My experience of the Crimson Key screening of Love Story was that it just felt mean in an unproductive way - I think by the time I was a freshman at Harvard, thanks to Facebook and memes, everyone was fully aware of the contradictory meanings Harvard-as-a-brand held, and even people enamored with the institution knew they were being a little bit cringe about it. But being cruel about the saccharine bourgeois nature of the film during freshman orientation didn't reveal anything to me about the social fissures of the campus in the late 2010s (or about it in the late 60s), and Ali MacGraw is simply too beautiful to believe the jeers! There's still a lot to think about in how Harvard gets depicted here, though, particularly in how the Radcliffe vs. Harvard thing plays out on screen (part of the reason Oliver gets teased by his roommates is that Harvard men in this era didn't date Cliffies; they went out to Wellesley or even Smith instead), and overall the film's resistance to really thinking about gender relations is notable! I think the absence of women's lib is almost as glaring as the absence of Vietnam, actually. I think I caught the same PFS screenings that you did and what stood out to me as an adult and not a college freshman is how obviously smarter and more interesting Jenny is than Oliver, how willingly Jenny gives up her fellowship to France to marry Oliver, how quickly she becomes a housewife and a wannabe mom despite her little quips of the first ten minutes, and how the film's romantic sappiness necessarily negates the intellectual feminist vibrancy that she could otherwise have had. I still cried at the end but I'm not so sure it was because I was sad about Jenny's death but rather I was saw about the person she could've been without him, if that makes sense. Anyway! That's just some thoughts I've been having. I really liked this essay thanks for writing it
I actually think I would have changed some of the angle of the essay to include more of a women's liberation angle if I wrote it only a few days later! I generally try to push myself to look beyond "feminism and romance" topics because that is most of what is being written, though usually at a pretty surface level that I find frustrating.
But I've been mainlining The Bob Newhart Show for more early 1970s fashion (Suzanne Pleshette's wardrobe is just so so great) in the past few days. Bob Newhart also has this kind of intellectual, conservative, bourgeois bent, like a counterculture reaction, that I link with Love Story's production. Still, the way that politics are talked about sort of incidentally in a show that is *not* about them and comes from a place of hegemonic "neutrality" is fascinating!
The sexual dynamics between Emily and Bob are so much more robust? equitable? than I was expecting. I had seen the Dick van Dyke Show and I think expected more of a "sassy wife who pulls one over on her husband" vibes. And the way the show just sort of comments from the peanut gallery on stuff like women's lib is fascinating. More than anything, I can't believe how much nicer Bob is to his wife than so many sitcoms that were on tv when I was a child.
And for the angle of romance/bookbanning that I am always looking for, there's a great scene where Emily advocates for age-appropriate sex education in elementary schools and it isn't even the main plot of the episode. It is just "what Emily gets up to when Bob takes a long weekend."
I was going to mention having a similar experience watching The Way We Were (sobbing uncontrollably)!
This piece makes me curious about the costume designer’s choices for Jenny’s wardrobe. Costuming is so important to the storytelling and I love when we can get a peak at the designer (or department’s) vision and process.
I kept thinking about The Way We Were writing this! It is the only movie I can think of that speaks to a "trend" of these weepies because so much of it feels like Love Story (though is probably a better movie? Sydney Pollack helps a lot there)
And everything I read about the costumes was analysis from viewers rather than from the production stand point! Both costume designers don't have huge film careers outside of this film. I do know that (supposedly) Ali MacGraw herself was pretty involved in her styling The crochet cloche she wears in the snow she brought from home. She was a model before she was an actress, but she was an assistant to Diana Vreeland before she was a model!
My experience of the Crimson Key screening of Love Story was that it just felt mean in an unproductive way - I think by the time I was a freshman at Harvard, thanks to Facebook and memes, everyone was fully aware of the contradictory meanings Harvard-as-a-brand held, and even people enamored with the institution knew they were being a little bit cringe about it. But being cruel about the saccharine bourgeois nature of the film during freshman orientation didn't reveal anything to me about the social fissures of the campus in the late 2010s (or about it in the late 60s), and Ali MacGraw is simply too beautiful to believe the jeers! There's still a lot to think about in how Harvard gets depicted here, though, particularly in how the Radcliffe vs. Harvard thing plays out on screen (part of the reason Oliver gets teased by his roommates is that Harvard men in this era didn't date Cliffies; they went out to Wellesley or even Smith instead), and overall the film's resistance to really thinking about gender relations is notable! I think the absence of women's lib is almost as glaring as the absence of Vietnam, actually. I think I caught the same PFS screenings that you did and what stood out to me as an adult and not a college freshman is how obviously smarter and more interesting Jenny is than Oliver, how willingly Jenny gives up her fellowship to France to marry Oliver, how quickly she becomes a housewife and a wannabe mom despite her little quips of the first ten minutes, and how the film's romantic sappiness necessarily negates the intellectual feminist vibrancy that she could otherwise have had. I still cried at the end but I'm not so sure it was because I was sad about Jenny's death but rather I was saw about the person she could've been without him, if that makes sense. Anyway! That's just some thoughts I've been having. I really liked this essay thanks for writing it
I actually think I would have changed some of the angle of the essay to include more of a women's liberation angle if I wrote it only a few days later! I generally try to push myself to look beyond "feminism and romance" topics because that is most of what is being written, though usually at a pretty surface level that I find frustrating.
But I've been mainlining The Bob Newhart Show for more early 1970s fashion (Suzanne Pleshette's wardrobe is just so so great) in the past few days. Bob Newhart also has this kind of intellectual, conservative, bourgeois bent, like a counterculture reaction, that I link with Love Story's production. Still, the way that politics are talked about sort of incidentally in a show that is *not* about them and comes from a place of hegemonic "neutrality" is fascinating!
The sexual dynamics between Emily and Bob are so much more robust? equitable? than I was expecting. I had seen the Dick van Dyke Show and I think expected more of a "sassy wife who pulls one over on her husband" vibes. And the way the show just sort of comments from the peanut gallery on stuff like women's lib is fascinating. More than anything, I can't believe how much nicer Bob is to his wife than so many sitcoms that were on tv when I was a child.
And for the angle of romance/bookbanning that I am always looking for, there's a great scene where Emily advocates for age-appropriate sex education in elementary schools and it isn't even the main plot of the episode. It is just "what Emily gets up to when Bob takes a long weekend."
I was going to mention having a similar experience watching The Way We Were (sobbing uncontrollably)!
This piece makes me curious about the costume designer’s choices for Jenny’s wardrobe. Costuming is so important to the storytelling and I love when we can get a peak at the designer (or department’s) vision and process.
I kept thinking about The Way We Were writing this! It is the only movie I can think of that speaks to a "trend" of these weepies because so much of it feels like Love Story (though is probably a better movie? Sydney Pollack helps a lot there)
And everything I read about the costumes was analysis from viewers rather than from the production stand point! Both costume designers don't have huge film careers outside of this film. I do know that (supposedly) Ali MacGraw herself was pretty involved in her styling The crochet cloche she wears in the snow she brought from home. She was a model before she was an actress, but she was an assistant to Diana Vreeland before she was a model!