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The Seventh Veil (1945, UK)
In Compton Bennett's compelling musical melodrama about
uncovering the 'seven veils' of the human mind of a romantically-thwarted
concert pianist:
- the opening sequence set in a mental hospital -
and the attempted suicide of hospitalized concert pianist Francesca
Cunningham (Ann Todd), who jumped from a bridge to try and kill
herself
- the description of the psychological treatment of
hypnosis to find the underlying reason for Francesca's suicidal tendencies
and blocked psyche (regarding an obsession about her hands); her
doctor, Dr. Larsen (Herbert Lom) explained the film's title: "At
least it'll tell us the nature of the injury to her mind.... The
surgeon doesn't operate without first taking off the patient's clothes.
Nor do we with the mind. You know what, uh, Staple says: the human
mind is like Salome at the beginning of her dance, hidden from the
outside world by seven veils, veils of reserve, shyness, fear. Now
with friends, the average person will drop first one veil, then another,
maybe three or four altogether. With a lover, she will make it five,
or even six, but never the seventh. Never, you see. The human mind
likes to cover its nakedness too and keep its privacy itself. Salome
drops her seventh veil of her own free will, but you will never get
the human mind to do that, and that is why I use narcosis. Five minutes
under narcosis and down comes the seventh veil. Then we can see what
is actually going on behind. Then we can really help"
- the many flashbacks, under hypnosis, when Francesca
recalled her life - her tutelage when she was a minor by her second
cousin - a controlling, Svengali-like, imperious musical teacher
and guardian, an "Uncle" Nicholas (James Mason), who was
crippled and walked with a cane; his jealousy and obsession with
bolstering her musical career completely stifled her efforts to find
romance with two other men: band musician-leader Peter Gay (Hugh
McDermott) (who eventually married and was divorced), and painter-artist
Maxwell Leyden (Albert Lieven)
- the scene of Nicholas, who was angry at Francesca
for announcing her intention to leave him and live with Maxwell;
Nicholas lectured her as she played the second movement of Beethoven’s Pathetique
(Sonata No. 8 for piano, Op 13 in C minor): "You are the
one beautiful thing that's been in my life. I can't live without
you. You must know that. I can't give you up. I won't give you up.
You're a great artist! Great artists don't just happen. They have
to be made, and I have made you. I spent ten years training you,
mold you. You'll be my life's work. And now you want to throw it
all away with a man who doesn't even want to marry you. Franchesca,
listen to me! You can't stand up against me. You don't have the strength.
You'll do as I say. I demand that you give up this man. I demand
that you send him away...You belong to me. We must always be together.
You know that, don't you? Promise you'll stay with me always! Promise!
Very well, if that's the way you want it. Very well, if you won't
play for me, you shan't play for anyone else ever again"
- to spite her, he struck Francesca's hands with his cane as she played
- the terrible fiery car crash after she fled with
Max - Francesca's hands were horribly burned and bandaged, and she
feared that she could never play again (the reason for her suicide
attempt)
- Dr. Larsen's discovery that a key piece of music in
Francesca's life might conquer her fixation regarding her hands - Beethoven's
Pathetique (recorded on a 78 rpm phonograph record) - it might
unlock Francesca's problems and stimulate her to play and live again;
under hypnosis, when she heard the recording and Dr. Larsen placed
her hands on the piano keyboard, she began to play, but then was
reminded of Nicholas' stern cruelty and stopped believing that she
could play
- the concluding scene of her cure (she was again heard
playing the Beethoven piece in the upstairs) and Dr. Larsen's announcement
to the three suitors in her life - assembled in the downstairs parlor:
"Yes, I think I can promise you a complete cure. But, uh, you
have to prepare yourself for a new Francesca. A new and a very different
person....You see the past is over for her now, quite over. Her mind
is clear and the clouds have been swept away. She's no longer afraid.
Whether you will be entirely satisfied with the change in her, I don't
know, but it might be wise not to expect too much...I'm trying to tell
you she will want to be with the one she loves, or the one she's been
happiest with, or the one she cannot do without, or the one she trusts";
Dr. Larsen said it would "hardly be fair" of him to tell
them who she would choose
- Francesca descended the stairs, and chose between
the three men - she rushed through a double set of doors that opened
into Nicholas' study and embraced him, as the film ended with a musical
crescendo
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