#he's perfect for raoul and you can quote me on that

[aralisj]

“In my dreams, shadows call...”

[the-pontiac-bandit]

If you're still answering tortall prompts, how about Raoul + family?

wow why NOT write 2000 words of blatant, shameless fluff about families you make for yourself??? inspired by this quote from tammy: “[Raoul and Buri] have glorious sex under trees, in tents, in lakes…. In carriages. I think at some point they’ll probably adopt. By the time they’re attached Buri’s getting a little old to have any of her own. It’s not like there aren’t plenty of orphans around.”

As Raoul stretched out, trying to make himself comfortable in his too-hard, too-small desk chair, he savored the warm feeling filling his chest and threatening to spill out and take physical form in front of him. In the midst of the most head-spinning, headache-inducing, sleep-sapping, joy-filled week he’d ever experienced, he’d had precious little time to slow down and simply exist within his new reality. He thought to close his eyes, the better to feel everything, but they only stayed shut for a moment before they forced themselves back open. He couldn’t stop looking at the scene in front of him for long.

Buri lounged cross-legged on their bed, far more relaxed than he had been at any point this week. Kel sat next to her, her back straight and her long legs carefully hanging off one side so as not to get dust from the practice courts on their bedding. Both had just returned from a full morning of training, sweaty despite a change of clothes and coated in dust despite a thorough washing, courtesy of a long, hot summer that had refused to give them rain.

Between them was the baby.

His son, he reminded himself. He thought the words a few extra times, even mouthing them once, as he had a thousand times in the last five days, as if forming them on his lips might make them feel more real.

None of this felt real to him yet. He supposed most people had nine months to get used to the idea before seven pounds of screaming chaos turned their lives upside down. He’d had exactly fifty-three days—he’d counted on Tuesday—so he supposed he still had some catching up to do. His mind was still reeling from the conversation that had led them here, and he wasn’t sure yet that he’d ever catch up.

He’d been sitting in this chair and pretending to read reports while mostly thinking about his right knee, which had been bothering him despite Duke Baird’s best efforts. He wasn’t sure why he remembered so specifically, since his days were nearly as certain to contain aches and bruises as they were to contain a sunrise. Buri had returned from a meeting with Thayet and Onua, although really, the word meeting conferred far too much dignity on what was more likely a combination of trick riding and palace gossip. They’d settled into the evening routine they’d shared for nearly a decade, working in comfortable silence with candles lit between them.

“Do you want children?” she’d asked, breaking the quiet spell of paperwork that gripped their nights.

“I think it’s a little late for that,” he’d replied with a snort.

She’d thrown a pillow at him. He had caught it and thrown it back without even looking up from the thick stack of papers in his lap, with a rude hand gesture following behind.

“You know what I meant. Did you want children? Before?”

Something in her voice had shifted. He’d finally looked up to find her eyes already trained on him. Her face had been so unexpectedly earnest that he’d actually taken a pause, had slowed the speed of their consistently paced banter, to think.

“I suppose I hadn’t given it much thought. There were friends, and then there was drinking, and then there was the Own, and then there was you,” he’d told her with a shrug. “I do like children, but I’m perfectly happy where I am.”

She’d chewed on her lip for a moment. He remembered being surprised by that. After nearly thirty years of friendship, she rarely took the time to think before she spoke with him anymore.

“Spit it out.”

“Do you want children?”

“And we’re back to the start,” he’d said with a grin.

“I spat it out. Now you answer it.”

“Hypothetically, sure, I’d enjoy a child. Now can I ask why you’re asking at all?”

“I’ve been thinking,” she’d started. She’d paused for a moment, holding her breath as though she was trying to decide whether she should speak at all. And then she’d let it all spill out at once. “I’ve been thinking it might be nice to have one. A child, I mean.”

She’d held up a hand and made a face before Raoul could even begin to formulate a joke about her monthlies or her aching hips or what they might do to make that happen. “Not like that. Thayet was telling us today about homes they’re opening in Corus, for children without parents. We were thinking about the children we traveled with back in Sarain, when Alanna found us all those years ago. Gods, it was terrifying, having Thayet and an infant to protect, especially when Thayet was ready to throw her life away for the infant. And I started thinking—we have money, and safety, and love, and there are all these children who have none of those things, and—”

She’d been speaking faster and faster, but she’d cut herself off abruptly at the look on Raoul’s face. “Never mind, you can forget—”

Raoul had smiled back at her, straightening up in his chair and marking his spot in the report on his lap before putting it aside. “So you want a child.”

The weeks that followed had been ones filled with paperwork and inquiries at the palace records about the process of appointing a common-born heir to a noble house and at the magistrate’s about drawing up paperwork for adoption. There had been careful planning and hushed discussions with only their closest friends about the best way to proceed. Buri had insisted on an older child, maybe eight or nine, saying that the few diapers she’d changed on the road to Rachia were enough for a lifetime.

Instead, five days ago, Buri had entered their rooms carrying a squalling mess of blankets with an air of forced nonchalance that had told him immediately what she’d done. Instead of clarifying, or teasing her, or asking if it was the smallest eight-year-old he’d ever seen, he’d simply held his arms out. While Buri had supplied endless explanations about Thayet ambushing her with a baby, he’d stared at the squirming mess of baby in his lap, blankets already coming undone, absolutely entranced.  

“He’s tiny,” he’d commented. His voice sounded like it was coming from someone else’s body. The baby was only just too large for him to hold in one hand, although he’d never try to prove it. The fragility of the life sitting in his lap was overwhelming.

“His mother died yesterday. Childbed fever, caught too late to help. The priestesses at the Goddess’ Temple were worried he might need more than the homes could give.”

Raoul had nodded, only half listening. The baby’s eyes were screwed shut while he wailed. His fine hair was dark, his skin tanned like that of the Bazhir babies Raoul had seen in his year in the Great Southern Desert. One of the baby’s hands had broken free of its blanket. It had waved in the air, keeping pace with his cries, which were far louder than he’d have believed such a tiny body could produce. He’d intercepted the hand with one finger and then watched in wonder as the baby had grasped it.

“Does he have a name?”

“Pathom,” she’d answered definitively, before belatedly remembering that names were the sort of thing parents might choose together. “That is, if—”

“Pathom of Goldenlake,” he’d cut her off with a smile.

The days that followed had been a blur. Thayet had found a wet-nurse and supplied an endless stream of goods that they’d have never known a baby required. Alanna had ridden in from Pirate’s Swoop at full speed to pronounce in a gruff voice that the infant was in perfect health. Gary had gifted them a bassinet and more blankets than any human child could possibly need. Dom had found a way to convert a standard-issue burnoose into an excellent baby sling, while Evin had given them a congratulatory note from George, who complained that Alanna had left before he could finish writing, and a cheerful promise that he’d never touch a soiled diaper. Onua had given them a set of unimaginably soft stuffed ponies, perfect replicas of the horses that roamed the highlands of Sarain where she and Buri had learned to ride.

Kel, away on business with Second Company at the Gallan border, had to wait almost a full week to learn she had a new godsson. He’d met the company when they’d arrived back at the palace long past dark the night before. They’d groomed Hoshi and Sparrow together while he thanked the gods for perhaps the hundredth time that her “testy pony” had finally found his way out of the Own stables and into a pleasant retirement.

Finally, when the last of the men had trudged towards the barracks and a well-earned nights’ sleep, she’d turned to him.

“Well?”

“There’s someone important I want you to meet,” he’d said, shoving his hands in his pockets with a smile that was equal parts nervous and eager.

“Sir, I’ve already met your wife.”

Raoul had let out a hearty chuckle. “But you haven’t met my son.”

Kel had frozen. Her face fell back into perfect stillness, the way it did when her mind was working its fastest.

After a second that felt like an eternity, she replied, “Sir, I saw Buri five weeks ago. If you’re telling me you’ve managed to grow a baby since then—”

“We didn’t, but someone else did. We adopted him from the Temple after his mother died in childbirth.”

Understanding flashed in Kel’s eyes while her face broke into a rare broad grin. She’d wrapped her arms around him in a fast, tight hug accompanied by enthusiastic congratulations that had gone suddenly silent in surprise when he’d added, a wicked glint in his eyes, “You really should come by tomorrow to meet your godsson.”

Buri had intercepted Kel on the practice courts the following morning with the dual goals of keeping her own skills sharp and ensuring that Kel would not be too polite to visit. And so now, he watched as Kel bounced his son with the brisk certainty of someone who had held a baby a thousand times. He could hear her cooing quietly at Pathom, softening her consonants while she told him all about forest campaigns in hill country. He knew he should ask her to speak up—if she was going to give her report verbally, she could at least give it at a volume he could hear—but he found he wasn’t particularly interested in the intricacies of the Second’s bowstring supplies. Buri made eye contact with him behind Kel’s back, laughter in her eyes. Buri could laugh if she wanted, but he was taking notes on Kel’s tactics. He would have sworn this was the quietest he’d heard his son in the entirety of his hundred-and-twenty-odd hours in the palace.

As his son stared wide-eyed at his former squire, Raoul was reminded of a comment he’d heard as they’d left Turomot’s offices the other day with paperwork making Pathom officially their own. “Well, that feckless Goldenlake dolt’s managed to start a family, even if it was too late to do the thing properly,” the Lord of Genlith had muttered at their backs as they’d left. Buri had elbowed him and whispered a quick “Feckless? I’ll show him feckless,” but her heart wasn’t in it. Before she’d even finished the thought, her eyes were back on Pathom, squirming against her chest in the burnoose that bound him to her.

