Companion Notes to Remains of the Day

The following is a sort of running commentary on the movie, Remains of the Day.  I wrote it while watching the movie.  The movie is subtle and deep.  I don’t get poems.  I like them if they are clever or rhyme, but not if they’re too deep. So when I do really start to catch on, I get excited.  This movie is like a poem.  If you can grasp the meaning by just watching, you might not be too entertained by this blog post.  It’s full of spoilers and observations about the plot.  Another aspect of this essay is that because I wrote it during the movie, it alternates tenses.  If I speak in past tense, I’m referring to something that happened earlier in the movie, but which I was just pulling together later.  If it’s in the present tense I am either making a point about the theme of the story or discussing events unfolding before my eyes on the screen.  Rather than making the tone consistent throughout, I have preserved the original, hoping that the natural flow will communicate more about how my thoughts were developing.  I’m essentially inviting you to view the movie with me. 

 

“I’m not leaving.  I’ve nowhere to go.  I have no family.  I’m a coward…  I’m frightened of leaving and that’s the truth.  All I see out in the world is loneliness, and it frightens me.  That’s all my high principles are worth.  I’m ashamed of myself.”  Emma Thompson plays the housekeeper in Remains of the Day, opposite butler Anthony Hopkins.  She’s not afraid of confessing who she is.  In fact, I’d say she’s more afraid of not telling who she is. 

 

It’s a movie all about loneliness: on one side about trying to feel nothing or at least to show no feelings.  Actions and words went together to prove dignity, the hallmark of British society.  The main characters never talked, then encountered people who do.  How do you adjust to the demise of aristocracy as a philosophy?  What the butler, Mr. Stevens, had always known as abstract turned out to be affecting personal lives. 

 

(Mr. Lewis is an interesting thread to follow.  He’s an American way ahead of the gentlemen in the democracy and equality world.  The way he uses rhetoric is too direct for them.  Initially he makes enemies everywhere.  People think he doesn’t care about England or Europe.  In the end his view of politics is proven right, and he also turns out to be very fond of England for its real value.  It is he who preserves Darlington Hall.  He represents America, I think, across nearly a century of its history.) 

 

It isn’t that the butler can’t express himself or can’t feel anything.  He just exercises self-control.  His loyalty was misplaced.  He chose self-control because his goal was dignity.  By the end of his life, he’s second-guessing the direction he chose. 

 

In the movie Lord Darlington explains why he wants to help Germany.  He had a friend who fought on the side of Germany in the First World War, and afterwards was so devastated by its effect on his country that he committed suicide.  Mr. Stevens watched a similar thing happen to his boss over the course of the movie.  He feels obligated to honor the memory of his former employer and helps do as a free man what he couldn’t do as Lord Darlington’s servant. 

 

Near the beginning of the movie, Miss Kenton the housekeeper comes into Mr. Stevens’ parlor bringing flowers and representing passion and life.  She does her job well and respectfully, but offers a whole different approach to dignity, one that is more open and faithful to herself.  She represents the other side of loneliness, the kind that feels alone even when she’s with other people. 

 

Mr. Stevens never says what he means, following the example described by his father: the butler in India shot a tiger in the kitchen and entered the parlor a moment later to say dinner would be served at the usual hour, by which time there would be no discernible traces of the incident.  All this calm, polite conversation to convey the death of a ferocious animal in the dining room. 

 

So when Miss Kenton enters his room, he says that he prefers his room private, unchanged, and (seeming to refer to flowers but actually not) free of distraction.  The relationship between the butler and housekeeper is reminiscent of Elizabeth and Darcy’s conversations in Pride and Prejudice.  Until she got to know Darcy, he seemed rude and unfeeling.  Once Miss Kenton likewise makes the patient and attentive habit of knowing Mr. Stevens’ character and tastes, she can, rather on faith, begin to interpret what he says or doesn’t say as a sort of code for his true meaning.  Given her openness, he has the great advantage over her: the comfort of knowing when she agrees, security of being aware when she doesn’t, and even delight when her position entertains – all while, at first, safely hidden in his own opinions. 

