For me the film was a delight. It offered me a group of diverse older women integrated in the general narrative and who reflected the ‘upstairs/downstairs’ aspect of the society of England in the 1930s. In a film where there are no major protagonists but over thirty characters played by great actors the old women are well represented and do not lack psychological depth . I will look at them in turn and point out the elements that form their characterisation.

Lavinia’s maid (Joanna Maude) merges with the other servants in group shots. We do get glimpses of her mending clothes or listening with delight to Ivor Novello. But Lewis (Meg Wynn Owen- 62), the maid of the lady of the house, Sylvia, conveys  in the few seconds of screen time the image of the long-suffering older woman.  When she is supplanted from her rightful place at the servant’s table she says: “Naturally I am nothing when there are visitors in the house. Never mind I am used to it”. In the scenes where she interacts with Sylvia, her mistress does not look at her once and even rejects her help.  Sylvia divests herself of her false hair and eyelashes at arm’s length.  Lewis is used but not acknowledged.

In  opposition to this relationship between Sylvia and Lewis, Lady Constance the dowager and her novice maid have more interactive exchanges. It is Maggie Smith (67) who plays the role of the eccentric dowager in this film. The titles sequences introduce us to Constance and her maid Mary, characters who exemplify to us the way Altman is going to expose the class structure. Constance is in the shadows of the car but Mary is in full view, getting drenched in the rain and helping her mistress. The dowager in this film is not as rich or powerful as in other films and neither is she irresponsible. Lady Constance is an embodiment of her class. She is disdainful of the lower classes and of foreigners, she despises popular entertainment, the cinema and popular songs. She certainly considers class differences as natural “I have not one snobbish bone in my body”. But although she talks disparagely to the other women about her maid, she exchanges gossip with her in private.  The last lines of dialogue of the film are between Constance and Mary and they show Constance’s basically human attitude. Constance is again in the soon departing car and says in worried tones to Mary: “Do you think if there’s a trial I might have to testify in court? Or you? I can’t think of anything worse. Imagine a person being hanged because or something one said in court.” Mary :” I know. And what purpose could it possibly serve anyway?” This exchange can be interpreted in different ways: Is Constance hinting to Mary not to divulge any information she may have? Mary’s reply echoing Mrs Wilson words (see later)  provides closure for the audience but challenges the detective genre.

The downstairs older women are Mrs. Wilson, the housekeeper,  and Mrs Croft, the cook, played respectively by Helen Mirren (56) and Eileen Atkins (67).  While Sir William welcomes  his guests on the porch, Mrs Wilson directs the arrival of maids, footmen and valets in the servants hall. The operation is nearly military in its execution and Mirren   commands the army of servants.  Her looks are stern and haughty. She  behaves throughout in this efficient authoritative manner. (Sylvia:   “Thank you Mrs. Wilson, always ten steps ahead, as usual”).   She is unflappable and when she first suspects on his arrival, that Stockbridge’s valet, Parks, might be her abandoned son, her slight discomfort is hardly noticeable on first viewing.  The clues that subsequently accumulate in the brief scenes between her and Parks as to the nature of their link are subtle. She even keeps her composure when Mary confronts her with her knowledge that she was the murderer.  She explains that she knew that Parks intended to kill his father and poisoned him so that her son would not be convicted, having stabbed a dead body. “Are you going to tell him” says Mary ” What purpose would it serve? she replies.    As the perfect servant she anticipates other people’s needs and has no life of her own. Mirren delivers the lines with a passion that has deep emotional impact.  Her breakdown in tears lying on her bed (such a familiar film scene of women’s despair) is all the more heartrending.

The conflict between Mrs. Wilson and Mrs. Croft is also resolved in these emotional scenes. The antagonism between the two women is mentioned in gossip both upstairs and downstairs. George: “They hate each other”.  Constance: “Why are they such enemies?”  It is expressed by brushes over territory and status. In the kitchen Mrs. Croft intervenes between Henry and Mrs Wilson : “I am dealing with this.” Mrs. Wilson  ” Now, now, we don’t want to be thought unsophisticated, do we?”,  ”Excuse me, but Dorothy’s under my jurisdiction as well, you know. And I say she can listen to a spot of music if she likes”. It is late in the film that it is revealed that they are sisters. The siblings resentments have two strands. On the one hand Mrs Croft cannot forgive her sister for giving her illegitimate  child for adoption. She kept hers and lost her job but the child died.   On the other hand  Mrs. Wilson climbed the servants social ladder and was responsible for providing her sister with the cook post in McCordle household. While Mrs Wilson never expresses her feelings, Mrs. Croft does not hesitate to voice her contempt for Sir William  ”a hard-hearted randy old sod”, “he got what he deserved”. The emotional breakdown of Mrs. Wilson following admission of her guilt of murder and the departure of her son permits her sister to comfort and forgive her.

