The success of Proof is in its superior acting and to a lesser degree its characterizations. But its shape and outcome are weakened by too psychological an approach at the expense of power realities.
Martin, the blind protagonist, has the most social power of the three. He's white, male, and minimally middle class. He's got a hip job as a music reviewer for which he is paid well enough to hire a housekeeper. Although he's much alone, he does have his buddy, Andy, whose everyman status mediates Martin's entry or inclusion in the masculine world ("strangulation, mutilation" Andy emotes as he leads the chorus of sadistic beeps at the drive-in), and which in toto equates to male bonding. He also has Celia, the housekeeper, who serves Martin as both wife, mother, housekeeper, secretary, conversationalist, and love/sex interest (interest only, of course) without even minimal commitment on his part. To boot Martin is the central character, whose life Celia and Andy must revolve around. His problem, engrained distrust, especially of women, is the pivotal focus in the world of this film, which is his world.
In contrast, Celia has at best minimal social power. Her sex object status only underscores this fact. For as provocative, fashionable (she looks like the stylish editor of some New York art journal) and sophisticated as she may be, she is ultimately treated no better than Ugly, the cat. She too is alone, motherless and fatherless, but her lack of friends is more real than imagined, and her gender affiliation, if it exists at all, is not empowering. Nor does her job, despite her mastery of it, engage her publicly. She may be an audacious woman who knows her own thoughts and feelings, but these just seem to be forms of self-betrayal. For Martin, her boss, is both condescending and perverse. To him she's a bag, a woman with "no heart," "a vile" despicable woman, which in turn makes Celia compare herself to "a bitch in heat." (She knows men's minds) Seduction and her vengeful game playing are her only forms of leverage--and identity. Satin blouses and snapping photos of her master on the john are poor replacements for the love and world she wants (though, she settles for just being needed). And she is more deeply sex-bound in having to toss her body over to Andy--her only rival for Martin's love-- who she also serves as an older woman sex fantasy.
So, how is it that Martin benefits from the film's psychological framework. For one, it makes him conveniently unaware of Celia's problems. Self-criticism is beyond him because he's self-preoccupied. It is no coincidence that he's a photographer, the spy, in control, of his immediate world and those in it. The way he may or can affect those around him are at best secondary--there are no recognizable oppressors in his world, only victims, of which he is one, and Celia is not. The fact that the solution for his distrust and phobias is finally grasping that his mother was no lier, does not benefit Celia, the second woman in his life. No, it is simple, honest Andy, also enmeshed in the psychological view, who is both the catalyst and beneficiary of Martin's faith. Celia is removed from the ending and sacked from her job because she exists in a framework that denies her gender, her oppression, and her political reality. In other words, male bonding, despite moments of transcendence from it, in the end, prevails in "Proof". Martin and Andy are the odd guys in, Celia the odd woman out--that's what psychology does to politics.
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Martin, the blind protagonist, has the most social power of the three. He's white, male, and minimally middle class. He's got a hip job as a music reviewer for which he is paid well enough to hire a housekeeper. Although he's much alone, he does have his buddy, Andy, whose everyman status mediates Martin's entry or inclusion in the masculine world ("strangulation, mutilation" Andy emotes as he leads the chorus of sadistic beeps at the drive-in), and which in toto equates to male bonding. He also has Celia, the housekeeper, who serves Martin as both wife, mother, housekeeper, secretary, conversationalist, and love/sex interest (interest only, of course) without even minimal commitment on his part. To boot Martin is the central character, whose life Celia and Andy must revolve around. His problem, engrained distrust, especially of women, is the pivotal focus in the world of this film, which is his world.
In contrast, Celia has at best minimal social power. Her sex object status only underscores this fact. For as provocative, fashionable (she looks like the stylish editor of some New York art journal) and sophisticated as she may be, she is ultimately treated no better than Ugly, the cat. She too is alone, motherless and fatherless, but her lack of friends is more real than imagined, and her gender affiliation, if it exists at all, is not empowering. Nor does her job, despite her mastery of it, engage her publicly. She may be an audacious woman who knows her own thoughts and feelings, but these just seem to be forms of self-betrayal. For Martin, her boss, is both condescending and perverse. To him she's a bag, a woman with "no heart," "a vile" despicable woman, which in turn makes Celia compare herself to "a bitch in heat." (She knows men's minds) Seduction and her vengeful game playing are her only forms of leverage--and identity. Satin blouses and snapping photos of her master on the john are poor replacements for the love and world she wants (though, she settles for just being needed). And she is more deeply sex-bound in having to toss her body over to Andy--her only rival for Martin's love-- who she also serves as an older woman sex fantasy.
So, how is it that Martin benefits from the film's psychological framework. For one, it makes him conveniently unaware of Celia's problems. Self-criticism is beyond him because he's self-preoccupied. It is no coincidence that he's a photographer, the spy, in control, of his immediate world and those in it. The way he may or can affect those around him are at best secondary--there are no recognizable oppressors in his world, only victims, of which he is one, and Celia is not. The fact that the solution for his distrust and phobias is finally grasping that his mother was no lier, does not benefit Celia, the second woman in his life. No, it is simple, honest Andy, also enmeshed in the psychological view, who is both the catalyst and beneficiary of Martin's faith. Celia is removed from the ending and sacked from her job because she exists in a framework that denies her gender, her oppression, and her political reality. In other words, male bonding, despite moments of transcendence from it, in the end, prevails in "Proof". Martin and Andy are the odd guys in, Celia the odd woman out--that's what psychology does to politics.
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