MOVIE REVIEW- "REMAINS OF THE DAY"

"REMAINS OF THE DAY" ("I WAS ONLY FOLLOWING ORDERS")

In various reviews of this great movie, many underlying psychodynamic and historic issues were missed, simply overlooked. The message was too unsettling, almost unspeakable and unthinkable, and yet, Hannah Arendt's controversial book, "The Banality of Evil" tells a similar story---serious evil can be performed by very ordinary (banal) people. Anthony Hopkins plays the role of the perfect butler to an idealized master of a great British mansion. The master of the house is the center of a group of self-styled aristocrats who are rich and powerful and, as Tevye was wont to sing, "when you're rich they think you really know". They really thought they saw and understood the big picture and world events. They were sufficiently enamored of themselves to think they could and should influence geopolitics in their favor. Therefore, they were cozy with the Nazis, seduced by them to lend their emotional and financial support. As in Tevya;s song, in the mansion there were staircases leading up, just for show. One of them was connected to the servants quarters and we see that behind the scenes there is much drama and scurrying to tend to the master's every want and need. The butler's father was shown to be of the old school---even if there were a tiger under the table no well trained butler would let on, raise an eyebrow or miss a beat, nothing to spoil a formal dinner in elegant surroundings.

The butler was shown to be a man of good character and high standards: never would he let an uncontrolled emotion interfere with the performance of his duties. The housekeeper, Emma Thompson, had to ask Anthony Hopkins' permission to close the eyes of his recently deceased father in a back bedroom, while the butler orchestrated a perfect dinner party for the German (Nazi) house guests. Later, the housekeeper hired and rescued two Jewish girls who were refugees from Germany, but when the master learned that their Jewishness would disturb some of his guests, the butler summarily dismissed them, even though we knew they had no place else to go but the death camp. Emma was horrified, but lacked the courage to leave her source of security; after all, she was a single woman, alone in the world, and needed a job and position. Her life was seriously compromised, but at least she knew it. On the other hand, Anthony was seriously compromised, but hardly knew it, could hardly conceive of it. He was so perfectly the butler who knew only his job and rich tradition of service to the nobility, that returning the love of the housekeeper was impossible; relations between staff were forbidden. He did not question the authority of his master; his master, he thought, by virtue of his position, knew things beyond his ken; he could not question, only follow.

Now substitute 'master' for 'fuhrer' and the butler for Eichmann, who was 'only following orders', and we have some basis of understanding the mass psychosis that was Nazi Germany---and the 'banality of evil'. Along the way people questioned the butler about his loyalty to an evil man, a Nazi sympathizer, but the ever scrupulous and conscientious servant would not hear of it, nor could he consider it. Years later, he realized he has lost his chance for love and tries to reconnect with Emma, but it is too late. She married someone else, for security, and has a child to look after. As the train pulls away, there are tears in her eyes. But when the camera is focussed on the face of Hopkins , they are welled up behind an inner wall, invisible, impenetrable. His acting is superb as he gives the impression of torment, locked, blocked, behind a massive wall.

We psychoanalysts are aware of 'character armor' and characterological resistance---according to Wilhem Reich, the most formidable resistance of all. In fact, where analyst and analysand both have their personal walls, protecting against vulnerability and narcissistic injury, a thoroughgoing analysis is impossible. Reich is widely dismissed today because of his eventual breakdown. Present day analytic institutes give lip-service to the classical value of the first half of his book, "Character Analysis". Contemporary Reichians, such as Alexander Lowen, developed 'bio-energetic analysis', which works on the bodily mechanisms determining and reinforcing the 'character-armor', so that the resistance to feelings and change, which characterize such individuals as the butler in "Remains of the Day, can be undermined and resolved.

We can postulate that part of the reason so many Germans were so insensitive and unfeeling about their government's treatment of Jews, Communists, clergy, homosexuals, gypsies, the mentally retarded and psychotic, was that the German 'character' was formed by strict parental control of children, backed up by excessive discipline and physical punishment. Thus, an Eichmann defends himself by saying, "I was only carrying out orders", rather than regret his actions and be penitent. Similarly, the nazi doctors who co-operated with the regime grimly rationalized a purely scientific approach to human experimentation and euthanasia. They were working toward a utopia of a pure and master race. We fantasize that such thinking, leading to a mass psychosis, could only happen in Germany, but the movie shows that such characterological monsters existed in democratic England, and we have learned of complicity with the Nazis all over Europe. The movie, "The Sorrow and the Pity" graphically revealed the complicity of many French with the Nazis of the Vichy regime.

Even in America, for a time many citizens were supportive of our war against Vietnam. But we committed atrocities there, as is now well known, atrocities by our own American boys, who were raised by parents who idealized the fantasy of 'mom, apple pie and the American flag'. No wonder some protesters felt the need to burn the American flag and their draft cards. At least in our country, a turnaround was possible, helped by our adherence to freedom of speech, as well as our inability to 'win the war'.

Anthony Hopkins' portrayal of a perfect butler whose emotions were frozen must give us pause about the startling number of seemingly unemotional, remorseless, sociopaths on the loose today. Many are hidden as drones and managers, bureaucrats who do not think about the effect on society of their thoughtless, careless acts. There were engineers who knew of the instability of the 'O' rings in cold weather, which led to the 'Challenger' disaster. There are high-level politicians and CIA agents who look the other way as tons of cocaine reach our shores and streets. There are manufacturers and retailers of assault weapons who are unthinkingly against gun control. And there are drug company researchers who approve the release of drugs to the public that are insufficiently tested.

"Remains of the Day" reminds us that we have a long way to go to develop a society which does not generate zombies by the million. ("The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation"---why?) So far neither Religion, nor Education, nor Government, nor Medicine has produced a solution to the 'human condition'. Perhaps it is not possible to solve 'the problem of evil', but among the behavioral sciences, I believe Psychoanalysis has some answers to this riddle, if it is true to its cause of seeking to understand the human psyche in all its depth and complexity. We understand that characterological defects come about though failure to develop adequate mother-infant bonding in the earliest years and that later neglect and abuse cause enduring emotional scars. As a society we must develop a plan to encourage the formation of positive maternal bonding in the earliest months of infancy. We must begin to influence government policy and social planing, even elementary education, to include human relations along with the three R's as necessary to a complete and rounded education. We need more than scientists and mathematicians---we need more humanists and more of the humanities, for their civilizing influence.

Films such as "Remains of the Day" show us the dire consequences of poor upbringing, even when seemingly 'good enough' adults with 'good enough' mothering (D.W. Winnicott) do not get mothering that is truly good enough. As kiekegaard observed not too many years ago, "To cheat oneself out of love is the most terrible deception. It is an eternal loss for which there is no reparation, either in time or in eternity." And in the words of D.H. Lawrence, "Those who go looking for love never find it; only the loving find love, and they never had to look for it."