Little Women (1994)

Watched 'Little Women' on Netflix.

If the movie is so beautiful, so consummate, how much more beautiful the book must be.

Susan Sarandon, playing Abigail, is the mother of four daughters, living in Concord, during the times of the American civil war and this is the story of these little women. (This is a time when the great city of New York is shown having mud roads and horse drawn carriages on it. Brought a smile on to my face) Their father has been summoned to the war, the family has very limited means and yet the girls live a contented life, supporting each other, cherishing their dreams, hoping for a better tomorrow while living their today in total grace.

Susan Sarandon, the mother, gives them life lessons, moral support, encouragement to pursue their dreams and most importantly, approves of her daughters as they are, in the face of societal pressure to mold them into ‘ladies’.

When a neighbour remark that her girls are wild, she says

“Young girls are no different than boys in their need for exertion. Feminine weakness and fainting spells are the direct result of our confining young girls to the house, bent over their needlework in restrictive corsets” (at this there is a sudden hush because the mention of the corset is indelicate in those times)

While the society around her is preoccupied with keeping appearances, she assures her daughters,

“Time erodes all decorative beauty but what it cannot diminish is the wonderful workings of your mind, your humour, your kindness and your moral courage”

This one got my standing ovation.

“I wish I could give my girls, a more just world”

Isn’t it the best that any mother or parent could say, a completely novel thought, requiring true courage? When all the parents of the world are twisting their children to fit into this world, isn’t this a great mother who wishes she could give a better world to her children?

"If you hit and humiliate a child, the only lesson she will learn is to hit and humiliate". So saying she removes Amy, her youngest daughter, played by the very cute Kirsten Dunst, from school and puts her under the tutelage of Jo, her spirited second daughter.

Jo, played by (Winona Ryder) is her spirited, free thinking, girl, an angry young woman. Of all of them, I like Jo the most. I believe she is closest to my own character.
I found Winona Ryder very beautiful.

Its not just the mother, but the family is shown to have moral courage to stand up to whats right.

“The family hasn't bought silk in years. They have ‘vieeewwws’ on slavery”, says a girl sarcastically

“Isn't it true your father's school had to close when he admitted a little dark girl?” she asks Meg, the eldest of the girls in a party

“This silk isn't made in the south, but right here (Boston area)” assures another woman, persuading Meg to buy silk for her gown

“They use children for labor. All silk mills do” replies Meg, in righteous indignation.

When the sisters express their worry about people gossiping, Abigail (Susan Sarandon) observes,

“Nothing provokes speculation more than the sight of a woman enjoying herself”, asking her daughters not to worry.

Susan Sarandon has such a delicate and husky voice. Also a beautiful accent. Her speech is ultimate polish and refinement. Love it.

Being old school myself and for the love of the good old world and all of its charms, I noted everything that seemed to me, not queer, but charming, somewhat amusing, and some of which made me wish I had lived in those times.

“Gentlemen, I dislike all this money talk, it isn't refined", says Meg as the others discuss business, rich husbands, the amount you get paid for each story you give to the press and so on…”

“Don't say 'aweful', it's slang…”

“Mr.Laurence, one doesn't shout at ladies as if they were cattle” says Laurie’s tutor, when Laurie shouts from his window to one of the girls, asking her a question or something.

“It's proper to take a gentleman's arm if it's offered” Meg defends herself when Jo tears her away from the company of John Brooke, complaining “You were all over him” or something.

“Why didn't you tell me? (of your pregnancy), as ks Jo, of her sister Meg.

“One hardly speaks of such things”, says Meg shyly.

"And don't shake hands with people. It isn't the thing anymore." Changing trends!

Those were the times, when there used to be ‘coming out’ parties.

Coming out party - a debut into society, a formal debut

"Preparations were going on in the family for Meg to attend Sally's coming out"

“How is Margaret to be married without a proper debut?” Asks an aunt of the girls, concerned, because the family doesn’t have the money to host such a party.

“The one hope for your family is for your daughter to marry well, though I don't know who marries governesses. And Josephine has entirely ruined her disposition with books”…

And when had missplaced one of her gloves, “She cannot go to the party without gloves, those folks are society…”

The ladies wouldn't eat for weeks before their coming out parties, else they wouldn't be able to draw their laces.

“I thought your family were a temperance people”, so saying, Laurie takes away the glass of wine from Meg’s hand.

“I am not fashionable enough for London. You need someone elegant and refined”

When little Amy goes to aunt March(a ‘lady’), she is shown having been groomed, with golden curls and all. A subtle way of showing transformation and even the humour in it without a loud emphasis on anything.

Little Amy is shown mispronouncing words in typical childish funny way, almost every other sentence. The little things that go a long way in making an ordinary story interesting, though this movie is far from ordinary.

All the women are with braided hair.

A charming and queer little ceremony during Meg's wedding. Everyone holding hands, singing song, circling around the couple that stand in a circular bamboo enclosure…

Josephine sold her hair for money to buy her mother's train ticket to go her father who was wounded in the war. She is shown having bob cut.

“Are you thinking about father?” asks Meg of Jo who was crying.

“No, my hair” she says.

When the father arrives for Christmas, from war, and sees Jo’s hair, he says jokingly, “Well, this could become the fashion...“

In both Sense and Sensibility, the doctor is shown to be bleeding the ailing woman to cure her of sickness. In this one, the physician mentions it but says it might kill her, hence wont do it.

Laurie proposes to one March sister after another (march is their last name). He says he hates the husbands or fiances of all the sisters ‘attached’ so far, because he has always known that he must be part of the March family. A sentiment I have never seen before. Yes, sometimes you want to belong to a family. You love not just the person but everyone and everything in it. Or, it is perhaps he reverse. When you love someone too much, you find out all about their family, all the members, their background, the house of their dwelling, the school and colleges they have gone to, and begin to love them all… isn’t it?
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And then there was the age that was, before feminism.

"Mr. Davis said it was as useful to educate a woman as to educate a female cat"

“Laurie is a man. He may vote, and hold property and pursue any profession he pleases”

And then, the flip side of male domination, that continues to exist even today.

“Why is it Amy may paint China and you(Jo) can scribble away, while I must manfully set my music aside?”. An important point for feminists who don’t see that men conform to more norms that women do.

“A constitution that denies citizenship to women and black people.

They just passed the 15th amendment, they can vote”
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"Stand up to the lions of injustice..."

America's choices are strange. The vulture is the national bird. In their movie Jungle Book, it's a wolf that is the mother of mowgli. And lion stands for injustice! Whoa!

“Where in tarnation are mommy's glasses?”. Where in tarnation, means, where in hell. Changing times bring changing colloquial.
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I noted some quotes…

“Over the mysteries of female life, there is drawn a veil, best left undisturbed”

“Change will come as surely as the seasons and twice as quick, we make our peace with it as best as we can”

“Some books are so familiar. Reading them is like being home again”

“Go and embrace your liberty and see what wonderful things come out of it”

“The immortality of the soul is asserted to be in consequence of its immateriality as in all leipothymic cases consistent with the idea of immortality and immorality and physicality”, whatever it means…

#westerncinema