Curtains of Light

George Toles

Description

George Toles's Curtains of Light explores the ways in which various kinds of theatrical space in film engage with the film reality adjacent to them, and alter our understanding of the cinematic real. Film art is a dialogue between the world created for a film narrative and theatre spaces that confront it across the shadowline. This book provides a new way of thinking about film's relation to theatre, and challenges old conceptions of how cinema needs to escape the theatrical, or rise above it. Toles offers elegantly written and jargon-free readings of a rich variety of films, spanning the distance from D.W. Griffith's True Heart Susie up to David Lynch's Mulholland Dr. and Ang Lee's Lust, Caution. The methodology is predominantly aesthetic, but informed by Toles's decades of experience as a professional theatre director. Among the many topics covered are audition scenes, stage deaths on film, the close up and theatrical aloneness in film, eloquent objects, and characters who alternate between directing and playacting for each other, with tragic consequences. Curtains of Light would be an extremely useful introductory text for university students studying the relationship of cinema to theatre.
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments

1. Introduction: Curtains of Light

2. Intoxicating Stagecraft: Billy Wilder's The Lost Weekend and the Mysteries of Theatre in Film

3. The Theatre of Aloneness in Film

4. Eloquent Objects, Housebound Theatre: William Wyler's The Heiress

5. Prospero Unbound: John Barrymore's Theatrical Transformations of Film Reality

6. Auditioning Betty in David Lynch's Mulholland Dr.

7. Theatres Rational and Irrational in Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo

8. Stage Deaths in Film: The Hamlet Factor

Works Cited
Index

Sujets

• Film
• History of film
• Visual culture
• Theatre
• Película fotográfica

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 01 juillet 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781438484235
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Curtains of Light

