BLUEBEARD
France/ltaly/Germany, 1972, 124 minutes, Colour.
Richard Burton, Raquel Welch, Joey Heatherton,, Virna Lisi, Nathalie Delon, Matthieu Carriere.
Directed by Edward Dmytryk.
Bluebeard is probably a very silly film, yet it has a lot of fascination despite so much preposterous nonsense. A parody of horror films, salacious sex farces, baroque Gothic melodrama, plus a dash of Nazi Germany atmospherics in the roaring 20s, it has a mournful Bluebeard Burton enjoying murdering his way through life. The whole thing is uneven, awkwardly structured in flashbacks, touching depth only momentarily and getting away with dubious taste only because it is all being sent up. A guillotined Virna Lisi had to be shut up for singing perpetually and off key; and so on, until Bluebeard is laid to rest to the tune of the Charleston.
1. How seriously should this film have been taken? If it was not serious, was it worth making?
2. Comment on the various styles of film used here; horror film, sex farce, parody, German Nazi atmospheric thriller, love film.
3. Comment on the structure of the film. Was it smoothly organised, or awkward? The value and place of the flashbacks? Did the flashback structure generate interest and suspense?
4. For what audience was this film made? What attitudes and understanding did it presuppose in its audience? Why?
5. Comment on the settings and style of photography. The physical beauty of the palace, the surroundings. The political atmosphere of the Nazis, anti-Semitic feelings and riots, the 1920's.
6. Bluebeard himself: was he drawn as a real person? A caricature? Something of both? The various facets of his personality as presented, did they help you to understand him? His initial flight, and his war record? His playing of the organ and his eyes fixed on his mother? His taking of photographs and the designing of the pictures of his mother and his victims? His choice of wives? The reasons that he murdered them? The styles of his murders? His relationship to Marthe, and her death? The importance of his physical impotence?
7. The serious atmosphere of the film: the Jewish riots, the deaths, and Bluebeard's own murder? How did they blend with the comic element? Especially the styles of death, the parody, and the deadpan dialogue? (Even Bluebeard's own death had its melodrama with the playing of the Charleston while he was lying in state.)
8. Anne: Was Joey Heatherton's performance well matched to Richard Burton's? Anne as an American, new world innocence outwitting old world? Why was she attracted by Bluebeard and vice versa? Did she make a sympathetic heroine? Why did Bluebeard tell her everything?
9. The other victims: was this just parody? Or was there some meaning in these people and the point of their murders?
The singer: her perpetual singing, and off key, and that "she had to be shut up"?
Erika: as pretending to be fashionable, as poor, as helpless, the lesbian relationship with the prostitute, the style of her death?
The nun: the parody on nun films, the innocence that the nun professed, then her overbearing honesty; the religious emphasis; the irony of her death?
Brigit: women’s' lib, fanatic, sadist, masochist, as a drunkard, the irony of her death?
The girl who was killed by the falcon, her inability to be excited or aroused, her indolence?
His first wife: her happiness, her discovery of what was wrong with him, the irony of her hunting, and then her being the victim of the hunt?
the ice room: how much a symbol of Gothic horror films, how ghastly, how effective for the melodrama and Anne?
10. How baroque was the film, especially the decor of the interiors? What did this add to the film? How much of a horror film was it? With the use of the styles of horror films? The use of the "Cabaret" style of film, and the atmosphere of Nazi Germany? How salacious a film was this? Was it any better than a sex comedy?
11. The character of the violinist. Did he fit into the atmosphere of the film? was his presence and stalking Bluebeard over dramatic? The nature of his shooting of Bluebeard?
12. The irony of Anne's being rescued by the violinist shooting the picture of Bluebeard?
13. The irony of the funeral, so solemn, yet the Charleston, and this was the end of the film?
14. Was this film really entertaining? Did the questions is raised seem worthwhile? Even worth the making of the film for entertainment?
