1943 poll 2.0

[Umbugbene]

i guess everyone has already seen lumière d'été. well i hadn't. and that was dumb, cuz this movie was made for me like nothing else in 43 (so far) i ♥ his silent movies, but aside from remorques hadn't had much luck with the sound ones, but he crams everything into this. (when he cut from her to a giant tussock of grass, i was howling, there is much that is not rote in this film)

One thing missing from these year polls is a bit of general historical background to help us appreciate the films better. What makes the year different from other years? What was happening around the world? What were people thinking? Knowing these goes a long way toward understanding the year's movies. I can't promise to take responsibility for adding some historical context to each month's poll, but if anyone's interested maybe I'll try.

1943 is obviously in the midst of World War II, but of course it has its own particular flavor compared to adjacent years. By now the war had been dragging on and escalating, which sometimes weakened morale, hence all the overt and subtle propaganda everywhere. The tide had already turned in the Pacific, but there was lots of bitter fighting ahead on all fronts, and D-Day wouldn't happen until the next year. At this point it probably looked like the war could go either way.

While the Allies were gaining confidence, occupied countries like France were gradually losing hope. French films of 1941 and 1942 were bold enough to mock the German invaders (in ways the censors wouldn't notice) and to hope for a quick victory - but by 1943 they turned inward, and later that year (esp. in Douce and Voyage Without Hope) they turned to despair.

Released on the 26th of May, Lumière d'été is a prime example of the inward-looking French films of early 1943. Except for an unseen eagle it doesn't allude directly to Nazis. Instead, its three settings and three male characters represent different sides of France:

- The hotel is the bourgeoisie, who accommodated the German invaders as a matter of convenience
- The castle is the aristocracy and its ideological heirs, who embraced fascism willingly
- The construction site is the proletariat, who favored unions and communism and generally supported the Resistance

My favorite metaphor in Lumière d'été is the dam, a totally apprpriate image for the Resistance, whose goal was to stop Germany the way a dam stops a river. Like a war zone, the dam site is filled with heavy equipment and explosions.

If you imagine that Michèle is France, then her 3 suitors are like the different sides of French society trying to win the French people:

- Roland is an artist, the intellectual class that was so respected before the war, but now he's working for the aristocracy and betraying his ideals. At the masked ball he dresses as Hamlet, the most famously indecisive character in literature. Like so many French intellectuals during WWII he's basically a flip-flopper.
- Patrice is the patriciate, the haughty conservative class who felt nostalgic for royalty. Like a wanna-be Nazi he's fond of rifles and riding uniforms, and he has horrible taste in art, declaring Roland's idea to paint the castle all white "a masterpiece".
- Julien is the working class, and of course he's the romantic hero who earns Michèle's love, as the movie believes the Resistance will win the hearts of France as a whole.

There's still a lot more to unpack. A cloud formation in the opening shots forms a patriotic picture of France, shaped like the country's north & west coats jutting into the sky. Cri-Cri is Coco Chanel, who famously fraternized with Nazis (her wealth was comparable back then to people like Bezos and Gates, so she's not a trivial figure for the French).

[Holdrüholoheuho]

I can't promise to take responsibility for adding some historical context to each month's poll, but if anyone's interested maybe I'll try.

i am definitely interested!
i like 3 settings, 3 suitors, etc. elaborations.
more of this, please.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

it made me check the "1943 in architecture" wiki entry ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1943_in_architecture
these are 3 random entries that caught my attention...

1/ pentagon

Buildings opened — January 15 (1943) — The Pentagon in Washington, D.C., United States, designed by George Bergstrom

2/ the setting of Godard's "Contempt" (1963)

Buildings completed — Casa Malaparte on Capri, house for Curzio Malaparte designed by him with Adalberto Libera and builder Adolfo Amitrano (begun 1937)

3/ 1943 "peace suspension" that collapsed in 1957

Buildings completed — Peace River Suspension Bridge, Canada (collapsed 1957)

"a new day dawning in the north"...
https://youtu.be/r1Q5I9aK52s
https://youtu.be/9aptoRHYWgU

[Holdrüholoheuho]

1943 in literature ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1943_in_literature

haphazard selection...
btw. (somehow) i can't stand "The Little Prince" without ever reading it (it is (i believe) worse than the utterly bad "So spake Zarathustra").

