Long road out of Eton

In the Golden Age of Hollywood, studios' control over the creative process was near-total. It strikes us as absurd now that to make the jump to Hollywood, Alfred Hitchcock had to sign a contract for seven years of indentured labour with legendary producer David 'O.' Selznick of Gone with the Wind fame. But although they didn't always get on - both men were headstrong perfectionists - that collaboration paid dividends in the annals of cinema.

The first Selznick-Hitchcock production, 1940's Rebecca, proved something of a nightmare for the notoriously cash-strapped Selznick, who was aghast when the film cost a grand total of $1,288,000. Set in France and Cornwall but shot entirely in California, Rebecca was a first for Hitchcock in more than one way: not least, it netted him his only ever Best Picture Oscar.

The prologue is perhaps one of the most famous in cinematic history: 'Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again', a woman begins as the camera travels through the iron gate and up the overgrown road to the ruin of the house, and I must admit my heart sank, for although the sequence is gorgeous the voiceover narration is quite awful, intoned in the most strange and inappropriate way. It was early still, and even in 2011 voiceover is overused or used badly far more often than it is employed effectively.

We cut to Monte Carlo, where a man (Laurence Olivier) is standing at a precipice, seemingly ready to hurl himself over the edge; he is interrupted by a young girl (Joan Fontaine, cast against the objections of Olivier, who preferred his lover Vivien Leigh for the part). The gentleman turns out to be Maxim de Winter, recently widowed lord of the family seat of Manderley in Cornwall; she's a never-named orphan who serves as a paid companion to the horrid social climber Edythe Van Hopper (Florence Bates). (Unfortunately the film cuts my favourite moment in the novel, in which Maxim stealthily insults Mrs Van Hopper by assuring her that Manderley hasn't entertained royalty since Ethelred the Unready: 'In fact, it was while staying with my family that the name was given him. He was invariably late for dinner.')

The girl falls in love with the distant, wounded Maxim, and he soon asks her somewhat brusquely to marry him. To Mrs Van Hopper's chagrin, she accepts and, after a quick wedding in Monte Carlo and a honeymoon in Europe, Maxim and the second Mrs de Winter return to Manderley. She finds that the house is still living under the long shadow cast by the first Mrs de Winter, Rebecca, who drowned off the coast. Most servants are friendly, with the exception of the prim Mrs Danvers (Judith Anderson), who is fiercely devoted to Rebecca and makes it very plain that her master's nervous, low-born new wife does not measure up.

In the hands of Hitchcock and cinematographer George Barnes, who received a richly deserved Academy Award for his work, Rebecca is a film of windows, doors and shadows, of actors dwarfed by the house around them. It is also curiously fixated on curtains, opened and closed by the second Mrs de Winter and Mrs Danvers to enter and leave Rebecca's room: a number of great images spring from the juxtaposition between white curtains and Mrs Danvers's black clothes.

Hitchcock uses his characteristic zooms and pans to great effect, and creates what may be my favourite image in the film: the second Mrs de Winter in mid-ground as Maxim steps in front of the camera in the foreground, totally obscuring her. At the same time, Rebecca suffers oddly from mixing Hitchcock's two prevalent modes: in the third act, the film goes from mythic to procedural, and as a result of that dissonant tonal shift it sags mightily before rallying at the end.

It's tempting to read Rebecca as an allegory of the profound social changes then underway in England. My friend noted that there seemed something distinctly Jane Austenish about life at Manderley; but this, we agreed, was more appearance than reality. Jane Austen's works were read by a literate, sufficiently well-off élite; by contrast, in the age of mechanical reproducibility the troubles of Mrs de Winter were splashed all over the world's cinema screens. Frith (Edward Fielding), Manderley's oldest servant, refers to the fact that once a week the general public is admitted to the great hall; this would have horrified Austen's contemporaries, but by the 1930s aristocrats could count themselves lucky if they were able to retain their country houses by surrendering to the new mass culture.

