The Spectacle of the Unreal: A Guest Post by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
From Mexican Gothic to Silver Nitrate and more, we’ve loved Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s mind-bending tales, and this time, she’s taking us to 1950s Hollywood. A glimpse into the inner-workings of blockbuster films and old Hollywood, Moreno-Garcia gives B&N readers an exclusive look into the research and inspiration of The Seventh Veil of Salome, down below.
Hardcover $28.99
The Seventh Veil of Salome (GMA Book Club Pick)
The Seventh Veil of Salome (GMA Book Club Pick)
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Hardcover $28.99
Silvia Moreno-Garcia takes us back to 1950s Los Angeles — and ancient Judea. Lush and lavish, The Seventh Veil of Salome tells the story of two rival actresses and invites us to peek behind the curtain of Hollywood and history.
Silvia Moreno-Garcia takes us back to 1950s Los Angeles — and ancient Judea. Lush and lavish, The Seventh Veil of Salome tells the story of two rival actresses and invites us to peek behind the curtain of Hollywood and history.
Genres rise and fall through time. Take the romcoms of the 1990s, which made stars out of Meg Ryan and Julia Roberts, or the popularity of the superhero franchise during the 2000s. In the 1950s, the equivalent of the Marvel event of the summer were sword-and-sandal films. During this time, Italy churned many low-budget historical epics set in the Ancient World, and Hollywood produced its fair share of mega spectacles such as The Ten Commandments or Cleopatra.
My latest novel, The Seventh Veil of Salome, takes place in Hollywood in 1955 during the filming of a Biblical movie. Unlike some of my best-known novels, such as Mexican Gothic, this is not a genre piece. You won’t find any vampires or ghosts here. Told in two timelines and through multiple perspectives, it is about the making of a film, the struggles of two actresses, and the life at court of the titular character, Salome. And yet, while not a genre work, the book is concerned with imagination and fantasy.
While writing The Seventh Veil of Salome I researched the court of King Herod, but I also spent time watching deeply ahistorical films. Frequently, the costumes, the hair, the social norms of many sword-and-sandal films are anachronistic. When you watch Land of the Pharaohs or Ben Hur, what you are seeing is obviously, deliciously fake.
You might argue that all films are fake. After all, Samson and Delilah is not meant to be a documentary. But there is a special sort of fakery that slips into sword-and-sandal films, like when you realize that an Italian actor has been dubbed into English, or the colors on the screen are so saturated that they seem to leap off the screen.
At the same time, there is an impressiveness to those films, a sense of realness which is derived, no doubt, by the practical sets, large number of extras, and the lavishness of the productions. Everything feels massive and grand; even modest productions retain their charm. More modern films, with their reliance on CGI, on the other hand, often feel small, everything is a bit plastic. The sheer grandiosity that permeated everything from dialogue to set design in classic epic films is difficult to replicate nowadays, nor are producers very interested in trying to do so.
Therefore, while I did look through plenty of history books discussing the Herodian dynasty or the life of Emperor Augustus, I knew all sections told from the point of view of Salome needed to evoke a sensation of ‘realness,’ while also maintaining the heightened drama found in movies. Without ever slipping into the realm of fantasy, The Seventh Veil of Salome is therefore a tribute to movie magic and the limits of the plausible.
