Remains of the Day - as wonderful on paper as it is on screen

I just finished reading Remains of the Day. It was a remarkable book. But even more remarkable perhaps is the fact that now having read it, I am put in the unusual position of finding that experiencing a book deepened my appreciation of its film adaptation.

The book is a moving and intimate portrait of Mr. Stevens. With its narrow beam on Stevens' internal dialog and its brilliant first person narrative, the book breaths precious life into both large scale changes going on in the world and and the introspective twilight of an individual man's life. It is poignant, touching, sad and thought provoking -- compelling literature.

As for the film, which I've seen a couple of times: I knew that it was good, even great, but until now I didn't realize how remarkably true to the story as written by Kazuo Ishiguro, it was. Yes, there are a couple of small details that changed, but the film manages to mirror the amazing subtlety and introspective tone found in the book and follow the plot very closely indeed. It is shocking how some scenes, such as those involving Stevens' elderly father, played out with as much and more heartbreaking poingnancy in the film as in the book.

The central messages of the film/book are equally ambiguous: Stevens' definitions of "dignity" and "greatness" (as it pertains to butlery?), Stevens' priorities which fascinatingly allow him to ignore the real moments of his own life while supporting the work of men he is convinced are great and who dabble in major world events. It is easy to judge Stevens and find great loss in how he has lived, but who is to say that his notions and his service were wholly wrong? Giving of oneself totally in service to others is something few modern people understand. He is nothing if not intelligent and intentional with his choices.

In any case, although I enjoyed the film version very much before, now having read Remains of the Day, I am simply floored by what the movie was able to do.

Movies and TV Shows are almost always "good"

My sister and I were talking yesterday; she was anticipating her trip to the theater to see the Hunger Games and wondering if it was going to be good.

For some reason, that struck me as interesting and I got to thinking. Of course it's going to be "good." It is almost certain to be an extraordinary entertainment experience. In fact, this is true about just about any big-budget Hollywood movie. Think alone of the spectacle of costumes, props and locations, the camera work, the sheer number of actors on screen. Even when a movie really misses the mark and fails to tell a great story or provide a moving experience, it is almost always capable of entertaining us if we let it.

Imagine applying Hollywood production standards to your kid's school play. How much entertainment value would you get from Hollywood standard special effects, sound track, or choreography if it were done locally? Even catastrophic "flops" like Cleopatra or The Postman provide stunning levels of production value entertainment if viewed in the right light.

I don't mean to suggest that I myself don't have very high viewing standards. I know I do. I don't like to spend time with movie and TV that doesn't offer something truly meaningful. But, it is important every once in a while to step back and notice that the people who produce shows, fill our lives with incredibly good entertainment all the time, even when they fail to do something profound.  It is very rare to see any movie so bad that watching it truly feels like such a waste of time and money and that I actually want to leave the theater.

And theater-going aside (which must be a special case in favor of putting up with sub-standard work, considering that we've put on clothes, gotten into the car, shelled out money, and restricted ourselves to the option now playing in front of us), we watch a huge variety of shows with spectacular ease in our modern world. Even if you just weigh the quality of work now available around you at all times, through Netflix, TV, Youtbue, you-name-it, there can be no doubt that we have all become super-connoisseurs of entertainment. We can preview and watch snippets and move on oh so easily when they don't strike our fancy. There is no commitment. It is easy to flip through channels and get frustrated thinking "there's nothing good on" -- but the real problem is the reverse! Almost everything on is good to some extent, so it takes something exceptional to even tempt us.

We are clearly the most entertained people to have ever walked the earth. (Even the most pathetic of game apps on my phone is, truly, astonishingly capable entertainment). Please don't misunderstand. It is important to be discerning, exactly because of this glut of entertainment; it is more important than ever to spend our time wisely on things that feel fulfilling and meaningful. But don't lets confuse that idea with the idea that the things we don't like don't have some entertainment value to offer. They as often as not involve the myriad talents of people who are extremely good at what they do and the expenditures of massive amounts of money. They are "good" productions at some basic level. Even if we don't want to watch them.

