Meme first spotted at House of Mirth & Movies, originated at The Film Experience Blog, with a nod to Cinema Becomes Her’s entry.
I love women. I love actresses. I love the actresses who have the power and understanding to compellingly bring life to women’s stories, struggles and perspectives. From the meme participants I’ve seen before me, I’d say this one gives a good impression of the creator’s personality — or at least their affinity for certain kinds of women. But I’ll leave those impressions to you to form for yourself.
Vaugely in order, with a handful aggrievedly left out and dozens more who could stand just below them:
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 To commemorate David Lean’s centenary, the BFI has restored his first ten films, now touring the United States and Canada. The whole bunch play Cleveland in January and February, and I hope to catch as many as possible. Before this, I had only seen two Lean films (Brief Encounter, Summertime) and both years ago, so I’m jumping at the chance to explore his work in depth. At first I was disappointed to learn only his early films were on the schedule — I thought this would be my chance to follow through on advice to wait to see Lawrence of Arabia on the big screen (in honesty, it is the only way I would be interested in seeing the film). But after the teaser screening of The Passionate Friends, I can’t feel anything negative in anticipation of the works immediately preceding and following this unexpectedly great film.
When this film is considered at all, it is usually considered beside Brief Encounter. Indeed both are wildly romantic melodramas concerned with adultery, starring Trevor Howard, and featuring memorable scenes of public transportation. The films are superficially similar and perhaps (a rewatch will decide the matter, but now I’m rooting for Friends) Brief Encounter benefits on all counts in the comparison and is by right the remembered classic. But beyond these parallels, and despite my poor memory, my suspicion is that Passionate Friends is the darker, more mature, and more stirring of the two.
Judging by the first half hour, you would laugh to hear this film called dark. It begins in Mary’s romanticized memory — on her way to a holiday in Switzerland in advance of her husband, unaware that in the hotel’s adjoining room her first love is unpacking — recalling a New Year’s Eve nine years ago when she was still torn between them. On that night, when Mary and Steven dance and trade wishes for a happy new year, it is at first impossible to tell that they are no longer lovers. That dance leads to a brief and passionate affair — then, as in their youth, they exchange banal vows: “Will you always love me, Mary?” “Oh yes, Steven!”
But as in their first chance at happiness, Mary ultimately cannot — in her way, adamantly will not — give up what she has for his love. Her husband is a much older man, a successful banker. As they mutually understood it, they married for companionship and security, and it has suited them both. But Mary is a compelling character (amazingly vital and vulnerable in Ann Todd’s creation); she did not marry Howard Justin for his money alone. She married for her freedom. It is passionate love that takes her away from herself; becoming half of a joined soul is hateful to her, although she feels its pull in Steven’s arms; she will belong to herself, she protests vehemently. At times her actions are small and cowardly, but this is her act of bravery, enacted in a perversely roundabout way.
So the film becomes progressively darker and deeper as Mary and Steven’s paths continue to cross, that spark of something erotic and profound always between them. Twice (once truly, once mistakenly) Howard becomes aware of his wife’s infidelity, and those scenes unfold with masterful suspense and a fascinating exchange of power. Howard is not a simple man, either; he had his own reasons for marrying, and admits freely that he is afraid of losing her. Claude Rains, always so brilliant, precise, and powerful, slowly unguards his cold financier, and in his final scenes breaks your heart with his just-cracking longing and anger.
The film matures as life matures. The vapidity of the earlier dialogue takes on new significance set against the frank lust with which Mary reconsiders it, against the selfless and dispassionate choices of age, and against the terse professions of a different kind of love. It takes time to speak well of love — much more to love well.
The Passionate Friends makes much of different kinds of love, and of evolving kinds of love, making no prescriptions for them except for Mary herself. Until the right kind of love becomes clear to her, she is a divided woman, and like anyone so divided and feeling left without a choice, Mary descends into a very dark place indeed. Lean is a master of mood here, with pacing and shadowy photography turning her wandering through the London Underground into something legitimately terrifying — and I know it sounds like a facile image, but it must be recorded I started halfway out of my seat as she passed the “Way Out” sign, so perfectly aligned were the built tension, the score, her performance, the moment of my understanding &c. It is an exceptional sequence.
The resolution could not possibly be a more perfect realization of the film’s conceit and of the heroine’s needs — so perfectly right is it that, while far from the typical romantic release, I walked out of the theater on the kind of gratified high reserved for the basest “all is well — love conquers all” reflexes. Triumphant.
