Misfortunes of Imaginary Beings: 02/23/20

A blog formerly known as Bookishness / By Charles Matthews

"Dazzled by so many and such marvelous inventions, the people of Macondo ... became indignant over the living images that the prosperous merchant Bruno Crespi projected in the theater with the lion-head ticket windows, for a character who had died and was buried in one film and for whose misfortune tears had been shed would reappear alive and transformed into an Arab in the next one. The audience, who had paid two cents apiece to share the difficulties of the actors, would not tolerate that outlandish fraud and they broke up the seats. The mayor, at the urging of Bruno Crespi, explained in a proclamation that the cinema was a machine of illusions that did not merit the emotional outbursts of the audience. With that discouraging explanation many ... decided not to return to the movies, considering that they already had too many troubles of their own to weep over the acted-out misfortunes of imaginary beings."
--Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

Sunday, February 23, 2020

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (Ronald Neame, 1969)

Maggie Smith and Pamela Franklin in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

Cast: Maggie Smith, Robert Stephens, Pamela Franklin, Gordon Jackson, Celia Johnson, Diane Grayson, Jane Carr, Shirley Steedman. Screenplay: Jay Presson Allen, based on her play and a novel by Muriel Spark. Cinematography: Ted Moore. Production design: John Howell. Film editing: Norman Savage. Music: Rod McKuen.

My problem with the title character of the film version of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is that she seems to have sprung full-blown -- mannerisms, catchphrases ("I am in my prime"), ideology and all -- from the imaginations of the people who created her, screenwriter Jay Presson Allen and actress Maggie Smith. I'm no more able to envision a backstory, a childhood, or an inner life for her than I am for a Dickens character like Mr. Micawber. At least in Muriel Spark's novel there are hints of something more, but they haven't translated well to the screen. Which is not to say that Smith didn't deserve her Oscar for playing the role; it's a fascinating, nuanced performance, from Jean Brodie's initial dominance to her comeuppance to her final defiance. If we don't know how Jean came to imagine herself an Übermensch, that's our problem, the film eventually suggests. Better to sit back and watch some fine performances: Robert Stephens as the randy art teacher, the always wonderful and welcome Celia Johnson as the headmistress, and 19-year-old Pamela Franklin convincingly transforming the 12-year-old into the post-pubescent student whom Jean underestimates. But anathema upon the producer or whoever decided to commission Rod McKuen to write a goopy song that unaccountably was nominated for an Oscar. At least it plays only over the end credits when you can easily escape it.