Jean Marbœuf: Whatever happened to Bette Davis and Joan Crawford?

That they hate each other so much?

Basic hatred is perhaps just another state of love. The bile poured without mercy on a rival is but an elixir of respect. Recognition of the self in the other. An attempt at emancipation in an industry of men who project dreams and forge dollars with the same motif over and over again; platinum blonde. Their pain and fear of the objectification and passivation of women, the simplification of roles and the cult of youth, which is no longer their forte, leads them through a battlefield of rivalry where all the means and tricks of the game are allowed.
Icons of the dream factory removed from the treadmill of stardom. In a Hollywood Cadillac that knows no reverse gear. It only drives forward, always something fresh, young again. The old is discarded, forgotten, left to fade and wander. The message from the wastelands of Hollywood: "You are done".

The imposing vintage duo resist this machine of oblivion. It plays out in front of the camera with its own antagonist. The personification of the un-own. They prefer spontaneous combustion to slow extinction. Rage and sadness fuel the creation. Neither can play itself. The actress opposite is the decisive element of her own success. To survive, you need your true enemy, your nemesis, to co-create with you the reality of fiction. To join forces and win the inevitable. You also need to be able to leave with dignity. The common art of confession answers the mutual hatred in question:
»You mean all this time we could have been friends?«

The imposing vintage duo resist this machine of oblivion. It plays out in front of the camera with its own antagonist. The personification of the un-own. They prefer spontaneous combustion to slow extinction. Rage and sadness fuel the creation. Neither can play itself. The actress opposite is the decisive element of her own success. To survive, you need your true enemy, your nemesis, to co-create with you the reality of fiction. To join forces and win the inevitable. You also need to be able to leave with dignity. The common art of confession answers the mutual hatred in question:  
»You mean all this time we could have been friends?«

Title of the original: Qu'est-il arrive a Bette Davis et Joan Crawford?
Translated by: Diana Koloini