BOLD AND BEAUTIFUL : A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE

Bold and Beautiful :  A  Streetcar   Named   Desire

A Streetcar Named Desire is a 1951 American drama film, with elements of film noir, an adaptation of Tennessee Williams's Pulitzer Prize-winning Drama of 1947.  The movie genres are Romance Drama.  Film Noire is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly such that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations.

T he             

The film stars Marlon Brando and Vivien Leigh in the lead roles.  The film is directed by Elia Kazan.  The Film won Best Actress Academy Award for Vivien Leigh.  The Oscar winner actor Marlon Brando missed Best Actor Academy Award for this film by a whisker to Humphrey Bogart’s “The African Queen” in 1951.

The film won 4 Oscar Awards, BAFTA and Golden Globe Awards.  The film’s duration is 122 minutes.  The film, a Warner Bros. presentation made with a budget of US$ 1.8 million raked in US$ 8 million(USA), and  was a huge box office success worldwide.

 
                                                                                                                     Marlon Brando




In 1999, A Streetcar Named Desire was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".



The meaning of the word desire can be interpreted as a strong urge towards sex or lust.  The movie which is a film noire has all the elements of cravings for sex, lust, crime and brutal assault.  The film has passionate desire and steamy sex which often ends up in violence.  In one of the scene the hero force himself upon his sister in-law. 

The darker side of desire is picturized with brutal force.  The film’s lead couple Stanley (Marlon Brando) and Stella (Kim Hunter) are engaged in a mutually satiating married life.   Stella is often submissive and never complaints. They enjoy steamy sex and are passionate about each other.  There enters the third character in the form of Blanche (Vivien Liegh) who is the sister of Stella.  She was the heiress of a huge estate and mansion.  However, call it destiny that she loses the fortune and visit her sister and becomes an addition to her family not having any other alternative choice. She has aristocratic manners and considers Stanley as a bête noire.  Stanley is a masculine character and can be compared as a human beast.

The mutually consented sex with a strong urge to be desirous of each other is often considered good.  Sex is the best exercise for human bodies.  The heavenly bodies are supple and voluptuous for sensual pleasure.  Sex is a sacred sacrament. The man or woman with barren sex life has a futile existence.

The man or woman without enjoying sex is wasting their life in this mortal world.  The best sexual act is that of snakes, embracing and entwining the bodies of each other. Such unison makes it one body and soul.

Sir Thomas More in his work “Utopia” facilitates the prospective groom to see his bride’s naked body in her sleep before selecting his marriage partner.  An interesting and amusing bold and beautiful act to possess a desirable body. 

  
Utopia is a work of fiction and political philosophy by Sir Thomas More published in 1516 in Latin. The book is a frame narrative primarily depicting a fictional island society and its religious, social and political customs.

Since the ancient times certain rights only belong to man with the belief that woman is created for man’s company.  One only wish to shed the male chauvinism to extend the selection vice-versa for the female partner. The sixteenth century writer envisaged such a society in his book but total liberation for fairer sex is still a far cry.  Most of the societies in the world have still not woken up to the women’s lib.

A desirable beautiful body is the fulcrum of an attraction to have satiating sex and orgasm.  The sexologists have found that consistent and satisfied sex life boost one’s life span.

The human race is the same whether in 1951 or 2015.  What changes in life are fashion and style, the apparels and accessories.  The current lifestyle with new theme of design, color, pattern, innovation and invention to appear more desirable and sexy differentiate from the yore.  The beauty contests that changes the definition of modern outlook of beauty and style.  The elegance and culture which makes man more sophisticated and women savvy.

The Plot of the Drama -  

Blanche DuBois, a schoolteacher from Laurel, Mississippi, arrives at the New Orleans apartment of her sister, Stella Kowalski. Despite the fact that Blanche seems to have fallen out of close contact with Stella, she intends to stay at Stella’s apartment for an unspecified but likely lengthy period of time, given the large trunk she has with her. Blanche tells Stella that she lost Belle Reve, their ancestral home, following the death of all their remaining relatives. She also mentions that she has been given a leave of absence from her teaching position because of her bad nerves.

Though Blanche does not seem to have enough money to afford a hotel, she is disdainful of the cramped quarters of the Kowalskis’ two-room apartment and of the apartment’s location in a noisy, diverse, working-class neighborhood. Blanche’s social condescension wins her the instant dislike of Stella’s husband, an auto-parts supply man of Polish descent named Stanley Kowalski. It is clear that Stella was happy to leave behind her the social pretensions of her background in exchange for the sexual gratification she gets from her husband; she even is pregnant with his baby. Stanley immediately distrusts Blanche to the extent that he suspects her of having cheated Stella out of her share of the family inheritance. In the process of defending herself to Stanley, Blanche reveals that Belle Reve was lost due to a foreclosed mortgage, a disclosure that signifies the dire nature of Blanche’s financial circumstances. Blanche’s heavy drinking, which she attempts to conceal from her sister and brother-in-law, is another sign that all is not well with Blanche.

