Snow White's guilt

Is this girl really innocent?

Actually, it's in your face. If someone is called Snow White and everything about her is immaculate, pure and innocent, you must ask yourself what it is that she is hiding. I am not saying that everyone who boasts these characteristics is evil, but let's take a thorough look at Snow White. Who is she? Why does she have to leave the castle? What is she running away from? Who is she running away from? What has she done?

Disney's Snow White is the mosty boring heroine, even compared to later Disney princesses like Cinderella or Jasmin. Snow White was made out of soft and round pencil strokes and her movements were based on an actual dancer named Marge Champion who later also modeled for the characters of the Blue Fairy in Pinoccchio and one of the dancing hippos in Fantasia. (Marge Champion can later be seen in real life as a dancer in several MGM-musicals of the 50s). Her voice belonged to a young Italian singer called Adriana Caselotti who was kept on a very tight leach by Disney, in fact her career after Snow White was reduced to nil. 

Marge Champion as Snow White.

Disney's Snow White is a very controled character, a young girl who seems perfectly at ease inside the box (or the cell) that she has been assigned to live in. In fact, she never, not even during the nightmarish flight through the woods, steps out of line. She is the perfect picture of total submission, at her best when she teaches the dwarfs how to clean themselves and behave. And thus, as a character in a cartoon, the place where anyone can become anything, Snow White never transcends the paper doll.

This has always struck me as strange. The real magic behind Disney's Snow White has always seemed to me to be about soemthing else, something unseen, hidden behind all that perfection and smoothness. What about Snow White's guilt, for instance. What has she done? Why does she have to run away?

Well, of course, there is the Stepmother, the woman married to Snow White's father who is jealous of Snow White's beauty. The Stepmother apparently had a name in the Disney film: Grimhilde. And she looked evil enough, both before and after the potion called "Sleeping Death" that she so dramatically swallows, clearly inspired by the previous Hollywood versions of Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Grimhilde turns into an evil old crow in order to trick Snow White to eat the poisonous apple. But will she, Grimhilde, ever be able to retreat back into her beautiful self again? The story never tells, and we will never know as Grimhilde tragically dies in the end. I've always felt a little sorry for her, the ugly old hag, who smiles so mischievously directly at us, as if wanting to make us her accomplice. Remember, she sacrifices her own beauty in order to kill Snow White. So, is the story really about who is the fairest of them all?

The brave witch?

In the two new film versions coming out this spring, the evil stepmother is played by Julia Roberts and Charlize Theron, two beautiful actresses in their prime. I am clearly not the only one puzzled by the motives of the "evil" stepmother. But is she really that bad? The Stepmother is a tough part to play, replacing Snow White's dead mother and literally stepping into her shoes, the Queen's shoes. And why doesn't the king ever step forward to save his own daughter? In the Grimm story, and the Disney film, the king is just not there, the third side of the love triangle, the elusive prize that both women are fighting for.

Julia Roberts and Charlize Theron facing a cruel fate.

Yes, that is what I am driving at: they are both fighting for the love of the king, Snow White and her stepmother Grimhilde. And why does Snow White has to be banished from the castle? Because of her love for her father, the kind of incestuous love that threatens the new marriage of the king. The king needs to rule and he needs a queen by his side who is strong and forceful, like Grimhilde. But he can't rule as long as he wants to marry his daughter, Snow White.

This incestuous motive in Snow White has been effectively quenched in the Disney version of the tale, and all subsequent versions as well. But like all fairy tales it survives in different stories, and in the French tale of Peau d'Ane (Donkey Skin), it is easy to recognize the story of Snow White in disguise: In the French story, she is a princess who is actually threatened by incest, her father being incapable of loving anyone else after the death of the queen. It will be up to a good fairy mother this time, to save the princess by hiding her underneath a donkey's skin, until the time is right to make her reappear again.

There is a wonderful and strange film version of this story as well, from 1970 by Jacques Démy. I am thinking of the film Peau d'Ane, of course, with the wonderfully perverse Catherine Deneuve in the title role. Delphine Seyrig plays the resourceful good fairy mother, who steers everyone away from catastrophy with both some magic and a good sense of humor. If only Snow White's poor stepmother could have done the same!