Events...

March — The self-illustrated children's novella The Little Prince by the exiled French aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, the all-time best-selling book originated in French, is published in New York.

June 30 — Having transferred from the Merchant Marine to the United States Navy and served eight days of active duty Jack Kerouac is honorably discharged on psychiatric grounds. In New York City, he, William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg become friends.

September — George Orwell resigns from the BBC to become literary editor of the left-wing London paper Tribune.

September — Retreating German forces set fire to the library of the Royal Society of Naples, and on September 30 to the Montesano Villa containing the most valuable State Archives of Naples.

October 14 — The contents of Biblioteca della Comunità Israelitica in Rome are looted by Nazi German troops.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation in the United States places Richard Wright under surveillance.

New books...

Simone de Beauvoir – She Came to Stay (L'Invitée)
Graham Greene – The Ministry of Fear
Hermann Hesse – The Glass Bead Game (Das Glasperlenspiel)
H. P. Lovecraft – Beyond the Wall of Sleep (collection)
C. L. Moore – Earth's Last Citadel
Ayn Rand – The Fountainhead
Virginia Woolf (suicide 1941) – A Haunted House and Other Short Stories
Roald Dahl – The Gremlins
Albert Camus – The Misunderstanding (Le Malentendu)
Georges Bataille – L'Expérience intérieure ... maybe has something to do with "by 1943 they turned inward" (mentioned above-above)
Julius Evola – The Doctrine of Awakening (La dottrina del risveglio)
Louis Hjelmslev – Prolegomena to a Theory of Language (Omkring sprogteoriens grundlæggelse)
Jean-Paul Sartre – Being and Nothingness (L'Être et le néant: Essai d'ontologie phénoménologique)
J. A. Schumpeter – Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy
Stefan Zweig (suicide 1942) – The World of Yesterday (first English edition)

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

J. A. Schumpeter – Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy

I'm reading this write now. A rich text. That's an error on Wiki's part, I think - it was first published in '42.

A year or so ago I thought of trying to read books from the year we're polling at the same time as the movies, to get a fuller picture of living in that past. A nice thought, but I soon realized that if I struggle to finish my year poll watchlists as it is, adding an insurmountable reading list to it as well would only magnify the weight.

[greennui]

I've previously thought about going through the music of every year, in the poll thread or in a seperate thread.

1943 music:

The biggest hit of the year, about preferring a paper doll to a real live woman...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaMeSrynug0

Satiric song about being kind to the Germans, ended up getting banned by the BBC due to people thinking it was meant to be taken literally. Too british even for the british. Chruchill loved it though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wveW9Tw2JKE

As Time Goes By became popular as Casablanca was released for the general public in early '43, so it could have been counted as a´43 film in the yearly round up polls at the time...Due to a musicians strike at the time though, no new version could be recorded so the original version from 1931 was reissued.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewKuIWedBJE

[sally]

re: lumiere d'ete

i just assumed everything french in 43 was about occupation (which is why le baron fantôme was intriguing - there was no obvious allegory, unless in a vague reference to some 'hidden treasure'/inheritance, and even the posh military bloke, aside from a nefarious cat-killing episode, was...not an evil nazi-affirmer) but the 'woman as country' trope absolutely fucking infuriates me so that's why i politely said i did not care for the spring water couple (innocence and purity always seem problematic to me as well, i'm not really sure i can distinguish it from bestial idiocy)

but you're right about being so much to unpack...i just loved the way grémillon filmed everything...the sound design was...noticable...and i wasn't taking notes to remark on the way any/every scene was constructed, but eg the little (people) stones rolling down the hill at the beginning being mirrored at the end - and, which is why i particularly noted that, was almost identical to a shot in wolfram a saliva do lobo (2010) which i watched the day before and everyone was going ooh aah so amazing at.

usually not a fan of 'this means this, and that refers to that' in movies but it was so elegantly done and so packed in to bursting that the whole thing was a joy. (aside from pierre brasseur)

[Holdrüholoheuho]

i don't expect trying to go beyond 1943 viewings.
tho i am curious about 1943 Zeitgeist.
so i am longing for any 1943 tidbits (seemingly) unrelated to films.

