Saturday Night at the Movies: Call of Duty

The Case for the Classics

Introducing loved ones to old movies can be a painful experience. Quite literally. I can still feel the bruises my wife imparted after the ending of The King and I – “I cannot believe you showed me this movie!” she cried in horror at the unexpectedly sad ending.  Unexpected, that is, for someone who grew up on modern Hollywood fare. If you, too, happen to indulge in the dangerous habit of pushing classic movies on friends, you are likely familiar with the common objections (as voiced by the vanishingly few friends who remain): those old movies, they’re so dull, so predictable, so formulaic. The truth, however, is the precise opposite: nothing is as unpredictable as the oldies.

              I don’t know where the stereotype originates, as the two most familiar movies to modern audiences from Hollywood’s Golden Age – Gone With the Wind, still the top grossing movie of all time, and the iconic Casablanca – both conclude in famously unpredictable ways.

              In fact, Casablanca is but one of several great films that make up a fascinating genre, or at least subgenre, of classic film: movies in which romance must go unfulfilled in the name of a higher duty. A few recommendations:

Roman Holiday

Were Meghan Markle ever to undergo The Ludovico Technique, Anthony Burgess’ famous aversion therapy from A Clockwork Orange, this is the film she’d be forced to watch on endless loop. One of the most charming, light, and lovely romantic comedies ever made … with an ending unfit for our time, as royalty does what royalty ought to do, and places the needs of the nation over the desires of the heart.

The Prisoner of Zenda

A fun and exciting tale of adventure and intrigue – and most definitely romance. Yet once again, boy does not get girl, because duty comes before love.

Brief Encounter

Considered one of the greatest British movies of all time. Yet impossible to remake today, for it is about forbidden love – and what about love today is forbidden? Unlike the first two movies, this is not about royalty. Yet we simple folk have our duties, too – if not to our crowns, then to our promises, and to our God.

Now let us compare and contrast. Remember the cinematic sensation of the 90s, the 9-time Academy Award winner The English Patient? I’m with Elaine on this one. To refresh your memory, it’s about how it’s totally okay to betray the Allies and help the Nazis as long as you’re truly in love, because individual romantic fulfillment trumps all, and everybody’s going to die sometime anyway. It’s basically the anti-Casablanca.

At least you’ve heard of The English Patient. Could you even name the big winner of last year’s Academy Awards? The best picture winner was Coda. The New York Times describes it as the tale of a teenager “caught between ambition and loyalty.” You won’t need three guesses to figure out which wins out. Picture the ending of one of my favorite books, Anne of Green Gables. Remember how Anne does not hesitate to abandon her own dreams when faced with tragedy at home? If you’ve read it, you know that Anne simply wouldn’t be Anne, and the whole story would have been poisoned, had she come up with some self-serving justification to fulfill her career and leave Marilla behind. Well, the makers of Coda think Anne’s a loser.

Why were movies of the past so unpredictable? Let us rephrase the question: in today’s movies, why does self-fulfillment inevitably trump duty? Because duty isn’t even considered a virtue anymore. Put Joe Frazier in the ring against … nobody, and he’ll win every time. Only when Ali makes an appearance will the outcome start to be in doubt. In the old movies, romance did not lose every bout, far from it, but as you can glean from the list above, it was far from undefeated.

Today, with no opponent in the ring, romance may seem the undisputed champion… but look closer, and you will see it is fat, lazy, and atrophied. Without any obstacle to overcome, romance means nothing. Imagine a remake of Antigone, only with everybody – king, gods, townsfolk, and all – celebrating Antigone unquestioningly for her actions; imagine, in other words, a total snoozefest. When the only barriers to self-fulfillment are all the “love means love” signs the hero has to trip over as he crosses his backyard, the drama of life loses its attraction, don’t you think?

In a spirit of magnanimity, I would like to end with a modern movie worth seeing in this context. What is it like for someone raised in the world of Duty who now finds herself forced to navigate the world of Self? The Queen is a sympathetic portrait of just such a person in just such a time.

Welcome new subscribers, and thank you for reading. Hopefully you will find something pleasing in the list above. Just don’t sit too close to my wife during the end of Roman Holiday unless you bring an ice pack…