茶花女

The story of Alexandre Dumas fils’s “The Lady of the Camellias” gets further currency through Giuseppe Verdi’s opera “La traviata”, written in 1853 and based on Dumas fis’s text. Afterwards cinematic interpretations are legions, Cukor’s version has been the most well-known and cherished, not just because it is a Garbo star vehicle, but also for its sumptuous art direction and all the paraphernalia.

At the age of 31, the bloom is rather off the rose, at first glance, Garbo looks vaguely jaded, slouching around in her finery with a wan smile, world-weariness cannot be expunged from her miens, such impression aptly bespeaks her character Marguerite Gautier’s predicament. a courtesan of Paris’ demimonde in mid-19th century, Marguerite is smitten with consumption, yet someone must foot the bill of her lavish expenditure, Baron de Varville (a saturnine Daniell, straining to be an inscrutable sorehead) could be her new patron. Yet, her eyes are delighted by the sight of Armand Duval (a 26-year-old Taylor, in his finest fettle, those gorgeous profiles almost pale Daniell into a gargoyle), who is from a respectable family but has no great fortune.

Beyond any shadow of doubt, true love is ablaze between Marguerite and Armand, but it takes time for her to cut loose from Baron’s largesse, and for him, his incorrigible affection for her is laced with a deep aversion to her high-end life style, why can’t they start a life with his modest savings? As it turns out, they really can’t. Consumption is a death certificate, which Marguerite knows all too well, she tries her best to seize the day and is even willing to start anew with Armand despite herself, she is swooned, for the first and the last time of her life, by the elation of being in love. Garbo, for her part, feelingly infuses ebullience into Marguerite’s infirmity when the star-crossed lovers enjoy each other’s company with no interference.

After that, all the florid decor, rompy ostentation and noisy hullabaloo abate, CAMILLE segues into a weepy steeped in masochistic agony and lachrymose sympathy, only Laura Hope Crews’s zany Prudence Duvernoy, Marguerite’s money-grubbing procurer, can steal a scene or two with a semblance of heedless outrageousness. Under Cukor’s industrious instruction, Garbo is transubstantiated into a tragedienne with flying colors. When a moribund Marguerite is revitalized with terminal lucidity by the expectancy of seeing Armand, a spectator cannot take their eyes off her, she is such an exquisite delicacy, an ephemeral being, burning all her remaining energy with pained delight, Garbo strenuously transcends the plot’s innate sentimentality and makes her performance a crowning glory during her career. Even the foregone conclusion of Marguerite’s death scene is carried off like a candle is suddenly snuffed, no grandstanding, no lingering after-effect. In the mass, Cukor’s film remains to be a stunner that can leave audience punch-drunk owing to the headiness of its emotional quotient and an eyeful of elegance from a bygone era.

referential entries: Rouben Mamoulian’s QUEEN CHRISTINA (1933, 7.9/10); George Cukor’s DINNER AT EIGHT (1933, 7.9/10).

Title: Camille

Year: 1936

Genre: Drama, Romance

Country: USA

Language: English, French, Latin

Director: George Cukor

Screenwriters: Zoe Akins, Frances Marion, James Hilton

based on the play and novel by Alexandre Dumas fils

Music: Herbert Stothart

Cinematography: William H. Daniels, Karl Freund

Editor: Margaret Booth

Cast:

Greta Garbo

Robert Taylor

Henry Daniell

Jessie Ralph

Laura Hope Crews

Lionel Barrymore

Lenore Ulric

Rex O’Malley

Elizabeth Allan

Rating: 7.5/10

玛格丽特的唇薄，笑起来隐约看不到唇线，每次看到她的明媚的笑容，我都会为这美丽的笑容恍惚一下。会突然的大笑，笑的前俯后仰，这么明媚娇媚肆无忌惮如朝霞般的笑容，却是抓不住的，消失的时候却跟它来时一样快，说不出心里的心疼的感觉。像这样的一个女子，幸福来临的时候总是会惴惴不安，害怕拥有就像害怕失去一般。

看到她和亚蒙在乡下的时光，彼此那么深爱，总是会忍不住情人间的嫉妒，但是又会很好和好，因为爱狠狠的拽住了他们。我不忍心看到后面的结局，要是爱能永远停在快乐的时刻多好，停在娇媚的笑里，爱就是爱，没有那么多的不值得和牺牲。