Conrad Veidt, androgyny, glamour and gender in cinema
I'm still trying to pinpoint what it is that makes Conrad Veidt so attractive. I keep thinking of the various individual parts of what make up his charisma--those magnetic eyes, those elegant hands, his imposing tall and slim stature, the smoothness of his voice once he'd become fluent in English--and yet, even saying "it's all of these things in combination and more" is not sufficient. Of course, a major part of his attractiveness, for me, is his androgyny, yet looking at the male ideal of silent film, he's hardly alone in that regard. Look at most silent films and, hell, many other pre-WWII films and you will find many beautiful men, smoky-eyed and catlike and swooning away in tortured love or in cursed nightmares, the last glorious dying sigh of the Romantic hero. There's Valentino trembling away, overcome with emotion, and over there's Fairbanks Sr. leaping from rooftop to rooftop with the grace of a dancer, with a dashing twinkle in his kohl-rimmed eye. And of course, then there's Connie himself, sleepwalking, driven into madness by demonic doppelgängers or trying to claw his way out of his own body. And yet, even if he had become a fashion icon and a gay icon by the Twenties, his sexual charisma only truly blossoms in the sound era. In the silents, he was pretty and a master at playing people who were cursed, damned, demonic--above all, men possessed. And in his greatest sound roles, it was he who was the one doing the cursing, the possessing, as if the tortured victim of the silents had learned the arcane secrets of the demonic powers that had once run through him and then harnessed those powers to his own advantage. The degenerate alley cat who preyed on fallen women crawled out of the seedy cabarets and scrubbed himself up--and then reappeared in an immaculately tailored tuxedo, with his hair slicked back and his monocle firmly in place, slinking into the room with the grace of a panther.
And yet, when war was approaching and the men of the silver screen started to become a little tougher, started to wear moustaches and become slightly gruffer, manlier, Connie amongst them, he seems to have been one of the few big male stars who never truly lost that androgynous edge and managed to retain it and turn it into a part of their charisma. I'm not talking about the sort of restrained androgyny we got a touch of in the dandy characters of the era with the tights and the pencil moustaches, no, not even the bisexualities of Flynn and Gable. I am not talking about classical camp effeminacy either--he actually had that in some of his early German sound movies, but quickly jettisoned it and butched up once he had to leave Germany for good in 1934 and settle in England. I'm talking about how, even in what is probably his butchest role as Captain Hardt in The Spy In Black, he would move and speak incredibly softly at times, as a stark contrast to the hard, cool, no-nonsense delivery of Valerie Hobson. I'm talking about the way he could, at the same time, possess an imposing body and yet use it for control and seduction in a manner that was more about psychology rather than brute force. It's a pattern that would be repeated many times in his sound movies: he would play opposite these incredibly strong and tough and beautiful heroines, and while they remained hard and cold goddesses most of the time, his seduction and his danger would come through softness, through wiles that could in other contexts (and especially post-WWII) be considered feminine. And it's beautiful to watch him play those power games, not with the airs of a Flynn-like dashing hero (to whom the woman should yield by default because he's the hero and... dashing) or a Bogart-style tough guy with the heart of gold whose hidden gentleness is gradually revealed to exist, yet whose gruff masculinity is always ready to snap back shut around him and confine him in its cage. Oh, no. Connie the panther was something different. Where the glorious divas he courted were firm and strong, he would wear away at them like the waves of the sea smooth out stone: he would softly slither around them, cast his long lashes down as he ate them with his eyes, caressed them with his shadow, at times possessing them with one soft word, with his fingers suddenly closing around a lady's wrist in a seductive caress that would swiftly turn into an erotic, sadomasochistic stranglehold.
And it was through those tough and strong and cool and aloof and no-nonsense ladies that I finally started to discover what it was about Connie, I think. For a long while, I have been marvelling at the ladies of classic cinema because they were strong and did not spend their features wringing their hands about their relationships and being neurotic as hell. Yes, Sex and the City, Bridget Jones, the internet, I am looking at you. Nowadays, that's pretty much the standard of the female heroine, whereas in the olden days, the great heroines would not waste time sitting around and whining and would just get on with their lives. They didn't spend hours and hours debating their identities and their relationships to other people--they would go and do what they wanted to do, take what they wanted, and would take no prisoners. There's an astonishing lack of neuroticism in the classical leading lady--oh, she may worry at times, but the core of her strength is unwavering. She may even descend into drink and misery but she will still remain strong inside. She will do what she wants and that's that. When Mae West wants a guy, she will take him. When Bette Davis drinks, you shut the hell up and pour her another one. And don't, for a moment, think Lauren Bacall will waste a moment on you if you don't know how to whistle.
