The Kiss of the Spider Woman

The Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985)

http://www.snarke.com/

“Try to remember”
—Manuel Puig,
Kiss of the Spider Woman

It’s so gratifying to see—
The barracuda diva go rogue
Like La Manuela in “The Kiss
Of the Spider Woman…”
Incarnating the submissive—
Degraded part of women rebelling
Against the usual fascist pigs;
So that women identify with him,
Thus “The Kiss” provokes precisely
The political impact Puig wants
To produce in women…

Fabulations…musician José Iturbi—
Both films for Molina’s chic lovely
Nightly daughter, Jane Powell,
who falls in love with Famous actor,
“Holiday in Mexico” (1946), Her
Hollywood musical life as
Ambassador’s singer Who goes
for fame & fortune… Her Mafioso
magnate “Hipócrita” (1949)
A marvelous Mexican flick…
About doomed cabaret
Buenos Aires in bits & pieces—
Based loosely on Berlin…

Molina and Valentín—
de jour prison life in death,
death in life… humid sexuality,
Brutalizing/being brutalized,
Captive narratives derigeur,
Dead men soup and death in
dark Voodoo cane fields of
slavery, Oppression Zombie,
A Val Lewton-Jacques Tourneur
Tale of love sullen Jane Eyre
I Walked with Ze zombies
of desire, my dear, Just ask

*

Just ask famous Miss Sirk—
clichés of power… society:
A reliance on formulae,
kitschy Convention, excess,
exaggeration, And ways that
confer cinematic Illusion
in a totalitarian state playing
Erotic excess vs. aggressive
evil American cinema, His
successful melodramas such
Scathing satires Hollywood
‘50s, cult queen bee

*

Lana Turner glamorous diva—
USA Sunset Blvd Hollywood—
Her Imitations of Life… LA,
Berlin & Buenos Aries—Evita’s
Nazi Argentina, Postwar twist:
Always returning back home
Again, whether femme fatale
new National Socialist
platinum blonde (1959) or
Glamorous woman of the
Femme Sapphire stage,
diamond goddess, lovely
imitations of life

*

WASHINGTON DC (1980)—
Her Filmography…weeks viewing
“Mein Leber fur die Liebe” in
the Library of Congress’ newly
Acquired Nazi Reagan subtle
Compared with Zarah, & she
Became 3 strong-actress types
Which queens identified with
before Stonewall, mimicking
their gestures, doing her drag
queen routine—(an arcane LP
of Zarah Leander hits)…

*

Hollywood ‘50s movies—
To be born-again, slick.
Fiction & Bondage, Slave
POTUS dystopian love,
Sheathed in smooth latex
body-stocking, Waiting to
get hot for her, Moody
young rebel to free her
melodramatic imagination
languishing like Molina for
The Valentín Show, her
moody man class-struggle
act boyfriend, held captive by
Raving fans in LA, hoping
the poets and Painters,
midnight Left Bank, leading
a debauched life with cute
South American playboy tangos,
Her rich Argentine dictator-father,
Letting her hang out with his
young Junta lieutenants

NEW YORK (1976-1979)—
Lubitsch, starring Evelyn Brent
and Emil Jannings… Command
(Josef von Sternberg, titles by
Herman Mankiewicz), based on
Satan’s Sorrows (Lyade Putti,
Glamorous German accent),
The Last & the Devil (Gilbert/Garbo),
White Moth, Hoopla (Clara Bow),
Musicals, campy melodramas,
Screening 16mm antiques…
Hotel Imperial, Student Prince,
Flesh MoMa viewing silent
teens and Twenties Romantic
comedies

*

She found the 1920’s—
More explicit before censorship:
Asta Nielsen’s Hamlet (1920),
Playing a woman posing as a boy
Because the throne needed a
Descendent, immediately,
Horatio in love with her/him
All the way, ashamed of his
Homo feelings, until the end
When he embraced the dead
Hamlet and felt a tit!!!

She felt the desire—
all the prison bars, shadowing
the underlying aesthetic of
Androgyny & Desire. Argentine
Kiss—The Evita Peron Kiss,
the young Latino Kiss, libido
flowing thru her as one more
Rita Hayward got to go mad,
Clarifying the American Kiss
as well as the many ways it
made her who she was—
Willing to play herself Spider
Woman, The need to continue
her little Hollywood soiree,
the erotic Tortures made to
Remember her obsessions,
The need to fabulate her
Hollywood, The Kiss…

*

The activity of this page—
Trans-fictions? Easy glutted
with the Usual power, pride,
politics & Hurricane
Parades down Canal Street,
New Orleans ancient seaport,
the degradation that diva’s
Have to go thru, Mardi Gras
Parades convoluted blame,
Slinky cinema culture in
Love with itself, disgusted
With what she’s doing with
this pastiche-like Press-book,
POMO Movie showing her
footnotes both closety &
symposium-esque, her
Divahood just isn’t it

*

Their conversation—
“But didn’t you major in
poli-sci?” “Yes, political
sciences. But go on with
the Film, I’ll tell you some
other time.” “And, by the
Way, art’s not just something
For women. One of these days
They’ll realize who’s the fag
Around here.” “Sure. But what
About the film?” “Okay, so then
The majordomo…”

“But what about the film?”
“Okay, so then The majordomo…”
“One of these days, They’ll
realize who’s the fag Around
here.” “Sure. The Way, art’s
not just something For men.
I’ll tell you some other time.”
“And, political sciences.”
“But go on with the Film,”
“But didn’t you major in
poli-sci?” “Yes…”