Stepmother telling off evil daughter in Peau d'Ane.

Skvallerbytta ...bing... bång

En melodi rinner genom mitt huvud. Den är vacker och rytmisk, men samtidigt skrämmande och repetitiv. Lockande - som en vårvind som för med sig doften av nyutslagna blommor och hopp och löften om en härlig, varm framtid. Men också  pockande och oundviklig som en vårflod. Inget kan stoppa den. Den måste fram.

Det är också en bild av skvaller och hur skvallret tar sig fram, som eld och vatten, förklädd till vårvind och sanning. Så här kan det se ut: en kvinna får ett brev, öppnar det och segnar ner. Innan hon dör hinner hon säga några ord, som om orden bokstavligen drog kraften ur kroppen på henne: "Här står det att..."

Så börjar Det sägs på stan, filmen som avslöjade så obehagliga sanningar och retade gallfeber på sin samtid att ingen ville se den. Och så blev det regissören Per Lindbergs sista film. Han dog några år senare vid 54 års ålder. Året var 1941, vårt grannland Tyskland hade tagit strupgrepp om Europa och vi visste inte om vi stod näst på tur. Skräcken var ett faktum, trots att vi försökte leva så normalt som möjligt, trots inkallelseordrar och ransoneringskort.

Nere i Frankrike förberedde sig den franske regissören Henri-Georges Clouzot för att göra film för det nazistiska filmbolaget Continental-Film, som på order av Goebbels hade startats i Frankrike. Ordern gick ut på att göra skräp och fluff för den franska publiken. Det märkvärdiga är att Continental-Film lyckades med bedriften att mitt under ockupationen göra några av den franska filmhistoriens vackraste filmer. En av dem är Clouzots Le Corbeau. Den spelades in i den lilla staden Montfort-l'Amaury, strax norr om Paris, och Pierre Fresnay och Ginette Leclerc speade huvudrollerna. Filmen handlade om hur staden attackeras av en anonym brevskrivare som under siognaturen "le corbeau" avslöjar sanningar och sprider lögner om invånarna i staden.

Stopp! säger ni nu. Det där låter ju precis som Per Lindbergs film, Det sägs på stan. Men Clouzots film gjordes 1943 och hans film hade inte svensk premiär förrän 1948. Omöjligt att Per Lindberg skulle ha känt till Clouzots film, även om manuset, av Louis Chavance, låg färdigt redan i slutet av 1930-talet. Och Clouzot? Hade han sett Lindbergs film? Föga troligt, filmen var ju ett fiasko och togs ner från biograferna redan efter ett par dagar.

Ändå är de så lika. Dessa två filmer handlar om exakt samma sak: en hemlig brevskrivare sprider panik i en småstad med hjälp av anonyma brev. Båda filmerna väljer att skildra ett kollektiv, det fins inga huvudpersoner - även om Pierre Fresnay, i rollen som den mystiske läkaren Dr Germain, och Arnold Sjöstrand, i rollen som den plågade läraren Martin Bilt båda ges en viss air av hjälte. Och i båda filmerna är det två kvinnor som får agera syndabock: den fula och korpliknande sjuksystern Marie i Clozots film, och den milda, lite naiva kokerskan Jeanette i Lindbergs film, utsökt spelad av Marianne Löfgren.

Båda filmerna använder sig av ett bildspråk djupt förankrat i verfremdungseffekt, sneda vinklar och skarpa skuggor, städernas ådlerdomliga arkitektur används för att skjuta bort, inte skydda - i den svenska filmen är det Nyköping. Arvet efter den tyska expressionismen och fotografer som Karl Freund, som exilerades till Hollywood och gjorde skräckfilm, väger tungt i Lindbergs och Clouzots film. De vill att vi ska uppleva, känna, hur skräcken sprider sig och slår rot i än den ena , än den andre, hur vi ska känna att vi är förföljda, bevakade, aldrig fria, och hur polisens fasta grepp på våra armar, när vi arresteras, kommer att kännas som en befrielse.

