Hide and Drink: Reading Savage's Edward Through the Foucauldian Matrix of Power/Knowledge

 Savage's Edward in Hide and Drink begins with the Double, the monster in Meyer's Twilight, the one who sits in the classroom fantasizing about all the ways to kill Bella and drink her blood. He kidnaps her, takes her to a series of isolated apartments and places where he can hide her and drink her. After drinking she sobs and he holds her telling her how sorry he is over and over, holding her all night. He begins to unknowingly love her and takes her to Bella Island so they can be completely alone.

While there there is a plot twist in which Bella almost bleeds to death and Edward must rush her to the hospital with the help of Emmett. It is at this point halfway through the story the reader enters the Foucauldian grid of power/knowledge/capital. The hospital.  And Edward becomes caught in this web just as Bel Ami, Nina in Black Swan, Lily Bart in House of Mirth, Eric Packer, and ourselves. "She's lost so much blood. I have to get her to a hospital. I have to get her to Fiji. Please…" I looked up into his darkened eyes. "Please help me!"

The doctors see the scars on her wrists and neck where Edward has been drinking.

"She's had a transfusion and she's going to be just fine," the doctor said. "But I want to hold her for seventy-two hours for a psychiatric evaluation."

"That's not necessary," I said, shaking my head.

"I believe it is."

With this exchange Edward is stonewalled by the bureaucracy. At Bella's bedside he is inconsolable at what he has done to her and promises he will find a way to stop drinking her blood. His words are overheard and the nurse plans to report him. So he plots to kill her:

"I understand your desire to approach the authorities given the exchange you witnessed." I moved up close, my hand reaching out and stroking down her neck. I felt her pulse against my fingers and swallowed venom back down my throat. "But you misunderstood. Regardless, I can't take the chance that you will go to the authorities. I can't take any chances with Bella. So, I must apologize for what I have to do. There just isn't any other way to protect what is mine."

Bella is interrogated by the therapist and backed into a corner. She does not want to tell the truth, afraid of what Edward will do or perhaps because she has grown to care for him or both. The authorities begin to threaten him as they correctly suspect he has been abusing her and she is afraid to reveal this to them. 

"It's all right, Edward." Bella sat up straight and I helped her fix the pillow behind her back. "They aren't going to let me out of here until they go through all their little procedures, so it's better to just go with it and get it over with. I have a feeling she isn't going to be easy to convince, though."
"We won't have to convince her," I replied.

As if to prove my day truly could get worse, Ms. Spencer and the doctor from the first night decided to walk in as Bella was throwing me out. Two men who could have been orderlies, but were obviously chosen for their physical prowess, accompanied them.

The grid is tightening, closing in on Edward, leaving him struggling like an insect in a web that will only result in an act of violence. But Emmett has been pursuing alternative ways of dealing with the power/knowledge matrix, a more effective and standard way, an alternative threatening power coupled with money.

I growled, but then I heard his mind recount a conversation with a local attorney who was on one of Jasper's personal "lists," and also a personal friend of the hospital administrator. They were close, personal friends, apparently. Close enough for their wives to have had the opportunity to catch them being particularly close. The scandal would ruin both men.

Then they begin to intimidate Bella to force her to sign an affidavit so they can take her to a shelter and arrest Edward.  

"So you let us do our jobs." He pushed the paper and a pen towards her. "Sign here."

"No."

"Listen," he said. The second officer moved to the other side of Bella's bed, effectively crowding her. I felt a growl rising from my chest. "We understand these things. Doctor Sans and Ms. Spencer are going to take care of you. They will take you to a shelter and help you in whatever way they can. But first you have to help me. Now sign this."

"Just sign it, Bella," Sophia moved up next to the officer. Bella wrapped her arms around her own shoulders. "Then this will all be over."

"Yes," Doctor Sans agreed. She also moved up closer to the side of the bed. "He can't hurt you anymore.

And then more power enters into the equation to oppose this part of the matrix of power/knowledge, because it also is within the matrix, the administrator of the hospital.

I hope we aren't too late.

"That's enough, Doctor Sans," the tall dark haired man said as he approached. I recognized him as the hospital administrator from the night Bella was admitted. I thought I may have thrown a tantrum at him about having Bella's room changed. "Harassing the Masens is not in your best interests."

"Mr. Delai," Doctor Sans started, "I hardly think..."

"I said that's enough," he repeated. He made his way over to Officer Baravilalas. "Officer...?"

"Baravilalas."

They shook hands tentatively.

"I am Manasa Delai, the administrator of this hospital. I'm afraid there has been a misunderstanding here."

"As I said," Manasa repeated. "A misunderstanding. Mr. Masen is not responsible for his wife's injuries, and she will be discharged to his care as soon as possible."

"What are you talking about?" The doctor's face began to turn crimson. "She is my patient and I decide..."

"No, she is not," Manasa scowled at her. "She is a patient in my hospital and you will stop harassing her and her husband. If you don't, you will find yourself unable to practice medicine before the week is out. Clear?"