(besides "Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy" 1942) i see "The Road to Serfdom" by Hayek "is a book written between 1940 and 1943" (published 1944). and also considering the freaky 1943 novel "The Fountainhead", it seems one of the issues among all the 1943 haunted houses, last citadels, gremlins, etc. were some serious deliberations about capitalism vs. socialism vs. freedom vs. democracy — deliberations that are still haunting us.

[Umbugbene]

i am definitely interested!
i like 3 settings, 3 suitors, etc. elaborations.
more of this, please.

Okay, I'll try and see how it goes! I'm not really a historian, though my father is a professor of medieval history. Even a small effort to capture the zeitgeist should go a long way. Great idea all of you for filling in a sense of the architecture, literature, music, and political philosophy of the year!

@2dm... what is it about the "woman as country" that's so maddening? The old fashioned sexual categories? She's not exactly passive, for what that's worth. It wasn't always a woman who represented the country either... in La nuit fantastique the previous year it was a man, Denis (as in St. Denis, patron saint of the Kingdom of France) who represented France, and the woman Irène represented the peace he/it longed for. Whatever you think of allegorical cinema ("this equals that"), that was how occupied peoples often expressed themselves in film, mainly to reach their audience while escaping the notice of censors.

[sally]

@2dm... what is it about the "woman as country" that's so maddening? The old fashioned sexual categories?

well yes exactly. woman aren't people, are they? how ridiculous. (i'm pretty sure there's not a single korean film from the 50's where a 'woman' is allowed to be merely a human being) (and no it's not always women, only 99% of the time) i can't even understand why you would even query why i would find it maddening. i guess we see things in such an incompatible way there's no point even attempting to communicate. enjoy your male gaze!

[Umbugbene]

If an allegory is any good, as I believe Lumière d'été is, its characters can be human and something else at the same time. And I'm not ready to agree with the 99%. Where did you get that?

[sally]

umbelievable. think i'll be taking another little break from this academy of muses for a while again. i'll come back and post my 43 poll when it's due.

[Umbugbene]

Are you really outraged, or just unwilling to elaborate on an assumption you think is self-evident? I can only conclude that you're confusing me with someone else. Yes, I have a male point of view, but believe it or not I'm interested in trying to see things through other points of view as best I can. And I'm making the same point above, that we should try to see Lumière d'été from the point of view of the time it was made, not just reflexively react to it through 21st century eyes. I think I understand the postmodern resistance to allegory, but I certainly don't subscribe to it. Anyway, if it's so problematic that Michèle represents something apart from herself, what about the male characters who represent parts of France? I honestly don't believe you're thinking this through. I've spent a lot of time and work trying to understand movies like this... I'm not just repeating some film critic, and if you cared to listen I could cite other cases where male characters represent countries as much as Michèle does.

[brian d]

i'm trying to formulate a response to the above, but it's tricky because it means stating things that are almost certainly already known but at the same time kinda need to be stated. so, my little underdeveloped rant about allegory in film...

i haven't looked much into the french tradition in the 1930s and 1940s in terms of ideological approaches taken by filmmakers and so on, but there are plenty of film traditions where the nation is read metonymically through a female character (like sally mentioned, in korean film, and almost certainly in plenty of others; indian cinema from that time also comes to mind). in mexican cinema woman more or less always filtered into specific roles (mother figure, fallen woman, innocent indigenous woman) and while there are certainly exceptions, and directors like buñuel would question these categories at times, they still don't stray that far from them. and yes, male characters often fit into certain paradigms as well, such as the cad or brute, the responsible father figure, the character used for comic relief, etc., but their categories are almost universally redeemable in the end. the evil figures in mexican melodramas are eternally hatable because they by and large don't have even a clear reason for being what they are. (this is where buñuel does tend to excel because he makes sure that no one is truly evil, their dissonance with what we want comes from somewhere clearly traceable in the film.) but the spaces for female characters were both more constraining and more likely to end in disaster for them. (maybe varda's le bonheur would be a good way to think of that: even if we can sympathize with both the husband and the (first) wife, there's no question that he both initiates the breakdown of the first marriage and doesn't deal with any fallout from it that we can see, while the first wife has to be gotten out of the way.)