It is such a relief and surprise for me to find that I did not, in this piece, talk about the appearance of the old women but considered their social and psychological circumstances. Old women in major as well as minor roles are diverse. They reflect the society portrayed and fulfill a role in it. Constance is not the usual caricature.  Both Mrs. Wilson and Mrs. Croft keep their titles throughout. Both have a teaching role with the younger women. Both are proud and dignified. The casting, direction, characterisation and dialogue, the whole mise-en-scene stress  who they are rather than how they look.

Once again I feel I do not make justice to a great film. But my role here is simply to highlight the images of old women.

It might be churlish to criticise a film that seems to be so ‘feel good’  and in which the actors had such fun performing. A film where the age of an old woman (“nearly 70″) is irrelevant to the story.  Yet I must –  if only to understand certain features of film reception and why I feel so uncomfortable about Mrs. Henderson Presents.

When I showed the film in our Women in Film Group a few years ago, we had noted that Mrs. Henderson fitted in the category of ‘transgressive, rich, difficult, dowager’ film  stereotype.  We noted how her aged face with lines and folds and pouch under the eyes was  framed by stylish  hairdos, hats,  tiaras, jewels and silk and satins and did not detract from Judi Dench’s  expressive beauty and sprakling eyes. Her un made up face is often filmed in close up and specially in a protracted shot with young Maureen’s.   Also in the pillow talks with Lady Conway physical ageing is not used in a pejorative way. But Mrs H. as a character was not discussed at length.  I noted at the time that certain scenes and their significance were not recalled after the viewing.   Today the audience perceived the film as ‘feel-good’ and Mrs. Henderson as a charming determined character albeit a bit difficult.   ‘I enjoyed every minute of it’ was one of the comments. ‘ A mixture of fact and fantasy’ was another. A most telling one was ‘when I looked at Mrs. Henderson I saw Judi Dench’ and yet another: “Was Mrs. Henderson pimping?”, “Van Damm is two dimensional”. These comments raise important points. Again I will restrict myself to the representation of the old woman, and how it affects this  mixture of three Hollywood genres:   musical, comedy and melodrama.

The feel-good effect : the critics in their vast majority and specially the American ones were delighted by the film. They nearly all centered around Judi Dench’s performance.  Words like : funny, naive charm, marvelously enjoyable, Hoskins and Dench have terrific chemistry together, it offers a feel-good experience, an absolute delight from start to finish, one of the wittiest comedies to come our way, genial naughtiness, humour and warmth, good clean fun, a goodie goodie film.   There were some dissenting critics and they focused mainly on the lack of structure of the story ‘the film haphazard and uneven structure’, the sentimentality: ‘falseness and sentimentality take over completely when war breaks out’ (Philip French). But Mrs. Henderson’s as a character is  mentioned  in any detail by only one reviewer : ‘She emerges as a grieving woman who has suffered multiple bereavements, a do-gooder motivated by complex reasons.’  (Sukhdev Sandhu in  the Telegraph). Mrs. H’s complex motivations are not explored further in this review although there are scenes in the film that do delve into the darker sides of her character.  These emerge in the drama part of the film as an attempt at deeper characterisation and motivations.

Stephen Frears on the  Freedom to Embellish the Story: “When you make a film about real people it’s always, you know, you’re always more circumscribed in some ways. So it’s better to be able to use your imagination and invent the whole thing. There’s a  bit of each, really, in this case.”  The woman Frears and his scriptwriter created however is unconvincing.  Frears: “Mrs. Henderson is the most appalling right-wing woman, an absolute shocker. But I respect defending the indefensible”. Hoskins: “Mrs. Henderson is three things: she’s charming, cheeky and an absolute cow”.

