Review #5: Marriage

Of the numerous cinematic portrayals of marriage that exist, Ingmar Bergman’s Scenes From a Marriage (1973) is a fairly good one. The excessive drinking, the dread, the denial, the regression to infantile behavior and the caustic insults thrown back and forth between the male and female leads are all quite representative of this type of social relationship.

An even more accurate film, and requisite viewing for any twosome considering permanent cohabitation, is Leave Her To Heaven (1945). Gene Tierney is Ellen Berent, an heiress, Cornel Wilde is Richard Harlan, a writer. The two meet at Ellen’s dead father’s ranch in New Mexico where they fall in love, despite Ellen’s engagement to Vincent Price. Once married, Ellen assiduously plays the role of faithful housewife, fawning over Richard. One gets the sense though, that her performance is too eager. It becomes clear that something is wrong with Richard when he brings his younger brother on their honeymoon. The implication is that Ellen wants to have sex with Richard, but the brother’s presence won’t allow them the requisite privacy. In revenge, she allows Richard’s brother to drown. Afterwards Richard always seems to want to be around Ellen’s family, especially her sister, Ruth, who is much more wholesome. Ellen finally talks Richard into having a baby, thinking that this will force him to fulfill his role. While she’s pregnant, Richard acts aloof, so she throws herself down a flight of stairs, causing a miscarriage. Even less satisfied with Ellen now, Richard spends more time with Ruth. Ellen commits suicide, but in doing so, frames Richard for murder. Richard is acquitted and marries Ruth. Ostensibly the point is that Ellen is a crazed, neurotic woman—but this reading hardly holds up in light of Richard’s callousness. The real lesson is that marriage creates a disturbingly restrictive and harmful set of social expectations.

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