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Post by Fading Fast on Jan 29, 2024 10:41:49 GMT
Yes, I also felt Herbert Marshall's character was overused in the 1942 version...too much conversation, too many scenes of him and Sanders sitting around and talking...talk-talk-talk.
I found the scriptwriters went out of their way to please the production code censors, by having every other character denounce Strickland for leaving his first wife ad nauseum, without showing the real reasons why he is leaving.
As for Dirk and Blanche, personally I thought it would have played better if Blanche's antipathy towards Strickland was a projection of her anger at herself, at her own inner weakness. That she was already fantasizing about Strickland, sexually, and she knew that she could not remain faithful to her husband if she was given more time exposed to Strickland.
As for Ata, she is based on Gaugin's second wife...but she is largely stereotypical in this story. In real life, she bore him a son and a daughter. The daughter died shortly after birth. The son became an artist, but he remained illiterate. So obviously Gaugin did not provide a formal education to his young Tahitian wife or their son, though his love for painting and art transferred on to them.
It was a son born to the first wife who objected to the use of Gaugin's paintings in the film and threatened legal action against the producers.
Incidentally, Gaugin fathered offspring with other young Tahitian women he married. Ata was not the only one. But none of those other relationships are depicted in the film...probably because the filmmakers had to avoid controversy. It was easier to please the production code office by saying he left and divorced the first wife, then married one young Tahitian gal later. You've reminded me of a couple things.
Regarding Blanche and Dirk -- I might mention that at one point in the 1959 version, someone (sorry, don't remember who it was) mentioned that Dirk married Blanche because she came to him when she was "in trouble", and he took her in. An "ah ha" moment, for sure.
Regarding Strickland's time in Tahiti -- at one point, Strickland and the doctor were talking, and Strickland said something about a woman and a boy just showing up. He said, "they weren't there, then they were," or something very nearly that. By this time, I confess, I was a bit dazed at having watched this "comedy" twice in a row, and I think my attention may have waned.
After twice through it theatrically, I've ordered the book. I'm looking forward to your comments on the book. Seeing the movie made me think about getting the book, too (it might even be in one of our Maugham compilations on our shelves), but I didn't love the story and don't know that I want to read the book of a story that I didn't love that is only a fictionalized account of Gaugin's life anyway.
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Post by Fading Fast on Jan 29, 2024 13:22:55 GMT
The Moon and Sixpence from 1942 with George Sanders, Herbert Marshall, Steven Geray, Doris Dudley, Florence Bates and Molly Lamont
The Moon and Sixpence is based on a W. Somerset Maugham novel that is loosely based on Paul Gauguin's life. "Influenced by" might be a better description as, at times, Maugham's characters track Gauguin's life, but at other times, they go their own way.
George Sanders plays Charles Strickland, Gauguin's doppelganger. It's a role tailor made for Sanders who made a career playing snarky and cynical characters like Strickland, a middle-class Englishman who abandons his family to move to Paris to paint.
Herbert Marshall, playing the Maugham-like character - a novelist and friend of the family - goes to Paris to try to convince Sanders to return to his wife and children. This is when the movie really kicks into gear as Sanders has no intention of returning.
He is completely indifferent to Marshall's entreaties regarding honor, duty and responsibility to his family. He doesn't revel in his awful behavior, he simply doesn't care. Sanders wants to paint, needs to paint, and is done with his old life.
Sanders delivers scathing speeches about the hypocrisy of middle-class morality. Even though he makes these self-serving speeches, and he seems to believe them, he also doesn't really appear to care that much about justifying his actions.
Sanders goes on to brutally use all his friends and almost all the women in his life, who oddly push their love, money and care on him. Without trying, he somehow calls forth sympathy from others.
Poverty seems only to bother him to the extent that it interferes with his painting. Even so, he has no interest in selling his work as he paints for himself to express something he needs to put down on canvas.
The man is insufferable, but there's an honesty to his single mindedness. He doesn't ask others for help, but takes it without gratitude. He seems to be guided by an inner force that says "paint!"
The final segment in the movie, which tracks Gauguin's life a bit, has Sanders in Tahiti, married to a pretty young island girl who devotes herself completely to him. After Sanders dies in the South Sea island, Marshall pops up to provide a coda for the movie.
The Moon and Sixpence is an awkward but engaging movie as it's a fictionalized biopic, which has you constantly wondering what is true and what is made up by Maugham. You'll probably be Googling "Gauguin" by the time the movie is over.
It is also Sanders' movie as no one plays a selfish but appealing cad better than he. Yet, here he shows a deeper dimension conveying both an all-absorbing passion to paint and the odd magnetism of his egotistical character.
Marshall is good as the Maugham-like author serving, effectively, as narrator. There is, however, too much of Marshall narrating or just chatting with Sanders as someone forgot the writer's creed of show don't tell.
Steven Geray, Doris Dudley, Florence Bates and Molly Lamont all deliver fine performances as each one pops up in a supporting role at different times in Sanders' life.
For most of the movie we don't see any of Sanders' painting, but there is a pretty dramatic reveal of his work - in a brief color sequence in this otherwise black and white or sepia-tone picture - in a closing scene in Tahiti. It's no surprise that the work is in Gauguin's style.
Movies like The Moon and Sixpence, movies about difficult and unconventional artists, show us that, sometimes, genius needs to, selfishly, plow its own path.
