“As soon as you’ve taken off the mask, all that remains is who you were originally. At least, we hope so. One can never be completely sure…”
-H.P. Lovecraft
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| The Dread Pirate Roberts (right) and The Princess Bride (left). |
In many ways, The Princess Bride has
haunted me since my childhood. It was always there in the background, waiting
to be watched, but I never watched it. Oh sure, I had ample opportunity to
watch the film, several long bus rides included someone bringing a copy for the
kids to watch while the grownups were doing other things. But for whatever
reason, I’d always fall asleep either shortly before it started or someway into
the opening. The only bits I’d actually watch of the film were the third act
(starting roughly around the point where Billy Crystal shows up) as well as a
few assorted clips on YouTube.
Now that I’ve finally watched the
film in its entirety, I can see what I’ve been missing. I should start with the
thematically relevant parts before the film’s charms overwhelm me. For
starters, at its core, The Princess Bride is a love story. This should be
obvious what with the title invoking romance and what not, but the way the film
goes about the romance is a bit off. Most films that tell stories of romance
(even the ones with swords and magical creatures) have the relationship bloom
over the course of the film.
The Princess Bride opts to not do
that and instead have the falling in love happen over the course of a montage
that can be summed up as “Buttercup orders Wesley around until she falls in
love.” The quickness of this relationship and lack of set up beyond “man, Cary
Elwes and Robin Wright are hot” would ordinarily be resolved by having them
share romantic dialogue over the course of their adventure, but instead most of
its bickering and “OH GOD, RODENTS OF UNUSUAL SIZE DO EXIST!” Sure, they
declare their love for one another, and they do have chemistry with one
another, but the way they act around each other seems as if they’re playing the
parts of being in a committed relationship
Which, I suppose, is kind of the
point. Even if you cut out the framing narrative of the story being read to the
young boy, there’s a knowing artifice to the actions being shown on screen. The
sets are a bit wobbly, despite the extremely well polished production design,
the music is diegeticly extradiegetic (in that it only exists as part of the
story and not in the “real” world), and the actors act extremely arch compared
to other performances they have given. Not quite chewing the scenery (though
Wallace Shawn does do that quite a bit), but rather they play into their
archetypes. They’re quite aware that the story is a bit camp and flimsy.
So how does this tie into the relationship
between Buttercup and Wesley? Well, their relationship is not so much out of
love than it is longing. For large portions of the story one thinks the other
is dead or their love must be sacrificed for the greater good. They have this
ideal version of the other that is somewhat off of reality. We all have this of
people we know, how we see them outside their heads. But we never get a sense
of their interiority. It’s all from the distance of a young boy who doesn’t
really care about the kissing bits and just wants to get to the swordplay
already. It’s not so much that their true love is false, but that their true
love is fictional.
I should probably bring up the
original book at this time, as it does quite a bit to analyze the text of The
Princess Bride. The frame of that story, rather than of a young boy being told
a fairy tale by his grandfather while sick in bed, is about that same boy, now
all grown up, looking back at that story from the perspective of an adult. It
could be argued that there’s some similarity between my project and the
original book. Certainly the actual comic I’m supposed to be talking about
isn’t from my childhood, but Spider-Man was a major factor in it.
In many ways, Spider-Man was my
gateway into comics. (Sure, I thought the films they made with him were fine,
but I had an attachment to the character. I’m not entirely sure as to why
Spider-Man as opposed to Batman or Superman, but whenever I was asked who my
favorite superhero was, I’d always default to Spider-Man.) When I was in middle
school, I would always go to the local library to hang out while my brother was
at Karate. My parents probably just wanted an excuse to get me out of the
house. When I was old enough, I would go to the Teen Section and pluck out a
comic from the shelves. Sometime it’d be a Batman one or the X-Men, but the one
that always caught my eye was this Spider-Man one.
It was a hardcover volume with a
purple spine. It had this weird monster on the cover, this hulking black
Spider-Man with his tongue sticking out like a tentacle. It was from a line
called Ultimate Spider-Man, and it was called Venom. When I first read the
story, I mostly skimmed the dialogue. I got the gist of what was happening, but
I was really there for the fight scenes. But the images in the comic were so
evocative: Peter’s dreamscape of murdering Uncle Ben, Venom electrocuting on
the football field, that dark suit that seemed to be a never ending void.
I would reread the comic again and
again, this time actually reading the story and finding it quite enjoyable for
my mind. But more than that, I wanted to read more stories with Spider-Man and
Venom. I would read the comics at random, based solely on where I saw them on
the library shelf. Eventually, I got to this one story about Goblins that it
took me a long time to realize was a huge influence on how I view Spider-Man. (But
that’s for later.)
Eventually, I got around to looking
up what people thought was the best Spider-Man story ever told. Indeed, CBR
named it their number one Spidey story over the Ditko stuff that got me hooked
in the first place. I’m of course talking about Kraven’s Last Hunt. (We still
have a few more stops before we get there though, be we’re nearing that point.)
