Sunday, December 4, 2011

The Barefoot Contessa (1954), dir. by Joseph L. Mankiewicz

She hates her low-class background and despises herself for it and for any urge she sees as "low" - for example, her compulsive uncontrollable sexual attraction to brutish men. Instead of remaining aware of her impulses and doing something about them, she tries to render herself oblivious. She succumbs to every impulse, but first she has to find a convincing justification for it (she does it "to spite someone", or – in the climax – deceives herself that her husband would want it). As a result, she is split between her highest and lowest social points (becomes the "barefoot contessa") – and falls into subjectivism.

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