When I look at Mrs. Henderson I see Judi Dench : In he first two thirds of the film Mrs. H is a ‘feisty’ widow who on the death of her husband  flouts the conventions of her upper class background and behaves outrageously.  Sherman the scriptwriter modelled her interactions with the manager of the theatre, Van Damm, on the Hepburn/Tracy marital rows of the Hollywood comedies. The dialogue is acerbic, funny and provide an entertaining romantic tension.   The exchanges between Mrs. H and Lady Conway also poke fun at the upper classes ”Mrs.H: ‘But I am nearly 70′ – Lady C. : “But you are so very rich, one cancels the other”.  One cannot but be seduced by this determined, brave, beautiful, manipulative widow who can, with a smile and a flash of her sparkling eyes make you forgive her faux pas. The one indefensible incident in this part of the film is Mrs. H. behaviour towards Mrs. Van Damm  - but this is soon forgotten.  One critic said ” However extraordinary an actor, she (Dench) may be, she cannot conceal the obvious fact that she’s having the time of her life here.  Isn’t that delicious”. (Village Voice).

Was Mrs. H. pimping or matchmaking? The viewer has  been led to settle into  a musical comedy mode where Judi Dench is the main seducing protagonist. However the Mrs. H that  Frears offers us in the war episodes  is different. But for some reason Mrs. H less attractive traits are completely ignored by the viewers, be they critics or general audience. This part of the film, Frears  tells us on the DVD,  is inspired by the Hollywood melodramas of the time. Melodramas do deal with grief and desire and loss of youth in older women.  These deep emotions are on screen in this film. But they leave no trace in the viewer’s consciousness.  Somehow grief,  desire, and vicarious pleasure get entangled in a most superficial way. We see Mrs. H mourn over her son’s grave in France and sympathise with Van Damm’s war losses. But we also see Mrs H gaze at the young soldiers from her seat in the theatre, spy  on them  from her car in the dark night  and pick one particular one. We see her in the dressing room where she identifies with Maureen, the  leading Windmill nude girl. In her bedroom she performs the fan dance in front of a mirror fantasising the role that Maureen plays.  She proceeds  to arrange calculatingly for the soldier to meet with Maureen and persuades her to have sex with him. What do these scenes reveal about Mrs. H. and her motives?  And is Mrs. H. innocently matchmaking to allay Maureen’s loneliness and provide a sexual experience to a young soldier about to go to the front or is she pursuing a dangerous fantasy? And how in this light  are we to interpret her speech about the Windmill girls fortifying  young men going to the front? If  Frears wanted to convey the dark side of Mrs.H, he failed. Judi Dench’s attractive personality and physical presence overpowers the insensitivity, the egotistic manipulation of others, the hypocrisy,  of the character she is supposed to portray. Maureen gets pregnant and is killed in a bombing raid.  But the show must go on and the film ends with Judi Dench and Bob Hoskins still bickering, swirling  in a romantic dance on the roof of the theatre. The titles sequences lead the audience to expect a light hearted comedy/musical and the melodrama cannot be accommodated.

The director had problems with the reception of the film as he admitted  when asked about the animated titles sequences that he commissioned  long after the film was finished. “I previewed the film. And the audience asked certain questions. And I kept thinking, “Why are you asking these questions?” They seemed completely inappropriate to the film I was making. And then it dawned on me that you have to tell them they were watching a film that took place in Fairy-land. You know, that it was one of those films over there—it wasn’t this kind—it wasn’t a realistic film. It was one of those films. And once you told them that, they understood everything and the questions stopped. But before, they’d ask these very, very literal questions.” What were the questions asked at the previews? Were they questions about the real Mrs. H.? about the real Van Damm? about the real Windmill girls? about the death of Maureen? the reality behind ‘we never closed’?

But I also would like other questions. What exactly is the director trying to say? and what is the audience supposed to understand? Why do the viewers not perceive the complexity of Mrs H. motives? why do critics not comment on Van Damm? Questions better left to research into the reception of films…

I was so pleased to have been invited (on the strength of my blog) by one of the organisers Dr. Deborah Jermyn.  Before going to the event I asked my close email contacts : can you name any celebrity who can be described as ‘old’?  This was the response: Lauren Bacall, Joan Rivers, Joan Collins, Liza Minelli, Elizabeth Taylor, Germaine Greer, Mother Theresa, Barbara Castle, Yvonne Arnaud, Esther Rantzen, Claire Rayner, Jeanne Moreau, Katherine Hepburn, Yitzak Rabin’s widow (sic),  Jane Fonda, Tony Benn, Michael Douglas, Hugh Hefner, Ian McKellen, Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Vanessa Redgrave, Miriam Margoyles, Sheila Hancock, Julie Walters, Helen Mirren.   Two remarks were interesting: “there are lots of  old women who are admired and respected but since they are not doing anything ‘newsworthy’ they do not get the attention they deserve” and  ’the terms celebrity and substance seem incompatible’.

