"He owned you, body and soul. Didn't he?"
(Crossposted from Tumblr, and not feeling like cutting it.)
Another interesting thing about A Woman's Face is that the whole Torsten part of the premise--The Guy You Would Kill For--could have been made to work in *far* less outrageous ways. I mean, it's not totally unrealistic, the concept of The Lover Who Could Pressure You Into Doing Awful Things. If anything, that's something that happens all the time, almost--sadly--the default when it comes to guys pressuring women into having sex/certain types of sex/etc. with the "if you really loved me, you would do this" crap--and plenty enough women do it back. "Ok, I'll give you a BJ if I get to use the car."
That's not unusual; lovers using emotional blackmail, physical, financial and other types of pressure to get what they want. And people pressure each other into crime, and gradually, that can sometimes lead to murder. That's... still plausible, if you just build it up right--or throw in the right ingredients and you can hit the ground running. Like, "woman does anything to get more of the drugs she is addicted to, her drug dealer boyfriend being able to use her as he pleases;" "man is pressured by vamp to working with the mob to keep some terrible secret that'd land him in jail." Standard thriller plots, standard Lana Del Rey songs.
But with Torsten... it's all, purely, 100% *sexual.* His power over her, his influence over her is psychosexual and little else--physical sex even more than romance. Money is a bonus, but we are repeatedly told, shown that it is his hard and dark and perverse sexual domination that she wants; she is quivering and open to it, to him.
And that's the outrageous thing. Women are expected to want a nice, cuddly, sweet and loving relationship, a home and kids, safety and stability and all this stuff they had to paste on Anna at the end, as an insult to her character to dodge the censors. It was outrageous in the 1940s, it's outrageous now, because she doesn't want any of these things when she starts flirting with Torsten.
These two embittered bastards don't have a shared car to blackmail each other over. Neither of them is jonesing for drugs. It's doubtful that Anna thinks she could get a high social position from marrying Torsten or even from becoming his mistress. He's an aristocrat, yes, but she knows from the very start that he's up to his ears in debt, that he's a wastrel, a stain on the Barring family name. Anna isn't even the type who'd want to become a kept woman--she'd keep *him,* and she is very conscious of this. And to be honest, I doubt she thinks that even if Torsten became a millionaire and that she ruled by his side, it'd last. She knows from the very day she meets him that he is a chronic womaniser--and in addition to that, she can probably read the hints of bisexuality writ large over his flat and the way he moves and speaks, being so gender-atypical herself (and to a modern viewer, it's even more obvious from the casting of two bisexual actors as Torsten and Anna). She knows he is incapable of managing his finances, needs his mistresses to manage his life. If anything, Anna--a reasonable and practical and ruthless and intelligent woman--is looking at a situation where they'd take the money, she'd be managing it, and they'd burn fast and bright and hard and then be blown away. There's absolutely *no other option* with that setup, with that guy, and we've seen Anna is a smart woman--she sees this, knows this. It's not safe or sane but it's a madness, a destruction she is seduced by. As the story progresses, it becomes less and less about the money and more and more about what he is able to give her in the bedroom.
She could take the money, could suck Torsten financially dry (note how she wants Segert to believe she's doing exactly that), but she doesn't.
She wants to suck his cock.
She wants to be dominated by him.
She wants to kneel for him, serve him instead of having to plot and plan and be the boss.
She wants to no longer be the gargoyle, but someone who's finally beautiful, adored.
She wants to no longer be the woman scarred; she is a lacuna she wants him to write his name upon her back with his manicured fingernails, the saliva flickering upon his always-glistening mouth; wants to be marked by his crooked, sharp, shining teeth.
She wants, after all her years in foster homes, orphanages, a tall, powerful man in whose arms to curl up in and to call Daddy.
She wants those furs and perfumes; she wants to slip her hand between his betuxedoed legs in a limousine.
Instead of being the monster no one would touch, she now wants to be held, squeezed, crushed in his hands; she wants to be taken, ravished so hard it hurts, violated until she screams, weeps, until all the pain is fucked away.
She wants to no longer be afraid of fire but to cast herself into the flames; she wants to be consumed by him, to shine hard and bright.
She knows exactly what she’s getting into, and knows it’s not going to end well, but she throws herself into it anyway; not for a moment is she a hapless victim.
She wants the evil, sexually ambiguous, dominant-as-fuck playboy *cock.*
...and that's all there. Right there on the screen. And it's an absolutely outrageous idea, something so rare and unlikely and implausible that it'd be almost impossible to pull off. Some say the movie doesn't, of course, and dismiss it as drivel, but those people are invariably of the type who have no experience of being in Anna's position, a female body deemed ugly by society, a traumatised and dark and screwed up woman--with a heavy sexually submissive streak. We all have our biases; I know mine is an understanding of the latter and I'm admitting it freely, proudly.
I buy it.
I buy the premise, live it, breathe it, tremble as Anna does way down in the pussy when Torsten squeezes her arm. Thanks to Cukor, Veidt and Crawford, the impossible is made possible. I am plunged into the delirious erotic madness, the unhealthy, dark, fucked-up *and* mind-destroyingly pleasurable blaze of it and burn as bright as she does.
