Mildred Pierce Assignment

1. In the Article “The Genre”, Jeanine Basinger describes 3 main purposes of Woman's Film. The first purpose; being to place a woman at the centre of the universe, the second; to reinforce the stereotype that a woman's true calling is that of tending to the home, the family, children, her man as his wife, a job she can't escape from no matter what else she does and the third being to provide a temporary visual release: an escape into purely romantic love, into sexual awareness, into luxury or into the rejection of the traditional female role (Basinger). The third purpose in this article best describes the message in the movie Mildred Pierce. My reasoning behind this is my analysis of the character Mildred Pierce. Mildred Pierce is a not the traditional house wife. She is tough and ambitious, not looking for a man to sweep her off her feet and take care of her. She has the guts to take responsibility for her own life and she's very smart and doesn't need someone else to think for her. In the movie Pierce is a fierce outgoing woman who pushes to open her own business, this is something that was seldom seen for women during this era. She is able to make a living for herself and even though she meets a man with wealth, she continues to earn money and take care of both herself and her child. Pierce goes to the opposite end of the spectrum of the standard stereotype for women in the 1900's. Even though in the beginning where she says: “she had felt like she lived in the kitchen her whole life”(Pierce), you can immediately tell by her personality she never belonged there as the average housewife. These examples really show that the main messages in the film were pushing for women to gain some sort of stance in society and move away from the stereotype. These examples also show that the third purpose of the three purposes that Basinger describes in her article really fit with the messages in Mildred Pierce.

2. Molly Haskell describes four categories of Woman's Film. The four being sacrifice; herself for her children, marriage for her love etc, affliction; women suffers until she dies, choice; the woman must choose between two suitors and competition; the does battle with another woman. The film Mildred Pierce best fits into the category of Sacrifice. Throughout the movie she is always putting the children before herself and her happiness. She says to Bert “ I'd do anything for those kids, understand? Anything.” (Pierce) Throughout the movie she always saying she'd do anything for her children. She sacrifices her status in society to become a waitress, just so she can earn enough money to give children the best teachers and dress they can ever imagine. Pierce sacrifices many things in this film thus this being the best category to place the film in.

4. In Kathryn D’Alessandro's article “Linking Styles: Mildred Pierce” she describes many visual images in the movie that are very reminiscent of classic film noir. The first one being the visual and narrative styles is the many themes of crime, intrigue and corruption. Just like described in D'Alessandro's article “the film opens with a shadowy murder at a beach house, as the murder victim and murderer’s shadow are captured in a bullet-shattered mirror”. During this scene the use of dramatic lighting is present. This making the scene even more powerful and easily captures the viewers attention.

5. In Sybil DelGaudio's article "Mammy in Hollywood" he states that "the Mammy's image is inexorably linked to either the slave-society image of surrogate materialism and domestic service (in the rearing and socialization of white children)" (DelGaudio). In the movie Mildred Pierce, there is the family maid who fits the standard stereotype of the house maid. She works in the kitchen, she takes care of the children and she does the regular chores.

6. The femme fatale in the movie Mildred Pierce is played by none other than Miss Veda. Veda fits the true stereotype of film noire's classic femme fatale.  She is daring, sassy and has the balls to kill a man. She is what is described as a “dark seductress”. This is proven when she is able to lure and older man, this man being Monte. The classic femme fatale is intelligent, powerful, and has great strength through their sexuality, usually used to lure men.  Many examples of this is shown throughout the movie. Veda has power over her mother. Mildred is serving her wishes. She is working hard to serve her daughter and when her daughter is dissatisfied Mildred works even hard and puts her daughter over her own happiness. Making Veda very powerful. Throughout the film Veda remains in power even in the end when she is arrested for the murder of Monte tell her mother that she will be alright even though she is being thrown in jail.

Mildred Pierce, Director Michael Curtiz, MGM, 1945
Linking Styles : "Mildred Pierce", Kathryn D' Alessandro, Audience Magazine, 2002
Woman in Film : Course Package Readings