A personal view OF L.A.: the talent was hot, the reception so warm. Here he offers a toast to the city of Angels

I've been to L.A. and Hollywood before. In other lives, other times and other circumstances. I always loved it there--the climate, the light and even the way of being, so far away from my normal life in Europe.

This trip for Interview as a photographer was a unique experience and opportunity. We spent a fabulous week there (with five days and covered thousands of miles in a huge mobile home) and the welcome was overwhelming, so friendly, so warm.

I know that life there is much tougher than what a stranger can imagine or see. We only see the lyric transformation or exaggeration of reality into a world of fable for audiences all around the globe. For the people who want to live and work in L.A. it's like a party you go to without being sure you are invited or asked to stay. Every generation has only the famous, imperial few who will make it and stay forever in the public's mind.

Most of the people of the three L.A. worlds (movies, music and TV) have to live with a permanent feeling of danger that their most private lives could be put under a microscope publicly. Lots of what we see in magazines is make-believe or a kind of marketing striptease of calculated privacy. One cannot blame them. But if they have nothing personal to offer to the hungry microscope of the media there will be a problem, too.

Sexual morality is not censored the way it was in the old days. Now everything has to look pervasively sexy. Fame today is the aura of film, TV screens and images put on faces and names. What they are really famous for is often not that important.

The screenwriters are the Euripides, Thucydides and Sophocles of the heroic myth Hollywood will always be. It's often cruel and violent but that exists since the oldest day of Latin poetry. The Aeneid opens with "Arms, and the man I sing."

Life here tries to converge some invisible but distinct, often impossible to reach, target. You can feel even as a stranger, unconcerned by this kind of competition, that nearly never a second opportunity or a second option will be offered. It's a river of no return.

One can talk about Hollywood only by using titles of famous movies from the past. Top Hats are gone forever, Modern Times may be worse than what Chaplin imagined in 1936. In terms of politics, Mr. Smith is not going to Washington these days as in the times of Reagan and Clinton. Lots of things that made Hollywood what it is in people's minds are Gone With the Wind.

Mortal Storms have passed but basically Hollywood has survived in different ways with different Sea Hawks instead of the old Louis B. Mayers. Marilyn Manson lives now in the house of Mary Astor of Maltese Falcon fame. There is a Shadow of a Doubt about the future, but they all know The Bell Will Toll for nearly everybody here. Double Indemnity does not exist in Hollywood.

The Picture of Dorian Gray, thanks to plastic surgery, can be retouched--but is always hiding somewhere. No Big Sleep ever, The Postman Will Ring to bring you back to reality and the battle of surviving on all kinds of different levels. The Best Years of Their Lives have to be sacrificed if they want to be a permanent success. It can be A Wonderful Life but it can be a nightmare, too. There is always a Duel in the Sun waiting for them.

Out of the Past can be very bad news here. The city is a kind of professional Asphalt Jungle. Often A Star is Born but lasting power is the secret. Hollywood is not a Forbidden Planet but a world difficult to penetrate, a world with more than The Ten Commandments to respect. All That Heaven Allows may not be allowed here and now. But the Tin Roof may always be here for Cats...and Some Like it Hot. It's so different from the east of America...this is its own West Side Story--a world you cannot compare. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse may be on their way, here one tries not to see them come; one is used to so many Birds.

For me the early days of Hollywood are still very present. I am talking about the late teens arid the early '20s. It's also because I love silent movies so much. I like to remember things I never knew that were the days of sophisticated barbarians getting lessons of style from Elinor Glyn. It was an experimental way of living, apparently full of cruelty and harassed by adventurous determination, moral and physical pressure. Now the final image of Hollywood is only built on the visions of the '30s, '40s and '50s. Images are signs we try to adapt to our imagination.

Symbols become artificial allegories to entertain people all over the world. I will never forget the way people welcomed us in L.A. I felt like an indiscreet intruder and hope all the artists we photographed will not be disappointed by what we did and what they helped us to achieve.

COPYRIGHT 2002 Brant Publications, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning