Rebecca – Don't Gel Too Soon

Our Gigantic Family #MicroblogMondays

Two new little boys will enter our family before the end of September. We’re excited, happy for our lovely sons and their wives and very happy too that our grandchildren have such wonderful people as parents.

There’s another thing, that (even though it is, of course, obvious) I hadn’t thought about in a long time: these children, while we can’t trace personal generations very far back because so many records and stories were lost in the Holocaust, have a family that goes back to Abraham and to Moses and Mt. Sinai and to Sarah and Rachel and Rebecca. Of course, we all, biblically, begin with Adam and Eve but because I’ve always known I couldn’t trace our family, I didn’t let myself consider what we might never know – it was too painful.

I think that’s why the sudden recollection of this spectacular Jewish lineage became an almost new discovery even though the reality has always been part of our lives. We, and our children, and theirs, are part of something well beyond ourselves. I am grateful to be part of the tribe – and pray that our boys, and theirs – and their moms – travel safely as the world continues on its magnificent, scary and complicated trips around the sun.

BONNIE AND CLYDE, VIOLENCE AND TIME PASSING

Last Sunday the New York Times reminded us that Bonnie and Clyde, a film seared behind the eyelids of people like me, is 40 years old. I remember it particularly because just after I saw it, I went to a 21st birthday dinner for a friend at her uncle’s home on Park Avenue in Manhattan. I was new to such places then, and, despite my anti-war lefty politics, both thrilled and intimidated – particularly because her uncle was a writer of some renown. For a college senior, it was another experience milestone.

Along with most of adult America, our host had been appalled at the violence of the film. We, on the other hand, argued that the film was an accurate metaphor for the violence in Vietnam; a social comment that spoke deeply to all of us. The argument was long, fierce and audacious — and, of course, unresolved. I haven’t seen the film in many years and am curious how I would react.

I’ve become a lot more sensitive to visual violence as I’ve raised my sons. Beverly Hills Cop was released when my younger son was five. His big brother was nine and really wanted to see it; since we hated leaving Dan behind, he came too. Do you remember the ending? It was a gun battle too but multiples more gory and violent than Bonnie and Clyde ever dreamt of being. The worst part? My son was upset, yes, but the audience barely reacted – and many cheered. Film and TV violence in the years between 1967 and 1984 had escalated slowly, right in front of us – and we had barely noticed. That progression has continued.

It’s a creepy dilemma. I’m a true romantic who revels in love stories like Bull Durham (1988) and Shakespeare in Love (1998), oldies like Now, Voyager (1942) and two I’ve written about before, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947)and Rebbecca (1940) as well as decade-old satires like Wag the Dog (1997)and Warren Beatty’s (aka Clyde’s) masterpiece Bulworth (1998). But another of my favorite films is Pulp Fiction (1994)- steeped in violence, much of it random. Silence of the Lambs, too. And of course, The Godfather Trilogy (1972, 1974, 1990) None of these, and other more "realistically violent" films, would have been possible before Arthur Penn brought Bonnie and Clyde to life.

My protective instincts as a mother and activist clash with my respect for the vision of the artist and the gifts those visions can bring to the rest of us. This isn’t a new conversation of course, any more than it was new in 1967. It’s been going on as long as artists have. What’s different this time is that I was a kid when Bonnie and Clyde slammed into our lives; now I’m at least the age of that angry uncle. I know a lot more and that colors how I look at things I don’t know.

I named this blog Don’t Gel Too Soon because I struggle to stay open – available to understand, to appreciate, that which comes next, and to remember that no matter how lovely the lovely there’s more to life than that. And that, after all, if someone doesn’t help us to see it, we can’t join together to change it.

BACK TO MANDERLAY WITH REBECCA AND JANE EYRE

OK so this movie was made in 1940 — way before I was even born! I read the book in 9th or 10th grade and saw the movie a couple of times late a night and probably with my sisters, pretzels and mustard. And commercials. Even so it had a profound effect on me then – and, apparently, now.

It’s on TCM — I usually have the TV on when I’m working. But I keep having to go back and forth between Rebecca and Angel – ANgel for God’s sake! — because it’s just about unbearable. This poor girl (she doesn’t even get a name – just "the second Mrs. deWinter) is a mouse – pathetic and scared. Everything she does is a mistake. Right now she’s begging her new husband for a costume ball like the ones Rebecca used to hold — I had to turn it off. I know she’s going to wear Rebecca’s costume — know what will happen – and I, of course, unlike Joan Fontaine, know the truth about the witchy, Rebecca herself. I can still see the flames — oh but I don’t want to tell you the ending — maybe you’ll see it yourself some day with your stomach in your mouth in mortification for this poor girl.

As I was writing this I realized that there’s another romantic tale — from a Bronte 100 years earlier – where the ending involves a fire; it’s another book I loved – made into a film – Jane Eyre. Wikipedia says there were 5 silent film versions and have been 10 film versions (they count Rebecca in that – apparently it was a "tribute" based on Jane Eyre so I guess this comparison isn’t very original, alas) and 7 TV versions. Another mousy dreamer – another poor girl making her own way (maybe with more of a spine though), another strong, angry man with a deep painful secret. How embarrassing that I still love both stories – remember where I sat when I first read each book and can’t quite avoid either film when it pops up on TV.

Rebecca may not have – as Maxim deWinter so desperately feared – "won in the end" but her successor – and Jane – won my heart long ago and I guess there’s no point in fighting it. Always, always, the phrase "last night I dreamed I went to Manderlay again" will strike images and memories of my days as a dreamy girl whose literary journeys to great but unhappy mansions and great but horribly haunted love affairs were such perfect gifts.