Documentary Offers ‘Loving’ Portrayal of Writer Patricia Highsmith, Warts and All

Anyone conversant with the novels and short stories of Patricia Highsmith will likely scratch their heads when pondering the title of the new documentary, “Loving Highsmith.” Is there a literary figure for whom love matters less as a thematic motif? Dip a toe into any Highsmith book and you can’t help but be swept up into a world markedly absent of moral bearing or philosophical purpose. Love is a feeble presence when caprice, avarice, and a casual disregard for life are the rule.This proves as true for the fraught relationship between Carol Aird and Therese Belivet in “The Price of Salt” as it does for the innumerable machinations of Tom Ripley, the oiliest of psychopaths and Highsmith’s most famous creation. Fans of “The Price of Salt,” later retitled “Carol,” may disagree, pointing out that the once infamous “girl’s book” is the lone Highsmith novel with, if not a happy ending per se, a sense of hope. Still, the claustrophobic-bordering-on-discursive manner in which Highsmith set down her prose can’t help but leave the reader unsettled.“The Price of Salt” has gained a significant following in recent decades due to “Carol,” the highly praised 2015 movie adaptation by director Todd Haynes — and, more significantly, a decided shift in cultural mores. When it was originally published in 1952, Highsmith worked under the pseudonym Claire Morgan, fearing she would otherwise be pegged as a “lesbian-book writer.” Professional caution followed upon personal distress. Highsmith’s homosexuality was, as noted by the documentary’s director, Eva Vitija, “a source of lifelong guilt and … self-destruction.” It was only a few years before her death that Highsmith ultimately claimed authorship of “The Price of Salt.” “Loving Highsmith” stems from Ms. Vitija’s childhood fascination with “the very famous writer … [who] lived alone with her cats” near her parents’ vacation home in the south of Switzerland. Highsmith’s prodigious output as a writer of suspense fiction is signaled largely by clips from movies based on the novels, including “Strangers on a Train,” “The American Friend,” and “The Talented Mr.Ripley.” Although we do see archival footage of Highsmith punching away at a typewriter, it is identity, not literary accomplishment, that Ms. Vitija sets her sights on. Taking a cue from Highsmith’s diaries and notebooks, Ms. Vitija works her way around a public figure who compartmentalized a significant component of her life. Concentrating on a select group of family members, friends, and former lovers, “Loving Highsmith” confirms what fans already knew: The writer was a brilliant artist and a prickly temperament, a woman who equated love with murder and, late in life, voiced alarming alarming opinions on world Jewry. That, and she didn’t much like women — except in bed. A contrarian of a rather unpleasant sort, our Patricia Highsmith. Among those interviewed in the film is 95-year old Marijane Meaker, a pioneer in lesbian pulp fiction, the last woman Highsmith shared a home with, and a droll intellect who brooks little nonsense. More flagrantly eccentric is Tabea Blumenschein, a mainstay of the demimonde in Berlin during the 1970s and ’80s, and a figure who traversed the worlds of art, cinema, and fashion. The liveliest of Ms. Vitija’s subjects are Judy, Courtney and Dan Coates, a cadre of rodeo enthusiasts who recall cousin Patricia’s visits home to Texas.Indeed, the shock they display when Ms. Vitija spills the beans about a particular sexual liaison of Highsmith’s is, as it is said, documentary gold — even as one has to wonder whether the filmmaker extended the requisite politesse in doing so. Ms. Vitija was clearly taken with the dichotomy between Highsmith the lesbian litterateur and her downhome origins: There are, perhaps, one too many oh-so-metaphoric scenes of steer wrestling here. All the same, “Loving Highsmith” is, if sometimes awkwardly structured and something of a softball, a creditable valentine to a peculiarly nettlesome artist.This proves as true for the fraught relationship between Carol Aird and Therese Belivet in “The Price of Salt” as it does for the innumerable machinations of Tom Ripley, the oiliest of psychopaths and Highsmith’s most famous creation. Fans of “The Price of Salt,” later retitled “Carol,” may disagree, pointing out that the once infamous “girl’s book” is the lone Highsmith novel with, if not a happy ending per se, a sense of hope. Still, the claustrophobic-bordering-on-discursive manner in which Highsmith set down her prose can’t help but leave the reader unsettled.“The Price of Salt” has gained a significant following in recent decades due to “Carol,” the highly praised 2015 movie adaptation by director Todd Haynes — and, more significantly, a decided shift in cultural mores. When it was originally published in 1952, Highsmith worked under the pseudonym Claire Morgan, fearing she would otherwise be pegged as a “lesbian-book writer.” Professional caution followed upon personal distress. Highsmith’s homosexuality was, as noted by the documentary’s director, Eva Vitija, “a source of lifelong guilt and … self-destruction.” It was only a few years before her death that Highsmith ultimately claimed authorship of “The Price of Salt.” “Loving Highsmith” stems from Ms. Vitija’s childhood fascination with “the very famous writer … [who] lived alone with her cats” near her parents’ vacation home in the south of Switzerland. Highsmith’s prodigious output as a writer of suspense fiction is signaled largely by clips from movies based on the novels, including “Strangers on a Train,” “The American Friend,” and “The Talented Mr.Ripley.” Although we do see archival footage of Highsmith punching away at a typewriter, it is identity, not literary accomplishment, that Ms. Vitija sets her sights on. Taking a cue from Highsmith’s diaries and notebooks, Ms. Vitija works her way around a public figure who compartmentalized a significant component of her life. Concentrating on a select group of family members, friends, and former lovers, “Loving Highsmith” confirms what fans already knew: The writer was a brilliant artist and a prickly temperament, a woman who equated love with murder and, late in life, voiced alarming opinions on world Jewry. That, and she didn’t much like women — except in bed. A contrarian of a rather unpleasant sort, our Patricia Highsmith. Among those interviewed in the film is 95-year old Marijane Meaker, a pioneer in lesbian pulp fiction, the last woman Highsmith shared a home with, and a droll intellect who brooks little nonsense. More flagrantly eccentric is Tabea Blumenschein, a mainstay of the demimonde in Berlin during the 1970s and ’80s, and a figure who traversed the worlds of art, cinema, and fashion. The liveliest of Ms. Vitija’s subjects are Judy, Courtney and Dan Coates, a cadre of rodeo enthusiasts who recall cousin Patricia’s visits home to Texas.Indeed, the shock they display when Ms. Vitija spills the beans about a particular sexual liaison of Highsmith’s is, as it is said, documentary gold — even as one has to wonder whether the filmmaker extended the requisite politesse in doing so. Ms. Vitija was clearly taken with the dichotomy between Highsmith the lesbian litterateur and her downhome origins: There are, perhaps, one too many oh-so-metaphoric scenes of steer wrestling here. All the same, “Loving Highsmith” is, if sometimes awkwardly structured and something of a softball, a creditable valentine to a peculiarly nettlesome artist.

Documentary Offers ‘Loving’ Portrayal of Writer Patricia Highsmith, Warts and All

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