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Dec 14

My thoughts about the movie Gilda

Posted on Monday, December 14, 2015 in Classics, Fandom, Movies

One of the classic black and white movies that I really love is Gilda. I also like Spellbound and Casablanca, to name a few.

What people say about this movie is that it’s a covert way of depicting a (happy) gay relationship. At least that’s what seems to be carried over from the play or original script that the movie is based on.

You don’t get that many clues about what’s really going on. Johnny and Gilda just sort of show up out of the blue. I have tried to put two and two together over the years, when I’ve watched and re-watched the movie several times.

First of all, Johnny and Gilda come from New York. They’re probably quite poor. Their career is being professional dance partners. Maybe they also make a little extra on the side but Gilda insists that she’s never been unfaithful to Johnny and I believe that. So if someone’s cheating, it’s Johnny. He’s Irish (I think). Johnny Farrell, that’s Irish, right? He’s probably quite temperamental and jealous. They’ve come out to South America during the second world war to make more money. Why, I’m not sure. The US wasn’t involved in the war in the same way as the European countries, obviously. There should have been money to make right there.

After a while, Gilda can’t take Johnny’s jealousy and leaves him. While they’re apart, Johnny meets a rich man called Ballin Mundson who owns a gambling hall. He makes Johnny manager of the gambling hall. You get hints that the staff doesn’t like it. They only feel contempt for Johnny. For instance, Uncle Tio (which, if my high school Spanish isn’t too rusty, means Uncle Uncle) calls Johnny a ‘peasant’ which probably stands for something else, also derogatory) Ballin and Johnny also have a really weird conversation with a sort of double entendre. Johnny basically has to promise that there are no women for him, which Johnny loves to promise, since he’s angry with Gilda.

Now, I might have a dirty mind, but I interpret that as a sort of code for Ballin and Johnny getting involved in some sort of gay sexual entanglement, though not really an equal relationship. It’s more like a rich older man picking up a street kid to take advantage of him. For instance, later in the movie, Johnny is referred to as a boy, who will grow up unless you watch him closely.

That brings me to my next point: I’m thinking Johnny and Gilda are supposed to be a lot younger than the actors playing them. They are, if I’m not mistaken, about thirty, while the characters are probably about twenty.

One day, Ballin goes away on a trip. When he returns, he has married Gilda, which is a nasty surprise for Johnny, who probably feels as if he’s moved up in life and also taught Gilda a lesson. Gilda too, has a nasty surprise when she sees Johnny and probably puts two and two together.

There’s a lot of talk that’s supposed to mean something else. (About who taught what to whom and similar hints about certain activities that mean something other than the obvious – like swimming). You learn that Gilda’s superstitious, so when Ballin proposes a toast (“Death to the wench who hurt Johnny” or something along those lines), she’s forced to go along with it, even though it scares her.

Another thing about Gilda is that you never find out her real name. She’s always just Gilda then Mrs Mundson and later Mrs Farrell (which is a little spoiler).

The tension and the jealousy between Johnny and Gilda keeps growing and Ballin just loves it. It seems he gets off on fanning the flames of their conflict.

Gilda plays up to Johnny’s jealousy (he claims to be keeping an eye on her for Ballin’s sake, but it’s obvious he’s jealous on his own account). She goes out with other men, she puts on shows that are not just musical but rather provocative (at least I’m assuming they would be perceived as such back then). In one, she ‘strips’ though all she’s taking off is jewelry and gloves.

There are also other, exterior factors that increase the tension. Ballin does business with the Nazis and he is threatened, disappears, is believed dead….

I’m not going to go into every single part of the plot, but one day, Johnny wakes up and realizes that he’s been wrong about Gilda and for a second, he’s even prepared to grovel. If I’d been Gilda I would have let him grovel for just a moment longer, but she’s just so happy he’s prepared to make up, so she accepts his unspoken apology and that’s pretty much it. Everything works out. Even Johnny realizes she’s never been unfaithful. And Uncle Tio eventually agrees to stop calling him a ‘peasant’ and refers to him as a gentleman, which I interpret as a sign of Johnny’s having grown up and Ballin losing his influence over him.