If we take Manderley as a microcosm of England under the aristocracy, Rebecca is the symbol of that fading ruling class: commanding all the qualities of a lady, she is the final flowering of England's noble houses. Even in death, her vengeful spirit lingers on, resenting the intrusion of the upstart second Mrs de Winter into her place. It's notable, though, that Max is remarkably relaxed about the new equality. His social position permits him that luxury. Mrs Danvers, however, must defend Manderley: her whole identity is bound up with the old social order.

These three poles - the commoner, awed but increasingly assertive in the face of aristocracy; the aristocrat himself; and the faitful servant - are portrayed by three of the most capable actors to ever appear on screen together; but to me there's no doubt Judith Anderson is the greatest of the three. She plays the character to perfection: her contempt hiding behind cold courtesy, her faithfulness to Manderley, her devotion to Rebecca that carries more than a hint of lesbian infatuation (this, of course, makes her crazy). The famous window scene between her and Joan Fontaine is as chilling and moving as anything you're ever likely to see.

The film's gender politics are fascinating, too. Rebecca is known to have been sexually voracious in a way that Max can't seem to imagine of his new wife. There's something distinctly uncomfortable about his belittling of the second Mrs de Winter, whom he treats more like a child than an equal; but if he hopes to keep the shadow of Rebecca at bay by choosing a passive woman to whom he can be a father as much as a husband, he fails. It's a film about the failure of old loyalties, of feudalism, of patriarchy - and yet, at the same time, about their lingering terrible power.

Gewalt und Kinderzorn

Das Kaiserreich ist der Vergessenheit anheimgefallen. Das wäre nicht schlimm, handelt es sich doch um ein insgesamt widerwärtiges Kapitel unserer Geschichte. Zu bedauern ist nur, daß die Revolution, die die Junkerherrschaft stürzte, dabei mitvergessen worden ist. Denn in ihr lag die Chance, den verhängnisvollen Lauf der deutschen Geschichte abzubiegen. Michael Hanekes Film Das weiße Band: Eine deutsche Kindergeschichte argumentiert eindrucksvoll, daß die Wurzeln des Nationalsozialismus eben im Kaiserreich liegen.

Im Dörfchen Eichwald, irgendwo im deutschen Nordosten im letzten Friedensjahr 1913-1914: der Arzt stürzt mit seinem Pferd über ein verstecktes Seil. Der Sohn des Barons wird gefesselt und verprügelt im Wald aufgefunden. Ein Täter kann nicht festgestellt werden. Während die Erwachsenen nach einer Erklärung für die anscheinend sinnlose Gewalt suchen, verstreicht das letzte sieche Vorkriegsjahr.

Das Schwarz-Weiß-Schema des Films spiegelt die Kälte des Stoffs wieder. Die erzählerische Distanz, die Haneke streng aufrechterhält, erlaubt keine Identifizierung mit einzelnen. Hier wird ein Dorf als Mikrokosmus Deutschlands beleuchtet, als Wiege des deutschen Faschismus. Den versteht Haneke als Rache einer unterdrückten und brutalisierten Generation, deren Gewalt sich gegen alles Fremde entlud. Sie mußte den nach außen getragenen Vatermord doch als Säuberung verstehen und also gerade in ihrer Überwindung die elterliche Strenge verwirklichen.

Der Untertitel "Eine deutsche Kindergeschichte" trifft es genau. Der ernste Pastor (Burghart Klaußner) bindet seinen Kindern zur Erinnerung an die geforderte Reinheit das weiße Armband des Titels um. Die Jugend des Dorfes ist stumm und fügsam, man soll sie sehen und nicht hören. Die Kinder haben nicht die Kraft, sich offen zu wehren. Aber ihre haßerfüllten Blicke, ihr eisernes Zusammenhalten und Sich-Verschwören gegen die Welt der Erwachsenen spricht Bände. Der junge Lehrer (Christian Friedel) ahnt, was die anderen Erwachsenen nicht sehen können und wollen.

