Film is an excellent medium for
displaying and wrestling with practical philosophy, which includes ethics,
political theory, and philosophy of religion (as well as aesthetics, which is a
rather obvious topic for film). A film that has a character personifying a
particular philosopher’s thought and antagonists rejecting that philosophy, and
goes so far as to have a character read on-screen from a philosopher’s book, is
the epitome of film doing philosophy. The film, All That Heaven Allows (1955),
is such a film.
In the film, a widow, Cary, dates
Ron, who is younger and, to her country-club socialite friends and two adult
children, a working-class man. Ron’s circle of friends is hardly of the
country-club sort, for his friends are lower rather than upper middle-class,
and his tree business includes manual labor. However, he owns the
business and is free of any time-clock, so he is not a man in the working-class.
Although more difficult to spot in the film, the resistance may actually be to Ron’s
living out of Henry David Thoreau’s (1817-1862) philosophy. Douglas Sirk, the film’s director, relates
this philosophy to nature, as it is on display from inside Ron’s living-room
window of his newly renovated country house next to a stream. To what extent a
return to nature is necessary in living out Thoreau’s philosophy is one
question Sirk may have intended to raise with viewers. Even Thoreau himself did
not view nature in idyllic terms; nor did he advocate having to be perpetually
in it to be recharged from it. Indeed, living amid nature presents our species
with challenges, as it does Ron in the film when he falls off a cliff on his
property. In the film, this question is set through the lens of whether Ron
could be content leaving his country house to live in Cary’s house in town.
Douglas Sirk
(1897-1987) was a German (though of Danish parentage) film director who left
Nazi Germany after his Jewish wife was prosecuted for being Jewish. At Hamburg
University, he studied philosophy and history of art. Out of this background,
it is no surprise that he would Jane Wyman to hold up a copy of Thoreau’s book
as Cary in full view of a camera and read aloud in a scene. In his films, Sirk
portrayed characters trapped by social conventions sympathetically. His genre
was thus melodrama. Perhaps it was his rejection of Nazi social conventions
that gave him such sympathy for characters who suffer from such conventions;
indeed, once in Hollywood, he directed the anti-Nazi film, Hitler’s Madman (1942).
Perhaps also his move from Germany to California showed him how artificial
social conventions are—not only because they can differ so much from culture to
culture, but also because those in “tinsel town” can be so utterly petty and
fake. In any case, Sirk’s antipathy toward social convention does not necessarily
mean that he favored a return or escape to nature, and thus the sort of life
that Thoreau lived in New England.
In the film, Thoreau’s
nonconformist individualism is made explicit as Cary reads from the
philosopher’s book, Walden at the house of two of Ron’s friends, a
married couple, who also live in the country. “The mass of men live lives of
quiet desperation,” Cary reads out loud as Alida listens attentively. “Why
should we be in such desperate haste to succeed? If a man does not keep pace
with his companions, perhaps it’s because he hears a different drummer. Let him
step to the music which he hears however measured, or far away.” The
desperation is quiet because the masses repress their expressive urges in order
to conform to societal standards, which in turn is presumed necessary to
achieving and maintaining position. For example, large companies in the 1950s
favored managers who were married over than single for promotion.
After listening, Alida says in
reference to Thoreau’s book and her husband, “That’s Mick’s bible; he quotes
from it constantly.” Cary asks about Ron, and Alida answers, “I don’t think
Ron’s ever read it; he just lives it.” The audience is left with the impression
that this is clearly superior. Elaborating on her husband, Alida then says,
“Mick thought, well, like a lot of people, that if he had money and an
important position, it would make him secure. Ron had neither one and didn’t
seem to need them. [Mick] was baffled. The answer? To thine own self be true.
That’s Ron. Ron’s security comes from within himself, and nothing can ever take
it away from him. Ron absolutely refuses to let unimportant things be
important. Our whole life was devoted to keeping up with the Joneses. [Mick]
decided to get off that merry-go-round.” Outsourcing self-esteem to be
determined or even conditioned by what other people think or say does not bring
the sort of psychological stability that is based on self-acceptance “as is.”
As for external crutches like
wealth, position, and societal status, such things can be fleeting and are thus
not really reliable. Furthermore, a person can always have more money, higher
office, or societal status, so the “rat race” goes on and on. In his book, Steps to an Ecology of Mind, Gregory Bateson refers to such maximizing variables,
which increase without an internal limitation, as schizogenic forces, which he
distinguishes from the homeostatic ecologizing forces that seek an equilibrium
instead. The two types of forces are fundamentally different—qualitatively so,
differing in kind. An equilibrium, as in perpetually feeling content in one’s own
skin as Ron does, is a much better foundation for being at peace with oneself than
is a maximizing approach to external assets, whether they be money, position,
or societal status. In the film, Wall Street (1987), Bud asks his sordid
mentor, Gordon Gekko, “How much is enough, Gordon?” The Wall Street investor
replies, “It’s not a question of enough.” A person can never had enough money
to satisfy the schizogenic desire for more. Were Ron asked that question in All
that Heaven Allows, he would probably just shrug. Ron is unphased when
Cary’s son, Ned, asks, “Is there any money in trees?” Ron owns a tree business.
