屋顶上的猫

Damn the Hays Code, Tennessee Williams’ Pulitzer-winning play is bowdlerized on its way from Broadway to the silver screen, where all its homosexual reference is tactlessly papered over. That said, riding on the strength of its top-line ensemble cast, Richard Brook’s exquisite film adaptation still dazzles and hurtles upon a Southern family’s trouble waters.

The crises of the Pollitt family, an affluent rags-to-riches Mississippi empire of cotton plantation built by the patriarch Harvey aka. Big Daddy (Ives, reprises his role from the stage), are multifarious: his youngest son Brick (Newman), a former athlete who abuses himself with alcohol and despondency in the wake of the suicide of his best friend Skipper, and doesn’t want to have any physical intimacy with his sultry wife Maggie (Taylor); then their is the ominous dread of Big Daddy’s doom, who is diagnosed with terminal cancer and has less than one year to live, but Dr. Baugh (Gates) fabricates a lie to appease him and his wife Ida aka. Big Mamma (Anderson), only the cat will finally get out of the bag, and its theme of dual courage (for Brick to face life and for Big Daddy, death) plays out with elemental emotional upheaval on the eve of Big Daddy’s 65-year-old birthday, which occupies 99% of the time-frame and takes place entirely in their sumptuous family manor.

The nexus here is the raison d’être behind Brick’s indifferent attitude and self-abandoning intemperance that puts himself against everyone else, since homosexuality is off the table, Brooks and James Poe’s script has to scrape the bottom of the barrel and leaves it mostly to the rage of being (presumably) two-timed, when that proves to be not the case, the barrier causes Brick’s connubial inaction naturally vanishes, ergo, that inconsolable guilt and grieve derived from losing a loved one in Williams’ original play is pitifully deadened to conceive a perfectly heteronormative ending, with a dated, self-congratulatory whiff of natalism (especially grating after hammering home what kerfuffle a band of bratty, insolent kids can engender).

Doused in booze and whose mobility is impeded by a crutch, Newman is magnificent and passionately engaged from A to Z and rightfully receives his first Oscar nomination for a very difficult and complex role. Underneath his Adonis appearance, Newman unleashes Brick’s harrowing obduracy to the hilt, he is self-centered enough to submerge himself entirely in his existential cynicism and doesn’t give a damn about the whole world after what he suffers, not even his father’s death knell, but deep down, he is merely a love-wanting child borne out of a poor rich boy’s misery and destructively waging war on the mendacity of the world, a tour de force loaded with fiery explosion.

An Oscar-nominated Taylor, adorned only by two pieces of finery and a pearl choker, also utterly takes our breath away with her ineffable beauty, a refined southern belle locution and superbly lived-in performance, whenever she and Newman are on screen together, they are the perfect specimen of what divine human gorgeousness looks like, for that reason alone, the film should be included in any film buff’s must-see list. Her Maggie is a valiant fighter, a can-doer, a go-getter, and her heart-stopping allure is fiendishly counterpoised by her super-fertile sister-in-law Mae (a plain-looking Sherwood), the wife of Brick’s elder brother Cooper (Carson, walking a fine line between grasping and subservient), fanatically battling a losing game to earn affection from Big Daddy with all her pesky tailed assets, Williams’ misogynistic partiality is quite revealing.

Performance extraordinaire suffuses the rest of the ensemble, in the co-leading role, Burl Ives’ larger-than-life bravura as Big Daddy is equally impressive, delivering Williams’ florid texts with resounding decibel, and brings about incredible gravitas and compassion in the third act when reconciliation shapes up during a barnstorming tête-à-tête between a befogging father and his prodigal son. Then there is the ever-forbidding Anderson, refuses to give Big Mamma a simple caricatural veneer, and finds her disparaged yet supportive wife a strong purchase in the catharsis-inducing chamber drama that is worthy of Williams’ name, regardless of the compromises inflicted by an odious force majeure.

referential entries: Mike Nichols’ WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? (1966, 8.2/10); Martin Ritt’s THE LONG, HOT SUMMER (1958, 6.3/10); Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s SUDDENLY, LAST SUMMER (1959, 7.4/10).