Der Gewalt der Eltern gegen die Kinder steht der Zwang der Herrenschicht gegen das gemeine Volk gegenüber. Es ist gerade die gönnerhafte Leutseligkeit des Barons (Ulrich Tukur), die ihn widerwärtig macht, und das nicht nur seinen Untergebenen, sondern auch seiner Frau (Ursina Lardi). Das weiße Band zeichnet das Bild einer Gesellschaft, deren unerträgliche innere Gewalt sich nicht entladen kann. Sie mußte exportiert werden; wäre nicht, wie es die plump-selbstherrliche Kriegspropaganda wollte, "jeder Stoß ein Franzos'" gewesen, so hätten sich wohl die Gutsherren vor den Bajonetten wiedergefunden - was dann ja auch geschah.

Dabei muß man dem Regisseur, was mir sonst nicht behagt, zu seinem eigenen Film widersprechen. Haneke will Das weiße Band als Film über Ideologie an sich, nicht nur über den deutschen Faschismus verstanden wissen. Die Ideologie "an sich" aber ist Fiktion, der Film dagegen zeichnet eben eine konkrete historische Situation statt eines ewigen Gleichnis. Daß der Nationalsozialismus in der evangelischen Provinz Norddeutschlands einen Nährboden fand, ist ebensowenig zu bestreiten wie sein Ursprung im Kleinbürgertum, von dem er auf andere, gemeinhin unsichere und bindungsarme Klassen – die Arbeitslosen, das Großbürgertum, die in Not geratenen konservativen Eliten des Kaiserreichs – übersprang.

Als Wermutstropfen ist anzuführen, daß der Film nicht immer ganz authentisch wirkt. Hie und da zerbricht die Illusion der spätwilhelminischen Gesellschaft. So spricht bis auf den bayerischen Gutsverwalter jedermann geschliffen hochdeutsch, das doch damals nur die Sprache der Herrschaft und der Gebildeten war – man erinnere sich an den pater familias in Thomas Manns Buddenbrooks, der plattdeutsch spricht, um im Revolutionsjahr 1848 das meuternde Volk zu besänftigen. Nur der Vater des Kindermädchens Eva hat einen ausgesprochen norddeutschen Zungenschlag; insgesamt ist die Sprechweise der Charaktere allzu modern. Die Baronin, zugegebenermaßen eine Dame von Welt, spricht gar von „Fairneß“.

Daß die Kritik zu solcher Haarspalterei greifen muß, um Das weiße Band zu kritisieren, ist ein Kompliment an den Regisseur. Der Film ist weniger spannend als beklemmend, aber gerade die kritische Distanz erlaubt den Blick auf das Grauen. Wir Nachgeborenen wissen, was sich da zusammenbraut. Nur treibt einen die Ahnung um, daß wir weniger gelernt haben, als gut für uns wäre.

Property crowned and uncrowned

The classes team up to take down the monarchy.

 

According to the Guardian, sixty-seven per cent of Britons believe the monarchy is 'still relevant'. That figure, of course, is rather worthless since it tells us nothing about approval. We'll all agree that Nelson Mandela is 'relevant'; so, I'm sorry to say, is David Cameron. The point stands, however: the monarchy does not inspire abject hatred. But neither are most Britons of the flag-waving loyalist variety. Before the royal wedding, only 37% professed interest in the event; according to YouGov, 35% would do their 'best to avoid' the whole affair. Indifference seems to be the prevailing attitude towards the House of Windsor.

Among sections of the Left there's a long-standing puzzlement about the British monarchy. It is assumed that a democratic republic is the 'typical' form of bourgeois government and that, accordingly, Britain represents an anomaly. A more Marxist response, surely, would be to argue that 'typical' forms of government hardly exist and that historical materialism is a critical method rather than a template for understanding every historical event. Indeed, the notion that republics are natural forms of government under capitalism can be quite easily refuted. Before the First World War, of the Great Powers only France and the United States were republics; Germany, Austria, Italy, Russia and Britain were all monarchies of varying types. Indeed new monarchies were constantly being created at the height of nineteenth-century capitalism. In the century following the Congress of Vienna, new monarchies were installed in France (which didn't last), the Netherlands, Belgium, Norway, Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro and Greece; both Germany and Italy were unified under conquering monarchies. Where these crowned heads fell at the end of the Great War, this was caused by proletarian revolutions that threatened the entire propertied order.