And I'm going to go and watch it once more.
Another interesting thing about A Woman's Face is that the whole Torsten part of the premise--The Guy You Would Kill For--could have been made to work in *far* less outrageous ways. I mean, it's not totally unrealistic, the concept of The Lover Who Could Pressure You Into Doing Awful Things. If anything, that's something that happens all the time, almost--sadly--the default when it comes to guys pressuring women into having sex/certain types of sex/etc. with the "if you really loved me, you would do this" crap--and plenty enough women do it back. "Ok, I'll give you a BJ if I get to use the car."
That's not unusual; lovers using emotional blackmail, physical, financial and other types of pressure to get what they want. And people pressure each other into crime, and gradually, that can sometimes lead to murder. That's... still plausible, if you just build it up right--or throw in the right ingredients and you can hit the ground running. Like, "woman does anything to get more of the drugs she is addicted to, her drug dealer boyfriend being able to use her as he pleases;" "man is pressured by vamp to working with the mob to keep some terrible secret that'd land him in jail." Standard thriller plots, standard Lana Del Rey songs.
But with Torsten... it's all, purely, 100% *sexual.* His power over her, his influence over her is psychosexual and little else--physical sex even more than romance. Money is a bonus, but we are repeatedly told, shown that it is his hard and dark and perverse sexual domination that she wants; she is quivering and open to it, to him.
And that's the outrageous thing. Women are expected to want a nice, cuddly, sweet and loving relationship, a home and kids, safety and stability and all this stuff they had to paste on Anna at the end, as an insult to her character to dodge the censors. It was outrageous in the 1940s, it's outrageous now, because she doesn't want any of these things when she starts flirting with Torsten.
These two embittered bastards don't have a shared car to blackmail each other over. Neither of them is jonesing for drugs. It's doubtful that Anna thinks she could get a high social position from marrying Torsten or even from becoming his mistress. He's an aristocrat, yes, but she knows from the very start that he's up to his ears in debt, that he's a wastrel, a stain on the Barring family name. Anna isn't even the type who'd want to become a kept woman--she'd keep *him,* and she is very conscious of this. And to be honest, I doubt she thinks that even if Torsten became a millionaire and that she ruled by his side, it'd last. She knows from the very day she meets him that he is a chronic womaniser--and in addition to that, she can probably read the hints of bisexuality writ large over his flat and the way he moves and speaks, being so gender-atypical herself (and to a modern viewer, it's even more obvious from the casting of two bisexual actors as Torsten and Anna). She knows he is incapable of managing his finances, needs his mistresses to manage his life. If anything, Anna--a reasonable and practical and ruthless and intelligent woman--is looking at a situation where they'd take the money, she'd be managing it, and they'd burn fast and bright and hard and then be blown away. There's absolutely *no other option* with that setup, with that guy, and we've seen Anna is a smart woman--she sees this, knows this. It's not safe or sane but it's a madness, a destruction she is seduced by. As the story progresses, it becomes less and less about the money and more and more about what he is able to give her in the bedroom.
She could take the money, could suck Torsten financially dry (note how she wants Segert to believe she's doing exactly that), but she doesn't.
She wants to suck his cock.
She wants to be dominated by him.
She wants to kneel for him, serve him instead of having to plot and plan and be the boss.
She wants to no longer be the gargoyle, but someone who's finally beautiful, adored.
She wants to no longer be the woman scarred; she is a lacuna she wants him to write his name upon her back with his manicured fingernails, the saliva flickering upon his always-glistening mouth; wants to be marked by his crooked, sharp, shining teeth.
She wants, after all her years in foster homes, orphanages, a tall, powerful man in whose arms to curl up in and to call Daddy.
She wants those furs and perfumes; she wants to slip her hand between his betuxedoed legs in a limousine.
Instead of being the monster no one would touch, she now wants to be held, squeezed, crushed in his hands; she wants to be taken, ravished so hard it hurts, violated until she screams, weeps, until all the pain is fucked away.
She wants to no longer be afraid of fire but to cast herself into the flames; she wants to be consumed by him, to shine hard and bright.
She knows exactly what she’s getting into, and knows it’s not going to end well, but she throws herself into it anyway; not for a moment is she a hapless victim.
She wants the evil, sexually ambiguous, dominant-as-fuck playboy *cock.*
...and that's all there. Right there on the screen. And it's an absolutely outrageous idea, something so rare and unlikely and implausible that it'd be almost impossible to pull off. Some say the movie doesn't, of course, and dismiss it as drivel, but those people are invariably of the type who have no experience of being in Anna's position, a female body deemed ugly by society, a traumatised and dark and screwed up woman--with a heavy sexually submissive streak. We all have our biases; I know mine is an understanding of the latter and I'm admitting it freely, proudly.
I buy it.
I buy the premise, live it, breathe it, tremble as Anna does way down in the pussy when Torsten squeezes her arm. Thanks to Cukor, Veidt and Crawford, the impossible is made possible. I am plunged into the delirious erotic madness, the unhealthy, dark, fucked-up *and* mind-destroyingly pleasurable blaze of it and burn as bright as she does.
And I'm going to go and watch it once more.