The Lost Weekend debates whether or not Don Birnam, the film’s alcoholic protagonist, is able to be “cured” of his “disease” by presenting the “alcohol philosophies” of several characters. Helen, Don’s girlfriend, views alcohol addiction as a medical problem that a good doctor could cure. Wick, Don’s brother, sees it as a physical weakness, a lack of restraint, self-control, and self-respect. Bim, the male nurse in the detox ward of the hospital, tells Don that alcoholism is a historical problem that can be blamed mostly on Prohibition. But perhaps what Don, the one who suffers the most in the film, thinks about alcoholism is most important—and most accurate (in the film’s opinion). Don seems to think that his addiction is a psychological issue. He cites failures in the past (the squelching of a promising writing career) as the start of his dependence on the bottle and difficulties in the present (his current writer’s block) as the reason why he can’t escape from his need for liquor. Yet, alcohol is still the salvation Don turns to in order to assuage the psychological pain he feels from rejection and failure and the hope he looks to for inspiration to turn his life around.

Admittedly, alcohol has split Don into two people, “Don the Drunk and Don the Writer.” For most of film, Don (in his “Drunk” identity) displays immoral and godless traits such as stealing, lying, and disregarding the feelings of others. Don sums up his irreligious way of life in a metaphor to Nat, the bartender, when instructing him not to wipe up the wet circles left behind by Don’s shot glass: “Don’t wipe it away, Nat. Let me have my little vicious circle. You know, the circle is the perfect geometric figure. No end, no beginning.” It’s a thought-provoking metaphor—and an appropriate one (mostly)—for Don’s story is like a circle itself (as is the film with its similar opening and closing sequences). There is no start and no finish to his drinking. It is constant.

Don and Nat–and the ever-present bottle–at Nat’s bar

But Don’s comparison is notable in a couple of other ways too. First, he calls the circle “vicious.” Vicious can mean “deliberately cruel or violent” or “immoral.” In using the first definition of the word vicious, power is assigned to the liquor—or, more specifically, to the entrapment caused by the spirits. What Don physically consumes rules his life and eliminates his choices. He only steals and lies because the alcohol makes him. Or so Don believes. It is interesting to note that, while blaming the alcohol for his messed-up life, Don also expresses possession of his ring of addiction: “my vicious little circle.” Even as he drinks himself senseless, Don realizes his weakness for liquor; can remember the events that led to his choosing to rely on the bottle; and is able to anticipate how each drink will affect his body, mind, and actions. So, in his philosophy of alcoholism, Don is confused. Who has the power, Don or the drink?

Don completes his circle metaphor by emphasizing that the ring of addiction has no beginning and no end. This reminds me of several Bible references in which God is called the Beginning and the End. In Revelation 21:6, God declares, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End.” A little later in Revelation 22:13, He repeats again, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.” From Don’s viewpoint, the circle of alcoholism has no beginning and end—no god/God—but that is not completely true, is it? In Don Birnam’s life, alcohol is the Beginning and the End. Drink is his god— he worships it, and it guides the decisions he makes.

The circles from Don’s shot glass–demonstrating his captivity to his god, alcohol.

Ironically, toward the end of the film, the craving for alcohol leads Don to the decision to pawn the beloved typewriter his mother gave him. This typewriter is the most significant item Don owns as it is symbolic of his hopes and dreams of becoming a successful writer. Pawning the typewriter is synonymous with Don’s complete and final surrender to alcohol. Desperate and disheveled, Don stumbles down the streets of New York searching for a pawn shop that will buy the typewriter. In what Helen would term a miracle, all the pawn shops are closed to observe the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur (more than a few racial overtones there…). The funny thing is, Yom Kippur means “Day of Atonement,” and its purpose is to allow people one last chance to “afflict their souls” and atone for the sins they have committed in the past year—the sins between themselves and God. As he painfully lurches down one street after another, simultaneously seeking his god (a drink) and listening to what his god tells him to do (pawn the typewriter), Don poignantly participates in this idea of atonement, wrestling with his god and afflicting his soul.

This tormenting scene thick with religious implications does not lead to Don’s salvation, though (spoiler alert!). What ultimately saves Don (so we think/hope) is another religious concept—the greatest of all—love. According to Don, love is “so simple,” and yet it is “the hardest thing in the world to write about.” Don finds love in Helen, his girlfriend—but the love that changes Don, that saves his life and renews his passion for writing, isn’t a gushy romantic love but a deep, longsuffering, self-sacrificial love that picks Don up every time he falls down, believes in him even while he is failing, and waits for him regardless of how long it takes him to grapple with his demons. Where Don’s alcoholic philosophy and circle-like life are complicated and infinitely repressive, the simplicity of faithful love shatters his reverence toward his addiction and introduces hope into the end of a pretty dark film.

A desperate Don lugs his typewriter around in search of a pawn shop during Yom Kippur.

For Me Then…

Let’s just be honest here. We all struggle with something. Whether its alcohol or drugs or pornography—or what we often view as less toxic: work or television or food. There are memories we’d like to forget, insecurities we want to block out, needs we try to meet in the wrong ways or at the wrong times or in the wrong amounts—as a whole, we can potentially be a very messed-up, broken-down bunch of people. And any one of us can easily become Don Birnam, regardless of if his/her struggle is alcohol-related or not. There is a void in the lives of each of us; and, speaking from experience here, we so often try to fill the void by plugging the proverbial square peg into the round hole, which just makes the hurt that much worse, the emptiness that much deeper.

Enter that “simple” little thing called love—the round peg for the round hole. In The Lost Weekend, religion doesn’t do anything for Don. Although he doesn’t specifically seek out help from any religious institutions, the representations of religion (holidays, churches) are all around him—and they’re not super active in lending him a hand up from where he wallows on the sidewalk. But that’s not true religion like we talked about last week with Going My Way. True religion is about love. The same God who said He is the Beginning and the End also says He is love and that love comes from Him (I John 4:7). Love gives hope to Don, a worst-case scenario of drunken despair, and it can give hope to the rest of us as well.

