“This is the story of a home and a family…history seen through the eyes of a wife and mother whose love tempers both fortune and disaster…”

This could be another post about World War I and other major historical events featured in a Best Picture film. Or, we could approach Cavalcade in a similar way to Cimarron and focus on how the main female character, Jane Marryot, is left behind by her husband and sons and develops her independence and fortitude. But I think today we’ll do something a little different.

After the introductory credits and text—yes, featuring that medieval cavalcade signifying the passing of time—the first feature seen in this week’s movie is Big Ben tolling out the time as it nears New Year’s 1900. But then something interesting happens (not that Big Ben is uninteresting, because it’s really quite cool). The scene transitions from Big Ben outside near the Houses of Parliament to the grandfather clock within the Marryot household. This combination of motifs—the movement from outside to inside and the concept of Time—occurs throughout the film and is especially significant in light of the film’s focus on the passage of world events and their intrusion into the lives of the Marryot family.

Two other features of the film help to further develop these outside-inside and time patterns: the Marryots’ balcony and the song “Auld Lang Syne.” The balcony outside the Marryot family home is a prominent vantage point for the family and their friends as they witness the great changes in history that time brings to them in the early 1900s. It is on this balcony that the family solemnly observes the funeral procession of Queen Victoria, herself a symbol of dramatic change from the 1800s to the 1900s. Likewise, the Marryots frequently hear news regarding the wars and Britain’s fate in them while on this same balcony. What is interesting to consider, then, is how world events that happen outside the house in a non-personal space are brought into the house to a personal space via this balcony. In this sense, the balcony is a mix of the impersonal and personal, the outside and the inside—just as the film and its characters are a fusion of outside happenings and private trials.

The Marryot family in their home

The frequency of the song “Auld Lang Syne” in Cavalcade is likewise noteworthy. The Marryots sing it. Their friends and servants sing it. Large crowds sing it. “Auld Lang Syne” is an old song, supposedly first recorded on paper by the poet Robert Burns, who sent a copy of the song as a poem to the Scots Musical Museum in 1788, admitting that it was ancient and not his own original work. Though today we sing the song at the turn of the new year, “Auld Lang Syne” was not originally written for New Year’s alone. Instead, it addresses the more timeless ideas of friendship and reminiscing about the past. It has also been used for graduations and other celebratory events—and in Japan even as a notice to leave a store because it’s closing for the night (Seriously, this is true! Look it up on YouTube!). In connection with Cavalcade, though, the singing of “Auld Lang Syne” provides yet another bridge between the past and the present, from what has passed out of the personal space to what now inhabits it. The song provides a reminder to appreciate and value the past—even as the present and its unfamiliar trials threaten to mow down the Marryot family.

For Me Then…

Cavalcade seems to often find itself toward the bottom of critics’ Best Picture rankings, but I think this is a mistake. Though not the most visually stunning film and lacking the star power of the cast of Grand Hotel, Cavalcade still poignantly asks its viewers to recognize the power of history and its intrusion into and influence on our lives. The film takes events that are in and of themselves impersonal to most of us and inserts them into the personal lives of its characters—transporting what is outside our everyday worlds into our most intimate thoughts and feelings, drawing our attention to the fact that huge world issues are really also personal ones that can affect us at our most vulnerable levels.

Robert and Jane Marryot, now alone, observe one last New Year’s in Cavalcade

As “Auld Lang Syne” wafts through the scenes of the film, emphasizing the importance of the past, and as the loss of the Titanic and the horrors of World War I move from the outside common world into the Marryots’ domestic space, I cannot help thinking of our own world and the conflicts it pushes into our own lives. With all the tensions and disagreements and tragedy and unknowns, how do we react when what is outside pushes its way inside? The music of the past plays on while we debate—and oftentimes dread—what to do with the present and the future. I think the focus on this dilemma is the lasting value of Cavalcade. (Spoiler alert!) Though Robert and Jane Marryot sit alone at the end of the film and worry about the future, there is also an air of gratitude about them, a thankfulness for the privilege of having taken part in the magnanimity of their own present, even though it has been full of “fortune and disaster” as the film’s introduction states. I think we too, in light of our volatile present, should be thankful for the time we are given and for our past which we can use to teach ourselves how to live in the present and deal with the future. And in dealing with this present and that future, I myself find it encouraging to remember these words from the Apostle Paul: “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39).