so when a woman is placed as the metonymic center of the film, and intended to represent the nation, it becomes problematic on several levels. in part, the idea of putting something so abstract as nationalism on the woman (and yes, it's definitely usually on a woman, even if there are counterexamples out there) diminishes the non-allegorical characteristics that make her who she is beyond being a cipher for the nation. we start reading that and that's generally where she's going to stay. on top of that, there's a diminishment of how a story of any form might get at something like nationalism. sure, there's a war going on and a need to resist german occupation and all that, and the allegorical sometimes gets through censorship more easily. you're not going to get away with putting on a brecht-inspired film about the troubles of occupation. but it also points to a laziness on the part of filmmakers, going back to the same well and placing upon the woman the idea of something that needs to be protected at all costs. but the issue is that the female character in the film doesn't need to be protected because she's a stand-in for the nation, but because she's a human being and is deserving of being protected due to her humanity. pushing allegory upon her takes a lot of that away from her.

i think we didn't see eye to eye on gloria gaynor's character in sunrise and this is probably just a rehashing of some of that discussion. i guess in the end, even if the filmmakers seem to orient the viewer toward allegory, the more interesting view to take after that is to start to question those allegorical categories and what they tell us about things like gender, nation, whatever else the film includes. much richer ground can be found there.

[Umbugbene]

Everything I've said so far relates specifically to French films from 1941-1943, and citing "problematic" examples from other countries and other times (mostly later) risks doing an injustice to Grémillon's film. I certainly would not say that personifying a country in a woman is NEVER unjust or misguided ("problematic" is too vague in my opinion... isn't everything problematic from some point of view?), but painting all films with the same brush is certainly a mistake.

If someone wants to make a case that Madeleine Robinson's character is robbed of her humanity because she's simultaneously linked to the French nation, please have a go at it, but don't be too hasty. I don't know anyone else who's bothered to look at Lumière d'été on its own terms, to try to retrace what went through the director's and writers' minds when they made it, and I think that's a necessary starting point. As for which ground is richer, all I can say is that the film looks a lot richer to me with its pro-Resistance statement than without. Anyone's free to enjoy it as a nice story or a pretty picture, and the added meaning doesn't detract one iota from any aesthetic virtues. I don't think many people appreciate how brave filmmakers had to be to make anti-Nazi films in occupied France. In Hand of the Devil for instance Tourneur almost certainly risked his life by continuing with it after being forced to cast the mistress of a bloodthirsty Gestapo agent. The least we can do is try to see their films through a wartime perspective. If you want to accuse them of being lazy, please look closely at the films and get back to me.

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

think i'll be taking another little break from this academy of muses for a while again. i'll come back and post my 43 poll when it's due.

Please do stay, or at least join us again soon! Always love the discoveries you share and your thoughts on movies, not mention the delightful English slang terms I learn from your posts.

[sally]

apologies all, i rage-stormed off forgetting that i don't actually have to explain myself. i'll continue 43 just as soon as i watch one...

[rischka]

Also Gloria Gaynor...is a disco singer

[mesnalty]

But much like Gloria, Janet Gaynor's character in Sunrise survives against all odds

[rischka]

Good point. Also she never can say goodbye

[nrh]

gloria gaynor disco songs were great (the whole first side of the "never can say goodbye" record is just incredible) but she was a really underrated r&b/northern soul/quiet storm singer. there weren't many great songs after the '82 self titled record but there are a lot of fun deep cuts in that short span of work.

here she is singing in what seems to be a haunted aircraft hanger or something

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofcgjeELS0M

[brian d]

haha, well i did say it was an underdeveloped rant. probably needed a proofread

[greennui]

Gloria Gaynor (née Fowles; born September 7, 1943)

[brian d]

she would have definitely stood up to george o'brien a lot differently than janet did

[Lencho of the Apes]

Everything I've said so far relates specifically to French films from 1941-1943

... but 2DM's post where she objected to it was about that trope -- broadly, across the board, everywhere it surfaces -- and not specifically about this film or films from Occ. France. I didn't even get the sense that she was objecting strongly to its inclusion in Lumier D'Ete, beyond her general hatred of it. [/speaking for her.]

