Author Topic: "Love is All": Ennis and Gertrud  (Read 3944 times)

moremojo

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"Love is All": Ennis and Gertrud
« on: May 15, 2006, 07:43:52 pm »
Many moons ago, before the Great Troll Onslaught that caused so many Brokies and Tremblayans to flee IMDb for safer shores, I submitted a couple of posts on TOB comparing Ennis to other fictional characters (and one historical personage) whose stories seemed to parallel Ennis's own trajectory of love found and lost. I did this because I was seeking to assuage the devastation in my heart left by reflection on Ennis's utter, haunted solitude at story's end. I needed to know that others had known something of Ennis's pain, so that Ennis would not be so alone after all, though he could never know it in the fictional world in which he was ensconced. For the record, the posts (long vanished into cyberspace ether, no doubt due to the handiwork of diligent trolls) discussed Herman Melville's and Benjamin Britten's Captain Vere, Maurice Maeterlinck's and Claude Debussy's Golaud, and, in the historical realm, the mystical Muslim poet Rumi.

Just recently, I was reflecting that another, rather more surprising fictional character could be seen as yet another analogue to our love-haunted Ennis. This is Gertrud, the titular character of Danish filmmaker Carl Theodor Dreyer's last film (Gertrud [1964]). Adapted from a play by the Swedish Hjalmar Soderberg, Dreyer's magisterial swansong is a quiet, contemplative study of the price that unwavering idealism can level upon a human life. Gertrud, played with great poise and elegance by Nina Pens Rode, is a woman who is in love with Love. She holds each of her intimate relationships to a standard of uncompromising perfectionism, so that each man who (inevitably) falls short of her idea of what Love between two souls should be is gently yet unequivocally cut free from her life. By story's end, Gertrud has grown old, alone, reiterating to her one remaining friend her mantra of "Love is All", intimating that she has no regrets for having held out for Love Perfected, even though her dream ultimately eluded her. She will die knowing that she was ever true to herself, and, in her way, to all the men who loved her.

Gertrud resembles Ennis in that both characters ultimately recognize the all-encompassing importance of Love. The characters are significantly different in that Gertrud is as much in love with an idea as with any human being she actually knew, while Ennis is transfixed by his enduring memory of one very special soul. Gertrud is also a strangely static character, always hanging on to the same ideal from youth into old age, while Ennis is seen to evolve from a timid, broken youth barely conscious of his own desires to a man who, despite the ravages of his outer circumstances, cherishes the inner knowledge of the precious gift that another so tenderly lavished upon him. He knows what he is, and what he had with Jack. In his inarticulate manner, he might well concur with Gertrud that Love is indeed All.

Very truly,
Scott
« Last Edit: February 15, 2008, 07:37:57 pm by moremojo »

Offline JennyC

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Re: "Love is All": Ennis and Gertrud
« Reply #1 on: May 15, 2006, 09:51:53 pm »
Scott,

Great topic!  I did not see Gertrud, but what you said just made me want to watch that movie. 


moremojo

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Re: "Love is All": Ennis and Gertrud
« Reply #2 on: May 15, 2006, 10:01:57 pm »
Scott,

Great topic!  I did not see Gertrud, but what you said just made me want to watch that movie. 


Hi, Jenny,

Thanks for your reply. I'm glad I piqued your interest. Many of Dreyer's films, including La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc, Day of Wrath, and Ordet (The Word) are shown on Turner Classic Movies (TCM); in fact, I caught Gertrud on that channel a little earlier this year. I first saw the film, though, back in 1986, at a local repertory screening.

Incidentally, Ordet is my favorite Dreyer film. The ending is magnificent, one of the great moments in cinema, providing an apotheosis of both the spirit and the flesh, both complementing the other and neither negating the other's importance.

Cheers,
Scott
« Last Edit: February 26, 2008, 06:22:33 pm by moremojo »

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Re: "Love is All": Ennis and Gertrud
« Reply #3 on: May 16, 2006, 05:40:08 pm »
Thanks for resurrecting this topic, Scott! Off the top of my head, Jack reminds me very strongly of the lead character in Virginia Woolf's Orlando, and Ennis reminds me of Jim Morrison, that's an eclectic combination!
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Offline JennyC

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Re: "Love is All": Ennis and Gertrud
« Reply #4 on: May 16, 2006, 06:17:53 pm »
Many of Dreyer's films, including La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc, Day of Wrath, and Ordet (The Word) are shown on Turner Classic Movies (TCM); in fact, I caught Gertrud on that channel a little earlier this year. I first saw the film, though, back in 1986, at a repertory screening sponsored by the Austin Film Society.

I have to look it up on TCM to see when they will show the movie again or maybe if the movie is available on DVD.

You started a great topic.  I was thinking myself which fiction character Ennis or Jack reminds me of.  I am not talking about total resembles, just some common characterization.

Ennis reminds me of in Alexander Pushkin’s Yevgeniy Onegin.  Gosh I read that a long time ago when I was in either high school or college.  He was one of the saddest characters that I know, to some extend I felt that I understand his pain.  I know how this must sound totally outrageous.  They have nothing in common by the conversion wisdom, but somehow Ennis reminds me of what I felt for Yevgeniy Onegin.  They are both this really sad characters that I fall in love with.  Onegin’s tragedy to a large extent was caused by his own fear, his inability to recognize what was important to him, his detestation to the society and lifestyle that he despised but yet was unable to seek changes and ended up have to go along with it.  The love between Onegin and Tatyana is not nearly as profound as Ennis and Jack, actually it’s not really a love story, but Onegine faced the same fate where he only realized what he has lost when it was too late.

I am probably not making sense here  :).  As a matte of fact, I tried to write this post a few times, but had to give it up because I can not quite articulate what exactly I see in Yevgeniy Onegin.  This is all I can do for now.

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Re: "Love is All": Ennis and Gertrud
« Reply #5 on: February 07, 2007, 08:26:58 pm »
This is a great topic that should be revived.

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moremojo

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Re: "Love is All": Ennis and Gertrud
« Reply #6 on: February 08, 2007, 10:26:23 am »
I really wish I had saved the IMDb posts I wrote about Britten's Vere and Debussy's Golaud, and the very historical Rumi, as I think these two were some of the best posts I ever submitted on IMDb, especially the one on Rumi. I remember weeping with such love for Ennis as I concluded my thoughts on Vere and Golaud, seeing how closely these three fictional characters were brothers of the heart.

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Re: "Love is All": Ennis and Gertrud
« Reply #7 on: February 08, 2007, 11:42:37 am »
They still exist in your heart, Scott! Write them again for us here...

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Offline Lynne

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Re: "Love is All": Ennis and Gertrud
« Reply #8 on: February 08, 2007, 12:14:42 pm »
I really wish I had saved the IMDb posts I wrote about Britten's Vere and Debussy's Golaud, and the very historical Rumi, as I think these two were some of the best posts I ever submitted on IMDb, especially the one on Rumi. I remember weeping with such love for Ennis as I concluded my thoughts on Vere and Golaud, seeing how closely these three fictional characters were brothers of the heart.

I don't remember them, but I wasn't on IMDb very long.  I'd love to see them.

Are any of them saved here, Scott? 

http://bettermost.net/forum/index.php/topic,2135.0.html
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moremojo

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Re: "Love is All": Ennis and Gertrud
« Reply #9 on: February 08, 2007, 04:32:06 pm »
Are any of them saved here, Scott? 

http://bettermost.net/forum/index.php/topic,2135.0.html
They don't seem to be, though the very first IMDb post I submitted after first seeing the film, called "The tears keep coming" (posted on February 20, 2006), is happily there.