My question was, why did William Dieterle want to begin with this \u00e2\u20ac\u0153god\u00e2\u20ac\u009d-like sort of trance? Why not just begin with Eben and his flashback to meeting Jennie for the first time\u00e2\u20ac\u201das it does in the book? It seems that Dieterle wanted these questions up-front, marked by shots of clouds \u00e2\u20ac\u0153wrapping\u00e2\u20ac\u009d themselves around the Earth in time. Later along in the movie, most of Jennie\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s appearances will be \u00e2\u20ac\u0153wrapped\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in clouds, or a kind of misty haze.<\/p>\n
Yet in the novel, Robert Nathan begins with a short reflection from Eben and then launches into his story of Jennie. Nathan obviously didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t need for Jennie to be introduced in a transient fog, the situation was already fantastic because the audience was experiencing it with the characters. We had the same shivers as Eben Adams, we felt the same wave crash over us, and shed the same tears when Jennie\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s parents died. When Jennie appears and visits with Eben, time is suspended and nothing can be trusted as real. Dieterle let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s us know this by the clouds, and the haze\u00e2\u20ac\u201dmaking his job slightly more difficult than Robert Nathan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s.
\nThe time order, or \u00e2\u20ac\u0153discourse-time\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is exactly the same in both mediums of Portrait of Jennie. Seymour Chatman discusses time and the concept of establishing shots, more specifically the long shot \u00e2\u20ac\u0153introduced at the beginning of a scene to establish the interrelationship of details to be shown subsequently in nearer shots.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n
The lengthy narration in the beginning the quick cuts between the clouds and the city skylines the story begins to suggest the motifs of expansion and transcendence of time, and the collapse of boundaries between the two. In further scenes, these \u00e2\u20ac\u0153aerial\u00e2\u20ac\u009d shots of New York City, the sea landscape, or the Central Park. The shots then conclude with a picture of New York City on a canvass. The interweaving texture is clearly visible. These shots are narrative in the sense that they convey time beginning the story, and also passing between scenes. The mundane time passage occurs outside, or off screen. Yet, this is very important to Portrait of Jennie, the novel. Obviously there are no \u00e2\u20ac\u0153pauses\u00e2\u20ac\u009d for time passage\u00e2\u20ac\u201dit just does. With respect to his internal dialogue, Eben and Jennie live in a continuum outside of their (what I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll call) \u00e2\u20ac\u0153real life\u00e2\u20ac\u009d time.<\/p>\n
In certain scenes of the movie, however, Dieterle chooses to depict the different times in interesting ways outside of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153narrative event shots\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. For example, after \u00e2\u20ac\u0153grown-up\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Jennie informs Eben she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s leaving to see her sick aunt, the camera cuts to a close-up of two of them. Set in the city park, Jennie leans up against a tree and listens to Eben. He is slightly closer to the camera and she is barely in the background. He says slowly, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153No matter how far away that kind of a distance is, it can be reached\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6.over there beyond the hills one can drive to\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6eastward, to the seas. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the only kind of distance I ever knew before.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d And then he explains, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153But now I feel another kind of distance, a crueler distance\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6a distance of yesterday and tomorrow.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d The camera is faces them directly, and the light is thrown completely on Jennie\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s face. Although Eben is speaking, only his eyes looking off screen can be seen clearly. Yet again, I believe William Dieterle decided to voice this opinion not only through his character made for Jennifer Jones, but also through his interesting choices of quotations used following the initial opening scene. His specific choice of John Keats\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Ode on a Grecian Urn already starts the audience on a solemn note because it essentially argues that even if art is eternal, reality is the real truth–separating these two worlds.<\/p>\n Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe \tI think Dieterle was taking creative license with this selection of Keats. Granted, he only displayed the final couplet, but I wanted more context to understand it. It is assumed that the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153woe\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Dieterle refers to is the loss of Jennie, but her figure and presence (her beauty) is forever what we, the audience and Eben Adams, see. The Grecian urn depicts a tale of action and life on the front of the Urn, but because it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s suspended in time as a work of art, the audience (Keats) contrasts the beautiful scene with the reality of a world in pain. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s beauty remains intact because of our (the audiences) perception of it. \tIn the novel, Portrait of Jennie, we see the creation and definition of soul (and in this case life) through the two characters of Eben and Jennie. In Chatman\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s article he discusses the rou\u00c3\u00a9s of \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcprettiness\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 and the complications of depicting it on screen. If one were to read of prettiness on paper, says Chatman, each reader would visualize \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcprettiness\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 in his or her own degree. However, a filmmaker has to come to an agreement of what best represents \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcpretty.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Reversing this kind of logic and applying it to our two soul mates, a filmmaker can easily make two characters \u00e2\u20ac\u0153complete\u00e2\u20ac\u009d each other with acting techniques and visual on-screen chemistry. This kind of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153specified love\u00e2\u20ac\u009d can only be placed in the generic sense in words. The author prays the reader understands what he or she sees in her mind to be the best depiction of ____and ____\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s romance. \tPerhaps the most insightful discussion about art occurs in the book, and not in the movie, between Eben and a friend of Eben\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s, Arne Kuntsler. I find this interaction to be most amusing and enlightening, as I personally relate to Arne (or at least the description of him). After looking over his friend\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s portfolio, Arne asserts that Eben hasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t a chance in the art world, his pictures of landscapes and flowers aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t enough to keep him afloat, so to speak. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Art should belong to the masses,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he claims. And after speaking with Gus and Mr. Moore, Kuntsler and Eben retire for another beer. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Just the same,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he says, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153art can only mean something to the artist who creates it.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d So basically this aligns with the beauty argument formed earlier. Beauty is made and seen by everyone, but the only people who create it in an artistic medium are the ones who give it meaning\u00e2\u20ac\u201dtragically, the only ones who will, and can experience that meaning. <\/p>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n
\nJennie and Eben are separated by much more than tree and lighting, obviously. To add icing to the cake, it almost looks as though Jennie’s (or Jennifer Jones’ character) face is suspended. The tension of two \u00e2\u20ac\u0153worlds\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is paramount to Eben’s dialogue on distance. He refers to the distance he feels to his art, from his love when she leaves him (or sits right next to him), and in his past, present and future life \u00e2\u20ac\u201call blending together.
\nIn the novel, they discuss the beauty of the park and Jennie makes the observation that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the sun goes down in the same green, lovely sky; the birds sing\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6for us, or yesterday\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6or for tomorrow. It was never made for anything but beauty, Eben\u00e2\u20ac\u201dwhether we live now, or long ago.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d In a sort of lyrical way, Jennie is describing how beauty can transcend time, but also allowing for it to display it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s ultimate uselessness. If one can see beauty and experience it (albeit Jennie or a landscape), does it serve any higher purpose if it never really lives?<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n
\nThan ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say’st,
\n‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty,\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthat is all
\nYe know on earth, and all ye need to know.’ <\/em>
\n\t-John Keats, Ode on a Grecian Urn<\/p>\n
\n\tSimilarly, in The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde, Dorian is the subject and Basil Hallward is the artist. Hallward becomes obsessed with Dorian and his physical attributes, deciding to paint them to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153revitalize the wearied senses.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d The picture represents the fascination society has with youthful beauty and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s manifestations in art. Dorian throws himself into an almost hedonistic lifestyle, and although he is a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153real\u00e2\u20ac\u009d character, The Picture of Dorian Gray can also be categorized as a fantasy because Dorian wishes to retain the beauty he has in his picture. His wish is granted, yet it leads to his ultimate demise. Although youth and beauty remain important, the portrait is returned to its original form –suggesting the price one must pay for beauty and youth is too high. Indeed, Dorian gives nothing less than his soul.<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n
\n\tThe romance between Eben and Jennie is a bit more complicated, because their relationship begins with Jennie as a little girl \u00e2\u20ac\u0153hurrying\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to age to Eben\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s ideal woman. Eben starts out as her friendly adult acquaintance, but falls in love with her by the time she \u00e2\u20ac\u0153hurries\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to adolescence. I like to think of it more as Jennie in Eben\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s head \u00e2\u20ac\u0153drying\u00e2\u20ac\u009d on her canvass. After all, she is a work of art. Bad pun.
\n
<\/a><\/p>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n