Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles

The film’s title, “Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles,” (1975) is nothing but the name of the principal character, a widowed single mother of a teenage son, Sylvian, followed by her mailing address, complete with the zip-code 1080 and her apartment number 23. Her mundane daily life matches the generic title being her name and full address. To be sure, Dielman’s apartment is a ubiquitous fixture as the film’s setting, and the object of the lead character’s daily household chores, which she does so dispassionately and so often that the film can be reckoned as a statement on the utter meaninglessness than can come to inhabit a solitary person’s life when it excludes interpersonal intimacy and even God.

Even though meaningless and boredom can easily be felt in watching the film for 3 hours and 21 minutes, and seen on the screen as Jeanne Dielman goes from task to task, the film hints of going beyond the banality of the mundane when Sylvian admits to his mother that he no longer believes in God, and when he did, as a kid, he thought the sexual act of penetration must be so hurtful to a woman that the act evinces God’s wrath. He adds that he does not understand why a woman would have sexual intercourse with a man whom she doesn’t love. Jeanne replies, “You don’t know what its like to be a woman.” Indeed, kept secret from her son, she regularly prostituted herself in the apartment during the afternoons for extra cash. The dialogue here relates an angry and then an absent deity to sex without love. Given the potential of the medium of film to elucidate theological and ethical thought, the filmmaker could have had the film elaborate on the dialogue as it relates sexual ethics and theology.

Moreover, even though the lack of meaning in watching Dielman cook, clean, and go on errands can be felt by viewers, the instinctual urge for meaning, as described by the scholar, Victor Frankl, in Man’s Search for Meaning, could be discussed in dialogue, and related explicitly to theological questions, such as why a benevolent and omnibenevolent deity would create a species that could wallow in meaningless. Is not a person’s life to have purpose? To be sure, the lack thereof can be inferred in Sylvian and his mother, Jeanne. Furthermore, if God is love, as Paul and Augustine explicitly state in their respective writings, then doesn’t it follow that emotional intimacy is part of the human condition? Of course, both a sense of meaning in life and purpose can, with free will, be denied oneself, without thereby implying any wrath of God or blight.

The scant dialogue between Jeanne and Slyvian when they are in the apartment at in the evenings plays into the lack of intimacy and meaning in their mother-son relation, and the same is likely so in their respective relationships with other people. There is not even a television set in the apartment even though the film takes place in 1974. They do have a radio, but it is not on much. Even in the rigid way in which Sylvian sits on the sofa-bed in the living room after dinner, it is clear that the apartment is not much of a home.

Therefore, it would admittedly be out of sync to have the two have a sustained dialogue on ethics and religion. It is almost as if both characters were robots. In fact, after Jeanne is uncharacteristically lively, including with facial expressions, as she has an intense orgasm with a man who pays her for sex, she quickly returns to her automaton condition of expressionless action and even staid, cold inaction. It is from that condition, rather than out of passion, that she nonchalantly stabs the man with scissors and calmly walks away and sits motionless and expressionless at her dining-room table. The viewers are left to figure out why she murders the man, and the film ends before Sylvian returns so even that “payoff” is denied the film’s viewers, who are thus left without a sense of meaning. Perhaps in returning to her mundane, meaningless, and godless daily life, Jeanne Dielman essentially commits suicide in that she would undoubtedly be in prison for a long time. That she sometimes sits in a chair motionless and expressionless in the film would fit with being in a prison cell and connotes death.  

Not even functionalism can save Jeanne Dielman from her plight of inner emptiness. Is this the denouement of insular secularism? If the need for meaning is engrained in our very makeup, does the refusal or inability to meet that need end in self-destructiveness? This is not to say that a person must believe in a deity to escape the black hole of meaninglessness, for humanists can surely find meaning that does not have a transcendent referent. Even so, the message of the film may be that meaningfulness, as well as emotional intimacy, is not to be found in a life of functionalism as a series of work-tasks and even in identifying oneself by one’s job title, whether that be a plumber or a house-maker. This is not a story of oppression, as Jeanne tells Sylvian that she had wanted to be a single mother. Nor was anyone, or society, forcing her to be a prostitute; it was not like she could not enjoy the sex with men whom she didn’t love. Yet she seems somehow trapped, internally, in a meaningless and loveless life.

Robin Williams: Comedic Creativity and Dramatic Depth from Severe Depression?

A month or two before Robin Williams' untimely and unfortunate suicide,  I read a piece whose author posited the possibility that much of the best writing has been penned by authors struggling with the disease known as major depression. I suppose the explanation would be that creativity is a way to break out of the dullness of the ordinary, to stimulate the mind out of its malaise. It is as if the suffering are reaching upwards, as if out of a sense of desperation known only to the unconscious. At the same time, the tendency of depression to dive deep within, to find or sink to a more meaningful, subterranean basis can easily translate into providing a narrative with depth. The combination of creativity and depth may be the hallmark of excellent story-telling, as well as the ravaging disease to which Robin Williams succumbed. In his acting, he was incredibly creative in his comedy even as he was fully capable of deep emotions in dramatic roles. In fact, behind the creative comedic façade may lie just such emotions, and in the dramatic we might catch the edges of a quick smirk that says, "Hey, don't take all this so seriously, even though I do. I can't help it."

