Film and Play Plots. Adult Love. The Essential and Never Changing Struggle. Amera Ziganii Rao
When I look at the fact that these films especially, are from the early part of the 20th century and that the themes are as prevalent today as they were then, either the 1930s as with Splendor in the Grass or the 1960s as with The VIPs and The Sandpiper, I lose hope that love will ever prevail. And it probably won't. True love is not just the ability to love, true love is the overturning of the centuries of rules put in place by what I call, the Patriarchal Womb Stealing, Female Genocide, Toilet Tribe from Hell. The Sandpiper puts it best. The artist character (Elizabeth Taylor) talks of how girls are with boys as equals at school and then after marriage, men get to do something else other than be a husband or father and women get nothing else and that this is what kills them. Nothing has changed. The moral struggles in the Reverend character (Richard Burton) are also as prevalent today as they were then. Nothing has changed there either. The two are from completely different worlds, but they do learn from each other, even if they have to leave each other in the end. And then of course A Doll's House. The seminal struggle that man has to not keep his wife as a chattel. A mix of Lolita obsession and just the right to own property, ie, a human being. Nothing has changed. The world is still in the grip of old school rules from hell. No, true love is not easily attainable at all and we now know why. Women like me do not want marriage, because women like me want to be ourselves and do the other thing, that men do too. As Laura Reynolds (Taylor) says in The Sandpiper, men have looked at her her whole life but never loved her. As I say, nothing has changed. It is a very sad world and the only thing that can help one get through it is to understand. That is the purpose of my work. To understand the immense suffering of 'the other woman' and indeed all women, whores or madonnas. The legacy of men has destroyed this planet and who knows how long it will take to overturn it. The legacy of the Mars archetype has destroyed this planet, male or female. The amount of females I know who have a teddy bear love at home and an exciting one elsewhere. So destructive, so hurtful and yet, so simply pathological and natural for them. A sincere struggle. Of psychopaths, presumably. Whatever they are, I do not know. But history has their legacy of love carnage everywhere. And the only thing to do is to understand and accept that to be of soul, to be of love, to be of art, to be of imagination, to be of passion, to be of open mind is the kiss of death for conventional society. Opposites may attract for sure, but they never last. Transient love in a unnatural world.
Amera Ziganii Rao © 2011
A Doll's House
A Doll's House is a three-act play in prose by the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. It premièred at the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen, Denmark, on 21 December 1879, having been published earlier that month.
The play was controversial when first published, as it is sharply critical of 19th century marriage norms. Michael Meyer argues that the play's theme is not women's rights, but rather "the need of every individual to find out the kind of person he or she really is and to strive to become that person." In a speech given to the Norwegian Women's Rights League in 1898, Ibsen insisted that he "must disclaim the honor of having consciously worked for the women's rights movement," since he wrote "without any conscious thought of making propaganda," his task having been "the description of humanity." The Swedish playwright August Strindberg attacked the play in his volume of short stories Getting Married (1884).
UNESCO inscribed Ibsen's autographed manuscripts of A Doll's House on the Memory of the World Register in 2001, in recognition of their historical value.
Synopsis
Act one
A Doll's House opens as Nora Helmer returns from Christmas shopping. Her husband Torvald comes out of his study to banter with her. They discuss how their finances will improve now that Torvald has a new job as a bank manager. Torvald expresses his horror of debt. Nora behaves childishly and he enjoys treating her like a child to be instructed and indulged.
Soon an old friend of Nora's, Christine Linde, arrives. She is a childless widow who is moving back to the city. Her husband left her no money, so she has tried different kinds of work, and now hopes to find some work that is not too strenuous. Nora confides to Christine that she once secretly borrowed money from a disgraced lawyer, Nils Krogstad, to save Torvald's life when he was very ill, but she has not told him in order to protect his pride. She told everyone that the money came from her father, who died at about the same time. She has been repaying the debt from her housekeeping budget, and also from some work she got copying papers by hand, which she did secretly in her room, and took pride in her ability to earn money "as if she were a man." Torvald's new job promises to finally liberate her from this debt.
