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Thursday, July 8, 2010

'Sabrina' Open Thread














What did you think?
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5 comments:

  1. James NicholasJuly 12, 2010 at 5:52 PM

    Taken apart and appreciated of themselves, I enjoyed the various parts. Audrey Hepburn was charming, William Holden was fun and engaging, and I loved Humphrey Bogart.

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  2. James NicholasJuly 13, 2010 at 11:52 AM

    Wow, we are speechless.

    It was kind of a fun retelling of the Cinderella story. I thought the boys were all too old for the girl, and that rather bothered me. You have to be fair to people, most of all to people you care about. I would like very much for Linus to see that life is more than mergers and acquisitions, but could he not have discovered that outside of pulling one over on the impressionable Sabrina? Rochester hid some major details and that struck me as cruel, but here Linus is solely motivated to advance his company's position in the plastics market, a market which years later Dustin Hoffman's character will also be advised to get in on in The Graduate.

    Hmm.

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  3. cathyJuly 13, 2010 at 5:26 PM

    I'm here, I'm here!

    Be right back... Well, pretty soon! :)

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  4. cathyJuly 13, 2010 at 8:18 PM

    I do like your comment about Sabrina being a Cinderella story -- she even had the fairy god-father Baron at the cooking-school! (Oh! I have to find that great line about a woman in love...

    "A woman happy in love, she burns the soufflé; a woman unhappy in love, she forgets to turn on the oven."

    Such a cute moment in the story. It's right up there with "Young people in looooove, are very seldom hun-gry!")

    There's so much fun in this movie. I love the scene coming back from the train station, Sabrina openly delighted that David can't figure out how he knows her. I love the scene at the office, with linus showing off the sugar-based plastic -- and making all the secretaries stand on it! And the plastic hammock with the hole -- I think I was 10 the first time I saw this movie, and I thought that was the cleverest thing I'd ever seen -- still cracks me up.

    And Audrey Hepburn is so real as every teenage girl, imagining just how everything would go once Mr. Wonderful came to his senses... And she is perfect as the girl who can scarcely believe it's actually happening. Waiting for David to meet her at the tennis courts, trying to decide how to "set" herself to best advantage, then the embarrassment of being caught out, feeling foolish -- "coming down" both literally and figuratively -- when Linus finds her. And the uncertainty and second-guessing herself all through that "It's all in the family" business. I love it.

    (It is funny to look back on seeing this as a kid. It didn't occur to me, though it was obvious to any other member of the viewing public, that David would be panicking about this newest entanglement in no time. Of course, I also didn't realize that Linus' whole tragic mystery about his broken heart was perhaps less accurate than it was effective!)

    But there are the more serious romantic elements -- the kind of things I didn't appreciate until I grew up (or close enough). The idea that Sabrina is honorable about her commitment to David, even as she realizes she has feeling for Linus; that she tries to avoid Linus, and spend time with David; that she tries to convince herself that because she loved him until he loved her, she owes it to him to love him still.

    And the scene at Linus' office after-hours, when he finally tells her that all his efforts to win her heart were a scheme to get her out of the way -- even as a kid I marveled at her poise and calm -- her dignity in the face of such pain and humiliation -- and in later viewings got to enjoy details like the image of her leaving, her slim upright figure almost silhouetted against the light from the office, as she starts out that long empty hall. So cool.

    And, of course, i love the idea that someone can redeem himself for love. All the time Sabrina is trying to be a friend to Linus she is encouraging him to look for more than the work that absorbs him so wholly for his fulfillment in life, to set the business aside and seek real happiness. And when Linus does finally realize that there are more important things in life than profit, it is for Sabrina's happiness, not his own, that he gives up the sugar deal. And it's for her happiness that he sets aside the feelings he finally realizes he has for her, and makes it possible for her and David to be together. (Not being Casablanca, that isn't how it ends, but no matter, it was his intent.)

    Frankly, I think Linus should have had to work a little harder to make things right with Sabrina, but it is a fairy-tale, after all. :)

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  5. James NicholasJuly 13, 2010 at 9:43 PM

    Ah yes, well that helps immensely.

    And yes, Linus most certainly should have had to work to regain Sabrina's confidence. That confidence would most likely be hard earned, unless something else happened to dwarf the wrong, like the loss of his sense of sight perhaps. I love Humphrey Bogart in this movie, I just really don't like Linus. Why should a no account schemer be so lucky as to gain the affections of an innocent, delightful young woman? And when she finds that he has lied to her throughout, he just sails back into her life without so much as a 'Sorry about that whole business scheme thing'. Perhaps she realized how ungentlemanly his behavior had been, and he knew that she knew of his feelings of disgrace and personal disgust. It was all understood, and he would have to turn away from his current life and turn over a new leaf if he was to change his ways, which his getting onto the liner signified. Still, there he is, happy as can be, putting the deal together with David and the young Miss Consolidated Plastics, which he surely knows is as off as his behavior with Sabrina. Hmmm.

    Well, Audrey Hepburn looked wonderful, and the guys were pretty fun, I just can't find a male figure to identify with, so I was out to sea on this one.

    All right, I have made my choice for the next movie. It is about two brothers growing up, the coming to grips with the wondrous and tragic aspects of life, and their eventual understanding and acceptance.

    I believe you will enjoy "A River Runs Through It".

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