Breathtaking: Bette Davis's Performance
at the End of Now, Voyager
MARTIN SHINGLER
IRVING RAPPER'S NOW, VOYAGER (1942)
IS WIDELY CONSIDERED One of the finest
examples of classical Hollywood melodrama,
and Bette Davis, the star of the film, is widely
regarded as one of the finest exponents of
melodrama and of melodramatic acting. A commonly
held view is that melodramatic acting
involves a set of heightened and elaborated
gestures and expressions: histrionic and conventionalized,
even stereotypical. Overtime,
specific gestures, poses, movements, and
expressions have become codified, acquiring
particular meanings. Even in their more modern
forms, they still bear the traces ofa historical
legacy rooted in pantomime, dumb-show, tableaux,
and spectacle, resulting in something
essentially gestural. Peter Brooks, in The Melodramatic
Imagination, has described this as an
aesthetic of "muteness," in which unspoken
words and inexpressible emotions are rendered
physically by the actor (62).
Melodrama, however, is not necessarily devoid
of dialogue; far from it. As Sarah Kozloff
has argued in Overhearing Film Dialogue, melodrama
involves excessive talk (i.e., "talkativeness"),
through which the central characters
reveal their innermost thoughts, feelings, and
anxieties (241). The often forbidden (i.e., socially
unacceptable) nature of these thoughts.
MARTIN SHINGLER is Senior lecturer in radio and
film studies at the University of Sunderland in the
UK. He is the coauthor of Melodrama: Genre, Style
and Sensibility (Wallflower, 2004), with John Mercer,
and of On Air: Methods and Meanings ofRadio
(Arnold, 1998), with Cindy Wieringa.
feelings, and anxieties leads characters to use
metaphor and hyperbole, producing language
that is highly rhetorical, ornate, aphoristic, sententious,
literary, and overblown (239). Both
Now, Voyager and Bette Davis have been seen
to correspond to this view of melodrama. Sarah
Kozloff writes that "More than just revelatory,
the dialogue in Wow, Voyager is often blatantly
ornate" (250). She adds, "The film's use of
melodramatic gesture is equally noticeable"
(250). Davis, meanwhile, has been described
as theatrical and exaggerated. In answer to the
question, "Who is this woman, Bette Davis?"
Stanley Cavell has written that:
She is the one who can deliver a line—who
has the voice, the contained irony, the walk,
the gaze, and the glance away, to lay down
a line-such as "I am the fat lady with the
heavy brows and all the hair." ... And she,
this actress, is the distinct one who can close
a film by saying, "Oh Jerry, don't let's ask for
the moon. We have the stars." She is, that
is to say, capable of that flair for theater,
that theater of flair, exaggeration it may be
thought, call it melodrama, that these films
of unknowness require. (226)
During the 1930s, Bette Davis developed an
idiosyncratic speech style along with a particular
set of physical mannerisms, most notably
rolling eyes, fidgeting fingers, and a hip-swinging
walk. Her style of speaking would become a
defining feature of her star persona, one much
imitated. The staccato rhythms of the famous
line "Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a
bumpy night!" (from All About Eve [1950]) most
46 lOURNAL OF FILM AND VIDEO 58.1-2 / S P R I N G / S U M M E R 2OO6
© 2 0 0 6 BY THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
fully convey this signature style, epitomized
by a clipped mid-Atlantic accent and an upper-class
intonation. This is created largely by
a stress upon the consonants, by hitting each
consonant forcefully and precisely, emphasizing
the Ps, the Ts, and the Bs, emphatically
using the tongue to produce the stops, creating
a series of rhythmic beats. This produces a percussive
sound. However, it is combined with an
intermittent lengthening ofthe vowels, for instance,
"Faesten your seatbelts..." This slight
and occasional drawl injects a relaxed element
into her lines, contrasting with the otherwise
clipped intonation. This is not, however, Davis's
only screen voice. In a number of films she adopted
a soft Southern drawl, as in her Academy
Award-winning performance as Julie Marsden
m Jezebel (1938). For much of this movie, Davis
speaks in a tiny voice, little more than a soft,
high whisper, even when her character is angry.
The combination ofa quite hard, loud, projected
voice with something softer, quieter, and
more intimate had become, by the late 1930s, a
distinctive feature of Bette Davis's vocal style.
The final scene from Now, Voyager reveals
Davis to be in total command of her vocal technique
and able to use it to tremendous effect.
She seems to know exactly how to pitch her
voice and how to vary volume and tempo in order
to convey changes in the character's mental
and emotional state. It is a bravura display, as
she glides through her character's ever-changing
thoughts and emotions, all subtly conveyed
through the actress's body and voice. One of
the most remarkable aspects of this performance
is the fact that the scene culminates in a
line of dialogue that some consider one ofthe
corniest in Hollywood history. Yet the strength
and subtlety of Davis's performance makes it
possible to accept the line when it comes as a
truthful and heartfelt expression. Remarkably,
the infamous final line, "Oh Jerry, don't let's ask
for the moon, we have the stars!" hardly feels
like an aphorism at all. Somehow Bette Davis
makes one ofthe great rhetorical flourishes of
Hollywood melodrama seem real.
Several writers have noted this. For instance,
Charles Affron, in StarActing: Gish, Garbo,
Davis, writes that "This line is one ofthe most
famous in all of Bette Davis's films, and I am
always surprised at the naturalness of its delivery"
(290). Affron describes the film as "attractive
claptrap," suggesting that its saving grace
lies chiefly in the strength of Davis's performance.
He is not alone in making such claims.
One of Davis's biographers, Charles Higham,
writes that:
As a dream, a shimmering fantasy, the movie
still works. All the formidable resources of
a major studio were brought to bear on an
insubstantial plot. The throbbing music of
Max Steiner with rich, sweet melodies lulls
the audience into submission before the
most rampant absurdities. But above all it
is Davis's performance which sustains the
work. Her atmosphere of brisk New England
common sense, her uncanny ability to hold
the eye overcomes many weak or soggy passages.
