Blanche, played by Vivien Leigh in the film A Streetcar Named Desire
In an Oscar winning performance by Vivien Leigh, this quote was quite a stand out during one of her characters’ self immersed dialogue scenes. The delivery came about the film’s climax, a time where she finally seemed to break through her character’s delusional state of mind and expose her traumatic past to a “good man”. It was a wonderful delivery, and this line in particular was very telling the protagonists main struggle, where not everything in life is black and white, or straight lined.
Nothing that comes from the heart, a symbolic word in this case, can ever be straight. It’s pretty obvious, especially when you juxtapose this notion to Blanche who is struggling with her reality and is truly trying to recreate a new present and future. I believe Blanche did indeed mean everything she said to Mitch, but in the end, the initial delusional tale was too much for him to bear. Blanche lost that one opportunity to reach someone who needed her.
This movie was hard to watch not for the superb acting but for the representation of mental illness within a group of society that did not comprehend it very well. Marlon Brando’s character was an @$$hole no matter how right he was, the environment was awful and the interactions between characters were savage. It’s a great film as it will make you feel uncomfortable, and that is a good thing. I felt sorry for Vivien Leigh’s character whom I thought was simply mentally unstable. And no matter how judgmental you may be at her past behavior, the treatment she got in this film was rough.
It turns out Vivien Leigh had serious mental health issues that drove those around her crazy. She became unstable and hard to work with. Maybe this film was her way of projecting her inner struggles and challenges, and thus the result of such an authentic mentally ill patient on screen. But one lost in delusion and grandeur, much like her life, which reached such heights and could only be maintained in her head.
