Breakfast at Tiffany's read the summary. Truman Capote "Breakfast at Tiffany's"
I'm pretty sure that for most people, when they think of the book "Breakfast at Tiffany's", the image of Audrey Hepburn, who played the role of Holly Golightly in the film of the same name, and also graces the various covers of this work, automatically pops up in their memory. Short haircut, gathered at the top, tinted glasses and a light smile in the corner of her mouth - this is exactly how Holly looks at us from the covers and posters for the film. Whether you like it or not, it is this image that haunts you while reading, and even if you wanted to create your own image of Holly Golightly, I am sure that in most cases it would not be much different from what you have already seen.
I sometimes wonder what attracts books like Breakfast and Tiffany? Books without a special plot load, without active incidents and events built on fitful conversations, sometimes clichéd, similar to what we have seen before in Fitzgerald, perhaps Jerome Salinger. In my opinion, the answer is extremely simple - it's their charm. The novel "Breakfast and Tiffany", in fact, like the books of the above writers, is endowed with its own special and unique charm, their atmospheric absorbs the reader with his head; such books have an amazing ability to create a 3D reality, they make it possible to travel in time. Like a tourist traveling to different parts of the world, reading this book, I can say that I visited New York in the 50s and looked into Brazil of those times from the corner of my eye! Similar feelings arise when reading Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises: it seems as if you are going to Spain next to his characters, watching a bullfight, fishing in a mountain river...
Frankly speaking, I did not create anything ingenious! He took a rather average plot component in its essence, seasoned it with quite typical cliched turns and decided not to load his work with deep moral and philosophical reflections. However, the brightest thing in his book is the image of the young girl Holly! Such books are definitely valued not by morality and plot, but by their images.
Who is Holly Golightly? An adventurer, a rake, a hypocrite, a frivolous person? Everyone will surely be able to characterize it in a special way, without repetition, and certainly one epithet is not enough here. I would call her a nostalgic woman! In our life, there are often people who appear at a certain stage, and then suddenly disappear without a trace, and the only thing left of them is memory. Of course, this person can send a bright postcard from Brazil and write a few words, but the feeling that this person has left your life forever never leaves. All that's left is nostalgia. This is exactly what Fred (the narrator in the book) is doing - he is nostalgic about his passing acquaintance with unusual girl and that fleeting segment of life spent next to her.
Also, the feeling that Truman Capote flavored his book with details from own life. The image he created of 19-year-old Holly was not taken out of thin air; How many cuties has he seen in his life?! In addition, Truman's mother was married to a man who had served 14 months in Sing Sing prison, just like the gangster Sally Tomato, whom Holly visited on weekly visits. There is no doubt that Capote, although he did not copy, was clearly inspired by the image of Marilyn Monroe, the basis of which he adopted for his novel. After all, it was her writer who saw in the image of Holly in the future film adaptation, and therefore was very disappointed to learn that another actress was approved for this role.
As I noted earlier, the story is told from the perspective of Fred, a young aspiring writer who is dating the attractive Holly. She shares an apartment with Fred in New York during World War II. He meets her for the first time under unusual circumstances, later parties are often held in her home, the guests of which are mainly middle-aged and various kinds of men. Such a way of life, of course, cannot but attract sideways glances.
As Fred becomes close friends with Holly, he discovers another side of Holly's personality. She is, on the one hand, an ordinary person, having dinner with directors from Hollywood, rich people and other prominent figures and, of course, dreaming of a profitable party for herself. In the whirlwind of such inconstancy, her only consolation is the establishment at Tiffany's, which for her looks like the real realization of all her aspirations. But on the other hand, she lives in a separate world in which the self-created "I" is so divorced from the dull reality that even Holly herself is hardly able to distinguish her own pose from casual behavior. She says that this could go on forever, but there are several moments in the book when she really exposes her soul and her true self, not fictional or pompous. by the most a prime example, perhaps, we can consider the case with the thrown out cat (another manifestation of her posturing), but less than a minute later she jumped out of the car and, with tears, began to look for the cat that had already run away. Alas, she rarely became so sincere.
Breakfast at Tiffany's was filmed in 1961 based on a novel by Truman Capote. Audrey Hepburn played the title role, Holly Golightly. After the film's release, her character gained a cult following.
The film's controversial aspects, including Mickey Rooney as Mr. Younoshi and Holly's occupation, haven't really dampened the popularity of the classic Blake Edwards movie, even 45 years later.
