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Jeremy Dauber
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Today’s thread, which asks the question on everyone’s lips….
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Jeremy Dauber@jeremydauber.bsky.social |
1077 followers 1474 following 6727 posts
Professor at Columbia; writer of books; poster of thoughts about movies, books, comics, music, other stuff. AMERICAN SCARY out Oct. 1!
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Jeremy Dauber
@jeremydauber.bsky.social
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Today’s thread, which asks the question on everyone’s lips….
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Jeremy Dauber
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that makes sense....
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Jeremy Dauber
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different - the keys are to the nukes, not the car! And so I agree with you in terms of reality. But I think in terms of the political situation, it might be different....
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Jeremy Dauber
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I hear this, but do wonder whether there's an analogy to the oft-used analogy of taking away the dad's car keys. If you have the painful discussion, and dad agrees to do it in two weeks, then usually everyone is okay - assuming it's actually happening - with that outcome. I get it - this is
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Jeremy Dauber
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lots of problems with the analogy, but it's interesting to talk to seventy-somethings (e.g. my parents and in-laws) and get their perspective on some of these meta-issues, like presidents dropping out, civil disorder, etc, who have live memories of the sixties
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Jeremy Dauber
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What's interesting in social media - which is dominated by the young, or in my case, middle-aged - is that among the old, who still vote a lot, they have a fairly analogous experience with Johnson in '68
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Jeremy Dauber
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It's interesting to think about what media forms felt full-blown coming out of the gate, and what didn't. I'm no expert, but my gut feeling is that radio felt pretty full-formed, as opposed to, say, film. Print books, maybe; personal computers, definitely not. I'm talking feeling here, not reality
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Jeremy Dauber
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What's interesting - and I think lots of people would agree with this - we all *knew* it was ugly. I think it's an interesting lesson, either in contrast to or complement to, other cultural/technological developments: the wonder wrapped inside the vague feeling of disappointment.
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Jeremy Dauber
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dad humor is the best
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Jeremy Dauber
@jeremydauber.bsky.social
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you might say the buzz was short-lived sorry
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Jeremy Dauber
@jeremydauber.bsky.social
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And we're off, with installment 147 of our trip through American fear and horror on film - and today's thread attempts to answer one of the most famous questions in the history of horror movies, dating all the way back from 1962: WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE?
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Jeremy Dauber
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I envy the movie that can ask a woman to look soulfully into the eyes of a man and say the words: "It took a swarm of killer bees to bring you back." Bravo, 1976's THE SAVAGE BEES. Bravo.
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Jeremy Dauber
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That's a kind of haunting that doesn't need ghosts: it's got enough clanking chains to bind you up and stop your mouth and heart. And that is our thread.
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Jeremy Dauber
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that the only ways of calling it back are uncanny and horrific: a mental snapping, a traumatic avenging and replaying, or an alienated watching of your simulacrum past on a tv screen.
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Jeremy Dauber
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But what it really does is, in this movie about aging and women, remind us (if you excuse my language) what an old bitch Time is: that it passes in ways that are inexcusable and when it's been taken from us - by others, like it turns out Crawford has done to Davis -
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Jeremy Dauber
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(It also, to me, has vibes of the very end of LA DOLCE VITA, which had been a big box office hit in the US - really! - just two years before.)
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Jeremy Dauber
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And now, surrounded on the beach by a crows, holding ice cream, Jane does what she knows how to do: spins and dances, perhaps performing the choreography from her old vaudeville days.
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Jeremy Dauber
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But, of course, confession no longer matters; not just because it's too late to avoid all the damage that has been done, but it's too late to effect a cure. Jane - poor Jane, as we now learned - has been damaged beyond help of recovery.
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Jeremy Dauber
@jeremydauber.bsky.social
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smashed her own spine, and Blanche made it look like Jane had done it. "You mean all this time we could have been friends?" Jane responds to all this gaslighting. "You weren't ugly then," Blanche says. "I made you that way."
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Jeremy Dauber
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And then we hear that the entire lifespan of Jane, almost, the entire paralyzed and paused life in guilt and service to Crawford, is built on a lie: she hadn't actually driven the car - Blanche had - and she had wanted to run Jane down. And in the process,
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Jeremy Dauber
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And she runs, with a half-dead Crawford, to the seashore, into the past; and now, in a move again out of Sunset Blvd, the Hudson sisters are once more a big story, on the radio. Baby Jane is playing ball with little kids, which seems apropos, since she's regressed almost entirely to childhood.
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Jeremy Dauber
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Davis continues to regress to childhood - "he's going to tell! he's going to tell!" she says, in an orgy of fright, and her instinct of course is to run away.
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Jeremy Dauber
@jeremydauber.bsky.social
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Edwin the accompanist comes in, drunk, and stumbles on Blanche, who says "help me, please" - which sobers him up somewhat. "She's dying," he says, and runs off - convincing Jane, again, that in a choice between the 2 Blanche will always be picked, although that's not quiiite what's going on here.
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Jeremy Dauber
@jeremydauber.bsky.social
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just like she'd said she couldn't do a thing like running over her sister. "I don't want to talk about the bad things, I only want to talk about the nice things," she says. Living in her own world - one where she remains the center, the star - means warping reality to her imagination.
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Jeremy Dauber
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The police begin to close in, investigating Elvira (the maid)'s disappearance; Jane begins to panic and suggests to Blanche that they retreat to the seashore, and to her idyllic past; Jane suggests that she couldn't do a thing like that -
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Jeremy Dauber
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We then see Davis drinking, poring over old Variety clippings, wallowing in a little guilt and a lot more self-pity and moaning, "They just didn't love you enough."
