THE SEVENTH VEIL dir Conpton Bennett UK 1945
Contenporary London is the location for this ’psychological*
study of a young fenale concert pianist convinced that she
will never play again, and her ’cure’ by a psychiatrist using
hypnosis in his investigation of the causes of her neurosis.
The filn opens with Francesca’s (Ann Todd) attenpted suicide
and her subsequent treatment by Dr Larsen (Herbert Lon). In
the course of their conversations - her ’treatment* sessions -
her story is told via a series of flashbacks. Her emotional
vulnerability is emphasised and various traumatic incidents
recalled. A picture of the repressive relationship between
Francesca and her guardian, Nicholas (James Mason), is built
up through these flashbacks which emphasises her musical
creativity but suggests that this outlet is a substitute for
the human relationships which she has been denied. Her
desperation, evident in the opening scene of the film, is
accounted for and the last segment of the film moves the
narrative forward to her cure which is defined by both her
ability to play the piano once again and her acceptance of a
relationship with Nicholas based on love rather than fear.
This satisfactory resolution is achieved through the wisdom
and perseverance of medical knowledge personified in Larsen
and contrasted with the egocentricity of Francesca’s lover,
the painter Max Leyden, and the apparent misogyny of Nicholas.
Thus various different masculine approaches to the mystery of
femininity are played out over the problem posed by
Francesca's neurosis and in its solution. Francesca’s
substitution of music for emotional maturity is, the film
suggests, a consequence of her emotional deprivation: the
question whether she will continue her career as a concert
pianist once she has found love with Nicholas remains an open
one since the final image gives the passionate embrace between
the two in long shot, standing in front of the open piano. The
narrative closure restores the piano to its place as an
incidental prop in Francesca's life rather than the raison
d'etre it had so unsuitably become during the long years of
her unhappiness. Thus the opposition between art (musical
creativity) and life (heterosexual love) is reinforced and the
artist defined, in the terms of the late nineteenth century,
as a tragic outsider. Francesca’s cure literally obliterates
the piano in the final image of the film. We have the
superior knowledge of medical science to thank for the cure.
Early in the film the medical proposition is offered by Larsen
to his colleagues:
The human mind is like Salome with her seven veils
With a lover she will take off four or five or even six,
never the seventh. Under hypnosis, down comes the
seventh veil.
Science can uncover even the mysteries of the (female) human
mind.
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