THE BAREFOOT CONTESSA (1954)
"You are not a woman. You will not allow yourself to be loved, and you cannot love."
4 out of ****
Starring Ava Gardner, Humphrey Bogart, Edmond O'Brien Written & Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz Cinematography by Jack Cardiff
The trajectory of THE BAREFOOT CONTESSA is so relentless that it doesn't even bother with the pretense of suspense. It is a story of rags-to-riches, riches-to-tragedy, and the tragedy is such a foregone conclusion that the movie begins with the end--the funeral of Maria, the Barefoot Contessa, a young woman who became a world-famous movie star overnight, but remained unhappy, unfulfilled, and died several years and three movies later. The movie is not very interested in how Maria becomes a star--that story has been told before. It is interested in the consequences, and while that story has also been told before, it has rarely been told with such style and with such tragic grandeur.
Humphrey Bogart, playing the aging director who gives Maria her big break, is billed as the star, but the movie is Ava Gardner's. She plays Maria--she is Maria--and her classical, sculptured beauty is just right for this role, where she plays a woman whose talent and looks are more curse than blessing, because they put her on a pedestal where no one else can reach her.
Maria is a dancer in a bar in Madrid when we first meet her. A rich Hollywood producer and his PR man, Oscar (Edmond O'Brien, who won an Oscar for the role), try to lure her to America with the usual blandishments. She dismisses them, but Bogart's Harry Dawes--a "washed-up ex-drunk"--is able to reach her, and so she comes to America, and she becomes a star.
We never see a single scene from Maria's films, nor do we see her on the set. What we see is her off-screen life. She is not a typical star. She doesn't have a lover; she doesn't even attend the opening of her first movie with an escort. Hell, she doesn't even smoke--now what kind of behaviour is that for a famous actress? And she is not happy. She still feels like the vulnerable little girl she used to be, Cinderella waiting for her Prince Charming to come along, to love her and make her feel safe. She does not allow herself to be loved by anyone, waiting for this fairytale lover.
While another movie might treat Maria as a cold bitch who doesn't know what's good for her, THE BAREFOOT CONTESSA is much wiser. It is fundamentally sympathetic to Maria's point of view: Mankiewicz, as he did in ALL ABOUT EVE, subtly and poignantly probes the dilemma of women in the entertainment business, when men have all the money, when beauty is the sole measure of stardom and, of course, it doesn't last forever.
But, as with ALL ABOUT EVE, the best thing about THE BAREFOOT CONTESSA is Mankiewicz's dialogue. He has an amazing talent for wicked, pointed exchanges; he writes dialogue that is stilted, melodramatic, unrealistic--and a sheer joy to listen to. There is one monologue by Oscar, describing the guests at a French Riviera party, which in its sophistication, its wordplay, its incisive sarcasm, is as verbally rich as poetry.
The film is beautifully structured, too. Mankiewicz uses the funeral as his frame device, and the camera shifts back and forth between several mourners, revealing Maria through their memories--through the eyes of Harry Dawes, and then Oscar, and then Maria's Prince Charming, an Italian Count who is the last of his line. Maria goes to live with him in Italy, with his barren sister, in their dark mansion with vague House of Usher undertones. They marry, with tragic consequences, witnessed through Bogart's eyes, and the film comes full circle. It is as balanced and precise and perfect as haiku.
The movie is just as sophisticated on an emotional level, especially in the way it handles the relationship between Bogart and Gardner. He is many things to her: friend, confessor, part-time amateur therapist, father figure, but never her lover. There is a suggestion that Harry is really the Prince Charming that Maria is looking for, but his heart belongs to another woman, and so they remain friends. The emotions involved in their relationship are complex and adult, not the clichés of formula fiction. There is a scene in which Maria and Harry talk at a party, and she tells him why she is so unhappy, and her words may be melodramatic, but as Harry himself observes, "there's more to talking than just words," and there is more to her speech than superficial emotions--there is clarity and comprehension. It's easy enough to show a beautiful actress whose life is ruined by show business; it's a lot harder to understand that actress, to get under her skin, to know her, but this movie does just that. The Contessa is placed on a pedestal where no one can reach her--no one except the viewer.
A Review by David Dalgleish (April 19/1998)
dgd@intouch.bc.ca
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