She has a logic, energy, drive and
charm that no dialogue can defeat. By seemingly
believing in the plot, the star almost
makes us accept it. (208-209)
Higham assumes that both the plot and the
dialogue are inherently weak and unconvincing,
and yet, nevertheless, Davis's performance
and conviction turns these into something he
can almost accept as truthful. Although I consider
the plot and dialogue of Wow, Voyager io
be nothing short of magnificent, it intrigues me
that even those, such as Affron and Higham,
who find these elements to be tacking can still
appreciate the film due to the quality ofthe acting.
For Affron, Davis imparts naturalism to the
attractive claptrap. For Higham, she transforms
an insubstantial plot with weak dialogue into
something believable. So what exactly does
Davis do to transform (what some think of as) a
thin plot with phoney dialogue into something
powerful, meaningful, and affective? What does
she do with her body and her voice to overcome
what some see as weaknesses in the film?
The reason why audiences who regard
the closing lines of Now, Voyager as trite or
artificial still find Bette Davis compelling,
convincing, and believable must surely have
lOURNAL OF FILM AND VIDEO 58.1-2 / SPRI N G / S U M M E R 2OO6
® 2 O O 6 BY THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
47
something to do with what occurs before the
final words are uttered. What precedes the final
line isa magnificent display of acting talent,
showcased by Davis's roller-coaster ride of
conflicting emotions: starting with confusion
("Take her home!... But you can't"), proceeding
through anger ("Whyjerry, that's the most
conventional, pretentious, pious speech 1 ever
heard in my life!"), superiority ("Oh, 1 know. Forgive
me, Jerry Let me explain"), impatience
("Some man who'll make me happy?"), bitter
sorrow ("Again I've been just a big, sentimental
fool. It's a tendency I have!"), resolve ("Let
me go"), hope ("if we both try hard to protect
that little strip of territory that is ours"), and
gratitude ("Thankyou") before we come to the
ultimate moment of—almost—happiness ("Oh
Jerry, don't let's ask for the moon"). Bette Davis
moves swiftly and artfully through these units
of action and from one emotion to another, her
voice responding with significant changes in
pitch, volume, pace, and tone. As she speaks,
she moves. The movements of her body can be
heard in her voice, both body and voice being
carefully orchestrated to bring the words of the
script to life.
The final scene of Now, Voyager is made up
of three movements: introduction, conflict,
and resolution. The first takes place at the
fireside, where Charlotte Vale (Davis) explores
her lover's Qerry, played by Paul Henreid)
reasons for wanting to take his daughter Tina
away from her. The second takes place before
a grand piano, which provides the setting for
Davis's longest and most dramatic speech,
where Charlotte exposes her feelings for Jerry
and Tina. The third movement, a coda, takes
place by the window overlooking the garden;
Charlotte and Jerry share a last lingering smoke
and resolve to sacrifice their romantic feelings
in order to make Tina their primary concern.
Each of these movements has its own emotional
temperature. The first is one of surprise
and bewilderment. The second is the most
intense, involving extremes of anger, despair,
and desire. The third is more calm and uplifting.
Within each movement, however, Davis
is required to express a range of emotions. In
the first, she moves from shock and horror to
a more controlled, confident, slightly haughty
attitude as she begins to question and explore
Jerry's motives. In the second, she moves from
shock to anger, self-pity, pride, bitterness, despair,
passion, and restraint. In the third, she
makes a rapid transition from dejection and
defeat to love, hope, resolve, assurance, gratitude,
and, finally, contentment.
The scene begins when Charlotte walks casually
into the library to find Jerry standing at the
fireplace. She asks him why he is there alone
ratherthan with the rest of the party, only to be
told that he intends to take Tina home with him.
Charlotte is visibly shocked and, hurriedly closing
the door so that Tina (in the next room) will
not hear their conversation, she tells Jerry he
cannot possibly think of taking her away now.
She advances toward Jerry, coming to rest behind
an armchair near the fire, first taking hold
of it and then resting her arms upon it, supporting
herself. The armchair provides a barrier between
Charlotte and Jerry while he explains that
he cannot allow her to go on making sacrifices
for him and his child. Charlotte responds angrily
and moves forward to confront him before the
fire. Paul Henreid delivers Jerry's next line leaning
on the mantlepiece. After stating that he is
not prepared to go on continually taking from
Charlotte in this way, he seats himself in an
armchair on his side of the fireplace. Once he is
installed there, Charlotte changes her attitude,
from anger to restraint. She seats herself in the
chair opposite and, in a rather superior tone,
proceeds to comfort him with the idea that, by
allowing her to keep Tina, he will be giving; she
will be taking from him. But Jerry is unpersuaded.
Charlotte continues to question him, trying
to find out what really concerns him. When she
asks if it is to do with their relationship, Jerry
springs from his seat and swiftly crosses the
room to stand by the piano. Max Steiner's music
appears on the soundtrack at this point: fast,
tense, and wavering, filling the void between
the two characters. For the next ten seconds
the drama is suspended, the musical interlude
acting as a boundary demarcation between the
first and second movements of the scene.
48 JOURNAL OF FILM AND VIDEO 58.1-2 / S P R I N G / S U M M E R 2OO6
© 2 0 0 6 BY THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
Within this first, introductory movement,
Bette Davis establishes a number of devices
that she will repeat later with more force. These
consist of breal<s or cracks in her voice, audible
intakes of breath, the projecting or the flinging
of words away from herself or at her costar, the
elongation of small (monosyllabic) words of
significance, the softening of her voice, and the
use of her last breath at the end of her line. The
first ofthese, the crack in her voice, is sounded
early in the scene when she cries, "But you
ca-an't!" The final word of this line contains a
slight break, the note being sounded unevenly,
signalling Charlotte's alarm. As she makes her
way across the room to the fireside, continuing
to speak, she sounds rather breathless,
suggesting a nervous state. Having caught her
breath, resting upon the back of the armchair,
Davis flings the words "conventional, pretentious,
pious" at Henreid in a fast, deep, but
slightly exhausted voice. Davis uses her very
last breath to reach the end of this line, thereby
forcing herto increase her volume in compensation,
producing a harsh tone. Once seated
in the armchair and feeling calmer, Charlotte's
voice takes on a rather superior tone (she's at
her most posh and anglophone here) in order to
present her argument to Jerry. She also adopts
a particular way of delivering her lines, beginning
rather quickly, then slowing herself down,
pausing, forcing herself to explain the situation
as calmly as she can. She begins each line firmly,
projecting her voice, but she allows it to fade
almost to a whisper by the time she reaches the
end. In this way, she softens the blow, taking
the edge off her argument, defusing the tension.
