VLVL(5) At the Movies and on the Tube

[Paul Nightingale]

>From Toby G Levy:
>  
> Mildred Pierce was a box office smash in 1945 for Joan Crawford.  Zoyd
> says that he feels like the character Bert, because in the movie (as
in
> the novel by James M. Cain) Bert is rejected by Mildred, who goes on
to
> have a successful life without her husband. So his comment is a
> reference to Frenesi's rejection of Zoyd.  Frenesi tells Zoyd that she
> appreciates being compared to Joan Crawford, but she is not rejecting
> Zoyd so she can go man-hunting.
> 
> It seems strange that these two characters are discussing a movie from
> 1945 in the 1970s.  This was just before cable TV and VCRs exploded
the
> availability of old movies. Why do you suppose Pynchon has the two
main
> characters bring this movie up?
> 

In the 1970s films like Mildred Pierce were important to post-auteurist
(ie feminist/genre) critics interested in narrative. In an important
sense classical Hollywood wasn't old but contemporary. So another
example of Pynchon's interest in the way the cultural text is
appropriated and rewritten by its readers/fans.

As regards MP: it begins with a murder and the rest of the film takes
the form of a flashback leading up to the murder and the killer's
identity. Ch5 in VL begins with Zoyd giving the business card (or
rather, having already given it) to Prairie. What follows is a flashback
leading up to the moment when he himself receives the card from Takeshi.

One might say the film is ideologically compromised. Mildred is
certainly a 'strong' character, but the film punishes her for her
success as a businesswoman. There's plenty of room for conflicting
accounts, but at the end of the film she seems to accept responsibility
for her failings (eg as a mother) when faithful Bert so nobly takes her
back. To which Frenesi might have said: "You wish!"