I will express my very personal feelings about the day. (a podcast will be available on the  above site for people who are interested in the proceedings).  I was confused by the use of the term ‘celebrity’ and ‘celebrity culture studies’. To me celebrity culture is an essentially ‘young’ phenomenon, based on  television reality shows, certain genres of music, football stars, talent shows, Facebook and YouTube etc… This world is of no interest to me and my study of ageing and ageism, specially in the field of the representation of  the old  woman in films and ageism as experienced in day-to-day life.   The word ‘performance’ intrigued me. Was it meant to include only professional performers? obviously not, since war correspondents and a film and opera director were the subject of two of the  papers. But they are men.

The day was stimulating for me and led me to pose quite a few questions.

1 –  Anne Widdicombe and a flash of celebrity.   It would be so interesting to explore why Anne Widdicombe (63), described as “clean-living Tory matriarch a devout Roman Catholic who barely drinks and lives alone” (Telegraph)  benefited from a brief celebrity flash when she appeared on the Strictly Come Dancing show. Felicity Kendal (64) however who appeared in the same show and who is a year older than Ann did not make any headlines.

2 - Voice and ageing: it occurred to me that in the films we considered in our Older Women in British films 1997-2006 (see resources) we did not mention voice. It is a characteristic that I have also completely ignored while analysing films myself. Is there such a thing as  the ageing of the voice as mentioned in the paper about the Trip?

3 – The difference  between  famous actor and celebrity  which was made  was very instructive. Brigitte Bardot was a celebrity, not much of an actor, whereas Elizabeth Taylor was actor and celebrity. Are our old actors: Judi Dench, Vanessa Redgrave, Helen Mirren, Sheila Hancock, Maggie Smith, Julie Walters celebrities ?  Is Delia Smith a celebrity? Germaine Greer? Margaret Thatcher? The Queen?  Are they ‘performers’?

4 - Old woman’s mask It was noted that Brigitte Bardot is still using face make up and the style of her hair was mentioned in the keynote talk. On the website of the symposium two photos of BB  are contrasted. The photo of BB in her 70s?  is less than flattering whereas there are online photos of  BB at 50 60 70  where she looks pleasant, imposing .  Why this choice? What is the mask of the older woman?  From the Queen of Spades to Gianni’s mother in the highly praised MidAugust Lunch, we are offered images of old women’s faces with a lot of make up. What do they signify?

5 - Ageing and cosmetic surgery was an important topic at the symposium.   The women celebrities mentioned in the second part of the Symposium   ‘Ageing and the Female Celebrity’  were all actors. For actors ageing starts early – even before the menopause. Are the problems of the ageing actor centred on the body  relevant to the ageing woman?

Members of the audience raised the following issues:

- the bulk of the papers were concerned with the ageing woman as Body

-  a woman ‘in my sixties’    pointed out that ageing is different in a woman in her late forties or 50s and a still older woman whose friends have started to die

-  Whereas the old man is shown to have sexual desire, the old woman is not supposed to have any sexual feelings…

Finally whenever I mention the ‘old woman in films’ to women of my daughters’  age  ( 40 - 50) I am quoted   Something’s Gotta Give as a wonderful, funny example. I know that taste in comedies differ radically but hearing again the speech by the sister of the Diane Keaton  character proffer her speech about the difference of the experience of ageing in men and women,  I had a sudden insight into why I so disliked this film and Potiche (see previous post). In both films feminist attitudes are expressed as if they are newfound truths. They are in your face statements that lack depth, subtlety or wit. Diane Keaton and Catherine Deneuve’s characters  may be the image that  younger women aspire to grow into but my goodness they do not, to my mind, provide fantasy or role models.  It is as if the women’s liberation movement never existed.   The dialogue, narrative, characters are so one-dimensional and predictable that as a woman who joined the Older Feminist Network 20 years ago, I found both films banal, and boring.

