The Barefoot Contessa
Less grown technological advancements characterized the 1950s. However, the television and some view computers allowed people to watch movies frequently. The theme of the family union was common in several films since the popularity of a movie depended on how it won the hearts of the viewers. The Barefoot Contessa was one of the movies released in the year 1954 by Joseph Leo Mankiewicz featuring the lives of Maria and Vincenzo who are in an unhappy marriage and later Vincenzo kills Maria over the suspicion of cheating. The story is developed on a flashback that aims to express the dangers of staying in an unhappy marriage with the hope of finding love one day.
The meeting of Maria and Vincenzo is a strategy to build on the theme of family. The impacts of war have contributed to a crisis in the Count’s family. The Count’s family is almost coming to an end because of the impacts of war. The only man present in the family is impotent and cannot help in bringing an offspring to save the family lineage. Maria, on the other side, has not been lucky to find a satisfying love life and envies her friends a happy family life (Ramírez, 2015). Maria’s attempt to build love with Alberto but fails once again since Alberto is never serious and only shows a little of shallow love to Maria who feels she should be loved more. The career of Maria as a dancer could be associated with her unfortunate fate on matters of love since she appears destined to make many people happy and not to concentrated on a single man. Generally, the meeting of Maria and Vincenzo brings together two people with troubled family lives but expect to be happy together.
The theme of a family union has been built by the use of coincidence where Maria and Vincenzo are both in troubled family lives but come together in an attempt to build a happy family. The lack of proper communication could be blamed on the failure of the marriage between Maria and her husband. The fact that Vincenzo was impotent did not necessarily mean that Maria was supposed to look for a child from elsewhere. Communication as a family would have given Maria a clear picture of what Vincenzo wanted in life. Also, Maria appears to be hooked in her previous sex life since she is pregnant with another man. Vincenzo also appears to be in doubt over Maria’s character and decides to follow her closely to the hotel room. After Maria returns home from her hotel room, Vincenzo follows her and kills her, bringing on board the theme of death built from the theme of family union. The death of Maria could be viewed as symbolic in the dying Count family since Maria was pregnant with a child who would hopefully keep the family lineage alive. The flashback of events, as presented in Maria’s funeral, reveals a great history of troubled family lives that eventually lead to the death of partners.
In sum, the theme of family union dominates in the film, Barefoot Contessa. The meeting of Maria and Vincenzo can be viewed as a coincidence since both were running from a past of troubled family lives. The death of Maria shows the difficulties that face families without proper communication. The events in Barefoot Contessa are presented as a flashback during Maria’s burial.
References
Ramírez, M. D. C. R. (2015). The Frustration of the Ash Girl in The Barefoot Contessa: Traces of Carmen in a Hollywood Fairy Tale. Clepsydra: Revista de Estudios de Género y Teoría Feminista, (14), 37-52.