Shir Hashirim

Professor Leon Oppenheimer, a composer, his wife Anna, their son Dave and Anna's eighty-year-old father Aaron, a middle-class Jewish family from New York, have invited Aaron's twin brother Moses and his orphaned granddaughter Lily to their summer house in the mountains. Leon, who suffers from eye problems, has been composing his new opera, Shir Hashirim , or "Song of Songs," while Dave has fallen in love with the beautiful Lily. After two weeks, Dave complains to Anna that Lily is planning to return to the city because she thinks that Leon dislikes her. Anna tells Dave that she is sure Leon is pleased when Lily sings his new songs. When Leon returns from a visit to the doctor, Anna tries to get him to stop working so that he will not strain his eyes, and they argue, but soon reconcile. When Lily sings as Leon plays, he exclaims that his soul is rejuvenated through her singing, and she tells him that she desires to melt her soul with his melodies. Anna and Rose, a friend who is secretly in love with Dave, see Lily and Leon together and realize that they are deeply in love. Anna worries, not only for herself and Dave, but for Leon, who could become blind from the least excitement. She resigns herself, however, to face the future and tells Rose that troubles have made her strong. When Dave tells his father that he loves Lily and wants to marry her, Leon says he won't allow it. Seeing that Leon is upset by Dave, Anna sends Dave out of the room, and Leon appreciatively says she is like a mother to him. Anna bridles at this and reminds Leon that she was once his "shining star," but that she became old and gray caring for him while he was in the hospital with bandages over his eyes. Leon promises that in three months, after the opera is produced, they will be happy again. Sometime later, Leon and Lily go for a walk in the forest, and after they both confess that they have been inspired by the other, Lily wants to kiss him, but Leon, extremely agitated, calls her a vampire and a siren. Back at the cottage, Dave finds Lily crying, and after he confesses his love, she refuses his proposal. Leon, meanwhile, tells Anna that he is afraid of himself and that they should go back to the city. Leon has now decided that Lily and Dave should marry, but Lily finds Leon alone and expresses her love to him. When he says that she is destroying his spirit and accuses her of trapping him, she starts to cry, whereupon Leon, very moved, asks her forgiveness. In a moment of extreme passion, he decides that they should love each other and not worry about tomorrow, and they leave together. Three months later, in the city, Rose, who has turned down a suitor because she still loves Dave, tries to talk Dave into going to the premiere of his father's Shir Hashirim and says that Leon and Lily have lived apart although sometimes they see each other. Dave, who rages against his father, confesses that he loves Lily even more than before. After the successful performance, Leon and Lily go to a cabaret, where he tells her that he is suffering and encourages her to stop loving him and to marry Dave. Lily tells Leon she loves him and offers him her youth, dreams, love and life. Leon thinks that maybe he can still be happy with her, and they plan to go away together. Just then, Dave arrives and shoots Lily to avenge his mother. Lily is only wounded slightly in the arm, but Leon goes blind from the excitement. He cries out that he wants to go home, and after a visit to the doctor, Dave brings him home. When Leon learns that Lily has disappeared, he takes Dave's hand and tells him that only words passed between him and Lily. He asks for forgiveness, and Dave says he believes him. When Leon expresses misery that he will be alone and blind, Anna, who has been listening silently, tells him that her eyes will be his and that she will take care of him.