Here's a piece I came across on a site called the Daily Beast while doing a bit of research on Hollywood's Top Ten Biggest Flops. The article says that "aside from Geena Davis's sassy one-liners, there is nothing enjoyable about 1995's Cutthroat Island." Seriously? Nothing?

This photograph alone looks pretty spectacular to me. Look at that dress she's wearing. Its gorgeous. Imagine that at the local high school theater production. Also notice that there's some sort of explosion going on in the background? Imagine how much entertainment value would be packed into an explosion like that were it part of your local neighborhood's 4th of July fair?  Just because the movie lost money and didn't live up to its potential, doesn't mean it had nothing to offer the consumer. Should we only decide we've been entertained if our excitement is proportional to how much the production company spent?

In any case, I haven't talked to my sister today to find out how Hunger Games went. But I'm pretty sure that, by almost any reasonable standard, it was good.

Sliding Doors, More than a Clever Little Plot Device

After watching a great movie, I often read reviews of it. I'm not sure why -- whether I'm seeking validation ("it really was good, wasn't it?") or just looking to put my finger on what made it good, but I like to hear what the professionals have to say.

So when they trash a movie that I find amazing, its a jarring reality.  And then the wheels of justification start turning. These are the times it is really good to have a blog.

And what movie inspired such clashing of realities? Sliding Doors. The 1998 movie staring Gwyneth Paltrow. Watching it again recently and reveling in the incredible theme of dual realities, I was surprised to find that I seem to like this film a lot more than most critics do. They all pay lip service to the clever plot device underlying the film but then nitpick the script. In doing so they really miss the magic. The parallel, alternate reality concept is much more than just a clever little idea, it is a brilliant concept worthy of acclaim and providing a deep movie-watching experience.

Imagine if one of those "what if moments" in life came true. "If only I'd locked the door," "made that light," "turned off the iron," or "called my mom" -- all the little moments on which the happiness of our lives seem to turn at a given moment. What if we could metaphysically explore both alternate timelines and see what would have been different?

That is what Sliding Doors visualizes so wonderfully in this elegantly philosophical exploration of a woman's life.

As the movie starts, our main character, Helen, (Gwenyth Paltrow) gets fired from her job. She heads home in humiliation. Only she misses her subway train by a second -- the sliding door shuts in her face. At that moment, this movie allows reality to split. Her life becomes bifurcated.

In one possible reality, yes, she misses that train, and takes a cab. But what if she had made that train? A second vignette begins to intercut with the first and explores that reality. If she had made the train? She'd have plopped herself down next to John Hannah (nice sympathetic and intelligent guy "James" with his impossibly charming accent.) Not a bad thing to have happen, even on an otherwise really bad day. Then she'd get home a bit earlier, and what she would find there would change her life even more: her boyfriend making love to another woman. Now she has no job and no guy and is hits rock bottom instantly.

But in the other vignette, Helen, after her cab ride, gets out and gets mugged which causes two important things to happen, the first that she shows up back at the apartment too late to catch her boyfriend in the act, and the second, that she gets a very useful bandage on her head (to let us know which vignette we're in). This Helen thinks her relationship is fine and takes comfort in his arms.

From here reality plays out along a different course for each. The rock-bottom Gwyneth gets a new hairdo, taking over where the bandage left off in distinguishing our vignettes. She doesn’t have a relationship to fall back on so she plows headlong into change, relying on true friends old and new to support her in her new choices. New friend James is adorable in this movie. In one of my favorite scenes, as he gets to know Helen better:

“Wait. Hold. Hold. Your friend Anna thinks I’m cute? You’re friend Anna thinks I’m cute. Shit  I just blew, wait, 2. 85. 2.85 on the wrong girl." James sums up one of the central tenants of life in his next speech: "Helen, listen sometimes we are thrown into people lives when they just need to be cheered up, or reassured, and it turns out for some reason its your  job. - I don’t know why.  - In your case its my job.  But, I’ll be honest, the fact that I find you moderately attractive just makes my job easier on my part. My intentions are completely honorable."