And it's that sort of strength, that sort of self-confidence without which you can't have the most magical, the most captivating thing of all: glamour. Glamour, in the oldest sense of the word, a spell, an allure, something incredibly seductive, something you need a powerful sorceress to wield, something a cute girl next door can never possess. It's something a grown woman has, a woman who makes her own sexual choices, a woman who conquers (and who, interestingly, was at the time seen as somewhat masculine and terrifying exactly because of that--there are still rumours going around that Mae West was actually a man). And while I was looking for words and terms to describe the "it" in Connie, what set him apart from every other major male film star of the Thirties and Forties, I was astonished to discover that it was exactly that: glamour. Specifically the same type of strong, sexual, seductive glamour with a strong core you would see in a leading lady of the era, with nothing girly or yielding about it (the latter characteristics usually being the ones homophobes, in their misogyny, project on the androgynous man, associating femininity with weakness). That sort of glamour was something you would not usually associate with a man, and that was the thing--his charisma wasn't limited to gender; his seductiveness encompassed a wider range of human sexual expression and that's what made him so interesting. For a 6 ft 3 guy with a strong, at times intimidating and larger-than-life personality to be as erotically magnetic as a screen goddess was what made him such an incredibly powerful sexual presence on screen. Remember, that guy whose voice is as soft as a woman's had the balls to tell the entire Nazi party to go fuck themselves. Yeah, that guy who just flicked his fingers elegantly and leaned over the piano and purred like a tart.
Glamour really is the only word that comes anywhere close to approximating the spell he cast with that feline grace, that magnetic gaze, that elegance of his. There's your typical sort of masculine charisma and charm, that something we would now sum up as "GQMF", and then there's glamour. Glamour is something that happens when a stunning lady enters a room and the room goes quiet. When Bogie enters a room, puffing a fag that way he does, cupping it with his hand, he's wonderfully gruff and cynical and funny, and glares at everyone and pretends he won't stick his neck out for anybody. And that's wonderful. And a classic way for a golden era male star to enter a room. And yet when Connie slinks into the room like the panther he is, in his bow tie and tails, his voice so gentle and soft you automatically go quiet and listen, you are drawn to him like a magnet. And then he lifts his cigarette to his lips and opens his mouth just a little too wide, his tongue and lips just a little too wet and hungry, and you could swear you were watching oral sex. And both fellatio and cunnilingus at the same time at that, which should be impossible, but see how little he cares? See that look with which he undresses everyone in the room, man and woman alike and says "you're next"? That is the glamour of Conrad Veidt, ladies and gentlemen.
(ETA: Come to think of it, I have found yet another way of describing how his sexual charisma is different in the way it claims the people who succumb to it. It's psychology rather than just grabbing someone and kissing them, allure rather than aggression. The pure and innocent heroine is there to be taken, the hero is the one doing the taking, but the femme fatale and The Connie? They make you want to be taken. They enter the room, they do a few things, say a few things, and then you are ensnared. And you follow them upstairs.)
And it really makes me sad that this is the kind of androgyny that is now relegated to the villain and the homosexual character. Or, well, both, since at least villains are still allowed to have a camp edge without being specifically written as gay--yes, there are political Issues there with the whole hangover about gay=evil from the olden days, but think about it: at least the swishy, camp villain is allowed charm and he's allowed to menace the ladies as well--a lot of camp villains still come across as more bi than specifically gay. Don't take my camp villains away in the name of PC--they are the last bastion of the androgynous and pansexual and seductive homme fatal! And I really should make another post on *that* topic, as it's been on my mind quite a lot recently.
After all, while the sexual revolution gifted us with more gay visibility and acceptance and the rise of queer identities, it was very much a double-edged sword: as we all know, now someone's behaviour and presentation are automatically considered markers of identity and orientation and men who we should read as heterosexual or even asexual certainly can't be seen touching each other fondly or adopting mannerisms that would now be considered feminine. In its way, the current popular culture is far more sexist and limiting and confining when it comes to these things, particularily when it comes to male characters. We may catch a glimpse of that glorious old-fashioned androgyny in Johnny Depp's pirate swagger, in the exquisite beauty of Tom Hiddleston's Loki in Thor, but soon those are taken away from us again and Johnny gets the kohl wiped off his eyes and they give up on plucking and dyeing Tom's eyebrows. Robert Downey Jr. may move his hips and walk like a woman, but whatever is androgynous and dandy about him has to be packaged with aggressive verbal swagger and wit, a verbal toughness in the James Bond vein as if to make up for whatever it is that's feminine about him just so you don't, you know, get any ideas of him maybe being weak or something. To appease the hysterical straight male fear of homosexuality, or, to be more precise, a fear of femininity (one that exists even in parts of gay culture) that's around these days, male androgyny has to come with a "fuck you" attitude these days, in defiance of the norm, rather than being the norm it was in the silent movie days. Leading men have to be modelled according to the terms of the frightened, butch heterosexual man these days, which is very sad because of the amount of people and orientations and tastes it leaves out--you only have to look at the combined female fanbases of the aforementioned modern actors to see that. Tom Hiddleston looks like a beautiful lesbian in a movie and cries a lot? He becomes the single most lusted-after male celebrity on the internet. Hollywood has a lot to learn from its past.
