It’s her birthday today.
In The Heiress, Olivia de Havilland gave one of the greatest performances in the history of cinema. Her final moment, ascending the stairs, as the grifter Montgomery Clift bangs on the door screaming her name, is one of the greatest final shots in cinema. The Heiress is that rare thing, a perfect movie. It’s really a quartet – played by de Havilland, Ralph Richardson, Miriam Hopkins and Montgomery Clift – an interwoven portrayal of a sick family system, undone by the outsider. Catherine is a victim not just of a controlling father, a manipulative fantasist aunt who encourages the delusions and ignores the threat, and the user who “courts” her and betrays her … but of her society. She is a victim of the world into which she was born. This was, of course, Henry James’ point, and Washington Square, the novel on which The Heiress is based, is slim (compared to his other works) – with every word an indictment. For me, it is a criticism of patriarchy, a word now so over-used as to become almost meaningless. Catherine lives in a world where a certain class of woman has only one option: get married. If you don’t get married, you will be at the mercy of your family, you depend on them for food/shelter. You can’t do anything else. In this world, love doesn’t come into the picture. “Class” is important here. Poor people were trapped in many ways, but they weren’t trapped by these byzantine social rules dominating private life.
So Catherine is a victim. She is a capable woman, but she has been kept in a state of suspended childhood, almost a forced naivete. She has no other option. Her naivete is not charming or adorable. It is grotesque (and infuriating: there is a social critique in James’ portrayal). Her naivete leaves her open to predation. When a predator appears, in the glamorous form of the pretty-talking fortune hunter Morris Townsend (Montgomery Clift), Catherine is completely unprotected. Patriarchy not only couldn’t save/protect her – as it promised to do – it offered her up into danger. Catherine is foolish in many ways, but her foolishness is imposed from the outside. The world is to blame. What other options did she have? She couldn’t get an education, beyond what was deemed appropriate for young ladies of a certain class. She couldn’t circulate on her own as a single lady, and get some experience which would have helped her clock Morris instantly as a Bad Dude Up to No Good. She couldn’t travel on her own. Or … she COULD. But she would have had to be brave enough, smart enough, resourceful enough, to reject her entire upbringing, to face scandal and shunning … and not too many people can do that. We are social animals. We need our community.
Catherine could have been a happy person in any other era. She could have gone the Now Voyager route, and find her place in a more bohemian world (the films have much in common). She could have made her own money. She could have been a librarian or a secretary or … really, anything. But in her time, in her place, she had to stay at home and play by the rules. These rules destroyed her.
The revelation of de Havilland’s performance is profound. (And don’t even get me started on Ralph Richardson. He totally understood what was being critiqued and set about – meticulously and perfectly – to embody Patriarchy with a capital P, in all its cruelty, condescension and control.) But there’s more complexity to be added. Catherine’s father is right to be concerned. He clocks Morris instantly. He knows his daughter is being used. He tries to save her. Unfortunately, and tragically, this comes out as “why would this glamorous young man be interested in YOU?”
The real revelation for Catherine is the contempt in which her father holds her. She has been living in a state of illusion. She has bought her society’s lie, about her place in it, about her value and worth. When she finally perceives how her father really sees her, nothing will ever be the same again.
De Havilland portrays this in chilling totality: her voice, her manner, her gestures – that needlepoint moment – her very soul has been altered. The scales have been ripped from her eyes. She now sees her world for what it is. She sees the lie.
While this truth is terrible, one wouldn’t wish for Catherine to stay in the place where her illusions are intact. Those illusions are built on sand. They cannot hold. They are phony. They are designed to keep her down, to keep her pliable and passive. And so when her life is destroyed by Morris’ betrayal, and when she sees how her father looks at her, her old self dies and a new one emerges, a stronger harder person. But free.
It is a towering performance. It is an example of what great acting can convey. It is not about “self”, it is not even about giving a great acting performance. It is attached to the larger world and its fictions, the lies it tells itself: de Havilland exposes the lie. She lives the consequences of the lie dying. She walks up the stairs, ignoring her lover’s anguished cries, her heart is hardened to him, she is turned to stone. Nothing could make her turn around and go open the door. She would rather die.
Her hardness is a tragedy. What would it have been like if the world had actually protected her, had nurtured her naive openness, and allowed her to blossom on her own terms? Wouldn’t it have been nice if the patriarchy had held up its end of the bargain?
Well, sure. But it’s all a lie.
At least Catherine knows it’s a lie now. The truth has set her free. Freedom can be a terrible thing, but the alternative is worse.
