Saturday, July 16, 2005

Manuel Puig / Kiss of the Spider Woman




Jailbirds

Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985)


Andrew Pulver
Saturday 16 July 2005

Author: Manuel Puig (1932-1990) grew up in a small town in the remote Argentinian pampas, obsessed with films and dabbling in transvestitism. At 23, he won a scholaship to study film-making in Rome, but soon dropped out. After a decade of writing film scripts, Puig returned to Buenos Aires in 1967 and turned a script into his first novel, a semi-autobiographical fable about a movie-world fantasist, Betrayed by Rita Hayworth (1968). However, the flamboyant Puig found it difficult to live in Peronist Argentina, and moved to Brazil in 1973 and New York three years later. Kiss of the Spider Woman was published in 1976. Puig remained in New York - as a high-profile gay writer he was regularly attacked in the Argentinian media - and lectured on creative writing at Columbia university. He finally settled in 1989 in Cuernavaca, Mexico, and died a year later from complications after a gall-bladder operation.
Story: Echoing his film script work, Kiss of the Spider Woman is written almost entirely as dialogue. Two men - a political radical, Arregui, and a gay paedophile, Molina, are imprisoned in the same cell in a Buenos Aires penitentiary. To pass the time, Molina recites the plots of his favourite films, beginning with Jacques Tourneur's 1942 horror movieCat People. Molina's camp fetishism initially irritates Arregui - especially when he realises another of Molina's favourites is a Nazi propaganda piece. Puig inserts a "transcript" of a meeting between Molina and the prison warden, revealing that the authorities have demanded Molina inform on Arregui. But as their relationship deepens (culminating in a sexual episode), Molina agrees to deliver a message for Arregui after he is released. A final "report" reveals that Molina is shot dead in the street as he tries to carry out his mission.


The film-maker: Hector Babenco (b1946) grew up in Argentina but settled in Brazil in 1969. He began directing features in 1975, but made a major international impact with Pixote (1981), an account of the appalling life of São Paulo street children. Babenco spent four years bringing Kiss of the Spider Woman to the screen, casting William Hurt in the pivotal role. (Puig hated Hurt's performance, despite his winning an Oscar.) Shortly after completing the film, Babenco was diagnosed with lymphatic cancer; his doctor, Dráuzio Varella, went on to write the prison stories that would become Babenco's most successful film, Carandiru (2003).
How book and film compare: Though the film's narrative generally sticks close to the novel it excises Puig's lengthy footnotes about clinical assessments of homosexuality, and replaces Molina's fetishisation of real movies with a single, fictitious Nazi-style piece, which is recreated at intervals throughout the story. Much of the detail of Molina's lifestyle is lost in the adaptation, and the "spider woman" is presented as another of Molina's films - whereas she appears in Puig's original as the final image of Arregui's own fantasy as he is tortured.
Inspirations and influences: As an evocation of high camp, Kiss of the Spider Woman brought gay cabaret style into mainstream movies, paving the way for American treatments of similar themes, such as Torch Song Trilogy (1988). It also marked a turning point for Latin American cinema, in the doldrums after the politically inspired cinema novo of the 1960s and 1970s.




Wednesday, July 13, 2005

Dumbledore's death in the style of Anne Rice

 

Dumbledore


Harry Potter

Dumbledore's death in the style of Anne Rice

Wednesday 13 July 2005

It was rumored to have been a noble death, and that brought mild comfort into the hearts of the bereaved mourners that stood in huddled groups, watching through tear-veiled eyes as the gilded casket was ceremoniously interred in the mausoleum.

It was also a tragedy. That a man as beloved and respected as Albus Dumbledore, who had defeated the dark wizard, Grindenwald, could be destroyed so suddenly by but a mere handful of enemies was inconceivable. . .

How could something so horrific be allowed to happen? That was the question that people demanded of the heavens and of each other; as they nursed their guilt-ridden hearts. Any would have willingly given their own lives in place of his.

"If only I had been there." was the common phrase, amongst the self-flagellating hordes.


Dumbledore

In the manner of wounded dogs, that bite the hand that attempts to salve the wound, they rounded, teeth bared, on the person whom they perceived as a failed hero. He who had been with Dumbledore, but had been unable to save him.

" Why didn't you save him?" They demanded, closing in on their prey.

When Albus Dumbledore had been disarmed, captured, and tortured by the villainous Deatheaters, where had his pet spy been? There to save him with brave flourishes and self-sacrifice? Not as they saw it.

How could he explain to them what those last minutes had been like? He had stood by, helpless, as Dumbledore was questioned, then when faced with the possibility of the truth serum, which would have endangered them all, Dumbledore had whispered his last request into Snape's mind.

" For the sake of Merlin, Severus, let me have your wand." even his mental voice had been pain-laced, and weary.

So careful, that it looked like an accident, he, Snape, had edged closer to the bound figure, so that Dumbledore's hand, which had somehow escaped it's bonds, could seize the implement from him.

Before any of the Deatheaters could respond, Dumbledore had turned the wand on himself, offering only a brief and inconspicuous nod of dignified gratitude to his saviour. His last words echoed still through Snape's mind;

"AVADA KEDAVRA!"

" How did he die?" The people demanded of Snape, later at the trial.

And Snape answered;

" I killed him."

Jayme Goodman


THE GUARDIAN