And that trope *is* omnipresent in world cinema, usually framed as woman-country being rivaled for by two suitors who represent political factions competing to dominate the country-country. I think the first time I consciously noticed it was a (rather bad) Argentine silent called Amelia (1914, remade 1936), set during their war of independence, in which Argentina-I-mean-Amelia is dazzlingly beautiful and possessed of limitless riches and is being courted by a Spanish Royalist and a creole Independentista.

Once I had seen that laid out so clearly, it was impossible to unsee it, and similar allegorical furbelows started popping out at me from all over the place. As to why it's dehumanizing, problematic or bad , that's a discussion for a future post.

[Umbugbene]

If no one's objecting to its use in Lumière d'été then I don't see much reason to discuss it further. If you want to say it's a trope that's vulnerable to misuse I might agree. I've heard that it's common in Spanish cinema as well.

[---]

No one really objected to anything in this thread. 2dm said she doesn't like the trope. She didn't object to it's prevalence in cinema (what would it mean to object to stuff that happened 70-80 years ago?) let alone its being in Ld'E

[wba]

I think everyone has a right to their own view of things, and if something gets "on your nerves", well, it does.
That doesn't make you "right" or "wrong" - it just is.

To me, the use of allegory in film does nothing for me. When I notice it, nowadays I usually just shrug and focus on stuff I find interesting.
I can understand that filmmakers wanted to get something across, etc. but if I watch a film I find it 100% more rewarding to find out what I, personally, can get out of the film, what myriads of fascinating things (e.g. the things I like) the film is showing me.

I understand other people enjoy totally different things, and that's in my opinion the great thing with art: we can all watch the same film and come away from it having discovered, enjoyed and experienced completely differing realities. Not because we didn't "get" what was going on, but because what's going on is multifold and unlimited in its openness.

When someone has a great and facinating view of a film, I totally enjoy listening or reading about it. And I may try it on (like you try on a hat or a jacket) a bit while I watch the film. But in the end I (and I believe everyone) has to find their own view of a film (and every piece of art) in order to enjoy it.

And usually, if people don't enjoy certain things, there isn't much one can do to "persuade" them. Similar to ideological views (politics, religion, etc.): there really isn't any point in trying to talk somebody into "seeing the film as I do".
Of course people change and (hopefully) expand their horizons, but one person's omelette is another person's pineapple.


PS: As for the trope of women standing in for nations (or some other idea): I've noticed it a lot, actually thousands of times in films. And I find it totally undestracting, uninteresting and not an influence on my film viewing. Cause it doesn't do anything for me (positive or negative). As umbugbene pointed out, it's simply an element among thousands of others, one of many layers. You can choose to delve into it, if it's your thing, or ignore it, if it's not.

[wba]

btw. (somehow) i can't stand "The Little Prince" without ever reading it (it is (i believe) worse than the utterly bad "So spake Zarathustra").

I've read both (both in their original language, e.g. French and German, as well), and while I've detested "THE LITTLE PRINCE" I looooved reading "THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA".
I don't know what that makes me?

PS: I also thought the character of "the little Prince" was a pretty nice guy, and the character of "Zarathustra" one of the biggest assholes imaginable. Still, this personal feeling of mine (liking the Prince and his actions while detesting Zarathustra and his) didn't change that I developed a hatred towards Exupery's work and a love for Nietzsche's.

PPS: I definitely wouldn't recommend ever reading Le petit prince to you Jiri (and definitely wouldn't read shit like this to my kids). If you want a great story with a similar guy, I'd recommend "Heinrich von Afterdingen" by Novalis instead.

[Holdrüholoheuho]

THUS SPAKE THE LITTLE PRINCE ZARATHUSTRA

when my teen disillusionment reached the point i was ready to get immersed in utterly nihilistic & pessimistic literature it was coincidental with the change of the regime.
at that time many (in the past) banned authors started to become available.
one of them was Ladislav Klíma (1878–1928) ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladislav_Kl%C3%ADma

After expulsion from the school system in 1895 for allegedly insulting the State, the Church, and — out of what he described as “historical analphabetism” — the Habsburgs, he lived alternately in Tyrol, Zurich, and Prague.
As part of his philosophy he only ever took on short term work.
While only part of Klíma’s work was published before his death, many manuscripts were edited posthumously, among which were his stories and letters. Many manuscripts he destroyed himself.
Klíma spent the later part of his life living in a hotel, shining shoes for a living, drinking spirits and eating vermin.
He took ideas from his philosophical predecessors to the extreme and tried to incorporate them into his practical life.

