Desire Film
Brian Scarano
Desire is a 1936 American romantic crime comedy-drama film directed by Frank Borzage, starring Marlene Dietrich and Gary Cooper, and produced by Borzage and Ernst Lubitsch. The picture is a remake of the 1933 German film Happy Days in Aranjuez. The screenplay was written by Samuel Hoffenstein, Edwin Justus Mayer, and Waldemar Young, based on the play Die Schnen Tage von Aranjuez by Hans Szkely and Robert A. Stemmle. The music score was composed by Frederick Hollander and the cinematography was shot by Charles Lang and Victor Milner. Marlene Dietrich's wardrobe was designed by Travis Banton. The supporting cast features John Halliday, William Frawley, Akim Tamiroff, and Alan Mowbray.
In Paris, Madeleine de Beaupre cons jeweler Aristide Duvalle and psychiatrist Maurice Pauquet by telling each man that she is married to the other. Duvalle delivers a string of pearls worth millions of francs to Pauquet's office, expecting to be paid, but Pauquet thinks he is a new patient who has delusions of needing to collect debts. Madeleine is there to introduce them to each other, and departs with the pearls before they figure out what she has done.
While driving to the Spanish border, Madeleine splashes mud onto Tom Bradley, an American automotive engineer vacationing in Europe. Then as they approach the border, her car's horn control sticks "on", to the annoyance of the customs officers. Tom fixes it and they go into the office together. Luggage and purses are being inspected, so she decides to hide the pearls in his jacket pocket. On the road, she pulls ahead of Tom, then disables her own car so that he will have to give her a lift.
They make their way separately to San Sebastin. There "Countess" de Beaupre meets her accomplice, supposedly her uncle, "Prince" Carlos Margoli. Tom locates Madeleine with the help of a policeman, who cannot imagine that a charming countess would steal a car and does not even stay to see if Tom identifies her as the thief.
As it seems that Tom still has the pearls but does not know it, Carlos quickly offers to pay for the car, and Madeleine pretends to be attracted to him. They all become friendly and go together to stay at Carlos's villa. There, when Tom wears his other jacket, Carlos gets the pearls from him using another trick.
Carlos now wants Madeleine to accompany him to Madrid to sell them, but she has actually fallen in love with Tom, and wants to leave the gang instead. Despite the attempts of Carlos and "Aunt" Olga, another gang member, to break them up, they become engaged.
After Carlos and Olga taunt Madeleine about being unable to tell Tom the truth about herself, she throws caution to the wind and does just that. They steal the necklace back from Carlos and return to Paris, where Madeleine returns it to Duvalle. He personally forgives her, but says she must still face the authorities. The final scene is Tom and Madeleine's wedding, where her parole document is accidentally shown, proving that she has done so. Pauquet and Duvalle, who now is his patient, attend the wedding as witnesses.
John Gilbert was initially cast as Carlos Margoli, which was to be his comeback role. He had a heart attack in his dressing room a few weeks later and was immediately replaced by John Halliday. A few days later, Gilbert died of alcohol-induced heart failure. Some of the scenes in the film were directed by Ernst Lubitsch whilst Frank Borzage was fulfilling a prior commitment at Warner Bros. The film was shot at Paramount Studios and at the Iverson Movie Ranch in Chatsworth, California, and, unusual for its time, on location in France and Spain.
Writing for The Spectator in 1936, Graham Greene gave the film a good review, describing it as "the best film in which Miss Marlene Dietrich has appeared since she left Germany, and the most amusing new film to be seen in London this week". Greene also praised Cooper's performance as one of his best.[2]
There is no reel librarian character that I could see, so this film does end up in the Class V category of films with no identifiable librarians (although Class V films might mention librarians or have scenes set in libraries). But that does not take away the significance of the library in this classic film, as I demonstrate in detail below.
Sixteen minutes into the film, Damiel and his friend, Cassiel (Otto Sander), visit the Staatsbibliothek. The scene lasts 7 minutes in total as the angels and the camera wind their way around the shelves and different levels of this eye-catching library.
The scene comes to a close as Damiel takes notice of an old man slowly climbing the stairs, pausing every few steps to catch his breath and wipe his face. We see this man, the storyteller, throughout the rest of the film. His inner dialogue feels appropriate for such a setting:
This same older man is our link to the second library scene, when at 39 minutes into the film, we revisit the man sitting at a table in the library. This table is filled with a collection of globes of many sizes, and he is enthralled with a rotating solar system. The camera then cuts to the old man sitting at a different table in the library, this time thumbing slowly through a large book of photos. The angel Cassiel follows the old man through the library, just as the reader does.
