The Passion of Miss Augusta
A film in two centuries
Augusta Jane Evans of Alabama argued that women of the 19th century were the intellectual equals of men. Her 1866 romance novel St. Elmo was one of the three best-selling American novels of the 19th century, still popular fifty years later when it was made as a silent film three times. In the 1970s, feminists saw Evans as a pioneer — even though she stopped short of advocating women’s political rights.
The Passion of Miss Augusta finds a connection between silent film versions of St. Elmo and the more jaundiced view of Southern domesticity in films based on Faulkner and Tennessee Williams — whose Southern Gothic was derived in part from Evans’ overheated narratives. It was evident in these later films that the place of women in Southern society had changed very little in 100 years.
With Marnye Young and Jason Downs. Music score by Donald Stark
Film Trailer
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