“You Are Beautiful, My Manufactured Love, But It Is Only Svengali Talking To Himself…”
March 1st, 2008
at 10:30 am
(Self Writ, Literature, Melancholy, Videos)
With the Fall of Stage6 the honours of providing elderly films through a much more cumbersome model fall to Veoh for the time being. [ Five minute previews are given, but to see all, the Veoh software has to be installed and then one either clicks to watch immediately via the application or downloads the video to watch later : this application makes it extremely easy to lose whatever one is viewing, enabling one to have to start over from the beginning and re-enjoy anything one had not missed --- besides which, .avis really are no match for .divx... ]
I have fairly strong feelings on the House of Barrymore, despite the fact they were/are undoubtedly perfectly pleasant people in private life; yet John of that Ilk is here far more restrained and more thoughtful than in his usual performances.. And indeed, more than any of his extended family.
Trilby has been underrated since the reaction to Victorianism in the 1920s — Michael Sadleir’s strictures in his preface to Murger’s Vie de la Boheme being particularly scathing — but it was of it’s slightly interesting time — mid-nineteenth century France — and it can be read simply as a tragedy for each individual fulfilling their destiny. There are wide differences between the book and film of course: in the first, it is Svengali actually singing through Trilby, and his love for her, although probable, is scarcely manifest; in the film he rather unlocks her singing through the same uncanny genius and loves her inordinately — yet vainly since she is merely his creation. Further in the novel, his death prostrates her to mortal illness, the psychic link of control having been shattered; whereas in this film, she merely passes as soon as humanly possible.
Having been privileged to read the especial UNEXPURGATED version, like all du Maurier’s work wistful tristeness is the overlaying key, which as a melancholic he carried out with exemplary zeal, I should say it’s rather like once popular music played on a barrel organ in a minor key in a pretty courtyard with flowers fading as autumn comes.
Actually, the word UNEXPURGATED was undoubtedly purposed to catch the eager unwary into hopes that it would be imbecile to imagine du Maurier could or would ever satisfy > it just meant that his rancorous portrayal of Jimmy Whistler as a youth was included.
Some immensely varying, and in a way disturbingly so, visualisations of Marian Marsh’s interpretation of Trilby:
“Ich habe Geliebt und Gelebet ! *
***
Here are a couple of Tod Slaughters thrown in both with very poor quality:
The Face at the Window
Sweeney Todd : The Demon Barber of Fleet Street the sound is peculiarly misaligned, but with awful video and agonizing sound it still beats listening to Sondheim… Then again, what does not ?
*
‘Ach ! what an existence ! what travels ! what triumphs ! What adventures ! Things to fill a book–a dozen books–Those five happy years–with those two Trilbys! what recollections ! … I think of nothing else, night or day…even as I play the fiddle for old Cantharidi. Ach !…To think how often I have played the fiddle for La Svengali … to have done that is to have lived…and then to come home to Trilby…our Trilby … the real Trilby !…Gott sei dank ! Ich habe geliebt und gelebet ! geliebt und gelebet ! geliebt und gelebet ! Cristo di Dio…Sweet sister in heaven O Dieu de Misere, ayez pitié de nous…’
