I Thought I'd Post This Link

of a piece by David Walsh of WSWS on the life and career of Elizabeth Taylor and how that life and career was a reflection of the times in which she lived.

It's a very interesting piece.

A Place in the Sun was actually shot in late 1949, when Taylor was only 17. Father of the Bride and Father’s Little Dividend, it seems, were filmed after the Stevens’ production, although both were released earlier. On the basis of viewing the respective films, this makes a good deal more sense than the reverse order, because Taylor has obviously “started to take acting seriously” by the time of the Minnelli films.

Even in such a slight film as Father’s Little Dividend, Taylor has a number of scenes with Tracy that are sensitive, well-paced and intelligent. Minnelli was a remarkable director, even in this ostensible paean to middle-class postwar life. One of the striking features about the Tracy-Taylor sequences is how much time the director takes to work the dialogue through and how harmoniously the actors work together. Taylor, who was 18 or so when the shooting occurred, is both modest and also remarkably mature for her years.

In any event, A Place in the Sun was without question a turning point in her career. Apparently, Stevens had wanted to film a version of Theodore Dreiser’s 1925 masterpiece An American Tragedy for years. The novel treats a poor relation of a wealthy family who impregnates a factory girl and then finds her an encumbrance when he enters into a relationship in with a rich, pretty girl, a relationship that promises to open up for him a golden world of comfort and affluence. Dreiser’s work is a devastating indictment of the American striving for success at any cost, painstakingly and painfully built up, inexorable incident by inexorable incident.