I find it strange and rather creepy that the teachers had an infatuation with Miranda, who was about 12. One of them even described her as "a Botticelli angel." I can understand Miranda's peers having a girl crush, but adult women? Imagine if it were grown men describing a 12-year-old boy as an adonis.
shareBased on what we see on screen, there's no way Miranda was 12. She was easily 16. In any case, it's very common for straight females to comment on the physical appearance of other females (indeed I think often straight women worry more about passing muster with other straight women than actually pleasing men), including younger girls, and the comment that Miranda looked like a Botticelli angel is hardly a particularly lustful-sounding one.
shareIn the film, Miranda was about 17 years old, and Anne Lambert was 19 when she played the role. 12 years old? No way.
Regarding everyone's obsession with Miranda, it's the Laura Palmer effect - a striking, radiant, blonde-haired, natural beauty. The potency of her beauty is explicit in the first scene of the film where we as viewers are struck by the perfect contours of her face with its closed eyes as she lays there silently. She was kind in spirit too, but it's Miranda's physical appearance that people get hung up on: Michael, who experienced love at first sight upon seeing Miranda and thereafter the memory of her beauty was symbolized by a white swan, and the French teacher who likened Miranda's beauty to Botticellis' Venus.
www.huffingtonpost.com/nathan-j-winograd/PETA-KILLS-PUPPIES-KITTENS_b_ 2979220.html
Also, her telling Sarah she would leave soon can be reasonably interpreted as her being a senior, which would put her in the 17-19 range.
shareMiranda has to be at least 15, more likely 17.
I am old teacher so I can see how this "in awe" might work. Miranda is a beautiful girl, respectful to schoolmates and teachers alike, and has an "it" quality that attracts others. Strong indications she will be a successful young lady once she leaves the school.
Most teachers are attracted to a pupil like that, want to be part of the esteem of her eventual success. Miranda doesn't need as much guidance as Sarah and Edith do but gets the awe and extra attention because she seems a sure credit to the school's good name. It does not have to be a sexual attraction necessarily, but I would not dismiss individual teacher's thoughts on the matter.
The whole setting is creepy, overdressed girls and women traveling over a hot and dusty road to have a picnic. The relationship between teachers and pupils not what they may seem.
The age issue's already been addressed. Miranda might have been a "head girl," which is common in the British school system, in which case the other students would have looked to her as a leader and role model.
I didn't see that "Botticelli angel" comment as anything creepy. In the book, Mademoiselle had a boyfriend, later fiance...I doubt she'd be creeping around the schoolgirls.
A bit of topic but along the lines it is like reading comments from fans of the Russian Imperial family. Most of the female fans who are in their tweens, teens have huge debate on who is the most beautiful of the four daughters of Nicholas II.
Because the daughters are attractive and were brutally murdered there is as some said an angelic ethereal image of the daughters especially as there is so many photographs of them prior to their arrest in 1917.
This is like the case of Miranda not only beauty but inner beauty and sweetness.
Thank you for your post Joise.
I used to read a lot of history of the Imperial family as well, and you made a perfect comparison, that I hadn't realized, until I read your comments.
Thanks!!!!
A++++
On topic, look at the film the girls wear the same Edwardian finery that the Russian Grand Duchesses wear in their photographs
shareshe wasn't human, she was some kind of an angel of love or goddess of love if you will in human form
so many movies, so little time
She was the elder. She was 17 in the novel.-
Any thougth