And now, Raoul watched his son, passed between his wife and the woman who had been like his daughter long before any papers said he was a father. Stuffed Saren ponies lined the shelf above an intricately carved bassinet filled with beautifully embroidered blankets. A protection charm had been pulled from Alanna’s packs to hang at the head, while twin leather circles bearing the insignias of the Riders and the Own, no doubt carefully cut by mischievous commanders from the saddle packs of some unprepared trainees, was secured carefully at the foot. Raoul had to smile for a moment at Genlith’s ignorance—he’d begun his family right on time.

[thephantomessoftheopera]

Notes on Gaston Leroux‘s „The Phantom of the Opera“ - Chapter 8: “In Which Firmin Richard and Armand Moncharmin Dare to Have “Faust” Performed in a “Cursed” Opera House, and We See the Frightful Consequences”

<< Previous Chapter Quite a few elements from this chapter have found their way into ALW’s musical version of the story - the „far too many“ notes from “O.G.”, Carlotta the croaking toad and last but not least, the famous chandelier crash.

On Saturday morning, Moncharmin and Richard receive another of „O.G.‘s“ famous notes (“Are we at war, then?”), in which he sets forth an ultimatum - they will have a „cursed“ performance that night if they do not comply with the following conditions: 1. Box 5 must remain empty, 2. Christine Daaé must be given the leading role in „Faust“ instead of Carlotta, 3. Madame Giry must be reinstated, 4. They must agree to the payment of the monthly salary of 20,000 francs.

Considering the terms that Erik states, only one is dedicated to advancing Christine‘s career - the rest serve to reinstate the necessary infrastructure for his „haunting“: he needs access to Box 5 to be able to communicate with Madame Giry, he needs a trusted ally - and of course, money (to buy stuff for Christine, presumably). He also feels compelled to assert his power since the managers have decided to challenge him. He does not randomly create chaos or terrorize the Opera house just for the sake of it - everything he does serves a necessary purpose from his point of view. Considering the time (”several months”) that he has been haunting the Opera House, Erik likely started the whole opera ghost business only because he fell in love with Christine.

The Phantom‘s note has just prompted another angry outburst from Richard when the stable-head Lachenal enters and tells them that one of the opera’s horses - César, the horse that is habitually used in „Le Prophète“ - was stolen. The stablemen are suspected of the theft, but when Lachenal reports that he saw a black shadow vanishing on a white horse at great speed into the underground, everyone concludes that it must have been the „ghost“. Leroux’s sense of humour really shines through in the chapters dedicated to the managers and their dealings with the Opera Ghost. In this case, the managers seem to be completely unaware that the Opera House even has stables, let alone horses - showing that they are more or less amateurs at running it. And the Opera Ghost is apparently not afraid of making bold moves. But what does a ghost need a horse for? We will see later on that this act also serves a distinct purpose and goal.

Madame Giry comes in, as she has also received a note from the ghost telling her to call at the managers‘ office. Richard is about to explode with fury and literally throws her out of the office, refusing to comply with the ghost‘s demands. When she realizes what has happened, she throws quite a fit and has to be dragged out of the opera house. She is replaced by Richard’s own concierge, who will be in the audience at the opera for the first time during that night’s performance of “Faust”.

Carlotta also receives a note from the ghost in the morning post, warning her not to sing that night, or else a „misfortune worse than death“ will happen to her. She, seeing herself as the victim of some conspiracy, is also willing to defy him and ignore his threats. We also learn that it is actually her who has been slandering and bullying poor Christine in the meantime and using her friends to make sure she won’t be able to repeat her triumph from the gala night. Christine, on the other hand, has few friends apart from Philippe de Chagny - who has been lobbying in her favour simply to please his brother, Raoul - and the opera ghost, of course. Carlotta calls upon all her numerous friends and acquaintances to support her performance that night, telling them that Christine Daaé is conspiring against her. Erik sends her a final warning in the evening post, but she still won‘t be deterred, having secured everyone‘s support previously.

This chapter also gives us a short background on Carlotta, the Spanish diva. She is described as having a perfect voice fit for a wide repertoire, but neither heart nor soul. She is a selfish, wicked and scheming bully, ready to defend her hard-won position as the reigning diva at all costs. She comes from a lowly background, having danced in „disreputable taverns“ in Barcelona, and later in dingy music halls in Paris, working her way up by way of her many lovers.

As no one heeds the ghost‘s threats, that night‘s performance goes ahead as planned. Carlotta sings the role of Marguerite opposite Carolus Fonta in the role of Faust. Christine sings her customary role of Siebel, the young man who is also in love with Marguerite. Despite Siebel being a male character, the role is written for a soprano voice and therefore habitually sung by a woman. ALW turned this into the “page-boy” in “Il Muto”, with the addition of the page-boy being silent, while Siebel is not, although he gets very little stage time.

The first and second act pass without incidents. During the interval, the managers leave the box to find out more about Christine‘s supposed conspiracy. When they return, a tin of boiled sweets and a pair of opera glasses have been mysteriously left there, and they also feel a kind of draught around them.

During the third act, Christine is singing Siebel’s flower aria (“Faites-lui mes aveux” - watch it here) when she notices Raoul in the audience and starts to falter, her voice becoming less clear and confident. Raoul, in turn, is also crying, which greatly embarrasses Philippe and also turns him against Christine because he doesn’t know what kind of games she is playing with his brother. At this point, Christine thinks that there is no future for Raoul and her for various reasons, and she also fears for his safety. Philippe was worried about Raoul‘s precarious state of health following his trip to Perros, and had even asked Christine to meet him, but she had been bold enough to refuse. Christine had also sent Raoul a letter, asking him never to come to her dressing-room again for the sake of both their lives. Supposedly, at this point she still believes the „Voice“ is the Angel of Music, so it is not quite clear in what way she feels their lives are in danger from him.

During the duet between Faust and Marguerite in Act 3, Erik uses his amazing ventriloquist skills to make Carlotta croak like a toad, and the entire audience reacts with horror and dismay to the hellish sounds coming from her mouth. Carlotta cannot believe what is happening at first, and her partner Carolus Fonta is equally confused. Erik‘s idea of a „misfortune worse than death“ is pretty accurate considering Carlotta‘s reaction, but from the point of view of the reader, it is also quite funny especially since we are not meant to empathize with the petty, mean diva too much.

In Box 5, Moncharmin and Richard experience the distinct sensation of the ghost standing right beside them. Leroux later insinuates that Erik is now hiding in the hollow marble pillar beside Box 5. Carlotta resumes her song, but the toad croaks again, and all hell breaks loose in the audience. The managers hear the ghost chuckling, and his bodiless voice says: „Her singing tonight is enough to bring down the chandelier!“ when the chandelier starts slipping downwards and crashes into the audience, causing one death, many injuries and a general panic. The woman who was killed was the concierge brought in to replace Madame Giry, leading to her reinstatement.

The chandelier at the Garnier never really crashed, but there was an actual accident with the Chandelier’s counterweight which happened in 1896 and resulted in a single fatality. Other indications of dates given in the novel suggest though that Leroux does not adhere to this “official” timeline, although it would probably be the most exact indicator of when the story actually happened if it was true. The headline that Leroux quotes - „Two hundred thousand kilos hit concierge“ - is actually based on a real newspaper headline:

Image from @fdelopera​

Within the context of the story, we assume that Erik actively caused the chandelier to fall - which he will later deny when speaking to the Persian. The problem with this assumption is that the chandelier accident actually happened in real life - so unless you assume that Erik is real, too, it is clear that such an accident can indeed happen without someone intentionally making it fall. As such, the case remains finally inconclusive, like many other parts of the novel, and is left for the reader to interpret.

Image from the opening night of the Palais Garnier in 1875 from artlyrique.fr

Next chapter >>

[glassprism]

Do you have a favorite line from Phantom? I used to be obsessed with line, "Pity comes too late / Turn around and face your fate / An eternity of this before your eyes" but I think my actual favorite line in the whole show is "Angel, oh speak / What endless longings /Echo in this whisper"

Oh, quite a few! Here’s some of my faves, stage musical and otherwise, with some explanations if I feel like it.:

PHANTOM: Floating, falling, sweet intoxication. Touch me, trust me, savor each sensation. Let the dream begin, let your darker side give in to the power of the music that I write.

This gives me some Star Wars vibes I’ll admit, but any line tempting someone to give into a side that they keep controlled and hidden is fascinating to me.

FIRMIN/ANDRE: Who'd believe a diva happy to relieve a chorus girl, who's gone and slept with the patron? Raoul and the soubrette, entwined in love's duet. Although he may demur, he must have been with her! You'd never get away with all this in a play, but if it's loudly sung and in a foreign tongue it's just the sort of story audiences adore, in fact a perfect opera!

Gotta love that lampshade hanging on the story. Also the harmonies during this portion are divine.

CHRISTINE: Yet in his eyes all the sadness of the world. Those pleading eyes, that both threaten and adore.

Perfectly captures why Christine, and many of us fans, continue to be so fascinated with the character of the Phantom.

CHRISTINE: Twisted every way, what answer can I give? Am I to risk my life, to win the chance to live? Can I betray the man who once inspired my voice? Do I become his prey? Do I have any choice? He kills without a thought, he murders all that's good. I know I can't refuse and yet, I wish I could. Oh God, if I agree, what horrors wait for me in this, the Phantom's opera?

CHRISTINE: Too many years fighting back tears. Why can't the past just die? Wishing you were somehow here again, knowing we must say goodbye. Try to forgive, teach me to live, give me the strength to try. No more memories, no more silent tears, no more gazing across the wasted years. Help me say goodbye. 

Just some nice lines of Christine��s. I think any lines, or characters, who are caught between their fear or hatred of someone and their intense longing for them, tends to get me, and ‘Twisted Every Way’ encapsulates a lot of that. The second is because it’s an epic part of the show and Christine really showing off that character development.

CHRISTINE: The tears I might have shed for your dark fate grow cold, and turn to tears of hate. Farewell my fallen idol and false friend. We had such hopes and now those hopes lie shattered.

