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Tuesday, May 17, 2005

Noir Mama

Would you take the rap for your kid?

This is one of the questions I hope never to have to investigate seriously. Fun is fun, though, and I find, now that I have Felix, it is easy to tumble into musing about the fantastic, so simple to entertain strange imaginings about what kinds of things one would do for one's child.

The sun was out on Mother's Day but the television movie programmers preferred a rather more overcast schedule. Three of the highlights on the channel with the best film library around were stories of maternal sacrifice and suffering: Stella Dallas (the 1937 version with Barbara Stanwyck), Douglas Sirk's Eastmancolor Imitation of Life (1954) and Joan Crawford's 1945 masterwork Mildred Pierce.

This is my first post-natal viewing of Mildred. The story is as sordid as any canonic Film Noir, and is packed with the standard elements of the genre: murder, sex, cigarettes, deception, fatalism… and, of course, a femme fatale. What's interesting about this femme is that she's a child. Mildred Pierce is her mother.

Children in film noir tend to fall into two categories: the ones who do stupid murderous things (see The Reckless Moment (1949), its contemporary remake The Deep End (2001), and The Big Sleep (1946)) and the ones who do evil murderous things. Mildred Pierce's daughter, Veda, is decidedly the latter category. She is everything dreadful in a child: craven, selfish, cruel, whiney, social climbing, racist, demanding, competitive (she steals her mother's boyfriend), criminal. Of course, Mildred loves this monster who holds her in contempt, adores this child more than her other daughter- a happy, earthy kid. Veda wants only to destroy her mother, and Mildred seizes the opportunity to oblige. After all, she made her daughter what she is- built her from scratch.

Mildred's willingness to give up everything for her kids, Veda especially, feels familiar- particularly if one is at all sensitive to the sorts of issues that get raised so often in the swamp of parenting books, morning chat shows and letters to the editor. Listen to how Mildred lays down the law in an early argument with her husband (a weak depressive sort who is cheating on her with his gin rummy partner):

"You might as well get this straight right now once and for all. Those kids come first in this house. Before either one of us. Maybe that's right and maybe it's wrong, but that's the way it is."

Mildred's savage attachment produces a bad seed. The film is full of failed love affairs- its heroine has spectacularly bad taste in men- but the dark center of the movie is Mildred's failed romance with her daughter. She loves and loves this child, who would eat her alive if she seemed tasty. (Veda is a gorgeous nasty version of the "hero" in one of my least-favorite children's books of all time, The Giving Tree.) And in the wake of Veda's rejection, Mildred- in spite of her beauty, business success, money and obvious power over men- prepares to sacrifice her life for her daughter.

Someone interrupted a conversation about other things recently to tell me that I was falling in love with my son. Happily, I agree with the comment, but in realizing how attached I am to my child, I now see something in Mildred Pierce that makes it a bleaker noir than I ever gave it credit for being.* The sadness of the story doesn't lie in that romantic cynicism you can find in so many movies where everyone is tough and nihilistic. The kicker is blunt: Mildred's daughter doesn't love her, and Mildred can find no consolation.

My idle question about taking the rap for my kid isn't anything I need to figure out. It's just one of those little new-parent torments that occur to one during late-night feedings when one tests one's inner strength by prodding at one's softest spots. This feeling I have for my child is unique and so muscular in its hold on me. I can't imagine how it would feel if it weren't reciprocated just a little bit, and now, in a way that was never evident before, I understand what makes Mildred tick.

*Some of other favorite, super-nihlistic American noirs that aren't about children are: In a Lonely Place, Double Indemnity, Sweet Smell of Success, The Killers, Force of Evil, Ace in the Hole

And here's a handful of some favorite noirs that have more of a romantic-cynicism: Gilda, Gun Crazy, Out of the Past, The Big Heat, The Big Sleep, The Maltese Falcon, Touch of Evil

posted by Elise at 1:02 PM

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82 Comments:

Anonymous said...

How about this one:

Would you sacrifice an entire subway car full of people to save your child's life? As in, someone puts a gun to the kid's head and tells you its him or its everyone else.

Ugh. I know its wrong, but I'd choose him.

Thanks for the movie recs, I can't wait to watch Mildred Pierce.

6/08/2005 3:15 PM

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