These movies argue that the human detritus left in the artist's wake is worth it for what the artist bequeaths to mankind. That is true, but it's also easier to say that if you aren't one of the humans left flattened by the artist.
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Post by topbilled on Jan 29, 2024 14:38:25 GMT
Fading Fast's review reminds me of another point where either Maugham or the filmmakers got part of Gaugin's life "wrong" (and I know it is not a direct biographical motion picture). Gaugin went to Paris for a while to paint, with his wife financially supporting him. And he did go back to their home. However, because he wanted to continue painting and did not want to return to his previous career as a stockbroker, the wife became impatient.
It seems she was willing to indulge what she thought was a temporary whim (a mid-life crisis?), but when he didn't regain his so-called senses, she found his stance completely unacceptable and embarrassing to her and their children. That is when she forced him out of the house, and he was basically free to return to Paris and continue pursuing his artistic goals full-time. However, he did continue to send letters back to the family and maintained communication with them for many years; and there was no official divorce, just a separation.
I think the problem I have with the 1942 film is that the screenwriters are so obviously in agreement with the production code that they want to use this story to moralize (and fictionalize) about the painter's sins of abandoning his family. Most likely, this was done to bolster traditional views of how men and women were expected to maintain certain roles within a Christian marriage, and to keep the values of family life intact. It just comes across as preachy, especially all those long-winded admonishments they have Marshall's character make.
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Post by Fading Fast on Jan 29, 2024 15:03:16 GMT
Fading Fast's review reminds me of another point where either Maugham or the filmmakers got part of Gaugin's life "wrong" (and I know it is not a direct biographical motion picture). Gaugin went to Paris for a while to paint, with his wife financially supporting him. And he did go back to their home. However, because he wanted to continue painting and did not want to return to his previous career as a stockbroker, the wife became impatient.
It seems she was willing to indulge what she thought was a temporary whim (a mid-life crisis?), but when he didn't regain his so-called senses, she find his stance completely unacceptable and embarrassing to her and their children. That is when she forced him out of the house, and he was basically free to return to Paris and continue pursuing his artistic goals full-time. However, he did continue to send letters back to the family and maintained communication with them for many years; and there was no official divorce, just a separation.
I think the problem I have with the 1942 film is that the screenwriters are so obviously in agreement with the production code that they want to use this story to moralize (and fictionalize) about the painter's sins of abandoning his family. Most likely, this was done to bolster traditional views of how men and women were expected to maintain certain roles within a Christian marriage, and to keep the values of family life intact. It just comes across as preachy, especially all those long-winded admonishments they have Marshall's character make. Those are good points. "The Moon and Sixpence" is one I'm glad I saw, but I will probably never watch again for the points you make.
Sadly, many movies today are ruined for the same reason as the screenwriters, director, etc., are more interested in moralizing than in telling an honest story - which is almost always one where issues are not black and white - so we end up with "heroic" characters spouting political opinions as facts and plots that perfectly align to one ideology.
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Post by BunnyWhit on Jan 29, 2024 16:38:18 GMT
Fading Fast's review reminds me of another point where either Maugham or the filmmakers got part of Gaugin's life "wrong" (and I know it is not a direct biographical motion picture). Gaugin went to Paris for a while to paint, with his wife financially supporting him. And he did go back to their home. However, because he wanted to continue painting and did not want to return to his previous career as a stockbroker, the wife became impatient.
It seems she was willing to indulge what she thought was a temporary whim (a mid-life crisis?), but when he didn't regain his so-called senses, she find his stance completely unacceptable and embarrassing to her and their children. That is when she forced him out of the house, and he was basically free to return to Paris and continue pursuing his artistic goals full-time. However, he did continue to send letters back to the family and maintained communication with them for many years; and there was no official divorce, just a separation.
I think the problem I have with the 1942 film is that the screenwriters are so obviously in agreement with the production code that they want to use this story to moralize (and fictionalize) about the painter's sins of abandoning his family. Most likely, this was done to bolster traditional views of how men and women were expected to maintain certain roles within a Christian marriage, and to keep the values of family life intact. It just comes across as preachy, especially all those long-winded admonishments they have Marshall's character make. Those are good points. "The Moon and Sixpence" is one I'm glad I saw, but I will probably never watch again for the points you make.
Sadly, many movies today are ruined for the same reason as the screenwriters, director, etc., are more interested in moralizing than in telling an honest story - which is almost always one where issues are not black and white - so we end up with "heroic" characters spouting political opinions as facts and plots that perfectly align to one ideology. Topbilled and FadingFast, you both make excellent points.
I ordered the book because I want to learn if Maugham pushes an agenda as well.
I dislike when Hollywood is not very faithful to a book. There is adaptation, and there is adulteration. It seems all too often Hollywood places itself above the authors whose work they take and torture until its voice no longer sounds the same as the source. Certainly, some things have to be changed, and at times are made better, and that's to be expected. What I object to is when Hollywood buys the rights to a novel, then seeming to be interested only in squashing the author makes so many changes that it seems they could and should have simply written a story for themselves.
I've never read any biographies of golden age Hollywood screenwriters, but I should. There were plenty of greats. I'd love to know how they felt about studios going out to purchase rights to novels when they were right there in their offices pounding away at their typewriters. Were they angered, or were they relieved?
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