THE GODDESS
US, 1958, 105 minutes, Black and white.
Kim Stanley, Lloyd Bridges, Steve Hill, Betty Lou Holland, Elizabeth Wilson.
Directed by John Cromwell.
The Goddess is impressive serious drama showing the pressures on an actress and her response to ambition and the pressures of life. It is grim realism at its best, '50s style. Directed by veteran John Cromwell, the film features Kim Stanley who has made only rare appearances on the screen, e.g. in her Oscar-nominated role in Seance On A Wet Afternoon, 1964. The Goddess is well worth viewing for a study in human behaviour and psychology as well as revealing something of the temperament and pressures of theatre life.
1. The meaning of the title, expectations, irony?
2. The value of the structure of the film: a portrait, glimpses? Was this enough for insight into the character and the themes?
3. The value of black and white photography, realistic locations, realism, the South, Hollywood etc.?
4. How important for the film's impact was the dialogue? The monologues, commentary, sharp sayings?
5. The quality of the incidents chosen to portray the Goddess? The incidents as symbols for her life and its meaning?
6. The value of Kim Stanley's performance: in each stage of her life and portrait?
7. Part One: The build-up of the atmosphere of the '30s, the '30s style, the little girl with her mother, her loneliness, calculating and shrewd? The picture of her aunt and uncle, her mother's story, the truth? Her mother wanting a good time and her daughter hearing it? The refusal of the aunt and uncle? The transition of her mother to religious person from goodtime girl? Was the change credible? The impact of all this on Emily growing up? School and her asserting of herself? Boys and outings? An easy date? Incapable of love?
8. Part Two: Emily growing up like her mother, wanting a good time, the atmosphere of war? Had she changed from her adolescence? The impact of her family? Why did she wish to help John Tower? How much sympathy, selfishness? How much love? The effect of falling in love on her? The marriage and the talk about the truth? The souring of the marriage? John's isolation? Her relationship with her daughter and the repetition of her mother's words about a good time? Why did the marriage break down?
9. Part Three: The fact that a divorce had happened, her second marriage? Dutch and her relationship to him? Two empty lives combining? Dutch as a character and his impact on Emily? Her drinking, her work in the studios, her publicity seeking? How did she become a star, was this credible? Her decisions about her career? Her wanting Dutch, yet her career, and the breakdown of the marriage? The silent judgment and support of her mother? Her mental breakdown, her religious phase? The disillusionment of Emily with everything? Her fussiness with her friends? What achievement had she by this stage of her life? What did she know, what could she do? The meaning of her life?
10. What did the film have to say about environment and its effect on people? Their reactions to their heritage and environment, growing resentment and the blighting of lives?
11. The impact of the minor characters in the film: the mother, aunt and uncle, John Tower, Dutch, the studio people, the secretary? How well defined were these characters?
12. The exploration of themes: ambition, drive, the effect of ambition on lives and on others?
13. How much insight and wisdom in the film? The insight Into the portrait of a woman?
