The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (1961)
I had seen it before, but I had to see it again. I don’t blame Tennessee Williams — not for this movie, or anything. He was victim of his time. This is not so much a movie as a series of remarkable quotations. It is taken from his novel, and Williams did not write the screenplay. Warren Beatty is not right for the young man — not because he is a bad actor but because he is too smart to play a dumb role. As the young hustler who befriends the titular Vivien Leigh, he is acting the part of a boastful, angry, vain young thug, but never actually being it. (Marlon Brando, in contrast, was fully convincing as a a dumb Stanley Kowalski, perhaps because as Truman Capote scandalously suggested on the Tonight Show— he was not so smart himself.) Vivien Leigh is better than she was in A Streetcar Named Desire, not putting on anything except too much makeup. And it was brave of her to act in a role that some might believe was merely her. We won’t go into Leigh’s love life, except to say that she was divorced from Laurence Olivier a year before this film was released. And Oliver was gay. (If you don’t believe me, note that Olivier was rumoured to have had an affair with Danny Kaye — Danny Kaye? It is a match so unlikely that could only be true, and true love too.) But an atmosphere of shame pervades this film. I have no doubt that it was accentuated by the Hollywood treatment, but make no mistake about it, the shame is, I’m sure, in Williams' novel, because it was in him. The film is hyped as the story of a woman who ‘gets caught up in the decadent life of modern Rome.’ There’s a lot to unpack there. ‘Decadent’ is a catch all that inevitably includes homosexuality but is not exclusive to that. It simply means the horror of too much pleasure. There are glimpses of homosexuality in the film -- it can be only homosexuality as there is nothing 'gay' about it. There is a brief queer pickup on the Spanish Steps at the film’s start, and then there is the shadowy old man referred to only as The Baron, who, Lotta Lenya (as the evil procuress/madame/female pimp) turns to, and says — after she has successfully found young male hookers for several old women —“for you, I need a little more time.” Of course it will take time, because The Baron is a withered old pervert, and it’s always difficult to find young men for them. Or is it? But it isn’t only the word ‘decadent’ that offends me, it’s also the reference to ‘modern Rome’ which associates decadence with modernity and foreignness. Of course we in America are not decadent. And it is modern life that is corrupt, there was never any decadence before that. But all euphemism aside. This film is simply about a desiring woman, and as such it is absolutely horrifying and revolutionary for some. I am not a woman, I just have a little girl inside who cries sometimes at night, and who cries during the day to come out and join the party. But I can say I’m a feminist (just so long as you understand that I don’t expect you to believe me). The whole ‘problem’ of the subjection of women would be solved if we could somehow get our minds around female desire. It’s only that really which frightens heterosexual men and makes them want to oppress women. When women desire, some men lose their erections. Others are simply afraid — because woman is sex, and sex is evil, and sex becomes the devil himself when sex desires sex. So Tennesee Williams is dealing with the same issue here as in all his plays. And in case you think Mrs. Stone is a drag queen, consider the final scene, when Vivien Leigh tosses her key onto the pavement, so that the attractive young street ragamuffin who has been following her for the whole movie can pick it up. A female friend of mine once said “When I was younger I thought, no woman would ever do that. Now I’m older, well I’m not so sure.” At that moment it is not clear whether Vivien Leigh wishes to be seduced or killed -- or perhaps she wants both, or perhaps, in this context, they are the same thing. Just a few scenes earlier she says to Warren Beatty “I never know you love me unless you hurt me,” which is Williams' variation on Wilde’s "each man kills the thing he loves.” And if again, you think that’s a particularly gay sentiment then you’ve simply never lived. Another delicious quotation: “People who are very beautiful make their own laws.” It has the charm of paradox, being both repellent and true. And then those simple delectable phrases — as when the ancient ugly Lotta Lenya is asked how she is doing these days, and says “I breathe.” Or when the film’s narrator describes Vivien Leigh as “leading a pothsumous existence” — these remarks make this rather slow moving vehicle seem worth the time But I’ve seen the video of Tennessee Williams, drunk and stoned being interviewed by David Frost. And when he is asked about his homosexuality, he says enigmatically (but it's not so enigmatic, really): “Well, I’ve covered the waterfront:” This has all the poetry of a gay metaphor and also, not. It makes one wonder what might have happened if Williams could have written sa real gay play, by somehow climbing out of all the self-hatred that eventually smothered him. He is so juiced in this interview that he can barely speak; but that’s to be expected (one of my gay therapists once told me most of his gay clients had to get stoned or dunk to have sex. It's no wonder with all the hate that comes — if not at us — than on the sexual acts people can’t help imagining we are up to.) Those around Williams were not quite as ashamed, because they were usually either brazenly sexual women or working class men -- like ike his lover Frank, who, when he was sitting at a Hollywood script table, and was asked ‘What do you do?,’ he said: “I fuck Mr. Williams.” And then Frank died, and Tennessee Williams was never the same. Or perhaps it was the shame that killed him. Or both. So, because of shame, in this movie we must have the perfectly vicious Lotta Lenya cackling like the bad witch of the west about money and sex, when we all know that money and sex have been intertwined since time immemorial. (And it was Emma Goldman who said marriage was just another form of prostitution, so don’t blame me.) Please please stop your judging! But I know you won’t. And that creates shame. And we shall get so much more of that shame when this COVID-19 moves on to the next phase. But do shame us, please. We welcome it. We adore it. We revel in it, in fact, because it makes the sex better. And yes, it makes us even braver when we dare to love.
