A RAT TO BE REMEMBERED

As the alarms go off for the second time this week at the Beverly Hills Hotel I think I am living some sort of reality television show "Who gets the maddest soonest" I am going to rip the alarm out of the wall, I am so angry. When business is bad supposedly here, how can they do this, on a Monday morning too at 10.30? A boy friend left in a temper, before breakfast arrived. I think that the gays have planted a joke.  Fire and Safety from Beverly Hills apparently demanded that the occupants be annoyed for 35 minutes, we got the message.

Getting back to the Oscars...
The rat on the red carpet in London has put Hollywood into perspective for me.  It is funny, tragic and regrettable. With its own two feet on the red carpet is it a celebrity? A celebrity as I explained is different from a star, a star has to have talent in my book. Has the rat got its name up in bright lights with Merle Oberon and is it going to stand on its own two feet and sing "There's no business like show business" Was it Lady Gaga in her best outfit yet? By the way her singing at the Oscars was exceptional. What makes the Oscars are really the faux pas.
Has the rat got an agent and a publicist? Why was it there?  We all know from last year that at Award Ceremonies you are starving, and after seeing Benedict Cumberbatch take a swig from his flask, I believe thirsty too. I do hope the rat has not been harmed and I hope it is in a gilded cage somewhere.

I was touched by Melanie Griffith, who was saying it was her time to be "quiet" and supposedly hand over the reins to her daughter Dakota Johnson for her performance in Fifty Shades of Grey. It was good to see my favourite Julie Andrews being honoured and sung to by Lady Gaga, Andrews said rightly that "Music cements a film". What an evening.  It was funny seeing men thank their wives and family as it is probably the only time they get thanked, and the Oscar looking like a bottle of shampoo being squeezed, and the men looked like they were trying to keep their erection. As for the winner of the night, it was definitely the Lego Oscar it stole the show.
I was thrilled to see the following win, Eddie Redmayne for Theory of Everything, His performance was touching and very real. He should have won. It was also correct to have given an Oscar to Alexandre Desplat who has done so much for the Industry. I actually liked his music for The Imitation Game more, but I suppose that would split the vote. Anyway those two were my predictions and I was right. I was happy that Julie Anne Moore won one, and Hotel Budapest won best costumes. They were extraordinary. Sad for the losers as there were so may good films this year. Little weirdo gems, Birdman wow, what can I say?

FROM THIS

For me it was highly emotional. I had said at the beginning of the week that I wanted to watch them with full make up and hair whilst eating cheese sandwiches. I had said it as a joke. Through some regrettable behaviour, and a set of joyful circumstances, my prediction came unexpectedly off. I enjoyed my cheese sandwiches without crusts, and a God came and fed me delicious petit fours, with some hard plums. My lucky night indeed.  Never worry if things go wrong as so many more things can go right because of it.  Why fuck Mickey Mouse when you can have Walt Disney?.
Just before the OscarsI felt like I was four days before the summer, and what I needed was the Summer Holidays. When I go back to London I will have the cold Monday morning feeling.
As I took off my Alexander Mcqueen dress and coat I thought what am I doing here with two hours of contouring and  wearing six pairs of spandex?.
In life nobody is treating me badly, three quarters of the planet don't  know I exist. When people see me they do not see me the same person twice, I am so mercurial, that I even shock myself. I do not need to be constantly entertained and I certainly don't need to feel happy all the time. I do however like to take risks and push myself.
If I asked everybody who I had given to, to pay me back, I would have a feast for the rest of my life.
TO THIS

All you need is a god and some plums and you will feel good.

BEST DRESSED AT THE OSCARS
FOR ME WERE
Rosamund Pyke in a long red dress couture from Givenchy
and Margot Robbi in Saint Laurent.

You don't need compost but you do need Astro turf in life. As for Gwyneth Paltrow getting busy with a vaporeto. I am not prepared to bend over so far to kiss my lady garden.

In any case I have had a good week, finally an offer was accepted on a house, my billboard is up on Sunset and Harper and somebody I admire won an Oscar. Hope he gets in touch before August and the award turns silver.