The bottom line is this: I don’t see Gilda as the evil woman coming between two happy men involved in a happy gay relationship. In fact, she’s a victim, someone who ends up in the crossfire between two men fighting over her and probably other issues as well, that we don’t get to see too clearly, possibly their involvement. Johnny too, is in a way a victim, a victim of his own temper and his ambitions. He doesn’t seem to see why everyone’s contemptuous of him or that’s he’s being cruel to Gilda.

Sep 12

Female role models in tv, movies and books

Posted on Wednesday, September 12, 2012 in Books, Children's books, Classics, Fandom, Fantasy, Historic, Humour, Literature, Movies, Mystery/Cop, TV series

I recently read an article about positive female role models in movies. In general, there is a lack of good female role models so I think the short list in the article is a good starting point in changing that. I began to wonder which female characters I would deem positive and came up with this list (some of which were in the original article):

Ellen Ripley/Sigourney Weaver, the Alien movies (especially the first and second)

I read that Ripley was originally meant to be a male character, which figures. What man would write a female character like Ripley? Or anyone? Which is too bad, because I think that any woman who was physically capable would have done exactly the same things Ripley did. All she did was save her own life and those her adopted kid/s and try to pay a corrupt corporation back for killing her crewmates and setting them all up to bring back a lethal weapon in the form of an ‘exo lifeform’.

Erin Brockovich/Julia Roberts in the movie by the same name

Erin Brockovich is an unedcuated rather simple woman who stumbles across corruption and finds that she wants to do something about and then does exactly that. Simple enough, but at least when I watched the movie, I was impressed with her development from someone who just wanted to make a living to someone with a conscience. Normally, I don’t like Julia Roberts, so I was surprised to find that I liked this movie and the main character.

Olive Hoover/Abigail Breslin, Little Miss Sunshine

Olive is anything but a cliche. You might say that her grandfather is not really the kind of person who should have been helping her create her act for the Little Miss Sunshine pageant, and you’d think someone would have thought of that before the actual pageant, but I guess then there wouldn’t have been much of a movie. In any case, Olive is an amazing kid and several other characters in the movie are quite unusual and interesting too.

Catherine Morland, Northanger Abbey

Catherine is adventurous, imaginative and though I understand she’s supposed to be a parody of the typical heroine of a ‘gothic’ novel, I really like her. She’s fun and human and flawed, but in general, just nice and you find yourself rooting for her throughout the novel.

Anne Elliot, Persuasion

Anne is also quite different from the other Jane Austen heroines, which is probably why she and Catherine are my two favorite characters from Jane Austen’s books. Poor Anne has been rather too obedient to her family and that has left her in the unenviable situation of being unmarried at the old age of 26. She spends her life trying to help her family and keeping them from bankruptcy. Then when she gets a second chance at life, she’s strong enough to go against her snobbish family and do what she wants for a change.

Beatrice Eliott/Stella Gonet, The House of Eliott

In the first episode of the House of Elliot, Beatrice and her sister Evangeline are basically slaves to their selfish father, but when he dies – which he does during the first five minutes or so of the first episode – Beatrice is the one who quickly finds a way for the sisters to support themselves, doing something they’re both good at and enjoy doing. Beatrice is fun, tough and the sort of person you really root for, except when she’s mean to Jack.

Trudy Joplin/Olivia Brown, Miami Vice

Trudy is the most fun member of the Miami Vice team. Crockett and Tubbs may be sizzling hot, but Trudy is fun, tough and cool. I love her outfits (when she’s not playing prostitute in sting operations).

The rest of my list:

Constance Peterson, Spellbound
Alicia Huberman, Notorious
Tracy Turnblad, Hairspray
Jane Eyre, in the movie by the same name.
Alice, Alice in Wonderland
Miss Froy, Alice Henderson, The Lady Vanishes
Eowyn, LOTR
Stephanie Plum, Lula, Grandma Mazur/mormor Mazur, One for the Money
Veronica Mars, Cindy “Mac” McKenzie, Veronica Mars
From Downton Abbey:
Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham
Lady Sybil Crawley
Lucy Pevensie, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe + Prince Caspian + Voyage of the Dawn Treader
Morgan, Cutthroat Island
Janet, Charmed Lives, Diana Wynne Jones
Tea with Mussolini: Most of the female characters.

