Who is the Character?

The Character i have chosen is Sally Bowels as discussed before, Sally Bowel's Character within the Book 'Goodbye to Berlin' 1930 Christopher Isherwood Chapter 'Sally Bowels' is described as a 19 years old girl with big eyes and dark hair is comes across very flamboyant, naive, endearing and at some points selfish. 

'i notices her finger nails were unfortunately painted emerald green a colour much unfortunately chosen as it paid attention to her hands witch were much stained by cigarette smoking and as dirty as a little girls. She was dark enough to be Fritz's sister. Her face was long and thin, powdered dead white. She had very large brown eyes which should have been darker, to match her hair and the pencil she used for her eyebrows.'

-Isherwood, C. (1989). Goodbye to Berlin. London: Minerva.

This era in berlin was a life of sex, party's, drink and drugs. Sally's Character portrays the very situation with berlin in the 30's, an English rose running away from her family to follow her dreams in berlin's exciting city. Sally's big dream is to become a famous actress she uses the stage within the club she works (Lady Windermere or with in the film 'Cabaret' Kit Kat Klub) as her following her dream's sleeping with who ever she can to get to the top. I want to explore this area as its such a huge part within the characterisation of Sally Bowels. 

'She Had a surprising deep husky voice. She sung badly, without any expression, her hands hanging down at her sides- yet her performance was, in its own way, effective because of her startling appearance and her air of not caring a curse what people thought of her.'

-Isherwood, C. (1989). Goodbye to Berlin. London: Minerva.

The images below are from the 1930's club scene in Berlin, this time was so exciting and new the economy was in decrease 'The Great depression' so women and men would do what ever they could to make a little money this created a huge sex scene creating a reputation of anything goes within Berlin city. 

Sally's character is competing within this industry within the clubs her character to me is constantly asking for attention she wants people to notice her and remember her, for example the green nail varnish in the 1930's red varnish was the common colour to wear this made sally stand out from the crowd something she is constantly yearning for. 

Johns, M. (2014). Weimar Berlin. [online] Pinterest. Available at: http://uk.pinterest.com/milliejohns/weimar-berlin/ [Accessed 27 Nov. 2014].

 I want to create a further understanding of the 30's as this will help influence my Sally Bowels character design. What was popular? Who was the icon's of the time? Religion? Politics?

The 30's was the height of the art deco movement it emerged from the inter war period when rapid industrilisation was transforming culture. It was a modern style that developed using symmetry and the rectangular shapes rather than curved shapes responding to the demands of the machine and the requirements of mass production. Art deco styles were popular within consumer products as well as fine art used for products such as furniture, textiles, jewellery, architecture and influences on fashion.

Johns, M. (2014). Weimar Berlin. [online] Pinterest. Available at: http://uk.pinterest.com/milliejohns/weimar-berlin/ [Accessed 27 Nov. 2014].

Tamara de Lempicka a polish artist of the time, one of her paintings 'the musician' 1929 i found very interesting as it was painted in 1929 very close to the 30's the style of the woman looks very modern and clean cut using vibrant colours creates that modern feel. This image not only shows that art deco style but the style of the women of the time, the image to me portrays the entertainment industry using bright colours in a very depressive time is symbolic to the attitude of Sally Bowels nothing much stops her this could be an interesting way of portraying sally using bright out there colours with her makeup could help portray her attitude towards getting to were she wants.  

Wikipedia, (2014). Tamara de Lempicka. [online] Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamara_de_Lempicka [Accessed 27 Nov. 2014].

Music of the time i feel is important for my development of Sally Bowels, as this would have been the genre of music she would be singing in the clubs and Christopher Isherwood would have been listening too when writing his book. Swing music became very popular within the 1930's slowly replacing Jazz by 1935. below i have found a video of the music of the 1930's i feel listening to it can allow me to picture the club in which sally sings.