Garbo (2005)

Wonderful Movie

It's complicated... I really like the directing, acting and writing but, there are issues with the way it's shot that I just can't deny. As much as I love the storytelling and the fantastic performance but, there are also certain scenes that didn't need to exist.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

Garbo is a documentary that tells the story of the life and career of one of the former biggest stars of Hollywood, Swedish-born actress Greta Garbo, which first premiered in 2005 on Turner Classic Movies, and later released on DVD as part of the TCM Archives Collection. The film features interviews from close family members who knew her all too well, as well as biographers, historians, and film directors that have worked with her via archive footage, including the grandson of MGM founder Louis B. Mayer.Narrated by famed actress Julie Christie, Garbo is a rather informative film documenting the Swedish actress' first steps into stardom when she first worked in advertising, which would lead her to starring in many silent motion pictures released by Metro Goldwyn Mayer, with films like The Mysterious Lady (1928), Love (1927) and Flesh and the Devil (1926), all released in the late 1920s. It was here that all of her films were smash hits and that she was the go-to actress for a guaranteed hit when it came to drama and romantic love stories told on the silver screen. In fact, her success as a motion picture actress got to where she couldn't go anywhere without paparazzi and the press getting in her way (now you know where shows like TMZ and Extra get their image). But it was when the industry decided to transition to sound pictures that things began to take a rocky turn, eventually leading to an early retirement. While her career in Hollywood was short-lived, ending with the 1941 flop Two-Faced Woman, she did leave a large enough impact on the industry all together, and her career as a whole, is illustrated by all of the films she made.Along with many interviews from relatives, filmmakers, and biographers, we are given a glimpse of her magnificent and flawless talent as an actress through clips of various films, a majority of them from the silent era of MGM. In each one of her films, she dedicates herself to the role she plays on screen, as if this was how she acted outside of the studio dealing with the drama that is real life. Garbo wasn't another no-name screen floozy that came out of the woodwork, and her legacy proved that. The film is a study on one of the greatest actresses who ever lived, and an insight on what life was like when Hollywood was rising to become the entertainment capital of the world, and is definitely a must watch for anyone who loves classic movies, myself included.

I don't think any film star so totally dictated the term's of their career than Greta Garbo. Once she obtained international stardom after the film Torrent the direction she moved was determined by her and her alone. Even Louis B. Mayer the autocratic boss of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer gave her a wide berth and treated her as an equal. And when she left the screen abruptly in 1941 she made her retirement stick.Her mystique was intact and stayed intact. I recall several stars in their retirement years like Cary Grant, Irene Dunne, James Cagney, Randolph Scott who quit the field on top. Occasionally you would read small items about them, a stray photograph or two would appear. They would say thanks, but I'm enjoying my leisure. Of the four I mentioned only Cagney made a comeback and I think it was a mistake.Garbo whose image was one of aloofness never looked back. Instead we looked for her if our travels took us to the island of Manhattan. She'd walk around Manhattan doing her window shopping, avoiding stares and cameras and we gave her a wide berth.One of the best tributes I ever read about her came from one of her co-stars Robert Taylor. He had never even spoken to her on the lot before Taylor was cast as Armand in Camille. He was in awe of her, but she put him at ease and worked with him ceaselessly. She demanded excellence in herself more than any director could demand. She made him and others around her better performers, reaching for depths of emotion they never thought they possessed.After the film was over she was aloof again. But Taylor in appreciation for what she did for him just gave Garbo her space and never thought of her as snobbish in any way. It was her way to be alone and he like so many of the public as well as her fellow players gave her what she wanted.Kevin Brownlow did a wonderful assembling the film and the interviews to capture the aloof spirit that was Greta Garbo. From 1941 until 1990 she held us fascinated right up to when she died. That's quite an impression she made.

