Tristan + Isolde

[muchabstracted]

lynnoxford and I went to see Tristan + Isolde. The first half was unremarkable; I was disappointed, in fact, because although I was certain they were getting everything wrong, I wasn't familiar enough with the story to know exactly what I could be mocking. Most of the time. There were a few moments I'm pretty sure I was right to mock

Comments

[fleurdelis28]

I'm not sure if you can have a "wrong" version of the story in that there are already at least a couple of versions (only one of two of which I know). One thing the traditional stories share is that on the trip back to Cornwall Tristan and Isolde plan a suicide pact and instead accidentally drink a really strong love potion that Isolde's mother gave her to share with King Mark, and that totally and permanently overpowers whatever common sense they might otherwise have had. There are probably good reasons for taking the potion angle out of the story - not the least that then you have to deal with everyone being driven by human emotions, which is more complex. But that erased history might be part of why Isolde can't tear herself away from Tristan even though Mark is awesome (which in most of the versions, he is)* - though I suppose it might make sense for her to love Tristan over Mark anyway just because she fell for him first.

In the two versions I've read/heard, Tristan gets banished after he's definitively discovered running around with the Queen (which is way more merciful than what Mark, who doesn't know yet about the potion, would have been within his rights to do to both of them), retires off somewhere and eventually dies, at which point Isolde shows up two minutes too late and dies of sorrow. In one of the versions he actually finds another girl named Isolde, sort of half-heartedly marries her because he can't have the Isolde he really wants, and gets his payback for messing with her feelings when she sees the ship bearing the original Isolde to him and lies about it, causing him to give up on life before the original Isolde gets there. (The original Isolde then shouts at the second Isolde, "I loved him more than you!" throws herself on top of Tristan, and dies.) Wagner cut out the whole double-Isolde motif and instead has King Mark show up to give Isolde to Tristan because he's finally heard the potion story and forgiven them and agrees that they belong together - but Tristan is dead by the time they get there.

* I seem to recall that there's at least one version where Mark is evil, but I can't imagine that makes for a very interesting story.

[muchabstracted]

Told you I didn't know the original(s)!

Anyway, there is definitely a version where Mark was unsympathetic, because that is the one lynnoxford had read.

[fleurdelis28]

Interesting. In both of the ones I know, he's almost superhumanly restrained, given that his trusted nephew is running around with his beloved wife behind his back. (And in at least one version, he Isolde later do drink the rest of the love potion together like they're supposed to*, so he's as besottedly in love with her as she and Tristan are with each other.) My chief thought throughout is always the hope that after their drama finishes playing out, he finds himself someone devoted to him and of the caliber he deserves.

Actually, in the more traditional one he does have some normal legendary-king reactions and put her to trial by ordeal and such - but throughout he's portrayed very sympathetically and tries to assume the best until proven otherwise, and I think his attempts to clamp down on them are when his countiers insist that it would be political disaster not to investigate the awful rumors. He's not going to go and endorse their adultery - he's human, male, and passionately in love with Isolde, and the political consequences of letting something like that go and of not having a credible heir (or any heir) are probably huge - but he behaves pretty decently, certainly moreso than them. After they're dead and buried on opposite sides of a cathedral, a plant keeps growing from one of their tombs to the other, and people keep cutting it down, and eventually he tells them to knock it off and let them be.

In the Wagner version, he basically walks in on them with a band of courtiers, and then just stands there looking at the two of them with sorrowful dignity and telling Tristan how deeply disappointed he is in him. (I don't know if this reflects assumptions about gender relations, the fact that Tristan has a much deeper personal debt to him, or the fact that it's easier to tell off your nephew and liege in front of your courtiers than it is to tell off your wife, particularly if you plan to keep her.) And then later he actually brings Isolde to Tristan, after he discovers the situation wasn't really their fault (because of the potion).

So there's definite precedent for his being an absurdly nice guy, though even then not quite to the extent it sounds like he is in the movie.

* She pours hers down her sleeve or something, since she's already in love with Tristan - though wouldn't it make an interesting story if she ended up incurably in love with both of them?