The image that everyone would point to as the definitive image of the story was
that of Peter crawling out of the grave. It would appear that he was only mostly
dead.
This brings us back to The Princess
Bride. In many ways, these works are cousins of one another. Both play the part
of a different genre when, at their hearts, they’re love stories. Both feature
a Rodent of Unsusual Size that tries to eat the main character. And they both
ask us a very similar question: How Does One Become Only Mostly Dead? We could
chalk it up to narrative conventions in the case of The Princess Bride. The
hero outmaneuvers the villain’s dastardly schemes and, when all seems lost,
overcomes all obstacles. But Spider-Man doesn’t have that luxury. He’s not the
hero of Kraven’s Last Hunt. At most, he’s a deturagonist. Is there another way
Wesley could be mostly dead, one that could apply to Peter?
Certainly. Consider Montoya’s reaction
to Wesley’s final death screams, the sound of ultimate suffering: “My heart
made that sound when Rugen slaughtered my father.” The effects of the machine
that caused those screams and subsequently his (almost) death don’t so much
suck the life out of Wesley literally as they induce a state of emotional
terror. The sensation one feels when someone close to you has been lost forever
externalized into something that’s killing you. For Wesley, it was the machine
externalizing his sense of hopelessness over finding Buttercup then losing her
all over again. For Buttercup, it was her nightmares induced by her guilt over
sacrificing herself to save Wesley culminating in an attempted suicide. For
Peter, it was Kraven acting out his desire to die for killing a defenseless
woman who wanted to die. And for them, the pair was too much, and they died.
And yet, these people held onto
something, some sliver of hope, something that would push them to stay alive
through their death. True Love. Peter climbs his way out of screaming “Mary
Jane,” Wesley tells Miracle Max that he holds on because of True Love, and
Buttercup doesn’t go through with her Jullietian fate because she hears the
whisper of her love. This isn’t so much a case that love conquers all, love is
fleeting after all. Rather, it’s the firmament through which our characters are
able to change themselves through their trauma.
And what do they become once they
get out of their Pit of Despairs? Well, I should save Peter’s for when I get to
Kraven’s Last Hunt itself, but for Buttercup and Wesley, well they get to be a
couple. Might seem like an anticlimax for some, they just run off into the
sunset and live their lives together. No great change in personality, they just
fought for their happy ending. Well, yeah. Sure the book says that they could
all die at the hands of Humperdink’s men. And even if they do survive, the
relationship was a bit flimsy and based more on lust than love.
But then, the read the author gives
isn’t the actual text. It’s an abridged version of the book based on a father’s
telling to a young lad who doesn’t think highly of the importance of kissing
bits. So naturally the details about the relationship are skewed to fit such a
mindset. Details that would be skimmed over to not alienate such a lad who
would much rather watch sports than do his homework. Bits like the relationship
seeming to go by so quickly as to skip over the important beats. Sure, some of
the bits like the Queen packing and unpacking her bags are best left cut out of
an abridged version, but the little details left out that imply bigger ideas,
the things that make a story truly work, tend to be mistaken by many as things
that ought to be cut to get to the fight scenes.
…If I actually saw this as a kid, I
think I probably would have liked it quite a bit. It certainly itches the
postmodernist/metafictional spot in my brain that flourished in my early teens,
that even now influences my writing. But this film feels like the film I should
have seen as a kid at some point or another. It’s the step I missed along the
way of growing up. The influence that I never saw, but always knew was there…
but always felt its presence.
No one chooses to be haunted, I
know that much. And our ghosts take shapes and forms at once alien and
familiar. I chose this film purely because it was one that I missed as a kid. I
didn’t expect it to fill the themes of the subject matter so well. For at the
heart of the romance between Spider-Man and Mary Jane, there too lies a knowing
artifice. They play roles in their lives of Bugs Bunny-esque Trickster playing
the part of a Superhero and the Party Girl who doesn't care about anything save
her own excess. But unlike Buttercup and Wesley, we do know their
interiority.
The masks they wear hide confused somewhat
miserable people. Not broken by the world per say, but damaged nonetheless. We
call the damage realistic, believing that’s all there is to them. And yet, more
than that is a desire to move past from the damage. Their first instincts may
be to repress, sure. But ultimately they try heal from what has happened to
them, and come out the other end better than they were.
Some might say conclude from this
that the mask isn’t real, but as an internet friend of mine once said “All fictions are
equally fictional.” We’re all stories in the end; best we can do is to be one
that helps someone be a better person than they once were. Even if that person
is just us. Besides, they’re terribly comfortable. I imagine everyone wears
them in the future. It would be inconceivable otherwise.
“I always feel afraid, just the same as you. But I wear this mask every single day. And it doesn’t take the fear away, but it makes it feel a bit better. I feel brave enough then to face the whole world and all the people. And now you will, too.”
-David Bowie
(Next Time: I’ve Walked Behind The
Sky!)
[Photo: Are You Serious?! Shocked at the Beach Wedding
Panic! Directed by Katsuyoshi Yatabe Script by Hiroyuki Hoshiyama]
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