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Streetcar named desire

  • 28-01-2011 1:54pm
    #1
    paulieeye
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 901 ✭✭✭


    Hi folks,

    I want to get peoples opinion on the ending of this movie. Went to it in the screen last night and enjoyed it a lot. But wanted to know what people think...(is there a need for spoiler tags here??)
    ...mainly bout the rape seen. I came out of this movie under the impression that it was not a definite that stanley did the deed or not. I know from what he says just before ("might be nice to interfere with you...") and the broken mirror it leads the viewer to believe this. How did others view this?

    But what a show, brando was so menacing yet likable. I found myself siding with him. Dont know what says bout me! Course it all depends on this last seen...on the waterfront next week...cant wait!!


Comments

  • #2
    bnt
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,076 ✭✭✭✭bnt


    I saw this on TV a few weeks ago: I don't think it's aged well. I have little sympathy for domestic violence, and while some call Brando's character "primal" or "a force of nature", I just call him an "asshole". Stella's taken so much abuse that she can't imagine anything else and rationalises her status. Blanche has had things her way for so long, she didn't understand when folks in her home town finally said "No" to her, and - like a wild animal - looks only for escape, both physical and mental.

    The ending might have been shocking in 1951, but today it just looks melodramatic to me. I don't have a strong opinion on whether Stanley was telling the truth or not: he was certainly capable of it and deficient in self-control, and was already known to have treated Stella in a similar way. As for Blanche: we know more about mental illness today, and it's not glamourous. I understand that A Streetcar Named Desire was originally a stage play, and the characters had to be obviously flawed and larger than life to work in those days, but despite the "sanitised" portrayal of the people and events, I thought they were all profoundly stupid. I felt no identification with them at all, and a bit dirtier for having seen the film. :(

    You are the type of what the age is searching for, and what it is afraid it has found. I am so glad that you have never done anything, never carved a statue, or painted a picture, or produced anything outside of yourself! Life has been your art. You have set yourself to music. Your days are your sonnets.

    ―Oscar Wilde predicting Social Media, in The Picture of Dorian Gray



  • #3
    paulieeye
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 901 ✭✭✭paulieeye


    As regards stella not being able to imagine anything else, I dunno do I agree with you entirely. To me she seemed truely happy at the start of the movie and was impressed by stanleys brutishness. This can be seen when we first see stanley at the bowling alley causing trouble and also when she says she was thrilled by his smashing of the lightbulbs on their wedding night with a look of excitement in her eye. Also by the look of pure lust on her face when she is upstairs after the violence at the poker game...and the air of satisfaction with her the next morning. And tying in with the title and what blache says about "riding a streetcar named desire"...stanley is as common as that streetcar but is over flowing with desire, for all his faults she is genuinely in lust/love with him and is (i think anyway) loving the type of person he is. To me there is nothing to suggest that this was not the case..but if there is please tell me.

    On thinking back, there is also nothing to tell us that he did not commit the rape. As you said, he was definatley capable of it..but i wasnt sure if the director intended it to be an unsure point and leave it up to us..or if due to the time this was made, it had to be shot this way.


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