By Melanie Marotta.
Ever since I was sixteen or seventeen, I’d – I’d get what is sometimes called creepy ideas.” (05:19-05:25)
With Loving Highsmith (2022), writer and director Eva Vitija does what others have refused to do – she resists labeling Highsmith. Instead, by allowing her life to unfold, viewers are permitted to draw conclusions about Highsmith for themselves. Through a series of readings from her diaries narrated by Annina Butterworth intermingled with interviews with former partners and family as well as interviews from Highsmith herself, Vitija endeavors to correct the consistent efforts to typecast her. Vitija’s representational production humanizes Highsmith: she does not come across as various writers and theorists have characterized her as, namely odd or antisocial.
In the initial testimonial from former partner and writer Marijane Meaker, who also wrote a book about Highsmith, Meaker places numerous labels on Highsmith, noting that “She had a strangeness. She picked strange ideas that I would never be able to think of” (04:07-16). Highsmith herself in an interview about Alfred Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train attempts to explain how she arrives at her ideas for her books, self-conscious about the immorality of her characters only when questioned about it. Highsmith’s dislike of being labeled as a genre writer, notably either crime or mystery, is captured in her own voice thoughtfully provided by Vitija to her audience. Writers often try to compartmentalize Highsmith, including Graham Greene in his Foreword to her short story collection Eleven (1993; Grove Press). Greene refers to Highsmith as a “crime novelist,” a term in direct conflict with Highsmith’s affirmation. By placing Highsmith’s declaration not to be labeled at this point in the film is smart on Vitija’s part as it acts as a preventative tool, one meant to keep audiences from pigeonholing Highsmith as a genre writer or, as she moves into Highsmith’s sexuality, a lesbian writer.
It is at this point in the film that Meaker’s voice returns. She describes how she met Highsmith at a gay bar in 1950s NYC, calls her Pat, and delineates Highsmith’s well-known lesbian novel, The Price of Salt (1952). As Highsmith’s cinematic productions are both prolific and legendary, the film clips interspersed within the film help to punctuate for a contemporary audience the popularity of Highsmith’s body of work. When discussing The Price of Salt, which was written under the pseudonym Clare Morgan, Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara lock eyes in a department store. This scene from the film Carol (2015) is revealed as based on an actual moment from Highsmith’s life. Vitija uses the dialogue surrounding Highsmith’s use of a pen name and the secrecy regarding her sexuality due to the time period to shift into her family specifically her lack of relationship with her mother.
As Meaker identifies, Highsmith’s The Price of Salt was a rarity as lesbian novels were to end with the characters being miserable about themselves and their lives. On the contrary, Highsmith gives her characters a happy ending, a contentment that Highsmith herself is shown to have with her many partners over the years. Vitija leads the viewer down Highsmith’s path of acceptance, one that begins with her mother. The family – Courtney, Judy and Dan Coates from Texas – reflect on Highsmith’s childhood. The stories they tell document Highsmith’s mother’s divorce of her father before her birth and her subsequent marriage, how Highsmith’s grandmother raises her until the age of six when she is whisked off to NYC to live with a mother she did not really know and apparently who had no affinity for Highsmith. The most shocking stories told revolved around familial racism and the alleged attempted abortion of Highsmith. In addition, her mother forced her to have relationships with young men/men even though she had shown no interest. It was Meaker that disclosed this fact, offered that Highsmith’s attempts at heteronormativity were standard for gay women at the time. The film then moves into Highsmith’s acts of self-acceptance, those brought on by her travels throughout Europe. It is here in an interview in French that Highsmith describes her process of creating her most famous character, Mr. Ripley. Highsmith would spend the greater portion of her life in France, England, and Switzerland; however, she moves to Pennsylvania with Meaker and their cats. It is here that Highsmith’s trust both her partner and society is tested. Neighborhood children see the couple kissing and gossip ensues; Highsmith concludes that Meaker has absconded with her private journals. It is implied that these events and Highsmith’s secret drinking cause their breakup. When Highsmith is unhappy, her work is affected. She is unable to finish her second “girl’s book,” falls in love with a married woman known only as Caroline, and moves to England to be closer to her. The relationship falters and Highsmith moves to France. Highsmith has a number of relationships but shows signs of despondency later in life. Vitija documents that the police raid her house in Switzerland due to tax problems and that her journals from this period in her fife include discriminatory statements. It is ere at Highsmith reflects on her life and its ending.
Overall, Vitija respects Highsmith’s desire for non-conformity, allowing her viewers to make up their minds about her life and collected works.
Loving Highsmith is now playing at New York’s Film Forum concurrently with a Highsmith film series.
Reference
Greene, Graham. Foreword. Eleven, Grove Press, 1993.
Melanie A. Marotta is a Lecturer in the Department of English and Language Arts at Morgan State University (Baltimore, MD). Marotta’s research focuses on American Literature (in particular African American), Young Adult literature, the American West, Science Fiction, and Ecocriticism. She has a monograph, African American Adolescent Female Heroes: The Twenty-First-Century Young Adult Neo-Slave Narrative, forthcoming from the University Press of Mississippi and part of the Children’s Literature Association Series. She co-edited Critical Pedagogy: Diversity, Inclusion, and the Visual in Higher Education (Routledge, 2021 with Susan Flynn) included in Routledge’s series, Race and Ethnicity in Education. Her collection, Women’s Space: Essays on Female Characters in the 21st Century Science Fiction Western, was published in 2019 as part of the Critical Explorations in Science Fiction and Fantasy Series. Marotta is originally from Ontario, Canada.
What a concept! Allowing people to be themselves as they are, which as shown in this fine review, is all too fragile a gift too harshly taken away. Professor Marotta’s exploration of Ms. Highsmith’s insistence on going her own path, one might suggest her sense of her deeply singular self, is much appreciated.