Citizen Kane: A Virtue Hearst Never Had

In Citizen Kane (1941), Charles Kane is not a replica of William Randolph Hearst. As a young, wealthy man running a newspaper, the character embodies a politico-economic ideal in both word and deed that Hearst only used as a campaign slogan. As per Kane's Statement of Principles, the young publisher is willing to diminish his own wealth held in stock in other companies in exposing the exploitive and corrupt money-bags in big corporations and trust who prey on the otherwise-unprotected working poor and presumably consumers too. For his part, Hearst merely published a daily oriented to the poor man.  As Kane's early ideal is a principle recognizable to, and even resonating with, virtually any audience, Welles' inclusion of the ideal in the film contributes to its endurance as a classic.

Hearst papers twice called for someone to put a bullet into William Mckinley.  When the U.S. president was fatally wounded on September 6, 1901, the American people turned on Hearst, even burning him in effigy. He ran for mayor of New York City, Governor of New York, and even for president, and lost all of those races. He did get elected to serve a term in the U.S. House of Representatives, but hardly ever showed up on Capitol Hill. His passions lied elsewhere than in listening to floor speeches, attending roll-call votes, and questioning witnesses at Congressional hearings. He found he had more power using his newspapers to shape public opinion.[1] I suspect he had very little regard for the public good, and thus any true interest in politics as a means.

Even though Hearst advocated the eight-hour work-day and an income tax, his purported intent to be the servant of the immigrants and working poor would be discredited by his vehement opposition to unions, including firing his employees who were members of the guild, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt raising the income tax rate on incomes over half a million. Antipodal to his earlier support for an income tax, he called the income tax system “intrusive, despotic, discriminatory, and perhaps revolutionary.”[2] Repealing the tax would be better for “the honesty, the industry, the wealth, and the welfare of the whole [population] of Americans.”[3] Facing demands from his creditors at the time, Hearst was actually looking out for the wealth, his appeal to the public good being a mere prop, or trope.

Charles “Citizen” Kane, on the other hand, was willing to use his papers to attack corrupt companies even in which he himself held stock. Speaking with his ex-guardian, Walter Thatcher, about the paper’s crusade against the Public Transit Company, in which Kane is one of the largest individual stockholders, the newspaper editor/company stockholder delivers the following as an explanation for his apparent willful disregard for his own financial interests.

“Mr. Thatcher, the trouble is you don't realize you're talking to two people. As Charles Foster Kane, who owns eighty-two thousand three hundred and sixty-four shares of Public Transit prefer, you see, I do have a general idea of my holdings. I sympathize with you. Charles Foster Kane is a scoundrel, his paper should be run out of town and a committee should be formed to boycott him. You may, if you can form such a committee, put me down for a contribution of one thousand dollars.”[4]

In other words, Kane knows that he is doing real damage to his financial position in going after the company. This point is essential, and warrants an explanation. So he continues,

“On the other hand, I am the publisher of the Inquirer. As such, it is my duty, I’ll let you in on a little secret, it is also my pleasure—to see to it that decent, hard-working people of this community aren’t robbed blind by a pack of money-mad pirates just because they haven’t anybody to look after their interests! I’ll let you in on another little secret, Mr. Thatcher. I think I’m the man to do it. You see I have money and property. If I don't look after the interests of the underprivileged, maybe somebody else will, maybe somebody without any money or property and that would be too bad.”[5]

Kane is wearing two hats, one of which he readily admits can indeed work against the other. He appeals to his duty as a journalist (and a wealthy man)—a duty that he enjoys (which is Kant’s ideal)—to, as Sen. Alan Simpson (R-WY) was fond of saying on the floor of the U.S. Senate, “fight for the little guy.” I suspect that the secret behind Kane’s motive here lies in the powerlessness that he had as a boy when his mother made him leave her and his beloved sled, Rosebud. As his dying word attests, Kane never got over being forced to leave his boyhood home; but he could get some vicarious satisfaction exposing commercial cases of exploitation and corruption at the expense of the powerless. The virtue, Nietzsche would say, is actually the instinct to power overcoming obstacles in order to feel the pleasure of power. Poised against the robber barons, Kane thus has a passion for going after corruption at the expense of the innocent even if Kane’s own stock portfolio takes a hit in the process. His passion for justice is greater than his greed. Translated by Nietzsche, the will to power the main human instinct, and thus motive.

