The Argumentative Old Git Because I'm worth it

The conversation had turned to the subject of melancholy. I’m not sure how it had taken the turn, but there it was: perhaps there is something about alcohol that, contrary to all expectations, induces, at least beyond a certain age, a contemplative sadness rather than a riotous mirth. And in this state of maudlin semi-inebriation, we asked ourselves, for no reason that seems sensible to relate in my now sober state, what films we had seen that could reasonably be described as “melancholy”.

It was surprisingly difficult. There are many sad films, but sadness isn’t quite melancholy. Or, rather, melancholy is a special kind of sadness. There are films where the sadness is intense, and that very intensity prevents these films from being melancholy. For similar reasons, tragic films couldn’t count as melancholy either: the darkness visited upon these characters in such films – in Sunset Boulevard, in Mouchette, in Midnight Cowboy – evokes emotions that are too close to the surface to be deemed melancholy. Eventually, I suggested the films of Ozu – Late Spring, Tokyo Story, etc. – and we all agreed that these films could indeed be described as melancholy.

At least, those of us who had seen these films agreed.

To be entirely honest, I was the only one in our group who had seen these films. So I agreed. With myself.

But it struck me how rare a quality melancholy is – not merely in films, but, it seems to me, in other art forms too. For melancholy is more than mere sadness. To be truly melancholy, the sadness must be qualified with pensiveness, and pensiveness implies a certain distance. Immediacy kills melancholy. And this, I think, is why melancholy is rarely, if ever, to be found in tragedy, which demands an immediacy of response. The sight of the eyeless Oedipus, of the lifeless Cordelia, of Woyzeck’s little child skipping off innocently to see his parents’ bodies, all hit us with the force of a sledgehammer: there can be no room here for pensiveness, no distance that is so vital for melancholy to flourish.

But that is not to say that melancholy necessarily presents a more diluted version of the darkness in our lives: the distance created by the pensiveness mutes the presentation, it is true, but it does not mute the immensity of what is presented. We may find ourselves in a melancholy state of mind when we return home from the theatre, and, at some distance from what we had experienced, ruminate sadly on the tragedies of Woyzeck and of Marie, and on what their little boy will have to go through after the curtain falls; but the distance from which we may ruminate all this does not diminish the horror of what we had witnessed on stage. While we had been in the theatre, the immediacy and the intensity with which that horror had been presented had allowed no distance, and hence, no space for rumination; no melancholy, in short. But even when that distance is achieved, the immensity of the horror remains undiminished.

A work that may be considered melancholy does provide us with that distance, with that space for rumination, even as we are experiencing it. And that space must not, should not, diminish that we are ruminating upon. All this, naturally, is difficult to pull off, and perhaps that difficulty goes a long way towards explaining why melancholy works are so comparatively rare. But they do exist, and, in compiling my own personal list of all the works I have encountered in various art forms that may be considered melancholy, I was surprised by how many of them are actually comedies: Twelfth Night, Cosi fan Tutte, The Ambassadors, The Cherry Orchard, La Règle du Jeu …

Perhaps this shouldn’t be so surprising. For, after all, comedy need not be frivolous, nor humour flippant. And comedy can, to a far greater extent than can tragedy, offer that distance that is so essential for a sense of melancholy. And if the artist is skilful enough, a sense of melancholy can survive even broad comedy: it can survive Malvolio’s cross-gartered yellow-stockings, or the partner-swapping sexual shenanigans of Cosi fan Tutte, or Trofimov falling down the stairs in The Cherry Orchard. Even as we laugh at such things, they reveal these characters to be vulnerable – as vulnerable, indeed, as we are. We laugh, ultimately, at ourselves, and as we laugh, we realise that we’re all in the same absurd boat together. And such a realisation but deepens the melancholy.

I read Henry James’ The Ambassadors lately. I say “read” rather than “re-read” advisedly, as a novel of this stature reveals itself in such new forms at each reading, it does not seem like treading old, familiar ground. This time round, I was particularly struck not so much by its profound melancholy, which had been obvious even the last time round, but, rather, by its reaching towards that which resists expression – its reaching towards that the very unattainability of which prompts such sadness. And, also for the first time, I realised that the novel is, indeed, as is often claimed, a “comedy”. Perhaps the difficulty I’d previously had in negotiating its prose had inhibited the laughs, but, though the prose remains as difficult as ever, as it does in all late James, I now find myself, after, admittedly, many years of practice, better equipped to relate to each other the various different clauses in each sentence, and to reach the end of each with the beginning still fresh in my mind. No mean feat, I think, though I say so myself. And those who doubt James’ sense of humour could do no better than to look at the opening of his preface to this novel in the New York Edition:

Describing as it does a novel in which the author takes as far as is possible (although he may have taken it even further in his very next novel, The Golden Bowl) his habit of implying all sorts of things without ever stating anything directly, this, a very rare direct statement from this writer, is about as mischievously misleading as anything I can imagine. And yes, it made me laugh.

To illustrate what this novel is so easily about, James directs us to the second chapter of the Book Fifth, in which the ageing Strether advises a young man to live his life fully:

‘Live all you can; it’s a mistake not to. It doesn’t so much matter what you do in particular so long as you have your life. If you haven’t had that, what have you had?’

The monologue continues in much the same vein, and finishes with the repeated exhortation to “Live, live!”

But for all that positivity, there is something vital that is missing: how, exactly, does one live all one can? How does one have one’s life? What do these things mean in the first place? Strether, throughout the novel, finds his perspectives broadening, his vision deepening; and in the course of all this, he realises that his life has not really been lived, that something that is essential to living his life well has been missed. But whatever it is that is so essential cannot be described; it cannot, except, perhaps, very vaguely, even be apprehended. And therein, it seems to me, lies the source of the deep melancholy that permeates this novel, despite, or perhaps even because of, the comedy: that which might lead us to live fulfilling lives seems tantalisingly within grasp, but seems to vanish as soon as we try to give it a solidity of form. We are all doomed never to find the key to our fulfilment.   

The late Jamesian style, maddeningly frustrating though it must be to even the most devoted of followers (among whose ranks I think I am now making a belated entry), is no mere quirk or affectation: only by cultivating such a style could James write about that which resists expression. It works through hints and allusions rather than through direct statement because direct statement is not possible: brief, vague glimpses are all that an artist can give us. And with what artistry James gives us these glimpses! With what intricate craft does he bring so tantalisingly close to us, as tantalisingly close as it is to Strether, the sense of a possibility of grasping that which cannot possibly be grasped!

I do not believe this could have been brought off in a tragic novel: tragedy, it increasingly seems to me, militates against melancholy. Its effect is too immediate, too raw; it fills up the available space too insistently to leave much for the rumination that is required for melancholy. It is through comedy that melancholy is best approached: the laughs but deepen the sense of wistfulness – the sense, as here, of reaching towards that that is too vaguely understood, too intangible.

Has any film achieved such a sense of melancholy? The films of Ozu, certainly. Charulata too, perhaps: regular readers of this blog will know that’s a very favourite film of mine, and rarely far from my mind. But even in that film there develops a passionate vehemence towards the end that drives out the melancholy. There may well be other films: I do not claim to have seen anywhere near all the films that demand viewing. But be that as it may, melancholy remains an elusive quality, I think, in any art form. But when found, as in The Ambassadors, it is a quality I cherish.