I love Breakfast at Tiffany's.
Yes, I do realize it's completely cliche, but I can't help it.
When I was about fourteen, my mother and I went to see this one-woman play in Toronto. It was called Purple Heart, and while I don't remember the significance of the title, it stands out it my mind from the hundreds of plays I've seen in my little life. It was about this woman who hadn't left her apartment in three months and was obsessed with Breakfast at Tiffany's. It was revealed at the end of the play that the reason she hadn't left her apartment was because her lover had been hit by a car and killed and, well, I don't really remember the rest, sufficed to say she was seriously bummed out and afraid to move on with her life. Taking inspiration from Holly Golightly, this timid protagonist was obsessed with the windows at Tiffany's and throughout the play she read a series of letters that she had written to the "Tiffany Window Lady", whoever that was. The letters all had to do with the window displays that she'd passed by over the years, questions that she had about them, and about the solace she found in the tiny, bejeweled scenarios, like tiny little safe havens where nothing could go wrong and everything was beautiful.
I remember liking the play very much (despite how poorly I'm now describing it, I'm certain it wasn't as Lifetime-Movie-of-the-Week as I'm making it seem) and liking the actress's performance a great deal. My mom and I left feeling connected in womanhood, and had much to discuss on the drive home...particularly how neither of us had ever seen Breakfast at Tiffany's. I can't remember who suggested it, but we ended up renting it on the way home, and watching it that evening with popcorn and wine.
Ever since that night, I've been in love with the movie. It is definitely in my top five favorite movies of all time, up there with It's a Wonderful Life, Amelie, and Disney's Beauty and the Beast. Now, I feel it important to state that I do not necessarily define my favorite movies by the overall quality of the filmmaking or the depth of artistic merit. My favorite movies are movies that I can watch over and over again without tiring of them, and at any given time are proven to make me feel warm and fuzzy inside. This said, I generally shun romantic comedies because of the unrealistically tidy way they depict romantic relationships in modern times. I refuse to see anything with Kate Hudson (save Almost Famous), Reese Witherspoon (save Walk the Line), or Sandra Bullock (honestly, I can't think of a single Sandra Bullock movie that I actually like...by no fault of hers. She's perfectly charming, but she makes the schlockiest movies.) And don't get me started on Cameron Diaz (save Being John Malkovich...why don't these dumb waify blondes challenge themselves more often?)
Breakfast at Tiffany's is definitely an early incarnation of the chick flick, though that doesn't bother me at all. I think it's partially because it's from a different era--so Sixties--and partially because there is something so tragic and poetic about the two main characters. I mean, George Peppard is a failing gigolo writer with absolutely no sense of self worth and Holly Golightly is a confused little orphan who runs away to be a New York party girl and survives presumeably on handouts from rich men that she teases and a mobster who manipulates her into being a prison informant. It's dark stuff, wrapped up by Hollywood in sparkly pink chiffon. I'm ashamed to admit, literary snob as I like to fancy myself, that I still have never read the Truman Capote novella that the film is based on, although I did pick it up at Borders the other day and flipped to the end: low and behold, in the book, Holly doesn't end up with Paul the writer, but rather does fly off the Brazil with wealthy dignitary Jose de Silva Periera. When I read that, I felt disheartened and at the same time strangely satisfied.
See, the end of the movie is one of my favorite endings of all time. Paul picks up Holly after spending the night in prison, and having picked up all her belongings, he proceeds to take her to a hotel where he plans to take care of her through the trial of Sally Tomato, to whom she has been unknowingly smuggling in drug traffic information. But Holly is determined to get on her scheduled flight to Brazil, even after Paul reads her a letter from Jose, breaking off their affair. Paul is determined to force the stubborn, naive Holly to wake up and see that he is the only person in New York who really and truly cares about her, the only person who can save her from herself, and that he needs her just as much in return.
Paul Varjak: I love you.
Holly Golightly: So what.
Paul Varjak: So what? So plenty! I love you, you belong to me!
Holly Golightly: [tearfully] No. People don't belong to people.
Paul Varjak: Of course they do!
Holly Golightly: I'll never let ANYBODY put me in a cage.
Paul Varjak: I don't want to put you in a cage, I want to love you!
Holly is terrified of truly letting herself be loved, and refuses him. To which, Paul replies:
Paul Varjak: You know what's wrong with you, Miss Whoever-you-are? You're chicken, you've got no guts. You're afraid to stick out your chin and say, "Okay, life's a fact, people do fall in love, people do belong to each other, because that's the only chance anybody's got for real happiness." You call yourself a free spirit, a "wild thing," and you're terrified somebody's gonna stick you in a cage. Well baby, you're already in that cage. You built it yourself. And it's not bounded in the west by Tulip, Texas, or in the east by Somali-land. It's wherever you go. Because no matter where you run, you just end up running into yourself.
