The American situation after the Second World War was shocking and regarded as uncanny by most men and by even some of the traditionalist women who did not perceive the feminine emancipation as a serious process, but as an extinguishable charade. The newness in women's actions was represented by their filling of the jobs considered to be 'of men', as well as heading their families and supporting them and themselves. Men oscillated between teasing their intentions and finding their new discovered sexuality problematic, elements that have been highly analysed and portrayed in the decade's cinematic productions. Film noir, “extraordinarily successful as a term”[2], centred on the masculine scenario of men struggling with other men and being lured by fatal women. [3] In Mildred Pierce, the woman is struggling with men and moreover, from equal positions. Unfortunately, Mildred's desires are penalised for coinciding with what were considered to be 'manly targets'. In spite of the progressivism of having a woman as a protagonist in a noir film where she plays both the investigator and the suspect, Mildred Pierce is not the first film to have exploited unconventional feminine characters. In Phantom Lady (Robert Siodmak, 1944), the male protagonist is the victim who is helped by his secretary, who plays the role of the detective. In The Dark Corner (Henry Hathaway, 1946), the investigator is saved by the killer's wife and in both The High Wall (Curtis Bernhardt, 1947) and Woman on the Run (Norman Foster, 1950), the women are the investigators. In some films the women were victims, which contrasts to well-known representation of the fetishised femme fatale: in Murder Is My Beat (Edgar G. Ulmer, 1955) and The Accused (William Dieterle, 1949), the woman is falsely convicted by the police.
Initially, Mildred Pierce constituted a phenomenon as a connection between 'Woman's Picture' and 'Man's Film' – a clash of the two 'voices', female and male.[4] “Hybrid between the investigative thriller and the 'women's-picture' melodrama”[5], the fact that the motion picture crosses genres restates the duplicity which transpires throughout the film. Moreover, this distribution of the melodrama discourse and the purity of the film noir character in Mildred's flashbacks reinforce the idea of confusion and fluctuation of elements. The ambivalence of the narrated story mirrors the same nature for the characters' attributes and for their gender identity, assertion supported by Pam Cook in “Duplicity in Mildred Pierce”[6]. The duplicitous pattern is visually suggested through the use of contrasting lights and shadows whereas the director's intentions to lead the audience to the belief that Mildred is the murderer are clear from the film's debut. The first shot throws the public in the middle of the action by presenting a murder filmed in a stylised manner but excluding the reverse shot. However, Curtiz follows Mildred's actions and focuses on close-ups of her guilty expression, transforming her into the main suspect in the eyes of the viewer. Although her innocence is disclosed at the end and Mildred is absolved of the murder by the Law, the rehabilitation does not produce in the eyes of the watcher. In films noirs it is very common for a woman character “to be set up as an additional mystery demanding solution”[7], but it is very rare for the female protagonist to narrate her flashbacks, as it might suggest that the film's narrative voice is hers. Even so, the truth cannot be told by anyone else but the detective who is questioning her[8], reaffirming the society's reliance in the convention of genders.
The word gender refers to “the social, historical and cultural roles that we think of as being associated with either the male or female sex”, both of them being defined by patriarchy. Whereas masculinity is thought to be loud and active, femininity is seen as small, emotional and dependent. [9] Judith Butler supports this viewpoint, claiming that “gender is the cultural interpretation of sex”[10] or that “gender is culturally constructed”[11] and quoting Simone de Beauvoir, who has written in The Second Sex that “One is not born a woman, but, rather, becomes one”.[12] In these circumstances, the image of the independent woman with masculine traits, of whose “change in her appearance defines her moral transformation”[13] does not seem to be forced anymore, but strongly motivated by the mankind's progressive demands. The women depicted in Mildred Pierce are in positions of “unprecedented power and authority” but this modernity is negatively influenced by the echoes of the gender dogma still lingering in the 1940s, which makes it imperative for the film to punish its women for their bravado, ending with “its heroine's renunciation of ambitions in favour of a static domesticity”.[14] As a response to the limitations of the gender ideology, Mildred “rebels against the strictures of convention” but is “severely castigated for her 'deviant' desires”.[15] After ending her marriage with Bert and, together with that, her alacrity towards romance, her wishes start to be based on men exclusion. She develops an unhealthy, almost incestuous[16] relationship with her daughter Veda. Flesh of her flesh, Mildred sees Veda as an extension of her own body and psychologically, as a superior self. Together, Mildred and Veda are one single entity, both the phallus and the womb, re-enacting the image of the primordial woman, the symbol of the matriarchy[17] and the plenitude. Despite the potentiality of this setting, any sexual exaggeration is eventually killed in Mildred Pierce, similarly to the connection between the mother and the daughter. The interruption of their symbiotic bond, which was based on reciprocation in satisfying emotionally and pecuniarily needs between the maternal body[18] and the filial one, mutilates Mildred. The leading female character loses the motivation which caused her to apply the gender role change in the beginning and the hierarchy of discourse is established, “suppressing the female discourse in favour of the male”.[19] Nonetheless, breaking every mutual structure in the end, Curtiz segregates the confusing and unorthodox liaisons, shining a light on the reiteration of the primeval couple, Bert and Mildred, a remote idea of Adam and Eve, rejoined after the capital sin, in the Oedipal family of patriarchal order.