Below are some of the most surprising facts about Breakfast at Tiffany's.
Truman Capote wanted Holly to play Marilyn Monroe
Paula Strasberg, Marilyn Monroe's advisor and acting coach, told her not to play "one night stand" and the actress took the advice. Capote, to the last, opposed the choice in favor of Audrey. According to him, the film will be "wrong" with her.
Shirley MacLaine turned down the offer
Shirley MacLaine, then and now a successful actress, says it was her mistake to turn down an offer for a role in Breakfast. Now she remembers it with regret.
Audrey Hepburn doubted until the last
In an interview with The New York Times, Audrey said that it was very difficult for her to make a decision. Mostly because of their own self-criticism. Hepburn considered herself a very young and inexperienced actress for such a role and was not sure that she would pull it out on one "instinct". The fact is that she got it two hundred percent. 
By the way, it was Blake Edwards who saw this potential in her and convinced her first, and then everyone else.
Directed by Frankenheimer
Initially, Frankenmeicher was supposed to be the director of the future masterpiece. But Audrey only accepted the role with Blake Edwards at the helm.
Paul could be Steve McQueen
Although Edwards managed to get Hepburn, he was not destined to see McQueen as the main character. As well as another option - Tony Curtis.
Nobody liked Peppard
Final Performer leading role nobody liked it. Edwards didn't want him, but Peppard practically begged for a full-time job. Even being on the set, the actor constantly argued with the director, on every occasion. Audrey, on the other hand, found her partner "pompous", and she did not like this attitude towards him from others. 
"Deceit" for censors
The film's script might have seemed too vulgar for the time, so Sumner Locke Elliot and George Axelrod struggled to get around " sharp corners". They focused on Paul and did not focus on Holly's occupation.
The main character's dress was made to order.
Holly's little black dress was custom-made by Hubert de Givenchy. It was the perfect combination: after all, the designer had already worked with Audrey more than once.
By the way, Hepburn's Tiffany outfit was auctioned off in 2006 for $900,000.
Secrets about voice acting
Fred Flintstone was voiced by Alan Reid. It is a fact. But some think he sounded too much like the legendary Mel Blanc. 
Tiffany opens on Sunday for the first time since the 19th century
Actually, the famous store doesn't open at this time. But for the sake of the film they did even that. In addition, forty armed guards were on duty to prevent theft.
Party Sacrifices
Holly's party is pretty much the most expensive and time-consuming part of the entire movie. Extras as Edwards' friends, champagne, 120 liters of soft drinks, 60 boxes of cigarettes, hot dogs, sausages, chips, sauces and sandwiches for this shot. To create a sufficient amount of smoke also had to work hard.
Mickey Rooney is ashamed of his role
The role of Mr. Yunioshi for Mickey Rooney was not the best, according to his own statement. The actor said he was ashamed of her. Edwards himself expressed regret.
"Moon River" was almost cut from the movie
The lyricist of the beautiful song Holly sings on the balcony, Johnny Mercer, originally titled it "Blue River" before realizing there were already songs by that title.
Henry Mancini spent another month trying to come up with a suitable tune. "It was one of the hardest things I've ever had to write, because I couldn't figure out what and how this lady would sing up there on the fire escape," Mancini said.
According to one version, the president of Paramount Pictures, Marty Rankin, after the first screening of the film said that the song should be cut.
In another version of this story, one of the producers said that the song should be rewritten.
In both cases, the reaction was Audrey's cheeky and witty response, which "helped" the song to be heard by the world. As a result, "Moon River" won the Academy Award for best song.
Hepburn wrote a note to Mancini
The note said: “I just saw our picture. A film without music is like a plane without fuel. However, the work is beautifully done, although we are still on the ground and in real world. Your music is inspiring. Thank you dear Hank."
She signed it: "S big love, Audrey."
Holly is not a call girl, according to Capote
Truman Capote in an interview with Playboy in 1968, he remarked that Holly Golightly was not a call girl. Rather, she is a common image of a genuine American geisha at that time.
The studio also made sure of Holly's integrity
Golightly was not officially signed as a "call girl". In a press release, she was defined by the term "cook" (according to the producer, Martin Dzhurov, this is "a kitten that will never grow into a cat"). It was also important to point out because she was played by "the star Audrey Hepburn, not the gaudy Hepburn".
