Stewing in my own sour air

I had somewhat lazy, forgotten plans to talk about this/post a video clip but was then further inspired to share it thanks to Becca's recommendation via email today:

MY MASSIVE FEELINGS

I'm pretty sure that the desperate voice of a junior high school diary writer is the same way I write as an adult. This notion does not upset me in the least. Anyway, forever thanks to Becca for keeping me going in times of need.

The Bell Jar, 1979:


I rented this a few months back when I had a brief flirtation with Slyvia after having read The Bell Jar for the first time. It must be said here that it is not unusual for me to be around 15 years too late on discovering things that would have shaped a girl's character at 13 or so.

"Sometimes just being a woman is an act of courage."
This tagline for the movie is especially applicable during the ripping off of the evening gown, throwing clothes out of a Manhattan window, while screaming like an actress who is acting like a mentally ill genius for somewhere close to 4 minutes scene. (I do not have a video clip of this, but now suddenly wish I did) Surprisingly, this scene is not - along with the milk on paper scene above - described in the book.



I think the adaptation writers, producers, and directors of this movie came up with the tagline first and ran with it; reading the book only to get a feel for the extraneous, background, plot stuff. While it also seems as though someone working for the studio got a hold of the lost Bell Jar journals; the secret stuff not even Plath was privvy to. Or maybe back in the 70's someone like Laurie Weeks wrote a little fan fiction. See where fan fiction might lead to? I better start that Ballykissangel project I've been thinking about...



The movie is brilliant and has that special 70's creepy vibe I love so much. I have no problem accepting it as a valid interpretation of the author's work, unlike the deep hatred I have of the 1987 movie adaptation of Less Than Zero. How can a movie starring Andrew McCarthy and made from a Bret Easton Ellis novel be so bad? I don't want to talk about. At least not now. At least not without screenshots.