CinemArchetype 20 - The 3 Sisters

O Brother Where Art Thou?

Three sisters --- immovable power.. the magic number...the trinity. A solid bloc of womanhood where sisters can't help but become witches.

Why three? Two women can be turned on one another; four women get lost in chatter; but three, should they stand united, cannot fall. No man, nor army, can stand up to them. They might be killed by Nazis, but they can't be stood  up to. They represent a feminine solidarity - an unknowable, strange concentration of feminine power. Three allows both intimacy and group dynamics without being bound to the pitfalls of either. This facilitates a rare and magic alchemical union of three souls that can become more than the sum of their parts.


There are groups of four sisters in the movies -- Meet Me in Saint Louis, Little Women, but they never quite rise to the thrize; they  mute each other out with over-talking and end up surrendering to one leader, i.e. Jo or Judy, rather than the perfect interaction of equal parts that is the number of three. With three there is constant support and competition. Each can take a part that leads to a calculated whole. Two and they get too conspiratorial and overly intimate, a kind of straight same sex pair bond that gets incestuous with no link left for the outside world. Four and it's practically a party. Three / is the magic number. There's always room for us to imagine stepping in and seducing one, but never shattering their connection.

top: Heavenly Creatures, Meet Me in Saint Louis, Macbeth (2006)

 Truth be told, I am haunted by the image of the three sisters. When I was an infant my mom regularly visited a relative who later moved who had triplet girls around four years older than me. While the parents talked the three girls showered me with affection, I was still an infant and became like their doll. They are in only one or two pictures - it was Xmas because there was wrapping paper everywhere, and sparkly Christmas lights. Their affection ruined me. I adore women in batches of three to this day. And when Charlie's Angels came along, I was double-hooked. In college our band was inspired by three beautiful Connecticut hippie girls...  ten years later and three beautiful blonde women sat with me the rest of the night after my intervention and it was like some dream had become monkey's-paw true. Let me say up front that I adore them but not necessarily to sleep with, you understand, but to be adored by, and to adore in turn. It's hard to adore the one you sleep with, for very long, but when you keep the adoration circle sacred it last forever... or until they get old and have three kids with some mere mortal.

 1. Ryan's three blonde granddaughters in Saving Private Ryan (1998)
Even fans of Spielberg's perhaps best film have some qualms about the framing narrative involving the elderly Ryan staggering possessed and gut-broken through Arlington, his wife, daughter and three hot granddaughters walking behind from a respectful distance, like they're following a drunken baby on his first brace of steps. We never get to linger our gaze but that girl in the center with the pink tight pants and lavender shirt naturally hooks our attention.


The power of the three daughters is employed the same way it is below, for Inglourious Basterds: three beautiful daughters in an occupied Europe would be like a five year slow heart attack of anxiety for any father. These three girls sense that, and they respectfully trail behind in awe of grandfather's experience of true horror in the name of a better life for daughters everywhere; they can wear those inviting, sweet pastels. One look at them and you know they've never had a rough day in their lives. They've never been lost in the woods or fighting against huns or starving in attics or terrified under floorboards. Their soft color health bespeaks Ryan's life as a success -- the 'wealth of feminin American'  What they lack in sophistication they make up for in un-trampled surface sensuality.

2. The three darker-haired dairy farmer daughters in Inglourious Basterds (2009)
The daughters here are much darker in lighting and mood and represent, if you will, the 'before' to the Ryan's granddaughters' happy after. Ingeniously Quentin and Waltz make Hans Landa a cultured intellectual superficially charming and meticulous man, his greetings to the lovely daughters, kissing the hand of the prettiest and saddest (on the right), a redhead who looks down at him with eyes lidded to hide her weary terror. He represents the evil that has created the tension of both films, and here we see what life would be like for any nervous father with three beautiful young daughters in an occupied country run by genocidal thugs.

