Streetcar named Desire (1951)

Blanche DuBois: I don't want realism. I want magic! Yes, yes, magic. I try to give that to people. I do misrepresent things. I don't tell truths. I tell what ought to be truth.

Blanche DuBois: You're married to a madman.
Stella: I wish you'd stop taking it for granted that I'm in something I want to get out of.

Blanche DuBois: What you are talking about is desire - just brutal Desire. The name of that rattle-trap streetcar that bangs through the Quarter, up one old narrow street and down another.

Stella: Haven't you ever ridden on that streetcar?

Blanche DuBois: It brought me here. Where I'm not wanted and where I'm ashamed to be.

Stella: Don't you think your superior attitude is a little out of place?

Blanche DuBois: May I speak plainly?... If you'll forgive me, he's common... He's like an animal. He has an animal's habits. There's even something subhuman about him. Thousands of years have passed him right by, and there he is. Stanley Kowalski, survivor of the Stone Age, bearing the raw meat home from the kill in the jungle. And you - you here waiting for him. Maybe he'll strike you or maybe grunt and kiss you, that's if kisses have been discovered yet. His poker night you call it. This party of apes.

Stanley Kowalski: Take a look at yourself here in a worn-out Mardi Gras outfit, rented for 50 cents from some rag-picker. And with a crazy crown on. Now what kind of a queen do you think you are? Do you know that I've been on to you from the start, and not once did you pull the wool over this boy's eyes? You come in here and you sprinkle the place with powder and you spray perfume and you stick a paper lantern over the light bulb - and, lo and behold, the place has turned to Egypt and you are the Queen of the Nile, sitting on your throne, swilling down my liquor. And do you know what I say? Ha ha! Do you hear me? Ha ha ha!

__________

Em 1951 Vivien Leigh tinha 38 anos e Marlon Brando a energia dos 25 anos. Ela em declínio, ele em ascensão, os dois encontram-se no limbo, numa contracena tensa e voluptuosa. Uma mistura irresistível entre o enorme talento de ambos os autores, da beleza juvenil de Marlon Brando e do rosto maduro e altivo de Vivien Leigh com o belíssimo texto de Tennessee Williams.

Poderia acusar-lo de ser apenas uma encenação teatral que acabou em filme. A acção é confinada a uma pequena série de espaços, há um Overact textual.

Mas às obras que sobrevivem para serem primas tudo se perdoa, e o prazer de ver um filme assim é intemporal.