我一直觉得好莱坞50年代的男星比起女星来说略显黯淡，不如30，40的黄金时代。毕竟50年代最闪耀的伊丽莎白泰勒，奥黛丽赫本，玛丽莲梦露，格蕾丝凯利这四位就足够掩盖同期所有男星的锋芒了。

男星正处于一个黄金时代的巨星已经步入中老年，新生代小生又无法达到巨星声望的阶段，有些青黄不接。

如果从50年代的小生里硬挑出几个的话，我觉得应该只有马龙白兰度（24年出生，50年出道），理查德伯顿（25年出生，52年出道），保罗纽曼（25年出生，52年出道）这三位。

如果单纯按照美貌程度排名，我毫不犹豫地排保罗纽曼，马龙白兰度，理查德伯顿这个次序。

很简单，只有保罗纽曼能让我有只看第一眼就被煞到，狠狠地惊艳的感觉，五官无可挑剔，眼睛眼色也很艳，简直是完美，上帝的杰作。能够给我这种感觉的男星除他之外，也只有黄金时代的加里格兰特了。

保罗纽曼

白兰度也是我认为很帅的，比起美到没有特色的保罗纽曼，他要个性许多，是那种桀骜叛逆的英俊，虽然很man却决不粗糙。但细看是经不起角度考验的，脖子太粗（奥森威尔斯说他的脖子像一根粗大的香肠），鼻梁太低，嘴巴长的不好，脸型也有明显的硬伤。

马龙白兰度

伯顿无论是五官脸型还是轮廓骨相都是非常好的，所以能经得起任何角度的考验，完全是无死角的。这也是他刚刚出道时英国评论家说他“年轻漂亮，有一张上镜的脸”的原因。但极其糟糕的皮肤和过于松垮的皮肉让他显得粗糙沧桑，尤其是在彩色电影里那通红的脸色让他显得很土气。身材烂脖子短也是一大槽点。

理查德伯顿

然而白兰度能够主宰50年代，伯顿能够称雄60年代，保罗纽曼却略尴尬。虽然票房不错，烂片远远不及白兰度和伯顿那么多，奥提也很多次，八十年代也拿到了影帝。然而从始至终，他都没有白兰度和伯顿红。

我觉得也许他差在天赋和话题性上？

白兰度的《欲望号街车》和《教父》足以让他影史封神，而且他狂放不羁的个性更让他卓尔不群。

伯顿的惊才绝世和伟大演技即使演再多烂片也不会被埋没，而且丑闻绯闻齐上阵，永远是头条常客，自然能够大红大紫了。

比起这两位的锋芒毕露，好男人保罗纽曼就没那么容易上话题榜当媒体的宠儿了，在那样浮夸的年代，你不浮夸，那就没有浮夸的人红。

纽曼长得太美以至于没有特色，辨识度略低。然后人设还太干净太老实，媒体找不到他的丑闻就没有报道他的热情。加上演技又不如伯顿，个性又不如白兰度，也难怪没有他们红了。但他的颜是三个人里撑的最久的，健康的生活方式有利于他的后半生。

我虽然是个颜控，但总觉得保罗纽曼在《朱门巧妇》里和泰勒不来电，没有cp感。研究了很久，突然想明白了为什么有这种感觉了——他太精致了，以至于长得很有些gay气，更像是泰勒的gay蜜……这种感觉其实也和看蒙哥马利克利夫特一样，不认为他们和泰勒能有什么cp感。

人的第六感很奇怪的，可能真的是感情流露会影响到电影表演里，泰勒和伯顿就永远cp感十足，每次看到俩人的吻戏，都能够被深深地打动，伯顿吻她时候的样子，真的和他吻其他女演员的感觉不一样。

67年时的伯顿与白兰度

据说保罗纽曼在50年代曾经暗恋过白兰度，经常亦步亦趋地当着小尾巴，然而白兰度根本没有回应过他，渐渐地也就心灰意冷了。晚年时的白兰度曾经揭露过保罗纽曼也是个潜伏着的同性恋，只不过一直以好男人和美满家庭的形象示人罢了。

保罗纽曼与白兰度

其实这个演艺圈子里的同性恋小圈子，是完全没有秘密的，谁是谁不是，进了这个小圈子的人都一清二楚。泰勒说，“没有同性恋就没有好莱坞”，伯顿说，“很多演员都是潜伏着的同性恋，只不过我们通常用喝个烂醉来掩饰”。比起白兰度直接点保罗纽曼的名，他还算很给圈里这些人面子了。