The plot continues on, exploring both Helens' relationships and careers. Ultimately the message is that you can't avoid the life you're supposed to be living. Your fate is your fate and both Helens move along a life course that will ultimately explore the reality they have to be living. I won't give away too many more plot details because if you've read this far, you should certainly be watching the movie for yourself.

:)

Why "Mad Men" is Ultimately Disappointing

Despite its stunning use of period detail and its talented cast, especially the inexplicably appealing lead character Don Draper, Mad Men fails. Or, at least, doesn't quite live up to what is should be, because, in spite of all these tremendous advantages, it, like most American tv, fails to understand what great drama is ultimately about and instead devolves into caricature and simple male fantasy.

In case you aren't familiar with the show, let me backtrack a bit. Mad Men, a show soon to be in its 5th season on AMC and easy enough to find on Netflix, takes its name from a term that was apparently coined in the 1950s or 1960s for the magical talents of the men who populated the high power Madison Avenue advertising world. The show's setting in a very polished 1960s world is a stroke of genius. And its attention to period clothing, music, typewriters, and hairstyles is nothing short of astonishing. If you like the early 60s, this show is worth watching for that reason alone.

Unfortunately, beyond the heady transportation back in time, the show is an example of lost potential -- offering up a far too simplistic and shallow interpretation of gender roles to be able to be taken seriously. Which is sad because I really wanted to take the show seriously! The poorly conceived gender roles are such a huge part of the show, they can't be set off to the side easily.

The office setting is populated with stables of unreasonably jerky sexist men and irrationally simple "girls" who serve them. It is irrational because their interplay is too far beyond what would have been conceivably acceptable in a high-level business environment. The men are beyond sexist -- they are boorish, rude and seriously entitled. The women are worse: simple, shrinking, and servile to the extreme.

I can accept that an office with a male-dominated power structure and pretty young secretaries probably had lots of hanky panky going on in the early 1960s, but it also has to be true that most of the men and women populating that world would have been devoted enough to their jobs and higher life-purposes to have been basically respectful of one another. The problem with Mad Men, as with so many American shows is that is just goes too far toward showing a fantasy male world. If the show were only reasonably balanced in its portrayals I would be in love with it. But instead, it portrays a view of women that is extremely limited.

Disproportionately dismal pictures of the past aren't helpful. Some will watch and say: "oooh, look how bad things used to be and how far we've come" or "well, that's just the way the world was back then." But believing too ill of the recent past diminishes us. Yes, the world was a more limited place in 1960 -- surely women were propositioned at work and treated as less capable than men. But they weren't property. And they did actually have brains, even if many men didn't recognize that. I am disappointed that the women on the show are so accepting of their very limited role. But I am even more dissappointed that the show protrays men as almost uniformly and collectively offensive. I'm not questioning that men had more social licence back then to be horrific to women, but that so many of them would choose it.

A particularly glaring example of this is in an episode where the ad men who are having a difficult time coming up with a slogan for a lipstick promotion gather all the secretaries into a room for a brainstorming session to try out the lipsticks. Although it was their idea to see what the women thought, the men are all extremely condescending. This scene plays out like an X-rated movie with the sexy women all gathered together giggling and talking about how stupid they are -- wondering what it means to “brainstorm” and primping and thrusting themselves about, while putting on lipstick as the men all sit behind a two-way mirror making insulting comments about them.

The part that strains credulity is that the show wants it both ways -- both a vision of women as extremely oppressed and downtrodden (to the point that they don't express opinions or any dissatisfaction) and, at the same time, extremely willing to be sexually promiscuous without much thought as to who with or why. It's not a reasonable interpretation of what people do.

Ironically, it is because the show refuses to allow such an unrealistic fantasy interpretation of one character, Don Draper, that he is the highlight of the program. Unlike Mad Men's treatment of women (painted heavily with a fake male fantasy brush), Draper is painted fairly, and in mottled tones. It would have been very easy to make him a godlike man -- the perfect female fantasy -- if he were also a faithful  and present husband. But he's not. He's real and he's nuanced and he cheats. He's a deeply fallible character and a very real one.

