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[ricardienne]

Natalie and I saw Casanova yesterday.


I would cautiously recommend it; it's not a worthwhile movie, or a meaningful movie, or even a good movie, but it's good entertainment. Of course, that may have been because N. and I were two of about six people in the theater, so we were able to make loud fun of it. It's a movie in the mold of Pirates of the Caribbean or The Princess Bride: not overtly slapstick or comedic, but so ridiculous that it can't have been intended to be otherwise. Jeremy Irons (and whoever played the ineffectual inquisitor he was supposed to replace) really carried it with his over the top picture of Evil Inquisitorness, not to mention what looked like a black leather academic robe -- the 17th century equivalent of the black leather trench coat, I suppose. The really odd thing was that everyone kept falling over. At first it just seemed to be the character trait of the Guy Who Looked Like Orlando Bloom But Wasn't, but by the end, not a scene went by in which someone wasn't tripping in the background. Again, it wasn't slapstick, really: the camera didn't dwell on it. But it was constantly and inexplicably there.

I still can't quite believe that they've made a movie of Tristan and Isolde. In the review in the local paper this morning, they called it "the story that inspired Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet." Now that isn't true at all. Tristan and Isolde fall in love, but she's supposed to marry King Mark, Tristan's overlord. The conflict is between his love and his duty. Romeo and Juliet isn't quite the same; it might ultimately come from that, but the paradigm has altered, I think. The love is still illicit, but what is absent is the betrayal. Romeo isn't hurting anyone by loving Juliet; he doesn't have to choose.

We (my dad and I) were trying to trace this a little. There are a lot of stories like Tristan and Isolde:
Lancelot and Guinevere
Pelleas and Melisande
Naoise and Deirdre
Paolo and Francesca
Antony and Cleopatra
Paris and Helen (not quite the same, but there is still that basic idea of love for a woman who is already bound elsewhere causing a big mess)

And then there's the slightly different story, where a young man elopes with the princess/daughter of an enemy, and is pursued and killed by them:

Earl Brand
The Braies of Carrow
Lochnivar (though that one ends happily, if I remember)

And then there's Romeo and Juliet, to which we couldn't find a direct folkloric parallel, though it does seem to be related to these other things.

When we were first talking about Tristan and Isolde, my dad challenged me to come with a Shakespeare play whose plot fit that model. Eventually, I came up with Antony and Cleopatra. But first I thought of Measure for Measure. Because that basic idea is there: a woman (and her sexuality) screw up a man's previously upright existence.

It isn't really a proper parallel: Angelo is the villain, not the hero, and the melodramatic villain who tries to get sex from the heroine in return for his not perpetrating whatever injustice he intends must be more general and even Pandosto and Cassandra. (Tosca springs to mind, though that post-dates M. for M.) It's a staple of hagiography, I think. Christian virgin is propositioned by pagan judge as alternative to martyrdom. Sometimes her example of faith and chastity even manages to convert him. There's a weird inversion of that in Measure for Measure, where Isabella's virtue provokes Angelo not to become better than he is, but to become worse. It's a bit like curling ribbon. When it's already in ringlets and you try to curl it further, you end up just straightening it out. [Well. maybe. This is the problem with live-journal: I have no reason not to stick in the wacked-out analogies I might come up with. Although, actually, the metaphor of being tightly wound up and coming undone isn't that inappropriate here.] It's important, I think, that Angelo doesn't start out as the same kind of villain that he ends up as. From the beginning of the play, he's the antagonist, the one who is screwing things up for everyone else, but he becomes despicable. He's unconflicted until Isabella shows up. It is a sort of twisted Tristan and Isolde: the entrance of the woman creates the conflict between passion and duty/honor. But twisted because it isn't Isabella's sexual attraction that seduces him, but her lack of it. Her virtue doesn't make him better, but makes him worse.

Or is the conflict already there, but previously dormant?
And in my heart the strong and swelling evil
Of my conception. The state, whereon I studied
Original sin and all that. You have to study to suppress it, and even then, it comes back to hit you. How Augustinian. That is why this bout of the obsession is so strong: it fits into other obsessions, feeding off of them.

Comments

[angevin2.livejournal.com]

It's a staple of hagiography, I think. Christian virgin is propositioned by pagan judge as alternative to martyrdom. Sometimes her example of faith and chastity even manages to convert him. There's a weird inversion of that in Measure for Measure, where Isabella's virtue provokes Angelo not to become better than he is, but to become worse.

And of course, the Christian virgin/pagan judge parallel is complicated because they're both Christian and both aligned with particular forms of Christianity which are highly problematic to Shakespeare's audience, and so they act on each other in ways that are...well, screwy. (Isabella's moral rectitude does, after all, often manifest in rather eyebrow-raising language: "th'impression of keen whips I'd wear as rubies" and so forth. I studied the play a while back with a prof who obviously had a literary crush on Isabella, and that was just weird.)

