All About Eve (1950)

Seen on TCM, last month.

It seemed appropriate to begin my discussion of Monroe by this, her first real speaking role. I've seen it a couple times now, and also fairly recently, so it is fresh in my mind.

Bob Osbourne, the host of TCM, loves this movie, as I've come to infer over time. It took me a while to understand why classic movie buffs like him love it so much.

Simply put, one can argue that this movie, released as it was at the midpoint of the Twentieth Century, is in fact the quintessential motion picture, and the movie that defines the transition to Postmodernity itself. Certainly it would be on the short list of any movies that one could nominate as such.

I realize that this is a strong endorsement, but it is a very powerful movie. Among other things, it is perhaps the defining role for arguably the greatest single actress of the 20th Century---Bette Davis. And of course it is the movie that introduced Monroe to the world.

But what really makes this movie so singularly great, in the way I've described? Specifically why is the movie that defines the transition to Postmodernity?

It has a lot to do with the fact that it is a movie about the theater, that is, the legitimate theater, as it was once called. Most of the characters are Broadway actors, and the movie is about the world of stage actors.

One can see the essence of the importance of this in the famous "party scene", the one which Davis utters arguably the most notable line of her screen career: "Fasten your seatbelts..."

Watching this scene the last time I saw the movie, I could not help be struck by the lines uttered by the "actors" to each other. The lines dripped of insinuation, irony, and sarcasm. There was a tension of subversion and misdirection in almost every line.

To today's audiences, irony delivered in this way is quite normal. To say we're used to it is an understatement. In fact, it is the norm today. Yet sixty-one years ago, it was not the norm. It was, in fact, shocking for most audiences to see people behaving this way to each other.

It hit me: we're all supposed to be actors now. It brings to mind something I read, about how until recent times in history, actors (that is, stage actors) were held in fear and contempt by ordinary society because of their seeming "magic" ability to change personality. Actors could not be trusted to be "real" according to normal definitions of character. They were fluid.

This kind of transformation is the essence of drama. The surface is not the real. There is a deeper level. The purpose of drama is to reveal it.

The core idea of Postmodernity is a takeover of society by the dramaturgical. Everyone now knows that personality is fluid. Irony is king. We must all "act" this way and must all be aware of this in each other. The real is fleeting and an illusion.

In other words, we are all supposed to be at that party scene from All About Eve now, all the time.  And like the characters at the banquet that frames the story, we are all supposed to be privately miserable while clapping our hands with a smile on our face.

The movie has even deeper levels. One of the richest aspects of it is the focus on the transition of the feminine character in Postmodernity (hence the title), anticipating the emergence of the ubiquitous "princess" of contemporary society. The vanity of women, once considered a vice, is now promoted shamelessly as a great virtue. The goal of love has been replaced by the desire for universal attention through fame. Nowhere is this more eloquent than in the very last shot of the movie, when Eve, supposedly the young ingenue, is usurped by her even younger version, who seems shockingly contemporary in her ego-driven nature. One could almost argue that it hinges on horror at that moment (especially coming on the heels of the scene in which George Saunders delivers his "I own you" speech in the New Haven hotel room).

Horror, yes---another one of the cornerstones of Postmodernity.

So what about Monroe? Her performance is limited to one scene---the aforementioned party scene. She is introduced as the bubbly "new find" of Saunders' character, and treated by him with contempt. She's a throwaway to him.

But the great meta-message of the movie if you will is how much Monroe utterly dominates the scene during her brief time on it. It is impossible not to look at her.

Even though it is supposed to Anne Baxter (Eve) who is the young starlet, Monroe is utterly in a class by herself among the other actresses there. It is as if she is a new type of woman, emerging out of the already nascent world of Postmodernity destined to become its archetype and queen. She has synthesized all the elements of the entire previous generation of Hollywood actresses and is the living personification of the next phase of American culture.

It would be easy to say that next to her, Davis looks old fashioned. But the genius of the movie is that Davis is supposed to be old fashioned. But so is Baxter.

Here she is...there has never been anyone like her on screen. Just watch her eyes as she is listening. There is genius in them. It is unmistakable.