If celebrity culture is defined as a culture of the young I am wondering if it is the right tool to explore issues of the double jeopardy of age and gender.  Brigitte Bardot, Elizabeth Taylor (both celebrities when young) , Nicole Kidman, Diane Keaton,  cosmetic surgery, airbrushing, digital manipulation of the image, gossip blogs.  Does this approach in its blindness to old age in all its diversity reinforce our ageism or does it challenge it?

If you are interested check

http://ageingageismdiary.wordpress.com

If I had the time I would analyse these two films and the two news reports following the Tsunami in Japan. One described how old people in a nursing home were abandoned to their own devices. The other how old people offered their services to go to the unsafe nuclear zone. I would also look at the isolation of  some old  people in the West and the effects of the heat waves in France and Italy .                                                                        But I must go back to my routine and leave this project to the side with the others that deserve study: the blog about everyday ageing and ageism, the database, and the comparison between the different versions of ‘Make Way for Tomorrow’.

The  Lexi film this month was Hitchcock’s “The Lady Vanishes” (1938). To my surprise the U3A audience was augmented by a family or two and a group of  children. A good proportion of the audience had seen the film before and everybody enjoyed this very witty film.  There were no comments on the old woman as spy .  I had seen it ages ago. One of my grandmothers was a very sedentary, anxious old woman who shuffled around the house ineffectively and irritated me. So the images of this film that remained in my mind for all these years were the ones where Miss Froy runs away across the fields  and where she is found out to be a spy at the Foreign Office.  The idea of a spy  being an old woman enchanted me.

Hitchcock and/or the scriptwriters build on our stereotypical view of the old English governess to deceive us.   Miss Froy, played by Dame May Whitty (aged 73), is stout. She is white-haired. She presents herself as a good-hearted innocent kind of old woman used to talking to children . She bores Charters and Caldicott with her incessant chatter. At her window we are made to think that she is naively romantic as she listens to the man singing below, when in fact she is memorising the song with the secret message. At the station where she has lost her bag, she is seen as absent-minded and flustered. In the restaurant car she insists on having her tea made with really boiling water with the tea that her parents always use. She again mentions that she is a governess. But before leaving the train when she teaches Gilbert the coded tune she admits she is a professional spy “such a grim word” and “in this sort of job you must take risks”.

There is little else to say about the character. But I must admit that I rather like the image of the old woman kidnapped, bound in bandages, immobilised and silenced….

Yesterday’s film was Dendera (2011). Directed by Imamura’s son its starting point is the end point of his father’s great film the Ballad of Narayama (1983).  We had seen this last film in our women’s group. It was one of the rare times that attitudes to death were discussed in this group of older women.  While in the Imamura film the women are taken willingly to the mountain to freeze to death,  in  Dendera the women survive and  form a community under the leadership of a 100 years old woman only to be decimated by natural disasters.  It is worth seeing this poorly conceptualised and executed film for its basic idea of challenging the Ballad of Narayama.

I was not disappointed.   The director followed Carolyn Parker’s fight to return to her severely damaged  house in a poor neighbourhood  and to have it renovated to its previous state. It took 5 years and battles with the officials of the commission who wanted to redevelop the area (‘over my dead body’ she says), the local politicians and then the crooked contractors.  She also was involved in fighting to restore the local community church. Throughout she had the support of her daughter.

What is remarkable in this film is that although a documentary, it is structured like a feature film. The narrative centers around the return to and renovation of the house. The heroine is Carolyn Parker a black, disabled woman of around 60 years. We get to know her past, her family, her community, her struggles, her anger and tenacity and sense of fun. “Instead of trying to make fiction real, I was trying to find what was dramatic and entertaining about reality” said Demme. He has succeeded. But will the critics and distributors recognise the value of this film? Will they have the vision of screening nationally this example of resistance in these days of cuts affecting the more disadvantaged?  Or will it as one critic predicts find a happy future on More 4 and disappear?

If the film is shown go and see it. If you belong to a film society ask for it. If it is available on DVD buy it.

Where Do We Go Now? (2011): The second film directed by the Lebanese Director Nadine Labaki (first film Caramel). For me  this very entertaining film, set during  the civil war in the mountains of Lebanon, reminded me of the Lebanese sense of humour in difficult circumstances.  A huge female cast shows the possibility of female solidarity across faiths and culture.

Coriolanus  (2011) : Apart from being Shakespeare it is a must-see for Vanessa Redgrave’s amazing performance as old woman and mother.   (in terms of age signs, not a line, wrinkle of her face was concealed )

Both  the U3A and non U3A audience were very enthusiastic about this classic and the comments were mainly on its effectiveness in making us care about the children and experience the action as seen through their eyes.