The gifting suites before the Oscars were fabulous and luxurious. I did leave with a fabulous feather throw in grey and black and goodie bags containing so much I was overwhelmed and highly grateful..

goldennineink.com tattoos gold
COFFEE Specially brewed
www.ponderosaroasting.com
BURKART ORGANICS
Dried fruit
Gioia Olive Oil Company
Gold bottle
Donya Paz
Stylish Popup accessories
Non F Monster
McCoy
Cream Cellulite
feels good
Clinical R Illuminescent cream
Jonathan creams
My MM's
Kristen Lamb most moving memorials
www.stillwithyou.com
Wonder Woof
www.wondermento.com
Betsy Fore who was charming
Blaze Clothiers

HOLLYWOODS VERSION OF ROYALTY? Kim Kardashian? Dita Von Teese? Amal Amaluddin? Anglina Jolie? Let's get it right.

A celebrity, icon and a star?. Over used meaningless words but let's get them straight.

Bettie Davies was not a celebrity she was a star.

I would hate to be a celebrity. I live a stars life, but am not recognised, I prefer it that way. I could be in the press every week, for all the wrong reasons, however I choose not to be. A billboard goes up on Sunset Boulevard to promote my movie not my booty.

In The Beverly Hills Hotel yesterday sneaking through entrance was Kim Kardashian, with three hours of contouring, flat sneakers in navy, scraped back hair, and much more petite and elegant than the all the cleavage public persona. She looked pretty and fresh and off to the gym.

Kim Kardashian may be an A lister, Princess Kim, but please she is not a celebrity, royalty or a star, and certainly not iconic, she is recognised because she is recognised, like a box of cornflakes, easily identifiable.  What for? What is she? She is a Los Angeles Debutante. She is an household name, because she made sure she is recognisable,  but she is not a celebrity.  She has had covers of Vogue, and featured in Genlux, LA Confidential and many more. Nobody would say Kim is wonderful for her beautiful voice in Salome or playing Cleopatra,  she has not achieved celebrity status. She is simple in primary colours. She is famous for wearing barely there clothes, filling a champagne glass and stripping.  If she can do this with champagne, I can't wait to see what she can do with the canapés? Bellini anyone? The Kardashian family have done little for society, or for the arts so they are not socialites. A socialite in the real use of the word is someone who helps the arts and helps the old. The Kardashian's scream look at me look at me, and when I do, I say "I am looking now, show me something meaningful" Although I can see the cornflakes I can see the granola over there.  She is definitely not a bad person, very decorative and as I said quite demure in real life, however in photographs, she look like a bordello babe or a hooker. She is loved by many people and has a spectacular husband, Kanye West.

KIM KARDASHIAN

Dita Von Teese is a cabaret artiste with an exotic dance routine has much elegance. An erotic gymnast. She has a much bigger champagne glass. In her routine she allows no photographs, she stops  her performance to tell the photographer off. She expunges all photography until she checks it.
She likes pre washed white towels, a full mini bar, a bedroom and her own bathroom to remove all lint before her performances. Of course I offered her the North Wing at my then house in Eden Place. It was nearer to her perspex bath. She managed to maintain the mystique by not mingling with her public. She puts her hands, her slim elegant digits out like Her Majesty The Queen and I want to curtsy.

DITA VON TEESE

Kim of course is very viewable but not watchable, and I am a huge fan, but let's for a second think. A star is someone who has achieved a lot, she or he has been an actor in huge productions. A star was Marilyn Monroe, Rita Heyworth, Brigitte Bardot and is now George Clooney, Brad Pitt and a starlet was Joan Collins and is now Jennifer Lawrence.

JOAN COLLINS

Fame can get in the way of your credibility in Hollywood, as in the case of Angelina Jolie. The film, Unbroken was okay, but criticised because she was too famous.
Sam Taylor Wood, is a credible Artist from the East End of London, once married to Jay Jopling,  owner of The White Cube Gallery. Sam broke all records opening her film on Valentines Day with the much over hyped Fifty shades of Grey, based on a best seller and very second rate semi pornographic book. She has made it by turning it into a completely second rate film. This does not make Sam a Star, it makes her director to be admired with over 200 million dollars globally made on the first week end. I actually still prefer her small film she made with a Hare and an apple. What aged first. It was genius, highly imaginative and moving. When I photographed her for British Artists at work she cancelled twice, but there is something endearingly interesting but she is definitely not regal.

People who are iconic usually have won a nobel peace prize or two, the booker prize would include Hockney, Picasso and Obama. In the future, it will probably go to Mrs George Clooney, Amal Amaluddin for retrieving the Marbles.

