"Pentimento" is also the book that revealed the legendary quote from Tallullah Bankhead : "Cocaine's not addictive! I should know, I've been doing it for years!" I certainly hope that Ms. Hellman didn't make THAT up.

In her book " I remember nothing" Nora Ephron talks at length about meeting Lillian and being just in awe of who she was as a person but later discovering that her whole story of heroism was really just a farce but ultimately feeling a sense of genuine sadness for this older woman who was grasping at the straws to cling to this hero narrative she created. I highly recommend it

I think one of her biggest mistakes was just marketing her work as non-fiction, I don’t need a story to be 100% true to speak to some universal truth or artistic message. Anyone who has taken a creative writing class knows that they encourage you to draw on memory and you can write a story “inspired by true events” but not necessarily exactly what happened. I’m sure plenty of other authors and public figures have told similar aggrandizing lies and their image would fall apart like a house of cards upon further scrutiny.

I love the quote from Mary McCarthy: Every word she writes is a lie, including "and" and "the."

Lillian Hellman: She must tell me how I lied
Martha Gellhorn: Bet

My personal opinion is that Hellman didn’t simply misremember a story she’d been told about someone else. I believe that since the lawyer she and Muriel had both known died in 1951, Hellman would have had no way to know at the time of Pentimento that the woman whose story she inserted herself into was actually still alive. It’s interesting to me how her recollection of “Julia’s” life is almost 100% accurate except for the glaringly obvious difference about Muriel being alive and her Julia being deceased yet all of the inconsistencies and inaccuracies only come into play when they’re related to her involvement in the story. I think that’s because she did take Muriel’s story, probably not even thinking a woman who had lived such a full and dramatic life could’ve still been alive, and inserted herself into it to portray herself as the ultimate anti-fascist as a way to reiterate that she wasn’t black-listed for being a communist, but for refusing to be complicit in fascism. I think she felt she could get away with it because the lawyer who first told her about Muriel had passed away and she assumed no one would be around to contradict her.

The part where you say that Jane Fonda did not disappear into the role and what she brought to it were the characteristics specific to Jane Fonda as a performer, this is what I think of Susan Sarandon‘s Oscar winning performance in Dead Man Walking. After watching it, I saw a TV interview with Sister Helen Prejean, and Sarandon did not attempt in any way shape or form to be anything like Prejean. Prejean is spunky and feisty, Sarandon made the character much more soft and genteel. I don’t think her performance would have been as moving if she had tried to do an imitation of Prejean, and I think it’s the same with Jane Fonda in this movie.

You know what I would love? A video about all these "women films" from the 70s, that feminist wave that took over Hollywood from mid to late 70s and then disappeared without a trace. Sally Field, Jill Clayburgh, Marsha Mason, Ellen Burstyn and Jane Fonda herself, they all thrived in those short years and there's a great case in that! 🤗

The Jane Fonda incident referred to took place in North Vietnam not South.

This was FASCINATING!  What a sh¡tty thing to do, though.  I had to laugh when Mary McCarthy listed John Steinbeck among the overrated, because I only recently learned the story of how he had stolen a lot of material for “The Grapes of Wrath” from journalist and author Sanora Baab in much the same way that Hellman stole ideas for “Pentimento” from Muriel Gardiner:  through a common acquaintance.  Baab’s notes about conditions in California’s migrant camps in the 1930’s were shared with Steinbeck by her supervisor at the Farm Security Administration, without her permission, of course.  Baab incorporated her notes into a novel that was enthusiastically accepted for publication, then quashed when “Grapes”, which was published first, became a bestseller (Baab’s novel would eventually be published in 2004 as “Whose Names Are Unknown”).  Steinbeck’s act of theft, ironically, would provide an iconic cinematic role for another member of the Fonda family (Henry as Tom Joad).

Your videos should amount to an elective for a film studies course, honestly. I have learned so much from your channel.

The defamation suit was unresolved at the time of Hellman's death in 1984; her executors eventually withdrew the complaint.

I WAS JUST WONDERING WHEN YOU’D POST AGAIN, BLESS YOU ❤️❤️❤️

The Jane Fonda incident was in North Vietnam, not South Vietnam.

Julia's strength is its lyricism; it captures a great platonic love with watchful awe and not many words.

For those intrigued by Muriel Gardiner, there is a book she authored - “Code Name Mary: Memoirs Of An American Woman In The Austrian Underground”. It was written after Gardiner had been alerted to the Hellman book. Another excellent book about Muriel Gardiner’s heroic life is “Muriel’s War: An American Heiress In The Nazi Resistance”, written by Sheila Isenberg. Both are satisfying rabbit holes.

Since I didn’t know this story, I actually gasped when you said Julia wasn’t true. Great video! Probably one my favs from you 🧡

I'm 65 and had never heard of this scandal. Just listening to Lillian Hellman say on television that she had changed all the names in the Julia story to "protect" people sounded so unbelievable to me. These people would have been praised to high heaven for their anti-Nazi activities. No, Lillian Hellman obviously recognized a good story when she heard it somewhere and immediately worked herself into it. It was just one chapter in a collection of stories, who would ever know? When the story became the focus of so much attention, she just dug herself deeper and deeper into a quagmire of lies.

wow, this video truly had twist and turns that I wasn't expecting! Lillian Hellman was truly trying to be the main character.

“ A Likely Story “ is a terrific book about being Lillian Hellman’s au pair one summer on Cape Cod