New Moon
Making Sense of Bella’s Inner Life.
Hey Kathryn,
Well, I’m hoping by now you’ve managed to see New Moon – I can’t wait to hear what you thought!
So let me preface all of this by saying that I really do love the Twilight series. They’re fun and dumb and just a good laugh; escapism at its best. And as we’ve noted in previous conversations, they’re doing something pretty interesting with teen sexuality that goes beyond a simple message of ‘true love waits’. In fact, they’re even doing something more interesting with gender roles than some of the ranting against Bella’s pathetic neediness indicates at first glance. But we can come back to those over-discussed topics later perhaps? Because I’ve got some other thoughts to get out first.
The first thing that really struck me in this film was how it sought to clarify or expand on, or make less irritating a central, irritating theme from the book. To be honest, Bella annoyed the piss out of me when I read New Moon, and largely because all her angsty, nightmare-screaming, weepy weakness was always attached to Edward and, in a few moments, to Jacob. In other words, she flitted between from boy to boy – sorry, vampire to werewolf – and back again with her world utterly destroyed by the actions of each.
Now, I’m not complaining about the flitting; I actually find the ‘two loves’ storyline to be one of the more interesting ones in the whole series. My complaint, rather, is against this needy over-attachment to these boys in the first place. I mean, after sobbing and nearly giving up life over Edward, and then feeling something quite similar with Jacob and then flitting back to Ed again, wouldn’t it occur to Bella to get a hobby (for the sake of the hobby itself rather than for the Edward-vision-producing danger it invoked), or bolster her friendships (again, for their own purpose, not for the cover to her Edward-desire that the shopping date with Jessica and then the movie date with Mike and Jacob function as)…or at least just realize that boys are going to come and go and that she needs to suck it up a little because it’s not the end of the world when they do go? The whole ‘end of the world’ over-reaction she does every time gets to be too much for me. And yes, it was annoying in the film – but the movie also buffered it a little.
Here’s what I mean – much more so with the film, I get the sense that her insane nightmares, and even much of her daytime angst isn’t only about Edward (or even Jacob). Rather, it actually reflects the intense overhaul of her own sense of reality that she’s going through.
She’s discovered that there are dangerous, magical creatures in this world; some of whom want to make sweet love to her, some of whom want to kill her, and quite a few who want both. Her almost total nervous or psychological breakdown seems to be a complete over-reaction to lost love in the book; but in the movie, with this added layer, it begins to make more sense. I’d probably lose my shit too if I discovered that vampires and werewolves and God knows what else were real, around me constantly, and had real and serious intentions regarding my own existence. Sure, it’s stupid that she’d lie in the forest with supposedly dangerous bears roaming around killing hikers just because Edward broke up with her. But it makes more sense when set in the context of a total life overhaul where up is no longer up, down is longer down, and even death itself doesn’t seem to be final.
Kristen Stewart continues to annoy me as an actress. Seriously – the tuck her hair behind her ear and look bewildered while breathing rapidly needs to stop! As I mentioned in our recent Vampire Diaries post, there’s a scene where Emily, the werewolf girl – which is what Bella calls her, while Emily calls Bella the vampire girl; get it? it’s funny because the two girls are defined by the men-monsters in their lives rather than their own identities and they both know it…funny right? ha ha – anyway, Emily offers Bella some muffins and Bella almost has a panic attack. Despite that, though, I liked how Bella’s world, life, psyche, etc., seemed appropriately disrupted by the presence of monsters in the film rather than seemingly only by the coming of Edward, as the book indicates.
I am curious to know what you thought of the aesthetics of the film. I think I’m one of the few who really enjoyed the weird look of the first one – it felt like a loud cross between a music video and a car commercial, shot in ways that highlighted colour in somewhat ethereal ways. I missed that aesthetic in this one (which, as we know, had a new director). I really didn’t find much to be visually compelling in New Moon besides, I suppose, all those red capes (um, does the village only have one cape-maker with an awesome monopoly on the St. Marco day costumes? Because it didn’t look like anyone in that crowd was picking their capes up from K-mart). But outside of that and the cool design of the Cullens’ house, I have to say I was a little aesthetically disappointed in the whole thing.
Which leads me to my one final thought before I turn it over to you, though – aren’t vampires supposed to be insanely sexy and amazing dressers? And isn’t Alice supposed to be cutest one who is most captivated by and in love with high fashion? So why on earth did she look like she’d borrowed her grandmother’s sweater when she went to stand before the Volturri in Italy? Those red gloves were fabulous, but absolutely in no way matched the weird jacket or decorative, old lady scarf. For a sexy fashion forward vampire movie, this film could not have disappointed me more in terms of clothing, accessories and crush-worthy characters.
Although, I certainly heard some disagreements to that latter complaint in my gathered audience the morning I went to see it. Made up of predominantly middle-aged white women, our theatre was filled with ladies giddy to return to their own teenage fantasies. When Jacob first removed his shirt, one woman gasped so audibly and with such a strange tremor to her voice, that the whole theatre burst out laughing for so long we missed the remainder of the scene.