By this point in the movie, I'm already dripping with tears, every single time. So then, Paul gets out of the cab, and goes looking for Holly's nameless cat, who she has thrown out of the cab earlier into the pouring rain. After a few moments, Holly, ruined and desperate, gets out of the cab and follows Paul. There's this great moment where he realizes that she's come to her senses, and they look for the cat together. The last moment is of Holly, clutching the soaking wet cat in her trenchcoat, tears in her eyes, and Paul kissing in the pouring rain, as he wraps his arms around her and the cat, a little family united at last.
Oh, it's so good. If I had a VCR I'd be watching it right now (I only own in on VHS).
It's like the urban, independent-but-totally-confused woman's fairytale: finding an equally confused and fucked up man who is strong enough to force us out of our holding pattern of delusional self-destruction, and relieving us of the terror and painful loneliness that comes with going it alone in the world, but being sensitive enough not to stifle our free spirit. I cry every time because, like millions of women before me, I see a little piece of myself in Holly Golightly. Except that I have a job. Two in fact.
A few days ago, I started to write that I was beginning to feel as if the roller coaster of my life was finally on the upswing, climbing to the next great height. Fall is in the air, any minute the leaves are going to burst into color, and any minute my life is going to turn around and I'll be catapulted out of this pit of destitute self-pity and miserable despair I've been living in. A few days ago, I believed that it was my time to climb out of the pit.
Today I had a really shitty day. I was up at 5 am for the Arden audition in Philly, and while my plan for the day timed out perfectly, the audition was not so successful. I won't bore you with the details...sufficed to say, I left feeling like a miserable wreck. And I never bomb auditions anymore. It's been seven months since I had a callback for anything, but I've gotten to this marvellous place where I no longer take it personally and I feel like I'm nailing a good eighty percent of my auditions. I sing my face off, I commit, and I generally get great feedback. The callbacks will come in time. So it was jarring to have an experience that I felt so poorly about, and it wasn't for lack of preparation--it was all about nerves. Which I only let get the best of me when I'm auditioning for people I know personally and respect. I can go into an EPA at Telsey and think nothing of it, but at the Arden, I care about their personal opinions. It's a little twisted.
Thankfully, upon arriving back in New York, I was not needed to come into work at the restaurant tonight, so I was able to curl up in bed, eat grilled cheese and watch the presidential debate. Oh yeah, and wallow in despair. It's not even self-pity, it's...I don't know what it is. Self-defeat, self-deprecation...some form of emotional self-abuse. Some days I wake up feeling so ready to take on the world, to take control of my life back. And some days I wake up and just want to go back to sleep. It's not for lack of knowing what I want, or how to get it, or even believing that I'm capable of acheiving it. I know all of those things deep down. I'm just so hard on myself all the time that I constantly find it difficult to overcome my restlessnes, my impatience, my feeling that I'm not working hard enough or fast enough and thereby not accomplishing all my life's goals fast enough. Of course, the beating myself up over it wastes a lot of time. This is something I've been working on for years, and while I've made immense improvements over the past few years, it continues to be my own personal cross to bear. (I won't get into all the dull psychological reasons for these things--my own self analysis is really only interesting to me, I'm sure.)
Anyway.
Unsure of how to cope with these unwelcome yucky feelings, I was reminded of the words of Holly Golightly:
Holly Golightly: You know those days when you get the mean reds?
Paul Varjak: The mean reds, you mean like the blues?
Holly Golightly: No. The blues are because you're getting fat and maybe it's been raining too long, you're just sad that's all. The mean reds are horrible. Suddenly you're afraid and you don't know what you're afraid of. Do you ever get that feeling?
Paul Varjak: Sure.
Holly Golightly: Well, when I get it the only thing that does any good is to jump in a cab and go to Tiffany's. Calms me down right away. The quietness and the proud look of it; nothing very bad could happen to you there. If I could find a real-life place that'd make me feel like Tiffany's, then - then I'd buy some furniture and give the cat a name!
Maybe my problem is that I haven't found my Tiffany's.
I think going to Tiffany's itself would actually make me a little bummed out, the way I always feel when walking down Fifth Avenue, amongst the designer shops and sharply-dressed business people...all that extravagent wealth, all those people who feel so disgustingly entitled. But having a place that always cheers me up...a sanctuary from the Mean Reds...a place that represents who I want to be, the type of person I'm working to become, a place that reflects my ideals of beauty, serenity and emotional fulfillment in this crazy life. A place where I can be at peace.
I shall find this place, and the search shall by my way of diffusing the Mean Reds from my life. I must always be searching...the search is truly, to me, the definition of being alive.
After all, you never know what you might find along the way...or what might find you.
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