown on the Box we are absolutely lost. It is the most un-television subject you can imagine. But it is still running in Paris … and has now opened in most of the big University Cities of the U.S to much the same reviews as we had in Paris, Brussels and etc … not a whimper along the lines of the irritating Miss Kael … a clever journalist but a lousy Critic .. apparently she talked and coughed all the way through the Press Show in N.Y. in company with two elegant, tightly jeaned young fellows with braclets and earrings. When asked if she would care to see the film again, since she clearly could not have heard one single syllable, far less seen anything through the haze of smoke, she cried angrily .. ‘I NEVER see a Movie twice!’. And that was that.