 

But she begins to see through him, utilizing Plato’s “plot is everything” to observe his life.  She notices he doesn’t like pretty women on staff, and speculates, “Might it be that our Mr. Stevens fears distraction?”  She has an excellent memory, and so no doubt began to understand what he had thought of her when she first entered his study with flowers years earlier.  He didn’t trust himself. 

 

Passion is a distraction from duty.  Or is the other way around? 

 

“Please leave me alone, Miss Kenton.”  He wants to be alone, at least partly.  And he wants her to physically pry the book from his hands, to talk and guess and look into his face for the answers he dare not show but can’t hide.  He freezes, utterly conflicted for a moment, craving and fearing her closeness. 

 

“We have each other.  That’s all anyone can ever need.”

 – Miss Hull on marrying without money.

 

Miss Kenton finds that being together in the same house isn’t enough.  She might content herself with friendship, but he can’t.  He must have formality or surrender to love, but he doesn’t know how to do the latter.  She can’t bear the rejection, which is worse than loneliness. 

 

She hurt him.  She loved him and she hurt him.  Maybe that’s why she left. 

 

He didn’t owe her anything.  She knew he didn’t, but she hoped anyway.  That made her tears all the more bitter and self-reproaching when he couldn’t let himself admit he was in love. 

 

Why does Miss Kenton do these things?  She sees the outside world as lonely, in contrast to the house and servants (though Mr. Stevens sees the house as lonely).  She above all fears loneliness, and works and sacrifices so that she won’t feel alone.  This is why she eventually leaves.  Though Mr. Stevens knows she is not alone, he makes the mistake of not telling her so.  And she flees to what seems a sure thing, an offer of marriage to a man who says he loves her. 

 

She is too needy for a marriage, and her husband didn’t always say what he meant, either – even when he first said “I love you.”  The movie ends with the question of loneliness still hanging. 

 

To God be all glory,

Lisa of Longbourn

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Hands on Head

Simon says?  Exercises?  Arrests?  Hide and go seek?  Illegal hands to the face? 

 

My hands have spent a lot of time on my head lately.  Life is too big for me sometimes.  Like this week.  At my church I’ve been teaching a women’s Sunday morning Bible study on Ephesians.  Have you ever looked at a hill from a distance and thought you could get to the top in an hour or two, only to discover when you get closer that the hill is a mountain with no scalable paths?  And for a breathless, unmeasurable time, you think you’ll never make it; you wonder why you tried.  At the last possible moment, wings come in, sweeping you up like the eagles to hobbits on Mount Doom.  God’s grace comes beneath your weakness, and through no fault of your own, you’re at the top, taking down your hands from your face to enjoy the view. 

I watched a movie the other night.  It wasn’t a really good movie.  The cinematography was unique, and the acting was superb.  Anthony Hopkins, playing a familiarly dramatic role, was suppressing his emotions, and trying to hide them.  He kept holding his face in front of his eyes as if shielding them from a light, when really he was shielding tears from sight.  Even when there aren’t people to see me, I keep putting my hand over my eyes.  Actually, at twenty-three, it’s hard to cry anymore, so the gesture is an act of the will to indicate emotion I can’t express any other way.  But the emotions, even at my age, must be expressed. 

A friend and I are starting a small group for high school girls, and quite frankly, I don’t know where to start in connecting with them.  Emma describes Robert Martin to her friend Harriet (in the Gwyneth Paltrow adaptation) as a man as much above her notice as below it.  Is evangelism and discipleship like that?  Either people know they need discipleship and God’s grace because they’re that mature or because they’re that empty? And I’m looking at some of these girls seeing so much need, but they’re not quite broken enough yet to value it, and I don’t know how to start a conversation or to whet an appetite for a close relationship with God.  I guess it’s all up to Him. 

Psalm 32 contains God’s promise to guide me with His eyes.  So maybe putting my palms over my eyes is a way of getting me to follow Him, recognizing my own lack of wisdom.  Too bad God has to force me into faith. 

Then recently every time I try to get on the internet (check my library due dates, blog, check messages, look up movie times) I have to refresh a hundred times, and it still doesn’t work.  I’m so inefficient, and end up doing a fraction of the things I’d intended with a day.  That’s a cause of frustrated grasping of my head. 