Skvallerbyttor. Olyckskorpar.  Sanning som dödar. Hur kan ord vara så farliga? I den svenska filmen kallar sig brevskrivaren för "Veritas", ett namn som om och om igen uttalas fel av människorna i staden, som ett slags motstånd mot den stormvind som orden utlöser, men som därmed också tycks ge Veritas vatten på sin kvarn: De är blott en obildad hop, knappt ens värda det bläck som Veritas ödslar på dem!

Än är inte sista ordet sagt om dessa två remarkabla filmer....

"Think of everything we've accomplished!"

Colin Firth as Tailor.

I didn't get much of what Tinker, tailor, soldier, spy was about. But there was one line that stuck to my mind. Close to the end of the movie, when everything is reveiled, Tailor says: "I am someone who has made his mark."

But what is that mark? What is the most important work that he has done - for Tailor is very clearly a professional. Private lives don't count in this world of men spending their lives in sound proof rooms, dull corridors and elaborate staircases. So when did he make that mark? He never seemed to work much, he seemed more like a bored school boy. I see a lot of women, though, shuffling paper and locking up files in safes. And one young man working hard to get them for on old man who spends his nights reading them.

It's really a terribly boring film. Am I supposed to be shocked at the lack of work done by some of the men who presume themselves to be the pillars of civilization? In the end, Smiley, a man who never smiles, sits down at the place where his former boss sat, in the middle of a sound proof room with a very irritating wall. Here is where the secrets are born, fed and killed. Here is where the men sit and shoot vicious looks at one another, while trying hard to pretend to do something vital for the realm. Did he get his bosses job? Will he chase all the shadows away, work as an honest spy boss? What side is he really on?

Gary Oldman as Smiley.

My husband reminds me that there is a better film about the dangerous spy games that men play, and get themselves entangled in. He's thinking of The Good Shepherd, Robert De Niro's fascinating film where Matt Damon plays a man who goes astray, thinking he is doing it all for the good of his country. It's a very moving film, filled with the sadness of hurt and loss that never will mend. Matt Damon is just as enigmatic as the men in Tailor, Tinker, Soldier, Spy. But the tragedy of that man is somewhat more understandable: How can he not love Angelina Jolie? He must be crazy.

Matt Damon as The Good Shepherd.

And then it dawns on me: what all these men are trying so hard to hide, what they are in fact accomplishing, is their secret gayness. Of course. None of them seem spurred by the things that drive most of us: love, doing something useful for others, getting into relationships, starting a family, having kids... Both Tailor and the Matt Damon-character are closet gays. I can see no other explanation for Matt Damon's sad spy. In the end he is left all alone because he has betrayed his family and he is also being held in contempt by his collegues, the very ones who lured him into the CIA in the first place. Do they despise him because what he does to his family? No, they despise him, and this took some figuring out for me, because he doesn't acknowledge his homosexuality and can't enjoy the privileges of his upper class life. His boss (played wonderfully by William Hurt) doesn't mind if his men are straight or gay. He has his own secrets but the difference is that he enjoys them.

So work is pointless to all these men who work so hard. I can still say that Alfredson's film leaves me cold. There's so much left unsaid or hidden away. It's the same with the Mikael Blomkvist character in the Millennium-films. He's such a cold hearted person, for all the good deeds he's supposed to be doing. At his best, he's like a Tintin character, someone who helps the others stand out, while being nothing special himself. Who is Tintin really? What does he want? Where does he come from? When does he ever write the stories he's supposed to write? 

Thanks to Milou, it is hard to get upset with Tintin. After all, Tintin loves Milou. But what about Smiley? Is Smiley just another Tintin? At the end of the film Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, Smiley goes home to his apartment. When he's been there before, we noticed that he seemed to be afraid of the gloomy rooms, all locked up in shadows and memories. At the same time Smiley's home seemed to be awfylly easy to invade. There's always someone waiting for him, an unexpected guest.
So Smiley moves carefully into his home. He seems to loose his balance at one point, and hugs the staircase bannister. Then we see that someone is sitting in the far end of the apartment, in a brightly lit room. It's a woman, and probably it is Smiley's wife who has come back.

So he was human after all. And he managed to find the spy "at the top of the circus" because he was so unhappy that his wife had left him so he had to engulf himself in work. That's a rather grim perspective on the forces that make us achieve the work we do. Work is connected to betrayal, egoism, loneliness and isolation.

