"Whispers in the Hearts of Men" has several themes and one of these themes deals with the forbidden! Several authors have written about it. Several filmmakers have made it their subject. The "subject" or "it" is the almost unmentionable, the modern-day-threat-to-our-children. "It" is the attraction of older men to younger boys. Robert Graves, for example, writes about his infatuation with a younger boy while he was in Charterhouse school before WW1 and claims that such infatuation was neither unknown nor considered abnormal at boarding schools at that time. No doubt, boarding schools in 2017 are not so very different. Graves also draws a distinction between lust and romantic love. The latter, he claims, allows no sex because sexual activity would destroy the romantic illusion.
Thomas Mann wrote about "it" in "Death in Venice" although Mann, perhaps, was making another point, that beauty, truth and nothingness (ie death) are one and the same and that one might seek truth in death. The final scene has the composer, Gustav Aschenbach (Mahler, perhaps), dying on the beach while watching his object of beauty pointing out to the horizon, to nothingness and death. I think Visconti's 1971 film (one of my favourites) was true to Mann's intentions.
Watching the BBC's weekly Film Review this morning, I noticed that this older-man-younger-boy topic has come up yet again. The film is entitled: "Call me by your Name."
Above is a still from the film and below is a link to the review.
Looks like a super film. Also - not to forget Lindsay Anderson's "If".
Posted by: Christopher Goddard | 10/29/2017 at 01:50 PM