Today is Sunday, January 8, 2023. I won’t be able to devote much time to today’s blog since it’s past 11 p.m. here and I just returned from the city to see an interesting film called Corsage at the IFC Center, on 6th Avenue and 4th Street. I first had a bite at the Washington Square Diner directly opposite the theater before buying a ticket for the 7:15 showing. After that, I spent just a half hour in the Monster, an iconic gay bar opposite the historic Stonewall Inn. This visit marked my first entrance into a gay establishment since way before the pandemic. Believe me, the place was as empty as a church at midnight. In fact, I felt sorry for the place because I recalled a more vibrant establishment just a few years ago. Maybe it was the lingering fear of COVID-19 or the fact that it was a Sunday night, who knows the real reason why patrons stayed away this particular night. I gravitated toward the piano man in the rear and just listened to several of the customers taking the mic to sing some old chestnuts. The men singing were themselves old chestnuts, actually.

The film chronicles one momentous year in the life of Empress Elisabeth of Austria who is married to Franz Joseph I. The film is written and directed by Marie Kreutzer and some of the scenes in the movie reflect the history of how this royal actually conducted her life before she was assassinated in 1898. In this film, the events begin in December 1877 when the Empress is seen celebrating her 40th birthday. Elisabeth is played brilliantly by Vicky Krieps who plays her character like an earlier version of Princess Diana who rebelled against the oppressive life she was obligated to lead as the wife of Austria’s emperor. Soon Elisabeth displays bizarre behavior that puts her at odds with her long-suffering husband, Franz Joseph, and even with her own son, who feels she is not conforming enough to palace protocol. Here is a woman, just like the tragic figure of Princess Diana, who is increasingly reluctant to play the role that decorum dictates for her. In the film, Elisabeth spends an inordinate amount of time having servants comb and braid her hair. She’s peculiarly sensitive about gaining weight, especially at age 40, since her own doctor informs her that she’s exceeded most women’s longevity in her kingdom who don’t live past 40.

Krieps plays Elisabeth as an extremely constricted woman who is highly constrained like the corsets that she has to get into every day. This is where the title of the film is evoked, Corsage, which refers to the corsets that Elisabeth is forced to wear, where she instructs her handmaids to pull tighter and tighter, which eventually seem like instruments of torture. There are scenes depicting this routine all throughout the film. What the film also contains are several purposeful anachronisms like a man playing Help Me Make It Through the Night on a guitar as Elisabeth is dancing with one of her male admirers. Another scene shows a woman playing and singing As Tears Go By on a harp. Both songs certainly were not sung in the 19th century.

In the role of Franz Joseph is Florian Teichtmeister who makes it very plain to his slightly rebellious wife that all she is supposed to do is fulfill her duties as a regal representative of the empire. This demand on the aging empress propels her to seek male attention elsewhere. She meets up with Louis Le Prince (Finnegan Oldfield) who introduces her to his marvelous invention: an early motion picture camera. She is also attracted to a man who tends to her horses at one of her estates; her son gets wind of this potential scandal and has a serious conversation with his mother, insisting that she put an end to the inchoate affair. And she does!

The figure of Empress Elizabeth thus attains a three-dimensionality through this realistic chronicle of her life in Vienna. I highly recommend the movie then.

So have a good week.

Stay safe and be well.