Amal retrieving the Marbles

Cindy Crawford, Linda Evangelista and Naomi Cambell are models who do a lot for their industry, it is not their social structure, they work and they do it because they want to be a professional.
What is Kim's profession?
Even when you do celebrity big brother you are a Z list and not an A lister.

I am off to have my hand moulded now so that it can become a mechanical device for my car so I can wave at my public evan when not driving. So if I make a hand gesture from my car I might be on the other side of the planet.



Where are all the stars?  What is a star.


They of course want to get into that slinky tight fitting dress by Sunday for the Oscars and so spend all day with their trainers, their dieticians, their pr's, their agents, the magazines, their make up and hair stylists. With four days to go it is essential that all goes to plan. It is busy with endless telephone calls, late night sessions with their astrologer, the stars are all desperate to know if they will win.
Their cupboards are full of borrowed ideas, clothes and jewellery. There are non stop visits by their assistants to the gifting suites. Everybody is on the take, the suite of the hotel is overflowing with flowers and invitations, the nerves are beginning to show.

GIFTING SUITE WITH GEORGE BLODWELL AT THE INTERCONTINENTAL HOTEL
GIFTING SUITE

 The Oscar Party, Elton's, Craig's and The Vanity Fair Party.
The funny thing is that although I have been to the major parties, they are usually full of wannabes. Elton's of course has several major Hollywood players but bare in mind the majority of A listers are at the Oscar's themselves and the losers will be in no mood to party.
There are so many events this week, Bulgari, Gagosian, Art of Elysium, Louis Vuitton and Chanel all have events. The desperados are out in force, whether it is the jeweller or the socialite paying for the party, the party people are out, which are different from the A list stars.

For me I am going to Elton's but I would rather have my make done, my hair done, be in a corset and a ball dress and recline in bed with my lover eating cheese sandwiches while watching him on television win an oscar.

On Sunset Boulevard and Harper with my fellow actress Justine Glenton

CLOTHES AND STARS SUGGESTED BY NET A PORTER
MAKEUP FROM CHARLOTTE TILBURY

THE OLDEST MAN IN THE ROOM HAS THE DARKEST HAIR AT THE OSCARS

I decided to be white skinned three days ago, thinking that bronzing made women look sweaty.  There was a sort yellow colour going through the Globes two weeks ago, making the women look rather hot and wet. Wet and nasty is probably the accurate description. As we come up to the Oscar week end the mens hair will be being dyed that rather too dark shoe polish colour. I was always told when I was young that the darkest hair in the room was the oldest man. There is that tinge of red that goes round the brow giving the game away. Poor men, botox, face lifts and boot polish hair colour just don't suit them.  That is why all the girls fancy George Clooney. A real man with real hair. HAHAHA Do you think he has grey highlights, adding to the mature sexy mystery appeal?.
Looking at my body this morning I realise that sex and the pink pig skin may not go together. I have since telephoned my girlfriends to make me have that tinge of orange again. One them Svetlana swears that it is liquid prozac and Amber Spray tans says the bronzing hides the battle of the bulge. They arrive looking super perky, bronzed and svelte.
At the moment I am lying in bed with dark sunglasses and curtains because of my fathers stupidity of having another child.  I always wanted to be the only one and now big bird is out there born five year after me. A boy friend said to me yesterday, thank goodness there is a younger model around.
I arrived back in my room despite having driven to Palm Springs by mistake with George Blodwell, stylist and meeting a brilliant costume/jacket maker called Samiah, to find balloons in my bedroom with an Oscar for the best dressed most tantalising woman. That made me feel better.