Curtains of Light
Theatrical Space in Film

George Toles
Cover image of El Silencio scene from Mulholland Dr. (Les Films Alain Sarde/Asymmetrical, 2001). Courtesy PhotoFest New York.
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2021 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY
www.sunypress.edu
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Name: Toles, George, author.
Title: Curtains of light: theatrical space in film / George Toles.
Description: Albany : State University of New York Press [2021] | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: ISBN 9781438484211 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781438484235 (ebook)
Further information is available at the Library of Congress.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2021938492
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For Sam, Rachel, and Thomas
Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
1 Introduction: Curtains of Light
2 Intoxicating Stagecraft: Billy Wilder’s The Lost Weekend and the Mysteries of Theatre in Film
3 The Theatre of Aloneness in Film
4 Eloquent Objects, Housebound Theatre: William Wyler’s The Heiress
5 Prospero Unbound: John Barrymore’s Theatrical Transformations of Film Reality
6 Auditioning Betty in David Lynch’s Mulholland Dr.
7 Theatres Rational and Irrational in Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo
8 Stage Deaths in Film: The Hamlet Factor
Works Cited
Index
Illustrations 1.1 Eddy (Tyrone Power) prepares to traverse the pendular swing-set curtain that sways between him and Peter (Rex Thompson) in The Eddy Duchin Story . 1.2 Everyone briefly brought together in service of play in La Grande Illusion . 1.3 Kuang (Wang Leehom), Wong (Tang Wei), and others in Lust, Caution, face the abyss at the end of role-playing . 1.4 “It’s hard to tell where I leave off and you begin.” The ambiguous space between duet and solo in The Eddy Duchin Story . 2.1 Death dances among the upper class in La Règle du Jeu. 2.2 Atop Busby Berkeley’s cinematic perch, the women twirl below like concupiscent, kaleidoscopic cogs . 2.3 Don (Ray Milland)—a few beats behind—parses his program while others tune in to La Traviata in The Lost Weekend. 2.4 Don’s delirium tremens transmutation of the La Traviata cast into a chorus of coats in The Lost Weekend . 2.5 Don and Helen’s (Jane Wyman) coat-mix-up meet-cute, soon sullied by Don’s mounting thirst in The Lost Weekend . 3.1 Maria (Maria Pia Casilio) nearly makes eye contact with us as she moves toward what’s outside the frame in Umberto D . 3.2 Anna (Lillian Gish) holds up her ring to Lennox Sanderson (Lowell Sherman), clinging to its material force in Way Down East . 3.3 Carrie (Jennifer Jones)—both grief-stricken and relieved—loses a part of herself to George’s departure in Carrie . 3.4 Ruth Fowler (Sissy Spacek) beams at the completion of a successful choir rehearsal,moments before her husband, Matt (Tom Wilkinson) informs her that their son has been killed . 4.1 Catherine (Olivia de Havilland), alarmed to be simultaneously saved and trapped by Morris (Montgomery Clift), early in The Heiress . 4.2 Catherine responds to the heavy metallic pull of her white cameo brooch in The Heiress . 4.3 Lit by the humble incandescence of her lamp, Catherine ascends the stairs, fully entering—one pool of light at a time—her inherited abode of things in The Heiress . 5.1 Larry Renault (John Barrymore) takes in the reflection of his Hyde-like homecoming in Dinner at Eight . 5.2 Larry strikes a pose as he gathers himself for his final act in Dinner at Eight . 5.3 Slumped under a lonely spotlight, Larry relaxes before the curtain of death rises in Dinner at Eight . 6.1 Betty (Naomi Watts) basks in the beckoning glow of the Hollywood dream in Mulholland Drive . 6.2 Figures of the industry are introduced to Betty in a cramped studio office in Mulholland Drive . 6.3 Betty makes us believe during her audition in Mulholland Drive . 6.4 Rita (Laura Elena Harring) and Betty break down as they witness a performer’s self-division onstage in Mulholland Drive . 7.1 “And it’s all real.” Scottie (James Stewart) directs Madeleine (Kim Novak) in Vertigo. 7.2 Scottie playfully proves to Midge (Barbara Bel Geddes) that he’s taking steps toward convalescence in Vertigo . 7.3 Scottie stares down an ever swirling, ever deepening loss in Vertigo . 8.1 Simon (Bernard Siegel) bestows a final good night upon Tito in Laugh, Clown, Laugh . 8.2 A group of curious, captivated children unwittingly watch the swan song of Tito from the wings in Laugh, Clown, Laugh . 8.3 Professor Siletsky (Stanley Ridges)—midsalute—bends toward death in To Be or Not to Be . 8.4 Eve (Jane Wyman) shows us both sides of herself in the dressing room of Charlotte (Marlene Dietrich) in Stage Fright .
Acknowledgments
I would like to express my gratitude to Murray Pomerance, editor of the exceptional Horizons of Cinema series at SUNY Press, for his long-term friendship and deeply encouraging support of my writing on film. He convinced me by his excitement during our initial conversation on the topic of “theatrical space in film” that there was a book in it, and that I must go ahead with it. Over the next two years, he continued to push me, with his special brand of insistence, to stay the course.
It is difficult for me to believe that I have been directing and acting in plays for more than a half century. In the course of this inexhaustibly exhilarating education, I have had ample opportunity to think practically and theoretically about the nature of theatre space and its diverse uses. Gilberto Perez, in his study of the rhetoric of film, The Eloquent Screen , provides some phrases about rhetorical “figures of arrangement” onscreen that apply equally well to our engagement with space onstage: “where it puts us, how it orients us, how it makes us feel” (xxi). He also reminds us of the importance of “spectator specifics” in any consideration of the deployment of film technique. What film form is able to do to spectators, what it enables them to experience in a narrative, is crucially dependent on what they “bring to it” (xxi). I have had a great many enlightening conversations over the years with theatre collaborators, valued colleagues at the University of Manitoba, and students who have shaped my thinking about the theatrical issues I investigate in this book. My screenwriting collaborations with director Guy Maddin and the courses I have taught in Acting for the Camera and Film Production (with the assistance of Jim Agapito) have enabled me to explore, at a very concrete level, how film and theatre space both inform each other, and how they establish separate realms. I shall name here just a small number of those whose contributions to my understanding of theatre and film interaction have been significant: Ross McMillan, Gregory Klymkiw, Steve Snyder, Cliff Eyland, Pam Perkins, Robert Smith, Chris Johnson, William Kerr, Sharon Bajer, Shereen Jerrett, Jane Burpee, Heather Roberts, Jane Walker, Kerri Woloszyn, Ivan Henwood, Stephanie Moroz, Kevin Ramberran, Christopher Read, Ray Strachan, Gordon Tanner, John Landreville, Carolyn Gray, Pamela Percy, Maria Lamont, Margaret Anne MacLeod, Peter Bailey, Mark McKinney, Sabrina Briggs, Mark West, Ryan McBride, Mariianne Mays Wiebe, Kirsty Cameron, Sherab Yalomo, Gretchen Derige, Trevor Mowchun, Dave McGregor, and Rob Gardiner. Early drafts of the chapters in Curtains of Light benefited immeasurably from the advice and appreciation of Charles Warren, Victor Perkins, Jeff Crouse, Edward Gallafant, Doug Pye, Steven Rybin, Joe McElhaney, Matt Sorrento, Faye McIntyre, Andrew Klevan, and Justus Nieland. Special thanks to Michael Silverblatt, legendary host of Bookworm at KCRW Los Angeles (a close friend since my undergraduate days at the University of Buffalo) and Jonah Corne, who have been willing, indeed inspiring, readers of so many of the essays on literature and film that I have written over the course of my career.
Mention should also be made here of some of those practitioners of film scholarship whose devotion to aesthetic matters and fine prose have helped fortify my belief that there is not only a high value in close reading, but a deeply discerning audience for it: Stanley Cavell, William Rothman, Jason Jacobs, Adrian Martin, James Morrison, David Greven, Carol Vernallis, Lesley Brill, Robert Pippin, Keri Walsh, Dominic Lash, Seth Barry Watter, Alex Clayton, Corey Creekmur, Donna Kornhaber, Cynthia Baron, David LaRocca, Noa Steimatsky, Susan Smith, Geoffrey O’Brien, Stephane Duckett, Elliott Logan, Jonathan Rosenbaum, and R. Barton Palmer. I am grateful to Rob Gardiner for his assistance in selecting the frame grabs for this book, and to Gretchen Derige for her meticulous work on the index. At SUNY Press, James Peltz, Eileen Nizer, and John Raymond have given me invaluable guidance in navigating the process of preparing the manuscript for publication and organizing a marketing strategy.
A number of the chapters in Curtains of Light have been previously published in different, somewhat abbreviated forms. I gratefully acknowledge the publishers’ permission to reprint this material: “Auditioning Betty in Mulholland Dr.” appeared in Film Quarterly 58, no. 1 (Fall 2004): 2–13; “Eloquent Objects, Mesmerizing Commodit