Suddenly this reminds me of poor Ani, in the Star Wars saga, who is trapped into the Darth Vader mask because he wanted to save the one he loved. Somhow Ani's transformation into Darth Vader seems much more believable than the men running the British spy-circus.

My husband, who put me on this trail in the first place, soothes me by telling me that perhaps the story of Smiley and the others simply need more time. That's why he prefers the TV-series with Alec Guinness.

Daniel Craig as Tintin - sorry - Mikael Blomkvist.

Films I prefer to read about

Noomi Rapace as Lisbeth Salander.

I still haven't seen the movie, but now I've read David Denby's review of David Fincher's The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo. And the first thing he says is about her: "You can’t take your eyes off Rooney Mara, who plays the notorious punk hacker Lisbeth Salander in the American movie version of Stieg Larsson’s page-turner. Slender, sheathed in black leather, with short ebony hair sticking up in a tuft, her fingers sticking out of black woollen gloves as they skitter across a keyboard, Mara cuts through scene after scene like a swift, dark blade."

These words tell me two things: that once more the object that primarily attracts the eye is a woman in a provocating attire. It's the woman in a low cut red dress, it's Jezebel, it's Scarlett wearing an evening dress on an afternoon picnic, it's the femme fatale, Vampirella, Nikita, all dressed to kill. She could be inspiring and amusing, even for me, a woman who always have loved to watch strong, beautiful women on the screen. But this, with all its leather, tatoos, agressive sexiness... it get's so boring! Every time a woman is used for action, power and murder in the movies it is treated like something brand new all over again.

Which brings me to the second thing David Denby's text tells me: His words remind me of the other Salander, the Swedish actress Noomi Rapace, whose performance could be described in almost exactly the same words Denby uses to describe Roony Mara's Salander. She too was a "swift, dark blade".  

As I said before, some movies are best when read about. The experience of reading about films, and perhaps not only of the films one hasn't seen, has a sizzling quality attached to it, a kind of combined nostalgia and naughtiness - as if one would be peeking into things that one is not supposed, or allowed, to look at. The words are a mask, hiding things from sight. It makes the actual viewing of a film, that one hasn't seen or may never ever see, more exciting.

And I wonder if she, the woman "with many piercings—of herself and of others" is not a mask, standing in front, partly protecting, partly hiding, the real things that we need to see. In this story, those things are about Sweden as a community falling apart in a world where evil no longer can be shut out by clever diplomacy and staging one of the world's first closed communities with the invention of the "people's home" - "folkhemmet".

We Swedes, we all felt so secure within our home made boundaries. Now, in a globalized world where anything goes and not even girls are nice, we get scared and hibernation seems a very good alternative. That is probably why, like Denby also points out, this film is mainly set on the private island of the disturbed family Vanger, and not in the big city of Stockholm where Salander and Blomkvist, the male hero of the film, seem to be more at home.

And that is probably why I'll see this film, after all. I won't see it because the characters of Salander and Blomkvist interest me, or because I'm curious to see how Roony Mara's Salander och Daniel Craig's Blomkvist differ from the way the Swedish actors Noomi Rapace and Michael Nyqvist played them. What I want to see is how this film fits into the urban dystopias of David Fincher, and how he interprets the urban collapse of Sweden - a place where we always believe the country side will save us.

What can be seen from above?

It seems that my favourite film critic, David Denby of the New Yorker, has already seen and reviewed David Fincher's The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo, one of this year's most eagerly awaited film. But the review in question is not in the latest issue of the New Yorker, or at least not in the Nov.28th issue that has landed in my letter box. But I like to wait, and sometimes I even like to just continue waiting, pretending that the timing is not quite right. Lingering on like that has made me a very poor festival goer, and a good customer to our local dvd-store. Sometimes I never see the film I've been pining for, which makes me a rather silly movie buff. But sometimes the text you read about a movie is better than seeing the actual film. So a review by David Denby is worth waiting for.

David Fincher tells stories of urban dystopias. The urban setting of Se7en is a bleak and indifferent place, where a cold rain falls all the time, as if not even angels' tears could move the people living in this city. In many ways the city ressembles New York or perhaps Chicago, at least for someone who only knows these places from the movies. The city remains unnamed in the film, but the script writer apparently draw on some unpleasant memories he had from living in New York.

