Lonely on this board here.
Anyway, if someone happens to breeze through I was curious if anyone else thought there was a chance the Count could be innocent as well. That he was merely taking the heat for the crime so he could become married to her and save her name. Obviously, the film and book seem cut and dry but I kept hope till the end that he was not such a bad guy after all.
Innocent? Most likely not - when he asks for her to marry him, there is no reason to save her name. It is clearly to make up for something. That she is pregnant (and thus about to become disgraced), he cannot possibly know at this point, if he is really innocent.
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There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge.
...but I kept hope till the end that he was not such a bad guy after all.
That destroys the whole point of the story and the end. Why the Marquise considered it far worse that a devil like the Count was the father when she would have accepted a lecher - "I would never have considered you a devil if you weren't so like an angel when I first saw you."
"Ça va by me, madame...Ça va by me!" - The Red Shoes
Actually i keep the door open in this issue.
There is a possibility that Leopardo is the real father.The kind of expression he has while marquise crying was... some-like revenge, a bit hatred, a bit pity... Dont forget that they are in war time where social classes collapse. May be he wanted to take revenge from her by taking advantage of this war times.
Indeed, Count knows she will take sleeping potion,aw well as Leopardo, but why he dares to take such risk. He was already a honorable lieutenant and promising career. I dont glorify his honor but nor do i blame totally. I think he is cursed with an unfortunate fate upon him.
It is obvious in the film as well as in the novella that it was the Count who raped her. Neither Heinrich von Kleist nor Eric Rohmer wanted this to be ambiguous.
F. e., when the Count comes to visit the Marquise and suddenly insists on marrying her, he blushes in a revealing way (in the novella). I have always found that this is an outrageous text and that the ending is unheard-of. But that's Heinrich von Kleist, in a way I like him for his wanton imagination.
One of the differences between the novella and the film is that in the film he takes advantage of her, while she is sleeping, whereas in the book it happens immediately after her salvation, when she faints and loses consciousness for a little while. She doesn't take sleeping potion in the novella.
A little ambiguity then similar to Tess of the D'Urbervilles. I suppose in the end we are all somewhere between angels and devils.
Sed quis custodiet ipsos Custodes?
that's so terrible. WTH. utterly shocking. and also with her a) marrying and b) eventually forgiving the Count! god. i still can't believe this story - it's so crazy!
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