Draper has a Cary Grant-like charm and polish but is also rough and masculine.  At the same time, he is capable of great vulnerability when he's with the women he's with. Its surprising to see such a character be emotional and fleshed out. An interesting and winning combination. And Don Draper has excellent taste in women. He may be horny but he is not shallow or cheap. Even his silly simple blonde wife is very kind, sweet, deep, and sad. She is appealing and likable -- as are his hipster, beatnik, freethinking girlfriend and his intelligent and serious crush.

Oddly enough, I do enjoy the show -- despite its shortcomings, and will probably continue to watch it. I just could have loved it so much better had it made an attempt to produce a more real reality with respect to gender roles. I can't rejoice in a show that makes so little effort to rejoice in women.

I should add the caveat that I'm only halfway in to the first season. For all I know, the producers and writers have learned about and become attentive to these issues -- and addressed them in subsequent episodes or seasons. Because if it simply offered a reasonable mix of happy women and dissatisfied women of loose women and virginal women, as well as men who were boorish and men who were pleasant and respectful, the show would be amazing. As with most things, a reasonable mix really does do the trick.

I can't help but wish that this show had been brought to my screen via my beloved Brits. I am sure they could have done it right. Had Mad Men been produced by people who had a real drama sense underlying it, it could have been amazing.

The Misfortune of Great Beauty and Talent

Whitney Houston had a couple of tremendous disadvantages to deal with in her too-short life. The first: her astonishing gift of a voice and the second, her stunning beauty.

No one can be expected to bear that double burden and come out unscathed. That is, if one has allowed oneself to enter the world of big Celebrity.

The combination of her human failings and the American celebrity machine may be responsible for her untimely demise. Our culture collectively craved her and sought her until the craving and seeking took her over - body and soul. Only the very strongest of people can handle the burden of unbridled fame that celebrities who reach the stature of Houston have to live with and she, well, she was clearly not made of that "sterner stuff" that might have allowed her to endure.

You might (or might not) now be thinking about Charles Dickens. Yeah, probably not.

But, oddly enough, I recently learned that Dickens is someone who bore some measure of the American hunger for celebrity. This, according to a fascinating account of his first visit to America in 1842, recounted in the online BBC news magazine.

"But little by little, the enthusiasm of his American fans began to overwhelm him. When Dickens's boat made a stopover in Cleveland, he awoke to find a "party of gentlemen" staring through the cabin window as his wife lay in bed. 'If I turn into the street, I am followed by a multitude,' Dickens complained in a letter. 'I can't drink a glass of water, without having 100 people looking down my throat when I open my mouth to swallow.'

The article goes on to relay Dickens' complaints about those who tried to wring money out of his fame, such as the barber attempting to sell locks of his hair. How fascinatingly timely to examine the impact of this craving for people that our culture subsists upon. America the consumer: fast food for our bodies and fast consumption of stars for entertainment.

On a personal level, I feel terrible about what happened to Whitney Houston. I remember her from the 80s. I was young then too and envied and adored her -- like everyone else did -- for her apparent poise, grace, stature, and abundant talent. No other singer of the time could do for me what she could do. Hell with Celine Dion or Mariah Carey. They were nothing to Whitney. Her beautiful clear skinned forehead; her enormous mouth that opened to show massive rows of teeth while belting out incredible notes with that most elegant turn of her neck. She was like art in motion.

No one who could have compared the two of us then would have found my life the preferable one: nondescript, short, and unknown, I was an individual while she was an icon. And trust me, no one was sitting around craving me and my soul. But, in truth, there is no doubt that both then and now I walked the better path. From mine, the path of simple stability, I watched her take over the world and then I watched as she little by little lost everything. Actually, that is not entirely true. I stopped watching -- stopped paying attention around the time she married Bobby Brown and appeared in public looking and acting disjointed and out of touch -- using substances and craving public acceptance.

And there, right there, is the cost of fame, isn't it? Like living perpetually on that pivot point of a bad relationship -- just past the moment of heady glory where you are craved and desired, and instead in the stage of becoming a nuisance or an obligation needing to prove yourself and seek acceptance or what you loosely think is "love." Where everything you do is either ignored or misunderstood by the one(s) you think are important. The tables turned and instead of the public needing Whitney, she became the obligation, the career that was always one step behind where she wanted to be.

