The Modern Woman?

David Thomson is responsible for a book entitled The Moment of Psycho: How Alfred Hitchcock Taught America to Love Murder.

No, I haven't read it and don't plan to but it seems like something to keep in the back of our minds as we go through his review of a recent book about Holly Golightly, a book that claims that she is part of the "The Dawn of the Modern Woman". Because a big part of Thomson's attack, critique is too weak word, on Holly and Audrey Hepburn, the woman who played her, is an attack on the artificiality of the role.

Now think of murder, the willful killing of another human being, and ask yourself could there be anything realistic about a movie that supposedly made us love murder? Psycho is plenty gritty to be sure but ...

Anyway, what is Thomson's beef with Holly. Well there are a number of arguments.

First off, he is upset that the movie changes the book. Well, it does change the book and, as Thomson argues persuasively, it does more than water it down, it subverts the book.

Normally, that is the kind of thing I can get quite worked up about. Why call your film Brideshead Revisited if your whole intent from the get-go is to film a story that subverts what the author wrote. That said, Breakfast at Tiffany's was just a best-seller of the day at the time not a great classic and the movie is probably the only reason the novella is still in print today. Even people who like Truman Capote don't consider it his best work.

But, if we let ourselves get past that, there is nothing to say that the movie might not have some importance even if it isn't an accurate reflection of the novella it is based on.

Which brings me to the second part of Thomson's beef.

 And in the spirit that would urge all of us in the age of mass media to be suspicious of the “adorable” (especially when it is dressed expensively), I have to say that it is past time that we re-examine Audrey Hepburn—to say nothing of that will-of-the wisp, that huckleberry friend, Holly Golightly, a creature who has survived because no one any longer bothers to read Truman Capote’s original description of her.

He is firmly convinced that only a much grittier, realistic account of Holly would have been acceptable. Think about that in moral terms for a moment: the man who thinks that making murder lovable has serious objections to a movie that makes a prostitute "adorable".

I'll get to the alternatives Thomson thinks would have been better in another post, this is already too long. Mr. Wasson (the author of the book under review) claims that Holly is part of the dawn of modern womanhood. I haven't read his book either and don't plan to but that strikes me as a very plausible claim. I'll list the points I think are relevant in my next post but even if we think only of the commercial impact of Holly Golightly Here is the picture that Thomson's editors chose to put at the top of his review:

You know that image don't you? It's a very influential image. You couldn't honestly say that many women attempt to be that persona for two reasons: 1) unless, a woman can unhesitatingly describe herself as a gamine brunette with a boyish body, it's impossible to pull off  and 2) even if you meet the first qualification, it's very hard work. Both those things are good things. Any look worth pursuing must suit only a specific body type and be hard to pull off.

And the end result is a woman who is deeply attractive to both men and other women. The editors, of course, know this. They knew that putting that picture at the top would make us more likely to read the text below it.