Nora asks Torvald to give Christine a position as a secretary in the bank, and he agrees, as she has experience in bookkeeping. They leave the house together.
Krogstad arrives and tells Nora that he is worried he will be fired. He asks her to help him keep his job and says that he will fight desperately to keep it. Nora is reluctant to commit to helping him, so Krogstad reveals that he knows she committed forgery on the bond she signed for her loan from him. As a woman, she needed an adult male co-signer, so she said she would have her father do so. However the signature is dated three days after his death, which suggests that it is a forgery. Nora admits that she did forge the signature, so as to spare her dying father further worry about her (she was pregnant, poor, and had a seriously ill husband). Krogstad explains that the forgery betrayed his trust and is also a serious crime. If he told others about it, her reputation would be ruined, as was his after a similar "indiscretion," even though he was never prosecuted. He implies that what he did was in order to provide for his sick wife, who later died.
Act two
Christine arrives to help Nora repair a dress for a costume party she and Torvald are going to tomorrow. Then Torvald comes home from the bank and Nora pleads with him to reinstate Krogstad at the bank. She claims she is worried that Krogstad will publish libelous articles about Torvald and ruin his career. Torvald dismisses her fears and explains that although Krogstad is a good worker and seems to have turned his life around, he insists on firing him because Krogstad is not deferential enough to him in front of other bank personnel. Torvald goes into his study to do some work.
Next Dr. Rank, a family friend, arrives. Nora talks about asking him for a favor. Then he reveals that he has entered the terminal stage of tuberculosis of the spine (a contemporary euphemism for congenital syphillis), and that he has always been secretly in love with her. Nora tries to deny the first revelation and make light of it, but she is more disturbed by the second. She tries clumsily to tell him that she is not in love with him, but loves him dearly as a friend.
Desperate after being fired by Torvald, Krogstad arrives at the house. Nora gets Dr. Rank to go in to Torvald's study, so he does not see Krogstad. When Krogstad comes in he declares he no longer cares about the remaining balance of Nora's loan, but that he will preserve the associated bond in order to blackmail Torvald into not only keeping him employed, but giving him a promotion. Nora explains that she has done her best to persuade her husband, but he refuses to change his mind. Krogstad informs Nora that he has written a letter detailing her crime (forging her father's signature of surety on the bond) and puts it in Torvald's mailbox, which is locked.
Nora tells Christine of her predicament. Christine says that she and Krogstad were in love before she married, and promises that she will try to convince him to relent.
Torvald comes in and tries to check his mail, but Nora distracts him by begging him to help her with the dance she has been rehearsing for the costume party, as she is so anxious about performing. She dances so badly and acts so worried that Torvald agrees to spend the whole evening coaching her. When the others go in to dinner, Nora stays behind for a few minutes and contemplates suicide to save her husband from the shame of the revelation of her crime, and more importantly to pre-empt any gallant gesture on his part to save her reputation.
Act three
Christine tells Krogstad that she only married her husband because she had no other means to support her sick mother and young siblings, and that she has returned to offer him her love again. She believes that he would not have stooped to unethical behavior if he had not been devastated by her abandonment and in dire financial straits. Krogstad is moved and offers to take back his letter to Torvald. However, Christine decides that Torvald should know the truth for the sake of his and Nora's marriage.
After literally dragging Nora home from the party, Torvald goes to check his mail, but is interrupted by Dr. Rank, who has followed them. Dr. Rank chats for a while so as to convey obliquely to Nora that this is a final goodbye, as he has determined that his death is near, but in general terms so that Torvald does not suspect what he is referring to. Dr. Rank leaves, and Torvald retrieves his letters. As he reads them Nora steels herself to take her life. Torvald confronts her with Krogstad's letter. Enraged, he declares that he is now completely in Krogstad's power—he must yield to Krogstad's demands and keep quiet about the whole affair. He berates Nora, calling her a dishonest and immoral woman and telling her she is unfit to raise their children. He says that from now on their marriage will be only a matter of appearances.