And I'd agree that Isabella's arrival on the scene doesn't create conflict in Angelo but causes it to manifest -- part of this I think has to do with the construction of Angelo's Puritanism and the cultural baggage that that has -- but, like, in the speech you cited, he says something about his humility, "wherein (let no man hear me) I take pride," so it's all a performance anyway. He strikes me, in other words, as the kind of person who's decent and upright mostly because he hasn't had occasion to be otherwise.

I wrote about Measure for Measure recently, am giving the paper at a conference in a couple of months, and still feel rather at sea with it. Must think about this more, although I have to leave for campus in about five minutes...

[(Anonymous)]

(I agree that a literary crush on Isabella is kind of odd. She's not exactly the Shakespearian heroine that you'd think of grabbing someone that way.)

It seems to me that appearance is really the important thing for Angelo. What he really values is his reputation as a righteous person. Until Isabella shows up, maybe there hasn't been anything contradict that performance (wasn't your paper on theatricality?).

[kaskait.livejournal.com]

There are many variations on the Tristan and Isolde story. There is one where Tristan is completely unaware of Isolde's passion for him. When Marke discovers Isolde's obsession he destroys both of them. Even though Tristan is completely innocent. There is another variation in which there are two Isoldes. The Isolde he loves and an Isolde he is forced to marry. The new film looks like rubbish to me. I'll wait to see it on cable.

I find it amazing that Shakespeare has kept the interpretation of the Isabella/Angelo scenes open. Angelo does love Isabella. I don't believe he lied. But the problem is that he never experienced real love, a love that includes both emotion and sexuality. It's natural to want to have sex with the person one loves. Angelo immediately labels his feelings as sinful which they aren't. In their last conversation, Angelo simply says, give me love. Does he only mean sex? He is so agitated by his emotions that I think he is completely confused the experience. It is Isabella, who colors his statement as lustful. Angelo then reacts out of anger and commits a terrible crime.

I still find it amusing that Isabella speaks about her and Angelo's "unborn son". The line is always performed as a throwaway when it should be given an extra punch. To me, it indicates that she has thought about an affair with Angelo up to the point of their having a child. She always finds a reason to speak about Angelo also, even if it is to complain about him. Ultimately she saves his life.

Mariana counted on this "love" to save her husband. It's kind of chilling in a way. The Duke also acts very swiftly to get Angelo in a very married state. There is something between Angelo and Isabella that is unexplainable. Their story doesn't end with the play. There is a sense that it goes on and may cause more problems for them in the future.

When I read the play, I see two characters who are perfect for one another. But not only is the situation against them but their personal interpretations of love, lust and virtue are as well.

[ricardienne.livejournal.com]

And, of course, Isolde's mother is also named Isolde. Clearly, all these Isoldes are really the same one. The Isolde who starts the love potion business (the mother) is also its victim and Tristan's lover (the daughter), and the one who lies in the end so that he'll die of grief (the wife).

I don't think Angelo can distinguish between love and lust. There is no room in his narrow worldview for love. It's either the natural and sinful (orignal sin) lust, or it's chastity, the unnatural but virtuous repression of natural feelings. He has defined everyone, including himself, in these terms: you either give in to your evil nature, or you suppress your nature. When he finds himself in a state that a normal person would call love, he can only see it as a loss of control over his own inherently evil nature. There's something really shallow about this morality. Not only is it based entirely on covering wickedness with a facade of good behavior, but it makes everything either good or bad. There is no gradation, no scale, no idea of a lesser or greater sin.

The line about the "unborn son" could have other meanings, as well. For one thing, it's indicative of Isabella's attitude (and really, fear of) sex that she immediately equates the sexual act with the worst-case scenario of pregnancy. It's also a parallel construction with the first part of that line: "I had rather my brother die by the law." And, of course she's speaking to the duke at this point. Is it Angelo with whom she's necessarily considering lawful procreation?

I see another implication as well in that line. Here, it isn't the fate of her immortal soul that Isabella is fearing for, but her reputation. The horrible fate that would await her if she gave in to Angelo is not spiritual but social: the shame of having a child out of wedlock. There's something superficial about her sense of what's right and wrong, as well.

[achyvi.livejournal.com]

That was the movie I was trying to remember the name of the one night. >.>;;;;

[ricardienne.livejournal.com]

It's stupid, but it is worth going to see for the music, and for the silliness.

[achyvi.livejournal.com]

I am always in favour of silliness. Perhaps I shall go and see it with someone else who will pay for me! Sneaky sneaky-like.