{"id":3549,"date":"2024-08-28T07:40:46","date_gmt":"2024-08-28T15:40:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/?p=3549"},"modified":"2024-08-15T08:19:04","modified_gmt":"2024-08-15T16:19:04","slug":"reverence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/2024\/08\/28\/reverence\/","title":{"rendered":"Reverence"},"content":{"rendered":"

I wrote this post a dozen years ago, just re-read it, and find I liked it enough to post again.<\/em><\/p>\n

I have just finished reading Emma Thompson’s screenplay of Sense and Sensibility<\/em> (which is to say, the final shooting script–Thompson wrote dozens of versions of the screenplay before it was acquired and put into production) and her diary from the shoot*. \u00a0She is uniformly witty and down to earth (her comments about zits, hangovers, and feeling like a talentless hack are not only reassuring to the rest of the world–which is to say, to me–but are funny in their own right) and endlessly appreciative of her colleagues on camera and behind the scenes. \u00a0I wish I’d been a gofer on that film.<\/p>\n

Reading the diary, in particular, reminded me of the extent to which the production of an historical film of good intent (meaning, one that wants to get it right) relies on experts: the horse wrangler who teaches Willoughby how to drive a curricle (the sportscar of its day); the costumers and designers; the dance teachers; and Jane Gibson, “movement duenna and expert on all manners historical,” who taught bearing and manners and the reverence. \u00a0By which I mean bowing and curtseying.<\/p>\n

During my brief career studying ballet as a kid the first thing Miss Dear (honest to God, it was her name) taught us was the “reverence,” a deep bow which was to be given to her at the beginning and end of each class. \u00a0Her class of 7-year-olds mostly teetered and tried not to fall over. \u00a0Later, when I took some classes in historic dance, I learned several different reverences: it wasn’t until some time in the 17th century, I believe, that bowing and curtseying split off into sex-differentiated motions. \u00a0According to Wikipedia, that font of all wisdom, the curtsey is a gesture of respect from an inferior to a superior<\/a>. \u00a0Hence all those bobbing Victorian maids in the movies (“yes, m’lady.” \u00a0**bob**). \u00a0Per Thompson:<\/em><\/p>\n

“We learn the root and meaning of the bows and curtsies–or reverences, as Jane calls them. \u00a0As you enter a room you ‘cast a gladdened eye’ about you. \u00a0Beautiful phrase….<\/p>\n

The bow is the gift of the head and heart. \u00a0The curtsy (which is of course a bastardisation of the word ‘courtesy’) a lowering in status for a moment, followed by recovery.”<\/p>\n

I had always understood the “lowering in status” part of the reverence, and that a superior may nod or bow less deeply to an inferior, either in dismissal or acknowledgment. \u00a0You would bow very deeply–abase yourself–to a King, less deeply to a baron, acknowledging their superior status. \u00a0My 21st century feminist self gets the status thing, even if she doesn’t believe in it, but was always troubled by the fact that a gentlewoman curtseyed to a gentleman (I believe in practice she<\/em>was supposed to curtsey to him, <\/em>then he would respond with a bow). \u00a0The idea of a recovery<\/em> from that lowering of status pleases me. \u00a0“I submit to your authority,” the curtsey says. \u00a0Or maybe, “I acknowledge that society places a higher value on your gender than on my own.” \u00a0And then the recovery: “But I submit only so far.” \u00a0And then the bow, acknowledgement and “gift of the head and the heart”.<\/p>\n

It’s easy for me to want to read a taking back of authority in the recovery from a curtsey: I love the past, but I am firmly a creature of now<\/em>. \u00a0One of the great tasks of writing then<\/em> is to remember that Sarah Tolerance has no Gloria Steinem or Betty Friedan or Ms. Magazine in her background; that however independent she is, she’s still a woman of her time, and while she might not feel that the man she’s curtseying to is worthy of her respect, she would still go through the proper forms. \u00a0It’s her age, and not mine, that I am playing in.<\/p>\n

__________<\/p>\n

*I once read excerpts of Thompson’s diary from the movie Junior<\/em>, with Arnold Schwarzenegger, in which she mentions that he was still so muscle-bound that it was difficult for him to tie his own tie–the muscles literally got in the way. \u00a0I was then editing comics, and made sure to mention this to those artists who seemed to think that moving like a gymnast and being built like a fireplug were not incompatible…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I wrote this post a dozen years ago, just re-read it, and find I liked it enough to post again. I have just finished reading Emma Thompson’s screenplay of Sense and Sensibility (which is to say, the final shooting script–Thompson wrote dozens of versions of the screenplay before it was acquired and put into production) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-essays"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3549"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3549\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3550,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3549\/revisions\/3550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}