I wasn’t too impressed with this week’s Best Picture winner, The Lost Weekend (1945, Paramount) until about the final 40 minutes or so. Then it got quite intense. Chronicling the extended weekend bender of an alcoholic with aspirations of being a successful writer, The Lost Weekend transgressed Hollywood’s accepted norms (at the time) by presenting its viewers with a frank, open look at the devastation caused by alcoholism, a major social issue of the film’s time (and of every other time period before and after since the first creation of liquor).

Don Birnam’s weekend plans: locking himself in his apartment with his liquor.

Its nontraditional subject matter and unorthodox manner of presenting it almost prevented The Lost Weekend from ever being released to general audiences. Preview audiences failed to react favorably to a movie with such a realistic portrayal of inebriation, and the alcohol industry even went so far as to offer to purchase the film’s negative, thereby eliminating the possibility of its circulation. The film’s creators and producers prevailed, though, and The Lost Weekend went on to great popular and commercial success. Nominated for seven Academy Awards (including Film Editing, Cinematography [Black-and-White], and Music [Music Score of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture]), the film won four Oscars: Directing, Writing (Screenplay), Actor for Ray Milland as Don Birnam, and Best Motion Picture.

What first struck me as odd about this film is its complete lack of reference to World War II. By the time of The Lost Weekend’s Los Angeles premiere on November 29, 1945, exactly a week after Thanksgiving, the world had born witness to events of such magnitude as: the liberation of Auschwitz, the U.S. Marines’ victory at Iwo Jima, the deaths of Nazi prisoner Anne Frank and fourth-term President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the executions of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini and his mistress, the suicides of German dictator Adolf Hitler and his wife of one day, the surrender of Germany, the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the surrender of Japan, the establishment of the United Nations, and the beginning of the Nuremberg Trials—all in the space of less than a year.

There were other things going on in the world, of course. It is just surprising to me that The Lost Weekend seems insulated from its current events when its setting seems to be in the 1940s. And to me, the 1940s is all about World War II. It seems like there would be no way to get around that fact. In truth, it would appear that we of the twenty-first century are still trying to come to terms with the tragedy and triumph of World War II as evidenced by the steady stream of WWII films that has never once abated since the end of the war in 1945. The 1950s produced Best Picture winners From Here to Eternity and The Bridge on the River Kwai. The ‘60s saw the release of The Longest Day, The Dirty Dozen, and The Guns of Navarone. The year 1970 witnessed the success of both Tora!Tora!Tora! and BP winner Patton. The ‘80s gave us Empire of the Sun and The Big Red One. The 1990s churned out epics like Saving Private Ryan, The Thin Red Line, BP winner Schindler’s List, and Life is Beautiful (which introduced Oscar fans to the effervescent Roberto Benigni and produced some rather memorable Academy Awards moments). And, the 2000s have not disappointed with films such as Pearl Harbor, The Pianist, Flags of Our Fathers, Letters from Iwo Jima, Inglourious Basterds, and Fury.

The nifty visual effect of the shadow of an alcohol bottle hovers over the film’s drunken and desperate protagonist.

While The Lost Weekend might not directly address World War II, its focus on alcoholism still indirectly relates to the war and its aftermath. As soldiers of the conflict returned home, all of them had to cope with the atrocities they had witnessed and the acts they had committed to promote freedom—and many of these veterans turned to the bottle in an attempt to fend off the nightmares and manage the transition back to “normal.” Such an honest, straightforward picture of alcohol dependency as The Lost Weekend provides promoted a more open discussion about personal struggles faced by men returning home from the front lines and paved the way for other films to address social issues that were often considered taboo (I think of how Best Picture winners One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and A Beautiful Mind challenge the way we perceive and treat the mentally ill). Hence, my initial puzzlement at this week’s film’s topic resolved itself into a contemplation of the post-war difficulties encountered by those who had been in the thick of the fighting—as well as by those who loved them and welcomed them home—which is perhaps what the film’s makers intended all along.

For more thoughts on The Lost Weekend and its significance, please check out the full post, um, this weekend!

This road leads to Rainbowville,
Going my way.
Up ahead is Blue Bird Hill,
Going my way.

Just pack a basket full of wishes
And off you start
With Sunday morning in your heart.

Round the bend you’ll see a sign
“Dreamers Highway.”
Happiness is down the line,
Going my way.

The smiles you’ll gather
Will look well on you.
Oh, I hope you’re going my way too.

A little over an hour into Going My Way, Bing Crosby’s character, Father Chuck O’Malley, sings the song that shares a title with its film, “Going My Way.” Father O’Malley has come to check up on Carol, a runaway who aspires to be a singer and who, it would seem, has fallen into the clutches of Ted Haines Jr., who is on his way to being as heartless a landlord as his father. Ted has no intentions of throwing Carol out of her apartment, however. It would seem (especially to the nosey Mrs. Quimp) that Ted aims to make the penniless Carol his mistress. And that’s why Father O’Malley pays Carol (and Ted) a visit. The couple relate how they met and proudly give Father O’Malley a tour of Carol’s apartment, which is stocked full of gifts from Ted, evidence of his intentions to purchase Carol’s affections.

Rather than ream the young people out over their potentially scandalous relationship, Father O’Malley sits down at Carol’s piano and explains how music has always been important to him and how there came a point in his life when he had to make a decision about his future career path: “whether to write the nation’s songs or go my way.” His thoughts about music then transition to his beliefs about religion: “Religion doesn’t have to be this (pounding on the low notes of the piano), takin’ all the fun out of everything. It can be bright (tinkling the high notes on the piano), bring you closer to happiness.” What follows the priest’s music/religion thoughts is the song “Going My Way,” which moves Carol to tears and Ted to deep thoughtfulness. After Father O’Malley quietly excuses himself from the apartment, a choked up Carol muses, “It’s a nice thought, going my way…isn’t it?”

Ted and Carol react to Father O’Malley’s singing “Going My Way.”

I’ve been musing all week about just what “Going My Way” means—especially in light of the connection Father O’Malley makes between music and religion and the response of those who listen to the song (the song reappears toward the end of the film in a performance given for a group of music producers by Father O’Malley’s boys choir and his friend, a famous opera star, Genevieve Linden). What I’ve come up with are some hopefully coherent thoughts regarding individual purpose and practical Christianity.

