It's long been sport among critics to take a writer to task for defining his protagonist through the character's name. For years, Arthur Miller's knuckles smarted from the many raps he took for his most famous creation, the tragic Willy Loman, a.k.a. low-man.
How is it, then, that his contemporary, Truman Capote, went to the his final resting place with smooth, unreddened fingers, not once having suffered injury over that literary Mona Lisa, Miss Holly Golightly?
It's a testament, I think, to the impeccable crafting of the character, her dragonfly-like dance before the gnawing jaws of fear of such litheness and believability that you become convinced she could not have been named (or even self-named) anything but. And, too, to the perpetuation of this perfection by Audrey Hepburn, Holly's cinematic replication, to be joyously re discovered in the newly released anniversary edition DVD of Blake Edwards' Breakfast at Tiffany's (also available as part of an Audrey Hepburn box set, along with fellow charmers Roman Holiday and Sabrina.)
The impoverished runaway who re-invents herself as a Manhattan socialite was originally slated to be played by Marilyn Monroe, a more obvious choice given the many implications of sexual compromise that threaten the character like a clashing accessory. But director Edwards and producer Richard Shepherd opted, wisely, to cast against type, no doubt to soften the more obvious aspects of screenwriter George Axelrod's style and to create a less forced tone than the typical romantic comedy of the era.
In so doing, they assisted in creating one of the most memorable female performances in screen history.
Hepburn's performance brought a new kind of feminine energy to the American screen. She had played aspects of this character before -the pixie-ish bohemian - but never without a net, usually in the form of name co-stars or eye-catching musical numbers. For all George Peppard brings as her Sancho Panza - the torch-carrying neighbour, Paul Varjak, forced to endure Holly's flights of romantic fancy - the film version of Tiffany's is a one woman show. Audrey, in Kennedy era gowns, hats, and gloves, laughs, cries, seduces, and screams; she plays the lady and she plays the clown. Her Golightly, true to the moniker, hovers butterfly-like over commitment, dependability, consequence and anything else that smacks of the adult world, only to be brought crashing down to earth on several occasions, each of which she rises from to float again, like something Holy.
That in itself would have been enough to sustain the film but director Edwards embellishes the proceedings with many of his own Edwardsian touches (one of which you'll have to forgive: Mickey Rooney's a crude caricature as Holly's Japanese landlord.) These include an expressionistic, gag-filled party scene (many of the extras appear in one of the DVD's Special Features) and the climactic kiss in the rain, where Holly and Paul consummate their mutual devotion to the strains of Henry Mancini's Oscar winning Moon River.
"You mustn't give you heart to wild things," Holly implores paramours both past and present. But slap this anniversary edition into your DVD player and alas, like Paul Varjak and so many others, there's no doubt that you will.
