DIR Return Create A Forum - Home
---------------------------------------------------------
MS Speaks
HTML https://msspeaks.createaforum.com
---------------------------------------------------------
*****************************************************
DIR Return to: MOVIES, TV
*****************************************************
#Post#: 392--------------------------------------------------
HILARY AND JACKIE (1998)
By: agate Date: July 16, 2014, 12:42 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
I saw this movie in 2002 and disliked it. I wanted to find out
just what I disliked about it, and so I watched it a second
time.
I still dislike it.
Much as I like the music of the ‘cello, this movie is trash and
was a very ill-advised venture.
It is based on a biography of the famed cellist Jacqueline Du
Pré, written by her sister and brother after her death. If the
account the movie gives is true, her sister Hilary clearly would
have had her own axes to grind. The story as presented would be
a scandal in any family, and certainly in a family with claims
to distinction in the rarefied world of classical music, it
would be even more of a cause for wounded feelings and
recriminations.
Jacqueline Du Pré was a child prodigy on the ‘cello, and her
somewhat older sister Hilary was an apparently just as gifted
prodigy on the flute. The baby brother is very much in the
background as their mother occupies herself with shepherding the
sisters through various rehearsals, lessons, practice sessions,
and public performances. The two girls seem to live and breathe
their music.
The film opens with the two little girls playing at the
seashore, with an adult woman in silhouette at a slight
distance, staring out at the water. This woman might or might
not be their mother. We’re led to believe it is.
Both child performers seem to have a habit of writhing while
they play their instruments, perhaps pouring their whole selves
into their music. We see Jackie doing this shortly after we see
Hilary being scolded for it. Their mother is constantly urging
Jackie to be as good a musician as Hilary, whose talent seems to
overshadow her younger sister’s at first.
They grow older, and Hilary finds a husband–Kiffer. She and
Jackie are very close sisters, and in one of their
heart-to-hearts, Jackie quite cruelly tells Hilary: “The truth
is–you’re not special.” This is just one of many instances of
Jackie’s outrageousness, the extent to which her wilfulness has
been tolerated by those around her–probably for the sake of
nurturing her remarkable talent.
Jackie is fairly well established as a cellist of note when she
meets the well-known pianist and conductor Daniel Barenboim. In
fact she says smirkingly to Barenboim just after meeting him:
“You know perfectly well I’m a very famous musician.” In a
flurry of well-publicized courtship, she converts to Judaism and
is married to Barenboim.
How much time passes between her marriage and her affair with
Kiffer isn’t clear, but she takes off without warning, leaving
Barenboim wondering where she is, and descends on her sister and
Kiffer and their two small children.
By this time we’ve got used to her twinkly smile and her cute
little girl pose, but is she supposed to be cute as she flashes
her winsome smile and whispers to Hilary that she’d like to
sleep with Kiffer?
The answer is a firm No but Jackie isn’t one to give up. She
goes into the couple’s bedroom and tries to wake Kiffer without
Hilary’s knowledge. This doesn’t work, and so Jackie wanders off
and stages a dramatic scene, peeling off her clothes and jumping
into a woodland stream near where the Kiffers are staying. Of
course Hilary comes along at just the right moment and rescues
her–slightly injured but hysterically sobbing.
At this point Hilary’s heartstrings have been wrung, apparently,
for she tries to persuade her husband to go along with this
plan. Kiffer’s answer is no. But then “Danny” shows up and tells
how Jackie had left without any notice. Distraught and
desperate, he offers her a house, even a heliport, and various
other goodies, but she’s having none of these, and Danny, who
seems to be a very busy man, hastily leaves in a taxi after his
offers are refused.
But it seems that Jackie needs to be reassured that she’s loved.
Or at least that’s Hilary’s take on the situation. So the plan
goes forward, and the next morning we find Jackie thankfully
hugging Hilary in front of Kiffer.
The next thing Jackie wants, it turns out, is a ménage à trois.
And she gets that too.
Time passes, probably (though the movie is sketchy about the
passage of time). After Jackie has apparently overheard Hilary
making love to Kiffer, Hilary tries to tell Jackie off but
confronts Jackie’s relentless ‘cello playing as Jackie,
seemingly so engrossed in her devotion to music, refuses to hear
a word she is saying.
She continues her bratty behavior, seeming to glory in her own
impishness and getting away with a dimply femininity time and
time again.
Having been given one of the world’s finest ‘cellos and warned
that it is sensitive to temperature extremes, she deliberately
leaves it out in the snow.
By this time she and Barenboim are both major stars in the music
world.
But then she breaks a glass and sees that her hand is shaking.
Next she has a bladder accident (very dramatic music on the
soundtrack at this point). Then she can’t get up off her chair
while onstage in a performance, and Barenboim helps her off.
Well, it’s multiple sclerosis, and the way she puts it is never
qualified or contradicted: “I’ve got a fatal illness.” She
chirrups, “I’m so relieved it’s only MS!”
Her father’s reaction just after the diagnosis: “It’s better
than going bonkers. I was sure she was going bonkers.”
Is this the interpretation of her behavior that the movie
audience is expected to accept? MS does sometimes involve a
psychotic episode, but this is not made clear in the movie.
Are we supposed to believe that anyone who is acting pouty and
as if every whim should be indulged is probably showing the
first signs of MS? And then are we supposed to believe it is
always fatal? Even then (1973), MS was by no means an invariably
fatal disorder, and many people with it lived on for decades.
However, Jacqueline Du Pré’s case of multiple sclerosis was
exceptionally severe. She died at the age of 42 after years of
severe disability. We see her towards the end, confined to a
wheelchair, struggling to speak or to dial a phone, then unable
to eat. In another scene she is crying uncontrollably in the
wheelchair.
Her sister Hilary, meanwhile, gave up on her promising career as
a flautist in favor of marriage and children.
I’m not sure what the movie’s ending is meant to convey. There
is a repeat of the childhood beach scene, but this time the
silhouetted woman turns out to be the adult Jackie, reassuring
the child Jackie that everything will be all right (sad ‘cello
music in the background).
I don’t think this movie should have been made. While seeming to
be factual, it might be completely untrue. At least it is
obviously skewed against Jackie, despite some superficial
attempts at seeming objective, like the movie’s two major
divisions, entitled “Jackie” and “Hilary,” leading us to believe
that we’re getting two sides of the story.
And just how is everything going to be all right? Jackie’s life
wasn’t going to be “all right” because it ended so
prematurely–and with intense suffering.
#Post#: 2667--------------------------------------------------
(Abst.) Jacqueline Du Pre's MS dx may have been wrong
By: agate Date: September 27, 2019, 1:37 am
---------------------------------------------------------
This abstract of an article (PubMed, September 25, 2019)
maintains that Jacqueline Du Pre's MS diagnosis may have been
wrong.
HTML https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31542612
*****************************************************