The concept of “going my way” is first mentioned when Father O’Malley is recalling his decision to join the priesthood instead of pursuing music as a career. He tells Carol and Ted that he finds much joy in helping other people, so he is satisfied that he made the right decision in choosing to join the church. Yet, his combining the story of (perhaps) his biggest life decision with a comparison of how most people view religion (dull, strict, stifling) with what religion should be (inspiring, joyous) elevates the concept of “going my way” into a new realm, that of morality. Yes, Father O’Malley’s own personal “way” is the priesthood; but he’s not your typical priest, as is evidenced right from the film’s beginning.

Father O’Malley is clearly not a typical priest, as Father Fitzgibbon quickly notices.

By the time Father O’Malley first sings “Going My Way,” viewers of the film have seen enough of the progressive priest to know that his methods of caring for his flock are unconventional—in other words, his “way” is to promote the morality of the church through creative means that meet the needs of those within his parish in a way that cold, rule-driven religion cannot. Father O’Malley’s Christianity is warm and practical. He doesn’t run around the neighborhood giving people guilt trips and hassling them about their church attendance records (although he does ask Ted if he goes to church). Instead, he sees the young boys of his parish involved in petty crime and befriends them, taking them to baseball games and building their self-esteem by forming a boys choir to allow them to feel pride in something positive. He gives Carol an impromptu singing lesson (along with a little cash to tide her over until she finds a job). He pulls the church out of its financial morass and revitalizes Father Fitzgibbon, forming a warm friendship with the old man that bridges the generations and traditions that divide them at first. In the song he sings Carol and Ted, then, Father O’Malley is inviting the young couple to join his way of life–a personal, individualized religion that is warm and overflowing with a practical love that meets the needs of those around it.

Father O’Malley meeting the practical needs of the young men in his parish–a positive male role model.

For Me Then…

Going My Way is a feel-good flick—a morale-boosting, hope-building, two-hour stroll through conflicts that seem slight and issues that pale in comparison to the carnage of the war that enveloped the world in 1944. But on a less cosmic level, to me this film is about real-life, everyday, hands-on Christianity. So often, we Christians are encouraged to share the good news of salvation with those around us who have never heard it or who have never accepted that Jesus died for them, but just as often we turn a blind eye to the physical or emotional needs of those same people. It’s one thing to share with someone that God will provide for all his/her needs; but it’s another thing to act out that message by seeing that person needs a warm coat and giving him/her my own. It’s one thing to tell someone he/she needs a Savior; it’s another thing to see that person needs a friend and to fill that void in his/her life. What Father O’Malley shows Going My Way‘s viewers is that religion shouldn’t be primarily about rules–condemning those who break them and rewarding those who go through the motions. Rather, “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world” (James 1:27).

It’s a little past the middle of July, and it’s piping hot where I am right now. But I just can’t get these Christmas carols out of my head! I blame this week’s Best Picture winner, Going My Way (1944, Paramount). It’s not a Christmas movie, even though it has a kind of “good will toward all” feeling (and both “Silent Night” and “Ave Maria” are sung in the film). The festive songs are stuck in my head because the star of the movie is Bing Crosby—whom I had previously always associated with snow falling, hot chocolate, and sitting by a twinkling Christmas tree at night.

Apparently, I’m not the only one who had a difficult time accepting Crosby as a legitimate actor, instead of just as the crooner he is perhaps most famous for being. At the time of the release of Going My Way, Crosby was the most popular man on the radio as well as in the movies (and on records)—but Going My Way established his reputation as a respectable actor, earning him his only Academy Award win. The following year (1946) he would become the first actor to be twice nominated for an Oscar for portraying the same character, Father Chuck O’Malley, a role he reprised in The Bells of Saint Mary’s in which he starred with Ingrid Bergman. (For an interesting article on Bing Crosby’s role in the advancement of recording/radio technology, check this out: http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/how-bing-crosby-and-the-nazis-helped-to-create-silicon-valley).

Fitzgerald and Crosby with their Oscars

Speaking of bizarre Academy Award nominations, Going My Way led to a new Oscar precedent after the very odd occurrence in which Barry Fitzgerald, who plays Father Fitzgibbon, was nominated in both the Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor categories for the same role in the same movie. Back in 1944, nominees in the acting categories were determined by Academy voters. Get enough votes for a certain category, and you qualified for it. Luckily for the Academy, Fitzgerald won the Best Supporting Actor category, while his co-star Crosby took home the Best Actor statuette. But how funny would it have been had Fitzgerald won both categories! We won’t see this peculiar situation again any time soon, though. The Academy changed their nomination rules right after the debacle with Going My Way’s actors.

Altogether, Going My Way took home seven Oscars (out of ten nominations): Actor for Bing Crosby, Actor in a Supporting Role for Barry Fitzgerald, Writing (Screenplay), Writing (Original Motion Picture Story), Directing, Music (Song) for “Swinging on a Star,” and Best Motion Picture. The film failed to take home awards for Best Actor for Barry Fitzgerald, Film Editing, and Cinematography (Black-and-White).

Father O’Malley and his boys choir singing “Swinging on a Star”

The true mark of success for this film, though, was not how many Oscars it garnered, but how it raised morale during the war. One trailer for Going My Way describes the purpose of the film in scripted words superimposed over scenes from the movie: “For a world that needs the LIFT of its wonderful story…and the LILT of its glorious songs.” While some of the set-ups for the songs seem a little contrived, there’s no denying that Going My Way is a warm, feel-good movie about bridging gaps within society and between generations—a perfect message for a world that was about a year away from the start of a massive rebuilding of everything it once knew and everything that had been shattered by the war. Going My Way premiered in New York City almost exactly a month before D-Day and in Los Angeles two months after the Allied invasion of France. The war would soon be in its death throes. The citizens of the world were exhausted and demoralized. This film offered a reprieve from bereavement and destruction—and for that, it was wildly successful.

For more thoughts on Going My Way and its significance, please check out the full post this weekend! And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go listen to some “White Christmas”!

Let’s talk about love.

Casablanca is brimming with portrayals of both negative and positive love: love of money, power, cruelty, and self vs. love of country, freedom, fidelity, and other people. And, of course, there is no shortage of romantic love. The film’s reputation relies on its love triangle plot. Who will get the girl in the end, her resistance-leading husband or her apparently neutral lover?

