O Courage, could you not as well
Select a second place to dwell,
Not only in that golden tree
But in the frightened heart of me?
— Tennessee Williams, Night of the Iguana
The 1964 film Night of the Iguana was on TCM yesterday and I listened along as I painted yesterday. Based on the 1961 Tennessee Williams play, the film is one that has slowly become a favorite of mine.
By that, I mean it was hardly a favorite when I first saw it many years ago. Not sure I even watched the whole thing then. It felt grim to the younger me who wanted a neater and tidier story with sharply defined protagonists and an ending that tied up all the loose ends in a satisfying way. The younger me didn’t see any of that in this film then.
But with age, you realize that life is never neat and tidy, try as you might to make it so. The brokenness of the main characters in this film that once turned me off now seemed more pertinent to the world I now know, taking on a much deeper reality and meaning for me. Like much of the work from Tennessee Williams, it deals with broken people trying to make their way through this world. His work is seldom an easy thing to take in. But it is usually worth trying and over the years, I have myself growing into this film.
I am not going to go into the story or the film here this morning. Nor am I endorsing this film for you. It is certainly art and is therefore subjective. Where I see light or hope in it, you might see darkness and despair.
That’s art for you. As it should be.
I only mention the film this morning because I wanted to share the poem from the old poet, Nonno, who has ended up at the seedy Mexican resort where this takes place with his middle-aged granddaughter, who is an itinerant painter. She is played by Deborah Kerr who is an absolute favorite of mine. They have been traveling for a long time as he attempts to complete a poem that he has long labored over, one that deals with having a feeling heart in a corrupt world.
The final version, in the video at the top of the page, delivered beautifully by Nonno, portrayed by Cyril Delevanti, is a wonderful scene and I thought it deserved to be shared. I also added the text of the poem below as well as a song, Night of the Iguana, from Joni Mitchell.
How calmly does the olive branch
Observe the sky begin to blanch
Without a cry, without a prayer,
With no betrayal of despair,
Sometime while night obscures the tree
The zenith of its life will be
Gone past forever, and from thence
A second history will commence.
A chronicle no longer gold,
A bargaining with mist and mould,
And finally the broken stem
The plummeting to earth; and then
An intercourse not well designed
For beings of a golden kind
Whose native green must arch above
The earth’s obscene, corrupting love.
And still the ripe fruit and the branch
Observe the sky begin to blanch
Without a cry, without a prayer,
With no betrayal of despair.
O Courage, could you not as well
Select a second place to dwell,
Not only in that golden tree
But in the frightened heart of me?
— Tennessee Williams, Night of the Iguana
Redtree Times 