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A Story in a Single Word
Though every great story juggles multiple themes at once, there’s usually one that dominates and with which the others all interact and highlight. As @BrianWatt reminds us in his wonderful post, that theme in Robert Bolt’s A Man for all Seasons is integrity. You could tell other stories about the same events and characters, they’d be different stories than the one Bolt told.
It’s fun and often illuminating to try this on other works. Below, I’ve four attempts, but I’d very much like to hear yours.
The Godfather: Family
Vito Corleone had some justifiable pride as a family man. So far as we can tell, his marriage was loving and loyal and his children, though imperfect, were loved and cared for. And despite his criminality and violence he retained a certain kind of honor, and his greatest pride seemed to be in his son Michael who — importantly — planned to live a clean life outside of the mafia. If I were St. Peter, I’d given him a lot of time in purgatory, but likely spare him the eternity of Hell.
Michael, however, sacrifices his soul to help his family in their greatest moment of need and becomes, ultimately, the monster his father avoided. Worst of all, he loses the very things he sought to protect. Just ask Fredo or the unborn child Kay aborts.
Lust, Caution: Loyalty
It’s not often that I recommend an NC-17-rated film, but this is one of the exceptions. Set in China during the Second World War, this film follows student Wong Chia Chi as she is recruited into an resistance cell and tasked with seducing a Japanese collaborator. As likely comes as no surprise from the description, she subsequently falls in love with him.
This is a heartbreaker, but not in the romantic sense: the conflict is more about her own identity, priorities, and ethics than about love. The acting and direction are both superb — I doubt a single line of dialogue has ever been delivered (or received) as well as the one that marks the climax — and the setting is fascinating historically. The MPAA rating is mostly for sex: while it’s explicit, it’s not pornographic, though this is a very subjective matter.
Star Wars: Acceptance
Credit Alistair Stephens for this interpretation, but I think it’s correct. At the beginning of A New Hope, Luke’s only interests are himself and his amoral ambitions. Note, for instance, that the academy he whines to Uncle Owen about joining is almost certainly an Imperial institution and that doesn’t seem to trouble him in the least. But through Obi-Wan and his introduction to the Force, Luke ultimately learns to submit his own ambitious to something greater than himself. When he fires that proton torpedo into the Death Star, it’s not his skill that leads it to its target — as he had boasted about only a few scenes earlier — but the Force to which he submits his own will. He doesn’t actually say it with words, but the subtext is clearly Not my will, but Thine be done. And when he celebrates at the end, it’s not with the strutting one would have expected of him at the beginning, but with a far more mature and humble joy.
A Game of Thrones: Power
I did not like the last season of the current show but re-reading the first book in the series through Audible has been re-affirming: it really is an excellent novel. Strip away the magic, the world-building, the (much-forgotten-but central) mystery of who killed Jon Arryn and why, and you have a sophisticated and sober exploration of the ways in which people fail to wield power over others. The Starks are (famously now) punished for their uprightness but they’re hardly alone. The Targaryens were overthrown because of their desire to keep their bloodlines pure; King Robert, in turn, is proof that military leadership and prowess do not translate to political success; and the Lannisters are ultimately undone by their own Machiavellianism. Politics is a deadly, messy business and it’s going to be interesting to see how the series apparent heroes ultimate fare at it.
Published in Entertainment
Apocalypto: Home
Braveheart: Freedom
Dune: Knowledge
Okay, flesh this out for me. I was considering doing one on Dune and the word I had was Destiny, as Paul has to first accept his and then (eventually) repudiate it.
Book of Job: unstory
It is the story of a man whose suffering has no story. Sure, there’s a prologue where an ostensible story is told to the reader (“God and Satan make a bet”, if I may be impious), but neither Job nor his friends know that story.
Job’s friends, though, have no shortage of stories to tell Job about what is happening to him. Oh, they are full of stories! But none of them is the right story, or so it seems since God Himself tells Job’s friends, “You have not spoken rightly of me, as Job has.” Nor will God tell Job Job’s own story. God tells Job a story alright, but it’s a story of the majesty of the cosmos, and God’s own inscrutability. It’s a very poetic way of telling Job, “Sorry, you don’t get to hear your story from me, either.”
So the story of Job is a rejection of the stories we tell ourselves about our lives without an offer of an alternate story. It is an unstory. All that really “happens” is that God confirms that it’s an unstory, and Job accepts. Unstories have God’s approval for existing.
Yeech.
Dune is all about the power and danger of having too much knowledge, especially about the future.
Destiny also works.
Casablanca: Manhood
This is a movie where Bogie shows us what being a real mean is all about.