What complicates the love triangle is the backdrop of the war—Casablanca truly demonstrates the mantra that “desperate times call for desperate measures.” The film is crammed with nameless (as well as main) characters who are frantic to escape the war and find refuge in America, so they use and abuse each other in their fright, bartering everything they have—money, property, themselves, and their consciences—for chance opportunities for safety granted by slimy, double-dealing officials and black market smugglers. Yet time and again the film reminds its viewers that the shadow of war and destruction hovers over even the most promising escapes, the doom of that time swirling as a fog around the plane to Lisbon and as an unveiled threat of German conquest to even the New World across the Atlantic. What is one to do then in order to avoid annihilation? Would anyone accuse the person who sought his/her own safety before that of anyone else?

Casablanca’s love triangle: Victor, Ilsa, and Rick

In the midst of the film’s war-torn conflict stands its protagonist, Rick, the American café/casino owner who can’t return to America because of his shady past and can’t return to Europe because of his anti-fascist activities there. Though only a few specifics about Rick’s earlier actions are revealed to the movie’s viewers, it becomes clear that Rick has always taken the side of the underdog, of the oppressed—until Ilsa breaks his heart by abandoning him in Paris. After that, Rick claims a personal neutrality, claiming more than once, “I stick my neck out for nobody” and declaring to Ilsa, “I’m not fighting for anything anymore except myself. I’m the only Cause I’m interested in.”

On the flip side, Ilsa’s husband, Victor Laszlo, lives for “the cause.” Having repeatedly eluded the Nazis who relentlessly pursue him, Victor (whose name is close to “victory,” uncoincidentally) is consumed with exposing the cruelties and corruption of the Germans and with fomenting resistance to the Third Reich. He loves his wife, but he may love his mission more.

It would appear, therefore, that Ilsa has a choice of which man to love. She loves her husband Victor with a devotion born of admiration and awe, but she loves Rick with a passion born of what is supposedly true romantic love. Ilsa’s solution to her dilemma is to first abandon Rick in Paris as the Germans march into the city, then later to plan with Rick in Casablanca to break ties with her husband in order that she and Rick might never be separated again. Since this decision about how to sever ties with Victor is too overwhelming for her, Ilsa relinquishes control of her romantic life (and her morality) to Rick: “I can’t fight it anymore. I ran away from you once. I can’t do it again. Oh, I don’t know what’s right any longer. You have to think for both of us. For all of us.”

Rick does plot for all three people in the love triangle, but his resolution is surprising after his former insistence on putting himself and his desires first. Rick’s demonstration of love at the close of the film (spoiler alert!) pushes Ilsa firmly back to her husband and gives Victor the opportunity to continue to fight against the evil of the Nazi regime—even though Rick’s selfless act deprives him (and Ilsa) of happiness. In the end, the love that is still standing is two-fold: the love of freedom and the love of friendship. Rick’s relinquishing Ilsa (as well as his murder of Gestapo Major Heinrich Strasser) marks his entrance into the membership of resistance fighters, inspiring the corrupt (but hilarious) Captain Louis Renault to also renounce his former self-serving life and begin seeking a new calling under a new master. No longer will self dominate the concerns of these two men. Instead, they stroll off together into the fog, contemplating being new “patriots” and joining a group of French resistance fighters, Rick infamously declaring, “Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

“Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

For Me Then…

I’m not a huge fan of the love triangle that helps to make Casablanca the sentimental draw that it is. I can sympathize with Ilsa’s being lonely in Paris while Victor is in a concentration camp, but it seems abrupt and odd to me that she so quickly tumbles into a heavy romantic relationship with Rick upon learning of her husband’s supposed death. Of course, she then finds herself in quite a dilemma when she hears that Victor is still alive while she has come to love Rick. Abandonment seems to be a theme with her, a point that Rick notes when the ex-lovers are reunited in Casablanca. The fact that Ilsa intends to leave Victor again at the end of the film doesn’t score a lot of points for her character in my mind. In other words, I found it hard to root for her to end up in an adulterous relationship with Rick (unintentional in Paris but completely understood and premeditated in Casablanca). On the flip side, it’s undeniable that Ilsa clearly loves Rick more than she loves Victor; and it’s painful to see that, even though Victor is a heroic figure in the movement to oust the Nazis, his love for his wife is not his priority. Everything he does is for “the cause”—a noble quest, but perhaps a cold one for a young, lonely wife.

Hence, I kind of like it when the film ends with patriotism and friendship—although, again, it seems like Rick should be a little more broken up than he is. Casablanca’s attempt to indicate that a cause exists that is higher than romantic love is admirable, even though it may not be entirely convincing given the resolution of the love triangle. What is interesting is that the film’s title might help to explain its ending more satisfactorily. Not only indicating the setting of the movie’s storyline, “Casablanca” stands for the intense difficulties brought on by the devastation of a war unlike any the world had seen before. What would normally have been a taboo relationship becomes sympathetic under conditions of the early 1940s. Decisions that would otherwise have been inconceivable had to be made daily. Where personal gain use to reign supreme, now the greater good—the survival of democracy and the innocent—must hold sway. As Rick tells Ilsa, “It doesn’t take much to see that the problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.” Yet ironically, the film employs the story of “three little people” to make the point that individual conflicts pale in comparison to worldwide crisis. In the end, the fog of the war overtakes everything, and people must deal with that haze before they can consider themselves.

This past December over Christmas break, my sister and I sneaked in a mall day. We navigated the crowds, perused the sales, and devoured pizza in the food court. Then she insisted that the movie we saw to cap off the day would be the season’s raving success, La La Land. I went along with the suggestion, intrigued by seeing a potential Best Picture winner in the theater before it had been crowned. If you recall from my first post, I’m often the last person to see these big blockbusters (For instance, I finally saw the live action Beauty and the Beast yesterday!). Anyhow, La La Land it was.