It seems that while a 16 year old seems much too young for me to have my 31 year old eyes linger on, the 50something year old ladies in the crowd had no such compunction!
Ok, let me know what you thought!
ox,
Natalie
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Playing the Parody Card.
Dear N,
Thanks for your getting the conversation started. I finally saw New Moon – at one of 15 showings at a theater near Lincoln Square, each of which was sold out. Interestingly, I went to a matinee too (4:30 p.m.), but my theater was full of neither middle-aged women nor teenage girls (though there were representatives of both groups in attendance), but mostly couples our age. I thought this was really intriguing, since despite the whole romance angle, I would never bill this movie as a date movie. But there they were, all these people on dates.
That isn’t to suggest there weren’t plenty of die hard book fans. The uproarious cheers, moans, and sighs of desire as Jacob and Edward appeared alternately only proved the effectiveness (or prophetic tap into the zeitgeist) of the “team Jacob/team Edward” ad campaign currently running, um, just about everywhere you look.
The presence of so many date couples (presumably a bit more distant from the saga hysteria) added another pretty fantastic element to the viewing experience. A good portion of the theater burst into laughter multiple times, almost always when Edward appeared on screen, barely speaking but looking oh so forlorn and pale and suffering. Or when Edward and Bella were caught in moments of romantic bliss that, at least to my audience (and I have to agree with them) seemed so clichéd and over-the-top they felt like parody. For instance, memory-Edward and Bella lying in the meadow staring dreamily into each other’s eyes; apparition-Edward and Bella floating upside down next to each other as Bella almost drowned; newly-minted-vampire-Bella and Edward running blissfully through the forest in J.Crew clothes in Alice’s vision of the future (when Bella becomes a vampire, do they immediately give up their indie dark clothes for the light tones of a Cape Cod weekend?). The inability to take these scenes seriously raises an interesting question: how much does the movie know it is a cliché of teenage romance conventions and how much is it just giving itself over to them so wholeheartedly (in faithfulness to the books, nonetheless) that the line between serious and parody is collapsed?
Interestingly, there were far fewer laughs at Jacob’s outlandish moments, though his shirtlessness got not only tremulous sighs and a few naughty shrieks, but plenty of laughs as well (I mean, if those abs don’t cross the line of teenage fantasy into parody, what else does?!). And each time he came so close to kissing Bella only to be interrupted got a few down right chortles – how unlucky can one guy get? But the audience reaction to the film mirrored a similar revelation I was having all along: the actual attractiveness of Jacob the character.
I remember when I was reading the books that I found Jacob really frustrating. Then again, I think my real dislike for his whiny, possessive, teenage angst didn’t begin until Eclipse, so I think I’ll have to reserve judgment until June. But I was not expecting to like him so much in this movie. Like you, I’m not so much on either Team Jacob or Team Edward as much as I’d like to see Bella grow a backbone and try to define herself a bit outside her possessive male relationships. Still, I have to admit that when Edward stepped, paler than ever, from the shadows of the Italian clock tower, it was hard to see what was so appealing about him, compared to the warm, dynamic humor of Jacob (not to mention, Edward looked like an emaciated Christ figure). It really boils down the power relations again. Even though Bella is older than Jacob, thanks to his “general know how” and “mad skills” and even a little to his cocky bad-boy attitude, he seems like her equal. But not her superior, wolf powers included. Whereas Edwards is her superior in so many ways there are times when he seems more like a parental figure to her than Charlie does. Everyone raves about Kristen and Robert’s genuine chemistry, but I didn’t see it. Not nearly as much as I actually imagined some sort of spark when Jacob leaned in for his thwarted kitchen kiss.
I agree and loved your analysis of Bella’s hyperventilating sensitivity. It was far more interesting to think of her as actually confronting a brave new world than just dying from the absence of her one true love or swooning selfishly and pathetically into the arms of another waiting friend. Maybe part of what frustrated me about Jacob in the books is that he is possessive and whiny precisely because Bella lets him be, because she herself only knows how to be wanted, not how to stake a claim for what she wants. I will be intrigued to see what they do in movie three with the thickening love triangle.
As for aesthetics, I agree. This movie did a lot more for coherent plot and dialogue than the first one, but it gave up the lush, ambient, almost dreamlike aesthetic of Twilight and it was greatly missed. Though I was still pretty smitten with any wood scenes – the northwest is just so luscious, with or without a saturated color palette. I wish they all could have spent some more time wandering around the forest.
Other thought: I never thought of Jessica as a comic relief before, but I have to say, I thoroughly enjoyed her movie-going scene and her general meta-reflections. Same for the whole high school gang, really. Which only makes you wonder why Bella can’t give them the time of day, beyond using them to distract her from her broken heart. I suppose loving a 109 year old pretty much does spoil you for high school romance.
OK, I’ve rambled on for far too long. I am sure there is so much more to talk about, so keep your reflections coming if you have them. With the Vampire Diaries on hiatus, I’ve got no other way to get my blood-sucking fix.
K