he is basically a local Nietzsche.
he distilled all the pessimism & nihilism from Nietzsche and passed it on with a flavor convenient to the local twisted taste.
reading Klíma's "The World as Consciousness and Nothing" (1904) was equivalent to drinking all the Zarathustra's venom.
after reading anything and everything by Klíma i turned finally my attention to the source (Nietzsche) and i was rather disappointed.
Klíma was much more appealing to me.
Zarathustra seemed as a self-conceited asshole, the concept of "eternal recurrence" as a trivial new-age-like (reincarnation) rambling, i couldn't grasp all the late 19th-century & early 20th-century buzz about Nietzsche.
i tried to read Zarathustra again recently (when i was (in the printing house) manufacturing a re-edition) and after reading few pages i gave up — i was rather appalled again.
few years ago, i tried to read again Klíma but i also gave up — he was not as appealing as he was when i was a late teen (or 20+).
tho i believe there is still a substantial part of Klíma's oeuvre i would be able to appreciate even now.
btw. there is a film (loose) adaptation of Klíma's novel "The Sufferings of Prince Sternenhoch" (1928) called "Flames of Royal Love" (Jan Němec, 1991).
when i watched the film in the early 1990s (still being a fervent admirer of Klíma) i didn't like it.
whenever Jan Němec casts in his movies local pop singers (be it "Martyrs of Love" 1967, or "Flames of Royal Love", 1991) the result is rather disappointing to me.
however, subs to "Flames of Royal Love" are being demanded and i am seriously considering making them (at one point — if no one else will do so meanwhile).
i didn't watch the film since the early 1990s.
i am curious if i will still dislike it.
but even if i will dislike it, i might subtitle it to commemorate my past passion for Ladislav Klíma.
https://letterboxd.com/film/flames-of-royal-love/

the book chronicles the descent into madness of Prince Sternenhoch, who moves from the life of a nobleman to a life filled with suffering, eccentricity, bouts of madness and self-torment. Having sunk to the lowest level, he eventually attains an ultimate state of bliss and salvation.

"The Little Prince" i never started to read (with the exception of a few random sentences) but it embodies something i thoroughly hate — a popular tale that is supposed to bring you (solid) wisdom (a foundationalist scam).
i never read the book but (as a part of my occupation) i manufactured several copies of several editions and i was always doing it with clenching teeth.

in sum, whenever i am supposed to list the worst books ever written (somehow) i fancy naming both "Little Prince" & "Zarathustra" at the first place.

P.S. i definitely plan to read "Heinrich von Afterdingen" (i read "Eros and Fable" part already — viz another thread) because "Heinrich von Afterdingen" is not a foundationalist tale (as opposed to "The Little Prince" and similar stuff).

[Holdrüholoheuho]

side note to PROTOTYPE (allegorical figure) vs. REAL HUMAN BEING discourse.

PROTOTYPES (allegorical figures) seem to be present whenever an IDEOLOGY (urge to preach) or CONSUMERISM (urge to sell) is in action.

1/ in (f.e.) socialist realism (due to the IDEOLOGICAL agenda), one hardly ever encounters REAL HUMAN BEINGS but PROTOTYPES of various workers, tyrants, etc., etc.
2/ and similarly whenever a tale/song is supposed to be sold widely, PROTOTYPES are created (to reach the substantial target groups of paying viewers/listeners) — thus (f.e.) Spice Girls are not a band of 5 REAL HUMAN BEINGS but a group consisting of "Scary Spice", "Sporty Spice", "Posh Spice", etc.

however, i still have a certain weakness for PROTOTYPES (allegorical figures) because it allows me to misinterpret the "original" message of the narrative.
i love misinterpretations and i love to impose on a PROTOTYPE a different (allegorical) role (than the one intended by the author).
thus i am always curious about 3 types of suitors, 3 types of settings, etc.
once i get familiar with the (subliminal) IDEOLOGICAL or CONSUMERIST message of a tale i can start the haphazard misinterpretation play.

P.S. as opposed to this peculiar interest in allegory, my interest in historical context (Zeitgeist) is serious.