I was a little surprised (and then confused), though, during our time with Damien Chazelle’s smash hit. For one, the film begins with several large ensemble dance/choreography numbers, but then the cast seems to disappear. My second puzzlement was with the “supernatural” elements in the film, such as dancing through starry skies. Hmmm…almost as unrealistic as Californians bursting into joyous song over their clogged freeways (I’ve driven them. No temptations whatsoever to get out and jive all over my car.). Lastly, the third (and main) aspect of the film I took issue with was its ending (spoiler alert!). I personally had a difficult time believing there was any actual chemistry between Ryan Gosling’s and Emma Stone’s characters. So, to have their characters not end up together after two hours of the movie working to convince me that they did belong together was frustrating, to say the least. As I pondered the film later that evening and in the following days (I admit I’m a brooder) and discussed it with various friends and family, a lightbulb went off in my head. It was an explanation of sorts for La La Land’s conclusion: Casablanca (1942, Warner Bros.).

Relatively early on in La La Land, viewers catch a not-too-subtle glimpse of a huge image of Ingrid Bergman, one of the stars of Casablanca, on the wall of Mia’s bedroom. Bergman later appears again on a billboard the characters walk past. While these innocuous nods to Casablanca might be just part of La La Land’s tribute to past Hollywood glory, the kicker occurs when Mia points out to Sebastian that across the street from the coffee shop where she works is “the window that Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman looked out in Casablanca.” There we have it: a blatant hint as to how to explain La La Land’s ending.

Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman in the climactic scene of Casablanca.

Of course, the most famous scene of Casablanca is its conclusion, more specifically the couple of shots when Rick and Ilsa’s heads turn toward each other on the airport tarmac (My favorite spoof of this is when Billy Crystal employed the scene in his opening montage for the 2000 Academy Awards: “Hello-o! Will somebody get on the plane PLEASE! C’mon! They just strip-searched Diana Ross! Let’s go!”). In a very similar set-up at the end of La La Land, Mia and Sebastian encounter each other again after five years of separation. They both turn to look at each other before Mia leaves with her husband and Sebastian is left behind (incidentally, wife-less). Sounds a whole lot like Casablanca, minus a “beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

The question about La La Land’s ending morphs from why Mia and Sebastian can’t be together to why the film mimics Casablanca. While in the past Casablanca has been lauded as one of the greatest films of all time and finds its name included in lists with Gone with the Wind, The Sound of Music, and Titanic, more recent reviews and studies have found that the popularity of the film is in a pretty dramatic decline (For an interesting article about this fact, check out this link: http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2017/02/noah_isenberg_s_we_ll_always_have_casablanca_reviewed.html). In fact, at the time of its original release in 1943 (limited release in 1942), Casablanca was just one of several successful films to grace the silver screen that year. For the 1944 Academy Awards, Casablanca netted 8 nominations, a respectable amount that was still eclipsed by the 9 nominations of For Whom the Bell Tolls and the 12 of The Song of Bernadette. Casablanca took home Oscars only for Writing (Screenplay), Directing, and Outstanding Motion Picture, sustaining losses in categories that seem surprising today given the film’s iconic status (Cinematography [Black-and-White], Actor in a Supporting Role for Claude Rains as Captain Renault, Actor for Humphrey Bogart as Rick Blaine, Music [Music Score of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture], and Film Editing). The legendary Ingrid Bergman failed to even receive a nomination for her role in the film, although, ironically, she was nominated for her part in For Whom the Bell Tolls for the same year.

What, then, has been (and for many still is) the draw of Casablanca? Why the success, the notoriety? How can it remain in the conversation about all-time greatest films when its charm is losing its hold on audiences in certain circles nowadays? In my mind, there are a couple of things that make this a great film: casting/acting, dialogue/writing, and historical timing. Few could argue that Bogart and Bergman are not brilliant in Casablanca. Their chemistry (unlike that of Gosling and Stone, in my opinion) is undoubtable. One can read their characters’ emotions in the tiniest flinching of their facial muscles—they have become Rick and Ilsa. And the film’s script has got to be one of the most quoted in the history of movies. “Here’s looking at you, kid.” “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.” “We’ll always have Paris.” “Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.” Sigh. Brilliant.

But let’s look briefly at the timing of the film’s release. 1943, the height of World War II. It hadn’t been going too swell for the Allied forces. Thousands of refugees had made it as far as Casablanca, a city on the coast of Morocco in Africa—certainly these folks felt they were going backward in their attempt to traverse the Atlantic—where they waited and waited to acquire permission and means to reach freedom in America. Casablanca, the film, focuses on these people and their desperation. But what really put Casablanca, the city, on the map and Casablanca, the film, at the top of the box office was the fact that in late 1942, the Allied forces landed 65,000 troops under the command of Dwight D. Eisenhower at Casablanca and two other North African ports under the control of the French (who had surrendered to Germany in 1940). Casablanca had become a militarily strategic name at the same time that it became a culturally popular one. Bolstering the conspicuousness of Casablanca, in early 1943, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill met in the port city to plan Allied strategy for the next phase of the war. Nothing could have been better for Casablanca, the film.

Gorgeous photo of the real city of Casablanca (Photo credit: http://www.accorhotels.com/6572)

La La Land‘s usurping the basic romantic storyline of Casablanca and transporting it to another time and place is a nod to the timelessness of a film whose claim to greatness began because of its own time period and subject matter. Both are films about love and self-sacrifice (we’ll get to that idea more this weekend); and in my opinion, both end in slightly unsatisfactory manners. Yet the appeal of films with not-so-happy endings will continue because their scenarios are often realistic. Casablanca may slide up and down the rankings of the world’s greatest films, but its place in history is assured.

For an interesting read, check out this original review of Casablanca from 1942 (http://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9C06E1DF1039E33BBC4F51DFB7678389659EDE ).For more thoughts on Casablanca and its significance, please check out the full post this weekend!

From the title of this week’s BP winner, one would think that the film’s focus is on the lead female character, Mrs. Miniver, “an average English middle-class” housewife during the early days of World War II; and this is indeed the case. However, there is another “Mrs. Miniver” in the film, Mr. Ballard’s prize-winning red rose, which he names “the Mrs. Miniver” in honor of “the nicest lady in town.” Mr. Ballard, who works both as station master for the local train and bell-ringer for the town church, belongs to the “peasantry” as do the Minivers technically (though they clearly are very upper middle class, employing servants and able to make luxury purchases in the face of encroaching war). On the other side of the social fence are the representatives of the nobility, the ruling class: the Beldons, for whom the town is named. Lady Beldon wins the town flower show every year with her white roses; nevertheless, the optimistic Mr. Ballard believes his “Mrs. Miniver” is more than a contender and challenges Lady Beldon by entering his roses in the competition.

