"Live, Laugh, Love." This is the big conclusion of the surreal section of "Follies." Each of the characters has had a big number. Phyllis, Sally, and Buddy have all articulated their problems in an incisive way. But Ben does something different. He does a bullshit number. This is a classic Sondheim move--where the words are at odds with the character's real feelings. (See "Send in the Clowns," "The Glamorous Life," "Everybody Loves Louis.")
The idea behind "Live, Laugh, Love" is simple. Ben is saying: Many people get caught up in status considerations and silly distractions, but if you ask me, life is just a bowl of cherries. Take it easy. So, in part, the song is a "list song": Like "The Ladies who Lunch," it catalogues all the many ways you could pass the time. (It also makes us think of Cole Porter's "I Get a Kick Out of You." "Some get a kick from cocaine. Some get their kicks in a plane. Some get a kick from champagne." Ben's observation: "Some fellows sweat to get to be millionaires." "Some like to be the champs at saving postage stamps." "Some like to sink and think in their easy chairs of all the things they've risen above." But: Gosh! All that striving! No thank you. Just chill, says Ben. "What's the point of shoving your way to the top?"
What makes the song extraordinary is the meltdown at the end. Here, Sondheim is directly channeling the younger Sondheim, who wrote "Gypsy." In that show, Rose has a big bombastic finale. She starts by saying she is going to conquer the world; she's a cannonball of self-esteem, indestructible. But she falters. "Mama's talking loud, Mama doesn't care, Mama's letting loose, Mama....Mama...?" So chilling! Form underlines content: The ellipsis suggests that Rose actually doesn't mean much of what she has said before. Then, she becomes so lost that "Mama" takes on new meaning. Before, she had been using "Mama" to refer to herself in the third person--a power play, like Bob Dole calling himself "Bob Dole," almost like the royal "we." But then "Mama" suddenly changes; it's meant to refer to Rose's own "Mama." In a heartbeat, Rose has become a lost, confused, vulnerable child, asking for help. This is a legendary moment for Broadway.
"Live, Laugh, Love" does the same thing. "Some climbers get their kicks from social politics. Me, I like to live. Me. I like to love...." And Ben has forgotten his lines. The tension mounts. Ben recovers--briefly. But then: "Me, I like- me; I love- me. I don't love me!" Ben has forgotten what he claims to like and to love, so he keeps reverting to me; "me" becomes an object rather than a subject (rather than *just* a subject). And then the big epiphany: "I don't love me." (Notice Sondheim's similarly potent use of the word "me" in "Gypsy": "Everything's coming up roses FOR ME....and for you!" "Everything's coming up Rose...this time...for me...for me...for me...FOR MEEEE!")
"Follies" is skillful when showing how people fight internal wars, people fight with ghosts of their former selves, people fight with ghosts of their lovers' former selves. So much lunacy--effectively dramatized. It would be notable in a straight play. To fit it all into an opulent musical--that's genius. Ben's breakdown signals the end of the "Follies"; the real world rushes back in, and despite all of his earlier posturing, Ben can say only one word, now, like a scared boy. "Phyllis?" Husband and wife--flawed, loathing one another, caught up, also, in self-loathing--will now tend to one another as best as possible. When I was a teenager, I didn't believe such a change could happen so quickly, but I believe it now. Sad, compassionate, unnerving, uncertain--this is how "Follies" ends. The blind will lead the blind--and, Sondheim suggests, that's just the human condition.
***
God is in the details. Vito Corleone is seen--first--with a tiny cat; as he listens and makes pronouncements, he toys with the cat, redirecting the cat's attention, stroking the fur. This is maybe a metaphor: Suffering humans are, to Vito, like play-toys or kittens. But it's also Marlon Brando looking for paradox: The same man who will murder people without hesitation will also pour out his heart for a pet (or for a child--as we see in Brando's famous death scene). These Brando/cat moments might make you think of Dr. Melfi toward the end of "The Sopranos," discovering that sociopaths, such as Tony, often have a fondness for animals. (It's also interesting that we first see Marlon with a kitten, and we last see him with a small child. I'm sure that's deliberate. Vito is complex: A part of him is playful. It's Brando's special talent to underline this fact.)
(The movie calls our attention to the children over and over. "Honey, can you get a handle on the kids?" asks Sonny, obnoxiously, and Sonny's wife observes what no one else will observe--that Sonny himself is a child. "Why don't you get a handle on yourself?" The final moments between Brando and his grandson in the garden remind us that the stooges we have watched all evening are leaving an imprint; the kids who flit in and out of scenes are learning how to act, through observation. Brando's inspired choice to stuff an orange into his mouth, to make himself into a monster, reminds us how quickly people change in this world. In the course of the story, Michael Corleone has "stuffed an orange into his mouth"; he has become a gargoyle; the transformation is complete in his final encounter with Kay, when he seems not to hesitate for half a second in lying to her about his role in Carlo's death. Contrast this with Pacino's masterful rendition of a Divided Self in the restaurant scene, where sweat is forming on his brow, and his eyes dart all over the place. We see him struggling mightily to keep himself under control. How far he travels in the course of the movie!)