To be sure, Kane doubtlessly wants the power in politics; after all, he runs for governor (as Hearst did).  Even so, not many candidates for public office actually go after corrupt fat cats who scrape off even more off hardened sweat off the backs of the hard-working laborer, or knowingly rip off consumers. Precisely for this reason, the practice is not a bad political investment. Had Hearst actually watched the film (he claimed later he had not), he might have learned a valuable political lesson. Sacrificing one’s private interests for the public welfare can reap tremendous political benefits. Not many wealthy individuals are willing to expose injustices by speaking truth to power. Typically, they conclude that they have too much on the line to risk going after the bad guys. Hence, being one of the few to do so—knowingly taking a financial hit in the process—is a valuable political commodity.

In cinematic terms, putting an ideal such as justice above the vice of greed, a feat that even a flawed person like Charlie Kane can accomplish, is a timeless principle audiences through the centuries will be able to appreciate.[4] Hence, like Rick’s willingness in Casablanca to sacrifice personally not only for Elsa, but also for the larger anti-Nazi cause, Kane’s principle can be expected to contribute to Citizen Kane continuing on as a classic.

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1 For this and the preceding points in the paragraph, see “The Battle Over Citizen Kane,” The American Experience, WGBH Educational Foundation, 1996.

2. Ibid.

3. Ibid.

4. Script of Citizen Kane.

5. Ibid.

6. To be sure, the virtue in a person being willing to diminish one’s overall financial position by using it for a larger cause necessitates having sufficient assets. In this sense, this virtue is like munificence, which differs from liberality in that the amount of money given is much larger. Even though not every viewer of Citizen Kane will not be able to identify with such virtues personally, everyone can value the sacrifice of private interest for public good, and thus have an emotional connection to the movie. 

Casablanca: What Makes a Film into a Classic?

Like books and songs, many movies have been made that cannot escape their particular time. In writing my academic book, for example, I aspired to speak beyond those living to generations not yet born because my aim was the production of knowledge beyond mere artifacts of the world in which I live. I knew that the verdict on whether the text passes that crucial test could only come long after my own death. Among films, even though Casablanca is a film immersed in, and thus reflecting its time—the context in 1942 being of course World War II—the film transcends all that to resonate in the following century. In his oral commentary, Rudy Behlmer argues that the film “transcends time.” He goes on to provide us with a list of the usual suspects behind what lies behind the making of a classic.

Firstly, the interplay of the characters still resonates, in that it means something to people outside of that context and is thus still able to illicit emotional responses. In this sense, the film still lives. For example, being torn between two lovers is hardly a dated concept, as the experience renews itself in each generation. Rick’s dejected mood following being betrayed while in love is also something that resonates with many people, and undoubtedly in generations to come. Unfortunately, even a corrupt public official, personified as Louis in the film, is all too familiar to us today, whereas Laslo’s willingness to sacrifice for a higher purpose is largely lost in all the tussle of the business-oriented, consumerist cultures today. Yet the salience of the ideals—sacrifice and renunciation in fighting the good fight against the bad guys—still resonate because ideals themselves are timeless.

Secondly, although Laslo and Louis may be too cliché, Bogart’s character (Rick) is both complex and dynamic (i.e., follows a character arc). As Behlmer puts it, “he is not a bad guy . . . He was an idealist, lost it, and then regained it.” Additionally, Elsa is not some stereotypical love object, and she undergoes changes as well. She becomes caught in the emotional struggle of loving two men in different ways or for different reasons. Rick too is conflicted, most notably whether to send Elsa on with her husband. In fact, as Roger Ebert points out in his oral commentary, the German-expressionistic lighting being associated with the two characters on screen sends a message of emotional turmoil to the viewer’s subconscious. Both this multi-layered approach and internal emotional conflict itself help the film resonate with viewers in any era.

Lastly, the build-up of suspense, owing in part to the difficulty a first-time viewer has in predicting the ending, points to the plot itself as contributing to the film having become a classic. Weaving together strands from melodrama (i.e., plot-driven), drama (i.e., character-driven), comedy, and suspense-thriller helps the film itself avoid stereotyping and provides it with a certain multivalency—a term that Margaret Mead applies to symbol. Perhaps having a multidimensionality renders a film more interesting, and in this respect too makes it more likely that a film will survive into succeeding eras.

In Socrates’s dialogues, both narrative and dialogue of course are salient. In reading them, I noticed that very little that only an ancient Greek would be familiar with is in the texts. The orientation being philosophical, timeless ideas are major players, and, in The Apology at least, the narrative of an innocent man being put on trial and sentenced to death still resonates. In fact, early Christian theologians such as Jerome and Tertullian wrote of Socrates as anticipating Christianity as a “Christ figure.” In fact, the notion of the immortality of the soul comes from Socrates’s Meno (pre-bodily existence being necessary for us to be able to recall knowledge not taught). In short, avoiding things that people in other epochs could not know and privileging ideals and principles that transcend a particular time and place may be vital ingredients to making a film into a classic.