What can we, as a society, collectively do to prevent this cycle from continuing to churn up and spit out other young beautiful and talented souls? We must resist the craving for their bodies and their lives. I wish with all my heart that the media and individuals together could begin a transition away form the shallow consumer culture of entertainment. Yes, the media must stop feeding on it. But first the public has to stop caring! We must quit watching E Television. Quit buying People Magazine. Quit wondering who they are sleeping with or what they are wearing, eating or endorsing. Enjoy the talent but leave the people alone.

Many years ago, I transitioned from typical American girl to someone who couldn't care less about pop culture. And I am the better for it. Society is one step better for it too. I now thrive on a diet of excellent quality entertainment brought to me by performers of all sorts whose personal lives are entirely unimportant to me. This may seem shocking, but I now consider my favorite entertainers' private lives to be entirely their own business. And yes, that really DOES extend even to Richard Armitage.

I don't want to know them, be their friend, enter their private space or take their souls. I don't want to feed their addictions any more than I want them to feed mine. I simply pray for them that they never get famous enough to learn what Whitney Houston's life must have been like.

Let it begin today and let it begin with me.

Emma Chambers looks like Claudie Blakely

You'd think that after almost two months of time off from the blog, I'd have been able to come up with something better than this. But here it is, another brief and slightly lame post:

Emma Chambers, playing Hugh Grant's sister "Honey," turns in a charming performance in Notting Hill.

While watching her in that film last night, I was convinced I'd seen her in something else before -- but I can't figure out what it could have been.  Still can't. She seems to have found fame in the Vicor of Dibley, but I've never watched that.

I think what was really going on was that she was reminding me powerfully of Claudie Blakely. I convinced myself I was watching Blakely in Notting Hill and they just didn't credit her for the role. Kidding. But seriously, these two look alike! Their eyes, noses, teeth, even a dimple.  Dead-ringers -- though about 10 years apart in age.

Oh, and as a side note, if you haven't seen it lately, you haven't seen it at all -- give Notting Hill a pop into the dvd player. You won't regret it. Funny, charming and romantic, a wonderful way to spend an evening.

In Defense of Scarlett O'Hara

A bit ago I threatened a post about Gone With the Wind. I might as well make good on it. I won't insult your intelligence by claiming this is British in any way (though, if I were to try, I might build on Vivien Leigh's heritage). . . . We both know this post is here only because I'm suffering from a serious case of "the holidays" and don't have many new insights to give on appropriate things.

But I find that I have a lot to say about Scarlett.

I watched this classic the other night because I'd had a fight with my sister. Aw, not a bad one – but a disagreement, a clash of the minds . . .  about Scarlett O’Hara. My lovely sis, who is brilliant and to whose opinion I generally defer under most circumstances, had seen GWTW on TV and it was on her mind. She wanted to vent about what a horrible bitch Scarlett was. Trouble is, I have always found Scarlett to be infinitely sympathetic and, if not always likeable, a basically appealing character.

But fresh in my sister's thoughts were scenes of Scarlett harshly working her convicts in the lumber mill, concerned about nothing but making money, scenes hammering home Scarlett's ambition and lack of caring, her ruthless cruelty.  I remembered those . . . but I remembered more that Scarlett was a woman of courage and passion, of strong driving energy, and of great charm -- the quintessential worthy survivor. But maybe I was wrong! Maybe my impressions were unduly influenced by the prejudices of my youth. I mean, I first read the book and saw the film when I was in high school, as an impressionable girl with limited experiences. So I watched again. Just to check.

And what I found was this: my old impressions are right. I still feel the same way about Scarlett. I don't hate her. I understand and appreciate her and what she's had to grow through. From a pampered, headstrong, vivacious girl – lacking in depth but having never really required depth to progress happily through her life, to someone who could survive at any cost by overcoming tragedies and horrors piled high upon each other.

