Petit Paul and Marie Dominate the Wall Space

September 2016.  I want a particular image and have to look through practically every magazine in the house.  I go to the studio and look some more.  The reason I’m so obsessed is that there’s something not quite right about the image.

Lately I’ve noticed that whenever I look at an image, say a photo of a couple or really, any number of people together, I immediately start scanning, searching for clues as to something being off.  At the same time, I’m looking for reasons why this can’t be so.  I only relax if everyone looks okay… with themselves, the world and each other.

So here’s this photograph.  Black and white.  Of a couple, Petit Paul and Marie from Jean Epstein’s 1923 silent film, Coeur Fidele.  Petit Paul is pressed up against Marie looking smitten while she is turned away looking most uncomfortable.  Whether or not Petit Paul is smitten, he certainly is determined to have Marie and Marie would rather have Jean but has little say in the matter.

The photograph calls to mind a few of my dreams.  A diminutive man clambering onto a woman’s lap and clinging to her, a formerly sane classmate insisting on a relationship and immediately taking control of the woman’s every move, a young man desperately wanting shelter only to create total chaos when the woman finally opens the door.  There are common elements.  The man initiates, persists and eventually has his way; the woman acquiesces.  The man acts, the woman doesn’t.  Oh no!  A dream in stereotypes.

I am not the only one who dreams this way.  I read somewhere that Martin Scorsese makes films that are mainly about men.  His men are tragic figures who’ve been described as angry, troubled and empty, exiled from the world, living on the edge of acceptability, afraid of humiliation, alone and seeking redemption as they struggle for humanity.

Scorsese’s women, on the other hand, are usually in supporting roles, existing in relation to men.  The men, the centre of the film’s universe, the women simply revolving around them, either abused or idealized or both.

I read too that one of the traits most often defining the role of women in literature is compliancy.  Confinement is the other.

How can a person relax I wonder.  With a set up like this.  I decide to finish watching Epstein’s film in hopes of a picture-perfect ending, even if stereotypical.  So far so good.  Petit Paul is killed and there are signs Marie will be reunited with her beloved Jean.  Yes yes…good..oh, wait.  The last image is that of the couple riding off together, Marie looking happy enough but Jean.  Oh Jean, what’s the matter with him now, so detached and pensive?  His arm is around her but even so, that’s little consolation if you look at his face.

My collage is not dramatic.  Quite passive actually.  The women for the most part, mother types.  The men small, that is, except for the man in the centre.  I keep forgetting about him.  Petit Paul and Marie hang on the walls…framed.  It does feel like they’ve been set up if not framed, given these roles in a melodrama all with the purpose of allowing Epstein, a film theorist, to experiment with some ideas that might elevate the thing.    

Suddenly I feel better.  If the roles are fixed and the unhappy couple is caught up in this low melodrama, somehow it’s easier to let it go.   After all, there’s no real tragedy here, unless Epstein does in fact succeed in his attempt.  Somehow I don’t think he does.  

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