Vanderbilt may have been Holly's inspiration
The image of Holly was partially influenced by the Vanderbilt heiress, dancer Joan McCracken, Carol Grace, Lilly Mae (T. Capote's mother, her name is similar to real name Holly - Lula Mae), Carol Marcus, Author Doris Lilly, Phoebe Pierce (Capote's high school girlfriend), Oona O'Neil Chaplin, writer and journalist Maeve Brennan, and model and actress Susie Parker.
Capote, however, denied all this and often claimed that the real Holly was a woman who lived below him in early 1940.
Holly Golightly's apartment at number 18 was sold for seven million
Seven point four million dollars - that's how much the apartment of Holly Golightly, the girl who loved breakfast at Tiffany's, was sold in June 2015. The corresponding interior was left in it, because inside the "brownstone", put up for the first time at auction in 2014 for 10 million, the same atmosphere remained.
I am always drawn to the places where I once lived, to the houses, to the streets. There is, for example, a large dark house on one of the seventies streets of the East Side, in which I settled at the beginning of the war, when I first arrived in New York. There I had a room filled with all sorts of junk: a sofa, pot-bellied armchairs upholstered in rough red plush, at the sight of which one recalls a stuffy day in a soft carriage. The walls were painted with adhesive paint the color of tobacco chewing gum. Everywhere, even in the bathroom, hung engravings of Roman ruins, freckled with age. The only window overlooked the fire escape. But all the same, as soon as I felt for the key in my pocket, my soul became more cheerful: this housing, for all its dullness, was my first own housing, there were my books, glasses with pencils that could be repaired - in a word, everything, it seemed to me, to become a writer.
In those days it never occurred to me to write about Holly Golightly, and I probably wouldn't even now, if it weren't for a conversation with Joe Bell that stirred my memories again.
Holly Golightly lived in the same house, she rented an apartment below me. And Joe Bell ran a bar around the corner on Lexington Avenue; he still holds it. Both Holly and I went there six times, seven times a day, not to drink - not only for this - but to make phone calls: during the war it was difficult to get a phone. In addition, Joe Bell willingly ran errands, which was burdensome: Holly always had a great many of them.
Of course, this is all a long story, and until last week I had not seen Joe Bell for several years. From time to time we called each other; sometimes, when I was nearby, I went to his bar, but we were never friends, and our only friendship with Holly Golightly connected us. Joe Bell - man is not easy, he himself admits this and explains that he is a bachelor and that he has high acidity. Anyone who knows him will tell you that it is difficult to communicate with him. It's just not possible if you don't share his affections, and Holly is one of them.
Others include hockey, Weimar hunting dogs, Our Baby Sunday (a show he's been listening to for fifteen years) and Gilbert and Sullivan - he claims one of them is related to him, I don't remember who.
So when the phone rang late last Tuesday afternoon and I heard “Joe Bell speaking,” I immediately knew it was about Holly. But he only said: “Can you drop in on me? It's important,” and the croaking voice on the phone was hoarse with excitement.
In the pouring rain, I hailed a taxi and on the way I even thought, what if she is here, what if I see Holly again?
But there was no one there but the owner. Joe Bell's Bar is not a very crowded place compared to other pubs on Lexington Avenue. It boasts neither a neon sign nor a TV. In two old mirrors you can see what the weather is like outside, and behind the counter, in a niche, among photographs of hockey stars, there is always a large vase with a fresh bouquet - they are lovingly arranged by Joe Bell himself. That's what he was doing when I came in.
“You understand,” he said, lowering the gladiolus into the water, “you understand, I would not force you to drag yourself so far, but I need to know your opinion. Strange story! A very strange story happened.
- News from Holly?
He touched the paper as if considering what to say. short, hard gray hair, with a protruding jaw and a bony face that would have suited a much taller man, he always seemed tanned, and now he was even redder.
No, not entirely from her. Rather, it is not yet clear. That is why I want to consult with you. Let me pour you. It's a new cocktail, the White Angel, he said, half-mixing vodka and gin, no vermouth.
While I drank this composition, Joe Bell stood by and sucked on a stomach pill, wondering what he would tell me. Finally said:
“Remember this Mr. I.Ya. Younioshi?” Gentleman from Japan?
- From California.
I remembered Mr. Yunioshi very well. He is a photographer for an illustrated magazine and at one time occupied a studio on the top floor of the house where I lived.
