the history of classic cinema
Johanna, Haymitch, Katniss, Peeta, Gale, Finnick.
Classic Hollywood AU. 1156 words.
Summary: Nothing approaching reality touched those movie sets, those movie homes, those people that existed more on screen than they did in their own lives.
Note: For![]()
portions_forfox — ! This is not really what you asked for, but I obviously could not resist. I pretty much based each of them on a pre-existing star, or amalgamation of a few stars. Hope you like it!
They say the only time Johanna Mason ever wears a dress was on screen; in her personal life she's been known to prance around in trousers, even sit with her feet up on the table.
She'd been quite the sensation before the code was set into motion and that's what trapped her: she looks too bundled up in all those trim suits and evening gowns, too bound. She was made for little silken dresses and blouses falling off her shoulders and delightful nakedness, her hair a soft cloud around her mischievous face. It was all in her face, her sly eyes beneath the penciled brows, her ever-smirking lips.
They try and catch her up in all that quick dialogue nowadays, and it just goes nowhere.
Haymitch Abernathy was a real tragedy. Now that enough time has passed they call him a forerunner, a comic genius in the mold of Keaton but not nearly as well known. That's part of what made it such a tragedy.
He wasn't doing anything that anybody else wasn't also doing. Everybody drank, of course, everybody drank all the time. Prohibition was Hollywood's longest running joke, and nothing approaching reality touched those movie sets, those movie homes, those people that existed more on screen than they did in their own lives.
The thing that everyone wondered was why the studio didn't clean it up better, because they certainly could have. He was acquitted anyway, but they could've salvaged his career if they played it right, if they tidied it up like they tidied everything else. They could have run articles to counteract the gossip spreading around about how deep his alcoholism ran, how there had always seemed something ragged and untamed about him. It was that glint in his eye that made girls go so crazy, that savage look, and it was that same glint that convinced everyone of his guilt despite evidence to the contrary.
It made it all seem so plausible, so possible, even though he'd certainly seemed to love his fiancée and it was ridiculous to think he'd actually killed her. But the studio didn't paint the picture right at all, so they must've wanted to get rid of him.
It was so strange to see her sister on the cover of Photoplay after, because they were identical twins, so it was Maysilee's face screwed up in grief over Maysilee's death.
They call Katniss Everdeen a real gem. They found her on a farm somewhere if you can believe it, or something similar, somewhere rustic and steeped in poverty. She's made for silents through their era had long passed by; her beautiful, expressive face, untouched by the Hollywood glamour machine and left natural as it was on those windy back-home fields, is always brimming with some mysterious and deep emotion. She is unfathomable, so all anybody wants to do is figure her out.
She can't say a line convincingly for anything, though somehow that just adds to it – she's a girl who can't fake a thing, a girl thrust in front of a camera who'd rather be outside with leaves under her feet. She is the most natural of all naturals. She's pure.
But she starts getting involved in all kinds of curious things, foreign films and political statements, and she runs out on her wedding, betraying all those fans who wrote in day after day begging her to marry Peeta Mellark since they're so perfect on film together. Even the president himself weighs in on Katniss Everdeen, says what a pity it is when a good girl gets so very lost.
Peeta Mellark is decency personified, charm and goodness hand in hand, the nicest boy anyone could hope to have. Sometimes they would send him and Katniss on the late night talk show circuits together and that spark they had would be on full view: the way her remoteness was warmed by his accessibility and his enthusiasm tempered by her level head. It was easy to see how much he loved her, too. He would light right up, glancing at her reserved but half-smiling face as he relayed some on-set pranks or anecdotes, his hands moving in animated, expansive gestures.
And he's beautiful too, because they're always beautiful, all blonde hair with a natural wave and bright blue eyes against sun-warmed skin. Effortlessly he moves between the silliest of comedies and most heartbreaking of pathos, but everybody wants him in romances, and especially romances with Katniss. Her distant blushing beauty and poor acting seem to bloom and melt by turns under the heat of his ever-respectful advances.
After Katniss breaks their engagement and runs off, he doesn't marry either, devoted to the end. All the girls weep for him, devoted to the end.
Gale Hawthorne certainly creates a stir. A backwoods boy who left school half because he didn't need it and mostly to work for his family, who went right into the army young as he could, who came out a war hero with a dark look in his eyes – well, who could resist? He prowls around the edges of the screen in t-shirts and denim, and in his personal life is found more often on the back of a motorbike than anywhere else. By turns charismatic and surly, he is definitely out of sorts amongst his contemporaries in their gray flannel suits, boys with hearts of gold.
The stage found him first and the studios follow after like dogs on the trail of fresh blood. Gale seems to look down on his craft as much as he excels in it, saying again and again how meaningless his contributions are. He only says some lines written by somebody else – it's hardly anything special.
But pictured on a poster with those gray eyes glaring, clothes dirtied and torn, a threat withheld in every tense muscle – there's something there indeed.
Finnick gets his start as a swashbuckler on the silver screen, electric grins and playful winks. But off the screen, on gray and tan streets, he's most often to be found in somebody's bed or with his feet kicked up next to a washed-up Johanna Mason, drinking her drink, whiskey straight. When he gets teased about being a playboy by journalists, Johanna answers for him, "This boy can't even commit to dinner."
They put him in a melodrama with a teen starlet named Annie Cresta, a girl with instability writ in her blood, playing a part that mirrors her actual life and all her various disappearances for "exhaustion." Her innocent and intelligent wide-eyed beauty against his burning magnificence ignites something. All anyone can ever say is that he's the most stunning creature they've ever seen, that he's got talent like nobody else, and they reach for him with many grasping hands for a piece of that light.
It's no surprise when he burns out early, dead behind the wheel of a car taking a perilous turn in Beverly Hills.