As you can see this is a mix of characters from movies, tv series and books. They’re in no particular order, chronological or otherwise. I just put them in as I thought of them. Some are from the early 19th century, others from this year or last year and the rest from anything in between. Considering how long a period of time this is (nearly two hundred years) you could say that it’s a pitifully short list, but of course I’ve probably overlooked several great characters that I might have come up with if I’d taken more time to consider. Also, it’s just characters from the English-speaking world. Anyway, for what it’s worth, this is my list. Do you have one too?

Feb 11

Cranford

Posted on Friday, February 11, 2011 in Classics, Historic, Reviews, TV series

I’ve always liked historic series/movies/books and whenever there’s something like that on tv, I want to watch it. Cranford was no exception. The series was on a few years ago, and after it ended I read that there would be a ‘Christmas special’. I was hoping we’d get to see that too, but the Christmas of 2009 came and went and there was nothing like that. Fortunately, I had more luck last Christmas (2010). At least I assume it was the ‘Christmas special’ we got to watch.

At first I thought the tv adaption was focusing a little too much on (unintentional?) humour. Despite that, I found it interesting though rather sad. Some of the characters were really likeable, others less so, but still interesting and/or funny and definitely real and believable. Undoubtedly this was partly due to the cast. I’d especially like to mention Judi Dench, Julia McKenzie and Imelda Staunton, but the others too, famous or not so famous, did a great job.

Cranford is a little town in mid-nineteenth century England. It struggles with the changes their country is going through, not convinced that all change is for the better. For instance, railways are considered a threat. In the end, though, the people of Cranford find that nothing can stand in the way of ‘progress’ and perhaps they were wrong to try. The town is populated by a number of memorable people. Especially the women are described in detail.

At the beginning of the series, two elderly sisters, Misses Deborah and Matty Jenkyns, invite a young woman, Mary Smith, daughter of a friend of theirs, to come and live with them. You get to see Cranford and its inhabitants through her eyes. I suspect she’s the author’s alter ego. (I understand that Cranford is based on a series of books by a woman named Elizabeth Gaskell. I haven’t read them, but I think I might like to.)

Looking back on the series, my strongest impression is that it’s mostly about women who have never married, are widowed or whose prospects of marriage are poor, either because of lack of money or connections. Another theme seems to be the position of women in nineteenth century Britain.

Oct 23

Pride and Prejudice

Posted on Thursday, October 23, 2008 in Classics, Historic, Movies, Reviews

I’ve already seen Pride and Prejudice, at least once in some version or other, but that doesn’t matter. I love Jane Austen’s books (most of them anyway), but now I’m talking about the movie. One version was a tv series, but like I mentioned before, in whatever form, I love them. I’m not sure about a comics version, but who knows? Some Japanese comics can be really good and so are the French/Belgian ones.

In any case, the actors (Donald Sutherland, Keira Knightley, Matthew MacFadyen) did a great job. The funny thing is, I’d already seen McFadyen in a tv series, and I didn’t like him there at all. In the movie, he was a lot better.

The plot can be summed up in a few words, even if there is much more underneath, so it’s not the basic plot that is so fantastic, it has to be the way it’s done. Jane Austen was brilliant in her deceptive simplicity.

You might want to consider how people lived in those days. For families in this social class (not nearly as wealthy as you might think) finding suitable husbands for their daughters was vital. At the same time, a woman’s life was sadly limited.

Jane Austen herself, who was a published writer, lived more or less on sufferance. When some domestic chore perceived as more important, was to be done, poor Jane had to pack up her writer’s stuff and move.

That reminds me of our own Selma Lagerlof. Once, right after she won the Nobel Prize in Literature, she was invited to some house in her home province. She assumed she was the guest of honor, because of winning that prize. When it was time to sit down at the table, she entered the room first. Her hostess was quick to reprimand her. “Wives first, Selma, dear.” Apparently, we hadn’t progressed any further in the hundred years or so that had had passed since Jane Austen’s time. Just a little food for thought.

One interesting detail about the movie is that there were two different endings shot. One for the America audience and the other for Europe.

In the American version there was something sentimental and the one we got to see here, in Europe, was quite fun. Watch the movie if you like historic chic lit. If not, don’t.

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