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List Price: $19.99 | | Label: Image Entertainment
Salesrank: 83679
Released: June 29, 1999 |
| Our Price: $14.99 |
| Used Price: $9.49 |
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MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Film's first and perhaps ultimate modern woman. "Louise Brooks: Looking for Lulu" explores the life of one of the silver screen's most enduring and provocative stars, the actress who created the sensual, yet innocent Lulu in G.W. Pabst's classic "Pandora's Box." Narrated by Shirley MacLaine, this critically acclaimed documentary combines rare film footage and photographs with interviews. Particularly fascinating is a previously unseen interview with Louise Brooks, filmed in 1976.
Description of Louise Brooks - Looking for Lulu:
Produced in 1998 for Turner Classic Movies, this documentary is nearly as exceptional as its subject and just as fascinating. Born in Kansas, Louise Brooks rose from the Ziegfeld Follies to become a silent film icon. As biographer Barry Paris writes for this definitive hourlong profile (narrated by Shirley MacLaine), "Lulu" Brooks was "one of the most intensely erotic screen beauties of all time," and her rise, fall, and resurrection make for a fascinating personal history. Paris charts Brooks's controversial and often self-destructive course from Hollywood to Berlin (where she made cinema history in Pandora's Box and Diary of a Lost Girl), while insightful interviews and abundant film clips provide breathtaking proof of Lulu's undeniable beauty. Most revealing are clips from a 1976 interview with Brooks, who remained utterly unique, sharply intelligent, and tragically convinced that she'd failed at everything. Looking for Lulu serves as captivating proof that she was wrong. --Jeff Shannon
Louise Brooks - Looking for Lulu Reviews:
Enjoyable, informative Brooksie bio 
2009-01-02 - "Looking for Lulu" is an entertaining and informative documentary on the life and careers of Jazz Age actress (and later author and film critic) Mary Louise Brooks. This well-researched, if too brief (one hour), biography includes film clips and interviews with Miss Brooks and her friends and colleagues. Shirley MacLaine's narration is wonderful and sympathetic.
If you want to buy this, wait!!!
2007-03-18 - four and a half stars, actually.
Don't buy this DVD seperate--this documentary comes as an extra in the recent Criterion issue of "Pandora's Box"--an incredible issue of an incredible film.
I loved this documentary when I first saw it but then I read Barry Paris' biography--who also wrote this documentary. That book is an incredible and deeply moving experience; I don't recall being so moved by a biography before. That book shows how this film is way too brief--and just begins to get to the heart--and mind--of its subject. Still, for what it is--an introduction--its pretty damned good!
Buy "Pandora's Box" which includes this documentary, plus the complete "Lulu in Berlin": Richard Leacock's filmed interview with Louise from the mid-seventies; with Barry Paris's biography, you'll have everything!!
Louise Brooks -- a retrospective look
2007-01-20 - Basic information on the life of a fascinating personality. But what should have been intriguing was cookie cutter sterile: birth-life-death-rediscovered. However, the interviews with an old Louise Brooks were riveting but way too short and the anecdotes from her niece were an interesting look at her personality from the perspective of her family.
Documentary/ Biography originally made for Turner Classic Movies 
2006-06-11 - This 1998 film is narrated by Shirley MacLaine (of "John Goldfarb Please Come Home" 1965 fame). We get to know Louise Brooks from her own words and those that met her. There is some great stock footage and in the end you feel that you know her better and that she actually talked to you.
The next time you watch her movies you will see them through new eyes and a new appreciation for her acting style.
Next Time, Give More
2006-05-10 - Louise Brooks is often looked over because of her nonchalance about acting and her career. She was a very intelligent woman who was known for her intense sexuality. She made several films, the most important ones being made in Germany like Pandora's Box. Her career was ended when the talkies came, not because her voice did not record well but because she was so arrogant to the studios. Years after she stopped making films, she wrote a series of essays compiled into a book called Lulu in Hollywood which helped to rejuvenate her career.
This documentary is great for novice Brooks fans because it touches on basic information like her early life, transitioning into films, and the end of her career. It does not, however, provide much insight into who Brooks was as a person or truly why she behaved the way she did. It is certainly not a deep exploration into her character or her career. For this, it is slightly disappointing, but recognition is recognition after all, and silent film stars are often lucky to get that.