The unhappiness that accompanies the animal magnetism of Stella and Stanley’s marriage reveals itself when Stanley hosts a drunken poker game with his male friends at the apartment. Blanche gets under Stanley’s skin, especially when she starts to win the affections of his close friend Mitch. After Mitch has been absent for a while, speaking with Blanche in the bedroom, Stanley erupts, storms into the bedroom, and throws the radio out of the window. When Stella yells at Stanley and defends Blanche, Stanley beats her. The men pull him off, the poker game breaks up, and Blanche and Stella escape to their upstairs neighbor Eunice’s apartment. A short while later, Stanley is remorseful and cries up to Stella to forgive him. To Blanche’s alarm, Stella returns to Stanley and embraces him passionately. Mitch meets Blanche outside of the Kowalski flat and comforts her in her distress.

The next day, Blanche tries to convince Stella to leave Stanley for a better man whose social status equals Stella’s. Blanche suggests that she and Stella contact a millionaire named Shep Huntleigh for help escaping from New Orleans; when Stella laughs at her, Blanche reveals that she is completely broke. Stanley walks in as Blanche is making fun of him and secretly overhears Blanche and Stella’s conversation. Later, he threatens Blanche with hints that he has heard rumors of her disreputable past. She is visibly dismayed.

While Blanche is alone in the apartment one evening, waiting for Mitch to pick her up for a date, a teenage boy comes by to collect money for the newspaper. Blanche doesn’t have any money for him, but she hits on him and gives him a lustful kiss. Soon after the boy departs, Mitch arrives, and they go on their date. When Blanche returns, she is exhausted and clearly has been uneasy for the entire night about the rumors Stanley mentioned earlier. In a surprisingly sincere heart-to-heart discussion with Mitch, Blanche reveals the greatest tragedy of her past. Years ago, her young husband committed suicide after she discovered and chastised him for his homosexuality. Mitch describes his own loss of a former love, and he tells Blanche that they need each other.

When the next scene begins, about one month has passed. It is the afternoon of Blanche’s birthday. Stella is preparing a dinner for Blanche, Mitch, Stanley, and herself, when Stanley comes in to tell her that he has learned news of Blanche’s sordid past. He says that after losing the DuBois mansion, Blanche moved into a fleabag motel from which she was eventually evicted because of her numerous sexual liaisons. Also, she was fired from her job as a schoolteacher because the principal discovered that she was having an affair with a teenage student. Stella is horrified to learn that Stanley has told Mitch these stories about Blanche.

The birthday dinner comes and goes, but Mitch never arrives. Stanley indicates to Blanche that he is aware of her past. For a birthday present, he gives her a one-way bus ticket back to Laurel. Stanley’s cruelty so disturbs Stella that it appears the Kowalski household is about to break up, but the onset of Stella’s labor prevents the imminent fight.

Several hours later, Blanche, drunk, sits alone in the apartment. Mitch, also drunk, arrives and repeats all he’s learned from Stanley. Eventually Blanche confesses that the stories are true, but she also reveals the need for human affection she felt after her husband’s death. Mitch tells Blanche that he can never marry her, saying she isn’t fit to live in the same house as his mother. Having learned that Blanche is not the chaste lady she pretended to be, Mitch tries to have sex with Blanche, but she forces him to leave by yelling “Fire!” to attract the attention of passersby outside.

Later, Stanley returns from the hospital to find Blanche even more drunk. She tells him that she will soon be leaving New Orleans with her former suitor Shep Huntleigh, who is now a millionaire. Stanley knows that Blanche’s story is entirely in her imagination, but he is so happy about his baby that he proposes they each celebrate their good fortune. Blanche spurns Stanley, and things grow contentious. When she tries to step past him, he refuses to move out of her way. Blanche becomes terrified to the point that she smashes a bottle on the table and threatens to smash Stanley in the face. Stanley grabs her arm and says that it’s time for the “date” they’ve had set up since Blanche’s arrival. Blanche resists, but Stanley uses his physical strength to overcome her, and he carries her to bed. The pulsing music indicates that Stanley rapes Blanche.

          

The next scene takes place weeks later, as Stella and her neighbor Eunice pack Blanche’s bags. Blanche is in the bath, and Stanley plays poker with his buddies in the front room. A doctor will arrive soon to take Blanche to an insane asylum, but Blanche believes she is leaving to join her millionaire. Stella confesses to Eunice that she simply cannot allow herself to believe Blanche’s assertion that Stanley raped her. When Blanche emerges from the bathroom, her deluded talk makes it clear that she has lost her grip on reality.

