CINEMA SIDE: Self-Absorption & the Evolution of 'Sunset Boulevard'

In Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard, the romantic relationship between William Holden’s character, Joe Gillis, and Gloria Swanson’s character, Norma Desmond, begins with the death of a monkey.

Needing a place to hide from pursuing police, Joe Gillis takes refuge in the driveway of faded movie star Norma Desmond.  While waiting for the police to be at a safe distance, Joe Gillis is misidentified by the residing butler as the representative of a funeral home that has been hired to help in the burial of Norma Desmond’s recently deceased pet monkey.  At once, the unsuspecting Gillis is taken to view the body and, as a consequence, meets his future lover, Norma Desmond.

An interesting insight into the film’s ill-fated love affair between Gillis and Desmond, however, is the direction that Billy Wilder (who co-wrote the film) gave Gloria Swanson concerning her character’s feelings for the departed pet.  In an interview with Cameron Crowe, the great director revealed that the relationship between the monkey and Miss Desmond was much more intimate than that of owner and pet:  They were, in fact, lovers!  Throughout the scenes involving the monkey, Wilder reminded Swanson repeatedly: “There goes your last lover;” and, after the animal had been buried in the garden, he continued to tell her, “Remember that your lover is in the garden”(Cameron, 304).

A point that movie critics have failed to properly appreciate in this classic film, then, is not only a transition between lovers that is unique in cinematic history, but also one that is supremely Darwinian in nature: Gloria Swanson goes from a monkey to William Holden—now that is evolution!

An even more important point that has been overlooked, however, is that through this vital piece of characterization the complete dysfunctional nature of Norma’s relationships is made more ironically clear: she treated her pet monkey as a lover and her lover, Joe Gillis, as a pet.  Thematically then, it is no surprise that at the end of the film she survives both and, as the final scene shows the faded star being escorted to prison, one of the film’s major themes is fully revealed:  Taken to its extreme, self-absorption both destroys and kills. 

Gloria Swanson as Norma Desmond

Crowe, Cameron.  Conversations with Wilder.  New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2001.

ASIDE: On the Personal Anecdote in the Classroom

Since it can be viewed as a superfluous waste of valuable classroom time, a teacher is often tempted to forgo personal anecdotes in the day to day exercise of academic instruction.  As part of the human element of teaching, unlike other areas of instructive interaction, the influence of the anecdote can never be truly quantified and so its significance in the process of instruction never accurately measured.

In terms of the intuitive communicative link between two or more separate individuals, however, an instructor’s well-placed, well-spoken personal anecdote is often that necessary part of the teaching process that connects: the bridge or pathway to human meeting human, where two separate perceptions of inviolable individuality overlap to find common ground.  For some students, it is the vital starting point of the mind’s flower opening up to what the teacher, over time, hopes to pour into the root of it.

One caution: It must be appropriate and, above all, genuine.  Like most animals, humans can smell insincerity like an odour.

"In fact, it reminds me of the time I wrestled an alligator after making love to twenty women!"

INSIGHT, APHORISM & MAXIM: Incentive & Enticement, the First Rule of Bribery

In MGM’s 1973 production The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing, Sarah Miles plays an abused wife who, while fleeing her husband, is abducted by a gang of outlaws.  At the mercy of four desperate men, and after being almost raped by two of them, she tries to bribe one of the abductors to help her escape. 

While sitting together by an open fire, she proposes her scheme to Jack Warden’s character, Dawes, and offers him two emerald earrings and one emerald pendant for his assistance.  The outlaw accepts the valuable items she hands to him and, without agreeing to help her, stands up and walks away.

At this point, Burt Reynold’s character, Jay Grobart, enters the frame and it is apparent that he has witnessed the entire scene; smirking, with his thumbs hitched lazily inside his pant pockets, he offers his devastated captive the following insight on the principles of incentive and enticement:  “Never try and bribe a man with something he can take anyway.”

Photo from, http://nothingiswrittenfilm.blogspot.ca/2012/06/man-who-loved-cat-dancing.html

THE ANTIQUARIAN: Pope Clement VII & the Art of Non-Decision

Throughout the ages, the politics and power-plays of popes have equaled or surpassed the very best (or worst) of the many secular political disciples of Machiavelli.  A prime example of such papal political maneuvering can be seen in the way Pope Clement VII handled the question of Henry VIII’s application to divorce his first wife, Queen Catherine.