"One of the most celebrated people in the world desperate not to be recognized..." The very beginning of the latest documentary about Garbo that was released on TCM just before her 100th birthday calls viewers' attention to the personality of this great actress. To understand her more profoundly, the director of the documentary, Kevin Brownlow, aims at detailed exploration of Garbo's life, her wonderful but short screen career as well as her later lonely life. Furthermore, the whole movie is supplied with wonderful music by Carl Davies. I have asked my American friends to copy this film from TCM for me and I do not regret. Having seen Steve Cole's GRETA GARBO-A LONE STAR and some of the other minor documentaries, I must admit that GARBO is the best made biographical film about the Swedish beauty so far.The whole documentary is not sensational but rather aims at presenting Garbo as someone full of contradictions and melancholies. Among a lot of interviews with the people in the film, I particularly liked the one with Mimi Pollak, Garbo's friend from youth, Gray Reisfield, Garbo's niece, Derek and Scott Reisfield, Garbo's great-nephews, and Sam Green, Garbo's companion during later years of her life. They wonderfully managed to get the gist of who Garbo really was - a Swede with Swedish upbringing brought at the age of 20 to a totally different world - Hollywood. She was gentle, humorous, and very independent. Daniel Selznick, the grandson of Louis B. Mayer mentions the fact that Garbo could never adapt to the life and manners promoted within MGM family. Joseph Newman recalls the day on which Garbo first arrived in Hollywood and mentions the difficulties she had to cope with. As a result, we do not get a "glorified picture" of how well everything went but a very realistic look at Garbo's experience abroad. Near the end of the documentary, the viewers are showed the most private thing from Garbo's life, her huge New York apartment with a number of antiques and lovely works of art that she gathered while traveling with friends.The documentary is also supplied with a wide range of original archives. While watching the film, I could not believe my eyes what a wonderful use TCM producers made of these materials and how perfectly they fit to the documentary. From a number of Garbo's pictures taken in Sweden before 1925, you will see plenty of footages with Irving Thalberg, Mauritz Stiller, George Cukor as well as clips from all of the movies Garbo made in America and earlier in Europe. A lot of people mention the cinematographer, William H. Daniels, who made a perfect use of lighting and beautifully photographed Garbo. But the interest reaches its peak when Clarence Brown appears on screen in the 1969 interview footage and comments on the movies and Garbo's intuitive abilities of acting. He was Garbo's favorite director and cast her in 7 of his films. While he comments, we see footages from his films, particularly FLESH AND THE DEVIL (1926) and A WOMAN OF AFFAIRS (1928) where Garbo played by the side of the greatest love of her life, John Gilbert. Therefore, the archives that you will see in GARBO are hard or even impossible to find elsewhere. I was totally amazed.Except for aforementioned factors, the documentary is worth seeing thanks to a lot of interesting facts postulated by various people interviewed. Barry Paris, Garbo's biographer, creates a link between Garbo and the audiences of that time; Daniel Selznick concentrates on Garbo - MGM relations; Leatrice Fountain, John Gilbert's daughter, says a lot about Garbo-Gilbert love; actor James Karen refers to the wide and ambiguous presentation of human psyche that Garbo created in her films, which was not that popular among all people. Yet, Mark Vieira, a photographer, recalls Garbo's friend Salka Viertel and her impact on Garbo's films, particularly German version of ANNA Christie and Mamoulian's QUEEN Christina.If that is not enough, the end of the documentary will absolutely surprise you... It shows the last professional footage of Garbo that was taken in 1949, 8 years after she retired from screen. Although she looks gorgeous in it, the studio did not want her any longer. The footage became known as late as after her 1990 death. What governed the decision to let down the greatest cinema star remains undiscovered...The TCM production, GARBO, is a magnificent biography that makes a tribute to Greta Garbo, probably one of the very few actresses that a lot of viewers of the 21st century still admire and appreciate... an actress that was born to play. It is, if not a must see, a highly recommended documentary for all open minded people. 10/10!

This is a brilliantly done documentary about one of film's great enigmas, Greta Garbo. For me, watching this was very personal, as I was privileged to research the biography written by Barry Paris (who appears in this documentary). There are interviews with another biographer, Karen Swenson, with Garbo's friends, Sam Green, Gore Vidal, and others, a big fan, the marvelous Charles Busch, family members, John Gilbert's daughter Leatrice Fountain, Daniel Selznick, and footage of an interview with Clarence Brown. The photographs and film clips speak for themselves, for Garbo's tremendous beauty and unique acting ability. She was a totally intuitive actress.It's a pity that, as independent as she was, that she took some bad advice, and a bigger pity that she never returned to the screen after 1941. A 1949 screen test shows her beauty untarnished, yet the producers were unable to raise money for the film they wanted to do, which devastated her.In my own research and transcription work, I have to admit I never experienced the Garbo that her friends and family describe. The woman I got to know through transcription of taped telephone conversations and various stories about her seemed neurotic, passive-aggressive, and, frankly, kind of dull. But she was so magical on screen. This is a wonderful documentary, highly recommended.