Can You Ever Forgive Me?

• What did you find most interesting or surprising about the cinematic adaptation of Lee Israel’s Can you ever forgive me?

I found it really interesting to see how Lee Israel lived her life, from how she treated and interacted with those around her to how her apartment looked. I think that the movie adaptation did a really good job of showing how one’s environment can have an impact on their mood and personality. When Lee couldn’t get any work done, her surroundings were very dull and messy. But when things began to get better, her surroundings started to lighten up as well.

• In both the memoir and the movie, Lee Israel indicates she did some of her best writing in her forgeries. How does that relate to “writing in your own voice” and what did that mean for Lee’s Israel’s writing career? 

Although some of Lee’s best work was in her forgeries, I think it showed how great of writer she was and how good her own books could’ve been if she found her own voice. Lee put a lot of time and effort into taking the voices of others and became very good at adding value to lives of past authors. This was a good thing to her, but Lee’s writing career could’ve actually taken off if she put that same effort into bettering her own pieces.

• Did you catch where the title of the memoir and movie came from? The title came from a forged Dorothy Parker line that Lee Israel wrote. Share your thoughts on possible implicit meanings from that. 

When the title of the memoir was mentioned in the movie, Lee’s forgeries were doing well and they started to bring light into her life. I think that the movie directors chose to put it there to show that Lee understood the depths of her crimes, but continued to do them anyway. She’s asking for forgiveness for something that she doesn’t regret, which is reiterated at the end of the movie during her trail.

• Lee Israel goes to great lengths and finds very clever ways to create her forgeries. Yet, the reason she is in this predicament is that she was unable to focus that energy on her own writing. Using specific examples, what are some ways she could have used those strategies in her own writing? 

To better her own writing, Lee could’ve made up her own stories about pretend authors. In the movie, she adds these extra, little, but interesting, details about authors at the end of their letters. This made people want to buy the letters because they felt a personal connection towards them. Lee could’ve used those same creative skills to write books of her own that would actually sell. Additionally, by selling these letters, Lee formed connections with individuals that held power in the industry. She could’ve taken advantage of that, wrote her own pieces, and showcased them to people who would put her in higher places.

• What lessons did you learn from watching this movie? What questions did it leave you with?

I think that this movie is a good example of what may happen to someone when they put themselves in places that don’t benefit them. In the beginning of the movie, Lee was working in an office full of people that didn’t really like her. Of course her negative attitude is part of the blame, but I think that this environment and people like her publisher are why Lee ended up where she did. It makes me wonder how these same people felt when they heard about what really happened with Lee.