While this frivolous-seeming floral rivalry (containing not-so-subtle overtones regarding issues of disparities in social classes) might appear out of place in a film of Allied propaganda, it really is not; for flowers, roses in particular, serve a metaphorical role in Mrs. Miniver. During a discussion between the two bell ringers regarding if the flower show will go on as planned due to “conditions” in Britain after the German invasion of Poland, the other bell ringer informs Mr. Ballard that war is probably inevitable, continuing, “And if war comes, it’s good-bye roses.” Mr. Ballard replies, “Don’t talk silly. Huh! You might as well say ‘Good-bye England.’ There’ll always be roses.” In a sense, then, roses represent England—flourishing, lovely, innocent. Regardless of the coming violence of war, despite the impending deaths of millions, the earth will still produce roses. And England will endure.

Mr. Ballard proudly presents his “Mrs. Miniver” rose to Mrs. Miniver.

To me, this is reminiscent again of Churchill’s attitude toward his country and the war, as well as the point he wanted to convey to the rest of the world: The British were in the right. Their cause was just. Those watching the fracturing of the Old World should take note of the issues over which the war was being fought, observe which side was advocating goodness, and join their strength with those fighting for morality. The British have no guilt or doubts about being on the wrong side of the conflict—just as flowers cannot be guilty. The point, then, is innocence–as well as tenacity. The Mrs. Miniver rose reflects the attitude of her for whom it was named. Though beautiful and feminine, nothing can deflate the morale of Mrs. Miniver or prevent her from doing everything in her power to defend her family and her country. She, like England and roses, will survive this war.

The ideas of British innocence, determination to prevail, and the rightness of their cause is shown again in Mrs. Miniver during a night-time bombing during which Mrs. Miniver reads aloud from Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. Sheltering in their bunker with their two youngest children, first Mrs. and then Mr. Miniver linger over some of the words of the final two paragraphs of the beloved novella, which are worth quoting in full here:

So [Alice] sat on, with closed eyes, and half believed herself in Wonderland, though she knew she had but to open them again, and all would change to dull reality—the grass would be only rustling in the wind, and the pool rippling to the waving of the reeds—the rattling teacups would change to tinkling sheep-bells, and the Queen’s shrill cries to the voice of the shepherd-boy—and the sneeze of the baby, the shriek of the Gryphon, and all the other queer noises, would change (she knew) to the confused clamour of the busy farm-yard—while the lowing of the cattle in the distance would take the place of the Mock Turtle’s heavy sobs.

Lastly, she pictured to herself how this same little sister of hers would, in the after-time, be herself a grown woman; and how she would keep, through all her riper years, the simple and loving heart of her childhood; and how she would gather about her other little children, and make their eyes bright and eager with many a strange tale, perhaps even with the dream of Wonderland of long ago; and how she would feel with all their simple sorrows, and find a pleasure in all their simple joys, remembering her own child-life, and the happy summer days.

Mr. and Mrs. Miniver both recall that Alice in Wonderland was the first book they ever read—hearkening back in their own memories (as well as in Alice’s at the close of the book) to an idyllic time, fanciful though it may have been. Once more, the rosy-hued, peaceful past steals into the chaos of the present, mingling with the whistling, crashing bombs that rock the Minivers’ bunker and destroy part of their perfectly lovely English home. One cannot help but be moved with pity and compassion while the couple hold their children close in the midst of the destruction of their Wonderland. Wonderland was only a dream. Reality is a nightmare. Will innocence survive? In Mrs. Miniver, it is screaming for help.

The Minivers in their bunker post-Wonderland.

For Me Then…

I like (most) war movies a whole lot. I find them inspiring and deeply moving. I think one reason for this is that I worry that there is very nearly a complete lack of willingness in our own time to stand up for moral causes today. If the catastrophe of World War II occurred in our time and culture, to us, what would our response be if called upon to come to the aid of a broken Europe? What would our young men do if summoned to meet an enemy who without warning attacked a fleet of warships at rest on a sunny Sunday morning in December? What would the women, the majority left behind at home, do to fill the roles of the absent men? Could we give up our Xboxes, our cell phones, our Netflix, our instant-gratification lives to fight for a just cause? Are we as a culture even capable any more of such an answer to evil? Could our generation live up to that of the time of WWII?

Born in 1940 at the start of the war, journalist and news anchor Tom Brokaw grew up among the people whom he would label “the greatest generation any society has produced.” He describes the World War II generation in the following way in his bestseller (a must-read) The Greatest Generation:

Looking back, I can recall that the grown-ups all seemed to have a sense of purpose that was evident even to someone as young as four, five, or six. Whatever else was happening in our family or neighborhood, there was something greater connecting all of us, in large ways and small…The young Americans of this time constituted a generation birth-marked for greatness, a generation of Americans that would take its place in American history with the generations that had converted the North American wilderness into the United States and infused the new nation with self-determination embodied first in the Declaration of Independence and then in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights…It may be historically premature to judge the greatness of a whole generation, but indisputably, there are common traits that cannot be denied. It is a generation that, by and large, made no demands of homage from those who followed and prospered economically, politically, and culturally because of its sacrifices. It is a generation of towering achievement and modest demeanor, a legacy of their former years when they were participants in and witness to sacrifices of the highest order,…the ravages of the greatest war the world has seen.

Mrs. Miniver asks its viewers to stand up for the cause of right. Tom Brokaw’s greatest generation answered that call. How can we also respond to such a plea today?

Here we have it—our first actual World War II Best Picture winner. Although Mrs. Miniver (1942, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) doesn’t contain a ton of war details, it does include more specifics than previous films that have merely alluded to the likelihood of war and/or the ideals of patriotism and courage, along with the concept that the present looks darker than the past. Nevertheless, some actual events from the war are noted, such as the invasion of Poland and the miracle at Dunkirk (Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster flick about this WWII event comes out in theaters two weeks from tomorrow!).