Ron absolutely refuses to let
unimportant things be important. Being true to himself and not trying to be
someone else to please other people are important to Ron. Cary tells her
daughter Kay, “Ron has no intention of fitting in; he’s content the way he is.”
To the social-conformist, externally-oriented mother and her two grown
children, Ron might as well be on another planet. Such different orientations
to social reality and selfhood placed in contact can spark conflict out of fear
(of the otherness of the other, as if it were inherently a threat), jealousy, resentment,
and outright anger. Ned exclaims to his mother about the possibility of her
marrying Ron. “The whole thing is impossible!” Although Ned incorrectly assumes
that Ron is working class, and objects to that, and that Cary is only
interested in Ron’s muscles, and objects to that, I submit that the real basis
of the rejection by Kay and Ned is that Ron’s center of gravity is inward, and
that is radically different than an outward, societally-oriented focus. Kay realizes
how fundamentally different these two orientations are. “Mother desires group
approval,” and she is conventional,” Kay explains to Ron. Such a fundamental
difference dwarfs differences in wealth and age. Ned’s explosive threat to his
mother evinces an eruption of strong emotion too disproportionate to be
accounted for by an objection to Ron’s relative economic condition. “Don’t
expect me to come visit you! How could I bring my friends,” Ned nearly shouts, “I’d
be ashamed!” The age difference between Cary and Ron, and Ron’s financial
situation are not so obvious that Ned’s friends would be embarrassed. Something
more is going on: two fundamentally different orientations to self-worth are
put in contact and are clashing.
Unwilling to adapt, emotionally
stunted, and trapped as if in a tomb, Cary, Kay and Ned unconsciously may feel
envious, threatened and perhaps even inferior standing next to Ron’s inner
peace. Even Cary rejects Ron, and in so doing, the philosophy that he lives by.
“The only thing that matter is us,” Ron pleads with Cary as he sees her being
pulled by the gravity of the egos around her. Things that happen in the past
are unimportant, Ron assures her. Which car the couple takes to the socialites’
party at Sarah’s house doesn’t matter. That a woman at the party says with
disdain in seeing Ron’s car, “Just look at that car!” doesn’t matter. That a
man says, “So that’s Cary’s nature boy” doesn’t matter. That Cary accidently
breaks the tea pot that Ron has fixed does not matter. Finally, that Cary is
staying late at Ron’s doesn’t matter. Ron’s ability to put things in
perspective comes from the fact that he is true to himself and thus doesn’t not
feel the need to become someone else to please others.
To people oriented to
people-pleasing in order to feel accepted, and thus of value, Ron’s
dismissiveness of the truly unimportant could be annoying. People do argue
about what is important. Even though Ron and Cary can start a new life in the
mill that he has renovated to create a home for him and her, I think Ron would
move in with Cary at her house were she to insist. To live among people who are
alike in how they are fundamentally different from oneself cannot be easy, even
for someone like Ron whose sense of inner-worth does not depend on what others
say or think about him. To be sure, being comfortable in his own shoes, whether
boots or slippers, Ron doesn’t have to live in nature, and Thoreau would agree
that it is not necessary; periodic refreshers are sufficient. However,
socializing with Cary’s friends would be difficult. The only time Ron’s anger
flares is at the party at Sarah’s house, which is filled with the wealthy
socialites who know Cary. Those guests blame Ron for scolding Howard for kissing
Cary against her will. It is actually Cary who pushes Howard back, so Ron is quite
obviously being scapegoated. Whether caused by fear, dislike, or jealousy in
others, being scapegoated can take a hard psychological toll on anyone, even
someone such as Ron whose emotional stability does not rest on external
acceptance. A person can take only so much, and Ron’s flash of anger at the
party may suggest that Ron would ultimately leave Cary’s world, with or without
her. There are limits even to what self-acceptance can tolerate in a hostile
environment.
In the movie Animal House
(1978), a “nerd” and a fat guy go to a rush party of a college fraternity; they
are quickly directed to sit with the other “losers” while the actual potential
pledges are allowed to socialize with the head of the fraternity and other
members, which includes the editor of the student newspaper. The two guys would
never be accepted in that fraternity; in fact, they would be teased and
ultimately rejected where they to stay. Fortunately, they find a frat where
they fit.
Fortunately, Cary enjoys herself at the party given by Ron’s friends even though she knows she is different. Yet unlike Cary’s friends of Ron, Ron’s friends are tolerant and include her in the fun. Furthermore, Ron and Cary can be a couple at that party. So even though Cary is scared and emotionally beholden to her children and socialite friends, she is attracted to Ron’s world. After all, it is her who reads Thoreau. Philosophy can indeed play a salient role in film.