While Jane thinks her condition would be better served by engaging in invigorating physical and mental activity, John insists that it is much better for her to spend her days lying in bed-and he forbids her from writing, claiming that the mental exertion of doing so will exaggerate her illness. Jane ( Loreth) has been taken to a crumbling mansion in the countryside by her overbearing doctor husband, John ( Joe Mullins) to recover her strength.
Yet despite the film’s impressive recreation of the claustrophobic world described in Gilman’s story, The Yellow Wallpaper lacks much of the emotional impact of her writing. This latest version, a collaboration between partners Alexandra Loreth (writer/producer/star) and Kevin Pontuti (writer/producer/director), is clearly a very personal endeavor. So, it’s no wonder that “The Yellow Wallpaper” has been adapted for the screen multiple times in the past. It is a mark of Gilman’s genius that she manages to pack a feature-length film’s worth of feminist commentary and gothic atmosphere into such a succinct little story, and her critique of men’s misguided attempts to diagnose and treat women’s health problems - both mental and physical - remains tragically relevant to this day. Forbidden from writing or caring for her own child (though the latter comes as somewhat of a relief), our narrator descends into darkness, her “rest cure” doing more to damage her mental health than her work ever could.
Written after Gilman had experienced a bout of postpartum depression that doctors attempted to treat by forcing her to do as little as possible - the then much-vaunted “rest cure”- the story uses elements of psychological and supernatural horror to tell the tale of a woman writer who has been taken to a remote estate to recover from an unknown illness. The most famous work by the progressive feminist writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman is her short story “The Yellow Wallpaper,” published in 1892.
0 kommentar(er)