So this is why I am in love with an actor who died in 1943. Because he can smoke like that
And flutter his eyelashes like that
And fondle a lady's silk stockings in a way that makes you wonder whether he'd prefer to wear them himself and how utterly hot that would be
And he would still be the most badass, Nazi-pwning motherfucker in the room.
And yet, when war was approaching and the men of the silver screen started to become a little tougher, started to wear moustaches and become slightly gruffer, manlier, Connie amongst them, he seems to have been one of the few big male stars who never truly lost that androgynous edge and managed to retain it and turn it into a part of their charisma. I'm not talking about the sort of restrained androgyny we got a touch of in the dandy characters of the era with the tights and the pencil moustaches, no, not even the bisexualities of Flynn and Gable. I am not talking about classical camp effeminacy either--he actually had that in some of his early German sound movies, but quickly jettisoned it and butched up once he had to leave Germany for good in 1934 and settle in England. I'm talking about how, even in what is probably his butchest role as Captain Hardt in The Spy In Black, he would move and speak incredibly softly at times, as a stark contrast to the hard, cool, no-nonsense delivery of Valerie Hobson. I'm talking about the way he could, at the same time, possess an imposing body and yet use it for control and seduction in a manner that was more about psychology rather than brute force. It's a pattern that would be repeated many times in his sound movies: he would play opposite these incredibly strong and tough and beautiful heroines, and while they remained hard and cold goddesses most of the time, his seduction and his danger would come through softness, through wiles that could in other contexts (and especially post-WWII) be considered feminine. And it's beautiful to watch him play those power games, not with the airs of a Flynn-like dashing hero (to whom the woman should yield by default because he's the hero and... dashing) or a Bogart-style tough guy with the heart of gold whose hidden gentleness is gradually revealed to exist, yet whose gruff masculinity is always ready to snap back shut around him and confine him in its cage. Oh, no. Connie the panther was something different. Where the glorious divas he courted were firm and strong, he would wear away at them like the waves of the sea smooth out stone: he would softly slither around them, cast his long lashes down as he ate them with his eyes, caressed them with his shadow, at times possessing them with one soft word, with his fingers suddenly closing around a lady's wrist in a seductive caress that would swiftly turn into an erotic, sadomasochistic stranglehold.
And it was through those tough and strong and cool and aloof and no-nonsense ladies that I finally started to discover what it was about Connie, I think. For a long while, I have been marvelling at the ladies of classic cinema because they were strong and did not spend their features wringing their hands about their relationships and being neurotic as hell. Yes, Sex and the City, Bridget Jones, the internet, I am looking at you. Nowadays, that's pretty much the standard of the female heroine, whereas in the olden days, the great heroines would not waste time sitting around and whining and would just get on with their lives. They didn't spend hours and hours debating their identities and their relationships to other people--they would go and do what they wanted to do, take what they wanted, and would take no prisoners. There's an astonishing lack of neuroticism in the classical leading lady--oh, she may worry at times, but the core of her strength is unwavering. She may even descend into drink and misery but she will still remain strong inside. She will do what she wants and that's that. When Mae West wants a guy, she will take him. When Bette Davis drinks, you shut the hell up and pour her another one. And don't, for a moment, think Lauren Bacall will waste a moment on you if you don't know how to whistle.
And it's that sort of strength, that sort of self-confidence without which you can't have the most magical, the most captivating thing of all: glamour. Glamour, in the oldest sense of the word, a spell, an allure, something incredibly seductive, something you need a powerful sorceress to wield, something a cute girl next door can never possess. It's something a grown woman has, a woman who makes her own sexual choices, a woman who conquers (and who, interestingly, was at the time seen as somewhat masculine and terrifying exactly because of that--there are still rumours going around that Mae West was actually a man). And while I was looking for words and terms to describe the "it" in Connie, what set him apart from every other major male film star of the Thirties and Forties, I was astonished to discover that it was exactly that: glamour. Specifically the same type of strong, sexual, seductive glamour with a strong core you would see in a leading lady of the era, with nothing girly or yielding about it (the latter characteristics usually being the ones homophobes, in their misogyny, project on the androgynous man, associating femininity with weakness). That sort of glamour was something you would not usually associate with a man, and that was the thing--his charisma wasn't limited to gender; his seductiveness encompassed a wider range of human sexual expression and that's what made him so interesting. For a 6 ft 3 guy with a strong, at times intimidating and larger-than-life personality to be as erotically magnetic as a screen goddess was what made him such an incredibly powerful sexual presence on screen. Remember, that guy whose voice is as soft as a woman's had the balls to tell the entire Nazi party to go fuck themselves. Yeah, that guy who just flicked his fingers elegantly and leaned over the piano and purred like a tart.
