1 week Ago By Thilina Walpola
Yes, satiation took hold of my persona: having had more than enough holidays, disruption to normal routines, helpers deserting for the New Year, and even food. The definition of the word ‘satiation’ goes thus: “state of being fully satisfied, often to the point of being overfilled, or even weary, specially with something like food or pleasure.” Yes, it came to the point of weariness, even of exchanged good wishes as Easter followed the Sinhala and Tamil New Year by one week.
Scrolling down Netflix list of films desultorily after a friend’s treat of biryani, I seemed to be satiated with a sense of weariness in films advertised. Our list is very different from what the Americans are given – concession made to local audience with many Hindi, Tamil. Korean and other foreign cinematic productions included.
I selected to see a perennial favourite which I had enjoyed immensely. Classic in many waysRoman Holiday of 1953 is what I watched with nary a hint of boredom after having seen it many times before, not only whole but in parts as in videos to accompany sentimental golden oldies of our time (60, 70 years ago!) Directed and produced by William Wyler of Hollywood and filmed outdoors in Rome and Cinecitta studios, it starred Gregory Peck, selected to star in the role of the American journalist eking out an existence in Rome; first choice having been Cary Grant. Audrey Hepburn who plays Princess Ann was new to stardom, having just had a screen test in England.
She went on to win the Academy Award for Best Actress while the film bagged the Oscars for best story and best costume design – Edith Head designer. The Italian Ministry of Tourism had originally refused permission for the movie to be filmed on location in Rome on the grounds that it would ‘degrade Italians.’ Wyler had wanted to film in colour, but the cost being prohibitive, he resigned himself to B&W.
In 1999, the film was selected for preservation in the US National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.” It is considered one of the most romantic films in cinema history. Gregory Peck And what has become of the two stars? Goodness, Gregory Peck was so very attractive, not merely handsome.
I had a picture of him over my dormitory bed in the school hostel in Kandy and the matron, bless her, allowed it. Maybe she fancied him too! He was, by what I have read, a good person too. Shy, reclusive Harper Lee vouched for his gentle-manliness while her first novel To Kill a Mockingbird was being filmed with him as Atticus Finch.
He won the Oscar for his role in 1962. He starred in very many films spanning the 1940s to the 70s, most memorable to me being Spellbound 1945 with Ingrid Bergman, Snows of Kilimanjaro 1952 with Ava Gardner, Moby Dick 1956 and Purple Plain 1954 set in Burma during WWII. It was rumoured he had a relationship with Ingrid Bergman – not mentioned then in the Hollywood film magazines we devoured – because she was slated enough due to her affair with director Rossellini while still married to a Swedish doctor.
Peck was born in La Jolla, San Diego, on April 5, 1916. His parents divorced when he was five and so he was brought up by his grandmother. He married twice, the second time to French media woman, Veronique Passani, in 1955, and lived with her till be died June 12, 2003, in his sleep of pneumonia.
He had five children, one son died young, devastating Peck. He was nominated for five Oscars and won for his role as single parent to two kids and lawyer who defends a black man in To Kill a Mockingbird. He won many other film awards.
In 1999, the American Film Institute placed him 12 th most popular male actor. President Lyndon B Johnson honoured him with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honour, while in 1998 he received the National Medal of Arts from President Bill Clinton for his contribution to acting. He also received the AFI Life Achievement Award; also from the Screen Actors Guild; and Kennedy Center Honors.
He has his star in the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday Audrey Hepburn Roman Holiday was her very first film and did she not excel in capturing and presenting effortlessly the nuances of feeling that almost submerged the princess on a goodwill mission to Rome. Wyler had wanted Liz Taylor or Jean Simmons, both young, gorgeous and well known by then.
But seeing Hepburn’s screen tests, he got her down from England and engaged her, maybe a risk then but she outshone the others. She invested freshness and innocent sparkle to her role and thus brought to life a princess hemmed in by protocol and dos and don’ts, against which she rebelled one night of tight diplomacy and escaped to see Rome on her own. But the sleeping medicine she’d been given with her night’s glass of milk took effect and Joe Bradley, feckless journo, had to take her home and allow her to sleep, on the sofa though.
Rumoured it was then that the film story was a take on Britain’s Princess Margaret who at 23 (b. 1930) was being capricious and probably in love with Peter Townsend and tired of palace and monarchical rules. The chemistry between the older Bradley (Peck) and Princess Ann (24 year old Hepburn) was slow in developing and at first he was going to make money out of her predicament when he saw in the papers the woman sleeping in his flat was the princess who was supposed to be indisposed and her engagements for the day, canceled.
Her charm and girlish delight in her freedom captivates him so a tender love develops between them. But she announces later in the ambassador’s residence, she returned because of her sense of duty and love for her parents and family. Though a film of a bygone era with men’s trousers floppy etc, and melodrama overdone, the scene where Bradley drops her off at the British Ambassador’s residence, and they kiss passionately, is perfectly authentic and heart strings tugging.
So also him being the last to leave the audience hall where Princess Ann appears to bid goodbye to Rome. And where is Audrey Hepburn of many films including Breakfast at Tiffany’s 1961, My Fair Lady 1964, Charade 1963. Born May 4, 1929, to an aristocratic family in Brussels she moved in Europe and England, later learning ballet and joining British theatre as a chorus girl.
Married twice, first to co-actor Mel Ferrar (1954-68) and then to Andrea Diotti (1969-82). She had a son and daughter. Prematurely, she died at age 63 in Switzerland of appendix cancer.
She excelled in her film career winning the Oscar, Bafta and Golden Globe all in one year for Roman Holiday and later too. The American Film Institute named her the third greatest female screen legend from classical Hollywood cinema. She was also inducted to the International Best Dressed Hall of Fame list.
Once out of films, she devoted her life to UNICEF as a goodwill ambassador. Thank Goodness for Classics Thus was I revived from the satiation of mid-April by a classic film and reading about its two main stars, classics themselves, not only in their art and craft of acting but as worthwhile, to be admired good persons. John Kani, South African actor, said “Art is universal.
When works of art become classics, it is because they transcend geographical boundaries, racial barriers and time.” Yes, most definitely time. A classic, whether a book, film or any other work of art is defined as: “Judged over a period of time to be of the highest quality and outstanding of its kind.
” Truly yes about the perennial favourite – romantic Roman Holiday – with its subtle messages of cultured restraint (Joe Bradley shown so well by Gregory Peck) and loyalty to duty (Princess Ann and the living Audrey Hepburn)..
