From the Vault: April '21 Streaming

"Women on the Verge," Spring Break Movies, Oliver Reed, Natalie Portman, "Dudes Rock"

Maggie Gyllenhaal is a woman on the verge, who finds healing in BDSM, in Steven Shainberg’s erotic dramedy Secretary (2002)

April 1st, 2021

Hello all!

As promised, here are the streaming themes that have been simmering over here for the month of April. We've got a bit of existentialism, a bit of literal escapism, two very different actors to showcase, and a pitch to the cheap seats:

Women on the Verge

“You can stand it, you married me for it!” Elizabeth Taylor snarls to real-life husband Richard Burton in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), Mike Nichols’ fiery screen adaptation of Edward Albee’s play about martial rot and fettered heartbreak, starring two of the most infamous lovers in the world.

I was watching a film with a "troubled" female character, Nicolas Roeg's Bad Timing, which truly upset and disturbed me, but in a way I love, because it got me thinking about movies! I began thinking, specifically, about the ways in which mental health and substance use issues are told on screen when those issues affect women. I began thinking about the very idea of women spiraling out, losing it, becoming fed up, failing to function, derailing, short circuiting, being on the verge, etc... in the face of societal expectations of functionality, temperance, good sense, and order. We all know that women's pain is taken less seriously; we know that women are often labeled "emotional" rather than "brave" in the face of trauma and suffering; we know that incredible stigma exists around thorny issues of addiction and mental health and issues like alcohol addiction in young women can sometimes feel verboten for those reasons. So I started thinking in a larger sense about films that explore those ideas and more, including the very notion of failure, and my favorite "short circuiting" women onscreen. In doing so, please keep in mind that I've included films with a wide range of tones and have added trigger warnings where they feel relevant. This is not meant to be a showcase of female trauma or torture porn — but rather a look at the way in which these narratives are constructed and a consideration of the strength inherent in the pure act of existence; I think letting women be difficult, messy, troubled, addicted, struggling, healing, in progress, etc. in art is liberating.

Spring Break, Forever

Alain Delon, Marie Laforêt, and Maurice Ronet in the first screen adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s 1955 novel The Talented Mr. Ripley, French Bad Holiday classic Purple Noon / Plein soleil (1960).