A Streetcar Named Desire

I consider Vivian Leigh the most beautiful woman who ever lived in this world. Of course, apart from her undeniable beauty, there is a strong personal bias to this claim. After all, beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, isn't it? In fact, I'm afraid that I don't really know a whole lot about this beautiful woman and exceptional actress. What makes her special in my heart is her passion for love and acting, the unforgettable Myra that she portrayed in "Waterloo Bridge" (I read that in her later years she once commented that that was her favorite character), and perhaps strange to many - her neurotic side, all the suffering she went through till the end of her life.

Last Mon night I watched "A Streetcar Named Desire", an old time Oscar winning film. I've heard a long while back that in this movie Vivian Leigh successfully played a neurotic middle aged woman, and won Oscar for the second time. Well since I like her so much, when I got a chance, I thought, I have to watch this.

I don't really know how to describe my feeling while watching it or after. The excellence of Leigh's performance didn't really surprise me. To me she WAS that character Blanche, and that character completely overwhelmed me. I know I'll never have the courage to watch it again. In fact, I couldn't even finish writing up a little something afterwards, it was my heart but not my hands that were trembling.

I've found that I'm a very sympathetic person, not to say I'm good in any way, but I do seem to feel intensely other people's pain, of course, mine too. This pain is even stronger when I share similar experience or state with the suffered ones. Blanche, poor, delusional Blanche, hysterical Blanche, a woman who has no hope but a vague, fractured dream that some kind of relation with a guy, sexual or marital, will save her from all the wretchedness and keep her fading beauty on a thin line. Whatever dragged her to that state did not matter, it was the state she was trapped in that stroke me hard. That despair, nervous breakdown, even the small detail of frequently seeking comfort in a hot bath, are all so familiar to me. It was so familiar that they almost evoked some kind of resonance in my heart, painful and terrifying. I guess I have not lied or kidded myself so much that I actually believed in my illusionary dreams, but there are things that I certainly didn't want to do but did anyway. I don't know what I'll become. To ease that pain one might be capable of anything, I just don't know for how long I can still hold on to myself. Honestly if I had that kind of beauty and had been able to attract attention as Blanche did, who knows what I would have done. At least Blanche had a sister that she can go to when she had nowhere else to go. Well I don't. I really don't. There might be a few noble hearts that genuinely pity you, but I'd expect a lot more disgust and taking advantage. I can't be that way, and I won't. I don't give it a damn about the so called family I sort of have, if I know I'm close to that point, I will not endure one day more.

Vivian Leigh certainly had passed her prime years of physical beauty when shooting that film, but once in a while, when she smiled, I instantly caught a glimpse of Myra, pretty, true, faithful, innocent Myra, the girl who died willingly before life could play any more evil on her. Oh that heavenly face, that flawless smile, it broke my heart, it really broke my heart.