07-14-2010, 01:42 PM
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#26 (permalink)
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The Reforms
Location: Rarely, if ever, here or there, but always in transition
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Barbe-bleue (US: Bluebeard) - dir. by Georges Méliès (1902)
Miriam Bale explains the tale:
Quote:
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Bluebeard was supposedly partially inspired by a 15th-century Breton serial killer named Gilles de Rais, but "Bluebeard" itself is a fairy tale. It was first written down by Charles Perrault who also wrote "Sleeping Beauty", "Cinderella", and "Little Red Riding Hood" and is known as the father of the modern fairy tale. But Bluebeard is remarkable for being a fairy tale without much magic; it's very much about real people. It also reads as fairly modern in some ways. It was written in the 17th century, but it's about a man who goes on a bunch of business trips and his smart, curious unsatisfied wife! Bluebeard is rich, generous and owns several beautifully furnished homes. He's also lonely and thought of as ugly (indicated by the hideous blue beard.) And he has a terrible reputation for marrying frequently and having these wives then mysteriously disappear. A young, unnamed heroine marries him anyway, with much pressure from her impoverished family. He gives her a full set of keys for exploring all the castle's innumerable treasures as he goes off on his frequent business trips, but he also gives her one small key to a room at the end of the hall that she's banned from looking in. Temptation! So, of course, she has to have a peek. She does and finds all the bodies of the previous wives in a bloody mess. A spot of blood gets on the key, and the only fantastic element of this story is that the spot won't disappear. Once Bluebeard sees the bloodied key he has to kill her, at least according to his rules. In the Perrault version, especially in the original French version, there's then this lyrical, haunting passage where, in the few minutes she's granted before she's supposed to die, she asks her sister over and over again if anyone is coming to rescue her. "No, I just see the sun with clouds powdering and the grass greening," or something like that is her sister Anne's poetic and feckless reply.
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[ doarcodavelha.] + [ slantmagazine.]
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As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world (that is the myth of the Atomic Age) as in being able to remake ourselves. —Mohandas K. Gandhi
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