The New Romance (But I Liked the Old One)

By happenstance, a couple of movies have come my way recently that ended up surprising me. One of them was the 2007 version of A Room With a View (from E.M. Forster's novel), and the other was last year's Before Midnight, the third in a series of romances starring Ethan Hawke and Julia Delpy. Both movies play with and in some ways topple expectations set either by prior versions of the same story (A Room With a View) or previous films in the series (Before Midnight).

A Room With a View is set in the Edwardian age and concerns a respectable but inwardly adventurous young woman named Lucy on holiday with her chaperone in Italy. While there, she meets and is attracted to a young man who is not only of a different social standing but whose father is a socialist. Lucy gets engaged to another man, Cecil, who is outwardly suitable but emotionally incompatible with her. The first young man, George, shows up in Lucy's village back home, and she is faced with the problem of deciding whether to honor her attraction to a young man who loves her or take the conventional route of marrying the respectable but insufferable Cecil.

The theme of the story is authenticity, or the lack thereof, as it relates to passion and love. In Lucy's world, passion is a disreputable thing, especially if paired with unconventionality. Many of the people around her feel that appearances are more important than truth, and Lucy partly believes this herself; the main reason for her engagement seems to be a wish to protect herself from a strong vein of emotion that she recognizes, fears, and is encouraged to discount. Her decision to break her engagement and trust her feelings for George is a tremendous act of rebellion.

The 2007 TV movie goes further than the lovely 1986 Merchant-Ivory film by including a coda dimly inspired, apparently, by Forster himself but not included in the version of the novel I read. Instead of ending with the newlyweds in Florence, the TV movie concludes with Lucy alone in Italy, George having died in World War I. The revelation of George's death comes as a shock, and the reason for the film's introduction, in which actress Gillian Anderson rather chillingly invites viewers to decide for themselves whether letting Italy "change your life" is a good thing or a bad thing, is finally clear if no less strange. Are we supposed to think Lucy would have been better off if she'd never met George?

I take it that the more modern version of the story is attempting to tamp down the romance with a dose of reality: this is what happens once they live "happily ever after." It's true that George, in real life, would have been likely to meet such a fate, and in a way I admired the gumption of this production. On further reflection, though, it began to seem as if tacking a second story with a different emotional vibe onto the first one had more to do with shock value than realism. The beginning and end of the story don't seem to match; however, I can see that someone coming to this film knowing nothing of its antecedents might not see a disconnect. It might become, for that person, a different story, a darker one about the uncertainty of life, not an ode to being true to yourself. In the 21st century, we're supposed to be over those old hang-ups, so perhaps this film wanted to be about something else.

Before Midnight induces a similar cognitive dissonance in its look at two lovers who met on a train in their youth, reunited nine years later, and nine years further on are the parents of twins, weighted down with worries over kids and careers but apparently still happy. The first two films in the series were wistful, cheery, and romantic. There are a few signs in the third movie of darker undercurrents in the relationship, but overall the film maintains a gentle, humorous approach to its protagonists until a final, protracted fight scene in which resentments boil over into ugly words, venom, and incompatible viewpoints.

Holy mackerel! Personally, I've never had a fight like this one, but I'm sure many long-time couples would say it's realistic. Evidently, a decision was made with this film to brings things out of soft focus and into the nitty gritty, but the difference in tone between this and the first two films is a bit shocking. I'm surprised the script didn't find a way to explore the tensions inevitable in a long-term relationship with a bit more humor in keeping with the élan of the earlier films. Even fighting can be funny, but here the two people actually become unlikeable, and one is left not really caring if they stay together or not. It's not the movie you think you're going to see.

So, is romance dead in the edgy new light of the 21st century? Are we supposed to believe now not that it's everlasting but that it never lasts? Of course, it depends on the people and the circumstances, but I would take a less harsh view than either of these two films. Is it "better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all"? I think most people would still say "yes." I don't know that I'd ever say "happily ever after," but I would say "it's up to you." Isn't romance simply an opening?

Seventh Heaven

The other night I watched, or rather re-watched, Wings of Desire, Wim Wenders' rumination on angels and humans. I first saw this movie, if I remember correctly, in 1992, and though I've thought about it many times since then, I hadn't seen it again until Wednesday night.

In the film, angels exist unseen (except by the very young and perhaps a few others), brooding, watching over, and sometimes helping people without their awareness. The setting is 1980s Berlin, which looks rather austere and lonely from an angel's-eye view (and from a human view as well). Parents, children, subway passengers, library patrons, circus performers, clubgoers, passersby on the street . . . all seem caught up in isolated worlds, although the angels can hear their thoughts and sometimes intervene in their lives in small, delicate ways.

How much less lonely would all those Berliners be if they knew where that encouraging thought, in the moment of deepest despair, really came from, or with how much sympathy their private sorrows were known, or the degree of anguish with which angels view human suffering. And how surprised would they be if they knew with what longing angels sometimes view their troubled, painful, complicated, but glorious mortal lives full of color, sensation, tastes, smells, and three-dimensional embodiment. Yes, as it turns out, eternal life can be tiresome; omniscience and invisibility are not all you might expect. Sometimes all you really want is a hot cup of coffee, the feel of the sidewalk under your feet, and a good hamburger.

One of the angels, Damiel, falls in love with a trapeze artist, Marion, whose costume includes an awkward pair of wings that make it difficult for her to perform. In one scene, Damiel paces below, invisibly and nervously, as Marion does her act, dazzling and graceful but all too fragile with her imaginary wings. After observing her loneliness for some time, Damiel tells another angel, Cassiel, that he's decided to give up eternal life and become human. It turns out this is an option for angels that's taken more frequently than people realize.

