From the Law to Love: A film about (the failure of) love
O.K. so I promised that I would offer some reflections on a way out of the deadlock described in The Bridges of Madison County. While I am beginning to feel a little embarrassed by the fact that I am on my second posting about this romantic drama (it is doing nothing for my attampt at a manly image) I feel duty bound to finish what I began. Especially as some of you doubt I can offer a solution to the deadlock expressed in the film!
So basically the film, as I have analysed it so far, offers a quiet beautiful expression of the dilemma between the drive for the Thing that appears to lie beyond the Law (manifested in the person of photographer Robert Kincaid) and the renunciation of that drive for the sake of fulfilling more circumspect and mundane desires (i.e. staying with her nice but domesticated husband and teenage children).
What is important to keep in mind here is the fact that Francesca realises that the Thing does not really exist. This is expressed in the fact that she acknowledges that if she ran away with Robert things would not work. So she opts instead to stay with her husband, and immortalise Robert.
In this way she obeys the Law (custom, the expectations of the community, religious norms etc.) and simultaneously maintains the illusion that she had been on the threshold of the Thing. While she decides to settle for small desires and forsake what seems to promise real fulfillment, the renunciation is itself an enlivening experience. In a way she is able to find a perverse pleasure in the pain of her decision. Nietzsche once commented about his experience of woman by saying, ‘we still prefer a more violent displeasure to a weak pleasure’. Francesca found a way of embracing both.
So how can we break out of this deadlock? For Francesca, Robert stood for all her unfulfilled desires (to travel, to escape small town America, to meet exciting new people etc.), while for Robert, we can guess that Francesca offered what he felt he was missing (stability, contentment, roots etc.). As such one can say that their love affair, despite the passion and intensity, is evidence of a failure to embrace love in its most basic co-ordinates. For love (in the Christian understanding as exemplified by Kierkegaard) does not place the individual into the space of the Thing but rather sees through the Thing and embraces the individual in their humanity.
There is a rejection of the Thing (which could be described as the Platonic Idea) in the Christian understanding of love. This does not mean that we overcome the drive for something more than we could ever gain. Rather this drive is refocused onto what Lacan called the object petit a. The object petit a is not some huge Thing that exists forever beyond our reach, but rather the tiny excess, the indescribable radiance that emanates from the flesh of the one we love. In love the individual is not rendered into a manifestation of the Thing, rather the Thing is reduced to some(no)thing that emanates from our beloved in their human, all too human, existence. That some(no)thing that causes us to love our beloved when another, who agrees concerning all their actually existing properties, does not.
This transition can be described as the shift from saying, ‘there is something that I am driven to grasp and you are a concrete manifestation of it’ to ‘your presence manifests an indescribable something that drives me’. In the first, the one who occupies the position of the Thing will always disappoint us and turn out to be less than what we wanted or anticipated. While in the second position the individual, while still not giving us what we strive for, is the site where we come close to it and rotate around it. In the first case the illusive Thing is distant, in the second it is brought close (in the mode of immanent transcendence).
In the former the inaccessible Thing is kept at a distance through the Law (as exemplified in the Christian understanding of God as found in the Torah) while in the later this inaccessible kernal is manifested in a flesh and blood other who is simultaneously human and more than human (as exemplified in the Christian understanding of the New Covenant).
In The Bridges of Madison County one can say that Francesca never found what she was looking for because her relationship with her husband was based on a desire that obeyed the Law (that kept her from the Thing) and her relationship with Robert was based upon a drive that sought to transgress the Law to reach the Thing.
This can thus be described as a film that portrays, not the tragedy of love, but the tragedy of never reaching love. The result is a deadlock that is explicitly expressed in the fact that (1) while she stays with her husband in life her ashes are scattered where Robert’s ashes had been scattered in death (2) While she remains with her husband, her husband applogises, shortly before his death, for never being able to help her pursue her dreams.
For Francesca the problem was that she failed to love either of the men in her life, being in a patronising relationship with one (treating him as a castrated man whom she stays with out of duty) and immortalises the other (as a potent god she can never possess).
So perhaps this film, far from being about love, is actually a film about the failure to love. The small town attitude that acts as an opaque background to the films main story providing an oppressive context that makes love in its Christian rendering (as a forsaking of the Platonic ideal for fragile flesh – not in its bare totality but with its elusive excess), almost impossible.
July 25th, 2009 at 11:50 am
ok fair play, good answer! something that i think is really cool is that ‘looking through the Thing to embrace the individual in their humanity’ is actually just about possible. i think! i love this definition because it is so much warmer than the ‘love is a verb’ stuff that you hear all the time (’sure you can’t stand your spouse but love is a verb not a feeling!’). i mean, there’s a time for that (eg. when said spouse tramps chicken crap all over the house…) but to wonder about what love really is, when you’ve been married for nine years and marvelling at those who who keep it going for a *really* long time, ‘love is a verb’ isn’t good enough because it doesn’t speak of the joy there can be in the kind of thing (i think) you’re talking about. i like it, pete- good one!
July 25th, 2009 at 12:35 pm
Well put Peter! I really think we need to spend more time trying to understand what love really is. The world we live in is in need of a better definition. It was considered the greatest commandment to love God, and love your neighbor as yourself. The interesting thing implied there is that you know how to love yourself. If that part is broken how does one love their neighbor? How does one love God then? I wonder how much of our pursuit for “Things” comes from the desparation of not being able to love ourselves. No, I’m not preaching Hedonism. That brings us back to my comment earlier about the world needing a better definition. My belief is that we must experience this love before we can give it. We must be transformed by it, reborn in it. Where do we find such a love then?
