Not Coming to a Theater Near You

Rhinoceros

Transformations As powerful and relevant as Ionesco’s play might be, even today, the 1974 film adaptation starring Gene Wilder and Zero Mostel is not. Yes, it’s a promising little film, and at times it seems determined to retain much of Ionesco’s purpose. But certain changes to the play, not to mention the casting itself, render the film version an ineffective, messy, and almost counterproductive interpretation, if that’s even the right word for what it is.

Now, Voyager

Transformations Though it was no doubt made for unhappily married middle-aged housewives (as all Hollywood melodramas allegedly were), Now, Voyager is not about them, at least not in the way that Stella Dallas or Mildred Pierce or Magnificent Obsession or Imitation of Life or All That Heaven Allows are about them. Unlike these movies, Now, Voyager is not a fantasy fulfillment of a thirty- or forty-ish woman’s need for a second act after marriage and children have somehow failed to satisfy. Instead it is a fantasy about what can happen in one’s thirties when the first act never materializes.

That Obscure Object of Desire

Transformations Buñuel cast the Spanish Angela Molina and the French Carole Bouquet in the role of Conchita, two women who don’t look or sound anything alike. The two women alternate scenes in the film haphazardly; while Molina’s fiery Conchita differs somewhat from Bouquet’s more sensual interpretation, their collaboration is more of a surrealist gesture than an attempt at implying a deeper meaning. We therefore see Conchita through Mathieu’s eyes: volatile, erratic, two completely different people occupying the same person.