The catalyst behind The Great Matter, as it was known at the time, essentially, involved Henry VIII’s desire to have a legitimate son, his dissatisfaction with his wife’s inability to give him one, and, finally, his ardent desire to marry Anne Boleyn.  For the latter to occur, however, the King of England needed papal permission to divorce the Queen of England, Catherine of Aragon. 

England’s Great Matter, however, generated great personal and political risk for Giulio de’ Medici, also known as Pope Clement VII.  As David Starkey remarks in his book, Six Wives: The Queens of Henry VIII, the pope had much to fear:  On the one hand, the troops of Catherine of Aragon’s nephew, Emperor Charles V, had just sacked Rome, leaving both the city and the pope at the mercy of an emperor who was actively pressuring him to disallow the divorce; on the other hand, the Lutheran rejection of papal power then taking hold in Germany represented a threat to the papacy itself and Clement was informed that if he did not allow the King of England to get rid of his wife, England would go the way of Germany (Starkey, 217).  On top of all this, the Medici family, to which he belonged, had been driven out of their “hereditary city-state of Florence” and Clement was responsible for saving the family from political oblivion (Starkey, 217).

So, how did Pope Clement VII respond?  The wily Florentine, as Starkey describes him, used prevarication as an art form (217).  With discourse of inordinate length, he confused, exacerbated, and avoided “ever reaching a conclusion;” in so doing, he bought the time he needed to improve his position (Starkey, 217).  Starkey states, Pope Clement “knew every word, in mellifluous Italian or fluent Latin, apart from ‘yes’ and ‘no’” (217).

At last, a Legatine Trial was set-up to deliberate over The Great Matter in England and Henry VIII, frustrated by delay after delay, and desperate to marry Anne Boleyn, was, eventually, forced to decide the matter on his own by breaking off relations with Rome. With the decision made for him, and at a time more advantageous to himself, Clement was now in a better position to, finally, give a definitive response: On 11 July 1533, he excommunicated King Henry VIII of England.

Starkey, David. Six Wives: The Queens of Henry VIII.  Toronto: Harper Perennial, 2003.

VIGNETTE: "On a Trip to Washington D.C."

LITERARY CORNER: Let Literature Be

                                      The reader became the book; and summer night

                                      Was like the conscious being of the book.

                                                                                   - Wallace Stevens

                                                

Using the Iceberg Principle of Ernest Hemingway’s Theory of Omission in his introduction to the 1^st edition of The Literary Detective, Glen Paul Hammond explained how storytellers use plot (which is analogous to the visible, smallest part of the iceberg that floats above the waterline) as a means to allow a good reader to perceive the deeper meaning of the text (which is analogous to the largest part of the iceberg that resides, invisible, below the surface of the water).

In the 2^nd Edition of the The Literary Detective, this essential part of the communicative relationship, between writer and reader, is more fully articulated in an expanded Introduction that demonstrates how layers of meaning embedded in the text creates an experiential connection that allows a book to speak to the modern reader and come alive!

The author uses Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to explain the process (Hammond, 4-6):

                    In a diagrammatical iceberg, Twain’s great literary masterpiece

              can be viewed in the following way:

          Above the waterline is the plot.  In the case of The Adventures

          of Huckleberry Finn, this can be summed up as involving a runaway

          white boy and slave, who travel down the Mississippi River together; it

          is simplistic and mundane.  Moving just a little deeper below the surface,

          however, is a common and acknowledged understanding of the basic

          theme of the novel, the great American sin of slavery.

                The theme of slavery is based in the historical time period or setting

          of the novel, which is pre-civil war United States.  In order to achieve the

          best position to understand the work, the reader must research the time

          period and culture being represented.  This will inevitably lead to an

          investigation of the culture’s deeply rooted racism.

               At this point, the reader begins to understand that by exploring the

          historical time period presented in the novel, the reader is able to free the

          novel from the constraints of a strictly historical perspective.  Essentially,

          by placing the novel in its historical time, the reader can bring it out of

          that time period and into the present.  The fact that the novel itself was

          written well after the end of slavery, suggests that the institution of

          slavery was not the essential matter that Twain was exploring.

               Indeed, racism as a fatal characteristic of human nature, which

          transcends time and place, can now be viewed as a deeper underlying

          theme.  Even though many discussions of the novel will delve no deeper

          than this important layer, it is evident from the very first chapter that

          Twain’s book means to go much further in its exploration on how societies

          operate.  Through repetition, the author introduces the existence of what

          social scientists now call functional requisites, which are basic functions

          that each member of society must observe if the society is to function in a

          particular way.  For a slave state society to accept the institutional law of

          slavery, racism had to become a basic function.

