Of Human Bondage

As you can see from the list on the right, I am just finished watching (again) Of Human Bondage (1934). I am going to be writing about it some more in a moment for my work, but I wanted to use this to throw out some comments after this viewing to get my mind going.

• The main thing I want to address are the similarities of this film to Dangerous (1935). Both use Davis as a woman who destroys the man who is in love with her. Both feature rather wooden leading men, Leslie Howard and Franchot Tone, whose lack of emotion is only heightened by playing opposite Davis. Both are stories of the differences between healthy and unhealthy feminine love and desire.
  
• On this last point, though, the two films differ in emphasis. Bondage highlights the unhealthy, destructive desires of Mildred (Davis), while Dangerous gives a little more emphasis on the devoted love of Gail Armitage (Margaret Lindsay), Don's (Tone) fiancee at the opening of the film.
  
• In this respect, Dangerous is the "safer" of the two films - probably owing to its production at Warners and Bondage's source text. Dangerous frames the story of Don and Joyce with Gail's love of Don - she is there at the beginning and they marry at the end.
  
• The film also softens the sexual connotations of Mildred in Bondage. Mildred's relationship with Miller, her pregnancy, the innuendo that she will turn (has already turned?) to prostitution, and her TB underscore the sexual nature of that character. For Joyce Heath this is turned into "passion for living" and, more explicitly, "passion for acting."
• For Bondage itself, I was struck by the physicality of the film. Much is made early on of Phillip's club foot - we get several shots of his feet hobbling down the street or into and out of the coffee house. He is forced to show it to his medical school classmates so that they can study it, and Mildred explicitly remarks on it when she first meets him and sees him walking away. Her last, and most vile, rebuke of him when he finally turns on her is to call him a cripple.
  
• Similarly for Davis there are a great number of full length shots of her whole body and, early in the film, she appears to Don in his fantasies - a skeleton becomes her as do the pages of his exam. Most explicitly, however, is how her body is used to mark her descent. As the film progresses her physical appearance deteriorates - dark eyes, pallid skin, make to look thinner - to mark her illness and descent.
• I was also struck by the number of shots with either Phillip or Mildred (and others) looking at the camera. The first I noticed is when they go on their first date. As they sit across from one another, rather than getting the usual shot-reverse shot of their conversation, with the camera at an angle to them as they clearly look at one another, we get straight on medium close-ups of each as the talk. This also happens at other moments in the film, almost always with either Phillip or Mildred.
  
• Finally, I am always struck by the ending of the film as Phillip and Sally (Frances Dee) walk down the street. He bumps into someone, then all of the cars honk loudly at them as they cross the street, drowning out their conversation, a taxi driver keeps interrupting them, and then she bumps into a man before they finally do get into the taxi. The moment reminds me of things I have seen in some silent films, notably Piccadilly (1929) and After Midnight (1927), that seem to relate to the intrusion of modernity into relationships.
  

These are some things I am thinking of right now and need to work through in my chapter.