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seventh-fantasy · 1 year

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He was very responsive to my ancient Oriental ways of love. All of which I invented myself, just for him.

M. BUTTERFLY (1993) dir. David Cronenberg

#m. butterfly #m butterfly #david cronenberg #filmgifs #filmdaily #moviegifs #john lone #jeremy irons #my posts #jielin's edits #mbutterflygifs #a lil nervous making this post but i've been too consumed by this movie not to #i deserve one nice gifset fo it on this site #the way it's all about performance and the gaze...... i'm feral #how it understands the illusory nature of reality... *dies*#sll being a dan actor is the very performance of the male gaze #sll performs for the public and also performs for the delusional and limited gaze of one man #the former and latter looking at the same thing but seeing different things #like. literally rene passing by the 藏头诗 scrolls at the entrance of sll's home multiple times jfc #the information is literally presented in your face! you just don't/can't see it!#(here's me giving the prop designer a BIG KISS MUAH)#then how rene eventually transforms into the performance of the oriental gaze in an auditorium of western men casting gaze at him...crazyy..#no matter how the story is being read by ppl it's ironic when ppl insist on labelling and putting sll into boxes #does it not feel like sll being subjected to a performance in court with the gaze of foreigners who are resolved to #scrutinise and define sll's life. so exactly the way sll unapologetically resists - no explanations owed #and fun fact. on the day i rewatched this a butterfly lovers skit was playing on tv. serendipity. lies down and weep

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reflections-in-a-critical-eye · 6 months

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top ten first watches of 2023?

I assume you mean films, right? Anyway, top 10 in no particular order.

Crash was a long time coming, but it took a podcast I used to listen to weekly to finally get to this Cronenberg classic. Bodily modifications? Violent eroticism? Body as a machine? Death & eroticism? It has it all and much more.

For those of you in your 20s and 30s (or even older) who feel alienated in the urban landscape, surrounded by crowds whilst feeling lonely and yearning for any type of human connection, this film is for you.

It's no secret that Brian de Palma wanted to be Hitchcock since he was a baby (I assume, but it sure does look so). You can see it in so many movies of his and Body Double is a perfect example. It even has the misogyny down to a T. But it's also really good and I'm a fan of voyeurism in cinema (from a critical position mostly). This is like Rear Window and Vertigo mashed together, but with 80s hair.

Now this was probably the highlight for me this year. Editor by day, sex worker by night, Kathleen Turner is a force in this film, alongside Anthony Perkins, the perverted priest. But if that is not enough to do the trick, the cinematography and that anal sex scene might do the trick 😉

Who knew Joan Crawford had such a big issue with wire hangers? Not me, but I sure found out in that crazy scene that has one of the most memorable meltdowns in cinema. Every shot of Faye Dunaway screams "I want that Oscar, god damn it!"

Fedora is the late 70s version of Sunset Boulevard and it has the same director. Not as good as that classic, but my god, the clothes! I'd watch it again just for the clothes, particularly that white suit Fedora is wearing in the garden of her villa when she receives that honorary Oscar.

I don't think there's any Paul Schrader film that I didn't like. It wouldn't make sense to call him underrated, but he's better than others from that 1970s gang (cough *de Palma* cough). In Hardcore, a father finds out his daughter went to Los Angeles and started acting in porn. He gets the confirmation when he actually sees her in one film in some shady movie theater. It's a weird and very uncomfortable scene and by comparison, not much, knowing how it will unfold later.

Of course Madonna is always in control of her image and what she allows to be seen or how she comes across. But that doesn't mean there's nothing genuine there, on the contrary. And the camera captures that. The backstage, the everyday conversations, the relationship with the dancers. Real people with real emotions and the more darker parts are allowed to slip in through the cracks. On top of that, it has footage from her tour in 90-91, a reminder of how Madonna is one of the best performers out there, making me wish there'd be a time machine so I can see her live during that time.

For anyone who is a fan of Sex and The City, how about a late 1930s version? Fast pace dialogue, outfits to die for and a cast made almost entirely of women.

The second Cronenberg on the 2023 list. I watched M. Butterfly after seeing Madame Butterfly at the opera. The film is slightly different and it deals with some of my favorite themes in fiction and media lately: gender identities, criticism of colonialism, orientalist fantasies that obscure realities and so much more.

#m thoughts #top 10 films in 2023 #crash david cronenberg #m butterfly #body double #hardcore 1978 #fedora billy wilder #mommy dearest #women 1939 #in bed with Madonna #crimes of passion #vive l'amour

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markiafc · 22 days

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#莲花楼 #鹤唳华亭 #m butterfly #me is mark #the incredible divide between them that can't be bridged #+ hidden identities and reveals #+ the power imbalance #the weaker role begs for a scrap of affection or understanding or mercy #from an ambivalent figure who won't make space for them in their hearts #rejection....#your deepest desire (a wish only they can grant) becoming an impossibility......!!

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emerald4-ce · 10 months

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The tiktok algorithm showed me this absolutely toe curling, hair twirling edit of Jeremy Irons of all people and now I gotta share it with you.