Shortly, however, Charlotte will reveal a
more anxious attitude when she asks Jerry if his
reason for wanting to take his daughter away is
to do with their love affair. When Davis asks "Is
it something about us?" she speaks in a higher
pitch, with the little last word stretched over
two beats and sounded in a thin, fragile voice.
This sounds a note of alarm, one that provokes
Jerry to spring from his seat and cross the
room, summoning up Max Steiner's music and
bringing the first movement ofthe scene to a
close. This introductory movement ofthe scene
ends at the first implicit mention of Charlotte
and Jerry's adulterous affair. It also ends on an
anxious note, betraying Charlotte's anxiety, a
theme taken up by Steiner in his music.
The second movement begins when Davis
joins Henreid by the piano. Here Jerry explains
that he is taking his daughter away from Charlotte
so that she will be free to find a man who
can offer her marriage. Charlotte is devastated
by this and angered that Jerry should so grossly
misjudge her desires. It provokes an angry outburst
from her, in which she reveals how she
truly feels. Her anger rises to fever pitch when
she tells Jerry what it feels like being shut out
from his life, but her anger is subdued when
she speaks ofthe affection and attachment
his daughter has shown toward her. She tells
him how moved she was when Tina said she
wanted to come and live with her and how,
subsequently, she entertained the fantasy of
permanently assuming a maternal role. Her
anger returns when she contrasts Tina's attitude
toward her with Jerry's. The second movement
culminates with Charlotte admitting her
folly in presuming that Jerry shared her fantasy.
Feeling humiliated and let down, Charlotte dissolves
into despair and tears. This is the cue for
Henreid to stride across the room, spin Davis
around and take her in his arms. We see her
gazing up into his face as he tells her that he
only thought she was keeping Tina out of pity
but that now he understands her true feelings.
He declares his own, his love for her. Charlotte,
however, resists and pleads with him to let her
go in a voice full of emotion. They separate, and
Jerry walks away to the window.
iVIax Steiner's music soars, once more filling
the space and silence between them. Davis
slowly and hesitantly follows Henreid to the
window and stands several paces behind him,
explaining in a broken voice that Dr. Jacquith,
Tina's doctor (and her own), knows oftheir
affair and that he has permitted Jerry's visit as
a test to see how she behaves. She explains
that if she fails this test she will lose Tina and
they will lose each other. Her speech ends
with a defeated and desperate "Jerry, please
help me!" It takes a dramatic gesture to raise
lOURNAL OF FILM AND VIDEO 58.1-2 / SPRI N G / S U M M E R 2OO6
® 2 0 0 6 BY THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
49
Charlotte's spirits, involving the simultaneous
lighting of two cigarettes, a heavily significant
gesture and one that Jerry has repeatedly
performed for Charlotte during their most intimate
moments together. Almost forty seconds
elapse before the characters speak again, the
time occupied by the lighting ofthe cigarettes
and by the first long exhalation of smoke,
mingling in the space between them. All of
this is accompanied by the strains of Steiner's
love theme. Davis and Henreid then take up
a position at the window, looking out into the
garden, for the coda that will draw the scene to
a close, establishing some resolution. In this
third and final movement, Charlotte and Jerry
establish the future terms of their relationship,
Charlotte giving Jerry permission to visit them
and Jerry granting mutual parentage of his
daughter to Charlotte. Charlotte thereby gains
her ultimate desire, a child of her own, whilst
sacrificing her love affair. Just as Charlotte gets
her heart's desire, Davis gets the last line: a
grand rhetorical line that ends the film with a
flourish and on a high note.
In the second and third movements of this
scene, the devices introduced by Davis in the
opening movement acquire their full force. The
breaks and cracks in hervoice, the audible
intakes of breath, the projecting and flinging
of words, the elongation of small critical
words, the softening of her voice, and the
use of her last breath all reappear, and do so
much more dramatically. The most dramatic
moment comes when Davis's voice cracks during
her line, "Why, when Tina said she wanted
to come home and stay with me, well, it was
like a miracle happening, like my having your
child—a part of you." The audible crack on the
word "Tina" makes this the most important
line of Charlotte's speech. In an instant it
establishes the true source of her love: Tina,
Jerry's child and the daughter she longs for
and identifies with. At the point of articulating
the girl's name, Charlotte finds her anger
overwhelmed by a more powerful emotion.
In an instant, the crack in Davis's voice dissipates
Charlotte's anger and renders her show
of strength a masquerade. The crack, which
emits a fragile, high-pitched squeal, dramatically
changes the emotional temperature of
the speech. Though the speech continues
unabated, it becomes cooler, the pace slowing
and the tone softening. Her voice drops to a
whisper during the course of this line. She also
inserts several pauses, takes a number of audible
short breaths, moves her head from side
to side slightly as she appears to search for the
right words to express what she felt when Tina
asked to come and live with her.