I find it interesting that even Christine notes that there was some potential in her relationship with the Phantom (”We had such hopes...”), whatever it might have been, romantic, friendship, mentor-student, etc.

PHANTOM: Masquerade, paper faces on parade. Masquerade, hide your face, so the world will never find you...

Ah, the poignancy of those lines, coupled with us knowing that the Phantom has spent his entire life having to hide so the world would not find him.

Also, these old ‘Think of Me’ lyrics:

CHRISTINE: Fly away, but when you lie awake, remember how we used to be. And please promise me that sometimes you will think of me.

And while we’re on the topic of ‘Think of Me’, Ithis translation of the German version of the first lines of ‘Think of Me:

CHRISTINE: Denk an mich. Denk an mich zärtlich, wie an einem Traum. (Think of me. Think of me fondly, as if to a dream.)

I’ve seen a few variations of the last line (”as if I were like a dream”), but there’s a wistfulness to it that’s both poetic and sad.

And just for flavor, let’s throw in some of my favorite quotes from Kay:

Hell is not a place, it’s a state of mind and body; hell is obsession with a voice, a face, a name...

And from Leroux (de Mattos translation):

"Does he love you so much?" "He would commit murder for me."

“Why, you love him!  Your fear, your terror, all of that is just love and love of the most exquisite kind, the kind which people do not admit even to themselves,” said Raoul bitterly.

And one more from the Coward translation:

“You’re afraid of him... but do you love me?... If Erik was handsome, Christine, would you love me?” “How can you say that?... Why tempt fate?... Why ask me about things I keep hidden deep in my heart, where people always hide their sins?”

Again, just lines that kind of “get” me, a character torn between her attraction to someone (whatever kind of attraction it is) and her terror of them. It’s the fascination with a relationship that should, by all logic, be unhealthy and destructive on every level but which pulls the characters in regardless, something you feel is almost unspeakable and indescribable but are oh so fun to explore. It’s a kind of relationship I’ve kind of been thinking and writing about in other fandoms and I always think back to these lines when I do, especially Christine keeping such things “hidden deep in my heart”.

[trisanachandlers]

other thoughts on lioness rampant:

it is far and away THE BEST book in this quartet in terms of writing

it also strikes me as the most cinematic, in that it has the most moments that like... filled me with childlike glee at the idea of getting to see it adapted for tv? I guess we still don’t really know what exactly is getting adapted or how it will be done but god I want to see the whole coronation day battle sequence so badly! it may be because I specifically turned that part of my brain on at some point in this book like I hadn’t for the others but throughout almost all of it I had really clear mental images of everything and everyone. of course I’m tempering my expectations because even if it does get adapted everything could be so different from how I imagine it, but you know, all any of us really wants in life is the experience my mom had with the movie of the lion, the witch, and the wardrobe where in the theater we got to the sweeping shot of the tents in aslan’s camp and she gasped and went “oh my god this is EXACTLY how I always pictured it” anyway that’s what I want from literally every scene starting with the ordeal of kings and ending with alanna v roger

it’s also the best alanna and jonathan book, even more so now that I’m like an adult who can relate to/fully delight in the relationship between people who used to be in love and therefore know each other really really well and are amicable enough to use that fact to just roast each other constantly, with affection

seriously there is not a single moment in this book where they’re in the same room and it doesn’t quickly become the funniest fucking thing i’ve ever read. “jon, do i really have to say ‘awesome artifact’? oh well, guess I’m too old to put a frog in his bed”

I reblogged someone’s john mulaney quotes as sotl characters post a while back and the only one I was like “huh?” about was gary as “it’s a grid system, motherfucker!” because I had largely forgotten the details of what happened in these books until this reread since it’d been like 11-12 years, so when I got to the part where gary is like “actually the practical work of running a kingdom is really interesting! grain prices and farmers and” my brain went “IT’S A GRID SYSTEM, MOTHERFUCKER” and I fully burst out laughing on an airplane and startled my seatmates

more (gay) thoughts below

“love you. always have. always will. never know how he did it”

don’t have much else to say about that i’ve just been lying on the floor weeping softly for days

the thing is I’ve reread protector of the small at least once, some books several times, and I’ve reread trickster at least twice, and I haven’t reread all of immortals but I’ve read wild magic and emperor mage at least twice each, but I really hadn’t reread song of the lioness because I was always like “I love these books in spirit but they really weren’t as good in terms of the writing and also the problematic white savior stuff so I’d rather reread the better work she’s done later in her career & the development of this world,” and as a result I think I’d forgotten how major a character thom actually is? (had also highkey forgotten this about coram, gary, and alex because in the intervening decade my brain had simplified it down to “these books are about alanna, her cat, her three big love interests, thayet and buri in the last book, and of course roger, and also raoul is there I guess”) but the thing is I think that also happened because like alanna and george and raoul and jonathan and thayet and buri all get to keep being, like, obviously not major characters but important secondary characters, because some of them are important to kel, and sometimes to daine, and obviously to aly. but even though liam is right about it being meaningful to die for something important, alanna also has a point in that argument because a character can’t continue being important to the story if they’re dead! anyway I’m sad

I know this has been commented on before but they’re all so freakin’ young! which I did not understand when I was 12 but now jonathan is ascending the throne and he is literally my age! what the fuck!

another thing about being older is I’ve gotten over the thing I had as a kid where I never wanted to love the main characters best because I felt like I was supposed to and I didn’t want to do what I was supposed to do or something, and wow, I love alanna so deeply, she is so perfect, she is so flawed, I adore her so much. She is such a badass! She is such a good friend! She is such a good sister! She is such a good daughter (to myles, to be clear)! She is such a complicated and evolving partner who learns so much about how to be a better one over time! She and george are SO GOOD TOGETHER in the end

I know tammy kind of sidestepped saying whether she’s bisexual (or misinterpreted the question, was my impression?) and talked about her being genderqueer instead but also I get such a bi vibe from like every part with thayet. there is a compelling argument that it really is alanna, as a person attracted to men, negotiating femininity and male attraction and her feelings around it through her friendship with thayet, who is very conventionally feminine and beautiful! but also “she is so beautiful, I think I want to... be her” is such a classic confused baby sapphic thing at least among gays now that like.... also for a scene involving three people who are all ostensibly heterosexual, the part where alanna refuses to wear a dress to present the princess she rescued to the king, who is her ex-lover, who she was in a secret relationship with while presenting to everyone else as a guy, feels very, very queer to me

anyway alanna and jonathan are both bi

(my read of first adventure was also that jonathan totally had a crush on page alan well before he knew about alanna but anyway)

also I had fully forgotten about the part where she gets misgendered (basically?) in the tavern in maren and people think she’s a twink and liam’s boyfriend/a guy who is in love with him in a gay way, which then doesn’t really go further than confusion and the vague sense that being mistaken for gay = danger in this universe. but if alanna + gender gets to be more nuanced in the 21st century, as I would hope from that tammy tweet, then I would be interested to see if there’s more things like that adapted into a tv version.

I would think also SURELY alanna and jon were not THAT subtle like once ~her secret is revealed~ everyone back home seems to figure out they were lovers like by the time jonathan goes to visit the bloody hawk but like that part in maren suggests to me there is NO WAY the heterosexuals of the eastern lands are SO clueless that the court wouldn’t have noticed prince jonathan and squire alan were definitely fucking behind their backs

can katherine have little a trebond twins talking about queerness, as a treat? but anyway

since alanna is myles’ heir now and she is alanna of pirate’s swoop and olau then why isn’t thom of pirate’s swoop named thom of pirate’s swoop and olau

also george and alanna’s conversation at the end about settling down and getting married and having children after roaming together is much funnier now that I know, from having read all of the tortall wiki, that thom of pirate’s swoop is born while they are on a mission

that’s it I guess it’s a good book and I love it and I’m excited to start rereading immortals and see just what the fuck adult me thinks of THAT

[benperorsolo]

How/why did you start shipping Reylo? What first grabbed you about the dynamic? Did you get invested in canon Reylo around the same time?

I started shipping Reylo in theatres the first time I saw TFA, which was opening weekend. As I know I’ve said before on there, I know that because I leaned over to my friend when Ben kidnapped Rey on Takodana and the movie moved into that shot of the iconic Bridal Carry™ and whispered,��“I ship it.”

I don’t have a particular rationale for why, because I have always seen Reylo as a variation on the theme of ships I’ve shipped since I was old enough to really ship things. I shipped the Phantom and Christine when I was eleven/twelve-ish (although I let a lot of purity policing get to me on the forum I frequented and soon switched over to Christine x Raoul); my first real, passionate ship was Zutara, I for a period shipped Amon x Korra (yep), and very devotedly shipped with a small contingent of fans for a rather small anime the resident assassin/cop ship. 

That has just always been the dynamic I’ve loved, and I’ve loved it for perhaps different reasons than a lot of hero x villain shippers ship such dynamics, which is that, like now, I particularly liked shipping hero x villain pairings so I could give them all of the angst humanly possible and then stick them into a devoted vanilla relationship occasionally haunted by the villainous party’s misdeeds for maximum hurt/comfort taste. I really like ships that begin on the worst possible foot, that begin with violence and hatred, so that I can watch or imagine those ships blossoming into tenderness and redemption– I think, because such relationships involve a rock-solid base of forgiveness and acceptance. The hero knows what the villain has done, and the villain knows the same of the hero. They have no illusions about the other person, have seen them at their worst, and yet– they find something worthy of love, of protection. Despite having no reason to; despite having every reason not to. And I think in a way that’s what we all want– to find that level of unconditional love. These ships let you see that played out in this really melodramatic and operatic way that gives you the full spectrum of that drama and emotion.

