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In This Our Life1942 US Dir John Huston Cast Bette Davis, Olivia De Havilland, George Brent, Dennis Morgan, Charles Coburn, Frank Craven, Billie Burke IMDb |
Recommended pre-reading: my first review of this film from 2005. Or, here’s the general idea:
A couple blurbs I read before watching this movie:
A neurotic southerner steals her sister’s husband then vies with her for another man.
(Turner Classic Movies)A vile woman schemes to destroy her sister’s marriage and her subsequent engagement to another man.
(TV Now)Neurotic. Vile. Can we find no way to talk about an unsympathetic female character without questioning her mental health or calling her physically disgusting? …
It’s hard to put my thoughts into perspective, having once felt so strongly about it and carrying that opinion with me for the last few years — if I watched the film fresh now, I doubt my initial reaction would be the same. So while I can’t shake my impressions entirely, parts ought to be refuted:
Davis’ character is pretty much a clinical psychopath, and while I would prefer to see the film — or its reviewers — articulate that, it still does not necessarily posit Stanley Timberlake as “Woman” writ large or as a caution to women in modern society. For truly there is Roy as a counterpoint, and if anything her story is a cynical and progressive response to the notion of a “woman’s proper place”: after setting up a nontraditional living arrangement and an agreement to mutual freedom in her marriage and getting fucked over for it, she picks up the pieces and makes a new philosophy of getting what she wants out of life. Yes, it’s with cynicism and wariness that she remarks, “[intelligence] is a trait every man admires in another man,” but she makes sure for herself that everything is right and understood between them before she marries Craig — I was much too flip about all that in my first review. De Havilland’s Roy is a complex and fascinating character in her own right, not an innocent and pure stock figure to set next to Davis, but a woman of similar background and inclinations who does much the same things, only with a sane and ethical bent.
Of course, Davis is the heart and lack-of-soul of the film, an uncontrollable firestorm, and even if I did persist in finding the characterization offensive I could not help but delight in her portrayal of it. Davis gives another unique take on the half-mad heroine, steadily driving toward ruin. Early, more controlled scenes are wonderful in planting tension and unease: she has a way of dropping a hurtful remark or lie with just a hint of enjoyment, then watching with cruel satisfaction to see how it lands. And Stanley is just charming and high-spirited enough to see that she nevertheless genuinely endears herself to everyone around her. Like her sister, she gets what she wants — but with no thought to the cost. Her path of destruction is far-reaching and cuts deep, her mood vacillating between crazed outbursts and cold disregard, each heightening in intensity with every incident, and always marked by her need to drive fast and dance wildly (”I’d rather do anything than keep still”).
Obviously, this is a deeply troubled woman, and if the film doesn’t explicitly voice it it certainly provides a root cause: the overt depiction of an incestuous relationship with her uncle. I cannot believe I failed to address this in my first review, as it is easily the most disturbing and fascinating part of the film. Charles Coburn plays a jolly and just-vaguely creepy old man who has no greater joy in life than his niece, whom he showers with presents and kisses, his hands always grasping for her, his plans to be near her ever-grander in scope. Stanley is clearly uncomfortable with his attentions from the very first scene when she repeatedly turns her cheek to him every time he tries to kiss her full on the lips, but she’s dependent on him, too, for both money and understanding. Two of the great and memorable scenes in the film are between these two: the night she laughs and canoodles with him in an attempt to find out about his will, and he ends up proposing they live and travel together; later, in a last desperate act, she submits to his proposal — “And I’ll do anything you want!” — but finishes in a hysterical eruption of hatred. If Stanley is indeed crazy, or for that matter vile and neurotic, perhaps she has been pushed to it not by something innate and not by the suffocating constraints of patriarchal society, but rather by a confusing and terrifying life-long cycle of abuse at the hands of her beloved uncle.
At the same time, I have to disclaoom my earlier charges against the story, screenplay and acting, and can only guess that my animosity to its “message” colored my judgment. This time I found all to be quite effective. The pace & performances are equally electric and engaging, nothing falling under the force of Bette’s domineering, raving — and very, very intelligent — work. A melodrama par excellence. I almost completely retract my original statements!
(As to the small matter of George Brent, I conclude he IS the most boring goon, and the pencil mustache he adopted in the 40s doesn’t help him a bit. How can it be, when he was such a dude in real life: an IRA guerrilla, slept with most of his costars. How can a man with a price on his head and a starlet in bed be this boring??? It’s painful. Still I have an affection for him I can’t quite name, and every once in a while a brogue-tinted word slips into his ordinarily impeccable American English, and this endears me. Maybe that’s it… he’s so boring because he’s trying too hard not to sound Irish. He should sound Irish. I wonder if he did any movies with his real accent, I must know…..)
Brent’s permanent expression:
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I’ve just discovered you, spent the last hour reading “The Life Cinematic”, and let me say — you are a GREAT writer! Just added your site to the links page at mine. What a talent you are — I’ll be checking in a lot.
Comment by John McElwee — 16 August 2008 @ 16 August 2008