it's only a paper moon
Here's a semi-intellectual post...
Has anyone read "A Streetcar Named Desire"? It's got to be one of the most intensely depressing and thought provoking American plays ever written, with extreme look into family dynamics and what makes a person who they are, and why people stay. I've read the play, Tennessee Williams, although very troubled (and understandably, he had a pretty messed up life) was amazing.
So, I had to watch the movie for a class, and I was incredibly disappointed with the ending. The entire screenplay was true to the play. Yet I think that it failed to do a few things with the characters.
1) Stanley Kowalski, to me, is not an animal. Yes, he's a jerk. No, he should not have done what he did. However, he does have a mind. And Stella does love him and believe that he has potential.
2) Blanche. You can't help but dislike the woman. Yet at the same time you have to pity her, and have some empathy for the her in the life that's been thrown at her. All that she did was fall in love. She was young, and she fell in love with a boy. They got married. That shouldn't have been too bad, right? Well, he made her feel like she was doing something wrong throughout the marriage, like it was her fault it wasn't working. And lo and behold, one day she walks in on her husband having an affair. With another man. I can imagine that that would be a little bit scarring. And that same night she sees her husband lying on the ground after he blew his brains out. Honestly, you would need some serious therapy to overcome something like that. But who was she going to tell that her husband was homosexual? That wasn't something that people talked about. So, she tried to fill the void of her broken heart and all the lies with a very prolonged series of affairs. All she wanted was for someone to love her, and nobody ever did. In the end it destroyed her, because just as she couldn't very well tell the world that her husband was homosexual and had committed suicide because she found out, she couldn't tell the world that her sister's husband had raped her. And hiding it drove her mad, to the point that they had her taken to an asylum.
It's a tough story to read, really, because to try to relate to the characters means that you have to put yourself in positions that no one ever wants to be in. Which is why the ending to the film just doesn't fit. It's too happy for Williams' play. In the movie, Stella leaves Stanley, for good. In the play, she stays with him, sobbing at the loss of her sister to the world that has destroyed her. Yet somehow she belongs to Stanley. No matter how much wrong he does, and no matter how much the audience wants her to leave. She can't, he is her life. And what would even be the point in leaving him when her sister is gone? To have her leaving is simply wrong. We can see a million reasons why she should go, but that is why we will never be Stella. Stella is in love. She sees the man that Stanley could be, she believes that he has the potential to be great, and she loves the world they have built. She believes at the end that with Blanche gone, things will return to normal. By sending Blanche away she has chosen Stanley, so she must stay with him--for better or for worse.
Read the play. Watch the movie, Marlon Brando's great. Only, don't watch the last minute and a half. It's simply not worth it.
Has anyone read "A Streetcar Named Desire"? It's got to be one of the most intensely depressing and thought provoking American plays ever written, with extreme look into family dynamics and what makes a person who they are, and why people stay. I've read the play, Tennessee Williams, although very troubled (and understandably, he had a pretty messed up life) was amazing.
So, I had to watch the movie for a class, and I was incredibly disappointed with the ending. The entire screenplay was true to the play. Yet I think that it failed to do a few things with the characters.
1) Stanley Kowalski, to me, is not an animal. Yes, he's a jerk. No, he should not have done what he did. However, he does have a mind. And Stella does love him and believe that he has potential.
2) Blanche. You can't help but dislike the woman. Yet at the same time you have to pity her, and have some empathy for the her in the life that's been thrown at her. All that she did was fall in love. She was young, and she fell in love with a boy. They got married. That shouldn't have been too bad, right? Well, he made her feel like she was doing something wrong throughout the marriage, like it was her fault it wasn't working. And lo and behold, one day she walks in on her husband having an affair. With another man. I can imagine that that would be a little bit scarring. And that same night she sees her husband lying on the ground after he blew his brains out. Honestly, you would need some serious therapy to overcome something like that. But who was she going to tell that her husband was homosexual? That wasn't something that people talked about. So, she tried to fill the void of her broken heart and all the lies with a very prolonged series of affairs. All she wanted was for someone to love her, and nobody ever did. In the end it destroyed her, because just as she couldn't very well tell the world that her husband was homosexual and had committed suicide because she found out, she couldn't tell the world that her sister's husband had raped her. And hiding it drove her mad, to the point that they had her taken to an asylum.
It's a tough story to read, really, because to try to relate to the characters means that you have to put yourself in positions that no one ever wants to be in. Which is why the ending to the film just doesn't fit. It's too happy for Williams' play. In the movie, Stella leaves Stanley, for good. In the play, she stays with him, sobbing at the loss of her sister to the world that has destroyed her. Yet somehow she belongs to Stanley. No matter how much wrong he does, and no matter how much the audience wants her to leave. She can't, he is her life. And what would even be the point in leaving him when her sister is gone? To have her leaving is simply wrong. We can see a million reasons why she should go, but that is why we will never be Stella. Stella is in love. She sees the man that Stanley could be, she believes that he has the potential to be great, and she loves the world they have built. She believes at the end that with Blanche gone, things will return to normal. By sending Blanche away she has chosen Stanley, so she must stay with him--for better or for worse.
Read the play. Watch the movie, Marlon Brando's great. Only, don't watch the last minute and a half. It's simply not worth it.
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