Women are objects of obsession for the men in the works below. In two out of three, the men die ... without consummating their "love."
None of them feel romantic.
Luis Bunuel's film is intentionally absurd. Two actresses play the same character. Or two actresses portray different sides of the character. Or the man has prosopagnosia. On second viewing, I paid more attention to the presence of political terrorism in its story world.
"Torment" was Ingmar Bergman's first produced screenplay and stars Mai Zetterling as Bertha, a schoolboy's first love and an older man's torture toy. Bertha is a template for female Bergman protagonists to come - a complicated female role that could either be a product of his genius or misogyny (maybe both?).
Jules Massenet's "Werther" is overwrought and mercifully short. Is it the way Jonas Kaufmann plays him or is it the way the role is written? Kaufmann goes from gloomy to desperate to dead. It's dull to sing in the same "key" for four acts.
***
That Obscure Object of Desire
(1977, dir. Luis Bunuel)
Conchita times two;
No matter who plays her, man
Only wants one thing.
***
Torment
(1944, dir. Alf Sjoberg)
Life lessons valued
More than schoolwork for expelled
Man in Bergman script.
***
Werther
(1892, composed by Jules Massenet, libretto by Edouard Blau, Paul Milliet, and Georges Hartmann)
(2013-2014 Season, The Met: Live in HD, dir. Richard Eyre)
Poet loves, pines for
Charlotte. Long drawn out death ends
Our miseries.
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