The Lens Through Which We View Our Memories

 

What is Eve’s Bayou?

Eve's Bayou premiered in theaters during the Fall of 1997. Since its release it has become a highly regarded piece of art within the world of cinema. It has been praised by causal movie watchers and by viewers who pride themselves on having sophisticated film tastes. The film has garnered so much public adoration that in 2018 it was added to the National Film Registry of The Library of Congress. Kasi Lemmons, the film's director, and her team truly made a timeless masterpiece that can be appreciated for its cinematography, themes, cast, characters, and its story. 

            The movie's conception began in the mind of Kasi Lemmons during the early 1990s. Lemmons stated that she began penning stories revolving around children living on a bayou. At the time, she was entertaining the idea of becoming an author and turning her short stories into a novel. However, the stories she was writing slowly took on the form of a script and she decided to develop her work into a screenplay, instead. From the screenplay we got the alluring tale of the Baptiste family: a well to do Black Creole family living in 1960s Louisiana.

            The Baptistes live a charmed life nestled into their predominantly black Louisiana community. The family consists of the mother and housewife Roz, father and locally praised doctor Louis, and their three loving children: Cisely, Eve, and Poe. In addition to the parents and children of this story, Louis’s sister and the children’s aunt, Mozelle who is a local hoodoo practitioner with the gift of sight, also plays a major role in the story’s plot. During the summer the story takes place, our main character Eve, witnesses her family begin to crumble due to Louis's infidelity. His careless actions send his wife and children spiraling down a pit from which they can never return. By the end of the film, nearly all the characters are negatively impacted in some way, but there is one character that is debatably the most traumatized after the story's events – Cisely.

What is the major conflict in the movie?

            Cisely's character arc is centered around her relationship with her father and how their connection is forever changed. What began as a sweet dynamic of a young girl doting on her father turns into a broken familial bond sparked by an illicit incident. This incident involved Cisely possibly being sexually assaulted by her father one night after Louis and Roz had a horrible argument. I'm using the word "possibly" loosely, as the movie doesn’t give us a clear answer as to what specifically transpired between Louis and Cisely, on that terrible night.

Despite the vagueness of how the film addresses the intentions of Louis and Cisely, many audience members have very firm opinions about what happened. Some viewers have decided to lean on the idea that Cisely’s unhealthy fondness for Louis caused her to tiptoe into forbidden territory with her him so that he would be home more often; and because he was drunk, he didn’t stop her until it was too late. Other viewers believe that Louis was aware of what was happening the whole time and that he let his lustful nature get the best of him, leading him to abuse his daughter. Then there are the viewers who land somewhere in the middle, believing that what happened was a little bit of both. For me, I’ve landed on the opinion somewhat closer to the latter. I believe that since Louis was the adult and parent, he is responsible for what happened to Cisely. However, after watching a bunch of videos, reading articles, and comments that are all related to Eve’s Bayou, I’ve realized that this movie’s audience will probably always be split. Like other aspects of the movie somethings are left up to the viewer to decide. The split audience might be due to the elements that make up the story. The movie is laced with mysticism, short black and white clips begging to be pieced together like a puzzle, and an emotionally charged atmosphere that consumes the whole family. And nearly all of this is mainly being observed and absorbed by a 10-year-old child. Because of this my mind keeps pondering the same question: how should we view the major conflict in Eve’s Bayou?

A summary of the story

            I recently rewatched the movie, and as cliché as it might sound, I am now seeing the movie with new eyes. When I was a kid, I took the film as a mishap that could simply be explained away. Now I don’t know if there is a simple explanation. The movie opens with this narration:

“Memories are a selection of images. Some elusive, others printed indelibly on the brain. The summer I killed my father I was 10 years old. My brother Poe was 9 and my sister Cisely had just turned 14. The town we lived in was named after a slave. It’s said that when General Jean Paul Baptiste was stricken with Cholera, his life was saved by the powerful medicine of an African slave woman called Eve. In return for his life, he freed her and gave her this piece of land by the bayou. Perhaps in gratitude she bore him 16 children. We are the descendants of Eve and Jean Paul Baptiste. I was named for her.”

I love this opening because it’s almost like a poem or short story excerpt that you could pick apart in an English class. The passage starts with a such a jarring sentence that immediately captures your attention: “The summer I killed my father I was 10 years old.”  Immediately you are told that something sinister has happened, but at the hands of a child. When I hear this line I instantly want to know more. Background information is provided on the characters and their history, but a huge chunk talks about a character who is barely in the movie, the slave/medicine woman Eve. The imagery shown also builds up a kind of mysterious atmosphere: black and white imagery coupled with the melancholy tone of an adult Eve. Maybe this was included to highlight the family’s ties to the land and community. It could also allude to the family’s lineage including healers and possible mystical ancestors. When Eve ends the narration by stating she was named after Eve the slave, it could foreshadow that Eve might bring healing to her own family through her own gifts.