Davis takes her time here, using pauses
strategically to break up the line into several
component parts: "Why... when Tina said she
wanted to come home and stay with me . . .
well... it was like a miracle happening... like
having your child." This prolongs the speech,
giving the audience more time to consider the
depths of her feelings. The last phrase, "like
having your child," is produced by Davis in a
soft, slow, evenly paced voice as a series of
regular beats, almost methodically, as though
Charlotte is taking great care to say this, treading
carefully and cautiously, unsure of herself
but determined to admit the truth. Although
softly spoken, there is a firmness here that suggests
the determined effort Charlotte is making
to go on revealing what she supposes must
seem aflightoffancy ora mere delusion. The
way she caresses the word "child" suggests the
innocence, sensitivity, and devotion Charlotte
genuinely feels for Jerry's child, her desire to
comfort and protect her. Immediately thereafter,
Davis produces a harder tone to contrast
Charlotte's present attitude toward Tina's
father. Here she bitterly declares, "And 1 even
allowed myself to indulge in the fancy that both
of us loving her and wanting what was best for
her togef/jer would make her actually seem like
our child after a while. I see no such fancy has
occurred to you." These words are projected
at Jerry loud, clear, and forceful. Davis gives
them more impact by moving forward steadily,
a frown across her large forehead and a mock
grin across her face. The corners of her mouth
are pulled back to propel the words like arrows
from a bow, firing them directly at Henreid. This
again repeats an action from the first moveJOURNAL
OF FILM AND VIOEO 58.1-2 / SPRI N G / S U M M ER 2OO6
® 2 O O 6 BY THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OFTHE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
ment, when Davis flung the words "conventional,
pretentious, pious" at him, but this time
the words come with extra force, as Charlotte's
violent outburst reaches a climax.
Another important aspect of Davis's performance
is the way the speech is broken up by a
series of sharp intakes of breath and an intermittent
forward motion. "And I even allowed
myself to indulge in the fancy"—she hesitates
in her forward motion, drawing a breath before
continuing—"that both of us loving her"—another
step and another breath—"and wanting
what's best for her fogef/ie^"-another short,
shallow intake of breath before proceeding in
a higher pitch—"would make her seem actually
like our child after a while." Here Davis closes
her mouth, swallows, and appears to breathe
in through her nose. Her next sounds reveal a
drop in pitch and, with a bitter grin producing
tension around her mouth, she says, "1 see that
no such fancy has occurred to you." The word
"you" is stressed, it is even slightly elongated,
virtually to two syllables. Turning and walking
away from Jerry (and from the camera) she declares
that "Again I've been a big, sentimental
fool," again elongating the final word. Hiding
her face from Jerry and presenting her back
both to him and the audience, she speaks her
final, broken words through tears and despair,
her head dropping down to the right: "It's a
tendency 1 have." She expels these words with
a long breath, ending the line exhausted and
deflated.
It is instructive to pause here and consider
the kinds of critical decisions Bette Davis
had to make in order to play this scene. For
instance, she had to decide which lines and
which words to emphasize. She had to consider
how to vary the rhythm of her speeches
using differences in pace, pitch, tone, and
volume: for example, which words to whisper,
which to project firmly or even loudly. She
had to work out the best places to pause and
decide in which pauses to breathe. She had to
think about how much breath to use. She also
needed to consider when to move, and, when
speaking, where to look: up or down, at or away
from her costar. She had to decide where she
would swallow before speaking, where to hold
her voice in her throat, fill it with emotion, to let
it break or crack. These, of course, are the kinds
of decisions actors are continually required to
make. As Gianluca Sergi has pointed out in his
essay "Actors and the Sound Gang":
When confronted by a few lines of script,
the choice is not just what accent to employ,
what pitch and level, how to play off other
characters, or how fast the delivery should
be. Several questions need to be asked of
those lines: Are you going to deliver them as
one long sentence? Are you going to pause?
If so, where? Do you consider this as incidental
dialogue or as core dialogue? If the
latter is true, where are you going to put the
emphasis? Which words are you going to put
the stress on? The ability to answer these
questions shows an awareness of some
key issues: how to identify key lines; how
to identify the key words within those lines;
how to impose a certain metre and tempo to
them. (130)
It is largely a matter of conjecture as to how
many of Bette Davis's actions, gestures, expressions,
and inflections during the final
scene of Now, Voyager were conscious and
premeditated, and how many were instinctive,
spontaneous, and accidental. There is plenty of
anecdotal evidence to support the idea that Davis
came to this scene well prepared and took
great pains over every moment of the action.
Witney Stine, in his biography of Davis, Mother
Goddam, includes a statement by ilka Chase
(Lisa Vale in Now, Voyager) that describes Davis
arguing with director Irving Rapper "over every
move in every scene," and calls her a "perfectionist"
(164-65). Another fellow actor in Now,
Voyager, John Loder, similarly recalled (in an
interview with Lawrence J. Quirk) that Davis
"put her whole heart and being into that film.
She had a passion and artistic conviction 1 have
never encountered in another actress" (248).
Meanwhile, Barbara Leaming, in her biography
of Davis, includes an extract from a letter from
Rapper to producer Hal Wallis, stating that
"Miss Davis is a very slow and analytical lady
JOURNAL OF FILM AND VIDEO 58.1-2 / SPRI N G / S U M M ER 2OO6
® 2 0 0 6 BY THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
whose behaviour had to be treated with directorial
care and delicacy" (170). Jeanne Allen
writes that, atthe timeofthe making of Wow,
Voyager, Rapper considered Davis the greatest
actress in the world and consequently allowed
her to become heavily involved with the direction
of the film. Allen writes, "He acknowledges
her marvellously probing intelligence" (32).
Bette Davis and Irving Rapper's working
relationship is an important one, and it began
several years before How, Voyager. After directing
plays on the New York stage, Rapper began
working in Hollywood in 1933 as a dialogue
director, helping Joan Crawford interpret her
lines for Dancing /.ody (1933). Soon after, he
was taken on as a dialogue director at Warners.
Between 1937 and 1940, Rapper worked
repeatedly with Davis as a dialogue director,
on the Kid Galahad {1937), Jezebel (1938), The
Sisters {1938), Juarez (1939), The Private Lives
of Elizabeth and Essex (1939), and All This and
Heaven Too (1940). Together, Rapper and Davis
spent considerable time preparing for her roles
in these films, working closely on the script,
developing her characterization, rehearsing
her lines, and devising her interpretation. In
1941, Bette Davis repaid Rapper's hard work,
care, and attention to her by appearing in a
walk-on part as a nurse in his directorial debut.
