Loving Highsmith
Eva Vitija’s documentary provides a compelling portrait of Patricia Highsmith.
The fame of Patricia Highsmith who died in 1995 lives on undiminished and fed by two sources. The novels of this noted American writer continue to be read and her high standing as a lesbian author is such that the sexuality which kept her closeted for most of her lifetime is now adding to her popularity. There is also another reason why she remains so well-known. Many novelists have their work adapted for the screen but rarely does the quality of those adaptations play a part in keeping them in the public eye. Highsmith is the exception to the rule here due to the fact that her work attracted such talented filmmakers as Alfred Hitchcock, Anthony Minghella, Wim Wenders and Todd Haynes all of whom created memorable movies based on her work.
Given this connection between Highsmith and the cinema it is particularly apt that we should now have this feature-length documentary about her. At first sight it might seem odd that it is the work of a Swiss film maker, Eva Vitija, but that too is not inappropriate for it was in Locarno that Highsmith died having spent her last years in Switzerland. Highsmith’s personal life is very much the central focus here. Indeed, however much Vitija admires the novels, she tells us that it was reading Highsmith’s diaries that made her love her (the title of this film is far from being incidental and it draws extensively on extracts from the diaries and from notebooks - Highsmith’s words are spoken in the English version of this partly subtitled film by Gwendoline Christie).
With some writers their creations are such that to stress their private lives to the extent done here might not be the best approach even for a biographical study. With Highsmith, however, the novels seem to reflect those interior concerns of hers to which she could not own up in public. From birth her situation was an uneasy one. Her father divorced her mother just before she was born, both parents having apparently considered the possibility of an abortion, and, although the child lived with her mother and with a stepfather, she felt abandoned when at the age of twelve she was sent to live with her grandmother for a year. Things were no better when her mother, deploring Patricia’s lesbian instincts, tried to encourage her to marry.
As an adult Highsmith would find success with her first novel Strangers on a Train but in 1952 on publishing her second, The Price of Salt, she would adopt the pseudonym Claire Morgan on account of its lesbian subject matter. That she chose to do this and to give the novel a far more positive ending than was to be found in other lesbian novels at that time suggests that she was using fiction to express something of her own inner hopes. However, while her own life would bring her many sexual encounters and relationships, sustaining a truly long-term commitment was something that she was not able to do. Significantly Loving Highsmith regards her most famous character, Tom Ripley (the man at the centre of five of her novels), as being to some extent an alter ego. Indeed, although Ripley is a psychopathic killer, his creator despite admitting that his first murder was ruthless is nevertheless heard expressing sympathy for him overall. If his nature makes him a kind of outsider, she seems to be identifying with that.
Vitija’s film features three family members of a younger generation and contributions from three of Highsmith’s lovers, Monique Buffet from France, Tabea Blumenschein from Berlin and, particularly engaging as she looks back, the American Marijane Meaker. Highsmith certainly lived a remarkable life yet in the process she aroused mixed feelings in those around her. She was probably too complex a figure for any film about her to be definitive, but there is plenty here to hold the interest throughout the film’s rather lean 84 minutes. However, Vitija’s film is subject to two criticisms that are not insignificant. On the technical level, it fails to create a flow that makes for a smooth viewing experience. In theory the inclusion of numerous film clips from four movie adaptations is fine. We have Strangers on a Train (1951), The American Friend (1977), The Talented Mr Ripley (1999) and the one based on The Price of Salt, 2015’s Carol. In practice, however, the extracts are often roughly and bittily inserted and this is all the more evident because the soundtrack too intercuts uneasily - distractingly even - between various voices heard. In the early stages voices overs include snippets from Highsmith herself, from Christie speaking her words, from Annina Butterworth (acting as narrator and speaking on behalf of Eva Vitija) and from Meaker on those occasions when she is heard and not seen. This feels altogether too scrappy to be accomplished filmmaking. More important still because it goes beyond any question of aesthetics is the brevity of the acknowledgement that Highsmith showed a disturbing racism in her views, particularly her well-documented antisemitism. It is mentioned here admittedly, but quite without the weight that it surely demands.
But if Loving Highsmith is a flawed film, it does contain plenty of interesting footage and invites us to see much of Highsmith’s writing as a kind of substitute for a life she could not live. Furthermore, when so many lesbian lives go unrecorded, the film sheds a valuable light on the pressures that faced most lesbians living in the middle of the 20th century. Indeed, that proves to be the side of the film which is the most sympathetic.
MANSEL STIMPSON
Featuring Marijane Meaker, Monique Buffet, Tabea Blumenschein, Courtney Coates Blackman, Judy Coates, Dan Coates, with the voices of Gwendoline Christie and Annina Butterworth, and archive footage of Patricia Highsmith.
Dir Eva Vitija, Pro Franziska Sonder, Maurizius Staerkle Drux and Carl-Ludwig Rettinger, Screenplay Eva Vitija, Ph Siri Klug, Ed Rebecca Trösch, Music Noël Akchoté.
Ensemble Films/Lightblick Film/SRF/Arte/ZDF-Met Film.
84 mins. Switzerland/Germany. 2022. US Rel: 2 September 2022. UK Rel: 14 April 2023. Cert. 12A.
