At an entrance exam to a prestigious school for theater and film directors, students were given the assignment to stage the following scene. A man and a woman come to visit their friends. How can one make it immediately clear to the audience that they are husband and wife?
“Let them share a kiss the moment they come in,” one student suggested.
“But that could mean they are lovers or boyfriend and girlfriend,” the professor said.
“Let the man grumble, ‘I wish I never married you’,” said another student.
“But how do we know they aren’t divorced?” the professor retorted.
Finally, one talented student came up with the perfect answer.
“The man should remove a handkerchief from the woman’s handbag, blow his nose, and stick the handkerchief back into the handbag without saying anything.”
Clarissa's Blog 
I knew that Tarkovsky was a genius, but I didn’t know that he demonstrated that even before he shot the first of his unbelievable movies!
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I would never do that to anyone, married to them or not. The act doesn’t demonstrate marital status, just horrific manners.
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Exactly! I’m glad I’m not alone on this one.
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What Tarkovsky did was not bad manners. Being an extremely smart person and understanding that the professor was an idiot, he did something that was up to the professor’s idiocy. Bravissimo, maestro!
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The professor was Mikhail Romm. 🙂
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Even good film directors like Mikhail Romm sometimes ask idiotic questions. 🙂 Besides, Romm was not bad as a film director, while Tarkovsky was a genius.
Speaking seriously, Romm’s question sounds really idiotic to me. But he shot a great documentary, The Ordinary Fascism, so he deserved the right to ask such questions once in a while. 🙂
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Don’t people just generally assume that any heterosexual middle-aged (35 y.o. or older) couple who enter a group together and stay together are married?
A glance at their hands for the presence or absence of wedding rings would usually give a definitive answer.
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I hope people abstain from such assumptions because they could lead us all way too far. 🙂
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Do you remember what the good soldier Svejk did to prove to the medical commission that he wasn’t an idiot? He showed the professors that they were idiots.
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The point is not that you would or you wouldn’t do that, the point is that only a married couple could allowed that behavior. Even if you, as a married person, won’t.
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The post was humorous. There is no need to fuss.
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Finally, one talented student came up with the perfect answer.
“The man should remove a handkerchief from the woman’s handbag, blow his nose, and stick the handkerchief back into the handbag without saying anything.”
Or it shows the man is her son.
My father will ask to keep all kinds of things in my mother’s purse, but he’d never reach in the purse for it. He’d ask where it is, and the used handkerchief would not end up back in the purse; it would end up in his pockets.
This is why I keep small purses. I am not interested in having enough room to carry anyone else’s things.
I’d have them come in with a casserole, and bottle of wine, greet people at the door and then immediately head to opposite corners of the room divided by sex. Only old married couples do that.
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You are right. They could totally be mother and son, especially in the USSR.
God, I hate these gender – segregated parties where the women glare at you like you are a homewrecker if you inch away from the female side of the room and the inevitable discussion of muffin recipes.
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If they were mother and son, wouldn’t the age difference give it away? I see Internet advertisements trying to marry off attractive young Russian women to older men — but never see any gender-reversed ads.
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I find this kind of question fascinating, the subtle ways that movies/plays indicate things like character relations. They have to tap into people’s unconscious associations and unexamined assumptions to be effective.
Here, the conrete example of the handkerchief is less important than the general principle. Married people (or others in longterm committed relationships but since this was the USSR that means married) usually allow their partners small broaches of personal space and autonomy that they wouldn’t allow anyone else (except maybe parent, especially mother, but I think that kind of May September marriage was frowned upon in the USSR as well).
Anyhoo, I can think of other small personal things that people wouldn’t mind their spouse doing.
She could reach over and straighten his tie without looking (she knows just exactly how it gets crooked and doesn’t need to see it to fix it).
She could take and lift his wrist to check his watch (since she’s not wearing one).
He could reach over without looking and close her open purse (since frequently forgets to close it).
One of them could make some kind of gesture that the other understands even though there’s no obvious connection (she rubs two fingers together and he straightens his tie)
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“She could reach over and straighten his tie without looking (she knows just exactly how it gets crooked and doesn’t need to see it to fix it).
She could take and lift his wrist to check his watch (since she’s not wearing one).
He could reach over without looking and close her open purse (since frequently forgets to close it).
One of them could make some kind of gesture that the other understands even though there’s no obvious connection (she rubs two fingers together and he straightens his tie)”
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“And I don’t think we ever will. But we do have a language of our own that other people do not understand (even Russian-speakers, I mean.)”
That’s what the last one is about, a visual counterpart to the kinds of opaque references that appear in the communication of longterm relationships (but which probably don’t appear much between lovers since part of that vibe is to avoid the incrustations of longterm habits).
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As long as it’s done with words, I’m fine. But I don’t read gestures at all.
All of your examples are great but my experience of the world is a bit limited by my incapacity to process much of anything other than words.
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I shall make it a point to sneeze on as many handkerchiefs as possible that aren’t mine, only to surreptitiously sneak them into as many purses and bags as possible …
“Terribly sorry, I believe you’ve dropped this …”
[horrifying other people is in fact part of my job] 🙂
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