So in a way I started shipping reylo because I ship heroes and villains by default (my friend rolled her eyes in theatres when I told her I shipped it, because it was so predictably on-brand for me). I hadn’t actually even seen Ben’s face at that point or known how beautiful young he was, which was luck. It was the same with my initial love for Ben’s character; I started stanning him in the first Jakku scene because I just happen to always love that archetype across stories and genres. And it just so happened that Ben Solo ended up being the perfect blended embodiment about all the tropes I loved, and Reylo too. 

I didn’t get “invested” in the canon dynamic until I would say mid-latter 2016, when I started really doing the math about how the necessity of bendemption as the Skywalker heir meant his only viable love interest was genuinely Rey (before that, as a new fan, I was more susceptible to anti rhetoric because I wasn’t as confidence in my knowledge of the story). I’m used to shipping non-canonical ships; it doesn’t bother me, because the vanilla let’s-make-two-enemies-buy-a-picket-fenced-mortgage shipping tendencies I have are unlikely to be shown in canon anyway (SW is really the rare property where this stuff has happened and does happen, so it’s a great franchise to like this type of ship). I put air-quotes around “invested” because I don’t really care about if reylo is canon for the sake of the ship itself exactly. It doesn’t really effect my headcanon-ing or fic-ing. I care because I genuinely think it is the best way to wrap up the themes of the story I have been presented with and I think the story would be lesser without it.

[cynthiajayusa]

Keira Knightley Werks the Queer Narrative, Talks ‘Colette’

You know what’s to love, actually? How Keira Knightley has now played enough feminist roles to know her character, Juliet, in the bubbly holiday classic Love Actually doesn’t exactly fall into that category. In the Christmas rom-com, Juliet is the object of not one but two men’s desire, and copious close-up shots insist on telling us what we’ve already known: Keira Knightley is breathtakingly beautiful.

The 33-year-old actress was just 17 when 2003’s Love Actually was filmed. Since then, Knightley’s genre-spanning roles throughout her 23-year career have often positioned her as a heroine in girl-power period films, women characterized by their liberated state of mind (2008’s The Duchess) and patriarchal-defying genius (2014’s The Imitation Game, as Alan Turing’s mathematician-fiancée Joan Clarke). Real-life bisexual novelist Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette, who ghost wrote for author-husband Henry Gauthier-Villars (known as “Willy” and played by Dominic West) until she reclaimed her autonomy and byline, is right within Knightley’s wheelhouse of women smearing their male oppressors. Take Colette, whose 1944 book Gigi was adapted into a movie musical that won nine Oscars in 1959, including best picture.

Written and directed by out director and fellow Englander Wash Westmoreland (Still Alice), Colette is a tribute to his late husband and collaborator, Richard Glatzer, who died from the progressive neurodegenerative disease ALS. In the hospital before he passed away in 2015, Glatzer, who could not speak, typed “C-O-L-E-T-T-E” to Westmoreland on an iPad to communicate that his – but in many ways, their – next project should be “Colette.”

Recently, Knightley called to talk about her special connection to gay directors such as Westmoreland (and James Kent, who directs her in the forthcoming The Aftermath), her enthusiastic response to a Bend It Like Beckham sequel where best friends Jules and Jesse are lesbian lovers, and her desperate plea to drag queens.

 You’re so good in this I wouldn’t be mad if all you do is play period bisexuals for the rest of your career. 

Well, thank you very much! I’ll quote you on that.

Is there a special relationship between gay directors and female actors such as yourself that helps in telling a story like this one? 

That’s an interesting question! Yes, I think so. I think that there’s that quality of having to fight for your space and fight for your right to be who you feel you are and fight for your voice. So yes, I think there’s a similarity in those two aspects, and one I think, probably, Wash identified with in the story of Colette.

When it comes to the male gaze, is there a difference in having a gay director direct a sex scene? 

Yes and no. He did actually turn around when I think it was me and Eleanor (Tomlinson, who portrays bisexual American heiress Georgie Raoul‑Duval) and he was like, “You know, it’s really great ’cause there’s no male gaze here,” and I’m like, “Wash, there are only men in this room!” (Laughs) He’s like, “Yes, no – you know what I mean!” (Laughs) So yes, because sex is sort of taken out of it in a way, because obviously he doesn’t find me attractive, and that’s great (laughs). But I still think male sexuality in all of its forms is probably slightly different from female sexuality, so there are probably still subtle differences. But it is very nice to know that when I took my clothes off he didn’t get off on it at all.

Are there any other films you’ve worked on where you felt having a gay director helped in doing the story justice? 

Yes. I worked with… oh my god… my brain’s just literally gone blank and I’ve forgotten every single other person’s name that I’ve ever worked with before. Wait, what the f*ck? He directed Aftermath. I can see his face. Oh my god, this is really annoying because literally I just spent eight weeks with him and he’s the loveliest man in the entire world.

But I don’t know whether it’s sexuality that does it or just – I think it’s the individual. Possibly gay men, because of their fight for their identity and to be accepted and accepting of themselves, understand that there’s a level of emotional intelligence, which often – not always – a heterosexual man will simply try to shut down. So I think that helps if you’re dealing with emotions, which you are when you’re making a film. It helps to have an emotional vocabulary and intelligence and openness. And look, I’m a heterosexual woman, so maybe I’m completely talking out of turn, but I do feel, because there is still a process of acceptance that gay men go through, that emotionally they can be very, very intelligent and open and accepting.

Did Colette’s approach to sexuality speak to you in any profound or personal way? 

Yes, because she was entirely natural to herself and she acted without shame. What a wonderful, positive way of looking at your sexuality and the people that you fall in love with. I really respected that about her. I loved that she was herself and that any rule that didn’t fit she just broke and made the life that she wanted to live. I think that’s a wonderful, empowering story, both from a feminist point of view and from the point of view of her sexuality.

Speaking of feminism, I have a feeling Colette wouldn’t love your character in Love Actually. 

Probably not. (Laughs)

The men in that movie seem to have all the power, while your character is silent, cute; lots of close-ups of you looking pretty. How do you reflect on that role and what it says about women? 

I hadn’t really until you just said that! But yes, I can see that. I was 17 when I played that one and I was so excited about just getting a role in a Richard Curtis film. You know, I think there were some pretty good strong women in that. Not that one, but the Martine McCutcheon character and the Emma Thompson character, which is so heartbreaking. I don’t know. I’d have to look at it again with that frame of my mind. I do, however, know Scarlett Curtis, who is Richard Curtis’ daughter and a radical-feminist activist, so he’s done something right there.

As for Emma Thompson, she sobs to Joni Mitchell. And her story doesn’t have the happiest or even most empowered of endings. 

But strong people are allowed to break down; it doesn’t mean you don’t have emotions. You just have to then pick yourself up and stand up again. See, the problem is, I haven’t actually seen it since it came out, which was over 10 years ago, so actually I don’t remember quite enough to be able to argue either way. You really, really know it, so I feel like I’m just gonna have to go with whatever you say. (Laughs)

You played gay computer scientist Alan Turing’s fiancée in Imitation Game. Have you ever fallen in love with a gay man before? 

No, luckily. I feel very fortunate in that, ’cause that would be tricky!

Rumor has it that Bend It Like Beckham was originally written as a lesbian love story? 

I never read that version of the script! I mean, not as far as I know. But you might have information that I don’t have. No, the only version of the script that I ever read was the one that we shot, so it was as it was.

A lot of people in the LGBTQ community wanted Jess and Jules to be a couple in the end. 

Fuck yeah! That would’ve been amazing. I think they should’ve been too. I think that would’ve been great. We need a sequel.

You’ve worn some fabulous period wigs over the years – is that your real hair in Colette? 

No, I don’t think so. I think we had wigs, always through. Because there were so many different styles, and short, long. I think when it’s long we used some of my hair with some extensions, and then when it was short, it was a wig.

Do you realize how many drag queens are gonna be jealous of the one you wear in your role as the Sugar Plum Fairy in your forthcoming film The Nutcracker and the Four Realms? 

Oh, dude, yes. Hell yes. You know, we actually designed it with them in mind. I was so pleased. It was my first time where I could actually be like a drag queen, and I was so excited. We were all talking about it at the time; we were like, “Come on, this is the most amazing drag outfit,” and honestly, I was really excited because normally you have to be so subtle in films and I got these really long, fake eyelashes – I can’t remember whether we used them – but with bits of glitter over them, and we were all like, “This is perfect drag queen attire.” It was so amazing, and I think there are some amazing drag queens out there who are gonna wear it even better than I did. I hope that this film inspires some amazing costumes.

You sound like you could be an avid watcher of RuPaul’s Drag Race. 

Everybody’s a fan! Yeah, there’s a bit of Drag Race watching. And then there’s a great drag night in East London, which I used to go to when I could go out before I had a child, which was always fun. So can I just put that out there: Please, please let there be a drag queen somewhere who will be in a Sugar Plum Fairy outfit.

As a teenager, you were told your kiss with a gay female friend you went to prom with wasn’t appropriate. What did that experience teach you about LGBTQ discrimination, and how did it influence you as an ally for the community? 

I thought it was bullshit at the time. Bullshit… bullshit! Our picture was not put up (on the event’s photo wall) because it was deemed not appropriate. I’m not sure it was that particular experience that influenced me; I just remember thinking that was stupid and I think I’ve thought that – always along the line – any discrimination against people because of their sexuality has been utterly ridiculous. It was the way I was brought up, and so I’ve never questioned gay rights. So yes, that was one of them; but no, I don’t think that was my sort of awakening. I’ve always had family with many gay friends, and people in the LGBTQ community have always been around me all my life and have been wonderful friends.

source https://hotspotsmagazine.com/2018/10/04/keira-knightley-werks-the-queer-narrative-talks-colette/ from Hot Spots Magazine https://hotspotsmagazin.blogspot.com/2018/10/keira-knightley-werks-queer-narrative.html

[demitgibbs]

Keira Knightley Werks the Queer Narrative, Talks ‘Colette’

You know what’s to love, actually? How Keira Knightley has now played enough feminist roles to know her character, Juliet, in the bubbly holiday classic Love Actually doesn’t exactly fall into that category. In the Christmas rom-com, Juliet is the object of not one but two men’s desire, and copious close-up shots insist on telling us what we’ve already known: Keira Knightley is breathtakingly beautiful.

