Anais should not have used Hugo as a crutch

Well, it really is a double-edged sword. Anais and Hugh started dating when she was really young and she lost her virginity to him. She wanted him to be a writer like her and at one point he kept a diary, too. However, it was a lucrative job offer in a bank in Paris that allowed them to move to France and to keep up their lifestyle and Hugh eventually gave up the diary. This is alluded to in the movie. On the one hand she wanted him to be creative but had he been creative he would not likely have brought in the money.

If you read biographies about Anais Nin you'll probably find her to be shallow, spoiled and manipulative. It seems that she tried to humiliate him by sleeping with as many men as possible including some of his best friends. But it gets even worse. Most of this is likely due to the messed up relationship with her father. She attempts to get back at her father by hurting Hugh, who in many ways was a father figure to her. After a time, they separated but he continued to give her money in order to keep up her lifestyle. And here's the worst part... she slept with her father. And once they'd slept together she rejected him as revenge for him rejecting her when she was younger.

Eventually, she went into psychoanalysis with Otto Rank, a famous psychologist, and followed him to NYC in order to practice psychoanalysis there. Now, despite the fact that she was a very *beep* up person indeed, one of the most memorable and poetic things I found in her diaries is when she's describing some schizophrenic patients she observed while studying under Rank. She stated that while the doctors didn't seem to be able to connect to the patients, she felt the patients spoke in a poetic language and therefore could relate to them.

Until her death she remained married to Hugh Guiler but also was married to another man, who was much younger and also, I believe, a grand-nephew to Frank Lloyd Wright (who'd built their house in California). So she was in a bigamous relationship with one husband on the east coast (Hugh lived in NYC at this time) and the other on the west coast. While she was alive she managed to keep the marriages a secret from each (and managed to convince her second husband that the large income she had was from her books when in reality it was largely from Hugh). After her death they learned of each other and even met at one point. Really sad.

Oh, and it seems the diaries for which she's most famous are really reinterpretations of reinterpretations. She spent most of her time rewriting them. But that's not to say she isn't a great writer.

In the end all wasn't too terribly bad for Hugh; eventually, he became a noted filmmaker:
http://imdb.com/name/nm0401055/

Hugo lived a very long time. He knew of Anais's infidelities and told her that he forgave her for them later in life. He wasn't a fool, because he knew what she was up to. I think that takes character to continue to love someone as complex and experimental as her despite it all. He was grounded, practical but a very generous man. Ultimately, I think he understood love better than Nin and Miller. Hugo financially supported Nin directly and Miller indirectly through his generosity to Nin. I have great respect for him. His financial gifts helped make the dreams of these two great writers come true. She never would have made it on her own in Paris, and Miller never made enough money to marry and support Anais like he wanted to. I do not consider Hugo a weak or used man. His ability to love was inclusive and unconditional. A fascinating film.

Before I begin, I have only seen the film and haven't yet read the diary that the film is based upon (I'm currently waiting for it to be delivered). I read through all the posts and I noticed a lot of people referring to Anais (the real one) as selfish and perverted and such. But you have to look at things like this: she published her diaries without bits and pieces of information at first. It was in her will that after the last survivor died that the diaries be re-released with the cut material reinserted. With the re-insertion of these materials, does she come off as being different than she did when she first published them? Maybe. But which is better of the two: having an author lying about their real experiences to cast themselves in a better light (as many autobiographers do) or an author who wanted to make sure that all of what they did was accounted for after they were gone? I say the latter. Keep in mind, she could have left the diaries edited the way she did and never have any of the cut material released. It would have been a lie, like most autobiographies do (let's face it, in this day and age, no one wishes to portray themselves as they really are, but try to make themselves be the "hero" of their own story and not take responsibility for any of their mistakes). Did she make some odd choices and did things that wasn't right in our point of view? Yes, she did. But instead of trying to sweep those details under the blanket of history, she made sure that after the last survivor was dead, that the face of the whole ugly truth be known, including the warts that would make anyone uncomfortable.

We are all human beings. We all have done things we are glad to have experienced and things that we never want to see the light of day. Anais Nin wasn't any different, except for the fact that she was willing to share those mistakes with the world long after she was gone. The re-releasing of the diaries with the materials was her way of saying, "Like it or not, this is who I was. I admit my mistakes, because they're a part of who I am." So, to say she was selfish is really hard to hold true. She released the diaries the first time around edited as a means of protecting those who experienced what happened and were still alive. But after the last survivor was gone, at that point, she wouldn't have cared of trying to protect anyone anymore, but would have just wanted to make sure her story as a whole was told. An individual is made up of their right and wrong choices. Anais Nin was an individual who was willing to share the good and bad sides of her life, as well as her right and wrong choices. We don't have to like them or agree with them, but they were her choices and she made them. And she was willing to share those triumphs and errors. People should be happy that she did, because it helps us understand her even more than we would have if she had kept the bad parts cut out.

Of course, that's just my opinion and point of view at this time. I could very well be wrong.

But this one's eating my popcorn!

I don't know what went on in real life or of Hugo knew about and accepted Anais' affairs but in the film it was vile how she treated him. He was the only nice person in the story and deserved better.