In a career that included only 19 films, Vivien Leigh won two Oscars for playing nearly the same character. Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With the Wind and Blanche Duboise in Elia Kazan's adaptation of Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire are both southern belles with an appetite for men. Both find that their pursuit of men get them into trouble and both end up paying for their indiscretions. Some have said that Blanche is Scarlett in rags and tatters, as if the return to Tara didn't work out.
The major difference between Scarlet and Blanche is that Blanche has lost her fighting spirit. While Scarlet had a fierce determination to survive and to win the hearts of men, Blanche is completely unguarded. When we meet her, she is at the end of her rope. She arrives in New Orleans from Auriol, Mississippi to stay with her sister Stella (Kim Stanley) and her brutish husband Stanley (Marlon Brando), claiming that their ancestral plantation home has been "lost," due to "epic fornications." Stanley doesn't like her. He is a simple guy, a lion who likes his den to stay the way he likes it. Blanche, with her perfumes, paper lamp shades, phony politeness and pretentiousness gets on his nerves. He senses that something isn't right about her and confirms it with several of the guys he works with who have been through Auriol.
It turns out that he is right about her, she does have a past. Blanche once had a lover who killed himself; She was fired from her teaching job when she had an improper relationship with a teenage boy; She was thrown out of a hotel called The Flamingo because of her sexual dalliances. She has come to her sister's home because she has nowhere else to go. She has no job and no life back in Mississippi. What doesn't become immediately clear is that she is beginning to crack up.
While Stanley hates her for her pomposity and pretentiousness (and later, her past), his co-worker Mitch (Karl Malden) is charmed by her. He steps out with her and is on the verge of proposing marriage when he finds out the truth about her past. He turns her away because she is unclean.
Blanche is her own worst enemy. She has a need to be loved but she goes about it in ways that get her into trouble. This has helped her to burn her bridges back home and so she now has no life, no hope, nowhere that she can go. We can see that, in youth she was a charming girl with a pretty smile, wide eyes and a soft coquettish voice. She still carries remnants of that old life, sporting a chiffon dress that makes her look like she's ready for the prom. She brushes her hair and sings to herself like a girl getting ready for a date. She comes to Stanley and Stella's place with a trunk full of dresses and pearls and furs, all fancy things, nothing practical, no evidence of a routine life.
The image that she displays is that of the remnants of her teenage years. It may have worked when she was a teenager, but now she is pushing 40 and her refusal to mature feeds what will eventually turns into a nervous breakdown. Blanche's mind blurs the line between fantasy and reality. When Mitch confronts her about her past, he demands the truth. Her response shocks us: "I don't want realism. I want magic! Yes, yes, magic. I try to give that to people. I do misrepresent things. I don't tell truths. I tell what ought to be truth." I don't think this is true, I think that by this point, her mind is so far gone that she simply doesn't know the difference between what is true and what she tells everyone is true.
Blanche is one of the saddest characters that I have ever encountered. She is clearly mentally ill and feeds off the half-truths she tells. Unlike Scarlet O'Hara, who fought hard to get what she wanted, Blanche has no ground on which to stand. We see nothing of her past, no flashbacks, she steps into our field of vision in beginning stages of her breakdown.
It is well known that Vivien Leigh suffered from manic depression. She was bi-polar, and we can see that she brought a great deal of what she experience in real life to the role. This is a difficult role to play, because Leigh isn't allow to let Blanche grow into her madness. She is at the beginning stages of her meltdown from the moment we meet her. In the early scenes, we can clearly see that Blanche's persona is an act. She speaks in broad strokes, moves in grand gestures and wears her pretenciousness right on the tip of her nose. She has a desperate need to be loved, to be admired and she wears her own image as a mask of what is really going on inside. Without this image, she might no unnoticed and, for her, that would be tragic.
The major difference between Scarlet and Blanche is that Blanche has lost her fighting spirit. While Scarlet had a fierce determination to survive and to win the hearts of men, Blanche is completely unguarded. When we meet her, she is at the end of her rope. She arrives in New Orleans from Auriol, Mississippi to stay with her sister Stella (Kim Stanley) and her brutish husband Stanley (Marlon Brando), claiming that their ancestral plantation home has been "lost," due to "epic fornications." Stanley doesn't like her. He is a simple guy, a lion who likes his den to stay the way he likes it. Blanche, with her perfumes, paper lamp shades, phony politeness and pretentiousness gets on his nerves. He senses that something isn't right about her and confirms it with several of the guys he works with who have been through Auriol.
It turns out that he is right about her, she does have a past. Blanche once had a lover who killed himself; She was fired from her teaching job when she had an improper relationship with a teenage boy; She was thrown out of a hotel called The Flamingo because of her sexual dalliances. She has come to her sister's home because she has nowhere else to go. She has no job and no life back in Mississippi. What doesn't become immediately clear is that she is beginning to crack up.
While Stanley hates her for her pomposity and pretentiousness (and later, her past), his co-worker Mitch (Karl Malden) is charmed by her. He steps out with her and is on the verge of proposing marriage when he finds out the truth about her past. He turns her away because she is unclean.
Blanche is her own worst enemy. She has a need to be loved but she goes about it in ways that get her into trouble. This has helped her to burn her bridges back home and so she now has no life, no hope, nowhere that she can go. We can see that, in youth she was a charming girl with a pretty smile, wide eyes and a soft coquettish voice. She still carries remnants of that old life, sporting a chiffon dress that makes her look like she's ready for the prom. She brushes her hair and sings to herself like a girl getting ready for a date. She comes to Stanley and Stella's place with a trunk full of dresses and pearls and furs, all fancy things, nothing practical, no evidence of a routine life.
The image that she displays is that of the remnants of her teenage years. It may have worked when she was a teenager, but now she is pushing 40 and her refusal to mature feeds what will eventually turns into a nervous breakdown. Blanche's mind blurs the line between fantasy and reality. When Mitch confronts her about her past, he demands the truth. Her response shocks us: "I don't want realism. I want magic! Yes, yes, magic. I try to give that to people. I do misrepresent things. I don't tell truths. I tell what ought to be truth." I don't think this is true, I think that by this point, her mind is so far gone that she simply doesn't know the difference between what is true and what she tells everyone is true.
Blanche is one of the saddest characters that I have ever encountered. She is clearly mentally ill and feeds off the half-truths she tells. Unlike Scarlet O'Hara, who fought hard to get what she wanted, Blanche has no ground on which to stand. We see nothing of her past, no flashbacks, she steps into our field of vision in beginning stages of her breakdown.
It is well known that Vivien Leigh suffered from manic depression. She was bi-polar, and we can see that she brought a great deal of what she experience in real life to the role. This is a difficult role to play, because Leigh isn't allow to let Blanche grow into her madness. She is at the beginning stages of her meltdown from the moment we meet her. In the early scenes, we can clearly see that Blanche's persona is an act. She speaks in broad strokes, moves in grand gestures and wears her pretenciousness right on the tip of her nose. She has a desperate need to be loved, to be admired and she wears her own image as a mask of what is really going on inside. Without this image, she might no unnoticed and, for her, that would be tragic.