I get to know just about any man* on a deeper level and he'll reveal he secretly has hang-ups about his gender and/or orientation, and moreover, I am either the great bridge to the other side or a light to the road ahead. Every single time without fail, such men* turn out to crush on me or at the very least want to fuck me. To these men*, the bridge to the other side is the bridge to their sexual fantasies. To these men*, the light shines only at their own idealism. I am idealized for being a trans woman by such men* because a trans person is their solution to all the problems that real** members of each respective traditional gender brings. A man* secretly feels at odds with other men because he too is plagued by the curse of performing masculinity (just as his bros likely do) in such rigorous manners, so he turns to a trans woman like me with admiration for giving up manhood and becoming a pretty girl as a result. Such a man* projects his own fantasies onto me: fantasies either to transition or escape the trappings of gender imposed by society and himself. A man* secretly has a hard time relating to cis women because they are too different. A trans woman like myself fits just right. Oftentimes, such a man* also uses the prospect of queerness to relate to someone like me as a manipulative way to get in my pants. It doesn't work of course, but I've seen this process happen so often.
Sadly, it's not limited to men*. Men* often stray away from queerness in the public eye and even in their private life, choosing instead to lock themselves in Pandora's Box. Those who more actively question their gender, and actively intend to do something about their dysphoria or alternative gendered afflictions by making some kind of change, still exhibit comparable qualities as sad as it is to say. This is from my experience, anyway. Some of these people successfully make a change and are better off for it. However, when they are in the early stage of transition, they turn to someone like me as a transition guide. I'm flattered of course, but they do not consider how much pressure it puts on me.
In addition to generalized idealization of a person like me, those who want me to help them along their journey simultaneously have an ulterior motive. They want to manipulate me into having sex. It's such a toxic behavior and I want nothing to do with it. I'm not talking about organic crushes that develop. I'm talking about ulterior motives from trans people that leaves me feeling used. They exploit my guidance as a way to wiggle their way into being closer to me, usually with the prospect of sex or romance. Eventually, the dam of idealization begins to break, and such people tend to toxically lash out on me. Rinse and repeat.
I never observed this when I lived as a man. This form of idealization and fetishism feels specific to transgender targets, but I'm sure comparable forms of fetishism can be observed with other demographics. I do not even entirely blame the bad behavior of early trans people and men* entirely on them because they too lack healthy models for how to behave, and so they act anarchically (I mean that in the pejorative sense).
Everything I mentioned above came to mind again when watching the short film Envy/Desire, but that's not necessarily a testament to how successful the film is at communicating its ideas. The director swears it was her intention it seems, to construct a piece of satirical social commentary on how men fetishize trans women in relationships. Therefore, I choose to act charitably (perhaps too charitably) and judge her film in good faith. On the surface, the film employs very contentious stereotypes in how it characterizes people.
I'm probably too nice to how Ethan (a supposed autogynephile) is characterized. He's hardly different than the questioning strawman in Lady Ballers. The filmmaker's transness does not inherently absolve the film of criticism, but perhaps I was not particularly offended by Ethan's likeness because the film's lead girls (also trans) are also stereotypically cunty doll speak transsexuals. There's a moment where someone expresses even the slightest interest in transitioning, and they automatically write it off as a fetish. Even if they are right, were they not also once there as well? The girls aren't innocent here. Nobody effectively engages with another person on their own terms, only on their own narcissism. It's a defense mechanism in part in response to being used, having their boundaries pushed, and expected to tolerate it.
The issue with Ethan is a curious one. On one hand, I am not so quick to write off the experiences of autogynephilia altogether. There's a fetish for everything and surely there's a fetish for wearing women's clothes. After all, I once worried I was an autogynephile. It was a brief period, but I was aroused by my own mode of self-expression and I take absolutely no shame in that. The stigma towards feeling aroused as I began cross dressing*** made me question my own legitimacy, but such arousal was a short-lived rush of adrenaline as I lived as my self and felt hot doing it. I am not an autogynephile but I wish I were because it sounds fun. Ethan is ultimately on the right path when condemning the truscum ideology establishing a clear dichotomy of authenticity between "real transsexuals" and "autogynephiles." Should we truly write off Ethan's initial boner euphoria as a sign he is not really trans, or would doing so only validate truscum ideology? Does the film ultimately intend to gatekeep and dictate who is and who isn't authentically trans? Believe it or not, I really don't think so. That's not to say it doesn't do so anyway.
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