{"id":2836,"date":"2014-03-03T02:43:39","date_gmt":"2014-03-03T08:43:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rockaria.net\/bluebirdprairie\/?p=2836"},"modified":"2014-03-04T19:48:13","modified_gmt":"2014-03-05T01:48:13","slug":"a-bit-of-stream-of-consciousness-about-women-the-oscars-and-a-theme-recaptured-march-3-2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rockaria.net\/bluebirdprairie\/?p=2836","title":{"rendered":"A bit of stream of consciousness about women, the Oscars, and a theme recaptured, March 3, 2014"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0Now that Cate Blanchett won the Oscar for Best Actress, and in her acceptance speech noted the film was about women, and her co-star Sarah Hawkins was nominated for best supporting [3\/4\/14 correction: Hawkins was only nominated, did not win (as previously stated) — that cool young African American woman won for 12 Years a Slave]<\/em>… but in Jasmine<\/em>, two women \u2013 a movie about two women. Cate saying that it should be noted the movie made money, people do come to see films made about women.<\/span><\/p>\n

Then a throwaway comment somewhere in there by, I don\u2019t know, who \u2013 the announcer, perhaps, \u201cthe modern day Blanche DuBois\u201d And I get it. Yes. This story is Streetcar<\/i> Named Desire<\/i> by Tennessee Williams another troubled man\u00a0 who wrote excellent and complex roles for women. (Woody Allen wrote this one.)
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0It is the same story: fragile, homeless and faux elegant, barely in touch with reality woman is forced to live, as a last resort, with her poor sister, who has a husband\/boyfriend of a rough sort (Marlon Brando yelling \u201cStella! Stella!\u201d — Hal, Ginger\u2019s boyfriend confronts her, makes a scene in the grocery store where she works).<\/span><\/p>\n

\"jasmine\"<\/span><\/p>\n

\"is

is he a Brando type or what??<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

\u00a0If I had caught on to the shadowing, I would have known that it could only end badly. (Blanche guided away to the asylum \u201cI have always depended on the kindness of strangers\u201d) and in Blue<\/i> Jasmine<\/i>… well, I won\u2019t spoil it if you haven\u2019t seen it.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0You watch it and tell me if you see more connections with Streetcar<\/i>. I know Streetcar<\/em> well. Bob and I saw a traditional staging of the play at the Guthrie a couple of years ago… it was dedicated to a talented man (can\u2019t remember his name right now) who staged Streetcar<\/em> at the U when I was an undergraduate. I worked on props. I was one of the ones whose job it was to crash a box of broken glass behind the scenes (when Blanche breaks a bottle to defend herself) and hand her the \u201cbroken\u201d one off stage. Tennessee Williams was still living at that time and he actually came to one of the productions since he knew the director. (I did not see him, though\u2026 he was not at one of my performances)<\/span><\/p>\n

All that came rushing back as I thought of Blue Jasmine<\/em>. I am pulled into her story and her desperate attempts to save herself, but alas, like Blanche, she doesn\u2019t have much reserve or strength to save herself and is always in danger of sinking into madness, anxiety\u2026all the pills and her Stoli martini with a twist do not seem to help. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Blue Jasmine<\/i> is out on DVD \u2013 Netflix \u2013 and Streetcar Named Desire,<\/i> with Marlon Brando, is out there too. Looking up Streetcar<\/i> on IMBD I note that a remake in 1995 starred Alec Baldwin… he is in Jasmine<\/i> too. Vivian Leigh won the Oscar for Best Actress in 1952 for playing Blanche. And playing the lead role in Jasmine<\/em> is\u00a0 Cate BLANCHE<\/span>tte — lots more parallels in the story too, such as how the sister ends up… no spoilers – you have to see it. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0Now that Cate Blanchett won the Oscar for Best Actress, and in her acceptance speech noted the film was about women, and her co-star Sarah Hawkins was nominated for best supporting [3\/4\/14 correction: Hawkins was only nominated, did not win (as previously stated) — that cool young African American woman won for 12 Years a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes"},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rockaria.net\/bluebirdprairie\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2836"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rockaria.net\/bluebirdprairie\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rockaria.net\/bluebirdprairie\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rockaria.net\/bluebirdprairie\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rockaria.net\/bluebirdprairie\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2836"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/rockaria.net\/bluebirdprairie\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2836\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2841,"href":"http:\/\/rockaria.net\/bluebirdprairie\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2836\/revisions\/2841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rockaria.net\/bluebirdprairie\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rockaria.net\/bluebirdprairie\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rockaria.net\/bluebirdprairie\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}