- Don't confuse me. Do you know what I'm talking about? Well, that's great. So, last night, this same Mr. Y. Y. Yunioshi showed up here and rolled up to the counter. I haven't seen him in probably over two years. Where do you think he's been all this time?
- In Africa.
Joe Bell stopped sucking his pill and his eyes narrowed.
– How do you know?
- So it really was.
He cracked open the cash drawer and pulled out a thick paper envelope.
“Perhaps you read that in Winchell’s too?”
There were three photographs in the envelope, more or less the same, although taken from different points: a tall, slender Negro in a cotton skirt with a shy and at the same time self-satisfied smile showed a strange wooden sculpture - an elongated head of a girl with short, smoothed, like a boy's hair and a face tapering downwards; her polished wooden eyes, with a slanting cut, were unusually large, and her large, sharply defined mouth looked like that of a clown. At first glance, the sculpture looked like an ordinary primitive, but only at first, because it was the spitting image of Holly Golightly - if I may say so about a dark inanimate object.
- Well, what do you think about it? said Joe Bell, pleased at my confusion.
- Looks like her.
“Listen,” he slapped his hand on the counter, “this is it. It's clear as daylight. The Japanese immediately recognized her as soon as he saw her.
Did he see her? In Africa?
- Her? No, just a sculpture. What's the difference? You can read what is written here. And he turned over one of the photographs. On the back was the inscription: “Wood carving, C tribe, Tokokul, East Anglia. Christmas, 1956".
At Christmas, Mr. Younoshi drove his apparatus through Tokokul, a village lost in no one knows where, no matter where, just a dozen adobe huts with monkeys in the yards and buzzards on the roofs. He decided not to stop, but suddenly he saw a negro who was squatting at the door and carving monkeys on a cane. Mr. Yunioshi became interested and asked me to show him something else. Then a woman's head was carried out of the house, and it seemed to him - so he told Joe Bell - that it was all a dream. But when he wanted to buy it, the Negro said: "No." Not a pound of salt and ten dollars, not two pounds of salt, a watch and twenty dollars, nothing could shake him. Mr. Yunioshi decided to at least find out the origin of this sculpture, which cost him all his salt and hours. The story was told to him in a mixture of African, gibberish and the language of the deaf and dumb. In general, it turned out that in the spring of this year, three white people emerged from the thickets on horseback.
A young woman and two men. The men, trembling with chills, with feverish eyes, were forced to spend several weeks locked up in a separate hut, and the woman liked the carver, and she began to sleep on his mat.
"That's what I don't believe," Joe Bell said squeamishly. “I know she had all sorts of quirks, but she would hardly have come to that.
- And what's next?
- And then nothing. He shrugged. - She left as she came - she left on a horse.
Alone or with men?
Joe Bell blinked.
Artistic Analysis of Breakfast at Tiffany's
The plot of the film is based on the melodramatic story of the charming adventurer Holly Golightly, shown through the prism of the perception of her life by the young writer Paul Varzhak. He, trying to learn and understand the young socialite, imperceptibly falls in love with the frivolous Holly and thinks about her life. Thus, the theme of finding oneself and one's place in the world becomes central in the film, and the melodramatic comedy acquires a pronounced internal conflict between the characters, bringing the Breakfast at Tiffany's genre closer to a psychological drama.
Image main character very typical of modern American cinema, and for last years Dozens of films about girls who came to conquer New York came out on the screen. The image of Holly Golightly, performed by Audrey Hepburn, became a model for the image of a girl living in big city. The role brought her not only the fame of the highest paid star in Hollywood, but also made her the standard of style that Hepburn is today. Holly Golightly, transferred from the pages novel of the same name Truman Capote on the screen, opened the world new type. By the beginning of the 60s, women became initiative, enterprising and adventurous. And Holly publicly declares her independence and freedom: from men, from other people's opinions, from her own past. Of course, in the latter she was mistaken, and her philosophy collapses when reality interferes with it. But it is wrong to consider this female image anthem of feminism, is fundamentally wrong. Rather, Audrey Hepburn managed to play such a heroine that millions want to imitate. The lifestyle, clothing style, Holly Golightly's statements even gave rise to a new fashion trend, although the film cannot be called a work about the fashion industry.