A lot has been written about The Night of the Hunter.  It has been described as a film noir, a thriller, a fable. Pauline Kael called it ‘the most frightening movie ever made’ and Laughton said it was a “nightmarish sort of  Mother Goose tale”. People who have seen the film decades ago will recount how certain images have remained in their consciousness for years. For me it is Lilian Gish on the porch, holding the rifle in the night vigil in defence of the children that was etched in my brain.

The tension between good and evil, light and dark, innocence and knowledge, madness and sanity,  youth and age is expressed in the film in the images, the music, the songs. My interest here is to shed some light on the old women who have a role in John Harper’s story.

There is no denying that the attitude of Grubb (the author of the novel the film is based on) towards women informs the film. Simon Callow, in his BFI book, notes that  Grubb  formed a belief in the overpowering importance of women and quotes him as saying: “Women held this country together during the pioneer days, and I think they held it together during the depression”. Before considering the two contrasting older women, Icey and Rachel Cooper, I would like to focus on two vignettes of two other old women. They are on-screen for less than a minute between them but are interesting. Mizz Cunningham is the owner of the pawn shop. She is a big woman and shown in full size and middle shot. Her dress is ample and fancy. Dangling earrings, multiple necklaces and bracelets, she could well feature in the Advanced Style website (see below for link).  With her grey dishevelled hair and her hands on her waist she looks and talks to John and Pearl in a menacing accusing way.

In contrast, the anonymous farm woman standing in the shadow of her doorway giving potatoes to the abandoned children is seen in profile. Her face is angular and shows tiredness.  Her tone is weary and expresses powerlessness in her words: “Hungry I suppose… such times when young ones run the roads… go away go away”.    These brief shots are very reminiscent of Dorothea Lange’s photos of the Depression.

In parallel to these very minor characters Icey and Rachel are major players in the plot. I will come back to Rachel but first look at Icey who is present in numerous scenes. Although an  interfering older woman stereotype the character has some depth. Physically Icey is a big woman, with a tidy bun on top of her head. In a plain dress and apron she appears more often than not preparing food and in particular ice cream and fudge.  She proffers homilies about bringing up children, about sexual desire in women in general. She is judgmental of  John’s mother Willa, she bullies her husband and is dismissive of the children’s needs. She is enthralled and seduced by the preacher, and ignores her husband’s justified doubts time and again. She pushes vulnerable Willa into marrying the preacher. She looks at him adoringly. Her girlish, possibly flirty attitude introduces a funny touch to the sombre story.  But she changes from a good-natured older woman, albeit gullible, to a furious dishevelled harpy in a grey coat.  She rouses the people in the courtroom, attract the attention of the mob to Rachel and the children who are recovering in a tea room, and finally with an axe in her hand leads the lynch mob against the preacher.

In contrast to Icey, we have Rachel,  she is the personification  of the Good against Evil but she also fulfils the role of grandmother. The title sequences feature her in mid close up against a starry sky.  A plait is wound around her head and she has a shawl on her shoulders. She is telling a bible story to 5 children. But it is in the last 20 minutes of the film that Lilian Gish gives a performance remarkable in its sense of determination and strength coupled with sensitivity and love. The dialogue and the cinematography enhance this wonderful characterisation of Rachel Cooper and her relationship with the children, in particular to John. It is impossible here not to mention the visual effects of some the scenes.

At her first encounter with John and Pearl she threatens them with a switch and baths them and even spanks John when he tries to escape the soap. A flock of geese is present in this shot. We then see her in the town at the head of the five children in a line just like a bird and chicks on the water. (I imagine that this is the director’s reference to his nightmarish Mother Goose story). Contrary to Icey’s view on women’s sexuality being non-existent, Rachel appreciates the need for love that leads women to be fools and to forget about the consequences of having children. She is there to help.  She states:  ”I am a strong tree with branches for many birds. I  am good for something in this old world and I know it too”. She wins the love of the children by being strict but also loving.  She understands teenager Ruby’s sexual explorations: “we all need love” and vows :”  you are going to grow up to a strong woman and will I see to it that you do”. With John who is initially diffident, she is very sensitive. The image of John tentatively touching her hand as she sits darning is infinitely touching.

