First of all, I’m talking about the Marilyn Monroe, Clark Gable, Montgomery Clift and Eli Wallach movie The Misfits. Not the punk band originally fronted by Glenn Danzig.
It’s a strange & lovely experience to see an old film in a movie theater. It’s strange because I’m doing what someone over fifty years ago was doing as well but reacting to it with very different ways of thinking about relationships, experiences, etc. It’s lovely for that exact same reason. I like the romance of old Hollywood films, especially within my perception of the perfect atmosphere of film-viewing – the lights are dark, only about 2 dozen people in a theater that can hold 200 and a hush fills the space instead of murmurs and crinkly wrappers. (Even though I do my share of whispered talking). I’m the first to admit that I overly romanticize certain aspects of cinema but I get a little thrill out of watching older films in theaters because for a few moments I get to pretend I’m watching it at the same time it was released and a few minutes after the film is over, the spell is broken and I start to overlap the ideas from then with the present.
Gay’s comments about how anything’s better than a job are more idealistic now rather than a statement of fact, a sentiment that, at the time of filming, was transitioning from truth to ideal, with John Huston and Arthur Miller deconstructing the Western. The difference being that people now try to move from having a regular job towards doing something that isn’t viewed as a “job”, whereas Gay was trying to hold onto something that was fading out.
Some of the parallels and observations are quite obvious. Isabelle Steers – horses. Gay, Roslyn, Perce and Guido are all misfits and Gay refers to the Mustangs as misfit horses. Roslyn’s outburst in the desert, jerking and bucking like the tied up horses. The men all (except maybe Perce but I can’t recall for sure) all impart their own notions of what Roslyn is without ever asking her. She makes men feel happy, she exudes life, she’s living while the others aren’t. There are a few moments here and there where she starts to explain/assert herself but for the most part she’s treated much in the same way the actress that plays her has been treated – a desired symbol of sex that has always been possessed and directed rather than listened to. The only one that seems to actually do that, listen to Roslyn, is Perce, possibly the result of both he and Roslyn living their lives as throwaways. Neither one of them has any real family, Isabelle is just about the closest thing Roslyn has to family and Perce never had anyone cry for him before (after the rodeo).
Eli Wallach’s Guido is fascinating. He comes across as boyish and shy at first but the more you listen to him talk, especially about his life and Roslyn, the times when he seems the most lost in this thoughts and speaking without considering what he’s saying and to whom, those are when he appears the scariest. He speaks about his wife’s death with a coldness that doesn’t seem to ring true for a man who seemingly had the most loving wife in the world but died because he had a flat tire. Then, when Roslyn breaks down in the desert, after she calls him out for trying to get her to leave Gay for him, he tells Gay that women are malicious and will always try to drive them (men)/him down and that he (Guido) should know. This is actually the point where I started thinking of a little history of Guido – that either he killed his wife himself or that an accident really did happen and he just chose to not get help to her because he knew what would happen. Anything can happen in the country – in the West – where you’re often left to fend for yourself and with the devices you have on hand.
It’s apparent that Roslyn is being reduced from human being to animal by those around her. In a way, she does it to herself by not speaking up and not taking control. Except that she does, it’s just that no one listens. When she’s putting on a show, that’s when she’s adored but when she tries to defend the defenseless are the times when she is, literally, pushed aside. So then what? The ending is bothersome, to me. Gay changes, he allows the horses to go free, it just seems that he wanted to be the one to decide that it happen rather than let Roslyn, a woman, anyone else, make him let go – either of the Mustangs or the old ways of the West. He was willing, he admits throughout the film that he’s a changing man who was doing things for a woman that he never did before. But like anyone with a healthy amount of pride and stubbornness to them, he only agreed to let go on his own terms.
There are several other elements of this film that are fascinating and at times prophetic. The way the men talk about Roslyn/Marilyn. The despair in her voice when she tells Perce that she isn’t sure where she belongs after her asks if she belongs to Gay. The way the we, the camera, everyone objectifies her. The fact that it was the last film Clark Gable ever made and the last full film of Monroe’s. The Hollywood myth is built and fortified with this film. It is one of the most complexly simple movies. It tells you what it is and what it’s about throughout, you just have to watch and listen.
