Lizzie

 

Lizzie Borden – historically, a woman accused of the murder of her father and her step-mother, found not guilty by a jury – has managed to become a blank canvas for interpretation and reconfiguring in every new re-telling, from the famous nursery rhyme to the theatre plays, books, films to a television show (most recently, Christina Ricci assuming the role in The Lizzie Borden Chronicles after playing her in the 2014 film Lizzie Borden Took an Ax).Through a modern interpretation, this is a kind of unsolved and ultimately, now, unsolvable true crime story – and each interpretation sheds light less so on the original killing but on the period of time that picks up the pieces and reassembles them anew. It is also a true crime story long enough in the past (the crime occurred in 1892, Borden passed away in 1927) that it feels significantly less problematic how many liberties storytellers have taken in recounting the tale – there is nobody left alive who was directly impacted by it, nobody is reliving the trauma of loss, or finds themselves misrepresented.

Chloë Sevigny, who assumes the role of Lizzie Borden here, was foundationally involved in the making of the film, and stated in an interview that she wanted to play Lizzie as “smashing the patriarchy”: in this interpretation of events, Lizzie Borden is the one who wields the axe, and the moment it connects with the victims is one of catharsis, of carving out freedom. Lizzie kills her father, a rich but overly thrifty man who is the closest to an actual villain the film has. His two daughters – Lizzie and Emma (played by the great Kim Dickens, who unfortunately doesn’t get much to do) – are being trapped in a house and life that offers them few opportunities. Lizzie especially is being kept apart from the world, because she is perceived as unstable (when she does escape, she suffers an episode of epilepsy and is swiftly returned to a life of few choices). There is also an ongoing threat that they will be left with nothing as their father comes under the influence of their maternal uncle (Denis O’Hare), who is eager for him to rewrite his will. In spite of her privilege, she feels a closer to kinship to a newly hired Irish maid (Kristen Stewart, who proves once again capable of conveying emotion without much dialogue, and is the stand-out in the film), Bridget, who like her has few choices once she enters the house. The family decides to rename her Maggie for some reason, and the father, after she is settles, asks her to keep her bedroom door open so that he can visit her at night and rape her. Bridget can’t leave, because a bad reference from such an influential man would ruin her.

Noah Greenberg’s camera work perfectly captures the claustrophobia of the lives these women lead. He relies on close-ups, with walls seeming to close in, the indirect lighting of gas lamps, since her father refuses to buy into electricity, making everything seem gloomy. Lizzie’s only escape is a barn that she is trying to convert into a pigeon coop (until her father brutally kills the pigeons with an axe, an act of foreshadowing that appears to be historically accurate) – here, the closeness of the walls feels more intimate and warmer, filled with sunlight through the slats, but even that hiding spot is under constant threat of observation and violence.  

As the film follows the theory that Lizzie Borden is the killer, the goal is to provide reasons for her acts, and they play out as an escalating series of events that make the ultimate outcome inevitable. Her father receives threatening notes that push him towards changing his will in a way that takes into consideration his conviction that his daughters cannot live in the world freely. Lizzie’s relationship with Bridget - at first, intimacy forged through Lizzie teaching her how to read, then through the grief of Bridget losing her mother and her panic at being trapped in a house with her rapist – turns romantic. As much as the killing is at the centre of the film, the catalytic scene is when they have sex in the barn (it feels like a very Sarah Waters moment – a riff on the eroticism of Fingersmith, which also accomplishes much while revealing little) and Lizzie seems to be transformed, having glimpsed what life beyond the walls of her father’s house has to offer, a previously unimaginable freedom in connection and love. Even that moment is undermined by Mr Borden watching it unfold through the slats, outraged, jealous, confirmed in his conviction that Lizzie must be contained.

Some parts of the film reminded me of the 1994 film Sister My Sister, which is also an interpretation of a historical crime that has undergone many transformations through its numerous authors (Jean Genet, Wendy Kesselman, Claude Chabrol). In this version of events, the class distinction isn’t broken – the two sisters who work as chambermaids for a bourgeois family kill their employers. But like in Lizzie, they feel trapped in the house without many options, the walls here feeling even closer due to the old 4:3 ratio, and are threatened when they are discovered to be lovers.

Lizzie’s conviction to save herself and Bridget leads to a breech between the two women: Lizzie is steadfast in killing her step-mother (Fiona Shaw, also not given much but always excellent), and then then steps in when Bridget finds herself unable to swing the axe at Mr Borden. It feels significant that the murder is the moment when they are unclothed, like the transgression of nakedness can only occur in this act of violence, not during sex (or like the vulnerability of nakedness is juxtaposed with the power of carrying an axe, with the intention to harm – the film does not shy away from showing what effect the axe has on the bodies). Bridget at first wants to leave and put everything behind her, and only at the last moment provides the testimony that will set Lizzie free – there is no real happy ending for them together beyond the ability to finally leave the constraining walls and live different lives. Maybe a truly triumphant smashing of the patriarchy would have been louder, but the quiet resolution of Lizzie Borden in her successful attempt to free herself is just as effective.  

2018, directed by Craig William Macneill, starring Chloë Sevigny, Kristen Stewart, Jeff Perry, Fiona Shaw, Jamey Sheridan, Tara Ochs, Kim Dickens, Denis O’Hare.