In most essays you will discuss:
- the role of professional actresses/women (views/values and techniques)
- Margo’s anxieties (views/values and techniques)
- Eve’s and Addison’s encounters (views/values and techniques)
- Eve and Phoebe (views/values and techniques)
Professional women
By pursuing professional careers and eschewing (turning their backs on) domestic roles, Margo Channing and her “carbon copy” Eve Harrington, defy the stereotypical image of the subservient, dependent “married” housewife.
Mankiewicz’s characterization of the main protagonists coupled with sharp dialogue and cinematic techniques highlights the ability of feminine stars to reach the heights of Hollywood success. Initially, the audience is encouraged to admire such women who, through “hard work” and “sacrifice”, become widely acclaimed.
At times, Mankiewicz characterises both Eve and Margo with masculine characteristics reinforcing their ability to pursue success in a man’s world. Margo has the deep voice and … One particular mis-en-scene, reveals a close-up shot of Margo, without her makeup and with the flat light accentuating her wrinkles. She appears concerned and dishevelled like “a junk yard”.
Although Eve generally looks supple and glowing, she is characterised as masculine owing to her excessive ambition. In this regard, Mankiewicz constructs Addison de Witt as a mirror image of Eve. They both perfect the art of ambition and exploit others to climb the professional ladder. Addison uses the boxing imagery to accuse Eve of the “killer” competitive instinct that has no regard for other people’s sensitivities. (See below.)
However, the more subsumed Eve and Margo become in this man’s world, the more diminished they become as females, to their detriment as the director seems to suggest.
Margo’s dilemmas and anxieties
Mankiewicz suggests that the professional role dehumanises women and that women who best conform to the domestic ideal are more likely to achieve happiness.
Margo’s heightened sense of anxiety reflects the director’s view that as professional female stars reach the “big 4-0” (??) , they must make a difficult choice between career and marriage. To exacerbate her anxieties, Margo also also recognises that she is being overtaken by the younger star.
The director resolves Margo’s dilemma by presenting her as a film star who opts for marriage with Bill rather than choose the contested role of Cora that would cement her fame.
Mankiewicz’s point appears to be that ambitious women like Margo cannot pursue both domestic fulfilment and professional success.
Margo becomes increasingly anxious about her age and her professional choices. Additionally, the more she becomes aware of Eve’s usurping role, the greater her anxieties. Mankiewicz suggests that she is aware that she will eventually be upstaged by the younger and increasingly more popular actress, and the cyclical transformation of Eve into Phoebe suggests this is a reoccurring dilemma for female actresses.
Film Techniques
Ominously, Bill’s birthday party begins with Margo’s voiceover as she grooms herself in the mirror, which itself becomes a symbol of her self-consciousness. The ominous reference to the rather “Macbethish” atmosphere and the call to “fasten your seatbelts”, it is going to be a “bumpy ride”, foreshadows Margo’s heightened sense of anxiety and her maudlin state of mind. Always dramatic, Margo and Bill exchange banter about the “embalmed” body as a reflection of the soon-to-be decapitated King. The repetitive motif of Litszt’s Liebestraum dominates the mis en scene as Margo sits in a morbid and intoxicated state of mind at the piano, subconsciously aware of her own demise as her younger understudy and “carbon copy” begins to attract attention with her “quiet graciousness” and “rare qualities”.
Eventually, Mankiewicz presents Margo’s preference for domestic happiness as a critical epiphany on behalf of the actress (film technique) that resolves her dilemma in a way that paves the way for emotional security.
Views and values: comparison between Margo and Eve
Contrastingly, Mankiewicz juxtaposes Margo’s epiphany about marital happiness with Eve’s despair as she becomes psychologically imprisoned by Addison de Witt.
Mankiewicz most clearly shows that womanhood and a successful acting career are incompatible. In terms of choices, he prioritises Margo’s choice of marriage and “wellbeing” and security over Eve’s choices of acting and insecurity.
Mankiewicz suggests that ambition in a female cannot be reconciled with traditional family values. Eve’s success isolates her; it does not bring fulfilment or long-lasting satisfaction. The more perfectly she replaces Margo, so too, she becomes just as anxious and quickly outdated (ie Phoebe).
Techniques: At the height of her triumph, the Sarah Siddons trophy symbolises a hollow victory for Eve. Whilst the uniform row of supercilious men of the establishment rise to clap and pay their respects to the forever humble Eve, she is nevertheless humiliated by her role model, Margo, who contemptuously prods her stomach with the trophy, and tells her to put that “where your heart ought to be”. Demoralised and embarrassed, Eve decides not to go to her own celebration party and tells Addison to take the trophy to the party “instead of me”.