After the opening we are introduced to the Baptiste family. The family is enjoying a big party, with heaps of dancing, merriment, and laughter. They are the picture of no worries and no problems. The fun stops for Eve when she sees her father dance with her big sister Cisely, instead of her. Out of jealousy, Eve runs out to the family’s shed and falls asleep. She is woken up by the sound of her father, Louis, and a family friend, Matty Mereaux, having sex in the shed. The movie takes a turn at this point; it is here that the seeds of conflict are planted, and the picture of the perfect family is smudged. After the incident Eve confides in her sister Cisely about what she saw. Cisely, unwilling to accept the ugly truth about their father, tells Eve a polished-up version of the story. In Cisely’s version of the story, Louis and Matty’s interaction is nothing more than two tipsy friends innocently fumbling in the dark. This is a prime example of how memories are often morphed by others. Cisely dismisses Eve’s story and creates a new story for her to keep their view of their father intact. Even though Eve was there and saw what happened, she reluctantly accepts Cisely’s story. Eve, throughout the rest of the movie, experiences more situations for herself and she starts to view her father differently. Roz becomes increasingly suspicious of her husband, Cisely becomes more outspoken against her mother and begins to comfort her father more, Eve becomes frustrated by what’s happening to her family, and Mozelle starts to believe that she is truly cursed and that anyone she marries will certainly die.

Roz begins to worry about her family even more after she receives a cryptic fortune telling from a local voodoo woman. Fearing the worst, she decides to keep the children in the house until she is certain that they will be safe. All three of the children begin to grow restless after being stuck in the house for days. Cisley, however, believes that her mother is hurting the family with crazy superstitions. She decides to prove her mother wrong by leaving the house without permission. She goes out, gets her hair and makeup done then visits her father at work, and returns home weirdly resembling Roz. Roz, horrified and angry, slaps Cisely and tells her to not to defy her like that again. Soon after that, Cisely suddenly becomes very removed from the rest of her family and keeps herself locked away in her room and the bathroom for hours at a time. Eventually, she tells Eve that Louis tried to sexually assault her after he had an argument with Roz. Enraged by Louis hurting Cisely, Eve decides to get revenge by doing voodoo on her father. Later, Eve finds out the voodoo spell was completed, but she immediately feels remorse. She goes to find her father at a bar and he is again with Matty. Matty’s husband, Lenny (who is also Louis’s friend), enters the bar and threatens Louis, stating that if Louis ever talks to Matty again, he’ll kill him. Louis, not taking Lenny seriously, says goodnight to Matty as they walk away. Lenny shoots Louis and kills him. The family then deals with the aftermath of Louis’s death. Eve feels guilty, believing that she is responsible for her father’s murder. She later finds a letter that Louis wrote to Mozelle. The letter is a reply to Mozelle questioning Louis about hurting Cisely. In the letter Louis asserts that he never sexually abused Cisely and that she initiated romantic advances towards him. Once he realized what Cisely was doing, he slapped her, and she ran away before he could apologize. Eve confronts Cisely about this and asks her to tell the truth. Cisely tearfully admits that she doesn’t know what happened. Eve asks for Cisely’s hands to see if she can see her past by using her gift of sight. Black and white images of the night between Louis and Cisely flash across the screen. Eve and Cisely embrace and place Louis’s letter into the bayou’s water. The two sisters watch the sunset on the bayou as the film comes to a close.

What was the writer’s vision?

            While researching, I went through a bunch of video essays and it dawned on me that I should probably look up what Kasi Lemmons thought of the film. You know it might actually help to consider what the writer and director of the film envisioned for her story. I looked up interviews with Kasi Lemons and I came across numerous videos and comments on YouTube of people stating that she had initially intended to make Cisely's sexual assault more blatant. I found a lot of people sharing that there is another version of the film that exists — a director’s cut. In that version of the film Louis is seen having an inappropriate interaction with Cisely. This act is witnessed by a relative who can't tell anyone what they saw because they cannot communicate, due to a disability. The relative sees what's going on and drops a glass to let them know that he's there. This abruptly stops whatever was happening between Louis and Cisely. This scene would have confirmed that Louis did have some form of lustful desire toward his teenage daughter. I haven't seen this version of Eve’s Bayou myself and I don’t know anyone personally who has, but I did find an interview with Kasi Lemmons speaking about this director’s cut. She had attended an event where this cut of the film was shown to an audience. Lemmons stated that this portion of the film was removed due to the financier(s) wanting that part of the film to be edited out. Lemmons stated that she was happy her cut of the film could finally be shared with an audience. This information could lead one to believe that Louis was more of an overt villain in this story.

How the characters are depicted

At the beginning of the film the Baptiste family seems quite perfect. As I stated earlier they are the picture of no worries and no problems, but as the story unfolds we learn that is not truly the case.

Louis and Roz start off as beautiful couple, but we quickly learn that they have problems in their marriage. Roz adores Louis for being a healer, she but resents him for spending time away from home for selfish reasons. Roz vents to Mozelle about how she once put Louis on this pedestal, but now after being married to him and having kids with him she realizes that he just a man – someone that is still flawed and capable of hurting others just like any other person. She wants to believe that her marriage and family are okay, until she hits a breaking point and can no longer avoid the truth about the cracks in her relationship with Louis.