The vicar’s famous speech at the end of Mrs. Miniver

But the real aim of the film seems to be to urge resistance to German aggression as well as to inspire the average citizen in the Allied nations (specifically Britain and the United States) to do his/her part in the war effort—whatever each person can do, no matter how small the action seems. The film is a call to arms for the ordinary person, to what we can call “civilian arms,” closing with an inspirational speech by the Miniver family’s vicar, which goes in part: “This is not only a war of soldiers in uniform. It is a war of the people, of all the people, and it must be fought not only on the battlefield, but in the cities and in the villages, in the factories and on the farms, in the home, and in the heart of every man, woman, and child who loves freedom! Well, we have buried our dead, but we shall not forget them. Instead, they will inspire us with an unbreakable determination to free ourselves and those who come after us from the tyranny and terror that threaten to strike us down. This is the people’s war! It is our war! We are the fighters! Fight it then! Fight it with all that is in us, and may God defend the right!”

That’s pretty inspirational, if you ask me. It’s also propaganda. At a time when American feelings toward the war vacillated between promoting isolationism and advocating support for the embattled British and French forces, Mrs. Miniver rode into theaters at the start of a wave of anti-Nazi films that aimed to unify American minds in a pro-Allied direction. However, this anti-German trend was not without resistance from Hollywood and its few studio heads. For, of course, a war was not good for movie profits overseas. One couldn’t offend the German regime too much if one wanted to make a nice chunk of change in theaters of the Third Reich. William Wyler, the director of Mrs. Miniver, believed differently, thank goodness. Based on a series of wildly popular British newspaper columns written by Joyce Maxtone Graham (who wrote under the pen name Jan Struther), Wyler’s film molded the tales about a British housewife into a propagandistic force, making the German pilot far more menacing and the vicar’s speech more pointedly pro-war. Wyler later admitted he was a “war monger,” seeing the need for Americans to come to the aid of the British and their allies and desiring that his film serve as a metaphorical kick in the pants to Americans who were on the fence about getting involved in another European conflict. President Franklin D. Roosevelt loved it, urging MGM to distribute the film to theaters all across America as quickly as possible and having the vicar’s closing speech translated into several different languages and dropped from the air over Nazi-occupied countries. Winston Churchill, who firmly believed Britain could not win the war without the aid of the United States, also prized the film, reportedly stating that Mrs. Miniver was worth “a flotilla of battleships.” Joseph Goebbels, Nazi propaganda minister, recognized the power of Mrs. Miniver as Allied propaganda, stating that “the anti-German tendency is perfectly accomplished.” So it would seem that Mrs. Miniver fulfilled the aim of its director.

The Academy considered the film a success as well. Mrs. Miniver was nominated for 12 Academy Awards, including Actress in a Supporting Role (Dame May Whitty as Lady Beldon), Film Editing, Actor in a Supporting Role (Henry Travers as Mr. Ballard; Travers would go on to play the beloved angel Clarence in It’s a Wonderful Life), Sound Recording, Special Effects, and Actor (Walter Pidgeon as Mr. Miniver). The film took home six Oscars: Outstanding Motion Picture, Writing (Screenplay), Cinematography (Black-and-White), Directing, Actress in a Supporting Role (Teresa Wright as Carol Beldon), and Actress (Greer Garson as Mrs. Miniver, whom we can thank for the current 45-second speech limit which was imposed soon after Garson gave the lengthiest acceptance speech in Oscar history at over 5 minutes long).

From their bedroom window the Minivers watch British war planes head out to confront the enemy.

For me, I enjoyed Mrs. Miniver’s film propaganda—especially during this Fourth of July week when we remember our Founding Fathers and their determination that all people should live in freedom from tyranny. I felt that the vicar’s speech at the end of this film greatly resembles Winston Churchill’s famous June 4, 1940, “We Shall Fight on the Beaches” speech. So, to close this Weekday Warm-up, here is the end of that particular (and spectacular) call to action:

I have, myself, full confidence that if all do their duty, if nothing is neglected, and if the best arrangements are made, as they are being made, we shall prove ourselves once again able to defend our Island home, to ride out the storm of war, and to outlive the menace of tyranny, if necessary for years, if necessary alone. At any rate, that is what we are going to try to do. That is the resolve of His Majesty’s Government-every man of them. That is the will of Parliament and the nation. The British Empire and the French Republic, linked together in their cause and in their need, will defend to the death their native soil, aiding each other like good comrades to the utmost of their strength. Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God’s good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.

Several articles/sources that I found to be of interest in connection with Mrs. Miniver and the war can be found at the following web addresses: the original text of Mrs. Miniver by Jan Struther (http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/struther/miniver/miniver.html), a BBC article about the role the film played in Allied propaganda (http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20150209-the-film-that-goebbels-feared), and the full text of Churchill’s “We Shall Fight on the Beaches” speech (https://www.winstonchurchill.org/resources/speeches/1940-the-finest-hour/we-shall-fight-on-the-beaches). For more thoughts on Mrs. Miniver and its significance, please check out the full post this weekend!

When I was teaching high school English, one exercise we did when discussing denotation (the literal meaning of a word) vs. connotation (the implied meaning of a word) was to look at Psalm 23 and rotate the emphasis onto different words. Students were surprised to observe how the meanings of familiar verses changed and expanded depending on which words were emphasized. For this week’s BP film, How Green Was My Valley, I thought we would use this emphasis exercise to extrapolate layers of meaning using the film’s rather creative title.

How Green Was My Valley

HOW: An adverb indicating extent or the degree of something. Huw’s valley is not just green, like the other valleys in Wales. His valley is so green—how very green it is. Right away in both the film’s title and in the film itself, the emphasis is on the uniqueness of the setting of the story. This valley which the Morgans call home is stunningly verdant. As Huw describes it in the opening minutes of the movie, “Green it was, and possessed of the plenty of the earth. In all Wales, there was none so beautiful.” The valley is the provider of life to its residents, giving them food, shelter, and employment through its coal repositories. Since “nature is the hand-maiden of the Lord,” according to Reverend Gruffydd, God gifts the Morgans and their neighbors with provisions for their daily needs through the abundance of their valley. It is such a wonderfully perfect place that the only word that Huw can find to describe its flawlessness is “how,” not a precise description like “perfect” or “amazing,” but a word that is limitless in its connotation of the valley’s greenness. The valley is utterly emerald, lush, and nurturing.