The lighting differences for each set of daughters is interesting (as is their appearance only in the beginning of the film) It's prologue set in modern times, the Private Ryan lighting is awash in a bright but overcast grey twilight gleaming through a threadbare flag; the father's mortality is something to mourn, but nothing to fear, compared to the hell he's already endured for our freedom. At the beginning (1941) of Basterds in the cow country of Nazi-occupied France, the very land Ryan and company would climb through in Spielberg's film, the lighting (inside the farmhouse) is Godfather dark, the lack of trees or shadow outdoors and the darkness and the relative smallness of the house inside creates a feeling of fatalistic vulnerability. This little shack could get blown out of existence with the ordinance available just in one of those motorcycles. All the farmer has is an axe to chop wood. And France has already surrendered to the Nazis to avoid inordinate destruction of their beloved Paris, itself as exposed and unfortified as that farmhouse. Here the three daughter's presence stands for Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite, the same thing it does in Spielberg's film but here they are a thousand times more vulnerable. In both films their trinity represents a bloc of innocent femininity any father would lay down his life to protect, and knows with some horror that if he fails, future generations will also end up living in fear.

Top: Clash of the Titans (2010) / Macbeth (1948)

3. The three Witches - Macbeth (1948)

'Power of Three' has to do with Alchemy. The Egyptian god Thoth or the Greek Hermes Trismegistus (Thrice Blessed or Thrice Great) are the progenitors of the Emerald Tablets describing the mysteries of Alchemy. The alchemy of three is demonstrated by its power of multiplicity. For example, in understanding the numbers - One gave rise to Two (1+1=2) and Two gave Rise to Three (2+1=3) and Three gave rise to all numbers (3+1=4, 3+2=5, 3+3=6, 3+4=7, 3+5=8 3+6=9). Thus in addition to being a number of good fortune, Three is also the number of multiplicity and alchemy among other things. Many believe the Triquetrais an ancient symbol of the female trinity, because it is composed of three interlaced yonic Vesica Pisces (a.k.a. PiscisSLatin for "Vessel of the Fish") and is the most basic and important construction in Sacred Geometry, which is the architecture of the universe. A Vesica is formed when the circumference of two identical circles each pass through the center of the other in effect creating a portal. 'The Triquetra' represents the 'Power of Three' or the threefold nature of existence i.e. body, mind and spirit; life, death and rebirth; past, present and future; beginning, middle and end; Sun, Moon and Earth; and the threefold co-creative process described as thought, word, and deed." (Crystalinks)

4. Irina Katya and Elena - The Derevko Sisters - Alias
There's numerous examples of the three sisters in television, including the three evil (or are they?) genius Russian sisters of Alias. One is Sidney Bristo's mother, a former KGB agent, the other two are even more insidious and deadly. The great thing about this early J.J. Abrams show is that his full attention seems to be on it, so the level of intelligence and forward thinking is astounding. These sisters aren't fooling around, and if there's ever some secret we learn about them, it's because they want us to know it, and so therefore it's probably not true.

20. Thence come the maidens

mighty in wisdom,

Three from the dwelling

down 'neath the tree;

Urth is one named,

Verthandi the next,--

On the wood (runes) they scored,--

and Skuld the third.

Laws they made there,

and life allotted

To the sons of men,

and set their fates.^{-- Vafþrúðnismál}

6. 3-Way Artsy Tie  Hannah and her Sisters, Cries and Whispers, The Three Sisters

If you can stand its mounting panic attack quiet, Ingmar Bergman's ultimate depressant film CRIES AND WHISPERS pays off with a tragic series of events that would stand as a good argument for gay marriage. Sweden at the turn of the century feels like one big nonstop SHINING--the endless nights and Nordic depression make isolation in red rooms (!!) a matter of being so far past the realms of time and space that those those eternal dingy lightless Nordic nights and brief but nightless summers create a national manic-depressive cycle that's been the Swedish birthright since the Ice Age.


And we learn, presumably, the origin story of all the subsequent auteur's genital self-mutilation fascinations, i.e. ANTICHRIST, BLACK SWAN and THE PIANO TEACHER; and out of the weird symbiotic passing of traits between the two living sisters at the climax comes, if nothing else, Altman's 3 WOMEN. CRIES is one of Bergman's more unflinchingly bleak films, but made with shocking confidence, and not a drop of music. Instead instead it's so quiet we can hear people breathing from whole rooms away and each toll of a clock resounds through the red rooms like some Poe like mortal disencoiler.