Louis does start off as a successful, charming man, with a lovely family. He is clean cut and well spoken. He’s clearly an educated man who is well off, but doesn’t seem stuck up. He’s the kind of guy you could see mingling at a cocktail party for a charity event, but dancing and laughing loudly at a local bar. Overall, he’s seems like a likable guy, but by the end of the film it is unclear if we should view him as a villain. His infidelity and lack of boundaries with Cisely have us questioning if he really is such a nice guy.

Eve’s age gives you the idea that she is seeing and experiencing too much, but she also seems like she’s stronger than she looks. She still has an air of sweetness and innocence. However, she shows that she can also be feisty, playful, mischievous, and bold. Eve’s world progressively gets darker when the uglier side of her family life becomes more exposed. You would think that she would try to run away from the truth and find escapism, but Eve confronts these things head on. Then you have Cisely. Cisely is the oldest child. She is fourteen and is within that transitional period of leaving childhood and entering womanhood. She carries herself like a lady and acts as though she is too mature for childish behavior. However, when adult problems start to plague the family, Cisely, initially runs away or avoids them. There is a contrast to Eve and Cisely in how they handle their problems. When Eve tried to tell Cisely about seeing Louis having sex with Matty, Cisely immediately dismisses her and alters the truth. When it becomes clear to Eve and Cisely that Louis is spending more time away from home, Eve questions his behavior and subtly and not so subtly calls out how it is negatively affecting the family. Cisely on the other hand decides to comfort her father and prove her maturity by going against her mother’s wishes. Finally, when Cisely tells Eve about Louis kissing her, Eve, automatically believes her big sister. This is a huge contrast to the way Cisely handles uncomfortable situations. I do take into account that Cisely was involved in a very compromising position with father at one point in the movie, so I understand why she became so withdrawn and depressed later on in the story. But before that she tried to be this mature young woman who was in control of her actions and emotion. Instead, time showed that Eve was really the strong one. It also depicted how people who seem to have it all together can run the past and the truth.

The other is Mozell. In the story she is a woman that is not a monster, but she is no angel. She was married to three different men, but each of them dies leaving her widow. One died due to her affair with another man. Mozelle is a local hoodoo woman with the gift of sight. She can see into the lives of her clients and provides that with information, counseling, and remedies for solving their problems. She states that she can see the lives of so many people but could never see anything when it came to her late husbands. Was this because they were all to close to her heart? Is it the things and people who touch us the most emotionally that are the hardest to see clearly? And if she has the gift of sight how could not her own fate. At the end of the film she decides to marry again when she meets an artist named Julian. She tells Eve about her decision to marry again, not knowing if Julian will meet the same fate of her other husbands. Despite her fear of what might happen, she is hopeful that her past won’t dictate her future.

Conclusion

    I did my best to discuss this topic respectfully, as the subject matter is very sensitive and deserves to be handled with care. I hope that I have not misinterpreted Ms. Lemmons's work. I admire her skills as a storyteller; hopefully one day I can create something even half as good as her. I also hope that I have not mishandled the subject of sexual abuse, as it is a very serious subject that unfortunately has affected real people.

 I think one of the reasons Eve’s Bayou is one of my favorite films is because it sparks conversation. This movie makes its viewers ask each other “so what did you think of that?” I think if viewers walk away from a film discussing its meaning, that means the filmmaker has done something right – they reached their audience on a profound level because they made them think. We should view Eve’s Bayou like view our memories; things that seem so real and close to our hearts, but also distant at the same time. Often when we look back on our memories we tend to focus on specific parts. However, when it comes to this story, we must consider all angels. We should see Cisely as young girl that needed more guidance and protection; we should see Louis, despite his debatable intentions, as a man who was hurting his family.  Kasi Lemmons wanted to tell a story that reflected real life. She wanted to shed light on some of the parts of family life that too often get buried away inside our minds. In life sometimes we look back on our memories with fondness, or disdain. Some memories are even a bit too fuzzy or hazy to remember clearly. The one thing that is clear to me is that our experiences shouldn’t be dismissed or ignored. Our past may not always be pretty or even clear, but it should be acknowledged.

 

 

References:

 

Eve's Bayou' Screenwriter Kasi Lemmons says that Black Women Writers Have a Responsibility. Essence. https://www.essence.com/entertainment/the-writers-room/eves-bayou-screenwriter-kasi-lemmons-says-black-woman-writers-have-a-responsibility/

 

Bastien, A.J. (2017, November 16). 20 Years Later, Eve's Bayou Is Still a Stunning Portrait of Black American Life. Vulture. https://www.vulture.com/2017/11/eves-bayou-is-a-beautiful-portrait-of-black-identity.html

 

Ebert, R. (1997, November 7). Eve’s Bayou. https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/eves-bayou-1997