or, “Deborah’s Theme:
400 Words on Elizabeth McGovern”:
A spoiler-ish mini
movie conversation.
The following post discusses taboo
themes, and contains language that
could be triggering.
I’m late to the “Downton Abbey” party, so I wasn’t aware (or spoiled) that one of season 4’s serials stems from the sexual assault of a major character.
This event – stupefying though off-screen – is earned narratively, by virtue of my invested connection with the players. Original properties usually have to really convince me that their using rape, implied or otherwise, isn’t either for shock value, or out of creative laxity.
Having said that, if an intrepid & shameless (mostly shameless) Reddit user hasn’t already asked what ‘The Most Disturbing Rape Scenes of All-Time’ are, I have now walked into that trap myself.
I have my own personal picks that needn’t be discussed here, but the potency of said scenes would be dissonant were it not for the mettle of the actors involved: particularly those who may not already have a propensity towards violence.
[cont’d]
One of Downton Abbey’s regulars is Elizabeth McGovern, playing the always-smiling matriarch Cora. McGovern may not be a household name, but a quick glance over her filmography surmises a hardy forty-plus years in the business.
But even prior to Downtown’s season 4, I iconized her turn as the doomed childhood sweetheart of Robert De Niro’s mobster, in spaghetti western maestro Sergio Leone’s 1984 drama “Once Upon a Time in America”: a movie that unceremoniously features them in ‘one of the most disturbing rape scenes of all-time.’
McGovern’s attack is tragically inevitable. De Niro’s ‘Noodles’ Aaronson is raised from street orphan into a teenage player for the mob, which means a new level of power: unbridled access to anything he wants at anytime, including sex. This skewered worldview is further propagated into adulthood, when a female robbery partner goads him into staged assaults during their jobs.
So it goes that Noodles, still in love with McGovern’s Deborah (who appreciates his sincerity, but not his career), takes what she chooses not to give him. Their disunion is empathetically pre-purchased by the viewer, so when the violence arrives – over two hours in – we’re horrified for Deborah, but deeply disappointed in Noodles.
Once Upon a Time in America is not a perfect movie – it’s wayy overlong; and often slovenly unsubtle, in an Italian-grindhouse style – but it’s ambitious enough to stand-up to criticism. That arguably its most controversial sequence hasn’t overshadowed its historical discourse is a testament to its broader achievements, and Miss McGovern.
//wd 10.25.2025
“Once Upon a Time in America” had a fascinating production, including a U.S. debut that saw its distributor cut the film by over an hour, and re-edit its flashback-heavy structure into chronological order (for all its home video rereleases, this is the version I’m most interested in rewatching). If you’ve never seen it, I would recommend: it has James Woods; an undervalued Ennio Morricone score; and countless moments good, bad, and ugly that will sear onto your brain. It’s a 4-out-of-5.
Poster sourced from impawards.com. Screenshot author-obtained. As of publication, the 2014 ‘Director’s Cut’ (compiled with Leone’s estate) is available to watch in Western Canada on Disney + (unsponsored).
theory of a daskeman 