Maybe excitement could explain the frequent movement, too.  This week quite unexpectedly I made my first sale on my business website: www.LadyofLongbourn.com  Another exciting find was a website about Hebrew alphabets and words that argues for a Hebrew – or Edenic (long story) – etymology for most words worldwide. True or not my mind has been spinning with possibilities, and I’m finding it incredibly easy to learn new Hebrew words.  But then I always have. 

On Monday I got a bargain at the thrift store, and spent less than $3 on a brand new CD of classic hymns sung by the amazing St. Olaf’s Choir.  St. Olaf is a Lutheran Bible College whose incredible music department was featured on TV this Christmas season.  My brother and I stayed up irrationally (but not atypically) late watching it one night.  The beauty – the gift of it so touched me that I put my hands to my head. 

Dad and I went to the Colorado Republican caucus on Tuesday, which was an experience in disorganization and disbelief you wouldn’t, uh, believe!  Do you know the actual rules stated that ties in our precinct should be decided by a coin toss?  No one had any idea what they were doing, and since I couldn’t help us out, I put my hands on my head. 

Sunday I sat on the floor in my sanctuary, which was an exciting change.  You’ve no idea how many times I wanted to sit on the floor instead of formal, uncomfortable, modern chairs.  Mary of Bethany sat at Jesus’ feet, and that is quite my preference.  I probably won’t do it all the time; I fought against feeling self-conscious.  But it was neat to experience freedom in that way. 

The Superbowl…  Ok, to stop all scorn in its tracks, I babysat for a neighborhood outreach party put on by a church plant in Denver, and then hung out with everyone for the last quarter, so it isn’t like I was idolizing football or anything.  The Superbowl was a nail-biter, quite exciting.  I couldn’t believe some of the plays I witnessed.  Nice escape, interesting throw, and impossible catch for essential first down.  Yep.  I even know what I’m talking about.  Hands over my eyes. 

Monday was a rambling day, much like this post.  How beautiful to spend unhurried time at the library, wandering around, thinking, scurrying back and forth from the movie shelves to the computers (which work!) there, as an idea of another movie to watch came to mind…  And then on Wednesday I got to go to tea with a new friend.  Tea, yes.  I had mint chai, which is just as good as the other varieties I’ve had.  With enough sugar almost any tea tastes good, I think.  I just needed to get tea done the British way, with milk, too. 

I’ve been doing much praying for a special person, name to be announced sometime after I learn it myself.  My expectations for him are so high that it’s only right I support him now, already, in prayer.  But then I miss him.  And I cover my face shutting out the vastness of the world that separates him from me – but, of course, all in God’s capable and good hands.  Um.  That was code.  It all means that I wonder where my husband is, and when he’ll come, and want him to be here sooner than later, but I have no idea who or where He is.  But God knows, and I trust God. 

This week I spoke with a few friends about honesty, and how we wish the world would let us say the truth, say what’s on our hearts without code or offense.  At least with them I’ll practice it.  I hope they will with me.  No mask here.  Which reminds me – I’ve watched several movies with masks or masquerades in them recently.  Lots of movies. 

But movies always make me think.  A movie I want to see as of today is Penelope, due to limited release on February 29.  The fantasy, fairy-tale-ish story has a message of honesty, of taking the hands from the face and being yourself for all the world to see and know – even risking the hurt. 

YLCF was a special blessing this evening, since the most recent post specifically addressed the topic of waiting for one’s handsome prince, and what to do while you wait.  I know those things.  I certainly rebel on occasion.  The reminder was important to get me refocused, to seek the most excellent and most fulfilling. 

I’m craving tea: my mom’s blackberry, which I never like.  The clock, at almost midnight after a long day, declines my craving.  In fact I even have to stop my ramble through writing.  This post is the way I used to write emails to my friends: late at night, a summary of a dozen thoughts and events that come together to form a sort of three-strand theme.  If my brother were writing, this would be a strongly metaphorical poem (trying to make sense of which would bring my hands once again to my head).  My other brother would tell a wonderful allegory.  I’m trying to get the latter to guest blog here sometime.  He has a great story about orange juice… 

Ramble away in the comments.  Feel free to put the unconcise, irrelevant, unfinished thoughts you can’t submit as an English paper, or publish on your blog, or tell your friends when they ask how you are doing.  Good night. 

To God be all glory,

Lisa of Longbourn

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