Unknown Speaker  00:01
aspect of this film that its title is refers is a mellow name Christopher strong and it refers to the Colin Clive character who was an adulterous husband, rather than to the figure who seems actual central in the actual film mainly the flyer, Cynthia Darlington played by Kate hipbone, the film is evident modeled on large Amelia Earhart as that is often said in the literature but a British equivalent of her Amy Johnson. Both women was so low fliers around the world in the early 30s, and are often either neglected or not presented fully in histories of flight OSLA notes how it was she who discovered Hepburn, evidently after the bill of divorcement, which had been happens initial film relegated to Tarzan movies, she talks about going out into the set one day and seeing Katharine Hepburn half up a tree. picking her up though, because she seemed to embody what Oslo describes as the modern type, obviously meaning by this, I think the new world woman, as she is often called, who emerged out of the 20s suffragette movement, the type anyway not devoted to home husband and motherhood. But when the interview is press Ozma on the matter of what really interested her about the script, she declares that it was Christopher strong, the adulterous husband of the title who entrusted her most she says it was his struggle between love for wife and child and love for the daring aviate tricks that caught her sympathy. Now, I think this kind of thing is very illuminating in terms of discourses that structured Ozma in the 30s, and presumably still in the early 70s, when she was interviewed, mainly identification with the male figure. A second statement by Ozma. Here is also ambiguous where she talks about discovering our Hepburn on the set. She talks she mentioned that she was attracted immediately by her beautiful figure. Those are her words, who might want to work indeed, as we watch Christopher strong and how Hepburn's body is imaged in different parts of the film with this statement in mind, how far is her body set up as object to the gaze as erotic object, specifically as that has been structured in patriarchy? How far is her body on the other hand presented non erotically? Or perhaps differently? erotically? How far does Hepburn control the gaze? How far is she controlled by the male gaze? And I'm thinking here, obviously, of the camera, behind which we see as his own control, and in terms of how she is trying to present Hepburn to us. Now, I think it's impossible. See what you think, but for contemporary female viewer, not to see the film strategies as promoting identification with the female protagonist, despite what was not evidently intended. And as I said, we could all be thinking about this as we watched the film. In very literal terms, we should ask ourselves, how far do the cinematic strategies the actual use of camera and point of view shots the editing the lighting, seem to promote identification with Hepburn? How for identification with Colin Clive? What about the narrative as against the visual devices? How far does the narrative seem to focus on the flyers dilemma? How far on the husband's I think in other words, there are material answers to these questions that we should be able to derive from a close viewing of the film, and I hope we will have some time to discuss them afterwards. This particular controversy about the film's ending, which I don't want to mention, for those of you who don't know the story, which many find ambiguous, and I think one's ultimate notion of what the form is trying to say about gender relations does partly depend on how you read the ending.

Unknown Speaker  04:19
Now, the overall issue here, I think, is the degree to which ours in this film manages to question and critique patriarchal codes governing the positioning of woman in her historical moment. And I'm interested in how far you will think the film strategists are interested in that question. In a sense, the subject matter of the film which is taken from a novel based on the life of this British Aviatrix, I mentioned Amy Johnson and set in Britain would see my roadie, the choice of that script to suggest a disposition to explore the nonconforming woman who steps outside her prescribed bounds who dares to fly And the question is what use as Nick could make of this subject matter within the constraints imposed by Hollywood and her cultural media? House gender was thought about in the 1930s. And in addition, the codes of realism that Hollywood demanded and which I'll say a word about in a moment, how far is it possible to take the flyer seriously. Now, I think the actual historical moment in some sense prepared the way for this film in that the papers in the 30s 32, particularly a year before the film came out, were indeed full of mention of Amelia Earhart's flight around the world. But as we know, it's precisely in situations like that, where there seems to be a challenge to the patriarchy that patriarchy returns to construct an imaginary response that would help lessen the potentially revolutionary impact of such an exploit. How far has Asner colluded in such a response? How far is Cynthia Darrington the flyer allowed her own discourse or permitted a discourse that really opposes the patriarchal one. The big question for some of us in feminist film quest theory is around desire How far is her desire given the place? How far she made to subjugate her desire to that of the male? And sort of further kind of situating an historical question is, how important is the achievement anyway, given the very upper class and white and privileged media that this film takes place in? Does the film evidence any awareness of its own credit, race and class base? And if so,