The confrontation with the preacher is stunning. She refuses to be seduced by his talk and does not believe his story interrupting him in his tale of Hate and Love that so enthralled Icey. She believes in John and when the preacher pursues him with a knife she appears with a shot-gun and  takes aim at the preacher frightening him away. That night she sits in a vigil on a rocking chair bolt upright holding the rifle. The composition of this shot is highly dramatic.  The lighting somehow shows her dark profile in the dark of the house holding the gun. Subtle lighting picks up her lap and the walls behind her. The camera pans through the window to the preacher who is sitting on a tree stump with only his face in light and the children are seen sleeping upstairs.  When the preacher starts singing “Leaning Leaning”    Rachel start singing also. These scenes are extremely powerful in their visual and sound impact.  When the preacher disappears  Rachel calls the children in the kitchen and still holding the gun walks back and forth in front of them hiding her anxiety and fear. To distract them she tells them King Herod’s story  and instructing them covertly that they should run away in case of danger. Throughout these scenes her concerns are for the children. A cut away shot of an owl attacking a rabbit, expresses her sympathy for the hard lives of children. She also expresses her respect for them : “they abide”.

When John breaks down following the arrest of the preacher she is there to carry him inside the house and she is there with the other children at the court.

The final Christmas scenes are introduced by Rachel running out  in the snow with a shawl around her shoulder to look at the post box. She rushes back to the warmth of  her kitchen muttering about being glad that they – presumably her son and wife?-   have not sent her anything and anyway when they do it is only to show off how they have gone up in the world.    It is a warm family atmosphere then that prevails: cooking over the stove, and the giving and receiving presents.

This last touch exemplifies how in a film that is highly stylised and like a fable, the old women are sketched in such realistic terms.  Rachel  Cooper fulfills a realistic grandmother role.  I feel I have not done justice to the film’s team: the director, writer, scriptwriter, cinematographer  but I have tried to point out how important the old women are in this story.

A few notes:

- Advanced Style : http://advancedstyle.blogspot.com/

- I have not studied many reviews of this film but relied mainly on Simon Callow BFI publication. Both Derek Malcolm and Simon Callow refer to Mary Cooper as a spinster. The Lilian Gish character has in fact a son who lives in the city. He is mentioned three times in the dialogue.  Michael Sragow describes Mary Cooper as ‘Lillian Gish’s gnarly matriarch’.  She is described as a fairy godmother, as a good witch, a grey haired old woman. I fear these misperceptions may express ageist preconceptions .

Gianni is on our screens again. Still drinking, but less than he did in Mid August Lunch, still a good cook, still at the beck and call of his mother. But this is a different Gianni. He is in his 60s, retired for the last ten years, and lives in a world dominated by women of different ages.  At the entrance to his apartment building in Rome, three old men sit all day, gossiping, or talking football?  He only exchanges greetings with them on his way to and from the shops. Occasionally he gazes out of his window and sees old men passing by and specially one who is bent double and walks with the help of a cane.

Whereas I thought that the success of Mid August Lunch was  due to its feel-good effect about inoffensive old ladies, I would like to propose that Gianni e le donne  challenges the stereotype of  the mature seductive older man and addresses issues of ageing and gender in an ambiguous and non-judgemental manner.

At the time of writing, the film has not been issued in the USA so I have only the British and French reviews to assess its impact on the critics. They mostly praise the film, remarking on its gentle touch in dealing with the ageing process. It is ‘a charming comedy’ , ‘charming and melancholy’, ‘wistful’. I think it has more bite than these general descriptions.

I will first consider the women in Gianni’s life. His mother, in her 90s, as in MidAugust Lunch is physically grotesque with a huge blonde wig and excessive make up. Her craggy old face gives her presence.  But she is not the infantalised tyrannical mother of Mid August Lunch. The film starts at the lawyer’s office,  where her son is trying to con her into selling her house for a regular allowance. She is very capable of defending her interests against his deception. She lives above her means but shows some responsibility when later on she decides on her own accord to sell.  She seems to spend her time contented in her villa. She is cared for by a young woman from Eastern Europe.  She entertains her friends. They plays cards, and eat and drink copiously. She abuses the docility of her son by phoning him at any time of day and night for trivial needs, and refuses to eat the food that her daughter-in-law has prepared specially for her.

There are three women of Gianni’s age in the film.  His wife only appears briefly. Her face does show signs of age and she rushes around presumably to go to work.  She instructs Gianni to do the chores and also advises him not to drink so much. She does not share a bed or even a bedroom with her husband but they are on good terms. He is seen giving her breakfast in bed.