Shining Victory (1941). This suggests that the
two provided each other with a large degree of
mutual support and that they had a significant
rapport. Consequently, as the director on Now,
Voyager, Rapper worked closely with Davis as
she painstakingly developed her performance,
meticulously planning and rehearsing every
line and movement.
From the moment Bette Davis began to get
decent roles in decent films, she consistently
undertook lengthy, time-consuming, and painstaking
preparation for these roles. In 1937, she
published an essay entitled "The Actress Plays
Her Part" for a book on Hollywood filmmaking
called We Make the Movies. In it she described
her working methods, revealing that she spent
considerable time studying the script closely
and discussing her ideas with her director "to
make sure that our conceptions of the character
are enough alike to avoid misunderstandings"
(Davis 120). She added that if the script was
based on a novel, she would always read the
original and use it as a textbook, reading and
rereading it "until I am thoroughly acquainted
with her [character's] every thought" (122). Her
time spent scrutinizing the script had little to
do with actually learning the lines and everything
to do with acquainting herself fully with
her character and developing her characterization.
Consequently, Davis wrote, "though I
spend a great deal of time on the script before
the picture starts, absorbing the story as a
whole and developing my characterization, I
seldom actually learn my lines until the night
before the shooting of each scene. Then they
are fresh in my mind forthe day's work" (123).
She noted that during shooting she would have
further opportunities to study her role, that is,
during the long waits that are part of the daily
filming routine. These provided plenty of opportunity
to work with a dialogue director or coach.
Davis states that "As far as I am concerned,
there can never be too much rehearsal, for during
this time the cast learns to work together
and often discovers bits of business that give
the screen play naturalness and smoothness"
(124). The letter from Rapper to Wallis, cited
above, provides evidence that the production
on Now, Voyager advanced slowly as a result of
Davis's insistence on meticulously rehearsing
her scenes on the set.
A day's work, and work it is—every minute of
it. I don't think you can nameany other profession
that requires so many actual hours
spent in producing something to be seen
and judged by millions of people the world
over. It is largely our awareness of responsibility
to all those people that makes the
actual shooting of a picture so nerve-racking.
Every take must be approached as if it were
the one which you will see in your theater.
Everything we've got must go into everything
we do. (Davis 126)
There is no question that Davis's approach
to screen acting was one of total commitment,
involving sheer hard work but also, and
JOURNAL OF FILM AND VIDEO 58.1-2 / S P R I N G / S U M M E R 2OO6
®2006 BY THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF iLLINOIS
more importantly, an intelligent, meticulously
planned and thought-out approach to characterization.
It required research, interpretation,
and concentration to discover the most effective
means by which to register the inner life
of her characters. Cynthia Baron, in "Crafting
Film Performances," has described how Davis,
like many film actors working in Hollywood in
the studio era, brought her characters alive by
devising a series of "mental pictures," developed
chiefly by studying the script, that could
then be drawn on duringthe filming. This had
nothing to do with "living the part" or feeling
what the characters might be feeling. On
the contrary, screen actors during this period
avoided getting lost in their character's emotions,
remaining alert to forthcoming actions.
Many actors working in Hollywood in the 1930s
and 1940s maintained an emotional detachment
from their characters in order to remain
conscious at all times of what they were doing
and what they were about to do. The priority
was to effectively convey their character's feelings
rather than to experience those feelings.
Baron argues that these actors used "synthetic
memories to fuel controlled emotional experience
during performance" (43). This entailed
drawing on personal experience and insights
only at the point of studying the script and
building the character (i.e., interpretation)
rather than duringthe performance before
the cameras and microphones. Baron writes,
"Training, preparation, and cool-headed acting
provided the secure basis for performances
and performance style that emerged from the
unique demands of each script" (43). This coolheaded
and emotionally distanced approach to
acting is revealed in Bette Davis's own writings.
In herautobiography of 1962, Davis wrote:
With young actors who talk about becoming
the character and losing themselves in a role,
I must argue. There is a part of you that must
hold the reins and control the projection.
There is a part of you that must be aware of
pace and timing Without discipline and
detachment, an actor is an emotional slob,
spilling his insides. This abandonment is
having an unfortunate vogue. It is tasteless,
formless, absurd. Without containment there
is no art. (176)
Bette Davis's art was clearly one of containment,
discipline, detachment, restraint: a
constant holding on to the reins that never
permitted her emotions to get the better of
her when she was before the camera. It is,
moreover, an art that required a concentrated,
self-conscious, premeditated, and analytical
approach to acting, permitting little in the way
of spontaneous outburst or accidental reaction.
Every gesture and nuance was carefully judged,
timed, and paced. Every movement and utterance
was the result of careful consideration.
It is worth returning now to the second movement
ofthe final scene of A/oiv, Voyager, at the
point where Charlotte has exposed not only
hertrue feelings for Jerry and his daughter, but
also her own injured pride and the failure of her
aspirations. It is here that Davis made her most
critical decisions, and it is therefore worth considering
not just her performance on the screen
but also the script Davis worked from and the
novel she consulted when developing her characterization.
This scene contains Davis's longest
and most dramatic speech. It begins with
the words "Some man who'll make me happy?"
Having spoken these in a small, soft voice, Davis
leans back in what appears to be a reflexive
action. This subtle movement registers the insult
her character feels by her lover's comment.
Her next words, "So that's it," are whispered
rather than shouted, not to express anger at
this moment but rather to indicate Charlotte's
shock in coming to terms with Jerry's ignorance,
his lack of understanding for the love she feels
for him. These words she says to herself rather
than to Jerry, and so she says them under
her breath. Davis takes a moment to catch
her breath, allowing the audience to hear her
breathing, in and out, signalling that something
is rising inside her, a powerful emotion that she
maybe unable to contain. The sound of these
short, rapid breaths lets her audience know
that her heart is pounding and that she is on
the point of exploding. Having signalled this
JOURNAL OF FILM AND VIDEO 58.1-2 / SPRI N G / S U M M E R 2OO6
© 2 0 0 6 BY THE BOARD OFTRUSTEES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
53
inner emotion, Davis moves her body, energized
by the emotion, her instinct being to walk
away from Jerry. She uses the rather elaborate
and dramatic gesture of raising her hand to her
forehead, casting her head slightly downward,
as she walks away to signal her troubled state
of mind, her momentary confusion as she tries
to sort out her conflicting and intense emotions.
