Reflections in a Golden Eye
A man begins to face his sexual confusion; meanwhile, his wife is cuckolding him with both his friend and a horse. Both Kael and Ebert complain that audiences laughed their way through this film (Kael, 1991, p. 622, seemed a little sympathetic: Marlon Brando’s character has scenes “so pitiful yet so ghastly that some members of the audience invariably cut themselves off from him by laughter”; Ebert, 2007, p. 643, simply condemned them: “the audience was perhaps the greatest problem […] filled with matrons, who found it necessary to shriek loudly and giggle hideously through three-quarters of it, and their husbands, who delivered obligatory guffaws in counterpoint”).
Both critics specifically identify this laughter with the scene where Brando is “patting his hair nervously when he thinks he has a gentleman caller” (Kael), “nervously brushing down his hair when he thinks a handsome young private is coming to see him” (Ebert). Clearly, even by 1967, audiences struggled to cope with the idea of a homosexual protagonist, or a homosexual army officer, or a homosexual Brando, or something. His character, Weldon, expresses the theme towards the end, which he intends ironically, but which also has something unintentionally comically direct about it: “Any fulfilment obtained at the expense of normality is wrong and should not be allowed to bring happiness; in short, it’s better, because it’s morally honourable, for the square peg to keep scraping about in the round hole, rather than to discover and use the unorthodox one that would fit it.” Elizabeth Taylor’s round hole is just all too orthodox for Brando’s square peg, it seems, and he hardly seems to be scraping about it at all (hence the lover and the horse).
But at the same time, there is something kind of absurd, and at times very absurd, about the characterisation and situations here, including Brando’s character and performance, and at times that laughter seems rather understandable. Also, the film does go awfully far into the lurid: a woman cutting off her nipples with garden shears is pretty extreme at any time (but it’s in the book, too, I believe). For this viewer, the real problem is that the film falls apart after the halfway mark: in the first half, there are some very fine scenes involving Elizabeth Taylor and Brando, and Taylor and Brian Keith; in the second, Taylor’s Leonora is pushed way into the background. One has the impression that, because she is supposed to represent some kind of conventionality, the filmmakers and writers have decided that she’s ultimately boring, while Weldon’s struggle, they assume, is ultimately interesting, ultimately deserving to be the real focus; in reality, Leonora is neither conventional nor boring (it’s really quite interesting how relaxed she and Morris are about their adultery, amidst all the psychodrama, and the way Taylor plays her echoes the previous year’s Martha), and the film suffers by not realising that.
Or maybe I just wanted more Firebird. Did not see the original golden-hued version, unfortunately.
Both critics specifically identify this laughter with the scene where Brando is “patting his hair nervously when he thinks he has a gentleman caller” (Kael), “nervously brushing down his hair when he thinks a handsome young private is coming to see him” (Ebert). Clearly, even by 1967, audiences struggled to cope with the idea of a homosexual protagonist, or a homosexual army officer, or a homosexual Brando, or something. His character, Weldon, expresses the theme towards the end, which he intends ironically, but which also has something unintentionally comically direct about it: “Any fulfilment obtained at the expense of normality is wrong and should not be allowed to bring happiness; in short, it’s better, because it’s morally honourable, for the square peg to keep scraping about in the round hole, rather than to discover and use the unorthodox one that would fit it.” Elizabeth Taylor’s round hole is just all too orthodox for Brando’s square peg, it seems, and he hardly seems to be scraping about it at all (hence the lover and the horse).
But at the same time, there is something kind of absurd, and at times very absurd, about the characterisation and situations here, including Brando’s character and performance, and at times that laughter seems rather understandable. Also, the film does go awfully far into the lurid: a woman cutting off her nipples with garden shears is pretty extreme at any time (but it’s in the book, too, I believe). For this viewer, the real problem is that the film falls apart after the halfway mark: in the first half, there are some very fine scenes involving Elizabeth Taylor and Brando, and Taylor and Brian Keith; in the second, Taylor’s Leonora is pushed way into the background. One has the impression that, because she is supposed to represent some kind of conventionality, the filmmakers and writers have decided that she’s ultimately boring, while Weldon’s struggle, they assume, is ultimately interesting, ultimately deserving to be the real focus; in reality, Leonora is neither conventional nor boring (it’s really quite interesting how relaxed she and Morris are about their adultery, amidst all the psychodrama, and the way Taylor plays her echoes the previous year’s Martha), and the film suffers by not realising that.
Or maybe I just wanted more Firebird. Did not see the original golden-hued version, unfortunately.
Mini Review: A man begins to face his sexual confusion; meanwhile, his wife is cuckolding him with both his friend and a horse. Both Kael and Ebert complain that audiences laughed their way through this film, but there IS something absurd about the characters and situations. The real problem is that it falls apart in the second half, the filmmakers operating under the mistaken assumption that Leonora is conventional and therefore boring, so they focus on Weldon's struggle and push her into the background.