The 33-year-old actress was just 17 when 2003’s Love Actually was filmed. Since then, Knightley’s genre-spanning roles throughout her 23-year career have often positioned her as a heroine in girl-power period films, women characterized by their liberated state of mind (2008’s The Duchess) and patriarchal-defying genius (2014’s The Imitation Game, as Alan Turing’s mathematician-fiancée Joan Clarke). Real-life bisexual novelist Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette, who ghost wrote for author-husband Henry Gauthier-Villars (known as “Willy” and played by Dominic West) until she reclaimed her autonomy and byline, is right within Knightley’s wheelhouse of women smearing their male oppressors. Take Colette, whose 1944 book Gigi was adapted into a movie musical that won nine Oscars in 1959, including best picture.

Written and directed by out director and fellow Englander Wash Westmoreland (Still Alice), Colette is a tribute to his late husband and collaborator, Richard Glatzer, who died from the progressive neurodegenerative disease ALS. In the hospital before he passed away in 2015, Glatzer, who could not speak, typed “C-O-L-E-T-T-E” to Westmoreland on an iPad to communicate that his – but in many ways, their – next project should be “Colette.”

Recently, Knightley called to talk about her special connection to gay directors such as Westmoreland (and James Kent, who directs her in the forthcoming The Aftermath), her enthusiastic response to a Bend It Like Beckham sequel where best friends Jules and Jesse are lesbian lovers, and her desperate plea to drag queens.

  You’re so good in this I wouldn’t be mad if all you do is play period bisexuals for the rest of your career.

Well, thank you very much! I’ll quote you on that.

Is there a special relationship between gay directors and female actors such as yourself that helps in telling a story like this one?

That’s an interesting question! Yes, I think so. I think that there’s that quality of having to fight for your space and fight for your right to be who you feel you are and fight for your voice. So yes, I think there’s a similarity in those two aspects, and one I think, probably, Wash identified with in the story of Colette.

When it comes to the male gaze, is there a difference in having a gay director direct a sex scene?

Yes and no. He did actually turn around when I think it was me and Eleanor (Tomlinson, who portrays bisexual American heiress Georgie Raoul‑Duval) and he was like, “You know, it’s really great ’cause there’s no male gaze here,” and I’m like, “Wash, there are only men in this room!” (Laughs) He’s like, “Yes, no – you know what I mean!” (Laughs) So yes, because sex is sort of taken out of it in a way, because obviously he doesn’t find me attractive, and that’s great (laughs). But I still think male sexuality in all of its forms is probably slightly different from female sexuality, so there are probably still subtle differences. But it is very nice to know that when I took my clothes off he didn’t get off on it at all.

Are there any other films you’ve worked on where you felt having a gay director helped in doing the story justice?

Yes. I worked with… oh my god… my brain’s just literally gone blank and I’ve forgotten every single other person’s name that I’ve ever worked with before. Wait, what the f*ck? He directed Aftermath. I can see his face. Oh my god, this is really annoying because literally I just spent eight weeks with him and he’s the loveliest man in the entire world.

But I don’t know whether it’s sexuality that does it or just – I think it’s the individual. Possibly gay men, because of their fight for their identity and to be accepted and accepting of themselves, understand that there’s a level of emotional intelligence, which often – not always – a heterosexual man will simply try to shut down. So I think that helps if you’re dealing with emotions, which you are when you’re making a film. It helps to have an emotional vocabulary and intelligence and openness. And look, I’m a heterosexual woman, so maybe I’m completely talking out of turn, but I do feel, because there is still a process of acceptance that gay men go through, that emotionally they can be very, very intelligent and open and accepting.

Did Colette’s approach to sexuality speak to you in any profound or personal way?

Yes, because she was entirely natural to herself and she acted without shame. What a wonderful, positive way of looking at your sexuality and the people that you fall in love with. I really respected that about her. I loved that she was herself and that any rule that didn’t fit she just broke and made the life that she wanted to live. I think that’s a wonderful, empowering story, both from a feminist point of view and from the point of view of her sexuality.

Speaking of feminism, I have a feeling Colette wouldn’t love your character in Love Actually.

Probably not. (Laughs)

The men in that movie seem to have all the power, while your character is silent, cute; lots of close-ups of you looking pretty. How do you reflect on that role and what it says about women?

I hadn’t really until you just said that! But yes, I can see that. I was 17 when I played that one and I was so excited about just getting a role in a Richard Curtis film. You know, I think there were some pretty good strong women in that. Not that one, but the Martine McCutcheon character and the Emma Thompson character, which is so heartbreaking. I don’t know. I’d have to look at it again with that frame of my mind. I do, however, know Scarlett Curtis, who is Richard Curtis’ daughter and a radical-feminist activist, so he’s done something right there.

As for Emma Thompson, she sobs to Joni Mitchell. And her story doesn’t have the happiest or even most empowered of endings.

But strong people are allowed to break down; it doesn’t mean you don’t have emotions. You just have to then pick yourself up and stand up again. See, the problem is, I haven’t actually seen it since it came out, which was over 10 years ago, so actually I don’t remember quite enough to be able to argue either way. You really, really know it, so I feel like I’m just gonna have to go with whatever you say. (Laughs)

You played gay computer scientist Alan Turing’s fiancée in Imitation Game. Have you ever fallen in love with a gay man before?

No, luckily. I feel very fortunate in that, ’cause that would be tricky!

Rumor has it that Bend It Like Beckham was originally written as a lesbian love story?

I never read that version of the script! I mean, not as far as I know. But you might have information that I don’t have. No, the only version of the script that I ever read was the one that we shot, so it was as it was.

A lot of people in the LGBTQ community wanted Jess and Jules to be a couple in the end.

Fuck yeah! That would’ve been amazing. I think they should’ve been too. I think that would’ve been great. We need a sequel.

You’ve worn some fabulous period wigs over the years – is that your real hair in Colette?

No, I don’t think so. I think we had wigs, always through. Because there were so many different styles, and short, long. I think when it’s long we used some of my hair with some extensions, and then when it was short, it was a wig.

Do you realize how many drag queens are gonna be jealous of the one you wear in your role as the Sugar Plum Fairy in your forthcoming film The Nutcracker and the Four Realms?

Oh, dude, yes. Hell yes. You know, we actually designed it with them in mind. I was so pleased. It was my first time where I could actually be like a drag queen, and I was so excited. We were all talking about it at the time; we were like, “Come on, this is the most amazing drag outfit,” and honestly, I was really excited because normally you have to be so subtle in films and I got these really long, fake eyelashes – I can’t remember whether we used them – but with bits of glitter over them, and we were all like, “This is perfect drag queen attire.” It was so amazing, and I think there are some amazing drag queens out there who are gonna wear it even better than I did. I hope that this film inspires some amazing costumes.

You sound like you could be an avid watcher of RuPaul’s Drag Race.

Everybody’s a fan! Yeah, there’s a bit of Drag Race watching. And then there’s a great drag night in East London, which I used to go to when I could go out before I had a child, which was always fun. So can I just put that out there: Please, please let there be a drag queen somewhere who will be in a Sugar Plum Fairy outfit.

As a teenager, you were told your kiss with a gay female friend you went to prom with wasn’t appropriate. What did that experience teach you about LGBTQ discrimination, and how did it influence you as an ally for the community?

I thought it was bullshit at the time. Bullshit… bullshit! Our picture was not put up (on the event’s photo wall) because it was deemed not appropriate. I’m not sure it was that particular experience that influenced me; I just remember thinking that was stupid and I think I’ve thought that – always along the line – any discrimination against people because of their sexuality has been utterly ridiculous. It was the way I was brought up, and so I’ve never questioned gay rights. So yes, that was one of them; but no, I don’t think that was my sort of awakening. I’ve always had family with many gay friends, and people in the LGBTQ community have always been around me all my life and have been wonderful friends.

from Hotspots! Magazine https://hotspotsmagazine.com/2018/10/04/keira-knightley-werks-the-queer-narrative-talks-colette/ from Hot Spots Magazine https://hotspotsmagazine.tumblr.com/post/178729119780

[hotspotsmagazine]

Keira Knightley Werks the Queer Narrative, Talks ‘Colette’

You know what’s to love, actually? How Keira Knightley has now played enough feminist roles to know her character, Juliet, in the bubbly holiday classic Love Actually doesn’t exactly fall into that category. In the Christmas rom-com, Juliet is the object of not one but two men’s desire, and copious close-up shots insist on telling us what we’ve already known: Keira Knightley is breathtakingly beautiful.

The 33-year-old actress was just 17 when 2003’s Love Actually was filmed. Since then, Knightley’s genre-spanning roles throughout her 23-year career have often positioned her as a heroine in girl-power period films, women characterized by their liberated state of mind (2008’s The Duchess) and patriarchal-defying genius (2014’s The Imitation Game, as Alan Turing’s mathematician-fiancée Joan Clarke). Real-life bisexual novelist Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette, who ghost wrote for author-husband Henry Gauthier-Villars (known as “Willy” and played by Dominic West) until she reclaimed her autonomy and byline, is right within Knightley’s wheelhouse of women smearing their male oppressors. Take Colette, whose 1944 book Gigi was adapted into a movie musical that won nine Oscars in 1959, including best picture.

