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3.32 AVERAGE
3.32 AVERAGE
While I enjoyed learning about film legend Marlene Dietrich's life on and off screen, the format took some getting used to. It took me much longer to get through this book than I was expecting and I found it easy to set this aside and come back to it. It some ways, it felt almost like a series of verbatim interview transcripts with anecdotes interspersed with film synopses. I found myself skimming over the film synopses since I felt like I could've gotten those from IMDB or some place similar and I was more interested about learning about the woman behind the roles; they might have worked better in the Filmography section at the end. The author clearly had incredible access to Ms. Dietrich and several of her closest friends and former colleagues. I felt like more focus on those anecdotes and less focus on summarizing the films would have aided the narrative.
I selected this as my pick for the 2020 #AACPL Reads Challenge's August prompt (read a biography) and the 2020 POPSUGAR Reading Challenge prompt "your favorite prompt from a past POPSUGAR Reading Challenge" (used 2017's "a book about an interesting woman").
I selected this as my pick for the 2020 #AACPL Reads Challenge's August prompt (read a biography) and the 2020 POPSUGAR Reading Challenge prompt "your favorite prompt from a past POPSUGAR Reading Challenge" (used 2017's "a book about an interesting woman").
dark
emotional
funny
informative
inspiring
fast-paced
The 1st half of the book was very fact based focusing on her long list of movies. Although I know who Marlene Dietrich is I don't know much about her. The 2nd half of the book talks about her later life. Some discussion about her touring in Germany and how some people viewed her as a traitor during WWII. Also talks about her concerts in Israel. Final part of book discusses her life in Paris. Overall I enjoyed the book and will be looking for her past movies to watch.