SAMIAH

This morning I was lucky enough to meet the girls Stacey and Darcy who make House of Eleven leggings in so many colours and with such a good shape that your legs will swing into action.
All of which made me open those curtains a little more.
I then was buying a house out here, at 2114 Ivar Avenue, when lo and behold  after having signed all the papers the seller,  a man called Ron boringly pulled a fast one. Ron the seller said we had not spoken to him, and that he was now renting out the property., but stupidly on his side of things we taped him and we have our telephone bills.  A little dishonourable and he wasted a lot of my agents time. He rang her 15 times in a day and she tripped and broke her toes. People in Los Angeles have to be watched carefully. This man called Ron wanted me to pay for bills that he had not paid on other projects.
While the rest of the world think about Je suis Charlie and The ancient sect of Coptic Christians killed by Isis the LA people think about what Kim Kardashian is wearing and the Oscars.
Well you know who I think should win.
ACTOR
Eddie Redmayne for best Actor. (Although Benedict Cumberbatch is good in Imitation Game)
ACTRESS
Julie Anne Moore for best Actress.
BEST FILM
Best film for me is Imitation Game because I love the story of Enigma but again I love Hotel Budapest for the quirky literature and script and Theory of Everything the s
tory of Stephen Hawking's early relationship.
BEST MUSIC
Best Music Imitation Game/Hotel Budapest Alexandre Desplat
If the Academy give it to the new upstart, Johan Johannsson who in my opinion plagiarised Desplat's work in the Theory of Everything, then I give up thinking that the Academy means anything. Surely the amount of work that Hans Zimmer, Alexandre Desplat, counts for something?
BEST SCRIPT,
Hotel Budapest, as it is highly individual
BEST FOREIGN FILM
Ida.

With parties and opening at LA Italia, Bulgari, Art of Elysium, Elton John's, Vanity Fair, etc
There will hopefully not be a minutes peace.

I am still looking up from the moon to the stars although there has been some drama. Don't you notice when you say you are happy somebody comes and slaps you in your face to remind you, its not real?

I hope I do not have to raise my eyebrows done by The brow gal on Sunday, if the wrong people win.
Anyway at least my hair will look good as I swan into Le Salon and have it beautifully done by Angela Kalinowski in The Sofitel Hotel, where the crew of Ida will be staying. Gia Sinatra said I said to her the other day "Can one of your girls come round and do my and fuck off" I can't remember it was a dark sunglass day. They are the best hair in town I say.

ChinaMan Confidential Trailer - in 4K UHD directed by Hector Abaunza who edited my film The gun the cake and the butterfly

OVER THE MOON AND REACHING THE STARS

What a week it has been, I look at my billboard on Sunset Boulevard and think. "Is that me, over the moon and reaching the stars?"

ON SUNSET AND HARPER

I watched my film yet again and could see all the things I should add to it. I have some footage of a real life drama, a boy being chucked out of his house for drug taking, and the Ferrari I had rented was smashed up, as he left the house. It was raining, the car totally destroyed. Shall I add it?

I know that if I cannot be happy then nobody can be? I remember my children opening my eyes with their small fingers, trying to get me to be awake when I was desperate for sleep. I am now on my own,  the house is hollow and they have left for university.

Yesterday I received roses, pink beautiful roses from my gay friend who thought about the colour of them, and  some half dead white roses from the man who has a crush on me, but doesn't know who he has a crush on.  I put them into a vase together. The lack of meaningful roses tells me what direction I am going in. My mother said when I was little "You are the Pied Piper of Men". When I was little she used to tease me that she had never seen so many men around anybody, but you see I did not like them, I only liked the one hidden that I could not get.

BE MY VALENTINE 

Another friend threw down the telephone, as he felt I had not given him enough attention, while he mentioned three famous names, that did not interest me saying friendship should not be this difficult.

I got obligatory emails from the real men in my life, kisses, but with no thought, they hadn't wanted to believe in the "gaff." Later I went to a friends birthday with hundreds of beautiful hearts everywhere, there was no chance of forgetting what day it was. I had tried to but could not. Hearts everywhere. The man I truly love is with someone else, the one I like is there for me, and the old one has hundreds of obligations. I am alone, and not unhappy, just alone. Valentines day is raw and a reminder of what could have been but is not.

I saw on facebook that somebody had snitched one of the photographs of my parents, in their brief three year marriage and painted a red flower on it, Anthony Cave Brown and my mother Caroline Gilliat. The man on facebook had forgotten where it came from, and put a price tag on it without asking me if it was okay. I said "Remove the photograph" The Artist rang five times. He just did not get it. The price was £3,500 to be remembered and be painted. I thought it was tacky. On top of it I found out that my Father had another child which was illegitimate living Sidney.

ANTHONY CAVE BROWN AND CAROLINE GILLIAT

I switched on the television and watched Imitation Game. I did not expect to like it a second time. I liked it more. I liked it because it talks about Sir Stewart Menzies. I had not concentrated the first time, I had not caught the name. My Father had written a book about him. The film came alive, I understood Enigma, I understood.  Benedict Cumberbatch's performance  acting Alan Turing was incredibly touching.  Should he win an Oscar or should Eddie Redmayne? Both were good and both deserve it, as does Michael Keaton for Birdman. In this case good to be nominated. The war between Harrow and Eton never ends.

