MovieChat Forums > The Last Flight (1931) Discussion > Heloise and Abelard

Heloise and Abelard

posted 14 years ago by skiddoo
1 reply | jump to latest

One reviewer saw the not saying outright what happened to Abelard as showing the limit of precode liberality. In my view it would have been a very coarse WWI era man indeed to go into the details with a woman. She and we understood his meaning. There were limits to what gentlemen said to ladies so having him go into the whole gruesome story would have shown him to be no gentleman and that he was treating her as if she were no lady.

My question is whether he was also saying he had more sympathy with the story than just a desire to have that sort of loving connection with a woman. Was he also saying that had happened to him in the war?

[–] !!!deleted!!! (41638798) 10 years ago

I always thought the scene when they stop at the grave is the way the film makers indicate what happened to him in the war. It was a most interesting way (and a nice historical touch) to let us guess the nature of his war injury.

Why otherwise stop at that particular place to call to mind (for the viewers) that particular story, other than to let it serve HIS story?

It's always nice to see in some of the old films what respect they had for the viewers' literary and other kinds of background knowledge needed to understand a scene.

The let the viewers fill in the blanks---so explaining exactly what happened to Abelard was probably unnecessary in the dialogue--it's a famous story, people know what happened to him. Don't think it had to do with WWI era sensibilities in terms of what a gentleman discusses with a lady, or pre-code era film.

It seemed more the way a gentleman WOULD convey to the lady his injury, so she's aware of his limitations--he used an indirect "coded" way to tell her.

The writer and director presume here, I think, that the viewer knows the tragic story of Abelard and will fill in the blanks for this couple, as well.

It's a lot of "code" being given out in that scene, in that wonderful pre-code era.