The cycle of Phoebe
The surprise appearance of Phoebe through the reflection in the mirror and the confession of her own infatuation with the female star recalls Eve’s obsession with Margo in the humble trench coat, who spent hours stalking her heroine. This repetitive cycle reflects Mankiewicz’s view that it is almost impossible for a woman to attain assured and long-lasting professional success in this viperous, competitive world of theatre. Success is transitory.
Eventually, Mankiewicz compulsively removes Eve from the camera, soundtrack and narrative all together. Using Phoebe as a warning, he discloses that this is no longer a story of All About Eve; her decline has been foreseen and there is no more to tell. This is All About Phoebe and those who will follow in the same footsteps as the cycle repeats.
Phoebe acts as a foreshadowing device suggesting that Eve, will replicate Margo’s cycle of despair as she seeks to fulfil her acting ambitions. The infinite reflections of Phoebe imply that there will always be another young woman ready “to do all that – just for a part in a play”.
Ultimately All about Eve ends by endorsing a conservative view of women’s role. Whilst Margo achieves happiness by abandoning her career, Eve becomes increasingly unhappy and desperate as she chases her dream of becoming “somebody”. Along the way, she loses herself in a variety of roles that distance her from her “true” self. She also loses the support and respect of those who help her climb the professional ladder. As a result, she becomes a captive of those she most despises and loses the admiration of those who matter the most.
Mirror images: Eve and Addison de Witt
If Mankiewicz depicts Eve as the poisonous first viper, her mirror image Addison de Witt recalls Adam, her partner in the Garden of Eden.
Mankiewicz constructs Addison as a mirror image of Eve in order to question Eve’s values and her manipulative nature. Significantly, he exposes Eve’s tendency to construct fraudulent personas and identifies her real name of Gertrude S??, .
Addison accuses Eve of the same contempt that he has for humanity because of her insatiable ambition. He believes that they are both alike: they share a “contempt for humanity, an inability to love and be loved”. They both suffer from the curse of “insatiable ambition” and from their ruthless desire to control others.
Evidently, the boxing metaphors reflect Mankiewicz’s criticism of the materialistic, competitive values of the American Dream, whereby the ruthless protagonists of Addison and Eve are presented symbolically as “killers” .
For this reason, Eve is often presented as the Lady Macbeth-type “killer” and the close camera angle that zooms in on Eve’s hands during the initial Sarah Siddons award ceremony recalls the viperous behind-the-scene actions of Macbeth’s own “partner in greatness”.
Although she is his equal in contempt and deceit, Mankiewicz does suggest that she is even more “evil” than the contemptible film critic.
The fact that Addison tends to gain the upper hand over Eve, suggests that, according to Mankiewicz, women must surrender to the male version of the American Dream in the merciless world that makes them dependent upon the likes of the arrogant and vicious Addison DeWitt.
Film techniques: The high to low camera angles are used symbolically to reflect their power relationship. Addison occupies the high ground and looks down at Eve contemptuously as she weeps on the bed, after having begged for mercy. Addison smirks, enjoying his power and triumphant in his decision to stop Eve from ruining Lloyd’s and Karen’s marriage.
Whilst Mankiewicz seems to endorse the power invested in Addison’s triumphant figure, the demoralised Eve sobs despairingly in a manner that suggests she deserves her humiliation because of her compulsive tendency to construct multiple deceitful personas – the most deceitful being the construction of the humble, suppliant, self-effacing female.
Addison’s ability to freeze the frame and talk over the ageing actor he assures “will go on speaking for some time” and his ability to make or break careers through the use of his “poison pen” reinforces his pivotal role in controlling the outcome of the film. The male gender role dominates the world of the theatre and DeWitt begins and ends the film’s narration.
Views and values: positive representations of women
Contrastingly, through the positive characterization of characters such as Karen, Mankiewicz endorses those female characters who accept their subservient roles. Through the repeated trope of the stairs, audiences are reminded of the rigid pecking order in the world of the theatre, with Karen positioned at the top due to her marriage to Lloyd, looking down upon the action of the “theatre folk” otherwise “nothing in her background or breeding should have brought her any closer to the stage than Row E”. Mankiewicz cynically suggests that women are dependent upon men for their success; women who lack masculine-type qualities and the hunger to succeed appear as inferior to their male counterparts. The high camera shots displaying Karen’s elevated poise and lifted chin, higher than all the other characters, show her successful attempt at living vicariously through her husband. The halo-like glow around her face further highlights her fidelity, which is far less transient than women’s success in the theatre.
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