Scarlett, as the show starts, is nothing if not supremely well-adapted to the life that she’s grown up in. A practical girl, she isn't looking for complexity or difficulties. She's looking to be happy. Of course we can fault her for being shallow and misguided (but these faults are present in many characters, even lovable ones. Emma, anyone?)  And we can also fault her for having blindly accepted the benefits of slavery without introspection. However, she cannot be singled out to carry this blame; other more sympathetic characters (Melanie?) are similarly flawed. And we might not prize her headstrong comfort-seeking, but we can accept that a great many 16-year-olds are like that, making her not all that different from some of us at 16 or even at 26.

Scarlett sees great value and takes pride in her ability to attract others, to persuade them and compel them. She has tremendous personal power and is just learning how to best wield it. Born in a more recent era, she might have been a politician or PR genius. But in her time, she uses her assets for the advantage of gaining a man. And it works extremely well for her. Scarlett is pursued by scores of young men. She, however, is only drawn to one: the most interesting of them all – a wealthy, sensitive, intellectual. Can we at least agree that her attraction to a man of depth and understanding shows good taste and judgment?

But Ashley is also Scarlett's downfall. We might applaud her taste in desiring such a man, but her steadfast adherence to the fantasy of Ashley is her biggest character flaw. She cannot move past that blind until very late in the story. She is convinced that they belong together despite powerful and continuing evidence to the contrary. It is a sad flaw but an understandable and common one.

In part because she sees herself as the tragic victim, and in part because she is confined by her time in history to think of her life’s work in terms of marriage, when Scarlett learns that Ashley is to wed another – a woman she can’t like or respect, a quiet, meek, gentle, introspective thing – she flings herself headlong into anything else and marries a ridiculous man. You know she's thinking: "it can’t possibly matter what I do now!"  This cutting off her nose to spite her face in a fit of headstrong stubbornness is, again, a flaw I find sad, but understandable -- seeing it often in my children's stubborn choices. Yes, Scarlett is childish, but I appreciate her pain and like her more for it.

The marriage to Charles and his quick death as the war sets in, mark a turning point. She has lost her youth. She will soon lose her home and her mother. It is the loss of these things in quick succession without understanding and without closure that results in her keeping Ashley so high in her thoughts as an ideal. She sees in him everything that is dignified and fine, everything that is safe and comfortable, and everything that reminds her of her past glory. The genteel life with Ashley on a dignified plantation that lives in her head sits in stark contrast to the one she’s somehow found herself in the middle of in Atlanta as war rages around her. She finds herself unwillingly nursing sick and mutilated men -- going entirely against her own nature to do it, staying in a place of danger in order to help Melanie with her baby’s birth, though doing so prevents her from being with her own people and her own home when that is all she wants.

One of the most powerful scenes in the movie, demonstrating how Scarlett has found and acts from a source of deep inner strength, is when she learns that the doctor is not coming and that Prissy “knows nothing about birthing babies.” Squaring her shoulders, she ascends the steps to tend to Melanie, to help this weak woman she thinks she hates, deliver the baby of the man she loves. Scarlett shows that she can and will step up and do what she has to. No matter what. From this point on, that will be her guiding principal: doing whatever has to be done in order to get through. The baby is born and by sheer force of will, she plows through the countryside with her little pack of helpless beings in tow and makes her way home.

Getting there just one day too late to see her beloved mother alive, but fully able to appreciate that her father is no longer of sound mind, the young disillusioned belle wants to throw herself on a bed and weep. But she can’t. Instead, she takes charge of everything around her. A force of nature, she propels everyone into action, cleaning up the house and farm and making it run. She has no patience for anyone or anything that gets in the way or causes more work. A second mantra, along the lines of "if you can’t help me just get the heck out of my way” develops for Scarlett. Scenes such as her interaction with the deserter show how far she's come and what she is willing to do to preserve her tumble-down plantation and rag-tag family. And we (like Melanie) are glad she shoots him. Every day she makes choices that seem perfectly reasonable in the context of what life has now become.