I wanted to read my Father's book C about him, I wanted suddenly to read all his books. I have not read one, I just read the first paragraphs of each . I looked on line, I can buy them used or unused. I have some in storage. In storage?

That has all to change. Hoarding is not for me. Everything must change, because I am reaching for the stars.

IT IS NOT OKAY TO DRUM FOR THE OSCARS, BUT OKAY TO PLAGIARISE

I want to prove my point of plagiarism. It is my opinion that composers are not using their creativity.
I am a little fed up of listening to composers who seem to think that composing is copying by transposing.
Antonio Sanchez used his imagination for Birdman yet he got disqualified from being nominated for an Oscar, but Johansson got a nomination for  "borrowing" from someone else?  Here is my proof  that Alexandre Desplat's work was copied almost throughout Theory of Everything. I am not a member of The Academy, n'or shall I ever be. I am an enthusiastic individual with a sense of right and wrong and most of all I like originality. I also have lived in a family of musicians and know how irritating it is when this happens.

ANTONIO SANCHEZ

Johan Johansson's score for Theory of Everything is without a doubt too like the work of Desplat's, I stand strong on this. For example Johansson has used bits of the music from Extremely loud and Incredibly Close, Benjamin Button and Kings Speech, changing keys and one or two endings..but...
The director,  Mr Marsh although saying he wanted to work with Johan Johansson, obviously wanted Desplat to score his film and got someone to copy it. The score is ultimately plagiarism of Desplat's work. I admire Working Title and all the films they choose but really?.  If there is no litigation I will eat my hat.  I can go bar by bar, but will leave that to those people in the know. I cannot believe that I am the only person on the planet who hears this and comments about it? The other point to consider is that it makes film music generic instead of creative.

HAS ALEXANDRE DESPLAT's WORK HAS BEEN PLAGIARISED?

I have made my point just listen and you decide.
Here is a sample of Johan Johansson's other work before composing for film. It is totally different.
Boy the composers today could be a whole lot more imaginative, and if it were a race, Johan Johansson would be in my opinion disqualified, not the work of Antonio Sanchez, which was not accepted.

JOHAN JOHANSSON

What is really sad is that the film is excellent in every way, moving, touching and beautifully acted by Eddie Redmayne who I had the pleasure of meeting at the BAFTA party with film director Peter Medak.
In my view Johansson does not deserve to be in the running for the Oscar, and clearly is new to the game. It is not his lack of ability more his lack of tact and ambition to people please. He should stick to his own music and win with that. At least it is his.

TODAY THE MOON TOMORROW THE STARS...

My views on life are the following. Live it to the full, be free. Belinda Carlisle sang about it, Ginger Rogers danced for it. Live without deliberately hurting anyone. Try to think of others. These were all ideas planted in my mind at an early age. This week I am dealing with issues of life and death and despite trying to live in an optimistic way, it is tricky to be always in a great mood when people around you are suffering. If you can, then so much the better. It is better to become a parody of ourselves, that is why we become the private person and the public.
Today I am a Sunset Boulevard poster show, tomorrow?  Being positive is brave, being negative is cowardly.
Have a lovely time because we are only here for ten minutes.

BAFTA AND BALLS

The winners of the BAFTA's goes hand in hand with good taste. Thank goodness for that.
I am over the moon seeing  my poster on Sunset Boulevard for my film The gun the cake and the butterfly glamorously on the corner of Harper, opposite The Chateau. I feel like Angelyne, the singer, the billboard queen whose lover paid for her billboards. All in pink, pink corvette, pink mini dresses, pink lips she is the opposite to me in black. like a funeral gnome.

BILLBOARD BETWEEN SUNSET AND HARPER

On the flight over with Air New Zealand I watched several great films. The Empire of the Sun Steven Spielberg's film and The Hotel Budapest again. It is winning so many awards that I thought I should watch it a second time. It was beautifully written, politically incorrect and without doubt deserves to excel. The more I watched, I know it will be a huge Oscar favourite.  It is so new and fresh, with wonderful colours and costumes it is visually unusual, touches like the Mendl cakes. Excellent all round acting and I would love the lobby boy to come and work for me.  At the award ceremony I found the public declarations of love by the winners confirmed that there was nothing going on in private. Sometimes when people keep saying how marvellous somebody is, it is often the only time they say it. It is all very well to be rich and successful but it is good to inspire empathy too.  Stephen Fry had a great time kissing the boys, I would love his job too.