A maid enters, delivering a letter to Nora. Krogstad has returned the incriminating papers, saying that he regrets his actions. Torvald exults that he is saved as he burns the papers. He takes back his harsh words to his wife and tells her that he forgives her. Nora realizes that her husband is not the strong and gallant man she thought he was, and that far from loving her, Torvald only really loves himself. What has appeared to be his love for Nora is merely gratification at perceiving himself to be a wonderful husband.
Torvald explains that when a man has forgiven his wife it makes him love her all the more since it reminds him that she is totally dependent on him, like a child. He dismisses Nora's agonized choice made against her conscience for the sake of his health and her years of secret efforts to free them from the ensuing obligations and danger of loss of reputation, while preserving his peace of mind, as a mere mistake that she made owing to her foolishness, one of her most endearing feminine traits.
Nora tells Torvald that she is leaving him to live alone so she can find out who she is and what she believes and decide what to do with her life. She says she has been treated like a doll to play with, first by her father and then by him. Concerned for the family reputation, Torvald insists that she fulfill her duty as a wife and mother, but Nora says that her first duties are to herself, and she cannot be a good mother or wife without learning to be more than a plaything. She reveals that she had expected that he would want to sacrifice his reputation for hers, and that she had planned to kill herself to prevent him from doing so. She now realizes that Torvald is not at all the kind of person she had believed him to be, and that their marriage has been based on mutual fantasies and misunderstanding.
Torvald is unable to comprehend Nora's point of view, since it so contradicts his own ideas about her mind. Furthermore, he is so narcissistic that it would be impossible for him to bear to understand how he appears to her, as selfish, hypocritical and more concerned with public reputation than with actual morality. As Nora lets herself out, leaving behind her wedding ring and keys, Torvald remains utterly baffled by what has happened.
Alternative ending.
It was felt by Ibsen's German agent that the original ending would not play well in German theatres; therefore, for the play's German debut, Ibsen was forced to write an alternative ending for it to be considered acceptable. In this ending, Nora is led to her children after having argued with Torvald. Seeing them, she collapses, and the curtain is brought down. Ibsen later called the ending a disgrace to the original play and referred to it as a 'barbaric outrage'.
The Way We Were
The Way We Were. 1973 Film by Sydney Pollack and starring Barbara Streisand and Robert Redford.
Sydney Pollack's 1973 masterpiece begins with the Katie Morosky (Barbra Streisand) running into Hubbell Gardner (Robert Redford), an All-American popular jock she went to college with, some time after World War II. Though some other summaries claim it's been about 20 years, that is not really the case. It's probably been more like 10 years since college and Hubbell has written his first novel and later joined the navy while Katie continues to work hard and remains very much involved in the grassroots level of politics.
Katie who had a crush on Hubbell back in college is still very attracted to him and soon the two start an "on again off again" relationship. Eventually Katie ends up giving up her voice and her interest in politics in order to hold on to Hubbell and they get married. However when Hubbell begins to compromise his literary talent by abandoning his novel writing for writing Screenplays for Hollywood their marriage begins its downfall. When the government begins its witch-hunt for communists among Hollywood writers and producers, Katie's politically active personality reemerges and causes even more problems between the lovers.
Soon everything leads to Hubbell having an affair with his college-sweetheart who is also the ex-wife of his best friend, while his wife is pregnant with their child. At first Katie wants to work things out even though she knows about the affair. However she soon begins to see their relationship for what it always was: not meant to be. She realizes that they've always desired different things and that they can no longer continue to build a life on the lies they tell themselves. She asks Hubbell to stay with him until their baby is born and afterward, they go their separate ways.
Years later, they run into one another in New York. Katie has remarried and her husband is a good father to her daughter with Hubbell, Rachel. Hubbell on the other hand has a typically pretty, simple girl with him, the kind of girl Katie never could be. They have a short conversation and briefly remember "the way they were". Katie (Barbra Streisand) says to Hubbell: "Your girl is lovely, Hubbell", and this is followed by one of the most romantic scenes in the movie, where you realize that Hubbell is still very much in love with Katie and he realizes what he has lost but he also knows he could never have lived up to her expectations of him.
