Classic Movie Scenes: A Streetcar Named Desire: STELLA!
Classic Movie Scenes: A Streetcar Named Desire; STELLA!! Female Submission to the Macho Brute;
(ALERT: Although this is not the end of the film, if you haven't seen it yet, you should NOT see this video. This movie is so good that every scene should be seen for the first time as the writer, Tennessee Williams, intended to naturally unfold the story for the viewer.)
This famous scene, the "Stella!" scene, from A Streetcar Named Desire is a classic movie scene because it contains perhaps the finest acting portrayal ever filmed of the deliciously primitive female attraction and submission to the male brute. During prehistory the female reinforced and legitimized this male brutishness and made it a part of the human collective unconscious by submitting to it. Did she do this inadvertently? No, she did it by design (whether by Divine design , by genetic programming or by her own, I do not claim to know); by submitting to male brutishness, the woman not only legitimizes that brutishness, she tames it! Alas, but only for a moment. For as soon as she has ensured the survival of her bloodline via the genes of a strong, phallic, aggressive male specimen, her spell wears off and the male reverts to the task of snarling survival. Perhaps this momentary taming effect by women throughout history has been enough to bring what little civilization society has today.
In this scene we see Stella irresistibly drawn to Stanly, a character who has already shown himself to be a crude, boorish, violence prone braggart. She descends as if in a trance, like a lamb wandering into the cage of a tiger, and as she submits he falls to his knees and turns into a whimpering little kitten. Brilliantly written by Tennessee Williams, and performed by Marlon Brando and Kim Hunter.
"A Streetcar Named Desire"; Directed by Elia Kazan; also starring Vivien Leigh and Karl Malden (Warner Bros., 1951).
Tennessee Williams.