As perfect a fictionalized account of the Foucaudian grid of power/knowledge that often leads to a frustration turning into violence as you are likely to find. Other descriptions I have posted:

Bel Ami: here and here
Black Swan
Eric Packer in Cosmopolis and also here

Robert Pattinson and His Film History With Mediocre To Poor Directors

Vanity Fair

I have discussed VF elsewhere. Pattinson is so beautiful in it that Reese Witherspoon looks like a hag in drag. They had to age her to be his mother, of course, but in the same frame with him she is shabby even though she is supposed to be that way. Her image couldn't be tarnished in this last scene where Becky Sharp gets her come uppence for her social climbing ways. Pattinson was deleted for his beauty and for a fake happy ending as Hollywood demands. And they let him go to the premiere without telling him they killed him. Now the DVD sells only because of that one deleted scene. Mira Nair is better than this as a director.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Cedric is beautiful and they are careful not to have the camera too long on Pattinson's face in the same frame with Radcliffe. Castrated again the character of Cedric is murdered never to appear to have his face trouble our Harry.

The Haunted Airman is a nasty film. It is the BBC's attempt to do a low budget stupid film noir a la retro. Pattinson is directed to screw up his face into endless contortions, use cigarettes as props (useless directors rely heavily on props) so we see him chain smoking all through the movie to show that he is older than he is and to portray his psychological condition. His face is used pornographically and one wonders at the sexual orientation of the director and camera person because this is simply Smut Film Lite!

The Haunted Airman

In How To Be Pattinson's audition on the DVD shows a classic preppy Pattinson auditioning to portray a slacker type, trying desperately to get something from his dysfunctional cold family. Untalented and clumsy and as unattractive as he can make himself Pattinson tries to downplay his looks, face, voice into a character that won't threaten anyone. He succeeds. The cast is very good but the screenplay is mediocre. Another attempt to castrate him and in this one he helps them along.

Bad Mother's Handbook

In Bad Mother's Handbook Pattinson now has a funny script, and a good supporting cast. Still he is so goofy, awkward, adorable though, that we can almost overlook another attempt to emasculate him.

How To Be

The Summer House

The Summer House has a number of vignettes with substantial people in them (Amy Adams, Robert Downey Jr, James Franco etc) and none of them are particularly interesting. Summer House is the worst and Pattinson is in it for only a few minutes. It is his star power that sold the DVD until people found they were spammed. Daniel Radcliffe was one of the backers for Summer House and what was he thinking? The director has the girl moping, Pattinson moping, inane conversations as the first moon landing occurs to vainlessly attempt a theme of interest. Very boring and another try to murder Pattinson.

Ring of the Nieblings

In the Ring it is painful to watch Pattinson trying so hard to be what he thinks they want. Everything about this film is so awful it is a disaster. No one's performance could have saved it. And then he was castrated by having his voice amputated and dubbed.


After having studied art history with some of the greats

of the 20th century and always appreciative of Dali, I 

learned something from Pattinson's performance I

never expected to learn. Dali's expressiveness was

always on the surface to be seen but evidently I 

couldn't see it. The melting clocks dripping over the 

tablecloth, Ayn Rand's favorite painting was Dali's crucifixion

and so this to me was wonderful. Was it the screenplay? Was it Pattinson's performance as he tries very hard with little direction and evidently not much friendliness on the set as they all spoke Spanish and 

Bel Ami

Little Ashes

this left him out? His moustache is so obviously fake 

that it is annoying and only poor attention to this detail 

can explain it. His character is impotent and nervous

and seems in way over his head with a cast from Spain

where Lorca is adored. Not likely anyone had sympathy for the flamboyant Dali. Did they project these feelings for his character onto Pattinson? Dunno but it has a sad feel to 

Pattinson's performance which is a brave one under trying

circumstances. You can feel his anxiety as he tries.

It is difficult to know what they will do with Bel Ami, a small budget European film. IMO they have been waiting to see if Pattinson could carry Water For Elephants which I have reviewed elsewhere. Then cowards that film merchants are, they will figure out how to jump on the Pattinson bandwagon to cash in on him. 

And then of course we have Edward Cullen, a fine performance, whenever possible, under a Chick With a Dick director named Catherine Blabbermouth Hardwicke, who tries to castrate him every chance she gets. PC feminists get very nervous when faced with male beauty and kindness and talent combined. Let's kill it!

Does he remind her that she is stupid, boring, silly and an untalented director who specializes in chemistry between costars and make out scenes on her bed because she cannot figure out any other way of doing it other than to turn them into a movie? Poor Amanda Seyfried had to kiss 40 studs so CH could watch.  Hmmmmm. I'm not gonna go there.

Cronenberg on casting and its great importance for a director. How he intuits the chemistry between his actors on youtube: Go to youtbe yourself and put in search engine. I can't make it work any other way. v=jO0zPLQaVWQ 

I am reminded of that Vietnam Buddhist Thich Nhat Hanh ,who went to Paris to help orphaned children get adopted. The way he placed them was:

He looked at the picture of the children and the prospective adoptive parents. And that is the way he matched them up, reading the longing in the hearts of both.