Friday, January 26, 2018

Phantom Thread: Male Wet Dream

I saw Phantom Thread last weekend, Daniel Day-Lewis's supposed last film, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. The acting is good, the sets and gowns are beautiful (Daniel Day-Lewis plays a fashion designer in 1950s France), and the music is lovely. The movie has a lyrical, genteel, rarified atmosphere, a window into a gracious world. It has just been nominated for a raft of Oscars, including best picture, best actor, best director, and best supporting actress. 

In this film, Woodcock takes up with a young waitress named Alma (Vicki Krieps). He lives with his sister, Cyril (Leslie Manville). He also makes beautiful gowns for wealthy clients. 

Note the possessive hold on her neck-- and the age difference. 

Woodcock  is so sensitive and his life so rarified that when Alma butters her toast or pours water too loudly, our designer's fragile nerves and concentration are shattered. The movie has  a comic edge (or the audience invented one), because people kept laughing at how over-the-top it all was.

She's his doll. 

As usual (when will I learn?), I was aghast at the way women and their relationships with a male were portrayed. This was another Dr Zhivago, a male wet dream, only without the pesky bother of a communist revolution to disturb Woodcock's gracious lifestyle. Woodcock is adored by the two women in his life—the masculinely named and largely desexed (despite lipstick and pearls) practical mother figure Cyril, and Woodcock’s love interest, Alma. They both live to serve him. Their world revolves around his. As in Dr. Zhivago, these adoring women get along  together… because what could be more important than uniting so as to in every way serve and service the creative genius male? Lives of their own: nyet. Who would want that? Their devotion is utter and unstinting.

Alma's brain is conveniently missing from this photo but not her breasts or her buttocks--or the male gaze.

After watching it, I read one review—in the New York Times—glowing. No questioning of, say, a 60-something marrying a 20-something. It was all “love.” No mention of emotional abuse or Stockholm syndrome. No questioning of the state of mind of the young woman who would stay with this fussy, tantruming, emotionally abusive older man. All that misbehavior, I imagine, is supposed to be amusing and endearing--or the trials of the misunderstood artist. The review praises Alma for standing up to Woodhouse and forcing him toward change. Well, not really. She only stands up to him in minor ways against his whims within the context of a life that is utterly conformed to his own and utterly about servicing him. She goes to a party on New Year's Eve without him! Horrors! Her biggest, most audacious act of rebellion, which I won’t give away, is meant to purify him, to allow her to take care of him so he can be strong again. In other words, it is all about him. Him, him, him, him.

A.O. Scott, the male New York Times critic never questions this or even seems to notice. I wonder if other critics do? He goes far as to pose the question, non-ironically: "Is Alma a feminist heroine?" The short answer: No. And No. A base requirement for being a feminist heroine is having a life and identity separate from a male. Perhaps that bears repeating: A base requirement for being a feminist heroine is having a life and identity separate from a male.

Scott describes the movie as a "wrenching tale of woman's love for a man and a man's love for his work."  This is the definition of an anti-feminist film in a nutshell: Men work. Women adore the men who work. However, when Scott likens it to "refined Gothic nightmare in the manner of Henry James," he strikes closer to the truth, though I am sure he does not know of what he speaketh: James, to put it mildly, was no lover of women. As Jane Austen's  Emma would say, Good God!

One might argue that Anderson is merely reflecting the mores of the 1950s, but that would be false. Outside of the window dressing of clothing (not even fashion), this film has nothing to do with the historical reality of the 1950s. You wouldn't know, for example, that France was still reeling from the aftermath of World War II. This is an entirely mythic universe, divorced from real history. 

Since the movie has been highly praised (it has a 90% favorable rating from critics) and is now nominated for many important Oscars, it may be important to stand up and ask what exactly is being portrayed here and to announce as loudly as possible that, despite some feeble challenges from Alma, this is not a feminist film but one likely to carry forward damaging stereotypes about women. 

6 comments:

  1. Good God is right. I am not looking forward to seeing this film. It's sounds queaze-making. I read Owen Gleiberman's review of it in Variety. He never uses the word "feminist", but many derogative words for male selfishness. Here is his review: http://variety.com/2017/film/reviews/phantom-thread-review-daniel-day-lewis-1202632204/ We'll see if I see this one or not. Thanks for this heads-up, Diane.

