I will be watching my DVD of the Madwoman of Challiot again tonight. I always enjoy this movie as much for the cast as for the story. Jean Giraudouxs play was a thinly veiled commentary on fascism according to many who have analyzed it. But rather than write stereotypical Nazis as the villains, he chose to illustrate their cruelty in the form of industrialists who exploit anything and anyone for profit, even if it meant destroying beautiful, historical Paris to exploit suspected oil flowing far beneath the citys streets. The movie moves forward on that theme and perhaps was not well received by some at the time because they were not so willing to accept the idea of an amoral capitalist scoundrel conspiring with corrupt politicians and clergy to achieve profits at the expense of the society and physical world in which they live. Move forward into modern times and when in the opening scene, the president (played by Yul Brenner) boasts about his rags-to-riches climb a modern audience sees a bit more clearly. The president began as a petty thief, then a drug dealer, and finally a corporate boss. Only the presidents corporations are mostly Ponzi schemes, as crooked as his earlier crimes. The essential thing, he says, isnt what a company does, but rather what its called. Whats required is a name that stirs the public imagination. Style over substance. One looks at him and images of the Koch Bros, Ken Lay, Carl Icahn, Mitt Romney and other venture capitalists come immediately to mind. The times sadly have caught up with the story. The Madwoman or Countess, as she is also known, is the humanistic opposite of the industrialists. Older, maternal, warm, shes caught in a time warp of her own creation. One she created when jilted by a lover many years before she has lives and relives a day immediately before she was betrayed by her lover. Frozen in a time that no longer exists, reading the same newspaper for the same date every day, she treats all with warmth and maternal love. The people around her love her for it. And now after years of delusion she must confront a world that when on ahead without her. A world full of faceless people. People who look back at you with gelatine eyes. A world full of people described as “They do nothing, Countess. They feel nothing, make nothing, give nothing. The poets, the jugglers, the innocents, all are disappearing. The world’s been taken over by the pimps. The rest of us are finished. They want to make us all like them.” Played by Katherine Hepburn the Countess is the one who will act to destroy the evil she has woken to discover. There is some but not a lot of nuance here. The street people, the hookers and bistro waitresses are good and gentle. The wealthy and privileged are evil exploiters. Yet listen to the speech of rag picker in defense of the industrialists towards the end when he is their defense attorney. The photography is wonderful, almost too wonderful. There are many faces here you will recognize and their performances are well done. The dialogue follows the plays script quite well and is poetic, often witty and enjoyable. It you like your good and evil clear cut then you will enjoy this movie. Its fun and entertaining and at times actually makes one pause and think.
Posted on: Fri, 01 Nov 2013 21:29:05 +0000