In Zodiac (2007), the urban setting is on the west coast. The city is San Fransisco which is clearly stated in the film as it is based on the story of the real Zodiac killer and the letters he sent to the San Fransisco Chronicle. There is more sun and day time scenes than in Se7en, but the atmosphere created by Fincher is still cold and claustrophobic, especially in the horrible murder scene when a young couple is attacked while on a picnic at a beautiful lake.

There are shots in Fincher's film that remind me of Clint Eastwood, particularly in Mystic River and The Changeling, with lonely cars slowly moving along lonely city streets, seen from above, like a victim being tracked by a predator, or a heartless God, looking down on the people from high above, and letting tragedy strike without interfering. When the eye is the camera, one can never be sure with Fincher, or Eastwood, whether identification is really something you want or not. Do I really want to share the same vision and views as the killer in the story? If I can identify with the evil one, what does that make me?

Fincher doesn't let me figure this out. His films are often deeply unsettling, like Eastwoods. Although Eastwood's films carry as well a message of omnipotence and righteousness: his heroes and heroines are always right. Fincher's heroes and heroines never share that kind of power. They are more like pawns in a strange game that someone else plays. When they move about in the unfriendly cities, they are like rats in a lab. There is always a greater scheme being laid out somewhere else. Zodiac's letters tease with their possibility of an explanation. But like the scheme of the seven deadly sins, it's more likely a diversion. It hides more than it reveals.

Strangely enough, the pattern of the hostile cities and pawn-like main characters, repeats itself in The Social Network, where there is no evil character or obsessed murderer. But when seen in the context of Fincher's other work, The Social Network becomes an even more unsettling film about the ability of one man to do evil deeds, as the film is about the invention of facebook and communication being established as something which is best done with the help of computers.

I don't know what David Fincher has seen in Stockholm, a much smaller town than any of the cities he has told stories from before. Also, most of the story of The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo is actually not set in an urban setting, but in the good old Swedish countryside where apparently maniacs can go about their business without no one knowing anything. But I hope he has seen something, from his place way up high above, and that he can, perhaps for the first time in his career, show us hell in a very small place.

En reaktionär rulle?

Vad är en klassiker? En film som man kan se om och om igen, även med tio, 20 års mellanrum, och varje gång blir man alltid lika häpen och lycklig över hur bra den är. En sådan film är Seven Brides for Seven Brothers som maken hittade på skolans julmarknad i lördags - och raskt köpte för tjugo spänn. Jag och äldsta dottern Matilda blev överlyckliga. Hon mindes den från en regnig sommar när hon var fem år, då vi hade hyrt Seven Brides for Seven Brothers på bibblan i Leksand, tillsammans med Calamity Jane med Doris Day. Matilda älskade de här filmerna på en gång, med samma odödligt trogna kärlek som man har när man är i hennes ålder. 

Själv mindes jag en av de där magiska tillfällena på sjuttiotalet, när jag och min syster fick gå från bordet under söndagslunchen hos mormor och morfar för att titta på en musical i teve. Syrran och jag var helt sålda på musicals och hollywoodfilmer över huvud taget. Vi samlade på filmbilder och kunde täcka hela golvet i vår barnkammare med bilder på filmstjärnor som vi hade klippt ur mormors färgglada veckotidningar.

Första gången jag såg Seven Brides for Seven Brothers var det nog förresten i svart-vitt, eftersom det var teve på sjuttiotalet. Men det gjorde ingenting, för syrran och jag älskade den här filmen och kunde alla sångerna utantill.
Och jag älskar den fortfarande, denna reaktionära gamla film som med smittsam joie de vivre propagerar för att kvinnor tas bäst med lite våld. Jo, för så är det ju: Adam (Howard Keel) är den rödlätte grobianen från bergen som kommer ner till stan för att proviantera - och ta sig en fru. Han lyckas med bådadera under loppet av ett par timmar, och får helt klart mer än han förtjänar i den ljuvliga och kloka Millie (Jane Powell). Hon blir kär i honom direkt och sedan tar hon det med jämnmod att hon också måste utfordra, uppfostra och ta hand om hans sex smutsiga, oborstade och ohängda bröder.

