Stanley Kowalski is a son of a bitch

I just finished watching A Streetcar Named Desire for what I'm ashamed to say was my first time. And may I just say- hot damn, Marlon. He without a doubt just blew my mind. Being the movie nerd that I am, I'd obviously seen him before - but Jesus. The physicality of his acting, he was like nothing I had ever seen before especially not from movies from the early 50's.

But I digress. As you can tell, this particular post is about how big of a son of a bitch Stanley Kowalski is. He's a drunk, surly bastard and the worst part about him is how freakin' sexy he is. I mean come on.

Ladies:




I wanted to hate Stella, to just completely and utterly not understand the attraction, why she didn't just leave that jerkface. But that famous scene - where Stan, soaking wet, shirt ripped and slobbering drunk is yelling "HEY STELLAAAAAAAA!" - and she, hypnotized stumbles down the stairs towards him is such a telling moment. Oh Tennessee, you cut to the core of us women. We do loves ourselves a jackass every now and then. But thank god she wises up in the end. Well, we hope so at the very least. I want to believe that he really will never touch her again, but I'm going to go ahead and say Williams' intent is for her to crumble back into his arms, off those "columns" again, as if his "interfering" didn't do enough to the already unhinged Blanche, never mind to the rest of the people around him.

But, in the scenes without Brando, all I could keep thinking about was a conversation I had with a professorial candidate a few weeks back. He had been lucky enough to see Cate Blanchett as Blanche on Broadway. He described her as "ferocious" and I thought to myself, what a compliment. Needless to say I was a little jealous. All I can hope for is that there's a recording of her performance somewhere...and that I can steal it someday.

Blanchett in Streetcar