"Lilith was widely regarded as Jean Seberg's crowning achievement. A cult movie star, Seberg is as celebrated for her leading roles in pictures like Godard's Breathless, 1960, as for the mysterious circumstances surrounding her tragic death in 1979. She delivers an electric performance as Lilith Arthur, an attractive young schizophrenic who has been a resident of New England's Poplar Clinic since the age of 18. Hers is a world of fantasy, for which she has developed a private language, full of phrases like "Hiara Pirlu Resh Kavawan" that mean nothing to anyone else. But then Lilith also has moments of astounding communicative clarity, in which she reveals the other irresistibly charismatic and social side of her character. For she is so many things: artistic and creative, playing the flute and painting... insightful, intelligent, uncannily analysing her caretakers psyche; as exuberant yet also as cruel as a child, experiencing life's ups and downs with the intensity of someone new to the world. Seldom has a portrait of insanity been this seductive.
Shot in black and white, the film derives much of its magic from the grace with which it walks the line between madness and sanity. Through the loving eyes of fledgling caretaker and admirer Vincent Bruce (Warren Beatty), we watch as Lilith indulges in physical and metaphorical knitting. Like this insecure young man still trying to make his way in the world, the audience are magnetically drawn into Lilith's captivating universe.
Like a schizophrenic spider whose behaviour is demonstrated to the hospital staff by a psychiatrist, Lilith weaves her "assymmetrical and nightmarish web" to impress her desires upon all living beings, regardless of whether her audience is a man, woman or child.
Undeterred to conquer her. When he wins the mock jousting match at a Renaissance fair, "Lady" Lilith is crowned his queen of love and beauty.
Bent on dominating her, he tries to subject her to a suffocating classical form of love.
Although his jealousy and lack of understanding soon stifle their precarious passion, the film refuses to give him all the blame for their failed relationship."
- Jurgen Miller, Movies of the 60s, Taschen 2003.
No comments:
Post a Comment