Orbituary: Blake Edwards

When I heard today that Blake Edwards, the congenial director of “Breakfast at Tiffanys” died, I got very sad. My hope for a continuation of this nice movie wont become true any more. Could you imagine how the beautiful, sad story of Hollie Golightly and Paul Varseck continues ? How would they proceed, after their final kiss on the rainy avenue in New York ?
Coming back to our discussion about Anna Karenina and my suggestion that she very badly represents a prototype loving woman, I always considered Holly the diametral opposite, like the antipode of Anna. Holly, at least during most of the movie (and even more during the entire novel) managed very well to suppress her love and went only for material wealth.
Both, Anna and Holly therefore might represent the two extreme characters, between which each woman changes or from which each of us picks more of the one or the other. Some are more driven by an unconditioned love (Shirley Bassey “The way a woman loves”), others by the search for material safety Shirley Bassey “Diamonds are forever”).

Therefore, if I would hope for a continuation of “Breakfast at Tiffanys”, it had to be with a Holly Golightly changing her attitude more into a loving relationship.
Like in “The wonderful Baker Boys”, where Michelle Pfeiffer also starts as a completely money-oriented and non-emotional woman, and step by step discovers that what she really needs is a loving partner, somebody to share joy and frustration with and somebody to trust.

I never considered Holly Golightly as the antipode of Anna Karenina. In a sense, Anna Karenina was a much stronger, she made her decision once and then followed her own route to the end. Holy, I always saw her as very undecisive. She much more seemed to play a role, the society expected her to play. It was the role of the fashion victim, of the modern girl completely devoted to fancy stuff and luxory life-style. However, in the few moments when she got “the mean reds”, she seemed to show a desire for love and for a shoulder to lean on.
But you are probably right, that each real person changes between the two extremes.
But I could imagine, that one is aware one side of such a complex personality much more than the other. And maybe one even needs friends, to show you the other side of your personality. This might sound to you like a very stereotype pseudo-question of want-to-be psychologists. But could you image, that people next to you – your parents, relatives, or just friends – not necessarily know more about you, but that they know some aspects of your personality and your life, that are hidden to yourself ? Because they watch you from the outside, they see you different than you see yourself. They don”t see you better than you see youself, but they can see you in a different light, in different circumstances.

And so do I, always see you in a different light than you see yourself. I think that I can see aspects of your personality, that you try to hide from everybody, perhaps even from yourself. I don”t think that on a long run, hunting for material wealth and economic safety will satisfy you, Ghazal. I”m sure that deep inside you there is the desire for fantasy and for intellectual excitement, there is a great love for knowledge and maybe for what is called in an inflationary way “spirituality”.

And on the other side, I now know that you discovered something inside me that I was never aware of before. That I can become extremely careless, ready to give up all material safety and all social and professional position, only because beeing strucked by the sudden love to a girl that arrived here from nowhere”s land, that was just sitting there in her own flare, not moving, not laughing, not speaking, only having her deep-blue eyes moving around.

TAKE CARE, Ghazal.

Michael