Johanna, Haymitch, Katniss, Peeta, Gale, Finnick.
Classic Hollywood AU. 1156 words.
Summary: Nothing approaching reality touched those movie sets, those movie homes, those people that existed more on screen than they did in their own lives.
Note: For
portions_forfox — ! This is not really what you asked for, but I obviously could not resist. I pretty much based each of them on a pre-existing star, or amalgamation of a few stars. Hope you like it!They say the only time Johanna Mason ever wears a dress was on screen; in her personal life she's been known to prance around in trousers, even sit with her feet up on the table.
She'd been quite the sensation before the code was set into motion and that's what trapped her: she looks too bundled up in all those trim suits and evening gowns, too bound. She was made for little silken dresses and blouses falling off her shoulders and delightful nakedness, her hair a soft cloud around her mischievous face. It was all in her face, her sly eyes beneath the penciled brows, her ever-smirking lips.
They try and catch her up in all that quick dialogue nowadays, and it just goes nowhere.
Haymitch Abernathy was a real tragedy. Now that enough time has passed they call him a forerunner, a comic genius in the mold of Keaton but not nearly as well known. That's part of what made it such a tragedy.
He wasn't doing anything that anybody else wasn't also doing. Everybody drank, of course, everybody drank all the time. Prohibition was Hollywood's longest running joke, and nothing approaching reality touched those movie sets, those movie homes, those people that existed more on screen than they did in their own lives.
The thing that everyone wondered was why the studio didn't clean it up better, because they certainly could have. He was acquitted anyway, but they could've salvaged his career if they played it right, if they tidied it up like they tidied everything else. They could have run articles to counteract the gossip spreading around about how deep his alcoholism ran, how there had always seemed something ragged and untamed about him. It was that glint in his eye that made girls go so crazy, that savage look, and it was that same glint that convinced everyone of his guilt despite evidence to the contrary.
It made it all seem so plausible, so possible, even though he'd certainly seemed to love his fiancée and it was ridiculous to think he'd actually killed her. But the studio didn't paint the picture right at all, so they must've wanted to get rid of him.
It was so strange to see her sister on the cover of Photoplay after, because they were identical twins, so it was Maysilee's face screwed up in grief over Maysilee's death.
They call Katniss Everdeen a real gem. They found her on a farm somewhere if you can believe it, or something similar, somewhere rustic and steeped in poverty. She's made for silents through their era had long passed by; her beautiful, expressive face, untouched by the Hollywood glamour machine and left natural as it was on those windy back-home fields, is always brimming with some mysterious and deep emotion. She is unfathomable, so all anybody wants to do is figure her out.
She can't say a line convincingly for anything, though somehow that just adds to it – she's a girl who can't fake a thing, a girl thrust in front of a camera who'd rather be outside with leaves under her feet. She is the most natural of all naturals. She's pure.
But she starts getting involved in all kinds of curious things, foreign films and political statements, and she runs out on her wedding, betraying all those fans who wrote in day after day begging her to marry Peeta Mellark since they're so perfect on film together. Even the president himself weighs in on Katniss Everdeen, says what a pity it is when a good girl gets so very lost.
Peeta Mellark is decency personified, charm and goodness hand in hand, the nicest boy anyone could hope to have. Sometimes they would send him and Katniss on the late night talk show circuits together and that spark they had would be on full view: the way her remoteness was warmed by his accessibility and his enthusiasm tempered by her level head. It was easy to see how much he loved her, too. He would light right up, glancing at her reserved but half-smiling face as he relayed some on-set pranks or anecdotes, his hands moving in animated, expansive gestures.
And he's beautiful too, because they're always beautiful, all blonde hair with a natural wave and bright blue eyes against sun-warmed skin. Effortlessly he moves between the silliest of comedies and most heartbreaking of pathos, but everybody wants him in romances, and especially romances with Katniss. Her distant blushing beauty and poor acting seem to bloom and melt by turns under the heat of his ever-respectful advances.
After Katniss breaks their engagement and runs off, he doesn't marry either, devoted to the end. All the girls weep for him, devoted to the end.
Gale Hawthorne certainly creates a stir. A backwoods boy who left school half because he didn't need it and mostly to work for his family, who went right into the army young as he could, who came out a war hero with a dark look in his eyes – well, who could resist? He prowls around the edges of the screen in t-shirts and denim, and in his personal life is found more often on the back of a motorbike than anywhere else. By turns charismatic and surly, he is definitely out of sorts amongst his contemporaries in their gray flannel suits, boys with hearts of gold.
The stage found him first and the studios follow after like dogs on the trail of fresh blood. Gale seems to look down on his craft as much as he excels in it, saying again and again how meaningless his contributions are. He only says some lines written by somebody else – it's hardly anything special.
But pictured on a poster with those gray eyes glaring, clothes dirtied and torn, a threat withheld in every tense muscle – there's something there indeed.
Finnick gets his start as a swashbuckler on the silver screen, electric grins and playful winks. But off the screen, on gray and tan streets, he's most often to be found in somebody's bed or with his feet kicked up next to a washed-up Johanna Mason, drinking her drink, whiskey straight. When he gets teased about being a playboy by journalists, Johanna answers for him, "This boy can't even commit to dinner."
They put him in a melodrama with a teen starlet named Annie Cresta, a girl with instability writ in her blood, playing a part that mirrors her actual life and all her various disappearances for "exhaustion." Her innocent and intelligent wide-eyed beauty against his burning magnificence ignites something. All anyone can ever say is that he's the most stunning creature they've ever seen, that he's got talent like nobody else, and they reach for him with many grasping hands for a piece of that light.
It's no surprise when he burns out early, dead behind the wheel of a car taking a perilous turn in Beverly Hills.