The increasing speed of Davis's physical
movements here again suggests that Charlotte
is losing her composure.
The script does not indicate whether or not
Charlotte is angry or simply stunned at the
moment she says "Some man who'll make me
happy!" and "So that's it." In the original novel,
by Olive Higgins Prouty, Charlotte, we are told
by the narrator, first exclaims "So that's it!" in
a "low tone charged with reproach" (470). She
then adds a further "That's it!" before exclaiming
"Some man who will make me happy!" with
"all the scorn of which she is capable" (470).
This could be assumed to indicate anger, suggesting
to the reader that Charlotte speaks
these words in a bitter, even mocking voice,
of which Davis was more than capable. But
rather than fire these words at Jerry scornfully,
throwing his own words back into his face, Davis
chose to change the emphasis and create
a moment of introspection for her character.
In neither the novel nor the script does Charlotte
appear to take the time to process Jerry's
words, strugglingto make sense of them and,
understanding their significance, feel her anger
rise up from the depths of her being. But this
is Davis's interpretation. It is exactly what she
created when she chose to repeat Jerry's words
to herself under her breath and then to whisper
ratherthan exclaim, "So that's it!"
When Charlotte does unleash her attack
upon Jerry, Davis makes several other critical
decisions, most notably where to pause and
breathe. Her outburst occurs with the line,
"Here I've been labouring under the delusion
that you and 1 were so in sympathy, so one, that
you knew without being told what would make
me happy." The first words pour out rapidly,
but the lines are broken up by a series of short
intakes of breath. "Here I've been labouring
under the delusion"—breaking the line for a
sharp intake of breath—"that you and 1 were
so in sympathy"—speeding up and increasing
the volume of her speech, adding in a higher
voice and with hardly a pause—"so one"—another
short breath, her body swaying slightly,
undecided whether to move forward or stay
put—"that you knew without being told what
would make me happy." In the script, the natural
break in this line comes before and after the
words "so one," just as it does in the novel:
"Here I have been labouring under the delusion
that we were so in sympathy—so one—that
you knew without being told what would make
me happy" (470). Davis, however, takes her
most dramatic pause and intake of breath after
declaring, "Here I've been labouring under the
delusion," virtually ignoring the pause before
"so one." In so doing, she makes Charlotte
seem breathless, an indication that she is close
to hyperventilating, too tense to be able to
breathe deeply and fill her lungs with air. This
breathlessness, which Davis uses throughout
this final scene, attaches a deep and underlying
frailty to Charlotte, no matter how strong,
angry, or determined she may appear to be.
Her inability to breathe deeply and produce her
sentences without stopping to catch her breath
informs the audience that Charlotte remains
anxious and nervous despite her more confident
appearance.
Davis's breath control achieves its ultimate
and most exquisite effect when she delivers
the final line of the movie. She prepares herself
and her audience for this moment by becoming
completely still and taking her time to gaze up
into Henreid's eyes, holding the moment. She
then swallows. Her next words are summoned
up from the depths of her throat, expelling "Oh
Jerry!" on a long breath, adding resonance to
the words "don't let's ask for the moon." The
word "moon" is very full and resonant, elongated
to two beats, yet swiftly delivered. There
is a slight pause before a quite amazing thing
happens. Having expelled most of her breath,
Davis does not use the pause to refill her lungs
for the final words. Instead, using her very last
breath for her very last words, she delivers "We
54 lOURNAL OF FILM AND VIDEO 58.1-2 / S P R I N G / S U M M ER 2OO6
® 2 0 0 6 BY THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
have the stars!" in a whisper, but in such a
way that it forms a small, soft explosion on the
last word. This is a contained burst, with only a
little energy permitted by the last of the breath,
making it fade out quickly, ending in a slightly
prolonged "sss." Her lack of breath at this
point enables her to project the word "stars"
without the force to carry it forward and make it
resonate. But what little breath she has is just
enough to create the tiny, controlled explosion.
It takes everything Davis has left to produce
this tiny but momentous conclusion to her roller-coaster
scene. What, in both the script and
the novel, is a grand gesture, a rhetorical flourish,
becomes the most subtle of utterances.
The grandeur of the line is subdued by Davis's
performance, which holds the flourish in check.
Had she taken a breath during the pause in this
line, refilling her lungs to impart more energy
and projection into her last few words, the effect
would have been dramatically different,
literally inflating an already inflated line. This
would no doubt have made it seem excessive
to the point of irony. Davis's decision to use
her softest, weakest voice, with the absolute
minimum of breath, turns the script's ultimate
ornamental flourish into something sincere.
The final line has arisen from the very depths of
the actress's chest, a place close to her heart. It
is little wonder, then, that it seems so heartfelt.
For many audiences, this moment has proved
to be breathtaking, somehow satisfying and
deflating at the same time.
Sarah Kozloff has used Now, Voyager as one
of a number of case studies for her chapter
on dialogue in melodrama in her book Overhearing
Film Dialogue. In that chapter, Kozloff
discusses the long association between excessive
talk and melodrama. In melodrama, she
explains, excessive talk enables the principal
characters to stage emotional revelations of
their innermost thoughts, desires, feelings, and
anxieties. While many leading scholars of film
melodrama have taken the dialogue of such
films to be ironic, Kozloff disputes this assumption.
She supports her claim with reference to
Peter Brooks, one of the few scholars to take
the language of melodrama seriously, at face
value, rather than asan ironic comment on the
subject or ideology of the drama. Kozloff argues
that the excessive nature of melodrama's dialogue
emerges principally from the need of the
characters to reveal their inner feelings without
making any explicit reference to sexual desire
or sexual acts, thereby relying upon metaphor,
hyperbole, and rhetorical dialogue. She writes
that "Dialogue in melodramas functions to
reveal feelings, and it does so through a heightened,
even overblown rhetorical style" (239).
