This pic is from Chicago while the darker one from the main view is somewhere in England or Wales (http://www.visitbritain.com/en/EN/) I don’t remember which. Yesterday was work again—some new good listings: https://www.etsy.com/shop/DragonLaire?ref=hdr_shop_menu and of course working around house. What’s your favorite TV show–I like Rizzoli and Isles but prefer the darker better written books: http://www.tessgerritsen.com/rizzoli-isles/ No plans for today again—I know I’m boring—but I have to keep my blog going don’t I https://www.pinterest.com/lindachase56829/the-dragons-lair-from-adventure-chase/ Tomorrow I do have plans–be still my heart..better not say that it might take me serious.
“I have for the first time found what I can truly love – I have found you. You are my sympathy – my better self – my good angel; I am bound to you with a strong attachment. I think you good, gifted, lovely: a fervent, a solemn passion is conceived in my heart; it leans to you, draws you to my center and spring of life, wraps my existence about you – and, kindling in pure, powerful flame, fuses you and me in one.”
Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre
TODAY WE’LL LOOK AT LOVERS IN POPULAR FICTION CURRENT AND PAST MOVIES, PLAYS AND BOOKS.
“The way her body existed only where he touched her. The rest of her was smoke.”Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things
THE TRAGIC AFFAIR: WUTHERING HEIGHTS
This story of Heathcliff, a gypsy orphan brought to the family and eventually falling in love with the sheltered daughter of the manor in a star-crossed love that moves Cathy to tears and Heathcliff to near madness (the movies don’t do the digging up coffin part but the book shows Heathcliff at his worst extremes.
There were multiple movies (the best in my opinion with Laurence Olivia and the second with Timothy Dalton–the Welsh do dark well) was also a mini-series in 1978 which I know I watched but which I can’t say was good or bad and another in 2009….. and a TV movie in 1998. You can get all the movies, series and a bunch of books–including some written around the book characters by other authors on
www.Amazon.com (as well as most of the others we mention in this blog)
We’ve already discussed Romeo and Juliet (and West Side Story based on same) as other stories of love that doesn’t die even if the characters do, as well as Antony and Cleopatra. Others that might be included in this tragic category is the movie Titanic where a woman manages to live through the disaster, loose her lover but gain a life worth living (and so we have a morality play for our age) There’s also various movies of this type from modern to one of my favorite that is an ancient legend but the love angle wasn’t added until the 13th c Lancelot and Guinevere elicit love and betrayal which has been in so many movies plays and books that it would take a life time to look at them all.
We can either see this two ways the first that we don’t believe in love much anymore and this reinforces the disaster that it becomes eventually in our minds. Or and I like this one better, that many of us believe in undying love and this is a way to view without having to sacrifice our own.
By the way this was written by Emily Bronte who was one of 4 children of a preacher whose home stood on the edge of the moors and she was one of 3 of his children to never marry and to die young from TB.
“Frankly my dear I don’t give a damn” Rhett Butler to Scarlett O’Hara Butler–Gone with the Wind
Gothic Novel—The Governess made Good story–or gone bad whichever the case may be.
For this one I picked Jane Eyre, the governess that falls for a widower who turns out to have a secret lurking in the attic. (I recommend: The Wide Sargasso Sea for the other side of the story.) This to me is the most famous origin of this type of story which has been around America for years (and was combined with Vampires in the late 60s for a preview of things to come on Dark Shadows). This one almost is a tragic but is pulled from the jaws of defeat in the last chapter (sorry spoiler but if you’ve never seen or heard this one I figure you probably won’t start now.)
The list of movies from this one goes to show that we really like child care workers:
From 1910 – 1926 there were 8 silent pictures 5 bearing the same name and the others The Castle of Thornfield–Italian 1915, Woman and Wife–1918 and Orphan of Lowood–German 1926
The best cast was the 1943 one with Orson Wells and Joan Fontaine in the main roles but supported by Agnes Moorehead, Margaret O’Brien and Elizabeth Taylor.
Other societies seem to like the poor domestic who loved almost lost and then won out in the end story too. 2 Indian/Hindi versions 1952 Sangdil and then Shanti Nilayam in 1972. They did it in Hong Kong in 1956 as Orphan Girl and in 1963 in Mexico El Secreto (The Secret) and again in 1978 as El Ardiente Secreto (Ardent Secret).
The least appealing of all the stars in the ones I’ve seen is George C. Scott in the 1970 version which was released in theaters in Europe but went directly to TV in the US.
Other examples of the genre are Jane Austin’s Pride and Prejudice & Sense and Sensibilities also English origins, Rebecca by another English woman (Daphne du Maurier) while not a governess still deals with a woman stranded in a marriage full of dark secret and fear. All of these have had multiple productions too and remain a recurring theme especially in our modern times I think we need this reassurance of love and triumph of the lesser in an age when we increasingly become over-powered with technology and social isolation.
Oh by the way I picked Charlotte Bronte’s novel as she was only one of the preacher’s children that married and moved away unfortunately the only one who escaped the family curse of TB died due to her marriage–in child birth.
THE UNCONVENTIONAL LOVE
These are more modern and deal with people and ideas that reflect our more current love issues
BRIDGET JONES’ DIARY–At the start of the New Year, 32-year-old Bridget decides it’s time to take control of her life — and start keeping a diary. Now, the most provocative, erotic and hysterical book on her bedside table is the one she’s writing. With a taste for adventure, and an opinion on every subject – from exercise to men to food to sex and everything in between – she’s turning the page on a whole new life.
LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA–When Florentino Ariza sees Fermina Daza through a villa window, it is love at first sight. Though a man of modest means, Florentino’s skill as a poet awakens a similar passion within in Firmina. But Fermina’s father disapproves of the affair and vows to keep the lovers apart. Fermina eventually marries an aristocratic doctor, and they move to Paris. Florentino, however, still loves Fermina and patiently waits for a chance to be with her again.
Benny and Joon A mentally ill young woman finds her love in an eccentric man who models himself after Buster Keaton
Are just a few of what passes for love with many of us now.
Benjamin: Mrs. Robinson, I can’t do this anymore.
Mrs. Robinson: You what?
Benjamin: This is all terribly wrong.
Mrs. Robinson: Do you find me undesirable?
Benjamin: Oh no, Mrs. Robinson. I think, I think you’re the most attractive of all my parents’ friends. I mean that.
THE GRADUATE
Meet Joe Black (1998)William Parrish: Love is passion, obsession, someone you can’t live without. I say, fall head over heels. Find someone you can love like crazy and who will love you the same way back. How do you find him? Well, you forget your head, and you listen to your heart. And I’m not hearing any heart. Cause the truth is, honey, there’s no sense living your life without this. To make the journey and not fall deeply in love, well, you haven’t lived a life at all. But you have to try, cause if you haven’t tried, you haven’t lived.