[fleurdelis28]

Actually, re-reading the scene for the first time in a long time, Mark's focus on Tristan's betrayal makes complete sense. Sort of like if your husband cheated on you with your sister, when you'd been widowed and content not to remarry and you sister had insisted that you find someone new and set the two of you up and in doing so brought unthought-of hope and happiness into your life. Cheating happens, but that level of betrayal of trust is sort of cosmic in scale. The weasely courtier who showcases their infidelity to Mark says that he has rescued the king's honor, and Mark's reaction is basically, "If my truest friend, the epitome of honor and virtue, has betrayed me, what is in your power to say that would fix that? If Tristan has betrayed me, what does loyalty even mean?" Tristan and Isolde, who've just been fantasizing about a blissful and united death, would probably have been infinitely happier had he just struck them down on the spot, instead of making them listen to the emotional consequences of their actions for others.

[muchabstracted]

I agree; Tristan's betrayal of Mark was greater than Isolde's. Isolde is just being normally wrong and immoral, to a husband she barely knows and who was forced on her. Tristan is cheating on his foster father, not to mention his feudal lord. (This last only matters to me because Tristan respects his feudal lord, and makes a point of his respect for Mark as king in the movie.)

I'm suddenly reminded of Reuben sleeping with his father's wife/concubine.

[muchabstracted]

Also -- I originally disliked the love potion, because it's such a cop out, but it now strikes me as an interesting concept, and could lead to interesting meditations on the nature of love.

[fleurdelis28]

In the Wagner version, as I understand it, they're basically already in love, and drinking what they think is a potion of death frees them to admit and express this before the effects of the love potion even have a chance to kick in (assuming that in this version they ever really do). In the more traditional one I've read, they also seem to be essentially in love before drinking the potion, though it's the potion that makes them go and sleep together before the boat reaches Cornwall,* and their behavior sort of waxes and wanes in reasonableness as the potion's effects fluctuate over time.

* Her maid, who mixed up the potions in the first place, makes up for this by subbing for her on her wedding night. It's that kind of a story.

[fleurdelis28]

Hmm, in the Wagnerian version, the potion angle also enables Mark to forgive them, because it means that their actions were being dictated by it on some level, so they didn't wilfully betray his trust (not that this helps them; his final words in the opera are basically "Aah! Even my best intentions kill people!" I really do hope he finds someone nice).

In the movie, do Isolde and Mark end up together after Tristan dies?

[muchabstracted]

They don't tell us anything about what happened to Isolde. A thing which made lynnoxford tear out her hair in frustration. (She wanted Isolde to end up in a nunnery.) I think that that, for Isolde, would be cruel, unusual, and ultimately ineffective punishment.

[fleurdelis28]

I can't imagine that Mark wouldn't take her back if she wanted, and after scoring a major victory he'd probably have the political capital to do so (and hey, she's young; maybe she matures into someone more interesting). No idea what she would herself choose, though. An Isolde who survives has got to be at pretty loose ends; I don't know if that's ever happened before.

[muchabstracted]

She likes him in the movie; she says something like, "He's a kind man. I can't hate him." (And incidentally, Mark does fall shatteringly in love with her after they marry, so that part is like where he took the love potion with her too.)

My question is more, would Mark want to take her back?

Also, is this King Mark of Cornwall the same as the ones in Monica Furlong's Juniper?

[muchabstracted]

*coughs* Sorry. The one in Juniper.

[muchabstracted]

Well, that sounds irrelevant, then.

Also: *points to footnote* that was used in the Diana Paxton version of the myth that I glanced through in high school. I'm glad it was based on an already existing version of the story.

[fleurdelis28]

Since the version I was reading was clearly (in light of subsequent discoveries) a bit cleaned up, I'm sure that part must be traditional. The story was totally blase about it, too.

[rymenhild]

I've never heard the bit about the suicide pact. In the oldest sources, they're not trying to die when they drink the potion; they're just drinking the good wine because they can.

muchabstracted, the movie sounds wonderfully bad, although perhaps not as surpassingly so as King Arthur.

[fleurdelis28]

Hmm, maybe that one's just in Wagner.