Total Eclipse

[osprey_archer]

I expected to enjoy Total Eclipse, as it was directed by Agnieszhka Holland (who directed The Secret Garden) and is about the dysfunctional romance between the French poets Verlaine and Rimbaud.

But in fact I didn’t finish it. Leonardo DiCaprio was bizarrely wooden as Rimbaud: what makes this particularly odd is that when he’s playing Rimbaud pretending to be a dog or a goat, he’s actually quite convincing, but when he’s just delivering normal dialogue he’s flat. This may be intentional - although what it’s intending to show, I don’t know - but mostly the effect is “this is Leonardo DiCaprio pretending to be someone and doing a bad job of it.”

Also, I had not realized just how low my tolerance is for men behaving badly because they are GENIUSES. To be fair the movie doesn’t entirely agree with this point, but Verlaine and Rimbaud clearly believe that their GENIUS means that they can do whatever they want, even if that means setting his wife’s hair on fire (Verlaine) or stealing his host’s stuff if he feels like it (Rimbaud) or stabbing his lover’s hand in a weird demonstration of the principle that if you’re going to be brutal, it’s purer to do it while you’re sober and also insulting to apologize (Rimbaud again, chastising Verlaine for maundering on about how he drunkenly set his wife’s hair on fire).

The hand-stabbing really ought to be in my wheelhouse, but in combination with DiCaprio’s flat delivery it’s just kind of dull and unpleasant. There’s no sense of interiority to his character - no sense of why he’s doing any of this. And without that, what’s the point?

Comments

[sovay]

the dysfunctional romance between the French poets Verlaine and Rimbaud.

Here: Lydia Loveless, "Verlaine Shot Rimbaud."

I don't care if I feel half alive
And waste away with you in some Parnassian dive
I just want to know that I'm the one that makes you write that shit

[asakiyume]

Yeah, that sense of entitlement would rub me the wrong way too. "We can do this because we're just THAT CLEVER and THAT SPECIAL. Only people as clever and special as we are would dream of such mad, mad, mad exploits. And it doesn't matter who we inconvenience or hurt because they're mere mortals but we're geniuses." Yeah, that earns a heaping serving of no-thanks.

[osprey_archer]

Right? Maybe this sort of story works better if you imagine yourself as the Genius, but if you imagine yourself as anyone in their orbit it's just so unpleasant.

[missroserose]

I think that's just it, though—that mindset speaks to such a narcissistic and self-centered outlook that any half-aware person is going to have "stay away!" alarm bells going off left and right.

[osprey_archer]

Oh, I don't know. House basically runs on this premise (how many of us would want to be House's patient?) and it was wildly popular.

[missroserose]

Hrm, good point. I shall have to ponder further.

[missroserose]

Man, that's a bummer—I'm right there with you, the premise sounds thoroughly in my wheelhouse, but what a tooth-grindingly frustrating story to watch.