She quotes Brooks's argument that melodramatic
rhetoric "tends toward the inflated and
the sententious" (Brooks 40). Brooks has also
written that melodrama's "typical figures are
hyperbole, antithesis, and oxymoron" (40).
Similarly, Kozloff argues that "Dialogue in film
melodramas is ornate, literary, charged with
metaphor" (239).
The terms being used here by both Brooks
and Kozloff (hyperbole, ornate, overblown,
inflated, literary, rhetorical, sententious,
metaphorical, etc.) would appear to provide an
accurate description of the final line of Now,
Voyager as it appears in the script and the
novel. Indeed, Kozloff describes the dialogue
in this film as "blatantly ornate," noting the
considerable use of metaphor (252). She adds
that "Now, Voyager... carries its visual and
verbal excess with assurance," citing the final
scene as an example of this (253). In fact, she
argues that at the very end of the film "Her
[Bette Davis's] line and its integration with the
music and starry scenic backdrop, is over the
top, and unabashed" (254). Having examined
this scene in some detail, I would argue that
although the final line of dialogue might be over
the top (as, indeed, might the camera work, the
mise-en-scene, and the music). Bette Davis's
performance is anything but overblown or inflated—quite
the contrary. Davis is clearly doing
as little as possible in her final moment of the
film, taking as much out of her voice as she can
while still making it audible and intelligible. By
starving the line of breath, Davis is deflating
what on paper might well be thought of as an
overinflated line: sententious, ornamental, and
overelaborate. By reducing the articulation of
JOURNAL OF FILM ANO VIDEO 58.1-2 / S P R I N G / S U M M E R 2OO6
® 2 O O 6 BY THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
55
these words to a bare minimum, Davis lends
them force and meaning, to some extent stripping
them of their ornamental quality and forcing
her audience to consider them not ironically
or as hyperbole but as something that contains
an inherent and everyday truth. This enables the
audience to take the final line of Wow, Voyager
at face value, as Charlotte's fundamental belief
that, at the end ofthe day, one usually has to
settle for something less than one's greatest
desire but that, in so doing, true happiness and
contentment can be achieved. Whereas Kozloff
argues that the rhetorical style of melodramatic
dialogue is typically matched by an overblown
performance style, the final moments of Wow,
Voyager reveal that this is not always the case.
They demonstrate, in fact, that there are crucial
instances where performers of melodrama and
melodramatic dialogue must adopt an antithetical
performance style if they are to convey the
truth of their lines and reveal their characters'
true feelings, achieving sincerity.
Sarah Kozloff writes that "We must recognise
... that the inflated rhetoric of melodrama is
wedded to a particular performance style—the
use of gesture" (240). As one ofthe finest exponents
of film melodrama, Bette Davis could well
be thought of as a performer whose excessive
physical gestures found a perfect match in the
elaborate, overblown, and excessive dialogue
of melodrama. But again, this is contradicted
by the final scene of Now, Voyager, which contains
few elaborate, dramatic gestures. It is true
that such gestures can be found, most notably
when Davis raises her hand to her forehead
after having exclaimed "Some man who'll make
me happy?" But this is an isolated and exceptional
instance. Bette Davis does use her body
and movement throughout much of this scene,
creating an elaborate series of movements as
she advances, hesitates, advances again, and
retreats from Jerry. She also adds a pronounced
jolt to her head when she describes her feelings
of being "shut out" of Jerry's life. Similarly,
she produces a rather emphatic motion when,
near the start ofthe scene, her hands reach out
and grab the back ofthe armchairto support
herself as she recovers from the initial shock
of Jerry's announcement that he will take his
daughter home with him. However, it would
be an exaggeration to describe these gestures
as inflated or over the top. With the exception
ofthe hand raised to forehead, these gestures
are actually rather subtle and naturalistic, the
kinds of action anyone might perform involuntarily
and unconsciously during an intensely
emotional situation.
Rather than support the notion that melo-.
dramatic dialogue is necessarily wedded to
melodramatic gestures, the final scene of Wow,
Voyager actually reveals that an effective and
satisfying melodramatic performance can consist
of instances where the dialogue's overelaboration
is reduced or diffused by the absence
of movement and gesture. In this way, the
melodramatic text can be rendered with sincerity
and be made meaningful for audiences. The
melodramatic actor on screen may well need
to embody some lines with his or her physical
gestures and bodily movements. Sometimes
it may be enough to use a facial expression,
at other times just to add the right amount of
tension to the voice. But there are places in film
melodrama where an actor must strip the words
of their excess in order to make them real, relevant
to an audience, and also moving. Bette
Davis's artful and controlled performance at the
end of Wow, Voyager reveals that even the most
conventional of melodramatic devices—such
as a grand rhetorical, metaphorical line of dialogue—can
be transformed into a very personal
expression of belief and feeling. Produced in
this way, even the most sententious line of
melodramatic dialogue can seem true to an
audience.
Having examined in detail Bette Davis's performance
at the end of Wow, Voyager, it is clear
that the actress was making very little use of
heightened or elaborated gestures and expressions.
There is little evidence here of histrionic
poses and movements drawn from earlier dramatic
forms such as pantomime, dumb show,
and tableaux. Instead, Davis draws upon a set
of subtle vocal and breathing methods that
enable her to vary not just the pitch, speed,
and volume of her words, but also their stress
lOURNAL OF FILM AND VIDEO 58.1-2 / S P R I N G / S U M M E R 2OO6
® 2 O O 6 BY THE BOARD OFTRUSTEES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
and projection. Hers was a very distinctive technique
involving breaks and cracks in hervoice,
audible intakes of breath, the flinging of words
away from herself or directly at her costar, the
elongation of small critical words, and the use
of her last breath to add force without adding
energy or projection. Deciding upon when to
deploy this range of acting methods (and how
to accompany them with bodily movement and
facial expression) required careful planning,
detailed script analysis, and a sophisticated
understanding of characterization. This required
the actress to take critical decisions,
such as how to move when speaking (if at all)
and where to direct her gaze. Much could hang
on a detail, such as whether or not to swallow
before speaking, when to pause during a line,
in which pause to breathe, and, crucially, how
much breath to take. Breathtaking performances
result from such decisions. Breathtaking performances
are those that astound an audience
and make it accept what they see and hear in
spite of obvious contrivances of plot and dialogue.