But she still thinks she wants to give it all up. When the taxes on Tara are raised to $300 she wants to take her cares to her father, or even to the servant, and ultimately to Ashley. She is desperate for someone, anyone, to take a share of the load. Her scene with Ashley in the paddock expresses the misery and fatigue of living the life she doesn’t want to live along with her deep desire for what she thinks she is in love with. She wants escape. But she doesn’t get it. Not only will he not run away with her, but Ashley is useless on the farm and only prolongs her unreasonable infatuation by saying he loves her and kissing her passionately.

More weight gets quickly piled on her. For just after this scene, she throws the overseer off her land and her father, inspired by her strong words, rides off on his horse, makes a foolish jump and dies. Now she has another dead parent and still no $300. She decides to parlay her very best value (her great personal charm) into an offer from someone who can pay that bill. She starts with Rhett Butler (who I'll talk about in a minute). She tries to charm him and then outright proposition him. She’s willing to humiliate herself but even he can’t help her. So when she sees Frank Kennedy and learns that he has money, she plows in headlong. Of course stealing her sister's beau is a pretty bad thing. I'll grant that. But I'll defend her motives. She is not personally interested in getting rich here (not yet); she's interested in saving her farm and her family, keeping her home together, her parents' memory intact, and to maintain what they have left.

At this crucial juncture in the story, it is interesting to note that both the man she loves and the man who loves her have utterly failed to help her and she's on her own.  And this, finally, is a theme that comes newly to me upon this recent viewing. Scarlett becomes who she is in large measure because of the way others have let her down (her mom, by dying; her dad, by losing his mind, then dying; but particularly the love interests in her life). Ashley admits as much himself after Scarlett comes home married to Frank: “its all my fault; I should have committed highway robbery rather than let you sell yourself in marriage to a man you don’t love.” Exactly! But he didn't. He talked to her about honor and love and encouraged her fantasies but made no move to put money in her hands. Rhett is worse -- when she asks for his help he toys with her and laughs at her, baits her, but won't even provide a shoulder of sympathy or a strategy to get that cash. I'll talk more about him in a minute. (I know I said that before, but I'll get to him).

Before I do, first, some thoughts on Scarlett's toughness and power. At the point where she marries Frank, she turns another corner. Her motivations start to blur. She now has enough money to save Tara, but now that is no longer enough. She learns that she is shrewd at business and she wants to amass wealth -- enough so that no one can ever threaten her again. This is the point when she starts to lose her soul. She is so attached to an idea of poverty that she can’t see. She says: “I found out that money is the most important thing in the world”. I don’t like who she becomes, but I understand how she got there -- what motivates her.  She sees paths with beacon lights shining down that lead to more and better ways of making money. It is easy for her and sooooo seductive. But she doesn't have a mommy who can help her see bigger, more important values. Though shrewd and smart in business, she is thick and slow in life. She doesn’t see larger implications of her own actions. The night of the Shantytown raid is the perfect example. She is like a child seeing only the surface and misunderstanding everything. It’s a scary mix of qualities – headstrong capitalist, deeply infatuated with a man who is symbolic of everything she’s lost, in deep grief for the loss of her way of life and her parents but far too superficial to even realize she’s in grief, on top of everything insanely charming and persuasive. No one can possibly stand up to her - except for one man. But he fails her entirely.

So now we finally get to Rhett: the one person who is strong enough to balance her. The one who could have made a difference had he been really willing to take her on. But he fails her! I thought that upon a new viewing of the movie I might, as a grown-up, form new harsher impressions of Scarlett than those I'd formed as a child in love with her charm and vivacity. But something surprising happened. Instead, I found a new disappointment in Rhett.
Rhett lets her down so very many times, usually justifying it by convincing himself she can handle things herself. But how can a young woman with no resources and nothing but spunk and charm and an enormous amount of naivety possibly be able to negotiate the demands of the post Civil War south without making great errors? Rhett begins this illustrious trail of failure when he dumps her on the road to Tara, leaving her to manage three helpless beings in a wagon with absolutely no notion of what they'd find at home. This really is inexcusable. Any person with his resources and experience should have finished seeing her home before heading off to war. When she goes to him in jail and connives for money, he not only doesn't give it to her, but much worse still, makes fun of her, toys with her, doesn't take her plight seriously, and then later, ridicules her for having married Frank.

