The Devil is a Woman

My film and theater theory class, which I was hesitant to take is actually quite interesting. I really wanted to take Italian Cinema, but they cancelled it (bastards!), so I took this one instead. Our prof has a Russian (I think) accent and it was a little humorous to hear her discussing Freud's theory of women's penis envy (pay-nus) and the sexual sadism/masochism/fetishism in films. One of our reading articles for the class is Laura Mulvey's take on film, in which films are made by men, for men, from the viewpoint of men fetishizing the woman.

The example our professor used to illustrate this was Josef von Sternberg's The Devil is a Woman (1935). It was a good movie that I never would have seen if not for our class. Marlene Dietrich is a Spanish singer named Concha Perez. Concha is the desire of every man who comes into frame in this film. She's beautiful, manipulative, moody and charming, all of which makes her interesting. She is always perfectly and beautifully lit, mostly from the top to bring out her beautiful bone structure.


The film is told in a circular narrative. It begins with a young, handsome man's flirtation with a beautiful, mysterious woman. When the young man, Antonio (Cesar Romero) tells his older friend, Pasqual (Lionel Atwill) of this woman and her name, the older man begins to tell him a story of his tumultuous relationship with the woman through flashbacks. He feels she has used and betrayed him, but he cannot stay away from her, even when she blatantly leaves him in the dust for a young bullfighter. Many times she promised her love to him, then would ask for money or something and when she couldn't get her own way she would pout, flutter her eyelashes, soften her voice and purr (for lack of a better word, I know that sounds cheesy) "But, Pasqualito...", get her way and then leave. Antonio swears to Pasqual that he won't meet her because she sounds like a devil of a woman (hence, the title), but does anyway. This is were the story gets interesting. There are some plot turns and a sort of surprise ending. The sets are quite flat. The majority of the story takes place in Spain during Carnivale, but it looks like a flat, cardboard theater set, or something resembling the Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, only happier. One of my classmates felt that Sternberg's heavy reliance on Dietrich's beauty to carry a lot of film seemed weak. Interestingly enough, according to our prof, Sternberg was mirroring his relationship to Dietrich in real life though this film. He brought her over to America from Germany, made her the star of his pictures and evidently feels used in the same way Concha used Pasqual. I thought it was great, campy fun either way. See it if you ever get the chance.

More ramblings to come....