As a conclusion, I consider that Mildred Pierce's popularity and relevance in the course of the past two centuries is a direct result of its approach of dealing with questions of eros and the mantle of gender. The roots of the plot are unquestionably factual and the staging of the paternalistic play, in which the man is emasculated and the woman is virile shows a need of reconstructing the family on new coordinates.[20] The film reconsiders the elements present in James M. Cain's novel, keeping the overall lack of love and the character's will to control people[21], but intellectualising the simple plot, which can be reduced to the following sentence: “Mildred's place is in the kitchen and the bedroom with her husband”.[22] The film's organisation of the narratives according to advanced techniques and the existence of the female's voice over does support the feminist movement, but not entirely. In the end, the truth cannot be revealed by the womanly entity, but by the paternalistic detective. The blinds are opened and the light comes in, which does not only symbolise truth, but masculinity as well, therefore the defeat of the matriarchy.[23] This concept is reinforced by the final shots in which the building's cleaning-women are on their knees scrubbing the floor.[24] Mildred Pierce is indeed a step forward both cinematically and politically, but it represents only the first flame of the conflict which build around problems of gender equality. Mildred, like any American woman of the 1940s, succeeds in asserting her independence but she is silenced to validate the noir specific[25], not allowing her to disrupt or displace[26] the values of the puritan family.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Benshoff M. Harry, Griffin Sean, America on Film: Representing Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality at the Movies, 2004, Blackwell Publishing, Oxford
Butler Judith, Gender trouble: feminism and the subversion of identity, 1999, Routledge, London
Copjec Joan, Shades of Noir, 1993, Verso, London
French Brandon, On the Verge of Revolt – Women in American Films of the Fifties, 1978, Frederick Ungar publishing Co.
Kaplan Ann, Women in Film Noir, 1998, British Film Institute, London
Krutnik Frank, In a Lonely Street – Film noir, genre, masculinity, 1991, Routledge, London
Kuhn Annette, Women's Pictures – Feminism and Cinema, 1982, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London
Lawrence Amy, Echo and Narcissus – Women's Voice in Classical Hollywood Cinema, 1991, University of California Press, Oxford
Tuska Jon, Dark Cinema – American Film Noir in Cultural Perspective, 1984, Greenwood Press, Westport, Connecticut
FILMOGRAPHY
Accused, The, William Dieterle, 1949, USA, 101 minutes
Dark Corner, The, Henry Hathaway, 1946, USA, [DVD] 2005 20th Century Fox, 99 minutes
High Wall, The (Curtis Bernhardt, 1947, USA, [DVD], 2010 Warner Bros., 99 minutes
Murder Is My Beat, Edgar G. Ulmer, 1955, USA, 77 minutes
Phantom Lady, Robert Siodmak, 1944, USA, [DVD] 2007 Suevia Films, 83 minutes
Woman on the Run, Norman Foster, 1950, USA, [DVD] 2009 Glass Key DVD, 75 minutes
[1] Butler Judith, Gender trouble: feminism and the subversion of identity, 1999, Routledge, London
[2] Copjec Joan, Shades of Noir, 1993, Verso, London, page 121
[3] Ibid 122
[4] Kaplan Ann, Women in Film Noir, 1998, British Film Institute, London, page 72
[5] Krutnik, Frank: In a Lonely Street, page 26
[6] Kaplan Ann, Women in Film Noir, 1998, British Film Institute, London
[7] Kuhn Annette, Women's Pictures – Feminism and Cinema, 1982, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, page 35
[8] Ibid 35
[9] Benshoff M. Harry, Griffin Sean, America on Film: Representing Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality at the Movies, 2004, Blackwell Publishing, Oxford, page 205
[10] Butler Judith, Gender trouble: feminism and the subversion of identity, 1999, Routledge, London, page 11
[11] Ibid 11
[12] Ibid 12
[13] Tuska Jon, Dark Cinema – American Film Noir in Cultural Perspective, 1984, Greenwood Press, Westport, Connecticut, page 24
[14] French Brandon, On the Verge of Revolt – Women in American Films of the Fifties, 1978, Frederick Ungar publishing Co., page 18
[15] Krutnik Frank, In a Lonely Street – Film noir, genre, masculinity, 1991, Routledge, London, page 61
[16] Kuhn Annette, Women's Pictures – Feminism and Cinema, 1982, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London), page 29
[17] Kaplan Ann, Women in Film Noir, 1998, British Film Institute, London, page 70
[18] Kaplan Ann, Women in Film Noir, 1998, British Film Institute, London - “Mildred's body is the location of sexual ambiguity – return of the infantile fantasy about the body of the mother”, page 78
[19] Ibid page 69
[20] Ibid page 69
[21] Tuska Jon, Dark Cinema – American Film Noir in Cultural Perspective, 1984, Greenwood Press, Westport, Connecticut, page 94
[22] Ibid 94
[23] Kaplan Ann, Women in Film Noir, 1998, British Film Institute, London, page 74
[24] Krutnik Frank, In a Lonely Street – Film noir, genre, masculinity, 1991, Routledge, London, page 62
[25] Lawrence Amy, Echo and Narcissus – Women's Voice in Classical Hollywood Cinema, 1991, University of California Press, Oxford, page 142
[26] Kaplan Ann, Women in Film Noir, 1998, British Film Institute, London, page 38
by
lenoraspaghetti (student)
