Brief introduction / justification
If I did not write for a long time it was for "technical" reasons, which unfortunately does not depend on me. In any case I think it is appropriate to apologize to the people who read / read this blog.
Until some time ago I wrote the movie reviews every Friday, I think. Well, the review does not form- satisfies me more. Nevertheless, not abandoned, nor writing, nor is the argument that, in a sense, my faith: the cinema. So, since I love challenges, I decided that I begin to write "essays". This is my new way of writing is so presumptuous, but it gives me more satisfaction because I can certainly talk about things more and more movies at once. This type of "form" has a negative which is a bit 'long-winded and even more boring then I will surely have less "later." But I am a selfish person, and not the author of a best-seller. I write for me. Of course I will take a little 'more time to write, and then it is said that every week I write something.
Regarding the proposed text below confess to have written long ago and have already published. I only slightly revised where needed. In short: it is "heated soup." But here it is.
Phenomenology of
dark lady dark lady of the concept is, as the term itself, which is inseparable from the dark. Obviously you are not speaking of either 'dark' in a literal sense nor in the modern sense. Lately we tend to confuse the dark lady with the dark, which are, in fact, girls who dress and makeup with dark shades and listening to a type of music that evokes the dark atmosphere (like the Cure, for example). But then, what exactly is a dark lady?
We can identify the character of Lady Macbeth of Shakespeare as a prototype of this 'species'. It has well-defined characteristics that tend to become the standard of the characters that will follow in his footsteps. E 'first woman with a strong personality, devious and unscrupulous. Its function in the story is to encourage your spouse, to confirm and exacerbate the ambition to power. Although his body is female, her attitude makes me think of the opposite sex. Saying your prayer to the spirits "That Tend on mortal thoughts," she sacrifices her femininity by giving up two women who typically Breast and breast milk:
I suck, and know the sweetness of
love you baby sucks the breast
and yet, as he had steadfastly
the smiley face on my face, I would have torn by force
my nipple from his bare
keep gums,
and I would splash the brain,
if ever I had taken an oath,
as thou hast sworn to do this!
(I, VII)
Lady Macbeth wants her husband to become king, even though there is nothing selfish in that desire. Macbeth comes as a son reassures him, scolds him when he lacks the will, encouraged him when you feel lost, just like a mother. This
dualism lover / husband / child is now almost commonplace in more or less evident in the film. Let's see how.
The birth of the dark lady film coincides with the birth of noir. The noir had its heyday between 1941 and 1955. This type of film is difficult to describe because of the mix of genres it contains. However, we can identify the applicants / Special offers: photography rather than contrast, muddy textures and sometimes fatal presence of women, the dark lady, indeed.
In "Double Indemnity" (1944, Billy Wilder), Barbara Stanwyck is Phyllis Dietrichson, a woman convinces her lover to kill husband for insurance and then collect the insurance. The character Stanwyck is one of the most successful: it represents pure evil without escape. The first appearance in the scene is in a bathrobe, her hair blond and flirtatious but never vulgar expression. Ankle wearing a bracelet, considered scandalous by the conformists of the time. Not only is it beautiful, it's also intelligent and unprejudiced. Phillis is that her lover were excluded from the personal fulfillment requires that the American dream, were crushed, one by marriage, the other from work. The
Elsa Bannister of "The Lady from Shanghai" (1947, Orson Welles) is a woman oppressed by the rich husband and a cripple, who keeps to himself through blackmail. The ingenuous sailor who falls in love her will be embedded in a complex case of murder, orchestrated, needless to say from her own. This film has several characteristics: first, Rita Hayworth in the role of Elsa and sporting a short blonde hair. Her blond hair is often associated with corrupt woman, both in film and in common places (default = woman wife, mother / blond woman = prostitute), and it is a recurrent element in the shape of the dark lady. The same Marilyn has benefited enormously from this image. The lack of femininity of Rita Hayworth is given by the actions taken by the woman. In one scene we see even dressed as a sailor, pilot boat. This film also has another special feature: Welles kills his dark lady of broken glass, slumped to the ground, wounded and pleading, left to itself without the possibility of redemption. This fact differs from the canon Hollywood stars who wanted to keep a certain grace, even in the moment of death. Take for example, "Double Indemnity": Phyllis dies with a gunshot in the arms of her lover.
In "The Woman Who Lived Twice" (1958, Alfred Hitchcock) Madeleine Elster (Kim Novak) is the object of desire, that will be lost and then found another woman in the form of strangely identical to the first player from James Stewart . The erotic component is strong in this film through a subjective viewer identifies with the character Men looking for women. In many films of Hitchcock's character resolves his Oedipus syndrome punishing the woman, in this case the man not only solve his psychological problems, but punishes the woman for her sins, like a reinterpretation of original sin.
With "The Damned" (1969, Luchino Visconti), the dark lady becomes mature, and aging also increases the wickedness. Visconti staged a sort of revival of "Macbeth" in a German family and powerful just before the Second World War. Sophie Von Essenbeck is the Lady Macbeth of the film that pushes her man to "go all the way along" in a sort of megalomania that alliance will lead to more narrow and suffocating with the Nazi regime. Sophie also has a son who will solve his problems with his mother possessing carnally. She does not seem to be disgusted, indeed, sexual pleasure is mixed into a sort of return to the womb where you can check your child even better.
In recent years the figure of the dark lady has changed a lot: on the one hand there are those who slightly modified the classic woman's beautiful and cruel, the other people in the most unexpected twists. In the first case we can put the two films of David Lynch's "Lost Highway" (1997) and "Mulholland Drive" (2001). In "Lost Highway" the dark lady is half real and half invented. When the imaginary part takes over the main character reveals itself in the most dark and dangerous. In "Mulholland Drive" the dark lady is such only in the latter part of the film. The first part is only a representation due to guilt. The dark lady is not blonde but rather payments, and the whole plot is fitted to the frustration of a lesbian love with devastating consequences. The ill-fated love is not the only theme of the film, there is also a strong critic of the Hollywood star system in the world who use and enjoyment of people in permanent damage, especially women.
Some people, like Almodóvar, has upset the rules of film noir and the same characterization of the dark lady. In "Bad Education" (2004) everything revolves around a character who is not who he claims to be and, hiding this terrible secret, he manipulates those around him and gets what he wants. It 's a perfect dark lady ... man. The character in question is in fact a she but a he. Angel and Enrique, the two protagonists, dig deeper and deeper into the abyss of their education, finding only death. As in all Almodovar films, the passion is the main theme. In this case it is the sick passion of Father Manolo for the small Ignacio that will generate a future of desolation.
Through the centuries, the dark lady had a kind of evolution has gone from being a man woman who wants to become more cruel (Lady Macbeth) to man (Angel). It almost seems that she was able to fulfill his wishes. Absorbing the male is able to become more cruel and reached its murky purposes. In fact, woman or man who is the dark lady will always be an outcast, a 'soul in torment that has been stolen a few liberties, a being who is stuck in mediocrity for a life too ordinary. Where were placed in the wrong context, the dark lady will do anything to get out, but he would always make the wrong way, thereby meeting inexorably to its tragic fate.
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