Cheer
So we are continuing with the cheer. Look, I even changed to a Christmassy theme! I thought this was nice, sort of subtle, unlike the ones which had holly all over them. I heart WordPress more and more for making it so easy to change look. I dabbled in web design a few years back, even made money from it which qualifies it as a previous profession, and I used to enjoy playing around with typeface and colour. I don’t do that anymore so this is my consolation.
Anyway, over the weekend I watched Cheri, Stephen Frears’ film of Colette’s novella Cheri. I have a weakness for lush period movies and this one is certainly both lush and period — 19th C France and the life of the rich and infamous. Lea, an aging courtesan takes Cheri, the decadent and disaffected son of a friend, under her wing and into her bed. The relationship starts off as a transaction of sorts, the age-old exchange of wisdom and youth, and the two are so cynical about love that they don’t imagine it could happen to them. Against all expectations, they stay together for six years. When he goes off to get married in keeping with his mother’s wishes, they realise they love each other.
The movie has lavish sets and costumes. Rupert Friend looks both callous and vulnerable. Michelle Pfeiffer makes up in style what she lacks in substance, and is patently well-cast as the aging beauty. But it’s no Dangerous Liaisons so don’t expect a huge deal. It feels rushed in the beginning and abrupt at the end because they’ve crammed the entire story of the sequel, The Last of Cheri, into a four-line voiced narration. The lovers are unconvincing in bits and there’s something incomplete about the whole venture. Still, if you have an afternoon to spare and and like period movies, it’s a relaxing sort of watch.
I was struck and a little amused by something while watching the movie. Much of it is about the lovers’ suffering. And because they’re rich, they have the means to ‘cope’ rather well. So here is evidence of my flawed heart: I was finding it hard to sympathise with people who can check into luxurious hotels for weeks to get over someone. I had to remind myself of the debilitating nature of heartbreak, its sapping of colour from everyday things, its dulling. Most likely, the brilliant blue of the Atlantic seemed pale to Lea in her post-love blues. It’s unfair to not extend the same level of human compassion to everyone (including the rich) but I think it does happen sometimes.
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Movies often speed up the pace of books. In one of the essays in Art Objects, Jeanette Winterson talks about how each book has its own pace and good reading means finding the pace of a book and settling into it. Because pace is integral to any text, its deeply unsettling when it’s manipulated too much for adaptation. I think that’s why the BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice was one of the more satisfying ones because at least they gave the story enough time. Also Jane Eyre, which I watched twice for its gothic mood and for Timothy Dalton as Rochester.
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Speaking of hot men, have you seen Captain Kirk make beat poetry of Palin’s speech? Some of my happiest memories of childhood include ‘Captain Curd’ as I inexplicably called him. I was always torn about who I wanted to grow up and marry more: him or Mr Spock. Twenty years and the Star Trek movie later, I’ve decided on Spock but it was real close.