Yet breathtaking performances seldom
just happen. On the contrary, they result from
considerable work, planning, and preparation,
and they require care, control, and intelligence
to orchestrate the minutiae of bodily and vocal
techniques so that an audience is captivated,
even spellbound.
During the late 1930s and early 1940s, Bette
Davis worked to this principle and her work
made her one of Hollywood's finest and most
critically acclaimed actors. The winner of an
Academy Award for her performance \r\ Jezebel,
she was nominated for the Best Actress award
four years in succession from 1939 to 1942 and
received rave reviews from critics for her restrained,
intelligent, sensitive, and emotionally
charged performances. There is no doubt that
Davis's level of success as an actress at this
point in her career was the product of sheer
hard work and intelligence. From 1938 to 1942,
Davis starred in fourteen films, consistently
producing fine performances in films such as
Dark Victory (1939), The Old Maid (1939), The
Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939), The
Letter (1940), The Little Foxes (1941), and In
This Our Life (1942). Given the level of thought,
preparation, planning, and rehearsal each of
these roles demanded of Davis, her work during
this period deserved to be praised by the critics.
It was, by anyone's standard, a magnificent
achievement. Sustaining quality performances
at this level of output required not only strenuous
efforts on her part but also the necessary
support, help, and guidance from collaborators:
most notably directors, acting coaches,
and dialogue directors. Without their input
and assistance, star actors such as Bette Davis
could never have sustained the quality of their
work at a rate of three or more films a year.
Acting coaches and dialogue directors
played a crucial role in helping film stars produce
award-winning performances while working
within an industrial mode of production.
Film historians have so far paid little attention
to their work and their contribution to filmmaking
in the studio era. Yet it is precisely a better
understanding of the role of acting coaches
and dialogue directors that will truly shed
light on how a performance such as Davis's in
Now, Voyager developed from the script to the
screen. The transformation of the words of a
script into sound and movement was not only a
complex but also a collaborative process. It had
to be, if the result was to take an audience's
breath away. Thus, while Davis deserves much
credit for the sheer brilliance of her performances
in the late 1930s and early 1940s, it
would be naive and unfair to assume that she
deserves all of it. To perform in that way, at that
level, and under those circumstances, Davis
was indebted to her colleagues: a company of
technicians, creatives, and coaches whom she
relied upon to help her produce a remarkably
subtle and original body of work. It is all too
easy to be captivated by Davis in a film such as
Now, Voyager, and just as easy to overlook the
contributions of the individuals who worked
behind the cameras, helping to develop her
performance. While Bette Davis, hercostars,
and her directors have been able to publish
accounts oftheirwork, working methods, and
opinions, the accounts of acting coaches and
dialogue directors have rarely been recorded.
JOURNAL OF FILM AND VIDEO 5 8 . 1 - 2 / SPRI N G / S U M M ER 2OO6
®2OO6 BY THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
57
This makes it harder for film historians to fully
comprehend the collaborative nature of screen
acting and to accurately assess, appreciate,
and reflect on the different contributions made
by such personnel. However, if film history is
to acquire a comprehensive and accurate understanding
of screen performances, scholars
need to investigate the processes of screen
acting. This should involve investigating the
roles of a range of professionals rather than
just the star performer on the screen. Scholars
need to take more account of those who played
major parts in assisting actors throughout the
planning, preparing, rehearsing, and executing
of their performances. Relatively little is
known and documented about the labor of the
invisible army of coworkers who were directly
involved in developing performances. But until
their work is revealed, the processes of Hollywood
screen acting in the studio era will remain
obscure. And so, while Bette Davis deserves
credit for the magnificence of her performance
in Now, Voyager, this should not be allowed
to obscure the contributions of the coworkers
who made it possible for her to win awards and
accolades for her original, complex, and breathtaking
performances.
REFERENCES
Affron, Charles. Star Acting: Gish, Garbo, Davis. New
York: Dutton, 1977.
Allen, Jeanne. Wow, Voyager. Wisconsin: U of Wisconsin
P, 1984.
Baron, Cynthia. "Crafting Film Performances: Acting
in the Hollywood Studio Era." Screen Acting. Ed.
Alan Lovell and Peter Kramer. London: Routledge,
1999. 31-45.
Brooks, Peter. The Melodramatic Imagination: Balzac,
HenryJames, Melodrama and the Mode ofExcess.
New York: Columbia UP. 1984.
Cavell, Stanley. "Ugly Duckling, Funny Butterfly: Bette
Davis and Wow, Voyager." Critical Inquiry 16 (1990):
213-47.
Davis, Bette. "The Actress Plays Her Part." We Make
the Movies. Ed. Nancy Naumberg. New York: Norton,
1937.
. The Lonely Life. New York: Putnam, 1962.
Higham, Charles. Bette: A Biography of Bette Davis.
London: New English Library, 1981.
Kozloff, Sarah. Overhearing Film Dialogue. Berkeley:
U of California P, 2000.
Leaming, Barbara. Bette Davis: A Biography. London:
Weidenfeld, 1992.
Prouty, Olive Higgens. Now, Voyager. New York:
Houghton, 1941.
Quirk, Lawrence J. Fasten Your Seatbelts: The Passionate
Life of Bette Davis. New York: Morrow, 1990.
Sergi, Gianluca. "Actors and the Sound Gang." Screen
Acting. Ed. Alan Lovell and Peter Kramer. London:
Routledge: 1999.126-37.
Stine, Whitney. Mother Goddam: The Story of the
Career of Bette Davis. New York: Hawthorne, 1974.
JOURNAL OF FILM ANO VIOEO 58.1-2 / SPRI N G / S U M M E R 2OO6
® 2 0 0 6 BY THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS