"Nothing belongs to us in this world. It's just that we and things sometimes find each other."
The plot of the film is uncomplicated. Young, but still almost nobody unknown writer Paul Varjak (George Peppard) meets a very unusual neighbor, Holly Golightly (Audrey Hepburn), who lives all alone. Sometimes she arranges parties where there are people who are completely unknown to her. Everyone treats her differently: someone considers Holly a selfish girl, someone is crazy, and someone just admires her. Paul eventually begins to fall in love with her, and everything would be fine if it were not for the peculiar character of Miss Golightly.
“Do not let wild animals close to your heart. The more love you give them, the more power they have. And one day they will become so strong that they will want to run away into the forest, fly up to the very tops of the trees.
The role of Holly Golightly, if not the best, then certainly one of best roles Audrey Hepburn throughout her career. Stunning camera work only emphasizes its sophistication and beauty. The main character is presented to the viewer as a very optimistic girl with a good sense of humor. No matter how Holly pretends, she is far from stupid, which once hints to Paul.
"I don't mind. Sometimes it pays to look stupid."
There aren't many active characters here. For Edwards, "Breakfast at Tiffany's" is not only beautiful and sad story about love, this is an attempt to create a living person on the screen. Everything that happens, happens one way or another through her fault. A peculiar outlook on life makes the heroine Hepburn real personality, which is endowed with its feelings and thoughts. When you look at Holly, you forget that this is a fictional character by other people. The heroine from the screen seems to come to life and it seems that she is about to speak to you. Golightly loves freedom more than anything. She, like her cat, does not have her own name.
“My old cat, old lazy, lazy with no name. I have no right to give him a name, we do not belong to each other. We just met once. Nothing in this world belongs to us. It’s just that sometimes we and things find each other.”
capricious girl, favorite hobby who goes to Tiffany's, is trying to marry a rich man. No, she's not looking for love. She is looking for money. Money is as important to her as own freedom. Holly is not interested in books, she divides people into "rats" and "not rats". The famous final dialogue between her and Paul about how "people do not belong to each other" puts an end to the story. Has love changed Holly herself? I hardly believe it.
"I don't want to put you in a cage. I want to love you.
-It is the same!"
Either way, Blake Edwards made an excellent film with a superbly written script. This story takes the soul and makes you empathize with the characters. Who is really Holly Golightly? Adventurer? Call girl? Yes, it really doesn't matter. The only important thing is that we should all learn to live the way she lived. If you've already watched the movie, watch it again. If only to see Audrey Hepburn playing Moon River again.
(Onomastics)
Whether we like it or not, human life is inseparable from food. It is far from news that we eat to live. (Although there are those who live to eat.) But I'm not talking about that now. Meals often turn into something like a cult or ritual. none solemn event can not do without a feast: New Year, birthday, anniversary. It's not worth talking about weddings or even funerals. And even the beginning of spring (read summer or the summer season) everyone is happy to celebrate with a trip to nature, an indispensable condition for which is the presence of a barbecue.
But be that as it may, all these events are, so to speak, exceptional. Because they don't happen every day. But there are also quite ordinary meals, to which we are so accustomed that we do not always pay due attention to them. This is breakfast, lunch and dinner (some lucky ones have a couple more snacks). Dinner from this trinity is perhaps the most pompous event. He seems to sum up the day. Either in a quiet family circle, or in a noisy company, where you know far from everyone, and if you do, it’s not a fact that communicating with him brings you pleasure. We often have lunch at work among colleagues. And the food here is secondary: much more pleasant just a break and some rest from work. But breakfast is something special. And I would like to dwell on it in more detail.
Do you know why I love weekends the most? It's for breakfast. After all, these are not weekdays, when every minute is precious in an effort not to be late for work. Eat some sandwich hastily, fill it quickly with a cup of coffee and go to labor exploits! On weekends, breakfast is special: coffee seems to taste better, and you drink it differently. Slowly, savoring every sip and enjoying the aroma of full program... In addition, it is breakfast that you want to share with your nearest and dearest people. So to say, we can share dinner with everyone, and breakfast is intended only for the elite.
Why is this all me? It's just that this book is awfully similar to such a cozy and unhurried breakfast. And the name has nothing to do with it. For all its simplicity and unhurriedness, Breakfast at Tiffany's leaves behind a rather pleasant aftertaste, like freshly drunk coffee. The cup is already empty, but the aroma is still in the air, filling the soul with pleasant memories, the remnants of heat continue to warm the palms, which makes you want to hold the cup in your hands a little more. And the thought is spinning in my head: maybe repeat?
This surprises me a little myself, because none of the characters in the book are particularly sympathetic to me. Well, let's say the narrator. He is a young and healthy man. There is a war, and for some reason he sits at home and writes stories that no one prints. We don't even know his name. The heroine calls him Fred, but he doesn't mind. He could easily be Tom, Bill, John... Or maybe he just hasn't earned a name yet and will find it when he truly finds his place?
Now about the heroine. Holly. She breaks into the story boldly and unexpectedly. Just like meeting the narrator. For a long time we just hear her voice and see the vague outlines of her figure, and then, bam! - and she appears before us in the blink of an eye and practically naked, as if demonstrating that she has nothing to hide. Holly easily exposes not only the body, but also the soul. But it seems so only at first glance: it opens just enough to maintain interest in itself. But at the same time, there are corners of her soul that she trusts only to the elect, and there are those that are intended for her alone. Holly is charming, enigmatic, mysterious. It's easy to mistake her for crazy. She may seem terribly naive, but this is only part of her disguise.
Holly has many flaws: she is cruel, selfish, does not give a damn about people and uses them, she can even be considered a scammer and a swindler. But there is something in it that cannot arouse sympathy. Unlike many of us, she knows herself very well. But, alas! Holly does not know what she wants and where she is going. But one day she will certainly find the place where she wants to stay for a long time, and next to her will be someone with whom you can share more than one cup of coffee.
I'm pretty sure that for most people, when they think of the book "Breakfast at Tiffany's", the image of Audrey Hepburn, who played the role of Holly Golightly in the film of the same name, and also graces the various covers of this work, automatically pops up in their memory. A short hairstyle gathered at the top, tinted glasses and a light smile in the corner of her mouth - this is how Holly looks at us from the covers and posters for the film. Whether you like it or not, it is this image that haunts you while reading, and even if you wanted to create your own image of Holly Golightly, I am sure that in most cases it would not be much different from what you have already seen.
I sometimes wonder what attracts books like "Breakfast and Tiffany"? Books without a special plot load, without active incidents and events built on fitful conversations, sometimes clichéd, similar to what we have seen before in Fitzgerald, perhaps Jerome Salinger. In my opinion, the answer is extremely simple - it's their charm. The novel "Breakfast and Tiffany", in fact, like the books of the above writers, is endowed with its own special and unique charm, their atmospheric absorbs the reader with his head; such books have an amazing ability to create a 3D reality, they make it possible to travel in time. Like a tourist wandering through different parts light, reading this book, I can say that I visited New York in the 50s and looked into Brazil of those times from the corner of my eye! Similar feelings arise when reading Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises: it seems as if you are going to Spain next to his characters, watching a bullfight, fishing in a mountain river...
Frankly speaking, I did not create anything ingenious! He took a rather average plot component in its essence, seasoned it with quite typical cliched turns and decided not to load his work with deep moral and philosophical reflections. However, the brightest thing in his book is the image of the young girl Holly! Such books are definitely valued not by morality and plot, but by their images.
Who is Holly Golightly? An adventurer, a rake, a hypocrite, a frivolous person? Everyone will surely be able to characterize it in a special way, without repetition, and certainly one epithet is not enough here. I would call her a nostalgic woman! In our life, there are often people who appear at a certain stage, and then suddenly disappear without a trace, and the only thing left of them is memory. Of course, this person can send bright postcard from Brazil and write a few words, but the feeling that this person has left your life forever never leaves. All that's left is nostalgia. This is exactly what Fred (the narrator in the book) is doing - he is nostalgic about his passing acquaintance with unusual girl and that fleeting segment of life spent next to her.
Also, the feeling that Truman Capote flavored his book with details from own life. The image he created of 19-year-old Holly was not taken out of thin air; How many cuties has he seen in his life?! In addition, Truman's mother was married to a man who served 14 months in Sing Sing prison, just like the gangster Sally Tomato, whom Holly visited on weekly visits. There is no doubt that Capote, although he did not copy, was clearly inspired by the image of Marilyn Monroe, the basis of which he adopted for his novel. After all, it was her writer who saw in the image of Holly in the future film adaptation, and therefore was very disappointed to learn that another actress was approved for this role.
As I noted earlier, the story is told from the perspective of Fred, a young aspiring writer who is dating attractive girl Holly. She shares an apartment with Fred in New York during World War II. He meets her for the first time under unusual circumstances, later parties are often held in her home, the guests of which are mainly middle-aged and various kinds of men. Such a way of life, of course, cannot but attract sideways glances.
As Fred becomes close friends with Holly, he discovers another side of Holly's personality. She is, on the one hand, an ordinary person, having dinner with directors from Hollywood, rich people and other prominent figures and, of course, dreaming of a profitable party for herself. In the whirlwind of such inconstancy, her only consolation is the establishment at Tiffany's, which for her looks like the real realization of all her aspirations. But on the other hand, she lives in a separate world in which the self-created "I" is so divorced from the dull reality that even Holly herself is hardly able to distinguish her own pose from casual behavior. She says that this could go on forever, but there are several moments in the book when she really exposes her soul and her true self, not fictional or pompous. by the most a prime example, perhaps, we can consider the case with the thrown out cat (another manifestation of her posturing), but less than a minute later she jumped out of the car and, with tears, began to look for the cat that had already run away. Alas, she rarely became so sincere.
I am always drawn to the places where I once lived, to the houses, to the streets. There is, for example, a large dark house on one of the seventies streets of the East Side, in which I settled at the beginning of the war, when I first arrived in New York. There I had a room filled with all sorts of junk: a sofa, pot-bellied armchairs upholstered in rough red plush, at the sight of which one recalls a stuffy day in a soft carriage. The walls were painted with adhesive paint the color of tobacco chewing gum. Everywhere, even in the bathroom, hung engravings of Roman ruins, freckled with age. The only window overlooked the fire escape. But all the same, as soon as I felt for the key in my pocket, my soul became more cheerful: this housing, for all its dullness, was my first own housing, there were my books, glasses with pencils that could be repaired - in a word, everything, it seemed to me, to become a writer.
In those days it never occurred to me to write about Holly Golightly, and I probably wouldn't even now, if it weren't for a conversation with Joe Bell that stirred my memories again.
Holly Golightly lived in the same house, she rented an apartment below me. And Joe Bell ran a bar around the corner on Lexington Avenue; he still holds it. Both Holly and I went there six times, seven times a day, not to drink - not only for this - but to make phone calls: during the war it was difficult to get a phone. In addition, Joe Bell willingly ran errands, which was burdensome: Holly always had a great many of them.
Of course, this is all a long story, and until last week I had not seen Joe Bell for several years. From time to time we called each other; sometimes, when I was nearby, I went to his bar, but we were never friends, and our only friendship with Holly Golightly connected us. Joe Bell is not an easy person, he himself admits this and explains that he is a bachelor and that he has high acidity. Anyone who knows him will tell you that it is difficult to communicate with him. It's just not possible if you don't share his affections, and Holly is one of them.
Others include hockey, Weimar hunting dogs, Our Baby Sunday (a show he's been listening to for fifteen years) and Gilbert and Sullivan - he claims one of them is related to him, I don't remember who.
So when the phone rang late last Tuesday afternoon and I heard “Joe Bell speaking,” I immediately knew it was about Holly. But he only said: “Can you drop in on me? It's important,” and the croaking voice on the phone was hoarse with excitement.
In the pouring rain, I hailed a taxi and on the way I even thought, what if she is here, what if I see Holly again?
But there was no one there but the owner. Joe Bell's Bar is not a very crowded place compared to other pubs on Lexington Avenue. It boasts neither a neon sign nor a TV. In two old mirrors you can see what the weather is like outside, and behind the counter, in a niche, among photographs of hockey stars, there is always a large vase with a fresh bouquet - they are lovingly arranged by Joe Bell himself. That's what he was doing when I came in.
“You understand,” he said, lowering the gladiolus into the water, “you understand, I would not force you to drag yourself so far, but I need to know your opinion. Strange story! A very strange story happened.
- News from Holly?
He touched the paper as if considering what to say. Short, with wiry gray hair, a protruding jaw, and a bony face that would have suited a much taller man, he had always looked tanned, and now he was even more reddened.
No, not entirely from her. Rather, it is not yet clear. That is why I want to consult with you. Let me pour you. It's a new cocktail, the White Angel, he said, half-mixing vodka and gin, no vermouth.
While I drank this composition, Joe Bell stood nearby and sucked on a stomach pill, wondering what he would tell me. Finally said:
“Remember this Mr. I.Ya. Younioshi?” Gentleman from Japan?
- From California.
I remembered Mr. Yunioshi very well. He is a photographer for an illustrated magazine and at one time occupied a studio on the top floor of the house where I lived.
- Don't confuse me. Do you know what I'm talking about? Well, that's great. So, last night, this same Mr. Y. Y. Yunioshi showed up here and rolled up to the counter. I haven't seen him in probably over two years. Where do you think he's been all this time?
- In Africa.
Joe Bell stopped sucking his pill and his eyes narrowed.
– How do you know?
- So it really was.
He cracked open the cash drawer and pulled out a thick paper envelope.
“Perhaps you read that in Winchell’s too?”
There were three photographs in the envelope, more or less the same, although taken from different points: a tall, slender Negro in a cotton skirt with a shy and at the same time self-satisfied smile showed a strange wooden sculpture- an elongated head of a girl with short, smoothed hair, like a boy's, and a face tapering downwards; her polished wooden eyes, with a slanting cut, were unusually large, and her large, sharply defined mouth looked like that of a clown. At first glance, the sculpture looked like an ordinary primitive, but only at first, because it was the spitting image of Holly Golightly - if I may say so about the dark inanimate object.
- Well, what do you think about it? said Joe Bell, pleased at my confusion.
- Looks like her.
“Listen,” he slapped his hand on the counter, “this is it. It's clear as daylight. The Japanese immediately recognized her as soon as he saw her.
Did he see her? In Africa?
- Her? No, just a sculpture. What's the difference? You can read what is written here. And he turned over one of the photographs. On the back was the inscription: “Wood carving, C tribe, Tokokul, East Anglia. Christmas, 1956".
At Christmas, Mr. Younoshi drove his apparatus through Tokokul, a village lost in no one knows where, no matter where, just a dozen adobe huts with monkeys in the yards and buzzards on the roofs. He decided not to stop, but suddenly he saw a negro who was squatting at the door and carving monkeys on a cane. Mr. Yunioshi became interested and asked me to show him something else. Then a woman's head was carried out of the house, and it seemed to him - so he told Joe Bell - that it was all a dream. But when he wanted to buy it, the Negro said: "No." Not a pound of salt and ten dollars, not two pounds of salt, a watch and twenty dollars, nothing could shake him. Mr. Yunioshi decided to at least find out the origin of this sculpture, which cost him all his salt and hours. The story was told to him in a mixture of African, gibberish and the language of the deaf and dumb. In general, it turned out that in the spring of this year, three white people emerged from the thickets on horseback.
A young woman and two men. The men, trembling with chills, with feverish eyes, were forced to spend several weeks locked up in a separate hut, and the woman liked the carver, and she began to sleep on his mat.
"That's what I don't believe," Joe Bell said squeamishly. “I know she had all sorts of quirks, but she would hardly have come to that.
- And what's next?
- And then nothing. He shrugged. - She left as she came - she left on a horse.
Alone or with men?
Joe Bell blinked.
Breakfast at Tiffany's was filmed in 1961 based on a novel by Truman Capote. Audrey Hepburn played the title role, Holly Golightly. After the film's release, her character gained a cult following.
The film's controversial aspects, including Mickey Rooney as Mr. Younoshi and Holly's occupation, haven't really dampened the popularity of the classic Blake Edwards movie, even 45 years later.
Below are some of the most surprising facts about Breakfast at Tiffany's.
Truman Capote wanted Holly to play Marilyn Monroe
Paula Strasberg, Marilyn Monroe's advisor and acting coach, told her not to play "one night stand" and the actress took the advice. Capote, to the last, opposed the choice in favor of Audrey. According to him, the film will be "wrong" with her.
Shirley MacLaine turned down the offer
Shirley MacLaine, then and now a successful actress, says it was her mistake to turn down an offer for a role in Breakfast. Now she remembers it with regret.
Audrey Hepburn doubted until the last
In an interview with The New York Times, Audrey said that it was very difficult for her to make a decision. Mostly because of their own self-criticism. Hepburn considered herself a very young and inexperienced actress for such a role and was not sure that she would pull it out on one "instinct". The fact is that she got it two hundred percent. 
By the way, it was Blake Edwards who saw this potential in her and convinced her first, and then everyone else.
Directed by Frankenheimer
Initially, Frankenmeicher was supposed to be the director of the future masterpiece. But Audrey only accepted the role with Blake Edwards at the helm.
Paul could be Steve McQueen
Although Edwards managed to get Hepburn, he was not destined to see McQueen as the main character. As well as another option - Tony Curtis.
Nobody liked Peppard
Final performer leading role nobody liked it. Edwards didn't want him, but Peppard practically begged for a full-time job. Even being on the set, the actor constantly argued with the director, on every occasion. Audrey, on the other hand, found her partner "pompous", and she did not like this attitude towards him from others. 
"Deceit" for censors
The film's script might have seemed too vulgar for the time, so Sumner Locke Elliot and George Axelrod struggled to get around " sharp corners". They focused on Paul and did not focus on Holly's occupation.
The main character's dress was made to order.
small black dress Holly was made to order by Hubert de Givenchy. It was the perfect combination: after all, the designer had already worked with Audrey more than once.
By the way, Hepburn's Tiffany outfit was auctioned off in 2006 for $900,000.
Secrets about voice acting
Fred Flintstone was voiced by Alan Reid. It is a fact. But some think he sounded too much like the legendary Mel Blanc. 
Tiffany opens on Sunday for the first time since the 19th century
Actually, the famous store doesn't open at this time. But for the sake of the film they did even that. In addition, forty armed guards were on duty to prevent theft.
Party Sacrifices
Holly's party is pretty much the most expensive and time-consuming part of the entire movie. Extras as Edwards' friends, champagne, 120 liters of soft drinks, 60 boxes of cigarettes, hot dogs, sausages, chips, sauces and sandwiches for this shot. To create a sufficient amount of smoke also had to work hard.
Mickey Rooney is ashamed of his role
The role of Mr. Yunioshi for Mickey Rooney was not the best, according to his own statement. The actor said he was ashamed of her. Edwards himself expressed regret.
"Moon River" was almost cut from the movie
The lyricist of the beautiful song Holly sings on the balcony, Johnny Mercer, originally titled it "Blue River" before realizing there were already songs by that title.
Henry Mancini spent another month trying to come up with a suitable tune. "It was one of the hardest things I've ever had to write, because I couldn't figure out what and how this lady would sing up there on the fire escape," Mancini said.
According to one version, the president of Paramount Pictures, Marty Rankin, after the first screening of the film said that the song should be cut.
In another version of this story, one of the producers said that the song should be rewritten.
In both cases, the reaction was Audrey's cheeky and witty response, which "helped" the song to be heard by the world. "Moon River" ended up winning the Academy Award for Best Song.
Hepburn wrote a note to Mancini
The note said: “I just saw our picture. A film without music is like a plane without fuel. However, the work is beautifully done, although we are still on the ground and in real world. Your music is inspiring. Thank you dear Hank."
She signed it: "S big love, Audrey."
Holly is not a call girl, according to Capote
Truman Capote in an interview with Playboy in 1968, he remarked that Holly Golightly was not a call girl. Rather, she is a common image of a genuine American geisha at that time.
The studio also made sure of Holly's integrity
Golightly was not officially signed as a "call girl". In a press release, she was defined by the term "cook" (according to the producer, Martin Dzhurov, this is "a kitten that will never grow into a cat"). It was also important to point out because she was played by "the star Audrey Hepburn, not the gaudy Hepburn".
Vanderbilt may have been Holly's inspiration
The image of Holly was partially influenced by the Vanderbilt heiress, dancer Joan McCracken, Carol Grace, Lilly Mae (T. Capote's mother, her name is similar to real name Holly - Lula Mae), Carol Marcus, Author Doris Lilly, Phoebe Pierce (Capote's high school girlfriend), Oona O'Neil Chaplin, writer and journalist Maeve Brennan, and model and actress Susie Parker.
Capote, however, denied all this and often claimed that the real Holly was a woman who lived below him in early 1940.
Holly Golightly's apartment at number 18 was sold for seven million
Seven point four million dollars - that's how much the apartment of Holly Golightly, the girl who loved breakfast at Tiffany's, was sold in June 2015. The corresponding interior was left in it, because inside the "brownstone", put up for the first time at auction in 2014 for 10 million, the same atmosphere remained.
