{"id":9681,"date":"2009-11-08T08:40:03","date_gmt":"2009-11-08T13:40:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=9681"},"modified":"2023-01-21T10:18:39","modified_gmt":"2023-01-21T15:18:39","slug":"edward-hoppers-usherette","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=9681","title":{"rendered":"Edward Hopper&#8217;s Usherette"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe style=\"width:120px;height:240px;\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" src=\"\/\/ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/widgets\/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&#038;OneJS=1&#038;Operation=GetAdHtml&#038;MarketPlace=US&#038;source=ac&#038;ref=tf_til&#038;ad_type=product_link&#038;tracking_id=thesheivari-20&#038;marketplace=amazon&#038;region=US&#038;placement=0375701540&#038;asins=0375701540&#038;linkId=TPOUNBRQR7ALI5TV&#038;show_border=true&#038;link_opens_in_new_window=true\"><br \/>\n<\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\nFrom David Thomson&#8217;s <i><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0375701540?ie=UTF8&#038;tag=thesheivari-20&#038;linkCode=as2&#038;camp=1789&#038;creative=9325&#038;creativeASIN=0375701540\">The Whole Equation: A History of Hollywood<\/a><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=thesheivari-20&#038;l=as2&#038;o=1&#038;a=0375701540\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" style=\"border:none !important; margin:0px !important;\" \/><\/i>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>She is not watching the movie. She is not that kind of usherette bursting to get into pictures, a would-be actress studying every tiny gesture on the screen. No, she has her own private movie running, and maybe she is an usherette because in that job you have time to sink into your own thoughts, time to go unnoticed.<\/p>\n<p>Not that she is anonymous or insignificant. Far from it. She&#8217;d be tall, I think, even without those high-heeled sandals with their sexy straps. And how does light get to her arched white feet? You can see within those dark blue slacks that she has legs all the way up, a cinched waist and the heave of breasts, as well as that corn-colored hair Doris Day had at Warner Brothers in the fifties, that drops on her shoulders like a wave. And there is light enough to pick out one side of her face &#8211; the bone-like flash of wrist and palm.  I never saw skin so luminous in a functioning movie house &#8211; no, not even one glimpse of pale thigh on a back-row seat in the inadvertent swing of a south London usherette&#8217;s touch. This girl has such a light strapped to her left wrist; you can see it tucked under the right elbow, thrust up to sustain the head so full of sadness or rapture.<\/p>\n<p>Why watch the movie when that girl is standing there? Is that what the painting is about? Is it Hopper&#8217;s way of saying that within the crowded, half-awake daydreaming of a packed theater, there may be some pressing loneliness or melancholy, one beautiful girl who doesn&#8217;t buy the escape of the screen? Yes, that thought is there for sure: Hopper believed in the lonely crowd and urban solitude. He hoped to find drama there, just as his piercing eyes see her feet &#8211; put the light where the money (or the sexiness) is. But there&#8217;s something else going on which has to do with the eternal difficulty in working out what is on the screen.<\/p>\n<p>I mean, this is 1939, so you can propose that the picture playing is something from that famously golden year.  Is it <i>Dark Victory, Love Affair, Wuthering Heights<\/i>? I can believe this girl would like those movies and know them well enough so that she could lean against a wall &#8211; Hopper is so alert to tiredness &#8211; and just listen to its dense soundtrack. I think her eyes are closed &#8211; but maybe that&#8217;s just me &#8211; the better to encourage the process of digestion or absorption.<\/p>\n<p>There, that is getting close to something, I think. As I look at the painting I feel myself absorbing its atmosphere, yet being absorbed, so that I wonder if the girl isn&#8217;t dreaming me as I watch her. Like &#8220;Madeleine&#8221; in <i>Vertigo<\/i>, declining to notice Scotty, but falling in love with him a little even as he comes under her spell?  Don&#8217;t we fall in love with those who look at us with yearning?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>\n<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/800px-Newyork-movie-edward-hopper-1939-e1674313385328.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"700\" height=\"564\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-184797\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/800px-Newyork-movie-edward-hopper-1939-e1674313385328.jpg 700w, https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/800px-Newyork-movie-edward-hopper-1939-e1674313385328-200x161.jpg 200w, https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/800px-Newyork-movie-edward-hopper-1939-e1674313385328-400x322.jpg 400w, https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/800px-Newyork-movie-edward-hopper-1939-e1674313385328-100x81.jpg 100w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>\n<iframe style=\"width:120px;height:240px;\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" src=\"\/\/ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/widgets\/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&#038;OneJS=1&#038;Operation=GetAdHtml&#038;MarketPlace=US&#038;source=ac&#038;ref=tf_til&#038;ad_type=product_link&#038;tracking_id=thesheivari-20&#038;marketplace=amazon&#038;region=US&#038;placement=0375701540&#038;asins=0375701540&#038;linkId=TPOUNBRQR7ALI5TV&#038;show_border=true&#038;link_opens_in_new_window=true\"><br \/>\n<\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From David Thomson&#8217;s The Whole Equation: A History of Hollywood: She is not watching the movie. She is not that kind of usherette bursting to get into pictures, a would-be actress studying every tiny gesture on the screen. No, she &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=9681\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15,4],"tags":[1514,1226,2647],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9681"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9681"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9681\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":184802,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9681\/revisions\/184802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}