#isp3ak #jeremy irons #m butterfly #m butterfly 1993 #whew chile

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el-im · 7 months

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#i swear i thought i dreamed her #library #nau #m butterfly

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heavenly-angell · 2 years

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#jeremy irons #hmmmmmm #༉‧₊˚✧#90s #m butterfly

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gender-envy-tournament · 1 year

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#rene gallimard #m butterfly #venti #genshin #genshin impact #poll #gender #polls #gender envy #gender envy tournament #genvy poll

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thatgeekwiththeclipons · 3 months

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Happy 81st Birthday to legendary filmmaker David Cronenberg! ^__^

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hellsdaydreamwastaken · 1 year

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Oh I finished M Butterfly. Again, saving my more detailed thoughts for the Letterboxd review, but for now I will say I don't believe this movie is transphobic as many people have claimed. Cronenberg has given me every reason to assume good faith and understanding on his part and this film changes nothing about that. I think trying to put this forth as some sort of "trap" narrative is absurdly reductive especially when you consider it's based on REAL events! There was a real diplomat who actually DID have a 20 year relationship without ever realising - or claiming never to - that it was with a male spy in disguise. This film simply takes the real life case a springboard to analyse how the HELL that can be possible - and the answers it explores are fascinating and have a lot to say that is honestly insulting to reduce some "trans panic" thing. It's not that at all. It's more about race than gender or sexuality if anything. But even insofar as it does directly touch on that I honestly don't think it handles it poorly. The line "only a man knows how a woman should act"... I've seen that one line get a lot of shit and even saw one person on Letterboxd compare it unfavourably to "boys make the best girls" (which is a catchphrase often associated with "femboys" - I've seen like Finnster fans use it and stuff), and honestly that is such a grand exercise in missing the point it's unreal. The line in the film DRIPS with irony and is actually saying many things at once. To compare it to some idiotic internet meme catchphrase is positively illiterate!

#david cronenberg #just watched #m butterfly #film

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cinemajunkie70 · 2 years

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A very happy birthday to Jeremy Irons!

#jeremy irons #brideshead revisited #the french lieutenant's woman #reversal of fortune #die hard with a vengeance #dungeons and dragons #house of gucci #dead ringers #m butterfly #the mission #damage #watchmen #Lolita #the lion king #the house of the spirits #actor

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incarnateirony · 1 year

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So, am I right to assume, at least somewhat, (I plan to watch it again today but only had chance for once last night) that while these events ARE happening DID happen, the way we're seeing it play out is almost like the party game telephone. It happened, someone/something told the narrator, and the narrator is projecting shit onto the events because he's being stubborn/lost/(scared?) to find who he needs?

Close enough yeah. Um. Dean is/was the unreliable narrator, discovering who Roxxy really is, is hugely attached to him

enjoy this cursed half-draft with unmanaged transitions. Sound on. And realize the "nonsense videos" I was posting all year were just. leaky roxxy lulz. Almost like you could read my leaks clearly if you cared about the Context, rather than forcing it to mean what you want to believe it means. Almost like the entire theme of my blog the last year. weird.

**no I still haven't added 15.18 yet or smoothed all the transitions but um. Yeah. This is literally the plot sorry antis sucks to be you.

The first act introduces the main character, René Gallimard, a civil servant attached to the French embassy in China. In a prison, Gallimard is serving a sentence for treason. Through a series of flashbacks and imagined conversations, Gallimard tells an audience his story about a woman that he loved and lost. He falls in love with a beautiful Chinese opera singer, Song Liling. Gallimard is unaware that all female roles in traditional Beijing opera were actually played by men, as women were banned from the stage. The first act ends with Gallimard returning to France in shame and living alone after his wife, Helga, finds out about his affair with Song and divorces him.

In act two it is revealed that Song had been acting as a spy for the Chinese government, and she is actually a man who has disguised himself as a woman to seduce Gallimard and extract information from him. They stay together for 20 years and married until the truth is revealed, and Gallimard is convicted of treason and imprisoned. Unable to face the fact that his "perfect woman" is a man, he retreats deep within himself and his memories. The action of the play is depicted as his disordered, distorted recollection of the events surrounding their affair.

In act three, Song reveals himself to the audience as a man, without makeup and dressed in men's clothing. Gallimard claims he only loved the idea of Butterfly, never Song himself. Gallimard throws Song and his clothing off the stage, but holds onto Butterfly's kimono. In scene three, the setting returns to Gallimard's prison cell, as he puts on makeup and Butterfly's wig and kimono. Then he stabs himself, committing suicide just as Butterfly does in the opera.

#spnwin #the winchesters #spn #roxxy #the truth #m butterfly

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heyitsno0ne · 11 months

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Fair warning that this might become a Jeremy Irons appreciation blog but like, not in a creepy way

#jeremy irons #brideshead revisited #dead ringers #the borgias #m butterfly #various others I’m leaving out #eragon too lol

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illuminussy · 1 year

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M Butterfly

Culturally ignorant and deeply romantic white man Rene romanticizes the idea of the submissive Asian woman who falls for the dominant white man. Captivating, beautiful Beijing opera singer Song challenges this ideal to him. On the subject of the opera Madame Butterfly, Songs says, "What would you say if a blonde cheerleader fell in love with a short Japanese businessman? He marries her and then goes home for three years, during which time she prays to his picture and turns down marriage from a young Kennedy? Then when she learns her husband has remarried, she kills herself. Now, I believe you would consider this girl to be a deranged idiot, correct? But because it's an Oriental who kills herself for a Westerner, you find her beautiful."

