Subject: Movie review, CARRINGTON
From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 23 Nov 1995 22:17:02 -0500 (EST)

[Please contact the author at [email-masked] for reprint rights.]
Copyright 1995 by Kenneth Athon

Movie Review

"Carrington" omits lesbian element of artist's life

by Kenneth Athon

If you think your love life is a shambles, consider the case of Dora 
Carrington. 

Born 1893 in England, Dora idolized her elderly father and practically hated 
her mother. Not educated formally in the British sense of the word, she 
nevertheless was able to attend a school of fine arts, where she developed 
her drawing and painting skills admirably. It was there that she began 
wearing her hair in a short "bob" style--the equivalent of today's teens' 
blue hair and pierced noses--and insisted on being called, simply, Carrington.

At art school, she was so popular that she had two suiters, who 
happened also to be best friends. Their love for Carrington ultimately 
destroyed their friendship. Both tried without success to simply seduce her 
and when that failed after years --not just weeks or months but years--of 
trying, both proposed marriage. Perhaps for the sake of the friendships 
and not wanting to alienate either of the boys, she steadfastly remained a
virgin despite attempts by several mutual friends to convince her otherwise, 
and she married neither.

It was while still courting the more persistent of her young suiters, that 
she met an older writer, Lytton Strachey. It was an odd, awkward meeting; 
Strachey, seeing Carrington from afar, thought she was a young man and was 
literally speechless when he was formally introduced to her. Later, while 
Strachey was trying to convince Carrington that her suiter was right for her, 
she professed her love for Strachey instead. It mattered not to her that 
Strachey was homosexual. In fact, she offered her viginity first to him, but 
he was impotent at the thought of hetero-sex.

Carrington was full of contradictions. She was a pacifist, yet professed a 
willingness to serve England in World War I, simply for the sake of service. 
She was heterosexual (primarily) but would neither marry nor consummate her 
relationships for the sake of love. When she did marry, it was the sake of 
bringing her bisexual husband into  a more permanent place in 
Strachey's--not her own--life. While married, she allowed her husband to have
a live-in mistress while she carried on secret affairs.

While she could remain aloof from her suiters, husband and lovers, she was
utterly devoted to Strachey. Drawings, sketches and paintings of Strachey
adorned every wall in her house. It was, as she described, a self-debasing 
love, the love that puts self not second but last, an love wherein she not 
only doted on Stachey, but nursed his every ailment and even bathed him.

The new movie, "Carrington," by the screenwriter of "Dangerous Liasons," is a 
sad portrait of the artist who could find no adequate meaning for her 
life other than loving men, principally Strachey, who could not love her 
with the same intensity. The story is framed, not by the development of her 
art or by some other measure, but by the men who were the center of her short 
life.

It's unfortunate that the film cannot tell the whole story of Carrington's 
life within this framework because it omits Carrington's one love interest 
that surpassed those of the men who had pursued her. In 1923, she fell in 
love with Henrietta Bingham, the daughter of the American ambassador. In a
letter to a friend, Carrington related, "I am very much more taken with 
Henrietta than I have been with anyone for a long time. I feel now regrets
at being such a blasted fool in the past, to stifle so many lusts I had
in my youth, for various females."  Carrington's biographer, Gretchen Gerzina,
reports that Henrietta and Carrington were lovers, at least for a short while.

The film, "Carrington," opened nationwide November 22. If the movie comes to 
a theater near you, see it. Stay for the final credits to see examples of 
Carrington's art, which is now coveted by collectors.

[Copyright 1995 by Kenneth Athon.  Athon is founder of Nashville's 
G/L/B weekly newspaper, XENOGENY.]