Written and directed by out director and fellow Englander Wash Westmoreland (Still Alice), Colette is a tribute to his late husband and collaborator, Richard Glatzer, who died from the progressive neurodegenerative disease ALS. In the hospital before he passed away in 2015, Glatzer, who could not speak, typed “C-O-L-E-T-T-E” to Westmoreland on an iPad to communicate that his – but in many ways, their – next project should be “Colette.”

Recently, Knightley called to talk about her special connection to gay directors such as Westmoreland (and James Kent, who directs her in the forthcoming The Aftermath), her enthusiastic response to a Bend It Like Beckham sequel where best friends Jules and Jesse are lesbian lovers, and her desperate plea to drag queens.

  You’re so good in this I wouldn’t be mad if all you do is play period bisexuals for the rest of your career. 

Well, thank you very much! I’ll quote you on that.

Is there a special relationship between gay directors and female actors such as yourself that helps in telling a story like this one? 

That’s an interesting question! Yes, I think so. I think that there’s that quality of having to fight for your space and fight for your right to be who you feel you are and fight for your voice. So yes, I think there’s a similarity in those two aspects, and one I think, probably, Wash identified with in the story of Colette.

When it comes to the male gaze, is there a difference in having a gay director direct a sex scene? 

Yes and no. He did actually turn around when I think it was me and Eleanor (Tomlinson, who portrays bisexual American heiress Georgie Raoul‑Duval) and he was like, “You know, it’s really great ’cause there’s no male gaze here,” and I’m like, “Wash, there are only men in this room!” (Laughs) He’s like, “Yes, no – you know what I mean!” (Laughs) So yes, because sex is sort of taken out of it in a way, because obviously he doesn’t find me attractive, and that’s great (laughs). But I still think male sexuality in all of its forms is probably slightly different from female sexuality, so there are probably still subtle differences. But it is very nice to know that when I took my clothes off he didn’t get off on it at all.

Are there any other films you’ve worked on where you felt having a gay director helped in doing the story justice? 

Yes. I worked with… oh my god… my brain’s just literally gone blank and I’ve forgotten every single other person’s name that I’ve ever worked with before. Wait, what the f*ck? He directed Aftermath. I can see his face. Oh my god, this is really annoying because literally I just spent eight weeks with him and he’s the loveliest man in the entire world.

But I don’t know whether it’s sexuality that does it or just – I think it’s the individual. Possibly gay men, because of their fight for their identity and to be accepted and accepting of themselves, understand that there’s a level of emotional intelligence, which often – not always – a heterosexual man will simply try to shut down. So I think that helps if you’re dealing with emotions, which you are when you’re making a film. It helps to have an emotional vocabulary and intelligence and openness. And look, I’m a heterosexual woman, so maybe I’m completely talking out of turn, but I do feel, because there is still a process of acceptance that gay men go through, that emotionally they can be very, very intelligent and open and accepting.

Did Colette’s approach to sexuality speak to you in any profound or personal way? 

Yes, because she was entirely natural to herself and she acted without shame. What a wonderful, positive way of looking at your sexuality and the people that you fall in love with. I really respected that about her. I loved that she was herself and that any rule that didn’t fit she just broke and made the life that she wanted to live. I think that’s a wonderful, empowering story, both from a feminist point of view and from the point of view of her sexuality.

Speaking of feminism, I have a feeling Colette wouldn’t love your character in Love Actually. 

Probably not. (Laughs)

The men in that movie seem to have all the power, while your character is silent, cute; lots of close-ups of you looking pretty. How do you reflect on that role and what it says about women? 

I hadn’t really until you just said that! But yes, I can see that. I was 17 when I played that one and I was so excited about just getting a role in a Richard Curtis film. You know, I think there were some pretty good strong women in that. Not that one, but the Martine McCutcheon character and the Emma Thompson character, which is so heartbreaking. I don’t know. I’d have to look at it again with that frame of my mind. I do, however, know Scarlett Curtis, who is Richard Curtis’ daughter and a radical-feminist activist, so he’s done something right there.

As for Emma Thompson, she sobs to Joni Mitchell. And her story doesn’t have the happiest or even most empowered of endings. 

But strong people are allowed to break down; it doesn’t mean you don’t have emotions. You just have to then pick yourself up and stand up again. See, the problem is, I haven’t actually seen it since it came out, which was over 10 years ago, so actually I don’t remember quite enough to be able to argue either way. You really, really know it, so I feel like I’m just gonna have to go with whatever you say. (Laughs)

You played gay computer scientist Alan Turing’s fiancée in Imitation Game. Have you ever fallen in love with a gay man before? 

No, luckily. I feel very fortunate in that, ’cause that would be tricky!

Rumor has it that Bend It Like Beckham was originally written as a lesbian love story? 

I never read that version of the script! I mean, not as far as I know. But you might have information that I don’t have. No, the only version of the script that I ever read was the one that we shot, so it was as it was.

A lot of people in the LGBTQ community wanted Jess and Jules to be a couple in the end. 

Fuck yeah! That would’ve been amazing. I think they should’ve been too. I think that would’ve been great. We need a sequel.

You’ve worn some fabulous period wigs over the years – is that your real hair in Colette? 

No, I don’t think so. I think we had wigs, always through. Because there were so many different styles, and short, long. I think when it’s long we used some of my hair with some extensions, and then when it was short, it was a wig.

Do you realize how many drag queens are gonna be jealous of the one you wear in your role as the Sugar Plum Fairy in your forthcoming film The Nutcracker and the Four Realms? 

Oh, dude, yes. Hell yes. You know, we actually designed it with them in mind. I was so pleased. It was my first time where I could actually be like a drag queen, and I was so excited. We were all talking about it at the time; we were like, “Come on, this is the most amazing drag outfit,” and honestly, I was really excited because normally you have to be so subtle in films and I got these really long, fake eyelashes – I can’t remember whether we used them – but with bits of glitter over them, and we were all like, “This is perfect drag queen attire.” It was so amazing, and I think there are some amazing drag queens out there who are gonna wear it even better than I did. I hope that this film inspires some amazing costumes.

You sound like you could be an avid watcher of RuPaul’s Drag Race. 

Everybody’s a fan! Yeah, there’s a bit of Drag Race watching. And then there’s a great drag night in East London, which I used to go to when I could go out before I had a child, which was always fun. So can I just put that out there: Please, please let there be a drag queen somewhere who will be in a Sugar Plum Fairy outfit.

As a teenager, you were told your kiss with a gay female friend you went to prom with wasn’t appropriate. What did that experience teach you about LGBTQ discrimination, and how did it influence you as an ally for the community? 

I thought it was bullshit at the time. Bullshit… bullshit! Our picture was not put up (on the event’s photo wall) because it was deemed not appropriate. I’m not sure it was that particular experience that influenced me; I just remember thinking that was stupid and I think I’ve thought that – always along the line – any discrimination against people because of their sexuality has been utterly ridiculous. It was the way I was brought up, and so I’ve never questioned gay rights. So yes, that was one of them; but no, I don’t think that was my sort of awakening. I’ve always had family with many gay friends, and people in the LGBTQ community have always been around me all my life and have been wonderful friends.

from Hotspots! Magazine https://hotspotsmagazine.com/2018/10/04/keira-knightley-werks-the-queer-narrative-talks-colette/

[glassprism]

What are some of your favorite video recordings of Phantom? (Sorry if it's been asked a million times, I'm just too lazy to look it up lol)

I’ve made a list of recommendations, which I thought about linking, but those were more about exposing fans to different versions and was also based on what had already been gifted. But my actual favorite videos are ones that I’ve thought about, opened up time and again just for my enjoyment, or otherwise made an impression on my opinions about the show.

1988, Tokyo, Ichimura/Nomura/Yamaguchi - The most old-school of the productions, retaining many of the quirks that were removed or changed in just about all the other productions (e.g. Christine’s dancing, the last verse in ‘Wishing’), proshot... and also features Ichimura, who is basically a Japanese clone of Michael Crawford (and voice of Mewtwo!), plus a sweet Christine and Raoul in Ryoko Nomura and Yuichiro Yamaguchi.

1995, London, Freeman/Washington/Bowman - Ethan Freeman provides the least campy, most realistic, and most Leroux-accurate interpretation I’ve seen yet. Every time I want to remind myself as to just how creepy the Phantom can get, I open up this video.

2000, Mexico City, Vasconcelos/Terrazas/Joel - Oh gosh, Saulo Vasconcelos’s hands! If I want to see just what happens if you give a talented performer huge creative freedom in the role, I watch this. Also, just a super fun production overall that seems to have really let their performers experiment.

April 25, 2000, Hamburg, Bourg/Kelly/Gonyea - The video with Olivia Safe is more common, but my favorite of the Christines who have performed opposite Ian Jon Bourg, another favorite Phantom who is just so consistently good, is Alison Kelly, who plays her Christine quite intelligent and rational.

November 19, 2003, US Tour, Little/Vroman/Gleason - When I want to remember how freaky Brad Little can get (”you try my patience”) but also how much chemistry he can have with a Christine, I watch this video.

March 2, 2005, Broadway, Panaro/Hanson/Cudia - Just quoting myself from another post: “This is a video to watch if you want to see a great trio of actors whose interpretations fit together almost perfectly - Panaro providing the slightly nutty Phantom, Hanson a traumatized, child-like Christine, and Cudia her protective guardian.” One of the first videos I really watched and reviewed, and still one I have very fond memories of.

January 2006, London, Carpenter/Barrell/Shannon - Every time I want to cry about the Phantom, or about Earl Carpenter’s Phantom in particular, I watch this video. I almost always find some new detail I missed on a previous viewing.