The young writer Paul Varzhak is a narrative character, even if it is not on his behalf that the story is being told. If in the book he is impersonal, then in the film the authors endowed him with their own story, similar to the story of the main character. Paul also has a great mission - to open the girl's eyes to the naivety of her worldview. He, like Holly, lives on the money of his mistresses, only his position is much more humiliating. He is aware of this and reacts aggressively to reminders of his low status as a "lover on call". And if Holly “sees clearly” only after his words: “You yourself made your cage, and it does not end in Zurich or Somalia! Wherever you run, you will still run to yourself! ”, then Paul, immersed in the world of an adventurous seeker of a rich husband, throughout the film gradually comprehends the fallacy of both his own and her life orientation.
The authors of the film did not limit themselves to two main characters, they introduced a third one, without which the film would not have been so stylish. On the streets of New York unfolding love story, played by Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard. In the original trailer, Paramount showed a mesmerizing city, glitter and shimmer, which has never been seen in the cinema before. “Breakfast…” is still associated with New York, although not many scenes were actually filmed in the city itself! Just 8 shooting days in the city. These are the waterfront scenes Central park, appearance 10th Street Women's Prison, the walls of the house where Holly lived, the area in front of the New York public library and, of course, the Tiffany jewelry boutique. For the first time in history, the store's doors were open on a Sunday, and about 40 vendors and security guards kept an eye on the jewels as the film crew worked.
The presence of a serious internal conflict and the complex contradictions between the characters did not make Breakfast at Tiffany's a full-fledged psychological drama, although it gave melodrama its features. In the film, the signs of comedy are more pronounced, and the characters surrounding the heroes are exaggeratedly comical. Alan Reed, who played the Japanese photographer Sally Tomato, who brought to life the example of a hysterical landlord, can be compared with the brilliant work of Nina Ruslanova and Nonna Mordyukova in the films Be My Husband and The Diamond Arm, respectively. Party guests, cops ex-husband Holly is an example of crazy people that the characters talk about in the evening in Tom's bedroom, having just met. And against their background, naive, with her oddities, hungry for a rich admirer, Holly looks pleased with what is happening. For Paul, this world is alien, ridiculous and false. Between the characters from time to time there are conflicts on the basis of different worldviews, but, in the end, they stay together, overcoming all the obstacles and problems that Holly unknowingly created day after day. So "happy and", a didactic end and bright romantic relationship between the main characters made a full-fledged melodrama out of Truman Capote's short story.
The dramaturgy of the film is classical: events unfold one after another. But due to the presence of two main characters, the manner of narration gradually changes. Prior to the party at Holly's apartment, she acts as a lookout for the new tenant upstairs (Paul), seeing what's happening on screen as if his move would change her life completely. But already at the party, Paul becomes the main contemplative person, to whom Holly is much more interesting than he is to her. For her he new friend, who has only one printed book, and which almost made him, according to Holly, a real writer. For Paul, however, Miss Golightly is not only an occasion for a new story, which he undertakes to write. From this interest in the girl and her fate, friendship between them appears, and soon falling in love.
The film narration of "Breakfast at Tiffany's" begins with the introductory part - the tie-in: Paul's move to new house and meeting Holly. This is followed by plot twists that bring the action closer to the climax: a conversation in the bedroom (the first mention of a brother), a party, a walk around New York and a visit to the Tiffany store. Next, the climax itself. IN this case this is news of the death of Holly's brother, Fred. The denouement shows the consequences of the naivety of the heroine Audrey Hepburn (arrest and disappointment in Jose (a politician from Brazil)) and the connection of Paul and Holly. Important is the episode of Paul's conversation with his mistress, in which the man breaks off relations with her, preferring the poor but beloved Holly. Subsequent episodes showed the maturity of Paul, in contrast to Miss Golightly, who still craved wealth, and not selfless love. These episodes were necessary to give the film a dramatic coloring, they are extremely emotional and keep the viewer in suspense - what will the unpredictable heroine do?
The editing of "Breakfast..." is not innovative, and the imagery and camera angles are typical of melodramas and comedies of that period of American cinema. But, nevertheless, in 1962 the film received five Oscar nominations and took two statuettes - for the best song and the best soundtrack. famous song"Moon River" was written especially for Hepburn. Since she did not have a vocal education, the song was created in such a way that she could perform it in one octave. The song itself during the editing period was even wanted to be excluded from the film, considering it "simple and stupid", but Audrey Hepburn managed to defend it.
