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THE MYSTERIOUS LADY
16 December 2005
By the time MGM made "The Mysterious Lady", the Garbo formula had calcified into a recipe for mediocrity. (The
Garbo formula goes like this -- young sensuous woman married to older sexually exhausted man falls for young sensual stud
and high drama ensues.) This almost always happens when any art form is reduced to formula -- even a popular art form, even
a highly commercialized popular art form. The films fueled by formula alone can make money for a while, by cannibalizing
the audience's memory of the earlier, better films from which the formula was derived, but eventually the audience's patience
grows thin and the formula fails.
"The Mysterious Lady" is a film made up entirely of echoes from earlier, better films, and it's a lifeless thing.
Everyone involved seems to have been stymied by the dispiriting enterprise -- everyone, of course, except Garbo. On film,
Garbo exists in a universe of her own -- a movie either inhabits and serves that universe or it vanishes around her, as "The
Mysterious Lady" does.
"The Mysterious Lady" was directed by the estimable Fred Niblo -- but the Fred Niblo of "The Temptress"
is nowhere in evidence. Instead of the exciting, inventive, lyrical images of that earlier film, we have a kind of house
style -- handsome, predictable and dull. There are plenty of pretexts for visual invention and surprise written into the
scenario, but they are executed in a perfunctory way -- a startling tracking shot here, dramatic lighting there. None of
it is infused with the slightest emotional conviction or stylistic grace. What replaces these qualities is a kind of ostentatious
parade of production values, would-be emblems of "class" filmmaking which are in fact just records of money duly
spent. There is, of course, nothing inherently cinematic, dramatic or involving about the spending of money -- though Americans
have always found the spectacle diverting enough.
Conrad Nagel, Garbo's leading man in "The Mysterious Lady", comes off as a bit of a drip. Garbo could bring
out the secret drippiness in any man -- part of the drama of all her films is wondering whether her leading man will be able
to hold his ground with her. Here, Nagel is just standing in for the men, like John Gilbert, who could -- reminding you fleetingly
of Gilbert's male authority. Similarly the pre-war Viennese setting is just a reminder of the enchanting, mythical Vienna
created in the works of Schnitzler and Von Stroheim. The whole film is like a vampire, a corpse feeding off the blood of
the living.
There are some good performances by supporting players -- most notably Gustaf Von Seffertitz -- and one remarkable scene in
a railway carriage in which Garbo's face becomes a canvas for a movie within a movie, suggesting subtleties and depths of
experience and feeling that the rest of the film doesn't even acknowledge, much less try for.
Elsewhere, in the absence of any real commitment on the parts of the other filmmakers, Garbo seems to be posing this way
and that, looking for some moments of truth in her time before the camera. She always finds them, even when they don't have
much to do with each other or with the vehicle that's transporting them. It's enough to make the movie memorable, but it
can induce a kind of rage against the men entrusted with such a treasure, who made no effort, at least in this movie, to rise
to its level -- to take up the creative challenge it represented.
Garbo isn't being showcased in "The Mysterious Lady" -- she's being pimped.
It's not pleasant to report that Videk Medalla's score for the TCM DVD evokes the cheesy, deracinated nature of the film
exactly. The love story centers around a piece of music by Puccini, but Medalla has chosen to substitute a tune of his own
composition in its place -- it sounds like a love-theme from a Sixties romantic comedy. You won't hear a whiff of old Vienna
in Medalla's score -- not even of the cardboard "old Vienna" the filmmakers settled for. Garbo, at least, deserved
better.
THE GREAT GOOD PLACE
5 December 2005
It's rare to read a work of sociology that makes you cry, but "The Great Good Place" by Ray Oldenburg is such
a work. Even the title touches my heart, describing as it does a place and phenomenon which has been all but eradicated from
American life by urban planners and suburban zoning laws . . . the local tavern, coffee house, diner, corner store, soda fountain
. . . the "third place" set in between home and work where the sometimes overwhelming confinement of the former
and the often stressful environment of the latter can be mediated by informal conviviality with a small voluntary community
of fellow citizens.
A true third place must be convenient, not dependent on traveling a great distance to reach, so its gatherings need not
be planned -- it must be utterly inclusive, public, welcoming, and it must have regulars who frequent it by happy choice and
not out of any sense of obligation. Whatever its physical ambiance might be, it becomes cozy and warm through sociability,
free and easy conversation, a sense of belonging not maintained by any rules except those freely chosen by each individual.
Oldenburg's valuable synthesis of sociological insight into the third place, and the dire consequences to the quality
of American life brought about by its demise, is also a quiet Jeremiad against the society, against all of us, who have allowed
this catastrophe to happen.
I think one reason people come so far in such numbers to Las Vegas is to experience, in a brief concentrated dose, the
free and easy mood of the vanished third place -- to drink and play with strangers who are not really strangers, once greeted
cheerfully and respectfully. Las Vegas is America's lost mythical corner tavern, with the naughty calendar on the wall, poker
in the back room, cheap food and drink at the bar. No expectations, no networking, no snobbery -- a true exercise in democracy,
inclusiveness, civility amidst diversity.
It's a fantasy, of course, since the unique mood of Las Vegas is not integrated into the lives of those who visit here,
and so can never take the place of a real third place. It is a great good place, though, where you can kick back a little,
forget the troubles of the workaday world, see a few familiar faces and have a friendly word or two with almost anyone you
meet, from any walk of life and any place on the map.
Oldenburg argues persuasively that we're not really human, fully human, if we don't have places in our regular day-to-day
lives where that is possible . . .
You can buy the book here:
The Great Good Place
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