I just wanted to know, what did she do that was so bad that she would be called 'Jezebel'? Was it the fact she ignored customs or did she sleep
with somebody or what?
Thanks.
She wore a red dress to ball. It was customary for single women attending the ball to wear white. Funny how times have changed.
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whatever.... i wished she would have killed amy along with it... julie was so much prettier than that fake and she loved preston. she couldnt help if she made mistakes! she was spoiled.... anyways she was young and naive.... preston should have forgive her!!!! she was dying inside.
shareHowever she didn't mind embarrassing Press and her guardians by going against convention by doing those things that were unacceptable in 1850's New Orleans. While I love Bette Davis, I don't find this one of her most sympathetic roles.
shareJezebel
(died c. 843 BC) In the Hebrew scriptures, the wife of King Ahab of Israel. The daughter of the priest-king Ethbaal of Tyre and Sidon, she persuaded Ahab to introduce the worship of the Tyrian god Baal-Melkart into Israel, thus interfering with the exclusive worship of Yahweh. The book of 1 Kings tells how she was opposed by Elijah. After Ahab's death Jezebel's son Jehoram became king of Israel, but Elisha encouraged a general, Jehu, to revolt. Jehoram was killed, and Jezebel was thrown from a window to her death. Dogs consumed most of her body, fulfilling a prophecy by Elijah. In history and literature she became the archetype of the wicked woman.(Concise Brittanica)
Julia conspired, alone, to renounce and defy the traditional behaviours (beliefs) of the New Orleans of 1852...
...dumplin'.
Many anti-fur protests, few anti-leather. Seniors & models must be easier to bully than bikers.
The key line was delivered by Julie's aunt: "I'm thinkin' of a woman called Jezebel who did evil in the sight of God."
She didn't just flout convention; she did evil in the sight of God (at least that was her aunt's assessment). It was more than disregarding convention; she did that because she had an almost obsessive need to have her way. So she scheme, intrigues, manipulates and uses people just to salve her own ego. You see it throughout the film, reflected in large and small things. But what the film emphasizes is that she does not yield even when the game gets dangerous. She wants to prove that she is so fine and dandy that Pres will just fall over himself to do whatever she wants. She purposely goes to the bank and interrupts his meeting just to prove that he'll put her ahead of his business (when by her, it is really her whim, not anything essential to her interests). With him the dress was the last straw, and he retaliates by humiliating her at the ball. So the rest of the film it is almost like an "I love him and want him back/I hate him and want revenge" dual struggle for her. But where she really goes over the line is in purposely instigating a feud between Pres' brother and her former beau, leading to the latters death. So, basically her wilfulness caused great harm, she ruined her own life, Pres' life, and brought about the death of her old beau. That's alot more than breaking convention.
Excellent analysis mark-1589. I would add, however, that Julie is a tragic heroine because she realizes her faults at the end of the film and willingly sacrifices her life to receive redemption. The implication at the end is that she will sacrifice her life, as heroes in classic tragedy always do, for the betterment of others. Much debate has taken place about whether she will survive when she goes to Lazarette Island with Pres. I don't think there is any doubt that she'll die; she must, as the Biblical Jezebel did, die for her sins. The real question is whether Pres will survive. I believe he will; otherwise, Julie's sacrifice will have been in vain and will rob her of her tragic status.
In reference to the allusion to the Biblical Jezebel, Julie and the Biblical figure are truly both self-serving, but probably only slightly more so than anyone else in their times. Their only true sins are exactly that flouting of their society's beliefs and conventions. The Biblical Jezebel replaced Jewish society's belief and reverence of the one God for her belief in Baal and manipulated her husband, King Ahab to do the same. She lived by her own beliefs rather than those prescibed by society at large. Julie does the same in a way, following her own path and what she feels is best for her than what society at large says she should be. This imbues both stories with a true sense of moral ambiguity.
That I could write so much about this film and those comments you made testify to the depth and complexity of this film, more than most give it credit for. It is certainly more than some old melodrama, some old film made for a different era. It truly has universal reverberations. We are, after all, dealing with a screenplay collaborated on by John Huston. He was no dummy. William Wyler and Bette Davis are not hacks either.
"The answers to all of life's riddles can be found in the movies."