He may be in love with her, but he’s absolutely useless to her. After Frank dies and she’s pouring out her heart to him in the most honest and real display of vulnerability she has ever shown, he again, diminishes her. I never noticed this before -- being too caught up in the intense sexiness of the proposal scene. But he doesn’t even try to hear her, to understand her feelings, or engage with her in a meaningful way. He just finds her amusing. He chooses to make sport of her and keep her at arms reach. He can’t really love. But he asks her to marry him anyway.

During their marriage, things fall apart slowly. He is aware of her infatuation for Ashley and it makes him insanely jealous, but he makes very little effort to actually address it -- to think about or counter what Ashley must mean to her to inspire such feelings. He won't seek her respect or talk with her seriously. At several points in their marriage, such as when he comes back after going off on a trip with Bonnie and she greets him with a genuine smile, or when he comes into her room the morning after his passionate sweeping her up the steps and she is in a very sweet temper, he fails to pay any attention to her friendly signals. These are as big as neon signs and anyone paying a modicum of attention to his wife could read them. But he doesn't. We think of Scarlett as being cruel to Rhett -- and she is -- but he is just as cruel. And his cruelty is worse because he has so much more personal freedom and power.

The birth of Bonnie Blue is a whole other double edged sword that harms this ill-fated couple. Bonnie should be Scarlett’s savior – a chance to connect with real virtue, real meaning. But it does the opposite; it makes her thoughts turn to Ashley as she sees motherhood diminishing her value and attractiveness as a woman. In her simple, mixed-up, confounded mind she thinks of Ashley being celibate (because Melanie can’t have children) and takes up the idea to turn away from Rhett in order to live in a state of cherished ideas; if she can’t be with Ashley she can live a celibate life too thinking about him. Rhett tells her she’s “throwing away happiness with both hands” looking for something that can never make her happy. Which is exactly what she’s doing; but she is far too simple to see it. Bonnie's birth creates another great rift for this marriage. Bonnie usurps Scarlett as object of devotion and sweet love for Rhett (of the kind we saw on the cruise/honeymoon). Rhett no longer needs to make any effort to be kind and gentle to Scarlett, because Bonnie can be his object of devotion. Oddly, this child has torn apart anything that bound these two together.

And we all know the famous ending -- how Melanie finally dies and Scarlett realizes how much she loved and cared for her all along. And, more importantly, how Scarlett realizes that, even though now she might conceivably have him, Ashley is not at all what she wants. She runs to find Rhett who has suddenly and inexplicably given up all interest in her and tells her he doesn't give a damn. Cue the personal revelations of Scarlett as she mourns his loss for a moment or two before realizing she should go home to the red earth from whence she gets her strength.

Ultimately, the question of whether Scarlett does gets him back -- at some point to be determined later -- doesn't really matter. (Though I think she does. Get him back, I mean.  If Scarlett O'Hara puts her determination toward solving some problem, it is pretty likely that that problem will be solved). But there is no doubt that Scarlett will be fine. She is already fine. She will go back to Tara and, with or without Rhett, lead a happy, full and probably seriously messed up life!


One final thought: I am so thankful for the astonishing Vivien Leigh who is both so stunningly beautiful and so profoundly talented in this role that she takes over my entire brain. This performance was a gift to the world for all time.

The Seasonally Challenged

I've come to realize that blogs may be incompatible with Christmastime. I have not posted a thing in many many days. (Of course, my last post was long enough to count for about 4, so maybe I'm really not that far behind.)

Anyway, several problems are plaguing me - not the least of which is that nothing I'm doing has anything to do with British television. I did watch Gone with the Wind the other day and was thinking that Vivian Leigh and Leslie Howard were British. . . and not only that, but Olivia de Haviland played Maid Marian in Robin Hood and that is a British thing . . . hmm

So, I guess it comes down to this: you can either expect a post on Gone With the Wind accompanied by some lame and strained rationalizations as to why it belongs on my blog, or it may be awhile before I check in again. We'll have to see how it goes : )

In the meantime, enjoy your holiday time!