MatthewLouwrens
Senior HTF Member
- Joined
- Mar 18, 2003
- Messages
- 3,034
I think making comments about how disturbing it is that lots of women find adultery romantic are not exactly helpful. It's unfair to criticise a large portion of one gender in that way. Don't forget, in the case of both English Patient and Bridges of Madison County, the writers of the original novels, and the film directors were all male.
My comment would be that it is not so much that people find these films romantic, more that the films are presented in such a way as to present adultery as being romantic, and people can get so swept up in that that they fail to remember that the film is about something that I think many would find objectionable in real life.
There is also an interesting effort in a lot of these films to disguise the adultery by ignoring the husband, making him irrelevant, invisible. I haven't seen English Patient since the cinema, and can remember little, but in Bridges, the husband is in the first five minutes, and then leaves for almost the rest of the film. People could almost forget she was married.
Colin made a good comment about gender imbalance in the movies - if you're a female having an affair, you've probably got a nice but boring husband; if you're a guy having an affair, you're a slimebag who should have his balls cut off. (One of the few exceptions to this rule is probably Doctor Zhivago, a film that is so good that I can ignore my natural dislike of the adultery plot.)
Personally, I remember little of The English Patient. I remember thinking that the film was incredible visually, but was wrapped around a story that I simply found offensive (when it wasn't being plain dull).
My comment would be that it is not so much that people find these films romantic, more that the films are presented in such a way as to present adultery as being romantic, and people can get so swept up in that that they fail to remember that the film is about something that I think many would find objectionable in real life.
There is also an interesting effort in a lot of these films to disguise the adultery by ignoring the husband, making him irrelevant, invisible. I haven't seen English Patient since the cinema, and can remember little, but in Bridges, the husband is in the first five minutes, and then leaves for almost the rest of the film. People could almost forget she was married.
Colin made a good comment about gender imbalance in the movies - if you're a female having an affair, you've probably got a nice but boring husband; if you're a guy having an affair, you're a slimebag who should have his balls cut off. (One of the few exceptions to this rule is probably Doctor Zhivago, a film that is so good that I can ignore my natural dislike of the adultery plot.)
Personally, I remember little of The English Patient. I remember thinking that the film was incredible visually, but was wrapped around a story that I simply found offensive (when it wasn't being plain dull).