How true is Mrs Gilbert's need for a child?
Does anyone know if the real Lucy Gilbert had a desperate need for a child? Was the on-screen relationship between Mr and Mrs Gilbert based on fact?
shareI dont know, but why do you think they didnt have sexual relations? Was he in love with his music? Had his mother screwed him up so much he couldnt relate to a woman? Was it Victorian prudism? Why wasnt Mrs Gilbert more forceful and demand that he **** her?
Whoa there, pard! This is something the director just made up, for whatever reason. All the surviving correspondence from the Gilbert's indicates that they had a warm and loving relationship.
I suspect Leigh added this bit of fiction to reinforce his portrait of Gilbert as churlish and unlikeable. It's true he was a difficult man, but I think the movie overdoes it.
Read Jessie Bond's memoirs. She and Gilbert were good friends (note the scene where he hugs her before the Mikado premire but not Leanora Braham), and she gives us a more complete picture of Gilbert the man.
As I see it, the scene was not only added to lend support to the interpretation of Gilbert as a cross and curmudgeonly font of wit (a soul teeming with contradictions), but also as a counterpoint to Sullivan's final scene with his mistress. In each case, the critical point is the inability/refusal to have children. Gilbert, whose every relationship is a dysfunctional one, cannot (or will not) summon the human tenderness to make love to his wife. To Sullivan, children cannot be countenanced owing to the scandal that would necessarily be attached to his married lover. Even in their similarities, the two men are utterly different.
shareThey have a warm and loving relationship in the film as well, just not a sexual one. He clearly enjoys being with her, though he flees any attempt by her to ease him into physical intimacy. Unless one of them was infertile, there's no other reason to explain their childlessness, since (while not that much is known of her attitudes), he was apparently extremely fond of children. They virtually adopted one young actress, who was brought to live with them. The fondness for Nancy McIntosh was apparently felt by both of them.
shareRe Jessie Bond: I got the distinct impression that Gilbert was, if not in love with her, then certainly very attracted to her.
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