It was the absolute destruction of a once-living human being rebuilt into the anthropomorphization of cultural-political necessity that captivated me strongly about Gilles de Rais. It was not the man that I was interested in, but how he has been torn apart like two children warring over a doll, each with their own selfish intention for its purpose. The delusion of truth that fills in the irreconcilable gaps in history and memory that, in my opinion, is fundamental at the very least to western-european (perhaps Christian influenced, specifically) culture creates some of the most fantastic gods and beasts, and Gilles de Rais has the honor of simultaneously being both.
In my research for the paper I came across something that captured that “delusion of truth” to a degree I wasn’t prepared to see laid so nakedly bare. Let me capture the opening paragraph of this particular page for you here:
http://www.229allenby.karoo.net/gillesderais/GillesdeRaisandme.html
I. Love. This website.
I can only characterize this fanatical, semi-delusional, and extremely heartfelt expression of devotion to Gilles de Rais as fujoshi-like. Her easy admittance of her attraction to the distorted wisps of this historical figure she found at, of course, 15 years of age made too much sense to me. There but for the grace of other interests go I. As do many others. I feel like this state of semi-delusion is an integral experience to so many that is often misunderstood and, I think, unfairly maligned.
When I say semi-delusional I do mean both halves of “semi”, and entirely as a compliment. Margot Juby did her research, and is very earnestly looked to as one of the seminal sources in the present day who collects and presents a very reasonable and necessary interpretation of the Gilles de Rais myth. And she does so with all the biased fanaticism of a teenager in love, and her honest embrace of that state of being actually does a great service to the presentation of her work. The neon orange of her webpage almost feels like the warning bands found on dangerously colorful animals, letting you know just how much poison is involved. If only all scholars could be so joyfully honest with their own poisons, their own biases, we all have them!
I’m revisiting this now, because a line from an article written by Alci Rengifo upon the subject of my own semi-delusional devotion, the fictionalized retelling of the eponymous incident Chappaquiddick (2017, dir. John Curran), struck a deeply familiar and very personal chord with me: “In the United States the Kennedy family personifies the very idea of national myth.” It’s better in context, here below.
https://www.riotmaterial.com/dark-waters-director-john-curran-on-making-of-chappaquiddick/
“The myths have not left us even in a supposedly rational age. Especially in an imperial society what is past is prologue. With every passing year historical memory takes on a new gloss, and the darker shades are colored over with wishful thinking. In the United States the Kennedy family personifies the very idea of national myth. Chiseled in stone, the personas of John F. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy, both assassinated in their political primes in the 1960s, are equally romanticized and debated. Admired for their patrician air in a culture that worships opulence, yet deconstructed by scholars of realpolitik, the twin gods of American liberalism evoke a special allure via grainy photographs and film reels. It is the third brother, Edward Kennedy, denied his turn at the throne, who wanders under a shadow infused with that most bitter of phrases, ‘what could have been.’”
My god! I could not have better summarized what fascinates me about the Kennedys and, with the punch of the final line, my particular fixation upon Teddy. The throughline between my two otherwise disparate but impassioned historical fervors had been brought to surface. No better did I see the bifurcation of Gilles de Rais, defined in memory by the court of public opinion, in Ted than in this final paragraph:
“What Curran is certain of is the honesty with which he approached the story. ‘I didn’t want to infuse it with a false sentimentality or a partisan angle, or with a contrived angle of how you’re supposed to feel. We could have gone a lot harder on Ted, or a lot softer. No matter what you do with this film, it’s a political film. Two people could watch this film, one could love Ted Kennedy, one could hate Ted Kennedy, and they will be watching two different films.’”
I find this duality of films, this “gray area”, where one viewer can walk away with a sensation of black and the other with the impression of white a deeply intrinsic part of art and its reception, and something I constantly strive for in my own works. It’s here for me where the element of “truth” in art lies, for it’s the truth of the viewer rather than the truth of the subject that one should hope the viewer will take home with them at the end of the performance.
“At its center is an impressive performance by Jason Clarke, who does not imitate Kennedy but instead channels a man ruined by his very upbringing, trapping himself through the folly of pure, human missteps.”
This is the kind of inspired truth I try to channel in my work that touches real people and events, “RPF” or “Real Person Fiction” as it’s known in certain spaces, though I would extend the sentiment to anything that draws directly from indirect sources, which in gradations becomes most creative work (and most especially fan work). It should be tacitly assumed that what I draw in this space does not reflect a retelling or interpretation of truth, but an injection of personal truth into the gaps left open by history and myth. No one can pretend to be there on the night in question save for the scant few who were, but almost everyone knows the folly of pure, human missteps. No one watches this film for Ted, not really, we watch it for ourselves. And I write behind the curtain of Chappaquiddick not for Ted, but for myself, in the human shaped impressions his life has left behind, filling it selfishly and cathartically with my own truth and folly. And I am honest about my poisons.
The movie Chappaquiddick presents itself somewhat deceptively as a “true” retelling of the events that took place, and seats itself smartly into the facts retained by documents and direct accounts. But John Curran, the director of Chappaquiddick, is honest with his own process of working inside a framework of fact, rather than a deluded expression of it.
“Cinema culling from history poses that eternal question Pontius Pilate is said to have asked, what is truth? ‘I tried to make it as non-partisan as possible. I don’t know if you’re ever really successful. But even if you do it as a documentary, is that a truth? My previous film, Tracks, was based on a woman’s book who is still alive. Her advice to me was ‘go with God, do what you gotta do, because even my book is not the truth.’ She doesn’t have a lot of faith in memory. That sort of stuck with me when I was making this. We could have run around in circles, beating ourselves over the truth. We did as much research as much as we possibly could. What you’re really doing is an impression of the truth. That’s the best you can go for.’”
“Two people could watch this film, one could love Ted Kennedy, one could hate Ted Kennedy, and they will be watching two different films.” The occlusion between the simultaneous existence of these “two films” silhouettes something greater. Something distinctly human. I think that is the closest thing to “truth” as we can get; an acceptance of the lack-thereof, and the appreciation for our fanatic, uniquely empathetic biases that fill in the gaps.
Go with God, do what you gotta do.