Spotlight: Blue Jasmine
Photo by Merrick Morton © 2013 Gravier Productions, Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics
Photo by Merrick Morton © 2013 Gravier Productions, Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics
Photo by Merrick Morton © 2013 Gravier Productions, Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics
Photo by Merrick Morton © 2013 Gravier Productions, Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics
Photo by Merrick Morton © 2013 Gravier Productions, Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics
Photo by Jessica Miglio © 2013 Gravier Productions, Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics
Photo by Jessica Miglio © 2013 Gravier Productions, Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics
Photo by Jessica Miglio © 2013 Gravier Productions, Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics
Photo by Jessica Miglio © 2013 Gravier Productions, Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics
Photo by Jessica Miglio © 2013 Gravier Productions, Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics
Photo by Jessica Miglio © 2013 Gravier Productions, Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics
Photo by Jessica Miglio © 2013 Gravier Productions, Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics
As film director Woody Allen tells the tale of a Park Avenue arriviste who has relocated to San Francisco in his new film, Blue Jasmine, Bay Area neighborhoods serve as triggers that set off Jasmine’s increasingly unhinged mind. The title character—played by Cate Blanchett—wears copious bits of Madison Avenue armor including Chanel necklaces and Hermes belts to blend seamlessly into a party in Marin or while ogling diamond-filled windows of Shreve & Co. on Post Street. But when Jasmine finds herself inside the South Van Ness apartment of her sister Ginger (played by Sally Hawkins), her accouterments, including a set of Louis Vuitton luggage, are incongruous. Jasmine’s hold on her branded objects and on the person she imagines herself to be while wearing such finery contributes to her mental breakdown. Soon Allen’s latest protagonist isn’t just cramming monogrammed canvas bags into the already packed rooms of a SoMa walk-up, she’s spilling her Birkin on the sidewalk near the yacht harbor leading to Crissy Field. Jasmine is alternately sarcastic, quiet, brash, continuously in turmoil, and— just like Blanche DuBois, the Tennessee Williams character in A Streetcar Named Desire that she evokes—her last trappings of grandeur can’t mask her deteriorating mental state. The film has all the makings of a Greek tragedy—one individual places unblinking faith in an untrustworthy partner, and yet, she is, in many ways, complicit in her own demise that plays out on the streets of San Francisco.
By Elizabeth Varnell
Cate Blanchett as Jasmine
Photo by Jessica Miglio © 2013 Gravier Productions, Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics
