British actress and screenwriter Emma Thompson opened the website ‘Anne Frank Tree’ in the Anne Frank House on 1 February 2006. Before placing the first leaf in the tree she talked about what Anne Frank means to her personally.
“I'm so incredibly proud to have been asked to do this, I can't tell you. I've read the book many times when I was younger and as I got older I reread it and reread it. It's one of those books you should read every few years. Rather like 'All quiet on the Western Front' or 'If this is a man' by Primo Levi.
And I suppose like everybody when I think about Anne Frank I get very conflicting emotions because she represents so much of human tragedy as well as human happiness. And so, also I think that when we think of the holocaust we all have that cicatrise in our minds, that scar. And so I wore two things: I wore black, because of that, but I also wore pink, in order to indicate the joys of girlhood. And if you don't mind, today I will dwell a little in the pink.
I think one of the things that I love about Anne Frank most, and I think it's also forgotten, because what she represents is so weighty, is how very funny she was. And what a very witty girl she was. I'm convinced that her confinement made her even more alive and truthful and humorous and humane in her writing. More intense than she would have been, had she not been confined. These two little bits I wanted to read to you, because they just make me laugh.
She's got terrible flu when she is writing this. It's the 22nd of September 1943, when she says:
‘You know, the worst part was when Mr. Dussel decided to play doctor and lay his pomaded head on my bare chest to listen to the sounds. Not only did his head tickle, but I was embarrassed. Even though he went to school thirty years ago and does have some kind of medical degree, why should he lay his head on my heart? After all he's not my boyfriend! For that matter he wouldn't be able tell a healthy sound apart from an unhealthy one. He'd have to have his ears cleaned first, because he's becoming alarmingly hard of hearing. Anyway, the weather's drizzly and overcast, the stove stinks and the food lies heavily on our stomachs, producing a variety of rumbles.’
Very funny girl.
I've always loved her sensitive and unprudish attitude to sex as well, and in fact I think the book is a lexicon on how to grow up and how to be human. Several journalists this morning knew that I was coming to do this and said: 'But why you?' And I said: 'Well I don't know actually. I suppose it's because I happened to be here.' But it may be something deeper than that. It may be to do with the fact that as you all probably know Anne was a huge film buff. She knew about all films, all the stories, all the stars, all the reviews. She knew them all, even within her confinement. And I think that she'd quite like an actress to have done this.
But anyway, listen to this, because this is also very revealing.
‘Whenever I come sailing in with a new hairstyle I can read the disapproval on their faces. I can be sure someone will ask which film star I'm trying to imitate. My reply, that it's my own invention, is greeted with skepticism. As for the hairdo, it doesn't hold its set for more than half an hour (ain't that the truth?!). By that time I'm so sick and tired of their remarks that I race to the bathroom and restore my hair to it's normal mass of curls.’
She knew the pitfalls. I don't think she would have been an actress. I think if she'd lived, she would have written books. She would have helped others. She would have used her extraordinary intelligence to organize our thoughts about the world. I think she would have loved generously and without prejudice. I think she would have had great courage. I think she would have spoken up for the dispossessed. And I think she would have tried to storm the invisible barriers that separate human beings and keep us in such conflict.
So what I say now is that the only thing we have to remember is all her ‘would haves’ are our real possibilities. All her ‘would haves’ are our opportunities. And the book’s a flame, a torch. We can light our own candles and take them and illuminate our hearts with the incandescence of her spirit. So I'm very happy to be sticking the first leave on the tree, although I have to confess to you now that I'm absolutely useless with computers!”
Visit her museum. Click on her photo.
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