☆ ☆ ☆ ½
Jezebel
(1938) – W. Wyler
I guess it should come as no surprise
that a film set in the Antebellum American South (1850’s) seems misogynistic,
with the male (and older female) characters always trying to keep headstrong
Bette Davis in her place. But one
wonders whether this also played into the stereotypes and preferences of some
of the 1938 audience (and perhaps how it is received today). Of course, Davis excelled at this sort of
selfish petulant bad girl and another reading of the film is that she simply
wasn’t fair to her fiancé, Henry Fonda, in trying to dominate him and the
backlash against her is a personal (not sexist) matter. Davis is gleefully awful until the
melodramatic yellow-fever focused ending where her efforts to redeem herself
(in the eyes of whom?) seem yet another attempt to be close and take control of
Fonda, even though his heart belongs to someone else. Wyler’s direction is perfect and the whole
damn thing is lavish, even if today it reads as a prelude to Gone With The Wind
(hello Southern clichés!).
No comments:
Post a Comment