Song of a Reformed Headhunter

démons / demons I am not surprised the demon’s name is Knife. I am surprised he takes the form of a paperknife. Some mornings liquefy into mud upon the touch. The sun on other days stages a thousand knives. Maddened with grief, a man applies a stick of butter to the dry place in which he will slide down his knife. Another man, soft son to a hard father, jams his daddy’s wife—his daddy’s cunt—with his meat knife. The black ram will never wash white, no matter how many hours the silk handkerchief rubs the knife. Demons are so theatrical and so is love. We overhear our whispering when we hold a knife. Wonderful prop! To separate lovers, it joins hand to handle, blade to body. Jee gives you, the knife!

I watched the movie for Marlon Brando, and he did not disappoint. His character Paul is a study of inarticulate grief. His wife dead from suicide, he takes up with a young engaged woman (Jeanne played by Maria Schneider) on the condition that both remain anonymous to each other: personal knowledge is too painful.  So sex, sex and more sex in an unfurnished apartment that stands for a relationship stripped bare of context, for an unrenovated present. The tragedy comes when Paul changes, when he wants more, only to find Jeanne wanting less. Without diluting the specificity of the widower's grief, one can still say that the same tragedy applies to all relationships of unequal passion.  Of the infamous anal sex scene, Maria Schneider, at 55, was reported in New York Post as saying, "I never use butter to cook anymore--only olive oil." Tragedy turned bathos.