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A Christmas Tale
Posted December 8, 2008
[Un Conte de Noël]
2008 France Dir Arnaud Desplechin Cast Catherine Deneuve, Jean-Paul Roussillon, Mathieu Amalric, Anne Consigny, Emmanuelle Devos, Chiara Mastroianni IMDb
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Some time ago I gave official and irrevocable permission to Arnaud Desplechin to be “as overlong and slowly paced as he wants with me,” and surely, to be as madcap and random as he likes, too, for what might be received as unpardonable sins in other movies translates into enormously surprising and rewarding payoffs in his. He does some things that would at least inspire skepticism and reticence elsewhere — his infinite pastiche of motifs and techniques, what a mess it all could be. I may tend to like some structure, recurring patterns, evidence that there is sense behind the choices a director makes — despite other manifestations of zaniness, I think this accounts in part for my affinity with Resnais, Duras, Fassbinder. I have been wondering lately if there are any absolutes in my film appreciation, whether there are any absolute deal-breakers or absolute winners in the elemental decisions of cinema; if there are, invariably before long someone like Arnaud Desplechin comes along to tear the very idea down.
This is even a great deal more free-wheeling than his previous work, similar in tone to Kings & Queen, but that film was more structured in its conscientious juxtaposition of melodrama and absurdism. Here, the same constituent parts have jumped the gate and now run wild in the same environment. The moment one begins to feel secure in an emotional response, or grounded in their vantage point of a scene, the thing darts off in a new direction, breaks into a new mood and staging device, or the characters suddenly shift in attitude. If there is one thing I am dependably obsessed with, it is authenticity; through all this inversion and modulation and flat-out whimsy, Desplechin does nothing to so much as nudge that one thing from its center.
These people, members of a fractured and estranged family come home for Christmas and to rally around their cancer-ridden matriarch, these people are unfailingly authentic. How trite that set-up sounds in words — it could be another bored homecoming drama, it could be a Wes Anderson quirkfest, it could be (the sort of thing usually IS) The Family Stone. Funny, richly drawn, wonderfully involving lives, each with their own catalysts, irrational behaviors, alliances and affinities. Unlike similar films, each is allowed room to be a human being, not satellite figures with definite plot-defined reasons for being, filling out necessary types on a checklist. But it is boring to even think of this in terms of being an “ensemble film” — it breaks those bounds; it is a new animal.
Ensemble films are so boring, aren’t they? Blame Magnolia: the proliferation of similar films are now at best cold exercises in cleverly crossing the paths of a dozen or so characters and defining each against the others until finally the recurring pattern manifests Some Deeper Meaning. (Thank you, Arnaud, for frustrating my inclination toward that.) We scarcely get to know these people: the surface is tantalizing, as is guessing at the vast inner workings beneath. Certain characters arrive at a personal deeper meaning, generally (lovably, amusingly) in conflict with reality, but the viewer is forced into no overarching conclusion. It is a film in which a dozen or so people live, simple and complicated as that.
In Desplechin’s universe, people have an almost magical ability to harm and heal one another. Love, hate, and everything in between, all flowing violently between them, usually for reasons they no longer recall or have never consciously understood — these have nothing to do with it. Simple proximity, simple relation, and the unexpected everyday intermingling of things — these have. Small decisions are suddenly fraught with danger and excitement. Some in this universe accept this calmly and receive even suffering with joy. Some act out in calculation or in frenzy just to see what will happen. Some try to control themselves, others, the world, and to construct sense and security out of it all. Badly paraphrased from two-day-old memory: “Never do more damage than you can repair. Junon gets away with everything because she can repair anything.” They calculate. They harm. They heal.
As to absolutes? In a strange way I admire those who can categorize their affinities to what they feel is an accurate degree, but I cannot. I recognize a positive response, I recognize a negative response, but is there and should there be some continuity between them…? Well, I am not the filmmaker; perhaps it’s not for me to have the vision. Arnaud works for me today, and so Arnaud is right today. Doubtless someone will tear the very idea of him down tomorrow, and I welcome it. If anyone has made it this far, this is the question, and I know it is better posed in a blog post than here: IS there opinion? Or is there only affinity and response? Opinion, it seems to me, opinion too requires structure, recurring patterns, evidence that there is sense behind it — this I lack. This I refuse. Arnaud shows the way: act, go wild, live, feel, harm, heal.
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 Lauren, 27, librarian, & like you, obsessed with film. My tendency is to immerse myself in long & obsessive projects to the exclusion of all else, but you'll typically find a lot of classic Hollywood, 60s/70s world cinema, & contemporary awards bait on these pages.
Review archive — Favorite films — Viewing log
» The Godfather 1972, Francis Ford Coppola
» Avatar 2009, James Cameron
» Days of Heaven 1978, Terrence Malick
» The Young Victoria 2009, Jean-Marc Vallée
» Broken Embraces 2009, Pedro Almodóvar
» Nine 2009, Rob Marshall
» There’s Always Tomorrow 1956, Douglas Sirk
» Thunderbolt 1929, Josef Von Sternberg
» The Love of Sumako the Actress 1947, Kenji Mizoguchi
» Alibi 1929, Roland West
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