April 6, 2006, US Tour, Mauer/Southard/Weitzer - As mentioned here, this was one of the first videos I ever watched, and the cast solidified a lot of opinions I still have now regarding the Phantom, Christine, and Raoul. But also it’s such a well-captured video, catching so many details the cast threw in.

July 1, 2006, US Tour, Cudia/Wills/Monley - A video I watch for the astounding pairing of John Cudia and Jennifer Hope Wills, who I think had only worked together a few weeks when this was filmed? It sure doesn’t show, because their interpretations mesh so well. Another video that really made me appreciate the characters, especially Christine, because of all the work the actors put into their roles.

August 18, 2010, London, Shannon/Beck/Bailey - Beautiful video, beautiful production, and features one of my favorite Christines. Like the Carpenter video, I regularly open this up just to bask in Gina Beck’s acting.

March 9, 2013, Broadway, Stolle/Hill/Mills - Completely changed my opinion on Jeremy Stolle’s Phantom, and showed me how an actor can use restraint and subtle changes in his voice to do wonders with a character, and made me love Samantha Hill’s Christine and Greg Mills’s Raoul. But also, very fond memories of watching this video being streamed for the first time and observing the absolute thirst in the viewership.

April 11, 2014, Hamburg, Arnsperger/Brons/Wuchinger - A funky cast and one I kept thinking about long after the video was over, particularly Lauri Brons’s quirky, crazy-eyed, willful Christine. But also a very well-filmed video that really showed off the consistently good Hamburg revival production.

March 7, 2015, Moscow, Ermak/Kotova/Zaycev - To quote myself again (because I’m getting a little tired): “This video is not just one of the best of the production itself, it’s probably one of the best Phantom bootlegs period - great filming with tons of closeups, almost no obstruction, basically the full show, and a terrific cast. It used to be really rare but it’s getting pretty common now.” Also, featuring Tamara Kotova, a stunningly perfect Christine.

March 2019, London, Thaxton/Mathieson/Taylor - And another quote: “Probably the best video to come out of London in almost a decade, so it gives a great look at the London production as it is now. It also has a fantastic cast: David Thaxton is a very solid Phantom while Kelly Mathieson’s Christine is an absolute standout.” Beautiful details all around in this video.

March 2019, Copenhagen, Kofod/Glosted/Lund - Pretty much the perfect bootleg, the perfect production, and the perfect cast. Everyone was pouring their all into their roles, the energy is intense, the performances are fantastic. Watching this may have singlehandedly ruined my first live viewing of the show, because I kept comparing it back to this video. (But whatever, it was the restaged tour.) One of the few, or only, videos on this list that I don’t watch too often, just to preserve the magic.

[chiseler]

STEVE COCHRAN: The Rough and the Smooth

The Chase (1946) opens with a broke ex-serviceman finding a lost wallet, plump with cash and bearing the name and address of its owner, Eddie Roman. Being an honest guy—or, as Roman’s sidekick puts it, a “silly law-abiding jerk”—the vet goes to return it. As though wandering into an opium trance, he enters a classical-rococo-tropical mansion, a fantasy of vulgar magnificence. The front door is bedecked with cherubs’ heads (one of which swivels to reveal a peep-hole framing the unmistakable eye of Peter Lorre). The dazzling white interior is cluttered with marble statuary on pillars, crystal chandeliers, antique chairs, banana trees, all slashed by thin bars of sunlight falling through white shutters.

Eddie Roman, a Miami gangster, is at home amid this surreal decadence. We first see him sitting regally in a barber’s chair, crowned with a pearl-grey homburg, intently studying his pencil-thin mustache in a hand-mirror. He has reason to look pleased as he contemplates his handsome face, its square-jawed and thick-browed swarthiness lightened by limpid eyes and a deceptively sweet smile. Absorbed in admiring his appearance, he pays no attention to the girl kneeling at his side giving him a manicure, until her file slips and nicks his finger. “I’m sorry, Mr. Roman, you moved,” the frightened girl gasps. “Yeah, but you didn’t—fast enough,” he replies, knocking her to the ground with a casual blow.

With a different actor, this whole set-up—the flamboyant interior decoration, the classical allusions, the dandified sadism, the ever-present sidekick played by Peter Lorre—might come across as heavily lavender-tinted. But Eddie Roman is Steve Cochran, who plays it straight in more ways than one. Cochran grew up in Wyoming and had worked as a cowboy before trying his hand at acting, but Hollywood took one look at his oily black hair and arrogant poise and pigeonholed him as a mobster. He took to the role with a patented brand of velvety menace, concluding that the way to play heavies was to assume that his characters had done nothing wrong, as they themselves would no doubt believe. Not for him the noir torments of guilt or anxiety or haunted memory. His gangsters were slick and unfeeling, and when he came to play deeper roles in films like Tomorrow is Another Day, Private Hell 36, and Il Grido, he plumbed the specific melancholy of men whose inchoate vulnerability is forced through the conventional expressions of machismo.

He was born Robert Alexander Cochran in 1917 and adopted the name Steve while acting in stock. (It suits him, perhaps for the same reason Lauren Bacall assigns it to Bogart’s Harry Morgan in To Have and Have Not, giving it a distinctive inflection that conveys, “You’re an overconfident jerk—if only I didn’t find you so attractive.”) Cochran left college and headed to Hollywood convinced he could be a movie star, but despite his looks and confidence he was no overnight success; it took seven years of provincial theater (including Shakespeare in Carmel) before he finally scored a contract with Goldwyn in 1945. The Chase was his first decent break, after a series of small parts in Boston Blackie programmers and Danny Kaye vehicles.

Directed by Arthur Ripley and gorgeously shot by Franz Planer, The Chase is a baroquely convoluted adaptation of Cornell Woolrich’s The Black Path of Fear. The centerpiece is an extended dream sequence that eschews the usual cinematic clichés but unsettles through jarring plot discontinuities; a maze of dark, disorienting spaces; and inexplicable poetic images like the woman weeping at a table bearing the half-eaten carcass of a watermelon, like something out of a 17th century Spanish painting. The film’s seemingly normal hero (the ex-serviceman, played by Robert Cummings) turns out to have a fragile mind prone to sudden white-outs. He’s almost as passive as Eddie Roman’s imprisoned wife (Michèle Morgan), who drifts around the mansion in draped Grecian gowns and a fog of hopeless terror. What she’s terrified of is her husband, and Cochran makes you believe that Roman is capable of even worse cruelty than anything we see him do. The calmer he is the more anxiously we wait for his outbursts of violence. His light voice, sweet smile, and hypnotic stillness create a deliciously sinister effect. Here and elsewhere, there’s something about the way Cochran’s hazel eyes catch the light, with a gleam that can register as tenderness or threat. It’s hard to pin down this luster, and that’s one of the best assets a movie star can have—some small thing that can’t be explained.

Though the bulk of his work was in B movies, Cochran appeared very briefly in Goldwyn’s great triumph, The Best Years of Our Lives (1946). Near the end of the movie, the beleaguered former airforce captain played by Dana Andrews—an intelligent, serious man stymied by a bad marriage and a humiliating job as a soda jerk—walks into his apartment to find another man lounging around in his shirtsleeves. It takes only moments to register the kind of heel he is: a self-satisfied, flashily handsome guy in a loud pinstripe suit, smoking and chewing gum and condescending to his married girlfriend’s husband. It’s his job to embody the crass, unscrupulous side of postwar life, the veterans who aren’t haunted by what they’ve seen, the operators who see money “lying around” for the taking. Cochran nails the type in under five minutes of screen time.

Virginia Mayo plays the wife he’s fooling around with, and they were paired frequently in the late forties, both typed as low-class, sexy but vulgar. They’re forgettable in A Song is Born (1948), Howard Hawks’s lifeless musical remake of Ball of Fire, but wonderful as a pair of greedy, backstabbing lovers in Raoul Walsh’s White Heat (1949). Cochran is “Big” Ed, a discontented second-banana to Cody Jarrett (James Cagney), who taunts him with sneering air quotes around his moniker. Cagney’s majestically psychotic performance fills the movie like a bellows, as he crumples inward under the pressure of his migraines and then explodes in gleeful violence. Big Ed is his opposite, cool and smooth, his stolid repose off-setting Cody’s trip-wire sensitivity. Cochran looks fantastic in a dark suit with a black shirt and light tie, and his best moments are tiny touches like the way he loudly spits out his gum before kissing Mayo, or blows smoke sideways in a beautifully nasty, smirking close-up as he quietly threatens to tell Cody who killed his mother if she walks out on him. If Cagney is white heat, Cochran is black ice.

He played a variation on Big Ed the next year in The Damned Don’t Cry (1950), one of those fun, full-throttle Joan Crawford vehicles that follows a woman as she claws her way out of dreary poverty, attains a pinnacle of penthouse luxury, and plunges from there into the abyss. Starting in the Texas oil fields, she winds up as the mistress of a racket boss (the terrifying David Brian), who sends her on a mission to spy on one of his regional under-bosses, whom he suspects of plotting to take over. That would be Cochran, who is not satisfied with the desert fiefdom where he lounges around swimming pools in white terry-cloth robes and saunters around nightclubs in loud sport jackets. He’s not a bad guy here, especially compared with Brian, but he remains devoted to the one Big Ed calls, “a very good friend—me.”

Cochran’s philosophy of playing heavies as though they were blameless did not mean he tried to make them sympathetic; indeed, it’s the utter remorselessness of his bad guys that makes them so bad. Still, it can be hard not to root for him in formulaic “crime does not pay” flicks like Highway 301 (1950), which opens with not one but three state governors solemnly addressing the camera, and then smothers all the action with heavy-handed voice-over. It’s tempting to just turn the sound off, because the film looks terrific, darkly glistening with rain-wet streets, sleek curves of forties cars, the matte sheen of good suits and perfect fedoras. Cochran, as the leader of a heist mob, wears an arrogant sneer as stylishly as his overcoat. When his girlfriend whines about feeling bored and neglected, he says coldly, “Why don’t you do something about your face? That ought to keep you busy for a few hours.”

