‘Mildred Pierce’ or — Transactional Analysis?
Having heard ‘Mildred Pierce’ (1945) referred to as a “woman’s picture” I, in my ignorance, assumed it would be a melodramatic weepy. Turns out I was totally wrong as ‘Mildred Pierce’ is a much tougher experience than I had imagined; it’s so tough this film could bring a tear to your eye but would possibly go about doing so by kicking you in the balls.
The opening credits roll against a breaking surf that’s scrubbing the beach clean accompanied by another passionate score by Max Steiner. It’s all quite romantic, only for that romantic mood to be shattered by stark noir lighting, gun shots, splintering mirrors, an unseen assailant and a man collapsing to the floor clutching his chest whilst uttering the name “Mildred” with his dying breath. It’s like ‘Citizen Kane’ (1941) but with a killer dame instead of a snow-globe.
And it seems as though Mildred Pierce (Joan Crawford) is the killer. After all, we’re now watching her bring some poor schmuck back to the crime scene to spread his finger prints about so he’s obviously going to be taking the rap for this one. Yet Mildred hasn’t quite thought all this through as the police pick up Mildred’s innocent ex-husband instead as he had the only motive for committing the crime. Mildred knows this and tells the cops why it couldn’t have been him.
And so the cops, and we, listen as Mildred’s tale reveals not only the identity of the real murderer but also of Mildred’s life and how she went from humble housewife to a rich and powerful woman and how this all led to death.
What really struck me about ‘Mildred Pierce’, apart from the fact this is a shadowy noir as much as a domestic drama, is how the film never goes for easy, predictable relationship choices and dynamics. At one point, having established some success, Mildred has a dalliance with a charming loafer whom I expected her to fall for blindly. But that’s not what happens. Sex and money are exchanged but Mildred has a clear eye on what’s going on and what the transactions of the relationship are. Besides, she’s worked hard for what she’s achieved and isn’t going to give it up for some preening asshole. Mildred is smart.
Yet these transactions also seem to be a way of Mildred protecting herself from both exploitation and intimacy, and she can’t be exploited because she needs to provide for her daughters, specifically her eldest daughter, Veda. I just hope Veda appreciates what her mother is doing for her.
Unfortunately that doesn’t seem to be the case as, roughly half way through, Mildred does something unforgivable, disgusting, awful and terrible in nature — she slaps her own daughter. No parent should do that to their child and any form of violence against children is totally unacceptable.
Except Veda is such a bitch, is so selfish, so contemptuous of her mother (“Aren’t the pies bad enough?”) that I’d have cheered if Mildred had punched her daughter in the face so hard that she went flying through the fucking window. Okay, so I think I’m getting an idea as to which relationship is the really dangerous one here because this movie seems to be condoning, or even promoting, infanticide.
Think I’m kidding? The film actually comes out and explicitly states this when Mildred’s friend, Ida, casually remarks “Personally, Veda’s convinced me alligators have the right idea. They eat their young.” So this is an American movie about the American family and the message seems to be that this unit of wholesome domesticity has lethal violence innately embedded in it? Wow, that’s some message! And the movie seems to deliver on this message as the film closes with a strange sense of annihilation, a sense so strong that maybe that’s why the cleaning women are on their knees scrubbing the place clean as the movie finishes as it began, another tide washing away the detritus?
There’s more to ‘Mildred Pierce’ than this relationship dynamic as it’s also about class, status, money, how a single mother struggles to survive in the world, resilience, reliance, dependency and blind devotion. It’s also incredibly well directed and shot, the screen often filled with shadows in possession of precise terminators and silhouettes of exceptional definition. There’s an energy here, too, so even though the look is frequently gorgeous it never feels laboured or weighed down in the slightest. Indeed, ‘Mildred Pierce’ barrels along almost TOO quickly as, at one point, the death of a child is gotten over with remarkable brevity (this isn’t a spoiler as we know she is going to die because she has a slight cough that the parents don’t notice but we, the audience, do and that’s always an automatic death sentence for any poor kid in these movies).
‘Mildred Pierce’ is great but was nothing like I was expecting. It’s a “woman’s film” but was based on a book by James M. Cain so is as hard-boiled as they come. It’s a gripping murder mystery, a fascinating look at one woman’s determination and an exploration of how even the most sacred bonds, specifically that of mother and child, can be poisonous and toxic. Oh, and that unconditional love might be a sick joke. Ouch!