När Millie någorlunda funnit sig i sin nya uppgift som enda kvinnan i ett storhushåll, får Adam den briljanta idén att kidnappa de sex söta tjejerna i byn som brorsorna gått och trånat efter. Sagt och gjort, flickorna rövas bort mitt i vintern och ett snöskred sätter p för att arga efterföljare. När våren kommer har flickorna hunnit bli förälskade i sina kidnappare - värsta stockholmssyndromet tjugo år innan termen myntades - och allt slutar med sång och dans och massbröllop.

Jane Powell och sex kärlekskranka bröder.

Man borde bli förbannad, både å den grundlurade Millies vägnar och de generationer av kvinnor som lärt sig om män och kärlek och äktenskap av denna film. Howard Keel må sjunga snyggt men här spelar han en riktig knöl, som lämnar sin Millie efter ett gräl för att sätta sig och sura i en avlägsen stuga. Under tiden tar Millie hand om alla de kidnappade flickorna och får dem att trivas där ute i bland potentiella våldtäktsmän, och så visar det sig att hon är gravid. Hon hinner föda en dotter innan Adam skärper sig och kommer hem. Och så slutar filmen i en mycket märklig tumultartad scen som verkar vara en slags hollywoodsk pastisch på historien om de sabinska kvinnorna som filmen hämtat sin idé från. Vad man ser sig själv bevittna är en slags stiliserad massvåldtäkt, men det är helt ok när det sker i sprakande technicolor och med Hollywoods bästa talanger.

Men det där tänker jag inte alls på, när vi tillsammans, hela familjen, ser på Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. Istället njuter jag i fulla drag av varje glädjesprång som de glada unga bröderna tar, hemma i det lortiga köket eller på ladubyggarfesten; av varje ny absurd blåsa som flickorna med getingmidjor bär -de ska föreställa hemsydda av gamla stuvbitar- och varje prunkande fejkträd och välgödda småkultingar som rusar runt i MGM:s största ateljé. Allt är fejk i Hollywoods konstgjorda värld, men det gör inget för sången och dansen - de är äkta. Sångerna flödar som vårvindar och danserna är kraftfulla som vårfloder. Lyssna bara på Jane Powell när hon sjunger "Wonderful day" eller när bröderna dansar med yxor och bandsågar...

 

Sov gott Sickan!

Jag träffade Sickan en gång på Filmhuset, i matsalen, där hon åt lunch tillsammans med två kompisar, Annalisa Ericson och Gaby Stenberg. De verkade ha väldigt trevligt och jag ville först inte störa men så tänkte jag att det var nu eller aldrig! Sedan fick jag deras autografer, alla tre.
En annan gång, när Sickan fyllde 85, ordnade jag med rosor från Sveriges Television, där jag jobbade då.
När jag kör mina filmvandringar i stan, brukar vi stanna till utanför Cardellgatan 3 på Östermalm. Det var där Sickan växte upp, och det var faktiskt även på Östermalm som hon både såg sin första barnförbjudna film och fick sin första kyss - allt enligt hennes egna memoarer.
Sickan träffade förresten sin namne, Sickan Castegren, operettprimadonnan som hon var döpt efter, en gång i en film på 40-talet som de båda var med i. Men det visste inte Sickan, eftersom fru Castegren inte kallade sig för Sickan längre.
Hon verkade ha haft det jobbigt under sin egen "demonregissör", Schamyl Bauman, som regisserade henne i Sickan-filmerna under 40-och 50-talen. Men Hasse Ekman var snäll. Deras filmer ihop tycker jag är kronan på bägges verk, filmer som "Sjunde himlen" och "Fröken Chic" är solsken på vilken mulen himmel som helst. Och några av svensk films allra bästa komedier!
Så jag minns dig, gärna, Sickan, som den glädjespridare och stora komedienn du var, till exempel i "Fröken Chic" när du har råkat ta ett av Hasses piller och blivit lite knäpp och ska svara på frågor i direkt-TV på temat djur och musik:
"Fååår jag lämna några blommor!"