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  2. Diane, I saw the film today and must say it is interesting and different. I agree with you about it being visually beautiful and the music attractive and most of the dresses, scenery also are enticing. The setting is confusing but I believe it is actually set in England but Woodcock traveled to France where he met Alma, or else she was French and working in England. The reviewers say he works in Paris, but I'm quite sure it's England. In one scene there are British flags flying. In any case, Woodcock is creepy and disturbing in the early scenes, and once he meets Alma and brings her home and his sister shows up while he's having her model his dresses, any self-respecting woman would have left. The sister is just as creepy as he is really. All this early part of the film I can agree is very much like a male fantasy of a beautiful woman who will simply desire him and sit around waiting for when he wants to pay attention to her, after he's done with his work. The film does become a bit more feminist toward the end, but maybe almost femi-nazi style feminist. I won't give away what happens, but what woman in a bad relationship hasn't considered killing the man, and yet Alma has her own twist to it and the second time she does it is deeply disturbing - I really don't know what to think of that part of it - it's as if he knows he has a problem and needs her to fix it. In some ways it is one of the most twisted and perverted films I've seen, and yet I want to like it. What was the producer, screenwriter, etc. thinking when they made this one? And yet I would encourage people to go see it because I think there is room for a lot of different reactions from different viewers.

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  3. Diane, Thanks for your fearless review, I have not seen the film, mainly because I am not a fan of Paul Thomas Anderson (I found Magnolia utterly uninteresting and pretentious), but I don't doubt your perceptions, because I know you are the furthest thing from a feminist ideologue.

    I do want to give you a laugh by showing you that you had a wonderful Freudian slip in the following passage:

    "The review praises Alma for standing up to Woodhouse and forcing him toward change. Well, not really. She only stands up to him in minor ways against his whims within the context of a life that is utterly conformed to his own and utterly about servicing him."

    Do you see it? If the relationship of Woodcock and Alma is anything like that of Mr. Woodhouse and Emma (and I would not be surprised to learn that the strikingly similar names are not an accident at all), then it is pretty horrible, especially when you factor in the father-daughter incest theme just beneath the surface of Emma, which I have demonstrated is based in part on the father-daughter incest extravaganza in Shakespeare's Pericles!

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  4. Judith,
    Thanks for the comment--and belatedly, glad you are feeling better!

    Tyler, Glad you saw the movie and agreed it is both interesting and perverse. I hadn't grasped that it was set in England, but that only reinforces that the time and place are unimportant in this mythic film.

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  5. Arnie,
    I never once thought of Mr. Woodhouse and Emma, but the names are similar, and yes, I can see it, very much so. Mr. Woodhouse is also an incredibly fussy older man who the women have to cater to. Of course, the would make "poor Miss Taylor" cast in the role of Cyril, the enabling sister ...

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  6. I suppose I should sit through it to learn about what Judith is referring to. If she reads this comment, she will see how wish she had told what she is talking about so I spare myself having to watch.

    Arnie I saw connected this to Austen and I will try to read his postings later today.

    The film-maker might have in mind Yves Laurent's lives where we do see one reason women reacted this way to him was (like Rousseau) he made women's lives the center of his art: he made dresses for women. He made them important and _gave them jobs_.

    I've found that women don't seem to care enough -- they just don't connect what they see with their lives or show this tendency of human beings to try to find what is uplifting in whatever it is.

    Recently I've had to face myself about women's historical romances as filmed: after several months and more of experience on Poldark fan sites, and now Outlander I have to say yes they do. At least those who post seem to care little about the women characters in comparison with the sexed-up central male. I found a witty sequel, showing the Outlander people are not all fools (I knew that) and what's it on: Finding Fraser, a comic novel in emails about K.C.Dyer's quest. It did have to be okayed by Gabaldon who is profusely thanked.




    At the day on Scotland (not bad but not sophisticated enough for me), the lecturer was repeatedly asked about Outlander; the audience were made up of people who admired
    Braveheart. I've never seen it -- much is untrue. It too has this male at the center. Once I tried to read poems on movies thinking I would find deep thoughts, and I found among even most poets, men and women, they react to movies atavistically: sit in worship of a false dream of sex at the core. False I say because marry that powerful male and he just might beat the hell out of you.

    So there is another set of impulses set up at work here: Virginia Woolf in one of her rare reviews of films says that films provoke the barbaric in us...

    Ellen

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