by Yazmin Ghonaim
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by Yazmin Ghonaim |
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The term "intimate relations" is an elusive way of referring to sex. In his film by the same title, Philip Goodhew captures this conservative language used by the newspapers of the 1950s in their description of the true murder case in the south of England, involving the subjects of a love triangle. As in the title, Goodhew presents scene by scene the many codes of a conservative society. He focuses on the Beasley household, headed by Marjorie Beasley, the most obvious carrier of those codes. Goodhew dresses the character of Marjorie with the conservative fashion of the time. He establishes the identifiable codes of conservatism as long skirts, long sleeves, coiffured hair (often pinned down by a silly hat), darkened eyebrows and lips, and a pale face. Most strikingly, the small, beady eyes are framed by large and heavy glasses. The sum of all these "physical" codes results in the defining of a stereotype. Thus, through the use of costume and makeup, Marjorie Beasley is portrayed as a "typical 50s mom-type". This is further accentuated by the placement of the character. From the initial scene, Marjorie is placed within the boundaries of her home-sweet-home and soon the characters of Stanley and Joyce, husband and daughter, are introduced. The same character-defining tools are used with Stanley, the honored WWI vet. He is an older man and has only one leg. His permanent grumpy grimace speaks of bitter resignation and discontent. Yet soon after Marjorie decides to rent the spare bedroom in their house, the character of Harold Guppy enters the scene. He is a handsome, young man who will eventually go to the army and who is looking for a home and a family atmosphere. He fits right in and becomes the new lodger. Thus far, the film has successfully presented a family of codified characters; and when Marjorie convinces Harold of calling her "Mum", the entire codification seems to properly function as a familial whole. Yet mum unexpectedly kisses her boy passionately and aggressively. As the seductress, Marjorie proves the package of codes (which had established the stereotype of the 50s mom-type) to be in fact a removable -- or rather -- a redefinable mask, underneath which hid a repressed or hypocritical self. Moreover, the coded language of "mum" clashes with the behavior, establishing an underlying tone of incest. This new inconsistency with the previously established types plays a trick on the viewer while at the same time surprising the other characters. As the lovers' relationship evolves, the viewer may see Goodhew's choice to take Marjorie's character a step further. When Harold has second thoughts about his affair with Marjorie (and as he is being pressured by the innocently portrayed Joyce, who quickly learns how to blackmail the lovers), Marjorie, now an almost evil seductress, harasses him to the point of insanity. The 50s mom-type turns wild, so to speak, and her pivotal character establishes a new dimension to the prefabricated masks which once defined the characters. The film presents a new portrayal of each character. The film becomes the revelation of characters constantly battling against their types. The conservative "mum" is the "hot" lover; the young and handsome army man is helpless and impotent when it comes to rebelling against mum; the innocent teenage daughter is now the adept blackmailer; the honorable war hero husband is disrespected by all. In Nô theatre, as Sergei Eisenstein noted in Film Form (1949), a character is defined by the mask the actor wears. To change characters, he wears another mask, accordingly. In Chinese theatre, the makeup of the performer defines the role. Similarly, the role of Marjorie is introduced by the makeup and the other sets of codes --the mask, so to speak-- in this case, to fool the spectator. The mask is created for the character only to be torn away by a turn of events, creating incongruent images of mask vs. role. In the process, this provides shock value and at times a sense of humor. Finally, the story ends in tragedy, perhaps in favor of the destruction of a misrepresented self. |
     
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