Sylvia Plath; The Hollywood Version April 6, 2007
Posted by amanda in : Uncategorized , trackbackSo, still no news about the possible publication of “Words of Advice to an English Prof.” but I always feel a little guitly neglecting my blog so here is a brief response to the movie version of Sylvia Plath’s life “Sylvia” starring Gwyneth Paltrow as Sylvia Plath and Daniel Craig (2006’s James Bond) as Ted Hughes. I watched this movie last night with a couple of truly awesome Plath fans (and critics….Tyler). We ate her Tomato Soup Cake and it was generally a great time….except the movie really plays up the myth.
I know I shouldn’t be surprised by this….I mean it’s Hollywood, that’s typically how they do. I saw this film for the first time this summer. I guess it didn’t really bother me as much then, because I was reading her journals and had that careless summer attitude. Watching it this time after working almost exclusively on Plath for an entire semester really made me feel sick. You can tell that they (the director, screenplay writer, producers etc…) really tried very hard to make Ted Hughes look like the jerk that he was, but in the end they also made Plath look like a paranoid mess. Okay, I realize that Plath did have her problems and no, the ending was not surprising. What was surprising were the instances before they show Hughes starting his affair with Assia where they seem to present Plath as this super insecure, crazy person who rather drove Hughes to have an affair!
The film ends (and trust me, i’m not ruining anything) with a slow motion montage (set to the film’s main theme music) of the events of the morning they found Sylvia Plath dead in the kitchen. You see the nurse and a police man rescuing the children from their tape-barracaded room, you see two men carry Plath’s body out on a stretcher covered in a red cloth, and you see Ted Hughes standing over her desk where there is only a neatly stacked manuscript labeled “Ariel”. This gives Hughes some definite hero status in the end. He also gets HUGE credit in driving her to her suicide. The night before she commits suicide he comes over to see her and she’s made herself all pretty just for him, they sleep together and as their lying on the couch and she’s telling him that she forgives him and wants everything to be like it was before only better and he just lets her rant and rant and rant and then when she pauses for his consent, he says “Assia’s pregnant” SO LAME and then to make a terrible situation even more terrible, she just lays her head back down on his chest.
Those were the pivotal moments in the film, but for the literature minded folk who might want to see how they portray Plath writing her masterpieces, allow me to describe it for you. Typical Plath writing scene: Plath gazes at self in mirror, looking generally crazy, then she writes and writes and writes and the voice-over tells us that she’s totally creating her masterpieces right then and in perfect form. Meanwhile little Frieda is toddling around too-often by herself and nicholas is just crying and crying in his playpen. In short: this film is pure chaos!
The only good scenes are when Plath recites Chaucer to the cows from a boat and when Aurelia (Blythe Danner) tells Hughes that if he hurts her daughter she’ll kill him (only that is sullied because clearly it never comes to fruition).
Anyway, I understand any kind of reasonable portrayal of the life of Sylvia Plath would be a totally boring movie, and that it is the movie’s job to play-up life events to make them more interesting, but I was dissapointed. I know that probably the easiest way for people to learn about a life is by watching a film and if people want to learn about Sylvia Plath, that is the resource they will likely turn to.
Comments»
Why not simply admit the fact that there are no villains or heroines/heroes in the story regarding Plath and Hughes’ marriage? Yes, he cheated on her. But that doesn’t give her an excuse for committing suicide. Let’s face it. Both of them screwed up.
i do admit that there are no heroes or villains in this “story” but I also admit (throughout) the blog that i’m horribly biased. What I meant to convey in this post is that the movie makes it look like she committed suicide because of him and I don’t think (rather I know) that she didn’t. I don’t believe someone could/would commit suicide over another person and it seems unreasonably cruel for the film to give him that much power over her life. This blog/post never ever tries to say Sylvia Plath was purely a victim or angel, but that either label is meaningless because it is her poetry that we should examine. Anything that perpetuates the myth (ie: this film) will get a good rant.
I agree with Amanda. I wasn’t thrilled over the idea that the film will focus on the relationship Sylvia had with Ted above all other aspects of her life. It is called “Sylvia,” yet effectively revolves around her marriage to Hughes and ultimately portrays her suicide as a result of his leaving her. Anyone who has studied Plath will know that her depressions mainly from within. That is not to say Hughes played no role in her final depression, but to make him as the primary object is highly inaccurate.