Once again they go their separate ways with a bittersweet goodbye; she, a confident and beautiful political activist, and Hubbell, a talented writer squandering his talent writing literarily devoid Television scripts.
The Sandpiper
The Sandpiper is a 1965 film, directed by Vincente Minnelli and starring Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor.
Plot
Laura Reynolds (Taylor) is a free-spirited, unwed single mother living with her young son Danny in an isolated California beach house. She makes a modest living as an artist and home-schools her son out of concern that he will be compelled to follow detrimental conventional social norms in a regular school. Danny has gotten into some trouble with the law through two minor incidents, in her eyes innocent expressions of his natural curiosity and conscience rather than delinquency, and now with a third incident a judge orders her to send the boy to an Episcopal boarding school where Dr. Edward Hewitt (Burton) is headmaster, and his wife Claire (Eva Marie Saint) teaches.
At an initial interview, there is a momentary immediate attraction between Laura and Edward, but this quickly turns into tension brought on by their greatly differing world views and Laura's dislike of religion, and finally she storms out. She attempts to flee the area with her son but they are quickly picked up by police who then take Danny to the school. He initially has trouble fitting in because his mother's home schooling has left him far in advance of boys his age in several subjects; also the standard course of instruction at Edward's school leaves him restless and bored. At Claire's suggestion, Edward visits Laura to learn more about Danny and his upbringing.
Laura's unconventional morals initially disturb Edward, as they conflict with his religious training, but after visiting her several more times he finds that he wants her very much and cannot get her out of his mind. The two begin a torrid extramarital affair. Edward struggles with the guilt this produces in him while Laura encourages him to accept their love as right. Meanwhile, Danny flourishes after Edward relaxes school rules and allows the boy to choose more advanced classes.
The love affair is eventually exposed by a remark made to Edward in the presence of Claire by a jealous former lover of Laura's, and Edward is forced to confess all to his wife. At first Claire is distraught, but later they quietly discuss it in the light of how their lives have diverged from the idealistic religious fervor of the first years of their marriage. He says that he still loves her and that he will end the affair. They decide to separate for a while. He resigns his position at the school and decides to travel. The school year over, Laura tells Danny that they can move away, but he has put down roots at the school and wants to stay there. She has a moment of pain but realizes his need to be free and agrees. On Edward's way out of town, he stops at her place for a silent farewell, she and the boy down on the beach, he high up on the bluff above looking down at them.
Splendor in the Grass
Splendor in the Grass, a 1961 film, tells a story of sexual repression, love, heartbreak and manic-depression, which the character Deanie suffers from. Written by William Inge and directed by Elia Kazan.
The film is based on people whom Inge knew while growing up in Kansas in the 1920s. He told the story to director Elia Kazan when they were working on a production of Inge's play The Dark at the Top of the Stairs, in 1957. They agreed that it would make a good film and that they wanted to work together on it. Inge wrote it first as a novel, then as a screenplay.
The film's title is taken from a line of William Wordsworth's poem 'Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood':
- What though the radiance which was once so bright
- Be now for ever taken from my sight,
- Though nothing can bring back the hour
- Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;
- We will grieve not, rather find
- Strength in what remains behind...
Bud's parents are disappointed by, and ashamed of, his older sister, a flapper and party girl who is sexually promiscuous, smokes, drinks, has had an abortion (or as Deanie's mother said "one of those 'awful surgeries'"), and a marriage annulled, so they "pin all their hopes" on Bud, pressuring him to attend Yale Univesity.
Bud does find a girl who is willing to become sexually involved with him; when Deanie finds out, she is driven close to madness and institutionalized. Her parents must sell their stock in order to pay for her institutionalization, which they do just before the Great Depression.
Bud's family loses its fortune in the Crash of '29, which leads to the father's suicide. Bud's sister dies in an automobile accident, his mother lives nearby in squalor, and Bud takes up ranching, which he had postponed because of his father's aspirations for him.
In the final scene, Deanie, home from the asylum after two and a half years, goes to meet Bud. He is now married to another; the daughter of Italian immigrants; he and his wife, whom he met while complying with his father's desire that he attend Yale, have an infant child and are expecting another one. After their brief reunion, Deanie and Bud see that they must continue their lives separately, to where Deanie goes off to marry a doctor in Cincinnati whom she met at the asylum.