But also it's a film for anyone who love powerhouse acting and there's some malevolent depressive monologues so bitter they make Woody Allen's tepid INTERIORS, clearly a homage to Bergman and particularly this film--seem like one of his"earlier, funny ones." HANNAH is a better option but to me it's always seemed a little more Rohmer-esque. Then again, I quote Max Von Sydow's role nonstop. "I do not sell my art by the yard!" This is my life as it stands today!


7. The three old ladies in Love Me Tonight (1932)
Maurice Chevalier, nothing but a tailor, wins the instant approval of these three spinster aunts, immediately on his crashing the chateau where they sit and cluck amongst themselves. In their way the three ladies are the heart, soul, and Greek chorus of the picture. You know how it is: you go to meet your new girlfriend's parents for the first time and they don't like you. They count your drinks. But the cool old aunts think you're the shizz. That's how you know you're in. They're old enough to see things clearly and one thing they admire is bold masculine sass. God bless them.

8-9 - 3 WITCHES: The Three Mothers -- The Black Cat, Suspiria, Inferno, Mother of Tears
These ladies on the other hand brook no sass. 


10. Cher, Susan Sarandon, Michelle Pfeiffer - The Witches of Eastwick (1987)
But these ladies are too sexy to brook anything else.


 Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, Kathy Najimy in Hocus Pocus (1993)
And these, who knows?

Rose McGowan, Alysa Milano, Holly Marie Combs -Charmed

11. Josie and the Pussycats
Man, it's too bad this film bombed or whatever 'cuz I thought it rocked, and had a hilariously frank attitude towards product placement (the highlight are the McDonald's curtains) and Parker Posey is wunderbar as the villain. I wanted to get something on here to represent grrl power in a 90s but non-witch setting and as a segue to the next one, two pairs of three that represent the lows and glamorous fake lows of Hollywood.... the original cartoon was a favorite of my childhood. I especially liked the hot uber-bitch villainess with the skunk hair, and of course Melanie, the dumb platinum blonde drummer. And the theme song had a vein of funky soul in it... i.e. the 70s.

The Three Weird Sisters from 90s kid cartoon Gargoyles.

 12.  The Manson sisters; Sharon Tate, Patty Duke and Barbara Parkins - The Valley of the Dolls (1967)

Maybe it's the height of bad taste to link these two sets of sisters together, since the Manson girls are responsible for the slaying of Valley star Sharon Tate, one of the grisliest crimes of the era. But that's show biz and show biz is bloodthirsty, and given the subject matter of Valley of the Dolls it makes sense. We should remember that 'dolls' means Valiums, the designer drug of choice for the pampered but hard-working LA elite. As that crushing song by Andre and Dory Previn sinks any last trace of hope, the girls rise and fall and only one survives, by moving home (New England) for the winter, and getting respectable. Patty Duke falls off the wagon and ends up freaking out in a combination stage-set alleyway and closet, and Sharon Tate ODs once she realizes she'll never be free of, or satisfy, her grubbing manipulative, soul-crushing mom who doesn't care Tate has to do Eurosleaze to pay her diseased husband's medical bills. When the three 'sisters' stand together they are strong, but they don't stand together that often and even when they do we worry show business will chew them up and spit them out, use them for sex, dub it into French, and then not pay them royalties.

The Manson girls aren't officially movie stars, though they were represented in countless true crime adaptations, such as Helter Skelter, Savage Messiah, and even, in its way, I Eat Your Skin. That they continue to revere Manson, the manipulator who got them in jail for life, speaks to the undying power one can have over others when one mixes mind control and really strong acid. Most of all since there are a core three of them, united in a bizarre psychic link, as if the three witches in Macbeth if they were dumb enough to hook up with him and became three murdering Lady Macbeth witch trio combo acidhead murderer soothsayers. Just looking left at the stunning beauty of Sharon Tate, forever robbed from us by their lysergic hippie rage makes me loathe and resent the Mansons for what they did not only to this rare beauty but to the good name of hippy cults everywhere, basically validating all the older establishments fears and doubts about the LSD generation. So in a way they are the ultimate expression of the negative "Three Witches" of Macbeth, turning the world topsy turvy, creating discord, only guided by a manipulative male into bloody, violent action, instead of the reverse.... sisters help us, the world really is upside down.  Where will we / how will we / learn who we are now?