Love, hate, whatever! It's all about me!

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Mel Brooks - isn't he the director of films like Spaceballs and Blazing Saddles? Someone you love or... just not?

That's right! Thursday evening 17 March was all about the American actor, comedian, film director, screenwriter and producer, known for his persiflage and satirical jokes. Based on film fragments, Writers Unlimited film editor Gerlinda Heywegen and writer Arnon Grunberg discussed the phenomenon Mel Brooks.

Arnon Grunberg saw Brooks' first film The Producers (1968) at the right time and in the right place: just after he moved to New York. The film made a great impression on Grunberg. Not least because of its outspoken humour – typically New Yorker, according Brooks himself.

Hollywood and show business were central to this programme. Mel Brooks honoured and persiflated many film genres with his satire. He turned a failed musical about Hitler into a film story (The Producers) and morphed the western (Blazing Saddles), the horror genre (Young Frankenstein) and science fiction (Spaceballs) to his own universe. And then, of course, there is Hitler. Hitler whom he took revenge on, time and again, by making fun of him endlessly.

If you stand on a soapbox and trade rhetoric with a dictator you never win...That's what they do so well: they seduce people. But if you ridicule them, bring them down with laughter, they can't win. You show how crazy they are. - Mel Brooks

Mel Brooks' autobiography, All about me, was recently published, and with more than 450 pages, he isn't going anywhere. Grunberg and Heywegen both praised and detested Brooks. They both agree that he is more than just a joke, but after that, opinions soon differed: love, hate, whatever! It's all about Brooks!

Dutch-language programme.
Programme composed by Gerlinda Heywegen (Writers Unlimited). Book sale by De Vries Van Stockum Boeken.

Information

Date and time Thursday 17 March 2022 from 20:30 to 22:00 hrs
Location Podium B - Centrale Bibliotheek Den Haag, Spui 68, 5e etage

Line-up

Arnon Grunberg

(Netherlands, 1971) is one of the most successful Dutch writers, both at home and abroad. The prolific novelist, columnist, essayist, poet and scriptwriter lives and works mainly in New York. His fiction tackles themes such as religion, parenthood, love and relationships. His essays, columns, debates and performances seek out the polemics on topical issues. His debut novel and international breakthrough, Blauwe maandagen (Blue Mondays, 1994), was followed by award-winning and internationally successful novels such as Phantom Pain (2000), The Asylum Seeker (2003), Tirza (2006), Onze oom (Our Uncle, 2007), Huid en haar (Tooth and Nail, 2010), Moedervlekken (Birthmarks, 2016) and Bezette gebieden (Occupied Territories, 2020). Between 2000 and 2008 he also published novels and essays under the pseudonym Marek van der Jagt. The prize jury called the author "a writer unequalled in ambition, productivity and intellectual power".
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Gerlinda Heywegen

(1968) is a programmer, writer, organizer, lecturer and podcaster, mainly on the subject of film and often in combination with literature. Koning Film is the collective of speakers on film that she established. Heywegen's books include The Other Director, about directors of photography; she collaborated with Frans Westra on Passie voor Cinema (Passion for Cinema), which highlights four decades of film screenings in the Netherlands; and she edited and wrote for the film magazine Skrien. Currently, she writes regularly for the websites of the Netherlands Society of Cinematographers and literary magazine Elders.
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