Glamour really is the only word that comes anywhere close to approximating the spell he cast with that feline grace, that magnetic gaze, that elegance of his. There's your typical sort of masculine charisma and charm, that something we would now sum up as "GQMF", and then there's glamour. Glamour is something that happens when a stunning lady enters a room and the room goes quiet. When Bogie enters a room, puffing a fag that way he does, cupping it with his hand, he's wonderfully gruff and cynical and funny, and glares at everyone and pretends he won't stick his neck out for anybody. And that's wonderful. And a classic way for a golden era male star to enter a room. And yet when Connie slinks into the room like the panther he is, in his bow tie and tails, his voice so gentle and soft you automatically go quiet and listen, you are drawn to him like a magnet. And then he lifts his cigarette to his lips and opens his mouth just a little too wide, his tongue and lips just a little too wet and hungry, and you could swear you were watching oral sex. And both fellatio and cunnilingus at the same time at that, which should be impossible, but see how little he cares? See that look with which he undresses everyone in the room, man and woman alike and says "you're next"? That is the glamour of Conrad Veidt, ladies and gentlemen.
(ETA: Come to think of it, I have found yet another way of describing how his sexual charisma is different in the way it claims the people who succumb to it. It's psychology rather than just grabbing someone and kissing them, allure rather than aggression. The pure and innocent heroine is there to be taken, the hero is the one doing the taking, but the femme fatale and The Connie? They make you want to be taken. They enter the room, they do a few things, say a few things, and then you are ensnared. And you follow them upstairs.)
And it really makes me sad that this is the kind of androgyny that is now relegated to the villain and the homosexual character. Or, well, both, since at least villains are still allowed to have a camp edge without being specifically written as gay--yes, there are political Issues there with the whole hangover about gay=evil from the olden days, but think about it: at least the swishy, camp villain is allowed charm and he's allowed to menace the ladies as well--a lot of camp villains still come across as more bi than specifically gay. Don't take my camp villains away in the name of PC--they are the last bastion of the androgynous and pansexual and seductive homme fatal! And I really should make another post on *that* topic, as it's been on my mind quite a lot recently.
After all, while the sexual revolution gifted us with more gay visibility and acceptance and the rise of queer identities, it was very much a double-edged sword: as we all know, now someone's behaviour and presentation are automatically considered markers of identity and orientation and men who we should read as heterosexual or even asexual certainly can't be seen touching each other fondly or adopting mannerisms that would now be considered feminine. In its way, the current popular culture is far more sexist and limiting and confining when it comes to these things, particularily when it comes to male characters. We may catch a glimpse of that glorious old-fashioned androgyny in Johnny Depp's pirate swagger, in the exquisite beauty of Tom Hiddleston's Loki in Thor, but soon those are taken away from us again and Johnny gets the kohl wiped off his eyes and they give up on plucking and dyeing Tom's eyebrows. Robert Downey Jr. may move his hips and walk like a woman, but whatever is androgynous and dandy about him has to be packaged with aggressive verbal swagger and wit, a verbal toughness in the James Bond vein as if to make up for whatever it is that's feminine about him just so you don't, you know, get any ideas of him maybe being weak or something. To appease the hysterical straight male fear of homosexuality, or, to be more precise, a fear of femininity (one that exists even in parts of gay culture) that's around these days, male androgyny has to come with a "fuck you" attitude these days, in defiance of the norm, rather than being the norm it was in the silent movie days. Leading men have to be modelled according to the terms of the frightened, butch heterosexual man these days, which is very sad because of the amount of people and orientations and tastes it leaves out--you only have to look at the combined female fanbases of the aforementioned modern actors to see that. Tom Hiddleston looks like a beautiful lesbian in a movie and cries a lot? He becomes the single most lusted-after male celebrity on the internet. Hollywood has a lot to learn from its past.
So this is why I am in love with an actor who died in 1943. Because he can smoke like that
And flutter his eyelashes like that
And fondle a lady's silk stockings in a way that makes you wonder whether he'd prefer to wear them himself and how utterly hot that would be
And he would still be the most badass, Nazi-pwning motherfucker in the room.