Gianni’s childhood friend. She is a professional singer, busy rehearsing when he comes round to see her and has little time for him.  She is off to Paris the next day. Finally, his first flame who invites him to her house but expects him to cook the supper. It is the only time Gianni refuses to comply with his mother’s injunction to come immediately to her. Unfortunately by the time he has finished talking on the phone, the woman has fallen asleep on the sofa.

There are also three younger women  who are part of Gianni’s everyday life. His daughter is in an unsatisfactory  relationship with a young man who she intends to leave but only after her exams. In the meantime he lives with the family and seems to have nothing to do.  There is the neighbour, a vivacious young woman who charms him and flirts with him.  And there is his mother’s carer who when he makes tipsy advances to her retreats nervously.

Apart from the main characters, throughout the film we see women of different ages.  The younger women  in their summer dresses with revealing cleavages include the newsagent and the stall holder. The middle age ones are always rushing and busy and the old ones including the visiting mother of the carer,  seemingly contented.

What about the men? As mentioned before there are numerous shots of three old men sitting in the street outside Gianni’s building. In the flat his daughter’s boyfriend hangs about with nothing to do.   Gianni’s lawyer friend  sole function in the film is to encourage and push Gianni to have sexual adventures.

What to make of Gianni?  Ten years after being made redundant, he has settled into being the practical support of his family, his mother, his wife, and his daughter. He also helps the neighbour by taking her dog for a walk and doing her shopping. He has no sexual relationship. The film revolves around sexuality in the ageing man. I do not feel competent to consider Gianni’s ageing and sexuality or to comment on the old man representation in films. However there are some features and scenes of the film that give food for thoughts and raise general  questions.

First of all there is the issue of  redundancy. Gianni (in his sixties now) has been retired since the age of 50. “The Institute of Public Policy Research said nearly 25% of people who had been out of work for more than two years are over the age of 50″ (Age UK). Is the boyfriend unemployed or just lazy?   In the film the men are idle and the women are all employed. Can we take this as a social comment? Gianni is kept busy by household chores. Should we agree with the critic who says that he leads a ‘feminised existence’? Should we agree with another critic who declares: “A particularly Italian preoccupation is served up with wry humour for scrutiny- the great reversal over the last couple of generations in the power distribution between men and women- painful, to say the least, for a macho culture” ? Is Gianni’s docile character abused by the women? Or is he just taken for granted?  Is this a reversal of roles film? It is certain that the invisibility that Gianni refers to in the bar scene is a very common experience of older women.  The internalized ageism of older people who find difficulty in accepting their own ageing is also commonly discussed in older women groups. This is shown in the film when time and again Gianni gazes at old men as “others”. The shock of being likened to one’s grandfather by both the neighbour and the carer is also recognisable by women  albeit that for women one is more likely to be likened to one’s mother.

But the main theme of the film is Gianni’s sexuality. On this subject the reviewers remain strangely reserved except that some of them mention that in Italy the film was interpreted as a political message attacking  Berlusconi’s sexual scandals. Why do Gianni and his wife have no sexual relationship? Reduced libido due to age and familiarity in the couple? The question remains open but there is no doubt that the main sexual drive that underlines the narrative originates from Gianni’s friend. He puts constant pressure on Gianni to find himself a woman and even organises for him some encounters. But we are led to think that Gianni would prefer a more gentle romantic involvement with women. Drunk he tries and fails to get nearer to his mother’s carer.  He hopes that both his childhood friend and first flame would respond to his timid advances but to no avail. Are we to see these approaches as failures? Is he a loser as one critic says?

The most hilarious scene, and to my mind the most revealing,  is the one when Gianni’s friend forces him to swallow a Viagra pill washed down with water from a watering can.  Is the director saying that our culture is force feeding us sex?   “Have sex until you drop” as Michelle Hanson says in her column on positive ageing. Are we to take  Gianni’s fantasy of being pampered by young sexy women as the result of an acid trip or as the actual thoughts of Gianni throughout the film?

Gianni is never pathetic, his gaze on women is never lascivious, he is not self-pitying.

It is the non-judgemental approach that is remarkable in this film. It leaves space for the viewers to make up their own mind.

Note: it would be interesting to analyse how Gianni’s non predatory attitude to women is achieved in the film. But the DVD is not available yet.