Unknown Speaker  06:44
where are those moments of awareness? I just want to say a brief word about the further limitation on Oslo in terms of these codes of realism that Hollywood insisted on. Realism is achieved by maximizing the modes of connection between sign and referent as we all know, the film that is sets up a meta discourse through the narrative structure, which uses cause effect relations and conflates characters with real people, larger coherence or the aim and the fact that the film is written that it is a construct disappears, it seems as if it is an unproduced natural reality. Now, as post structuralism has also taught us, this effect of naturalness always allows patriarchal discourse to achieve a position of authority that is naturalness equals the repression of the feminine voice and eradication of differences. So the question is, in this particular case, how far do the strategies here in fact work to oppress Cynthia's difference to reduce or to the monolithic patriarchal discourse? The feminist critics differ about their answers to the question about her voice. Some argue that the film does establish a feminine a feminist discourse that is one that poses challenges to the dominant gender order. But the narrative ultimately works to silence that challenge to bring Cynthia Darrington into the patriarchal feminine to reestablish marriage and monogamy as a central values. Jacqueline Sutera, who's written on this film argues that the Cynthia's main function in the narrative is to bring the daughter of strong and his wife Elaine, who is played by Billy Burke, by the way, into monogamy, and the familial. Once this is achieved, she says, Cynthia is no longer needed. Other feminists see the film on the whole as transgressive, simple in permitting a figure like Cynthia Darrington to be a heroine in the first place, and then in her Cynthia's politely stubborn insistence on pursuing love, and her desires for both love and flying, and indeed, in her final act at the end of the film, so I'd like us again to be thinking what we decide about this issue as reviewing. Now we had originally wanted also to show a feminist remake of ours in this film called Amy by movi and Wallen, but time did not permit this. Now I will be showing and discussing this film in April sometimes so interested people will have a chance to follow up on today. But I want now simply to know that AMI which does not use conventional realist strategies that uses so called avant garde strategies, and an attempt to displace the effect of those realist strategies that this film AMI offers a perspective back on Christopher strong. That is, the remote as it were, allows us to read the hours in the film against the grain, enabling us to see how in fact, Cynthia Barrington deeds in Christopher strong also cause in Maulvi Whelan's words, quote, a rent in the fabric of family and law End of quote, doubt his deeds like Amis are perverse in that before meeting strong she has put flying before love. It allows us to see how difficult patriarchy makes for women, the proper for more fulfillment of desire for both achievements in the public world, and love family sexual satisfaction. Amy asked the question that arises from I think implies, namely, how can we prevent the appropriation of the female discourse by dominant male culture? How can we prevent the appropriation of the heroine, the one who dares and succeeds by society that finds such exploits threatening? Now answers to these questions may well depend on our particular individual histories and generational placement. Many young women today, when I'm talking about my

Unknown Speaker  11:03
experience, teaching now find such questions surprising in an area that has given at least superficial recognition, to women's right to large achievements. Nevertheless, the issue remains in relation to the way our culture organizes itself in terms of love marriage, child care, and one learns that as soon as one actually has the babies, does that surface acceptance, in fact, go deep enough. Now, obviously, this is a complex issue, and I'm just inserting it here. We can't we can discuss it later. If it's something that interests people, I want to end with a word about the difficulties of a material kind in watching this film. First of all, let alone the echoes for speeches and questions. In our voices, sound will be enormously distorted in hearing situation like this, people have done their very best to darken the room that you see that it's not very dark, and the film that we got the best print record for this film, but I've shown it in classes, and it's, the sound is never very good anyway. And there's a further material problem to the sound, which is that there's our tone to the film is set in upper class Britain. So we have actors and actresses with heavy upper which is class axis. Blue Book is particularly difficult to take, there's a kind of historical problem always watching films like this, in terms of acting styles, and so forth, and she seems very much to overact her part strong also comes close to parody, the intense repressed earnest upper class British member of parliament, and at times hit done even seems to parody her role, although this is something I often feel with Hepburn in her films. And I'm not sure whether some of this isn't to do indeed, with the subject matter, that indeed, the whole kind of awkwardness and a sense of parodying or play with their roles isn't to do with the fact that this is indeed a very serious topic that's that's been raised in the film. The film opens, I just wanted to mention this, since it might not be clear with an upper class, sort of British game, an elaborate treasure hunt, in which the guests are asked to bring in very elaborate items. And as the form opens this, this sort of game is far along, and you'll see what the crucial items are that that are brought in. Okay, so if we're ready with the projector, let's proceed to the film. Thank you. In that, it seems to me we can't really understand that begin to know where to go now unless we fully understand how those images worked. And also, even if our struggles are in a different arena, now, obviously, the coach structuring us being completely different to understand the modes of struggle that is in our cultural past. The second thing that I didn't mention about the film that struck me, so first of all this time, not now about the central Downton character, but the Bilderberg character, you could do it against the grain, it seems to me in relation to the Bilderberg figure, in terms of saying that the film kind of exposes in this glaring fashion, the total oppressive nature of this mother, sacrifice figure. I mean, it just screams at a contemporary audience in a way that I think was was completely on available to the audiences of the time. Now in terms of the ending, I just wanted to make one comment about that and then see what questions people have from the floor. We sat here for a long time very patiently. What what what As I said about the end, and the interviewer has pressed her about, did Cynthia really need to die or not? And because there was that moment where she she seems to hesitate to want to pull the mask back on and she said very clearly in the interview, no. She meant to die. That was the only only possible solution is sort of it had to be. So on that note, are there any sort of questions, responses comments people want to make? And what will we do about sound? But let's try anyway. Yeah. What was the first reaction at that time to Australia? A woman career?