July 25th, 2009 at 12:38 pm
bravo! i’ve seen this play out in real life many times.
July 25th, 2009 at 12:44 pm
Reading your previous post (july 23rd entry) helped me to understand this blog better as you explained some basic terminology such as Freud’s definition of “drive”, “the pleasure principle” vs. this elusive “Thing” that we all strive for unsuccessfully and unconsciously(?). By the way, a very clear explanation of those terms! To find meaningful love, then, it appears that the key is to avoid the two extremes of simply obeying “The Law” (pleasure principle) or reaching out for “The Thing” (platonic ideal) but to arrive at an “immanent transcendence” through a human being, despite their “all-too-human” qualities. Sounds good so far. But this would imply that some sort of commitment would be required as well, esp. during those times when the immanence outshines the transcendence of the other. Would you agree that EFFORT and COMMITMENT are essential ingredients in maintaining this state of “immanent transcendence?” Hope this makes sense. I love your thoughts by the way.
July 25th, 2009 at 12:47 pm
your statement defining the Christian rendering of love as the “forsaking of the Platonic ideal for fragile flesh” is, for me, the most intriguing part of this thought. could you expound on this point? when you say Christian rendering of love, are you referring to a culturally accepted definition (concession) or something you perceive as having been possessed by Christ (for whatever reason) and incorporated by His followers? are you speaking critically or faithfully? just curious. knowing you, you will probably say both. but i get the impression that there is some sort of definition here. fascinating.
July 25th, 2009 at 12:50 pm
Thanks Phillip. I would definitely want to affirm what you say. I really like the term ‘fidelity’, as in fidelity to the event of love. Of course the big question is when fidelity, effort and commitment reach their limits… I think most of us have had experiences where we have had to address this question. I have no easy answers on that one!
Thanks everyone for your input so far!
July 25th, 2009 at 12:58 pm
Hey Paul, sorry wrote my response before yours came up. Can’t say too much at the moment as I have to go out, but wanted to acknowledge your question. I would say however that the definition of love that I am using is one that I would want to claim is a Christian one in the deep sense of deriving from the New Testament writings. Broadly I would associate the Law/Thing material with a Christian reading of the Old Testament and the stuff I am exploring with the New. Of course many people claim many things about what is true of Christianity and so I have to defend my position – which would take a few books to do (they will come eventually)!
In terms of the Platonic ideal I am basically arguing that instead of the individual being secondary to the ideal the Christian idea of love is that the ideal needs to be sacrificed for the individual. This is explored in Zizek, especially in (if I remember correctly) The Fragile Absolute. Also check out Frederiek Depoortere’s Christ in Postmodern Philosophy – especially the chapter on Zizek
July 25th, 2009 at 3:50 pm
It’s interesting to me that pop culture typically associates Freud with the idea that moral laws are tyrannical and lead to repression and all sorts of bad things. But one of his emphasis was that our primal desires are so bestial that if we all gave into them all society would break down and cease to function; hence “civilization and its discontents.” I think that was the essential tragedy of civilization for Freud; our subconscious desires in conflict with our moral laws leave us hopelessly compromised as human beings. But doesn’t Christianity also step in here and say that grace and forgiveness overturn the law? With Francesca I’m reminded of how lenient Jesus is in the gospel story of the woman taken in adultery. Of course, Bonhoeffer would step in with a warning about the dangers of indulging in “cheap grace.” And I once had someone say to me, “If Jesus will forgive anything, doesn’t that mean I can do whatever I want and it doesn’t matter?” It’s a complex topic to say the least.
I’d be interested in reading your thoughts on some other movies.
July 25th, 2009 at 5:48 pm
So much to think and chew on their
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There are so many mates I’ve had (much older than myself) who are single (admittedly I’m married) and say that they are single cos’ they don’t want to settle or lower their standards. At which point I usually want to hit them cos it felt like they completely missed the point of Love, which for me you hit the nail on head when you said ‘the Christian idea of love is that the ideal needs to be sacrificed for the individual’ Ironically all of these guy’s would consider themselves full on committed Christians.
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More so I’m driven to consider how this can be applied to the charismatic experience to build a much healthier practice as someone who very much felt the whole shebang wasn’t the Thing and is no longer convinced by those explanations or attempts to convince me that it is if only this or that. But equally unable to completely leave it all behind
July 25th, 2009 at 6:54 pm
Pete,
i’ve NEVER known you to have a manly image!
July 26th, 2009 at 7:21 am
If we call you manly will you keep posting? : )
I have long sensed that this might be possible, but only recently do I begin to dare to really believe. To me this recalls the Catholic idea of relationship as vocation (in the sense of being “called” to this or that arena of spiritual maturing) and as sacrament (as a means of encountering the divine). What an unspeakable gift to live this third way.
July 26th, 2009 at 4:18 pm
Have you got anymore references or foundations for your formulation of ‘Love’. I see it as a key theme in your work…interpreting the bible and action with a prejudice of love. Having great friends and family … love has a metaphysical reality to me (I’ll join in with the platonic terminology) and a huge importance in my life. On what would you base its reality, that is the reality of Love? (just asking for any key thinkers or writing as I know its a big question), Cheers for your work Pete.
August 20th, 2009 at 3:47 pm
A marriage, a farm, a dog and children….I might swap lives with Francesca.
April 21st, 2010 at 10:59 am
[...] acts are so self-destructive that they boggle my mind. And then Peter Rollins went and offered an interesting take on an old movie, The Bridges of Madison County. And in it he mentioned the quote from Nietzsche. [...]