ANGELYNE THE BILLBOARD QUEEN

Afterwards I sat at The Hotel Budapest table at the BAFTA's dinner at the Grosvenor House Hotel with the British Film Institute.  It was good sitting with people that really understand and love film. They know that as well as being intelligent the films should be commercial. Great films are both.
Amanda Nevill hosted our table with true flare, wearing a gorgeous dress by Alexander Mcqueen in a pink leopard print dress. I chose to look like I had been taken over by previous Hollywood stars.

I must mention the table decorations which every year are quite extraordinary.  When I was twenty I worked for a brilliant florist called Kenneth Turner, and his star boy was someone called John Lewis.  John was part of the team that created the quite outstanding decorations. Maybe the decorator of the BAFTA's should win a prize too?

HOTEL BUDAPEST TABLE DECORATION BAFTA

I was happy with all the wins at the BAFTA's especially the music award, with the romping score of Hotel Budapest/Desplat, he deserved to win, the balalaika made it all the more perfect.
As for Eddie Redmayne, he was brilliant as Stephen Hawking's. He went to Eton and  Benedict Cumberbatch went to Harrow. It proves that education and the arts should be for everybody. In my opinion more important than health, because through education a lot of health issues could be reduced. Eg the explosion of over weight people, when there is no need.

BIRDMAN TABLE DECORATIONS

BAFTA PHOTOGRAPHS BY Rex Images

MUSIC IS THE FOOD OF LOVE MOST DEFINITELY

Tonight is the BAFTA's, one of my favourite UK events, and I am lucky to be invited to this every year.  This brings me always back to music.
I am often asked what pieces of music I love most, it is the key to my sanity, music holds the reigns of my universe. It is the unspoken word, the note that moves me or does not. I have loved music all my life.  It invaded my life at the early age of about five when I used to stand up and sing at school. Singing in Sister Angelica by Puccini at about twelve started my path to further exploration. The work of Bach, especially the two part inventions,  starting with  C, played here by Gould, infiltrated my fingers and despite my schoolgirl ability, the piano has been with me throughout my life.  Music was discussed in the school breaks. When I was young I loved the Beetles but I also loved Handel. I loved Purcell and I loved Jazz, Miles Davies. When most people were singing  the lyrics of the latest bands I would quickly lap up the tunes by Purcell. I loved singing "When I am laid"from Dido Aeneas.  Later it was music that stopped me suppressing my sexual desires, actually I equate music with sex. No music, no sex,
I loved The Velvet Underground the craziness of Andy Warhol, the dark perversions of this man who was neither well dressed or outspoken grabbed my attention. He was so out of fashion that he was in. I loved him and the androgyny of Patti Smith too and the centre of the universe seemed to be Lou Reed, who I considered to be a magician.
I loved film music.
I was obsessed by film composer Maurice Jarre who wrote the music for Dr Zhivago and The Damned and Bernie Hermann. These were my two favourite music writers. The piece that Bernie wrote from my Grandfather, Sidney Gilliat's film Endless Night filled me with foreboding. I loved the music of Frances Lai for Bilitis, the naive sexuality of young girls explored by his brilliant writing.
There are so many scores I have enjoyed, Amelie  by Yann Tiersen, The English Patient by Gabriel Jared; St Trinian's by Malcolm Arnold; The Mission,  Romeo and Juliet score by Nino Rota original. So many that I have listened to non stop. Without composers and their compositions I would have not lived life, unlike the spoken word, it rarely hurts, it is deeper than that.
My mother and my son both love Opera and of course I do too, but I truly love the music of film more. Borrowed often from great old composers, Beethoven's 9th,  in Clockwork Orange created havoc in a film that was both banned and slated.
Through music I have discovered my Neverland, Michael Nyman's score for the soul searching film by Jane Campion The Piano to Alexandre Desplat's music for Lust Caution, exploring sexual betrayal. I am a true fan of these open minded geniuses that write with passion. There are so many more to mention but there we are, a blog is a blog. Replying the question I was asked this morning, "If music be the food of love, play on....." Duke Orsino from Twelfth Night by Shakespeare.

