3 000 €
RéserverSHAW George Bernard [Dublin, 1856 - Ayot Saint Lawrence, 1950], écrivain et auteur dramatique irlandais.
Lettre autographe signée
Lettre autographe signée à son cher Paul. Londres, 24 février 1931 ; 1 page 3/4 in-4° oblongue, en anglais, sur papier à son en-tête imprimé.
« My Dear Paul
I have thought over your scenario repeatedly and readnand reread it; but I am even more helpless in the matter than you are yourself. If I go to the film firms who want a film by me and offer them one by yourself.
Besides, your scenario is not a scenario : it is an idea - a story on which a scenario might be founded. It is an idea which pleases me because I am a vegetarian ; and there is something great in your way of presenting it because you are a great man. But Hollywood and Elstree (the British Hollywood) are carnivorous and terrified of great man ; and the exhibitors for whose they cater are capable of nothing higher than rabbit coursing with terriers. The hopelessness of approuching them with such a proposition is begoud description.
To make the film irresistibly attractive the Man from Mars [oeuvre de Stanislas Lem] should restore all the animals whose heads are on the wall to life ; and they should hunt the sportsmen. The tiger whose skin and head are lying on the floor should use up and crouche for a spring at the man who shot him.
There should be a gigantic chose across country, over mountains, precipices, gorges, polar seas, with bears and whale joining the pack until the last human being is eaten or dashed to pieces or droroned, and the animals are left to enjoy the earth in peace after the carnivorous ones have all eaten one another.
But think of what it would cost ! Lord Rothshild, who collects and keeps live animals, would be ruined if he financed it. Still, nothing attracts men like ruin, especially when it promises a colossal financial success.
Have you met Cecil Lewis, who lives on the Lago at Arolo ? He has just produced a film of one of my short plays. He is young, feverishly energetic, and might talte about the idea. The animals give it to commercial value. On the screen they are more popular than Chaplin.
But, frankly, I dont know what advice to give you. I am too old to turn to scenario making ; it is incredibly laborious and mechanical, and the studio work murderously and maddeningly wasteful of time.
On Tuesday next, the 3nd March, Charlotte and I start for a cruise round the Mediterranean, as we are both tired out. We shall be away among for six weeks or so. She is desolate at having been prostate and invisible when you called.»