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Jeremy Dauber
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she opens the door to see Crawford tied and gagged, and then shouting, muffled, to look out, as Bette Davis goes all Maxwell's Silver Hammer on the back of Elvira's head (which, to be fair, we don't see; the point of this picture isn't gore).
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Jeremy Dauber
@jeremydauber.bsky.social
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She fires the maid, who then sneaks into the house to find Blanche locked in the room; Jane confronts her - "you've got to act like a grown woman just like everyone else!", Elvira yells, to which the response is: "You won't and I won't let you!"
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Jeremy Dauber
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proven when she then gives Crawford multiple kicks when she's down; then - imitating her voice again - calls off the doctor.
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Jeremy Dauber
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Crawford now, with enormous effort, makes her way down the stairs to get to the phone; Davis comes back in time to hear her talking to the doctor on the phone - "yes, she's emotionally disturbed; she's unbalanced", that she's violent -
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Jeremy Dauber
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The imitation that Davis does of Crawford continues, as she tries to perfect her signature, take it over, so that she can take over the accounts....she needs the money, among other things, to pay the exorbitant fees of the accompanist, who is more than happy to take advantage.
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Jeremy Dauber
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Davis rehearses her signature song "I've written a letter," and, of course, it's - to use the contemporary phrase - a horror show; a return of the possessed, but here there's no sense that time and space have been bridged, except in the fantasies of Davis.
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Jeremy Dauber
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Davis challenges Crawford: why don't I have any friends? It's because you didn't want me to have them...Crawford denies it, and, for the first time, Davis hits her.
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Jeremy Dauber
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The accompanist - who needs money - will say anything to get and keep the paying job, including, of course, supporting the illusions and fantasies of someone who - everything else notwithstanding - is also mentally ill. He is, in his oily, unctuous way, the other monster.
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Jeremy Dauber
@jeremydauber.bsky.social
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After giving the maid off - she won't be coming until next week - Davis tosses off a line as she delivers Crawford her lunch: "You know we got rats in the cellar?" And then it's rat au tomato for lunch, as Davis yowls with laughter outside the door. Crawford wheels in circles, moaning and crying...
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Jeremy Dauber
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and Davis is being an excellent gaslighter, and horror director for that matter, constantly keeping Crawford, and us, off-balance, toggling between level-headed and bonkers.
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Jeremy Dauber
@jeremydauber.bsky.social
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"Why didn't you eat your dinner?" Davis asks Crawford, who'd been afraid to take off the cover - and after the bird, who could blame her? "You're a neurotic!" she says, showing her the perfectly good dinner. But of course, we were afraid, too...
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Jeremy Dauber
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to get to the root of things, and will recur. In the meantime, a new character emerges: a young man, a piano accompanist, responding to Davis's personal ad.
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Jeremy Dauber
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What also comes up in this conversation - albeit briefly - is the specter of guilt and responsibility for the accident that has kept Crawford in the chair. Davis reminds Crawford that they were never going to talk about it, and the subject is quickly elided, but it's an attempt
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Jeremy Dauber
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but allows her to say "You ain't ever gonna sell this house, and you ain't ever gonna leave it."
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Jeremy Dauber
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for her ferocious performance, there's no question we're meant to identify with Crawford.) Jane, it seems, misremembers, thinking that her father bought the house with Baby Jane money (earlier we've learned this isn't the case)...
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Jeremy Dauber
@jeremydauber.bsky.social
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Crawford attempts to throw a message to her neighbor, and there's something of the Passion here; the way in which we identify though the rigors and physical horrors undergone by the story's protagonist (and although this is very much a two-hander, and Davis gets much of the attention...
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Jeremy Dauber
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Another kind of low-key dagger in the heart of the viewer: when Davis goes to place a personal ad, and is totally unrecognized by the staff of the paper. Davis is great in the scene, all thousand watt charm of the aspiring D-lister.
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Jeremy Dauber
@jeremydauber.bsky.social
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Davis goes out, and Crawford needs to get to the telephone downstairs, and we see those stairs again, as forbidding as in PSYCHO and HOMICIDE. Here, though, what we see is Crawford's agony and effort in deciding what to do...which, at this point, is to go back to her room.
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Jeremy Dauber
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taking the phone out of her room. This way, Crawford is totally dependent on Jane (and Elvira), but isn't able to do much when she gets her early lunch...one pet bird on a bed of tomatoes. She moans in disgust, as do we.
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Jeremy Dauber
@jeremydauber.bsky.social
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And now we discover that Davis, in this movie about technology in some ways, is also a master of the phone, understanding its capabilities: not just to imitate Crawford for liquor, but to spy on her - she did know about the selling the house! - and to eliminate its access for Crawford...
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Jeremy Dauber
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this decrepit version of her past, in makeup and bow, and screams and covers her face. From a psychological perspective, this, 1/4 way through the movie, is where she really begins to lose her grip on reality. Crawford, locked upstairs, hears her scream and bang, and the fear really begins.
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Jeremy Dauber
@jeremydauber.bsky.social
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the moment, perhaps, where you can say in the movie, in some metaphorical sense that she becomes possessd by her younger self. Davis is really magnificently terrifying in this - and simultaneously pathos-filled as she, her younger self so to speak, looks at herself in the mirror -
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Jeremy Dauber
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Davis picks out the tune "A Letter to Daddy" on the piano, and then hears her childlike voice singing it - it's coming, as it seems, from the doll sitting on a couch opposite. And then...she takes the bow from its head, puts it on herself, and finishes the song...
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Jeremy Dauber
@jeremydauber.bsky.social
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Meanwhile, Davis tells Crawford that the latter's beloved bird has disappeared while she was cleaning the cage. An accident, she says. Hm. Davis, in speaking to the liquor store and trying to get more alcohol, does a decently scabrous vocal imitation of Crawford - another double.
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