Tonight at the BAFTA's  it is the music scores that will hold my attention, they make a film.
BAFTA SCORES TONIGHT
What should have won tonight probably won't and some have not been nominated.
Birdman's score by Antonio Sanchez. In my mind is strictly music. Drums are percussion instruments and therefore the Oscar's are wrong, they complained that he had used classical music?. It was the most imaginative. Like painting, the less brush strokes you use can be more beautiful as in the case of
the brilliant and prolific composer Alexandre Desplat.
Who will win is anybody's guess? Johan Johansson score for Theory of Everything is without a doubt too like the work of Desplat's, I stand strong on this. For example JJ has used bits of the music from Extremely close and Incredibly Close, Benjamin Button and Kings Speech, The director , Mr Marsh although saying he wanted to work with Johan Johansson, obviously wanted Desplat to score and got someone to copy it, The score is ultimately plagiarism of Desplat's work. Easy to do. I did the same with my film, The gun the cake and the butterfly. Anyway I have made my point just listen and you decide.
Here is the complete list from The Telegraph.

Fashion Jewelry: The Collection of Barbara Berger

Bea Arthur in The Man in the Moon

The Grand Budapest Hotel Official Trailer (HD) Wes Anderson

WHAT TO DO TO BE REMEMBERED? Is it a vanity? A deadly sin?

As I write I am looking out onto the beautiful lake at Maria Worth, a perfect place to have an empty tummy full of epsom salts and empty my brain too.  A place of ancient pilgrimage, a place of churches and a place of mystical holiness.  When I was eleven I tried to get skinny on this bitter tasting granual, only to collapse on the floor unable to move. It is the same today. They however have the ability to make me think what is life all about? I suppose it is like a yearly penance I like to do, to remove my sins, in the medical wing of this beautiful place, Viva Mayr. It is almost church like, people walk around in ghostly gowns . You feel holy in this self imposed restriction of delicious wicked earthly food. I understand the Muslims during Ramadan and the Jews, Yom Kippur ,putting themselves through starvation and why we Christians are meant to be good during Lent, your soul feels lifted to another power.
I wonder what life is about continually, why are we here? As friends and acquaintances are naturally being laid to rest. Starvation is a quick way to make you think.
Is life about high heels, the oscar winning dress I am in agony for? The accolades that others will win, or the poster I am about to have on Sunset Boulevard? It seems that the only reason to do anything is to be remembered, which is unlikely, given that most people are forgotten fifteen minutes after their funeral or memorial.
Your funeral will have the flowers, the beautiful flowers saying Mother, a well put together service and then the ashes which inevitably go up in the air, poof, and we are, oh god, forgotten.  We become faded photographs in the bottom draw of some inquisitive grandchild or niece. That is unless we have written something memorable, words do it, or notes that lead to magical memories. Mozart had the recipe as did Bach.

As the charity balls start, the parties in aid of everything from children in Syria to Marie Curie? Our social conscience makes us think about others if we have any humanity. What we want is a wing of a museum, a library, a schoolroom in Nigeria, anything that halts the ultimate realisation that we shall be forgotten when we croak.  Even those who are very high profile who go from day time television to infinity. Their winning tricks  get them to the right hand side of god, by marrying someone who speaks a saintly 65 languages, and looks good on the covers of Vogue, and does good works helping the return of all Queen Victoria's thefts. They think this will do it?. In some cases it takes just fucking the president and getting murdered to be remembered.
I asked a composer once what drove him to write, he said "To be remembered". I of course like everybody else want to be remembered, it is how to do it elegantly. Last week in New York, as a friend of mine was surrounded by fans waiting for his signature at a play he had not written, I realised as I was treated like the wife, wives generally are not thought about, and hardly ever remembered. No this is not for me. This is the very reason I got divorced, the feeling of being 'just a wife' is not for me. I shall write and hope that it is worthwhile and helpful. Or perhaps forget this vanity altogether, as after all it is a deadly sin and pretty meaningless, or is it? To become selfless is becoming interesting.
So the reason I come to the middle of Europe, to this exceptional lake, to starve and to think. From  peace and time I am able to write, something meaningful, by cleansing my filthy body of excess fun, and spin dryer it into creative action.