The Redundant Read

People ask me, “Why did you read over one hundred books, articles and reviews about Sarah Bernhardt in advance of writing your script, screenplay and songs? It’s a good question. There was unquestionably a boatload of redundancy. There are many books that provide an excellent overview like Cornelia Otis Skinner’s Madame Sarah, Robert Gottlieb’s Sarah: The Life of Sarah Bernhardt and Ruth Brandon’s Being Divine. But that is not enough if you want to create a truly engaging script, one that draws people in and has them sitting on the edge of their seats. For that you need what is sometimes referred to as the special sauce, that added spice that comes from reading books that share a fresh perspective.

Some examples that demonstrate unique perspectives include:

   A friend – Therese Berton’s Sarah Bernhardt As I Knew Her

   A friend and actor – Sasha Guitry’s Souvenirs: Si j’ai bonne memoire

   A friend and composer – Reynaldo Hahn’s Sarah Bernhardt

   A friend and author – Maurice Rostand’s Sarah Bernhardt 

   A friend and confidant – Suze Rueff’s I Knew Sarah Bernhardt

   A leading man and lover – Lou Tellegen’s Women Have Been Kind

   A student -  May Agate’s Madame Sarah

   A granddaughter – Lysiane Bernhardt’s Sarah Bernhardt ma Grand’mere

   A grandson-in-law – Louis Verneuil’s The Fabulous Life of Sarah Bernhardt

   A genealogist – Harmon Snel’s  The Ancestry of Sarah Bernhardt: A Myth Unraveled

These books among others provided information that could not be found anywhere else. When I learned Bernhardt had an Orthodox Jewish grandmother, I decided to include a song whose melody had Eastern European Klezmer overtones. When I learned that Bernhardt’s grandfather’s name was Moritz, it became clear that she had named her son, Maurice, after him – which is a tradition with Ashkenazic Jews. Over and over, I uncovered buried jewels that helped me season the screenplay and songs for the movie.