The different mindsets motivating Deanie's mother, who is relatively poor, and Bud's father, who has made a great deal of money in the oil industry, to hold back their children's sexuality are evident in two adjacent scenes early in the story.
In the first, Deanie's mother encourages her not to give up her virginity to Bud, telling her "Boys don't respect a girl they can go all the way with; boys want a nice girl for a wife". Having bid her daughter a good night, Mrs. Loomis then talks with her husband, enthusiastically informing him that their daughter and the son of the richest family in town are in love and that Bud would "be the catch of a lifetime".
In the next scene, Bud's father encourages him to abstain from sex with Deanie, because, if Deanie were to conceive a child by Bud, they would have to marry.
Deanie's mother believes that sex would ruin her daughter's chances of marrying Bud. Bud's father believes that sex, especially pregnancy, would force his son to marry Deanie. One parent wishes for such a marriage, while the other seems to warn against it.
In their discussion of what kind of girl a boy wants as a wife, Mrs. Loomis also tells Deanie that "No nice girl" has sexual desires for a boy. When Deanie asks her mother whether she was ever sexually attracted to Mr. Loomis, the answer is "Your father never laid a hand on me until we were married. And, then, I—I just gave in because a wife has to. A woman doesn't enjoy those things the way a man does. She just lets her husband come near her in order to have children." This enhances Deanie's inner struggle—about whether to give Bud what she and he both seem to want, or whether to behave in a more socially acceptable way, avoid the risk of pregnancy, and follow her mother's advice about how to retain Bud's respect—, which eventually drives her to madness.
The V.I.P.s
The V.I.P.s, also known as Hotel International, is a 1963 film. Directed by Anthony Asquith and written by Terence Rattigan. An all-star cast, starring Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor alongside Louis Jourdan, Orson Welles, Maggie Smith, Rod Taylor, Margaret Rutherford and Elsa Martinelli.
The film is set within Terminal 2 of London Heathrow airport during a fog. As flights are delayed, the VIPs (very important people) of the title play out the drama of their lives in a number of slightly interconnected stories. The delays have caused serious hardship for most of the characters and have plunged some of them into a deep personal or financial crisis.
The central story concerns famed actress Frances Andros trying to leave her husband, millionaire Paul Andros, and fly away with her lover Marc Champselle. Because of the fog, Andros has the opportunity to come to the airport to convince his wife not to leave him.
Film producer Max Buda needs to leave London, taking his newest protégée Gloria Gritti with him, by midnight if he is to avoid paying a hefty tax bill. The Duchess of Brighton, meanwhile, is on her way to Florida to take a job which will pay her enough money to save her historic home.
Les Mangrum, an Australian businessman, must get to New York to prevent his business from being sold. His dutiful secretary, Miss Mead, is secretly in love with him. It being a matter of great urgency, she decides to approach Andros and ask him to advance the money which will save Mangrum's company.
According to the playwright Terence Rattigan, who wrote the screenplay, this is based on the true story of Vivien Leigh's attempt to leave her husband Laurence Olivier and fly off with her lover Peter Finch, only to be delayed by a fog at Heathrow.
All excerpts from Wikipedia
Thank you to outside sources for original photography
Other Link
Film Plots. Individuation. Becoming soul and passion as compassion. Amera Ziganii Rao
http://ameraziganiirao.blogspot.com/2011/05/film-plots-individuation-becoming-soul.html
Amera Ziganii Rao is a philosophical writer, essayist, social commentator, prose writer, dramatist and photographer artist as well as a consciousness explorer, self actualiser and emotional healer. She is a former journalist who is now turning professional with her art forms and indeed, her healing forms, after a long journey of inner searching, self teaching and exploring many layers and areas of both craft and wisdom. She is now working on her first book of philosophy and esoteric thought, and social and cultural commentary. She is also showing her first photography collections. And last but most definitely not least, she is building a business to share her consciousness and empowering explorations to reach as many people as possible across the world. She is 46 years old and currently lives in London.
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