Greta Garbo: Portraits, 1920-1951

Excerpt from the foreword by Klaus-Jürgen Sembach:

Melancholy is an essential ingredient. It is this melancholy which tells us that we are confronted with a case without redemption. How else could we—living out our everyday lives—feel that there was something more, if not through that mute reproach?

Cheery secrets are unimaginable. The forest is darker than dark, the ruins are more maze-like than a maze, and the princess is terribly fragile, enchanted and wide-eyed.

Was there ever a more melancholy star than Greta Garbo? What a feeling of loss she conveys, even in a smile! The older this woman grows, the more intense the aura of suffering around her. Deeprooted pain shimmers through the glamor. Her mouth and her eyes gradually harden, her look becomes reproachful and many of her gestures reveal that she is on the defensive. She grows old before her years, and finally it can no longer be overlooked how severe she seems.

Published in 1985 by Rizzoli

160 pages / Paperback