THOMAS F. BERTONNEAU writes:

I have not seen Eat Pray Love and have no plans to see it. (I’m pretty sure I’d rather be water-boarded.) I am simply commenting on the “still” from the movie posted in the recent entry. “Narcissism” is technically the right word for designating the psychological state that generates this image – of how people who think of themselves as “cool,” “sophisticated,” and “deeply spiritual” want to be seen – but by itself it is too clinical to do justice to the jejuneness of the mise-en-scène. Notice how Roberts and her actor-partner Javier Bardem are central to the tableau. The tableau itself is non-Western; it looks vaguely Indian or Ceylonese, but in a thoroughly scrubbed-up way. It is, in other words, nothing but a decorative scrim whose purpose is to set the mutual fixation of the two “stars” in an exotic (really, a faux exotic) context. Now consider the fixation, as such. Neither party is smiling, which one would expect if they were contemplating one another in a pitch of romantic emotion. So what exactly does the mutual absorption signify? I borrow a few ideas from René Girard, the world’s leading theoretician of narcissism, coquetry, self-involvement, and resentment. Roberts is looking at Bardem looking at her, and vice versa. Both are therefore looking at themselves, each using the other as a mirror. (This is the etymological narcissism: Narcissus glimpsed his reflection in a lily-pond and was so entranced by his own good looks that he fell in and drowned.) 

Consider the sartorial characters of the two chief figures, starting with Bardem. He is a frat-boy in a singles bar, dangling his designer-brand three hundred dollar sunglasses in the V of his unbuttoned polo shirt and topping himself off with a hat whose familiarity struck me. It is the type of hat worn by Barack Obama in one of the photographs that has surfaced of his Occidental College days, when he was dedicated to being “cool” in addition to being Marxist. Notice also the glinting gold of an expensive wristwatch on Bardem’s left arm, the one draped over Roberts’ shoulders. As for Roberts, she is trying, I imagine, to look profound and serious, but the ponytail is a college-girl accoutrement, which abolishes the effect. The more or less sari-like dress and the fan are reminiscent of the fashion adopted by women of Theosophical inclination in the 1920s and 30s. As we know, all wisdom comes from the Infinitely Wise East. 

As an account of the general Western attitude towards “the Orient,” the late Eduard Said’s book Orientalism is nasty and without merit. It occurs to me, however, that Said’s charges of fantasizing and condescension apply perfectly to this image – the self-projection of an industry dominated by politically besotted narcissists like Julia Roberts, who, in their spiritual vacuity, have the gall to tell us how to pray and love.

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