Great Character: Jasmine (“Blue Jasmine”)
In November, guest columnist Jason Cuthbert looks at five significant female characters in Woody Allen movies. Today: Jasmine from the 2013 movie Blue Jasmine, written by Woody Allen.
The impossibly prolific screenwriting and directing institution, known as Woody Allen in his human form, has spent numerous decades producing extraordinary leading roles for actresses, particularly blondes. Diane Keaton. Mia Farrow. Diane Wiest. Scarlett Johansson. Now the legend continues legendarily with a startling performance from first-time Woody Allen player and Oscar winner Cate Blanchett.
In Woody Allen’s 2013 annual movie offering entitled Blue Jasmine, the reality-resistant Jasmine gives Cate Blanchett what critics are already considering another play date with Oscar the “golden boy” at the 2014 Academy Awards. Blanchett’s Jasmine embodiment mumbles to herself, breaks alcoholic codes of etiquette with daytime vodka binges and erupts with judgmental, anti-social fits of privilege…that have since past her by.
Blue Jasmine from IMDB:
A New York socialite, deeply troubled and in denial, arrives in San Francisco to impose upon her sister. She looks a million, but isn’t bringing money, peace, or love…
Jasmine vacates what is left of her fairytale fantasy in New York City; that once included a posh Park Avenue home, marriage to a filthy rich swindler Hal (Alec Baldwin) and her only waking requirement being to dress expensive and throw parties. But Jasmine 2.0 has reluctantly transplanted her snobbery clear across the map to San Francisco to crash with her adopted sister Ginger (Sally Hawkins), who has a pointedly more blue-collar lifestyle as a grocery store clerk.
Even with no college degree, no jewelry left to pawn off and apparently zero support system outside of Ginger, Jasmine still refuses to be humbled by her shattered glory and remains stuck in a psychological prison of past prominence. Her holier-than-thou attitude is still worn like a brand name badge of honor, even after being banished from her palace of paradise.
The sophistication of this complex character study comes from Woody’s refusal to make Jasmine some generic “Nice Girl Gone Bad.” Any sympathy Jasmine receives from the audience is earned the hard way. She may be unemployed, but Jasmine makes feeling sorry for her a full-time job.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYcnbr7b9ew
If you compare these sister’s names — Jasmine and Ginger — the commonality is that they are both the labels for spices, with qualities that match each character. “Jasmine” originates from a flower, possessing a pretty floral scent commonly added to perfumes. “Ginger” on the other hand has a less attractive origin — it comes from a root. But when ginger is added to food and beverages it has helpful health benefits, one ironically being the lowering of blood pressure. The fancy, yet no longer financially sufficient, Jasmine surely relies on Ginger to lower her own explosive stress levels, but she has a hard time showing any gratitude.
JASMINE (to Ginger): You choose losers because that’s what you think you deserve and that’s why you’ll never have a better life.
The truth is muddy, tinted and tainted by the needs and beliefs of its messenger. With that being said, the truth becomes a mud wresting match between Jasmine and Ginger, bringing out their past issues and current misgivings. Jasmine appears to never have respected Ginger’s lack of material accumulation, blatantly embarrassed by it. And Ginger has an embedded stash of genetic jealousy towards Jasmine’s beauty and resentment over her ex-husband Augie (Andrew Dice Clay) losing $200,000 of their lottery nest egg thanks to Jasmine’s hubby Hal. It also doesn’t help that Jasmine’s temporary relocation to Ginger’s domain has brought a halt to Ginger’s fiancé Chili (Bobby Cannavale) moving in.
JASMINE: Can you please not fight in here? I don’t think I can take it. For some reason my Xanax isn’t kicking in.
As Jasmine attempts to assimilate into the blue collar world that she has previously avoided, she struggles with tasks many of us may take for granted: using computers, studying for classes and sobriety. Without money, Jasmine slowly withers into a hollow hallway of past memories — clawing to construct an aristocratic façade out of the broken remnants of her identity. Love has never been for sale, but Jasmine unfortunately never got that memo.
JASMINE: Anxiety, nightmares and a nervous breakdown, there’s only so many traumas a person can withstand until they take to the streets and start screaming.
Harking back to her previous philanthropy, shopping sprees, a husband who slept in many beds other than hers and the old school tune “Blue Moon,” Jasmine struggles to connect to anyone in the present tense. Everyone, including her own young nephews, is well aware that Jasmine is not on the happy side of sanity these days. Everything that she thought she was has disappeared. Jasmine must be reintroduced to Jasmine — minus the fur coats and chauffeurs. But the further she runs away from the truth, especially on the dating scene, the more of an alienated stranger she becomes to her self.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Foccjbv2sjA
But even with her shallow, income-equals-self-worth soliloquies, Jasmine is still a woman who is suffering. Her pain is not because of any crime she personally committed, but because she invested her entire identity into becoming a trophy wife, with her trust being used as toilet paper. She gives our threshold for compassion a brilliant final exam, reminding us that rich or poor, we all have hunger, desires and feelings. Jasmine’s life is just one example of how those strangers that we donate a dollar to begin talking to themselves in public in the first place.
For her struggle to reassemble her quality of life, her journey to learn who she truly is from within and her barefoot path over the hot flames of pain — Jasmine is a GREAT CHARACTER to analyze.
The whole ‘spice’ thing is deeply observant: Jasmine vs. Ginger. Brilliant stroke in terms of delineating and defining characters.
Thanks once again to Jason! You may follow him on Twitter: @A2Jason.
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