He took a break from suave gangsters to play a cowardly redneck lout in Storm Warning (1950), an “exposé” of the Ku Klux Klan that proves nothing is more pusillanimous than Hollywood when it thinks it’s being courageous. Cochran cited the role as a favorite; he recalled being terrified by Klan demonstrations as a child and spoke of wanting to show how “shabby” they really were, of his pride at striking a small blow for racial tolerance. He was clearly sincere, and he later attended the 1963 March on Washington with fellow progressives like Marlon Brando; unfortunately, Storm Warning makes no mention whatever of the Klan’s attitudes towards blacks or Jews, depicting it as merely a racket to extort money from gullible hicks.

The film is further compromised by shameless plagiarism of A Streetcar Named Desire, with Ginger Rogers visiting her pregnant sister (Doris Day), who dotes on her crass but hunky working-class husband. Cochran, wearing a white t-shirt and sucking on a bottle of beer, lays on the dumb rube act a little thick, though at least he does not come off as a Brando impersonator. After a beautifully filmed opening in which Rogers witnesses a Klan killing in the deserted streets of a Southern backwater, and a powerful scene in which she is bullied into lying under oath about what she saw, the film turns luridly exploitative. Rogers is spied on and assaulted by her drunken brother-in-law, then publicly whipped at a Klan rally. This pushes the film’s wrong-headedness to absurdity: the culmination of the Klan’s evil is an attack on a beautiful blonde white woman.

In the 1950s, Cochran got tired of playing heavies and biting the dust in every movie; unhappy at Warner Brothers, he left in 1952 to form his own production company, producing a few change-of-pace films like Come Next Spring. But one of his very best roles came at Warners in Tomorrow is Another Day (1951), an unusually subtle and character-focused B noir directed by Felix Feist. Here he sheds his usual self-assurance to play a rough, unfinished man, drastically inexperienced and socially awkward—and does it beautifully. His character, Bill Clark, was sent to prison at age 14 for the murder of his abusive father. Released at 31, he’s a child in a man’s body, touchingly naïve but also insecure and truculent, readily falling back on violence.

Like Rip Van Winkle waking to an unfamiliar world, he wanders around town in a cheap, unfashionable suit, carrying his few belongings in a cardboard box. He’s drawn first to the new cars, studying one with boyish wonder; then to girls, hesitantly trying to follow one in the street. His uncertainty and sulky defensiveness are painfully exposed, whether he’s being teased for ordering three pieces of pie in a diner, or stumbling sheepishly into the dime-a-dance Dreamland, where ten cents buys sixty seconds of feminine company. Here he is easy pickings for Kay (Ruth Roman), a gorgeous, hard-shelled bottle blonde who demands trinkets in exchange for her time. When he obediently returns with a wrist-watch, she rewards him with a peck on the cheek and a “Thanks, Jim.” Still smitten, he shyly kisses her hand, and on learning she doesn’t get off work for hours, mutters, “I’m used to waitin’.”

When Bill and Kay are mixed up in a killing, he panics, knowing that with his record he’s a “dead pigeon.” They go on the lam, but their route takes them far from the usual lovers-on-the-run formulas. Without a car of their own, they sneak into one of the vehicles being towed on a tractor-trailer, hop freight trains, and hitch a ride with a Joad-like family on their way to a lettuce-picking camp in Salinas. They start out hostile and bickering, and when Bill proposes in a motel room he does so by handing her a ring and saying churlishly, “Pawnbroker gave me a good deal.” But though he implies that marriage is a sacrifice to necessity, the truth is that he desperately wants her and has decided this is the only way he can get her. In the scene that follows, as they lounge on a bank above the railroad tracks, he tells her about the murder of his father and about his years in jail, where he earned ten cents a day as a welder. “You worked a whole day,” she says wonderingly, “Just to dance a minute at Dreamland.”

Bill asks his bride if she thinks people change, “I mean, inside.” She does: dying her hair back to brunette, switching her name to Kathy, she emerges from her cynical shell. But Bill never seems to change; in the end, when he’s betrayed by a friend and threatened with going back to jail, he reacts with blind anger and panicked violence. This incorrigibility coexists with his gentleness: when Kathy tells him she’s pregnant, his sullen face delicately opens into an angelic smile, but not long after she has to shoot him to stop him from killing the sheriff who comes to arrest him.  The ending of the movie is a cop-out, but the revelation that the whole saga has been driven by mistakes, lies, and misunderstandings has a certain fitting irony.

Cochran drew even more deeply on this strain of confusion and sorrow in Antonioni’s Il Grido (1957), another movie about life on the road. The title translates as “The Cry,” and the film is essentially one long, muted howl of loss. Dubbed in Italian, Cochran plays Aldo, a simple working man who has lived for years in a common law marriage with Irma (Alida Valli), with whom he has a daughter, Rosina (Mirna Girardi). The movie opens as Irma, without warning or explanation, tells Aldo she’s leaving him for another man.

Like Bill Clark, Aldo is a muddled mixture of gentleness and violence, an aching wound papered over with inarticulate masculine pride. His reaction to Irma’s rejection is baffled and ineffectual; his instinct is to lash out, but he pulls back from hitting her. Later, desperate to assert his authority, he beats her in front of a crowd of townsfolk, but it’s he who comes away looking weak and defeated, having now sealed their estrangement. Taking their daughter, he sets out on an aimless journey, a futile search to replace what he’s lost.

The real star of Il Grido is the wintry landscape of the Po Valley. Nothing could be further from the Italy of vacation fantasies than this grey, muddy, industrial wasteland. Thin, bare branches are traced on the fog, sprouting from pollarded trees like amputees’ stumps. Desolate fields of rocks, marshes, and flat sodden riverbanks are made even bleaker by factories and construction sites, gas stations and refineries. The relentlessly overcast, drizzly weather is like an expression of Aldo’s numb, mournful mood. Cochran’s face, beginning to look worn, blends in with the landscape; he’s still ruggedly handsome, but stripped of all glamour and self-assurance, an ordinary man suddenly adrift with no bearings.

Aldo is hardly a model father, as he subjects his little girl to a tough and lonely life on the road, but there are moments when he comforts her with heartbreaking tenderness, and you always feel that in his fumbling way he is doing his best for her. (Still, it’s a relief when he finally sends her back to her mother.) The structure of this episodic film comes from Aldo’s encounters with three different women, each a possible but ultimately inadequate substitute for Irma. A former girlfriend (played by Betsy Blair) and a sexy young widow who runs an isolated service station both offer him refuge, and he has a torrid affair with the widow, but both times he drifts away. He has the chance to go to Venezuela, but inexplicably tears up his papers. He winds up with a prostitute who suffers from malaria, huddling in a leaky hut made of reeds and filled with acrid smoke. Amid this wretchedness, he remembers visiting a museum with Irma, a poignant revelation of what she represents in his barren and messy world.

He is inconsolable, and the life and purpose just drain out of him, leaving him an empty husk. In the end, Aldo returns to the town he left, to find it roiling with mass meetings over land seizures, a chaos of bulldozers, ruins, blazing fields and armed police. But for Aldo, the last straw is seeing, through a window, Irma with her new baby, annihilating his hopes. It’s hard to think of another movie in which someone essentially, and convincingly, dies of love.

Steve Cochran had a great deal of practice at dying; having succumbed onscreen to many predictable violent ends, he topped them in 1965 with one of Hollywood’s most legendarily bizarre deaths. That he was only 48 is tragic, but that he died aboard a yacht with an all-female crew is irresistibly titillating. None of the young Mexican women (whom he had hired, allegedly with a view to making a movie about a real yacht captain who had an “all-girl” crew) knew how to pilot the boat, which drifted for ten days off the coast of Guatemala after Cochran unexpectedly fell ill and died of a respiratory ailment. This story left a somewhat lurid stain on his life, though it seems to have been nothing but a publicity stunt gone terribly awry.

Alas, Cochran’s off-screen behavior rarely enhanced his reputation for seriousness. He seems to have been amiable and well-meaning, and neither his chronic womanizing nor his penchant for reckless driving and flying were anything out of the ordinary in Hollywood. More damningly, Don Siegel claimed he had trouble catching Cochran “even slightly sober” during the filming of Private Hell 36 (1954), though you’d never guess this from his sharp, nuanced performance as a corrupt cop in love with a nightclub singer (Ida Lupino, who co-wrote the script). His character, Cal Bruner, is callous, vain, and morally shifty—a plainclothes dick who tackles and fatally shoots a robber, then readies himself for a date with perfumed aftershave while complaining that the “miserable creep” ruined his new suit. He’s a guy on the make, lightly detached from everything except his own concerns. Yet when Cal falls for Lily, a canary with an exhausted voice and bone-dry sense of humor, he becomes someone we care about. He has better taste than we would have expected (Lily—who seems older than Cal, though Lupino was a year younger than Cochran—is no brainless babe), and more substance.

“You know, somewhere in my dim past I seem to have heard this before,” Lily deadpans when Cal makes a pass. “I’ve said it before,” he replies readily, “To all shapes and sizes. Only this time I mean it. Don’t ask me why.” Cochran and Lupino have serious chemistry (the scene where he unties the halter neck of her dress and massages her naked shoulders is a classic of Code-era steaminess), but Cal and Lily also connect on some deeper level, making us believe these two what’s-in-it-for-me types surprise themselves with genuine feeling. When he sits at the bar watching her croak out a hard-hearted ditty called “Didn’t You Know,” his eyes brim with a clear, soft light. In this part, Cochran layers cool selfishness and tender warmth so closely, nothing thicker than a razor could separate them.

by Imogen Sara Smith