Unknown Speaker  15:41
Yeah, as far as I know, I haven't didn't we do reviews recently, the film was an enormous success. And also, as it says, it was her favorite of the films that she's made. But you know, reviews and interviews with tourists and not focusing on anything Central and what they tend to do with women's films. And with melodramas, particularly the women's genre is always to put it down to go for this theoretic reasons. I mean, but it's very easily attackable in terms of probability, the dialogue, the cliches, the cornice, and so forth, and they would sort of be that sort of aesthetic response. I don't remember any the time the issue was a problem. Any other responses? Yeah. Zoe Atkins did the script. Oh, sorry. The question was, who wrote the script? And why did oz know, to choose this project? First of all, Zoe Atkins. So it is a female, a female? Yes. And the well known and much evident in Hollywood, women. Critics are only just beginning to work on the echelons of women, the woman in the echelons of power in Hollywood, in terms of editing and so forth, and we don't know nearly enough about those people. And that's a lot of archival work to be done. In terms of choosing the project. Don't don't choose projects, you know, mainly they're assigned projects, but I think this This party will over really in Hollywood, you Well, okay. It's not, it may not be quite true. But often there is. You're just simply assigned projects. And I don't know about the what interaction took place there was writing with somebody here may know how it came that it was hers, I assumed it was simply a project that was assigned her I know that the way she talks in the interview about wanting certain projects that she couldn't get, and being given kinds of things you didn't do was nothing in what I read about how she got this one.

Unknown Speaker  17:57
The question was do do I think it would have been a better form or more successful, more successful if she hadn't killed herself. We I think that the ending simply raises the whole issue of desire in the film. And each time I look at it, I kind of read it slightly differently. One thing that struck me this time when I looked very carefully, she goes through the way that images go, okay, it begins with a sort of works chronologically in terms of the film, as she's thinking in her mind, that image of their romantic love is my first love. It's your love my first and last love, she says, and then of the time where he says I died in the longtown times the illicit amanbo illicit meeting her hand in the phone, the consummation of their law. So it seems to me she's reviewing the transgressive nature of her acts, which was going for her desire against patriarchal laws that were then comes in the patriarchal discourse, strongly Monica. Now speaking of patriarchal discourse, I didn't care you take an angel, I didn't take her from an angel. And then allones you know, thanks a mother's heart, you've brought my daughter back to the old patriarchal discourse. And then But then the last thing, so sometimes I thought, well, she has simply succumb to the patriarchal demands. But the last one is duty, the last meeting with Christopher strong where he says, she says, Well, would you marry me if I was pregnant? He says, Well, I would have to It's my duty. And it's then that she seems to pull off the mask and so my reading of that is about her desire, but her desire to be desired that that indeed it is that Christopher, she's locked you know, he doesn't he can't perform. He can't be for her. A strongly says how it was for Monica, who took the ACT and made the divorce that she then her desire to be desired is becomes an issue. However, if you come back to it is very important. is courage. Courage conquers all theme throughout the movie is a very strong weave your courage is enormously centered, I mean, foregrounded and much of the film. And then her note says even love, and in a certain sense when I talk about her last act two is enormous courage, it seems to me in in this kind of a suicide, but this is very, very controversial. Influence Yeah. Yeah, the question was about the ethical code, structuring Hollywood at this time and really, up to the 60s. Okay. It's absolutely she's, this questioner is absolutely right. The codes governing what was permissible were extremely strict. And scholars now Tom Anderson is just doing a book on the 50s on the political issues in the 50s. And he's been reading the memos back and forth from the higher ups to the lower echelons And absolutely, but only certain things could be promoted though. We often say about these firms I really didn't know what was going on. It was sort of somehow in the culture generally, he's saying it's not that's not so it was very explicit. And indeed the caerhays code was there there were certain requirements and yeah, I'm wondering like that What did she want out somehow and went off happily Oh yeah, the current because of the time would not have permitted that yeah

Unknown Speaker  21:53
she didn't want to Well, the two are two alternatives the questions speaking about our one noble motive that sort of she didn't want to say she wanted to sacrifice for his family wanted his family to remain intact

Unknown Speaker  22:08
the other one what's the other one? Yeah, that you simply didn't go I want to go on without him.

Unknown Speaker  22:16
I think both are there the second one you see is is perversely noble in my in my you know it you could say it's noble, but it's very much simply succumbing to the patriarchal order to sacrifice yourself because these others can get on better without you you know, I think I think the film I thought it was noble but I'm saying that I don't think I think I do yeah

Unknown Speaker  22:51
yeah yeah

Unknown Speaker  23:00
yeah, the question was that there is a third possibility that the court that the coach of the firm couldn't really honor namely that she renunciate renounce now for a moment, we missed the love between choice between love and career love and fighting. We're not we weren't really supposed. Certainly the third test

Unknown Speaker  23:27
Yeah, yeah. I think that's too difficult for the for because at the time that's precisely what the AMI film actually takes up. Do we have to

Unknown Speaker  23:39
take a round of applause for all Katherine has been constructing. Multiply Macintosh, which is just halfway across the road right out the door to a left. Those of you who haven't picked up your pockets with the alleged shooter please go to the registration terrible photo. Right So