Rene falls for Song because she both embodies his ideal and challenges it at the same time, making her his dream girl he can never quite get a grasp on. They begin an intense 20-year-long romantic relationship.

Turns out Song is a (gay) man who has been tasked with manipulating him for the specific purpose of stealing government secrets from him. Rene very understandably feels betrayed by the espionage scheme and emotional manipulation. Rene, more tragically, feels gay panic because he can't accept that his dream woman, the love of his life, is a man.

This next part I am analyzing not only the film but the real life story it was based on, which gives more illuminating detail: even though Rene is gay and on some subconscious level understood Song was a man, he wanted to stay in denial and believe he really fell for a woman, the woman of his dreams (Oriental submissive woman ideal), no less. Song was his dream girl not only because she/he was lovely, but because she must have given Rene such relief as a self-denying gay man to feel he could finally truly love a woman in a heterosexual world he pretended to be a part of but never truly belonged before. She was his exception, and she was perfect.

Rene's desire to deny to himself that Song is a man combined with his cultural ignorance aid Song in concealing his male physique from Rene, claiming he is hiding his body for modesty reasons related to his Chinese culture and showing a preference for non-vaginal sexual activities because they are "ancient Oriental ways of love," which he later admits he made up.

A comrade in espionage asks Song why the Chinese government didn't just hire a female spy. He says, "Because only a man knows how a woman is supposed to act." He implies that much of what men idealize and fall for in women is performative femininity. He played up the feminine qualities Rene idealized and was also, beneath the surface, a man, making him Rene's perfect match.

Song creates a superficial fantasy for Rene to become infatuated with, but on a deeper level, they also fall in love. Even though Rene is Song's target in espionage, he truly grows to love him. Rene is captivated by Song's submissive, mysterious Oriental woman act, but he's really in love with Song's true self, the sharp personality that questioned Rene's Orientalist beliefs in the first place.

There's a very emotional scene in a prison van after Rene and Song have been charged with espionage where Song strips and asks Rene to look at him, the person he fell in love with. Rene resists but also gives in a bit, closing his eyes and stroking Song's cheek and realizing how it's the same cheek of the woman he fell in love with. Song earnestly, while figuratively and literally naked, asks Rene to tell him he adores him, but Rene ultimately rejects him. There is a shot of John Lone as Song, naked and kneeling in the prison van, rejected by Rene after being utterly vulnerable with him, with his face in his hands, sobbing that BREAKS MY HEART.

The truth of Song's sex being overtly acknowledged teamed with the espionage charges against the both of them, the emotional betrayal, general shock, and shame both public and internal is A LOT for Rene. It destroys him mentally and emotionally.

The ending of M Butterfly mirrors the opera Madame Butterfly. Instead of an Asian woman killing herself over a white man, the white man (Rene), kills himself over the Asian woman/man (Song). Rene essentially carries out the hypothetical scenario Song posited when they first met about the blonde cheerleader killing herself over the short Japanese businessman, but it's even more absurd than Rene would have thought because not only is he a white person killing himself over an Asian person, but he's a white man killing himself over an Asian woman, making the expected power dynamics even more deeply inverted. If you think of M Butterfly in a heartless way (AKA disregarding the romance and the genuine love that existed amidst all the deception and betrayal), Song achieved a massive feat by making Rene fall so deeply that he killed himself. It was something neither he nor Rene ever expected nor thought possible amid the norms of the time.

Anyways, M Butterfly is ultimately another tragic gay romance, which sucks that it's tragic, because the chemistry between Rene (Jeremy Irons) and Song (John Lone) is stunning. As mentioned previously, it's based on a true story with very little exaggeration. I think Rene and Song and their IRL counterparts really did love each other, but the betrayal and deception involved in Song manipulating Rene for the sake of espionage for 20 years would have been A LOT to overcome for their love to work out, even if Rene and society-at-large had been accepting of homosexuality.

Takeaways:

M Butterfly subverts the Orientalist dominant white man/submissive Asian woman ideal in multiple ways.

A relationship built on the deception of another person or the deception of oneself cannot last.

I wish Rene and Song could have met and fallen in love without the shroud of espionage and homophobia engulfing them. Even though Orientalist ideals and performative femininity are what drew Rene to Song initially, I really do think he had the capacity to love Song beyond just as the idea of the perfect woman he created. Song was a pretty, androgynous Asian man who genuinely possessed many of the qualities that he played up for Rene. And at the end of the day, Rene (or at least the real life person he was based on) was a gay man. If Song had actually been a woman, he would not have fallen for him. At their core, free of the political games and homophobic BS that both brought them together and made their love impossible, Rene and Song were perfect for each other.