Pros: Audrey Hepburn is lovely, and her chemistry with George Peppard is (sometimes) fun to watch.
Cons: Takes a light, bubbly, gutless attitude to prostitution, alcoholism, and the Deadly Sins.
The Bottom Line: My problem isn't that the romantic leads of Breakfast at Tiffany's are appalling, manipulative fuuck-ups. It's that we're not supposed to notice.
Im open to hearing any answers besides the obvious to the question: why does Holly Golightly, Breakfast at Tiffanys romantic heroine, receive $50 every time [she] goes to the powder room? In present-day money thats well over $300 per visit, and its clear from the rest of the plot that she doesnt sell drugs.
Its equally obvious that she goes to the powder room a _lot_, given that she lives in an apartment in a very nice part of New York City, and that given her unmistakable resemblance to the lovely Audrey Hepburn $300 would be a fair price for her sexual services. Of course, romantic hero Paul Varjak is making his living as a gigolo (albeit a monogamous one), so perhaps its only fair.
Er... sorry there. I sound so negative, and for the wrong reasons. Breakfast at Tiffanys is a light, charming romantic comedy, and Ive enjoyed plenty of light romantic comedies. Its also a romance between a drunk, gold-digging, self-destructive, child-abandoning prostitute who takes her rage out on her cat, and a lazy male-chauvinist gigolo, but I have nothing against that either. In fact, Id enjoy seeing a romance movie in which we are artfully led to root for a drunk, gold-digging, self-destructive, child-abandoning prostitute (without the cat-hurting, please) and a lazy male-chauvinist gigolo if, I mean, that movie was honest about its characters, made a serious case for caring about them despite their huge flaws, and didnt exist as a cross-promotional tool for a jewelry store. I could see John Cameron Mitchell of Hedwig and the Angry Inch pulling it off, say. Or perhaps Paul Thomas Anderson, director of the great Boogie Nights.
Tiffanys, however, passes off all these traits as incidental, harmless, and quirky. The Hays censorship codes surely helped: Pauls job duties as a kept man are never specified. Powder room and $50 are meanwhile the only references to Hollys career, although if shes a whorre, that explains why Paul, deeply hurt by her during their romance, hands her $50 for the powder room and walks off.
But lets say that Holly is a merely a bathroom attendant in the restaurants of lavishly tipsy tippers: if anything that makes her a worse heroine. Prostitution is entrepeneurship, after all, small business. It shows initiative and personal responsibility, and it brings pleasure and consumer satisfaction without drowning anyone in marketing. Hollys job is the most admirable thing about her.
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Audrey Hepburns a big part of Tiffanys weird success, of course. Her Holly is beautiful and charismatic, plunging into situations with the self-confidence of the never-denied. George Peppard, as Paul, is handsome and has an earnestly likeable awkwardness. By their second major scene together, their chemistry is obvious, even though Holly tells him You remind me of my brother Fred you dont mind if I call you Fred, do you? (Paul agrees). Paul accepts interrogation about his career: Im a writer, he states, and Holly has the sense to inquire the kind that gets published and who people actually read?. Yes, he says confidently, pointing to copies of his story collection. Do you write every day?, she asks, and with a pause he switches to the neutral sure that means believe whatever makes you happy. Did you write today?, she follows up, and he allows another sure. Your typewriter doesnt have a ribbon in it, she points out, and Im charmed both by her mischievous intelligence, and by the graceful acceptance of defeat with which he replies it doesnt? Oh.
Its late at night, and Im equally charmed when she curls innocently on his lap, fully clothed, and asks if she can sleep there (she can). She is fearless and forward: the same traits that will help her organize parties for NYCs rich and famous. Her forwardness also gives her the ability to suggest (and lead) a day-long date with Paul in which they take turns doing something the other had never done before. He had never drunk wine before breakfast; apparently its cute that Holly always does (and during breakfast, and before lunch, and during lunch ).