Damiel gets his wish and wakes up one day on the ground to the rude sensation of his breastplate thunking him on the head. He wanders about with a bleeding scalp, drunk with the rapture of having a living, breathing body. It is now apparent that, without his omniscience and ability to fly and walk through walls, he will have to search for Marion, and it takes an effort to find her. They meet at last in the bar of a club where Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds are performing, and the connection is instantaneous. At the movie's end, Damiel spots Marion, his true love, as she practices, anchoring the rope watchfully while she dances above him. Who's the angel now? It's obvious that in Damiel's eyes, it's Marion, a struggling trapeze performer with a traveling circus that can't pay its bills.

Imagine, angels giving up eternity to slum for a few years on this old earth--and being grateful for the privilege! Not on the Riviera either, or in Beverly Hills, Miami Beach, or The Hamptons. In Berlin, a city of broken buildings and urban desolation still suffering from the wounds of its past. You'd think there must be something truly wonderful in the world to make an angel, who's above all the earthly cares that weigh the human race down, fall to ground and throw in his lot with the rest of us. But what could it be? Are we missing something?

Colors and Memories

We're making the transition around here into fall, and it was really evident today. Yesterday when I walked to the library, a heavy rainfall had made the field behind the sports center as fresh and green as May; the major tell-tale signs of September were a few scattered brown leaves on the sidewalk. But somehow, overnight, the oak tree on my street has let loose a load of acorns, the air is cool and damp, and the sky has turned gray.

When the harvest moon rose a few days ago, it almost seemed too soon for it. We've been having summery weather, including thunderstorms, and the trees and lawns still had the look of July, if not June. The night before it was full, the moon had an evanescent spring appearance, rising pale and ghostly above the rooftops in a sky still full of daylight. Cicadas were shrilling, and the air was muggy. Now, just a few days later, the grocery store has a huge pumpkin display, leaves are falling in greater numbers, and the summer heat is nowhere to be found.

Well, fair enough. The summer days seemed to just melt away, so that it's hard to believe the entire season has come and gone, but fall is often brilliant around here, and change, as they say, is life. Sometimes a dry summer causes drab fall colors, but with all the rain we've had this summer, we may really have something to look forward to as the leaves begin to turn.

I still clearly remember our first fall in Kentucky, after we moved back here from Florida, many years ago. Days of an unbelievably gray, wet dreariness, in stark contrast to the hot, bright light of Florida, alternated with glowing days in which dazzling orange and yellow leaves stood out so sharply against the cloudless blue that it almost hurt your eyes. That's autumn in Kentucky, which can veer from crisp and energetic to funereal and back again many times over.

When I was out walking earlier, acorns crunching underfoot, I had a sudden memory of myself as a first-grader in Florida, coloring in leaves and acorns with those big, fat Crayolas they make for young children, helping to decorate the classroom for fall. I can still see those autumnal browns and oranges, which were largely conceptual for me, since colors didn't change much with the seasons where we lived, practically in the Everglades. We imagined fall (and winter). How nice it would be to be able to see this fall's colors with imaginative beginner's eyes all over again.

Sounding Brass School of Oratory

A news item on CNN caught my eye the other day: in it, President Obama said he blamed the media for stirring up fears and making things seem worse than they are in our country. Here's a link to the story:

http://www.cnn.com/2014/09/01/politics/president-obama-media/

After I posted the link to the article, along with my reaction to it, on my Facebook page, I noticed it was not showing up in my news feed. I had to post it a second time before it appeared, and that little difficulty got me to thinking about the importance I attach to freedom of speech.

I'll repeat what I said on Facebook: yes, one must be judicious in evaluating news sources. You definitely can't believe everything you hear, and no librarian would ever say otherwise. However, it's the media's job to report the facts, even when they're unpleasant, not to be a public relations outlet for the status quo. I appreciate the complexities we're all facing but would respect the president more for acknowledging the country's mood instead of blaming the messenger. That's a diversionary tactic that, to my mind, insults the public's intelligence. My sense is that people are responding appropriately to sobering realities while trying to figure out the best way forward.

It's true: we're facing a difficult set of circumstances. But blaming the messenger is a species of logical fallacy, which I'm sure the president knows as well as I do.

I agree with him that America is a great nation, insofar as its founding principles and its people go, imperfections notwithstanding. The difficulty I see, as I discussed in a previous post about our current guiding myth (see "Shall We Gather at the River?"), is that power has shifted away from the people and into the hands of monied interests. This has happened gradually, and many factors have contributed, but the end result is that the story most Americans believe in--the one about freedom and opportunity--is not the story we're being governed by. There are now conflicting stories, and one of them is called "It's About the Money."

It's sad to say it, but there have been times in recent memory when "patriotism" seemed synonymous with "jingoism." If you considered yourself a patriot but didn't go along with the "Might Makes Right" style of things, you felt uncomfortable. If you called yourself a patriot, would people assume you supported every clause of the Patriot Act, even the ones that infringed on your rights? If you displayed a flag, would people assume you were a hawk? If you believed that the duty of a patriot is to question things, would people call you un-American? These were real questions.

For better or for worse, it now seems fashionable for Democrats as well as Republicans to openly drape themselves in the flag. The trouble I have with it, as regards politicians, is that it often comes across as self-serving, as if they're trying their darnedest to bask in Lady Liberty's reflected glow while having circumvented--in numerous, cynical ways--all that she stands for. Gilded phrases about America have a hollow sound falling from the lips of people who wouldn't know "making ends meet" from a golf outing but know exactly where Wall Street is.

There's a verse from Corinthians that comes to mind: "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I am become as sounding brass, or a clanging cymbal." As we know, it's always a good idea to judge more by what people do than by what they say, but since they will talk, I've made it a practice to watch their body language and to notice how I feel when they speak. This can be quite revealing sometimes.