And then: the unnerving gender politics. Morgana watches as her daughter is berated. When Sonny tries to intervene, coolly, Morgana says, "Don't interfere." (Really? Don't you feel as if you're watching one of those classic "Mad Men" scenes here? Where one of the characters says, "Cigarettes are good for you!") Later, Talia Shire calls Morgana; she is a mess; the toxic danse macabre she has with her husband may end in murder. Morgana is holding a squalling infant; Earth Mother Morgana makes a half-hearted effort to hear her daughter, then passes the phone on to Sonny; "this is clearly not my business." The movie begins with a rape; a semi-stranger visits to plead for justice from Vito, justice for a young daughter, because the police aren't going to get involved. "I had been teaching her so constantly to Maintain Her Virtue!" The Hollywood producer won't help the Frank Sinatra character because, once upon a time, the Frank Sinatra character seduced and distracted a Grace Kelly-ish figure who was meant to be groomed for stardom (and big bucks, bucks for everyone nearby). Apollonia struggles with driving and with English--she is basically a child--and yet she also has the power to get Michael nearly killed.
(Doesn't a character, at one point, say, "Women and children can afford to be foolish. Men cannot." I'm not sure this is true, even in the world of the movie. In the scenes concerning Talia Shire, I think of "The Iliad" and Helen of Troy. I also think of Freire's writing about a sick society: Both the oppressor and the oppressed are made ill by an imbalance of power.)
A final observation: This movie has maybe the greatest example of subtext in all of cinema history. It's one sentence. "I made him an offer he couldn't refuse." That's all. That's poetry. ("He said, take the offer or take a bullet. If you choose the bullet, your brains are gonna be splattered all over this contract within five minutes.") If you write a sentence half as trenchant as that "offer-he-can't-refuse" business--ever, in your life--then thank your lucky stars. Mr. Puzo was touched by the gods.
(P.S. It also seems worth noting that Kay--the one time we see her at work--is managing small children. "Senators and presidents don't commit murder," she says, and Pacino's eyes say, "You yourself are a child." Later in the series, Kay will defend her own children against Michael; she will be at war with her former spouse over the fate of "her brood.")
***
God is in the details. Vito Corleone is seen--first--with a tiny cat; as he listens and makes pronouncements, he toys with the cat, redirecting the cat's attention, stroking the fur. This is maybe a metaphor: Suffering humans are, to Vito, like play-toys or kittens. But it's also Marlon Brando looking for paradox: The same man who will murder people without hesitation will also pour out his heart for a pet (or for a child--as we see in Brando's famous death scene). These Brando/cat moments might make you think of Dr. Melfi toward the end of "The Sopranos," discovering that sociopaths, such as Tony, often have a fondness for animals. (It's also interesting that we first see Marlon with a kitten, and we last see him with a small child. I'm sure that's deliberate. Vito is complex: A part of him is playful. It's Brando's special talent to underline this fact.)
(The movie calls our attention to the children over and over. "Honey, can you get a handle on the kids?" asks Sonny, obnoxiously, and Sonny's wife observes what no one else will observe--that Sonny himself is a child. "Why don't you get a handle on yourself?" The final moments between Brando and his grandson in the garden remind us that the stooges we have watched all evening are leaving an imprint; the kids who flit in and out of scenes are learning how to act, through observation. Brando's inspired choice to stuff an orange into his mouth, to make himself into a monster, reminds us how quickly people change in this world. In the course of the story, Michael Corleone has "stuffed an orange into his mouth"; he has become a gargoyle; the transformation is complete in his final encounter with Kay, when he seems not to hesitate for half a second in lying to her about his role in Carlo's death. Contrast this with Pacino's masterful rendition of a Divided Self in the restaurant scene, where sweat is forming on his brow, and his eyes dart all over the place. We see him struggling mightily to keep himself under control. How far he travels in the course of the movie!)
And then: the unnerving gender politics. Morgana watches as her daughter is berated. When Sonny tries to intervene, coolly, Morgana says, "Don't interfere." (Really? Don't you feel as if you're watching one of those classic "Mad Men" scenes here? Where one of the characters says, "Cigarettes are good for you!") Later, Talia Shire calls Morgana; she is a mess; the toxic danse macabre she has with her husband may end in murder. Morgana is holding a squalling infant; Earth Mother Morgana makes a half-hearted effort to hear her daughter, then passes the phone on to Sonny; "this is clearly not my business." The movie begins with a rape; a semi-stranger visits to plead for justice from Vito, justice for a young daughter, because the police aren't going to get involved. "I had been teaching her so constantly to Maintain Her Virtue!" The Hollywood producer won't help the Frank Sinatra character because, once upon a time, the Frank Sinatra character seduced and distracted a Grace Kelly-ish figure who was meant to be groomed for stardom (and big bucks, bucks for everyone nearby). Apollonia struggles with driving and with English--she is basically a child--and yet she also has the power to get Michael nearly killed.
(Doesn't a character, at one point, say, "Women and children can afford to be foolish. Men cannot." I'm not sure this is true, even in the world of the movie. In the scenes concerning Talia Shire, I think of "The Iliad" and Helen of Troy. I also think of Freire's writing about a sick society: Both the oppressor and the oppressed are made ill by an imbalance of power.)
A final observation: This movie has maybe the greatest example of subtext in all of cinema history. It's one sentence. "I made him an offer he couldn't refuse." That's all. That's poetry. ("He said, take the offer or take a bullet. If you choose the bullet, your brains are gonna be splattered all over this contract within five minutes.") If you write a sentence half as trenchant as that "offer-he-can't-refuse" business--ever, in your life--then thank your lucky stars. Mr. Puzo was touched by the gods.
(P.S. It also seems worth noting that Kay--the one time we see her at work--is managing small children. "Senators and presidents don't commit murder," she says, and Pacino's eyes say, "You yourself are a child." Later in the series, Kay will defend her own children against Michael; she will be at war with her former spouse over the fate of "her brood.")
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