A reponse to A Portrait of Jennie by the one, the only Pia Santaklaus

Hi Brett,

Allow me a few thoughts on tonight’s Cinemateque feature, PORTRAIT OF JENNIE (1948).

I really enjoyed this fabulous piece of Hollywood gothic fantasy.

To me, the story figured and probably came about, through a melding of archetypal ideas from some very classic dream literature; in particular Oscar Wilde’s ‘PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY’ and John Keats’ poems ‘LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI’ and ‘ODE ON A GRECIAN URN’.

The movie opens with lines from John Keats’ ODE ON A GRECIAN URN so we know the writer was probably a Keats fan:

“Beauty is truth, truth beauty, that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know”

Keats’ ‘ODE’ may reveal further sources of inspiration for PORTRAIT OF JENNIE.
Consider the following lines:

“Thou still unravished bride of quietness, Thou foster child of silence and slow time”.

Furthermore, “She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss, Forever wilt thou love, and she be fair!”

These lines may also have inspired Oscar Wilde’s ‘Picture of Dorian Gray’. Wilde definitely was a Keats fan!

The role of the artist in his loft may have obliquely transpired from the words: “O Attic shape! Fair attitude!”

The basic theme of a haunted male, falling obsessively in love with a mysterious, ethereal, wisp-like female vision and then loitering around particular spots where he hopes to see her again, is a theme repeated over and over throughout centuries of literature. Even Bob Dylan did it!

Consider Keats’ short masterpiece ‘LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI’ (The Beautiful Woman Without Thanks) in which a knight looking pale, ravaged and woeful, reveals that he has been in love with and abandoned by a beautiful lady. The poem remains haunting with a sense of mystery which continues to intrigue and puzzle readers.

"O, what can ail thee, knight-at-arms, alone and palely loitering?” The words "She took me" and "she wept and sigh'd" may explain his understanding of the situation.

The knight, ravaged by his visionary experience, seems deluded by his beloved or perhaps he is even deluding himself. Her impact on the knight is clear as he "nothing else saw all day long"...obssesion!

His refusal to let go of the joys of the shadowy imagination destroys his life in the real world. The visionary experience must only be fleeting for it is very difficult for humans to live in such a realm for too long, although dreamers choose to ignore such a warning.

The pair is incompatible by nature and by time. She becomes his muse and he rejects the real world for an ideal one which cannot exist in reality. Her presence both starves and nourishes him. In giving himself entirely to her (the dream), he could destroy his life in the real world. In this sense, the lady may in fact be a "femme fatale".

She seduced him with her beauty and promises of love and sensuality "roots of relish sweet and honey wild, and manna dew". Such destructiveness of love is another common theme in the folk tales. He continues to desire her, despite her abandoning him. Freud may have suggested that such a theme may be traced back to ‘abandonment issues’ in childhood…who knows?

In LA BELLE DAME, She takes him to her ‘elfin grotto’, whereas PORTRAIT OF JENNIE reverses that scenario; he takes her to his small studio.

Oscar Wilde’s novel (PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY) tells of a young attractive man named Dorian Gray, who becomes the subject of a painting by an Artist who is greatly inspired by Dorian's physical beauty and becomes totally infatuated with him, believing Dorian’s beauty might be the muse to inspire a fresh approach in his art.

Realising that one day his beauty will fade, Dorian wishes that the portrait painted of him would age rather than himself. Dorian's wish is fulfilled.

In PORTRAIT OF JENNIE, Jennie ages in an accelerated fashion through time and her portrait stays beautiful forever, for people visiting art galleries to admire for years to come. This is the inverse of Oscar Wilde’s theme.

Atheticism and beauty are strong themes running through The Picture of Dorian Gray, Ode On A Grecian Urn, La Belle Dame Sans Merci and A Portrait of Jennie.

It’s appropriate that an actress named Jennifer (Jennie) Jones was chosen to play the part of Jennie. Apparently David O. Selznick purchased the book as a vehicle for Jennifer Jones.

Once again, thank you Brett for the fine show you chose for us all tonight. It was fabulous.

Pia Santaklaus