The Morgan family in its “greenness”

How Green Was My Valley

GREEN: A color. Since this film is in black and white, it’s ironic that the greenness of the valley is so important to the story and to the overall meaning of the film. Although at the beginning of the film, the valley is seen through the window covered in the black waste of the coal mine and completely desolate and ruined, Huw chooses to go back to the former greenness of the valley in his memory—even while he packs up his meager belongings to leave the valley forever physically. Yet “green” refers to more than just the color of the location of the story. It can also refer to the harmony of the Morgan family and the community that existed in the past when the coal mine was new and the economy was strong. The Morgans with their six sons and one daughter thrived as the picture-perfect Welsh family, ruled by the authoritarian father and domestic mother. Mr. Morgan is unquestionably the supreme head of the family, but his undeniable love for his gentle wife and his children garners both the respect of his family and community, as well as that of the film’s viewers. For Mr. Morgan, being the leader of the family is not about power and controlling those beneath his authority; rather, it is about providing for their needs and raising them to be capable, respectful (and respectable) adults. Furthermore, the addition to the family of the lovely, caring Bronwyn as the wife of Huw’s older brother Ivor only embellishes the family’s already flourishing state of being. As the valley is green and prosperous, so also are the Morgans, full of life and love and possessed of the esteem and companionship of those around them.

How Green Was My Valley

WAS: A past-tense, state-of-being verb. The valley is no longer green when the story commences. Its greenness was a reality of the past. What changed it? Obviously, the coal mining had more than a little to do with the change in the color of the landscape. But, again, more than merely indicating the hue of the characters’ natural surroundings, the valley and the fact that its color has changed in a negative way connect to the experiences of the characters themselves. Much of the conflict within the plot develops from economic conditions. As the wealthy owners of the coal mine become greedier and as other out-of-work miners become more desperate for employment, the conditions under which the Morgan men work grow more stressful and difficult, ultimately leading to the exodus of four of the Morgans’ sons to other countries in search of livelihoods. Their absence is partly to blame for the metaphorical darkening of the valley. Similarly, the marriage of Angharad, the Morgans’ only daughter, to the cold, snobbish son of the mine owner, a man whom she does not love, increases the growing gloom of the valley—especially since her marriage is barren and loveless, opposed to the marriage she would have had with the man she truly loves, Rev. Gruffydd, had he not been so self-sacrificing as to refuse her in order to spare her a life of poverty. Death also contributes to the reduction of the valley’s original loveliness.

The quaint houses of the miners lining the valley up to the coal mine

How Green Was My Valley

MY: A personal possessive. When Huw begins speaking at the opening of How Green Was My Valley, it becomes clear to the film’s viewer that the events of the story will be seen from Huw’s perspective. From the film’s title, it is evident that the valley likewise belongs to Huw. Thus, the movie deals with personal issues rather than with sweeping national economic crises or wars between powerful countries, examining human issues on a micro level rather than a macro one. The valley belongs to Huw. The story belongs to Huw. And Huw is the hero of the tale. Interestingly, more than once in the film, Huw is forced to choose between the valley and another option for his future. Having been injured when he and his mother fall into a frozen pond, Huw, with Rev. Gruffydd’s constant encouragement, must decide if he will painfully teach himself to walk again in his valley or remain an invalid for the rest of his life. He chooses the valley. Later in the film after excelling in school to the delight of his father who wants Huw to have a different life than that of a miner, Huw again picks the valley, electing to follow his father and brothers into the mine instead of pursuing further education as a doctor or lawyer. Perhaps Huw expresses more ownership of the valley than the other characters do because he so often has to deliberately decide to intertwine his fate with it, while most of the other Morgans abandon their green home.

How Green Was My Valley

VALLEY: The only noun in the title. Valley, not mountain. The lows, not the highs. The trials, not the victories. Although the valley is surrounded by hills and mountains, the lower geographical region is the focus of the film’s story. The Morgans’ experiences in the green valley are seen through Huw’s memory as a series of ups and downs, with the downs predominating. From worsening labor and economic conditions for the miners, to Angharad’s disappointment in love, to Huw and his mother’s accident, to the abuse Huw suffers at the national school, to the hypocrisy of some of the church’s members, and finally to the sudden deaths of members of the Morgan family, Huw’s remembrances of his home valley become as progressively dark as the vale itself. The story is not one of triumph, even though Huw regains his ability to walk and is able to join the older men at work in the mine (doubtless, a mark of attaining manhood in Huw’s mind). Instead, it is a story of change—some good, but most bad—of how industry demolishes nature, hypocrisy smothers love, and the past gives way to a present that is certainly not better than what has already been. Though the final memories Huw gives the film’s viewer are of his family, all together and all living, in the green, green valley, the word he adds to the title of the film simply points out the cold reality of the revolting present when compared to the thriving past: “How green was my valley then.”

For Me Then…

What does the future hold for Angharad and the Reverend?

I had a lot of questions at the end of this movie, and I’ve been pondering them all this week. First, why does Huw leave the valley after 50 years? My hunch is that he stays until his mother dies since he’s wrapping his few belongings in her cloak. But that only leads me to wonder what happened to Bronwyn and her baby. Did they also die, or is Huw taking them with him? Next, what is the final relationship status between Angharad and Rev. Gruffydd? Does Angharad divorce her hated husband and marry her pastor, or are they separated again? Rev. Gruffydd does tell Huw that he would be unable to leave the valley if he were to see Angharad again, and he does see her in the final scene…I hate loose ends. I feel like some, if not all, of my questions could be answered via novel if I picked up the original text as well as its two sequels. We’ll see if that happens this summer.

It’s also super interesting to me that again a BP winner emphasizes the glory of the past over the tribulations of the present. Times used to be good, but the world is growing darker. Death is always lurking (witness the young widows with black shawls over their heads in various scenes of the film) and can snatch whomever it will from this life. So morbid and so depressing. Yet I find myself reminiscing about the past like it was only glorious all the time—and comparing my earlier memories to more recent pains and trials and wishing that I could go back to a simpler time. But in reality, that simpler time didn’t exist; and it was not all sunshine and roses back then either. I’ve just blocked out the bad from years earlier and tinted my memories with a shimmering haze. So, contentment is the lesson I’m trying to take from this film. For as the Apostle Paul wrote to Timothy: “But godliness with contentment is great gain” (I Timothy 6:6).