Lord of the Rings: Sacrifice.
Frodo gives everything he has to destroy the Ring, and as he realizes later, he has done this so that others can enjoy the benefits. He himself will never recover, and he will only find rest by leaving Middle-earth forever.
The Elves, meanwhile — and in particular Galadriel — aid in the destruction of the Ring, even though they know that its destruction will mean the destruction of the Elven Rings, and therefore the end of the Elven domains in Middle-earth.
And then of course there’s Gandalf the Grey, who dies to protect the Fellowship.
Dreams of My Father , Racism
It Takes a Village, Socialism
Rules for Radicals, Communism
The Koran, Pedophilia
Dodgeball. Wrenches.
I would say, Duty. Rick, still hurt by being jilted by Ilsa, refuses to be part of the fight against the Nazis and remains neutral. He eventually understands by watching Victor Lazlo and comprehends Ilsa’s love for him that it’s time for him to be part of the fight and do his duty.
An Officer and a Gentleman: redemption
You’re both right.
Adulthood. For all of them.
I agree with Brian on this one. Rick is certainly the epitome of manhood, but isn’t really his manliness that motivates him.
A Few Good Men: Stoicism
Doing a thankless yet necessary job, well.
I have always thought of it as Lord of the Rings: Redemption
Some achieve it: Frodo, Faramir, Eowyn, Theoden
Some fail of it: Gollum, Denethor, Saruman
And it is not free, hence the sacrifice theme as well.
Well but Frodo and Eowyn don’t really need to redeem themselves from anything and you’re forgetting the character of Sam who is perhaps the most important and central figure in the narrative.
That and the fact that Tolkien’s devout Catholicism put heavy emphasis on the importance of religious themes in his work make Sacrifice a pretty central throughline of all the characters:
Gandalf sacrifices himself to the Balrog and is reborn.
Frodo sacrifices his body and spirit to destroy the ring.
Sam sacrifices his body, spirit and at times friendship to help Frodo.
Boromir sacrifices his life in debt for his failures surrounding the ring (although Boromir is perhaps the best example of redemption and goes to your point).
Aragorn leads an army of his newfound kingdom to sacrifice themselves in hope of helping Frodo and Sam.
Arwen sacrifices an immortal life in support of the man she loves.
The Elves sacrifice the power of the three rings in order to bring down the greater evil. (Again Galadriel represents a story of redemption here, although Elrond does not).
Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead: Grace
John Ames marries young, loses his first wife, endures a long loneliness, and remarries old, when he has a child whom he won’t see grow up. God sometimes answers our prayers in ways and times we don’t expect.
Whittaker Chambers’s Witness: Witness
Chambers saw much and spied much and testified, which cost him his reputation and his well paying job at Time. Since he believed that it was better to be on the virtuous but losing side of history, rather than the evil but winning one, his sacrifice—his witness—really did make him a hero.
J.D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy: Poverty
Vance grew up very poor. His family was so dysfunctional that his grandmother, who buried her first child before she could legally drive and later set her husband on fire, was the best influence in his early life. Yet he joined the marines, graduated from college in two years, and then went to Yale Law School. Poverty can be overcome, but it’s frequently misunderstood. It is not just a lack of financial capital, but a lack of social capital that makes the lives of the poor so desperate.
OK, I’ll say it: Citizen Kane = Rosebud.
I’d make Casablanca = Honor. The scene that clinches it for me is when Rick stacks the roulette wheel so the girl doesn’t have to surrender her honor to Claude Raines. He preserves her honor, while displaying his own.
That’s a pretty good one for Casablanca.
Faith
Citizen Kane: Sledding
Faith is not what makes the story of Job unique, though, different from all the other Bible stories. Unstory is.
Job endures only by Faith.
Perhaps “Endurance” would be better.
Moby Dick, anyone? Obsession.
“Master and Commander” (the movie version): Leadership.
I think the movie presents a great study in leadership styles and a striking contrast between Aubrey’s confident approach, somewhat aloof from his men, and that of the midshipman (Hollum, I think), who was trying and failing to win the men’s friendship.
This made me do a spit take, and I hadn’t even drunk anything!
Shortly after the world premiere of his great opera “Carmen,” Georges Bizet was at a dinner party seated next to a charming, elegant — but clueless — Parisian lady.
“So, maestro, I understand you have a new opera. What’s it about?”
Bizet thought for a moment and replied, “Sex.”
HA! I forgot that one.
I agree as far as Duty goes, but I see Manhood as the more basic theme, of which Duty is a part.
Again, a part of what it means to be a real Man in the west.