              Colonel Sherburn’s famous speech in chapter 22 and a cross reference

          to how it reflects Twain’s own view on “man’s commonest weakness, his

          aversion to being unpleasantly conspicuous,” introduces the even deeper

          theme of moral courage.  Once the individual recognizes that society

          requires them to observe certain basic functions, the individual is made

          cognizant of issues that involve the morality of accepting immoral

          societal norms.  As Twain remarks, only one individual in 10,000 is

          capable of the courage to stand alone against the larger group and, in

          the novel, that individual is the delinquent Huckleberry Finn.

               Since functional requisites, moral cowardice/courage and the dilemmas

          they represent are things that all individuals potentially face in various

          ways and in various degrees on a daily basis, the book is now completely

          relevant to the reader’s immediate life, and the deepest layer of any read

          has been accomplished: You!

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Now with tables, additional text and exercises at the back, The Literary Detective, A Guide to the Study of Great Literary Works, 2^nd Edition is more essential than ever before. Anyone can become an expert reader!  Anyone can have great literature come alive!  In twenty short chapters, The Literary Detective shows you how!

"This book is so me!"

Hammond, Glen Paul.  The Literary Detective: A Guide to the Study of Great Literary

            Works.  2^nd ed.  Charleston: Create Space Publishing, 2014

CINEMA SIDE: Errol Flynn & the Russian Princess

Published posthumously in 1959, Errol Flynn’s autobiography My Wicked, Wicked Ways has never been out of print and has sold more than one million copies.  Once described as the handsomest man in the world, Flynn candidly talks about himself in the book and provides a sharp, intimate view of Hollywood in its golden years.

Among the many personal anecdotes given by the author/actor in his autobiography, is an incident that occurred following Flynn’s discovery in a Stratford-on-Avon festival stage production that resulted in a six-month contract with Warner Brothers in Hollywood.

Leaving England for New York, in 1934, on board the Paris, the young and still unknown actor found himself sailing with the up and coming stars, Merle Oberon, Louis Hayward, and Lili Damita (Flynn’s future wife).  Also, among this group, was a woman whom Flynn identified in his autobiography as “the Russian princess, Naomi Tiarovitch”(165)

Too shy to attempt an intrusion into their more celebrated circle, Flynn confessed that he watched the group from afar, his eye particularly drawn to “the beautifully dressed Damita arrogantly walking the deck” (Flynn, 165). 

After one failed attempt to ingratiate himself to his future wife on board the Paris, the young actor arrived in New York, checked himself into the St Moritz Hotel, and entered the hotel’s elevator, where, with only an elevator boy between them, he was surprised to find “the very alluring Princess Tiarovitch”(165).

Flynn recalled, many years later, that he and the princess had seen each other on board the Paris, but had never spoken, and that even in the elevator she gave him no sign that she recognized him from the ship.  In the elevator, Flynn reported, the princess only spoke to the elevator boy, asking him, “What floor is Room 801 on?”

Flynn continued to his own room on the tenth floor, but had understood.  He immediately called her rooms, and she immediately invited him down to them.  Shortly afterwards, Flynn remembered, “she was in my arms” (166).  They made love.  Then, after a murmur of soft male tones and the purr of little Russian whimpers, they began again (Flynn, 166). 

It was during this second bout that the dynamics of the encounter changed.  “Suddenly,” Flynn recalled, I lept up “with a yell, a real scream of pain.  I clutched at my buttocks.  It seemed as if I had been bitten by ten scorpions.”  Bringing his hand up, the handsome young actor saw blood all over both hands (Flynn, 166).  Staring at the princess then, he said, he recognized “a strange gloating in her eyes, a truly savage look” (Flynn, 166). 

Flynn’s Russian princess had introduced what the author described as “a hairbrush with a long handle” that “looked like a miniature baseball bat,” and since he could not be sure whether the bristles were made of hair or some kind of thin steel, Flynn thought it best to back off, get dressed and immediately end the brief affair.

Disguised by Flynn in his autobiography, the true identity of the Russian princess has, for some time, remained unknown.  Just recently, however, The Errol Flynn Blog claims to have solved the mystery.  According to the site, her real name was Natalie Paley LeLong and she was both Russian and a princess.

Photo of Natalie Paley LeLong by Man Ray, 1934

Flynn, Errol. My Wicked, Wicked Ways. New York: Berkley Books, 1985

Photo of Natalie Paley LeLong courtesy of The Errol Flynn Blog