The doctor arrives with a nurse, and Blanche initially panics and struggles against them when they try to take her away. Stanley and his friends fight to subdue Blanche, while Eunice holds Stella back to keep her from interfering. Mitch begins to cry. Finally, the doctor approaches Blanche in a gentle manner and convinces her to leave with him. She allows him to lead her away and does not look back or say goodbye as she goes. Stella sobs with her child in her arms, and Stanley comforts her with loving words and caresses.

The Movie Synopsis -

                

Elia Kazan,who directed the Broadway play on which the black and white film is based, invited Marlon Brando, the male lead, and Kim Hunter and Karl Malden, his supporting cast, to repeat their Broadway triumphs in the film remake.  Brando plays Stanley, a poor boy who grew up tainted by ethnic slurs, made financially stable by the fortunes of the Second World War.  He does well as a blue collar travelling salesman, moves to New Orleans and marries Stella (Hunter), daughter of an Aristocratic Mississippi family anxious to escape the war’s inevitable destruction of her family's land, wealth, property and social status.

Stanley has never met his sister-in-law Blanche, the female lead of the play, Vivien Leigh in the movie remake. Blanche arranges a visit to see her sister in New Orleans and shows up on Stanley's doorstop obviously annoyed that there is neither a guest bedroom for herself nor a master bedroom for her sister and brother-in-law, in their cramped, dingy apartment in a bustling quarter of the city. The tensions of wartime emergency cohabitation of family members somehow forced to move in with each other in tight, cramped quarters because of the fortunes of war are noted when it is obvious that Blanche and Stanley immediately get on each others' nerves, especially when Blanche, who passes herself off as the only Aristocrat in her new neighborhood, is the only one in her new neighborhood who actually resorts to tough bar language and ethnic slurs in passing conversation. This becomes no ordinary domestic quarrel when their tensions escalate beyond a war of words to hurtful, spiteful deeds and then to climatic physical violence.

Hollywood icons Marlon Brando and Vivien Leigh are given close, tight photography in their lengthy scenes of escalating conflict, played with such deep insight and such technical brilliance that the audience is given pause, from moment to moment to decide whether one really has a point and the other should really be apprehended by the authorities.  Stanley first wants to know why Blanche seems to be planning to stay for life and what happened to his wife's claim on the family fortune, land, property and social status. Blanche wants Stanley to give up his weekly card game and his weekly bowling tournament with his friends including Mitch (Malden), to stay at home always sweating in his dirtied work clothes because he will have no place to wash and change with a lady in his house, sitting silent like a statue, until he decides it is time to just turn his paycheck over to Stella and move out so Blanche can rule the roost. When Blanche attracts the attention of lonely Mitch who sees the remnants of her Aristocratic upbringing, Stanley investigates, through a friend travelling in Mississippi, why his emotionally disturbed, alcoholic, child molesting sister-in-law was fired from her job and kicked out of her boarding house. A telling interlude has Stanley striking Stella for interfering with his treatment of Blanche. She escapes to the upstairs apartment of her landlady (Peg Hillias), but is so dependent upon Stanley that she returns to him when he goes into the yard and calls for her to come back. Things do not go well for Blanche when Stella goes to the hospital to give birth to her child just after a teenage boy accuses her of making improper advances when he came to her door to collect money for Stanley's periodical subscription and Mitch dumps her. 

 There is surrealistic moment, to be individually sorted out by each viewer, when Blanche insists she is going to cut up Stanley's face with the jagged edges of a broken liquor bottle and then insists he is going to rape her. The play and the movie cuts from the blackout to a scene some time later when Stella is putting her baby to sleep in the front yard, Stanley is having his card game over, and authorities arrive from the local mental institution to put Blanche away for life.  The landlady calls Stella to the bathroom, where Blanche is soaking up her cares in another hot water tub and wants the ladies to dress her in her faded, fake finery so a nonexistent gentleman friend can escort her on a nonexistent world cruise. Stella, Mitch and the landlady seem in agreement that Blanche is an innocent flower ravaged by wartime whom Stanley destroyed with his crude bullying. 

The savage and brutal behavior of Stanley under alcoholic influence at times often threatens to end his marriage with Stella.  The relationship grew bad to worse in the voluptuous nature of their rocking the cradle.   Stella was ignoring the shabby habits of Stanley because of the sexual gratification she received from him.  You can see that she is game for ignoring unorthodox behavior of Stanley, being a bull on the run indulging in drunken escapades and poker games because he was good in bed.  Sex is a driving force to reckon with in making or breaking a relationship.  The strong sexual urge of the couple cement their indifferent attitudes and the ability to gratify the desire bridges the love torn marital cord.

If somebody is deprived of sex for a longer tenure it must be a matter of cruelty.  A life with good wine and a beautiful partner in bed is most desirable.

I am happy to enjoy this platform to raise my concerns about sexual matters and interpreting the same through a tramcar ride called desire in JOHNNY’S BLOG.