So I just watched the movie, didn't really like it, but I was wondering if Esme to a certain degree lived Angel.
shareI don't think so I think he was using her
"Tara: Stop with that treachery! I told the cat. And now I beg my mother sitting all alone."
I just watched it and I'm under the impression that he did. Just not in the same way that she loved him. He was troubled by war and already coming from a misunderstood avant garde perspective so I didn't take his suicide as completely coming from the mistress marrying. The wheelchair to me was more of what triggered it. He was always at odds with her but I think he cared for her. Why else would he compromise his art...and the scene were she unveils his painting and the following montage seemed genuine. Nora probably gave Angel more of the kind of attention and protection she was asking for. It seemed like Angel wanted this dream like melodramatic type love like in her books and thats just not how Esme saw life...but Nora saw it...she indulged her to play it out even in her last words. So after that long ramble my answer is Yes! I think he loved her just not in the traditional romantic movie way, especially since this is far from being a traditional romantic film. ^___^
shareI agree with you. He did love her I think, but not in a romantic way, which was what she wanted. I think he loved her for loving him, so wholeheartedly. She was crazy about him. Her problem was that she in her caring for him totally overtook over his life - made a marriage proposal when I think he would have preferred freedom, built a sunny studio for him when he preferred a shady one, asked him to paint with colors. That's the reason he sought his way out - first by enlisting to war, then by taking on a mistress. But I think he told her that she was the reason he wanted to come back and to live. Also, when he said he missed her, I felt it was genuine. Too sad they ended as they did....
shareI think he did love her, but was also troubled by being a "kept" man. The scene when the painting was unveiled was heartbreaking because it showed the audience that he realized that he was not a good artist--and that in an era that was a sort of explosion of new artists and great artists. He had neither artistic success nor commercial success, as she did.
shareThe fact that his art wasn't recognized at the time does't mean it wasn't good. On the contrary, later people came to realize that it was very good and ahead of his time, perhaps, and it survived him. Hers, to the contrary, had financial success but was quickly forgotten, because it had no artistic value.
I just watched the making of and the extended version of the movie. I saw that he and his mistress had known each other since childhood. May it be that he loved her really all along, and just couldn't marry because he had no money? The director said it was nit love, but he did feel something for her. Maybe, there are different kinds of love? I'm confused...
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I think he liked that she lived in this grand fantasy version of life and he was swept off his feet by her passion for him. But then he realized that was her whole personality, there was no depth in her.
He had nothing in common with her and he was jealous of her success. Which he felt she didn't deserve because she wrote trashy novels while he was actually attempting to make an artistic statement. Not to mention the fact that Angel and his sister were in the middle of a kind of love affair that definitely left him out in the cold.
Well,she was beautiful so he was attracted to her, but didn't think much of her. I think the turning point was that he believed her bluff, when Angel said she preferred his darker paintings.For a while he believed Angel understood and appreciated his work, and it meant a lot to him. Also when he asked her about Italy and her secret past, he tought there is more in Angel than it seems. Then he missed her in the darkness of the war, and needed her very much when he returned, but then Angel wasn't attracted to him because he wasn't the perfect man after losing his leg. So they both loved each other at some point, but not each others real self.
The greatest thing in the film that they were so different, they had nothing in common and only loved what they imagined of each other. They were a disastrous couple in reality.