La Traviata - Franco Zeffirelli's version of the opera in film
La Traviata, a beautiful opera with music by Giuseppe Verdi, is about a lovely woman named Violetta who is in love with a man, Alfredo. Violetta is a free spirit who loves to entertain and have the freedom to do as she wants. Months after she recovers from an illness, she throws a party and there meets Alfredo who lovingly had been coming to visit her in her sickbed. He proclaims his love for her and she originally dismisses it because she does not really know him and she wants to be free to live her life. Eventually, she realizes there is something more to Alfredo and they move to a country home together. After a few months, Alfredo is out helping to secretly save the country home while his father angrily comes to visit Violetta. He tells here that if Alfredo continues to court and marry her, his other daughter's suitor will leave her because of Violetta's reputation as a party girl. She is devoted to Alfredo so much that she sacrifices her relationship so that he can return to his family and his sister can marry well. Her heart breaks and Alfredo feels betrayed and publicly humiliates her. Months later, an unfortunate twist is that Violetta has tuberculosis and the disease along with her broken heart are killing her. Too late to heal her, Alfredo and the father come to visit her minutes before she passes away. Alfredo and Violetta sing one last love song and she passes away. This is a sad story of a woman, once a free spirit died alone for love.
One interesting thing I saw in the Zeffirelli version is that while Violetta and Alfredo are in the country, she has a large bird cage full of beautiful white doves that she visits frequently. The peaceful birds are content to be in the birdcage it seems and as she visits them, she is happy to see them. This could be interpreted as Violetta's situation. Once a free spirit, now a docile and happy woman content to be the cage of love. When Alfredo's father visits, Violetta looks at her beautiful cage (representing her love for Alfredo and the relationship they share), and makes the decision to let it go for the sake of his family. (Birdcage shows up about 10 minutes into this clip.)
There is another film that comes to mind when looking at the symbolism of a girl, a father, and a birdcage full of doves. That movie is Aladdin. Princess Jasmine is also a free spirit, trapped in her own home (although it is quite spacious as it is a palace.) As she visits the doves in their birdcage in the gardens, she feels connected to them in the sense that the palace is her birdcage and all she really wants to do is to fly free and to marry for love. Her father, the sultan, comes down to speak with her about her obligations as the princess to get married to a prince. This becomes another kind of birdcage for Jasmine as she feels trapped by the law as well. When her father leaves, she takes the birdcage and rips the doors open and longingly watches all of the doves fly free.
The birdcage is a symbol used for the main reason of being trapped, whether that is trapped by the authority, situation and law, or captured by the realms of love. In one case, the doves looked longingly at the cage, while the other case the doves looked longingly on the outside. The doves are also symbols, symbols of good, beautiful, and feminine. The fathers in both cases represent the authority and realities of life. Symbols are important in film as they add an extra element that the story does not. The lovely Violetta, died peaceably still yearning to get back into her birdcage where things were simpler, happier, and she was not alone. As she died, all dressed in white, I could not help but think of the doves she so lovingly took care of back in her garden.
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