She, meanwhile, had never been to the public library before. In the world of Breakfast at Tiffanys, librarians are mean old ladies who would rather say SHHHHHHH!! than meet a published author. I go to libraries two or three times a month at least, and Ive never met a librarian like that; but then, I fear Hollys habits can safely be taken as a stand-in for those of the movies makers. In which case they probably shoplifted all the time too. The cat-and-dog masks that Holly and Paul make off with (Paul had never shoplifted before) are adorable, chosen with expertise.
Everything is adorable. The 50-something husband of Holly Golightly, who married her five years ago when she was 14, is adorable, if sadly behind Tiffanys liberated times. Her belief that she has no right to give a name to her cat (because he belonged to someone else first) is adorable, and Cat acts adorably unruffled when she picks him up and swings him absent-mindedly around. The stuffy man behind the desk at Tiffanys, who agrees to engrave a ring from a Crackerjacks box, is adorable every time he raises his elegant eyebrows. The nice old mafioso Sal Tomato is adorable.
The way that Holly zeroes in on an ugly, bespectacled young man at a party, telling Paul (not yet her boyfriend) that Hes the 9th-richest man under 50 in America!, is adorable (what an interesting fact to have memorized, Paul comments). The fact the 9th-richest man under 50 in America would otherwise be worthy of utter contempt, because hes ugly and bespectacled, is adorable. Laughing at the clumsiness of pathetic middle-aged drunk women is adorable, especially when the laughing is done by the 19-year-old drunk woman hosting the party. If you dont believe me, check the lighting, and the tinkling glasses, and Audrey Hepburns smile.
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The one failure of judgment for which Tiffanys does take a lot of criticism is Mickey Rooneys role as Mr. Yunioshi, the comical Japanese landlord. Hes tres adorable laugh at his adorable anger, his adorable face-paint, his adorable round glasses and pencil mustache, his adorable Japanese accent (look! he cant pronounce an L!), the adorable way he bumps into things, and the adorable way he threatens to call the po-rice when Hollys parties risk awakening the entire apartment complex. The portrayal is considered racist, because 1961 Hollywood assumed that all non-whites had to be portrayed as dumber than the Ashton Kutcher of Dude, Wheres My Car?
I dunno. Mr. Yunioshis scenes are unfunny, and painful, but racist? As a landlord, hes making the steadiest legal income in the movie, so hes a role model. And hes the only character in the movie, with the arguable exception of Holly, whose story includes an inspirational learning curve. The first two times hes disturbed while in the bath, he hauls himself up and cracks his forehead, WHOOMP, into a great round light hanging over his bath. But the final time hes disturbed while in the bath, he hauls himself up and: the lights no longer there. Victory!
Hollys learning curve, if such it be, consists of learning that rich people dont always want to marry drunk, gold-digging, self-destructive, child-abandoning prostitutes who take their rages out on cats. In other words, rich people can be bastards. Writers, on the other hand, are good-looking people who repeat the argument You belong to me as the natural correlary of I love you. Hollys problem, according to Paul, is that shes been priding herself too much on her independence and freedom (which is why shes spent the entire movie trying to become married and dependent). The movies plot tension comes down to this: will she preserve her freedom by finding another rich bastard who will value her for the free spirit she is, or will she admit that she is Pauls personal property because he loves her?
I wont spoil the ending, nor will I wonder here why Jodie Foster never made a romantic comedy where she marries John Hinckley after he shoots the president for her.
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Breakfast at Tiffanys is a widely-admired movie. Jack White, at the end of the White Stripes Elephant, sings a duet with a singer self-named Holly Golightly; Dmitri from Paris has a radio single sampling the line Im a very stylish girl (spoken by the woman paying Pauls gigolo fees). The very fine band Jets to Brazil are named for a poster on Hollys wall. And, of course, Deep Blue Something recorded the omnipresent mid-90s jangle-pop hit Breakfast at Tiffanys, which repeated the movies name about five dozen times without me ever figuring out what the song was about.
I do know what the movies about. If the movies makers had also known, and admitted that theyd known, they might have made a provocative work of art. Instead, Tiffanys is a crass, amoral whitewashing (or in Rooneys case light-yellow-washing) of a deeply unpleasant set of values. By keeping them subconscious, the movie became a hit.
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