The French Revolution was a revolution against royal absolutism - yes, but what does this mean? Was it a revolution against untrammelled executive power, against the constant subordination of the periphery to the centre, of the part to the whole - a revolution for 'checks and balances' as Montesquieu advocated them? (This advocacy led Carl Schmitt to dismiss Montesquieu as, essentially, a medievalist.) On the contrary: the Revolution not only displayed all these characteristics of the ancien régime, it shattered all the obstacles to absolute rule the king had been unable to remove. It is in this sense that the Revolution was fulfilled by Napoleon. Lord Elton was right to claim that the twin principles of the revolutionaries of 1789 were order and equality: the removal of all the inefficiencies, corruption and arbitrariness caused by privilege - and the removal of decision-making from a single, weak individual, controlled by advisers, mistresses and outdated noblemen: in short, the replacement of the unchecked rule of a monarch by the unchecked rule of a class.

The reasons for the creation and fall of the Second French Republic (1848-52) are laid out by Karl Marx in his Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. The July Revolution of 1830 had led the bourgeoisie to embrace not republicanism but the constitutional monarchy of Louis-Philippe. The July Monarchy, however, struggled against proletarian uprisings and increasing hostility from those sectors of the bourgeoisie that felt left out by a state that mostly represented high finance. The February Revolution of 1848 left no option but a republic as the system that divided Frenchmen least (Adolphe Thiers). It was simply impossible to hand the crown over to yet another dynasty, although Louis Napoleon was waiting in the wings. The uprising of the masses in June 1848 was defeated by the bourgeoisie in alliance with the lumpenproletariat and the petite bourgeoisie. Thereafter the country was run by a parliament mostly composed of monarchists that could not muster the strength to resist Louis Napoleon's bid for power.

As the French bourgeoisie discovered in 1830 and 1848, it is very difficult to have a revolution against monarchy and privilege without opening Pandora's box: revolution, where it happened, constantly threatened to create a maelstrom in which the bourgeoisie, having participated in the overthrow of the old order, would itself be destroyed by the propertyless classes. This happened, of course, in Russia in 1917, and was a distinct possibility in Germany, Hungary and Italy after the First World War, France in 1871, Spain after 1931, and others. The result was that, where it perceived a threat from below, the bourgeoisie would prefer to work with rather than against the old order. Sometimes, of course, the bourgeoisie simply repeatedly failed at wresting power from the ancien régime: thus most infamously in Germany.

The accommodation that the bourgeoisie reached with monarchs as well as aristocratic and ecclesiastical elites removed the need for a republican form of government. Today, in Britain at least none of the main bourgeois parties advocates republicanism, although republican views are presumably more commonly held by Labour and Liberal supporters than they are by Tories and the associated Church-and-King mob of the gutter press.

The conclusion must be that the abolition of the monarchy is now quite impossible without a wide-ranging reconfiguration of British society as a whole: in other words, revolution. (The argument that a socialist society would of necessity be republican need not be made here.) The sort of liberal republicanism that impotently mocks the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha in the pages of the Guardian rightly elicits little more than pity from the Right. They may not have chosen it, but republicans and revolutionaries can only achieve their aims together.

Feeding upon majesty

This is less an argument than a musing. In Hamlet 3.3.7-23, Guildenstern and Rosencrantz explain how protecting the King of Denmark from Hamlet's schemes means the salvation of the whole realm:

GUILDENSTERN We will ourselves provide.
Most holy and religious fear it is
To keep those many many bodies safe
That live and feed upon your majesty.
ROSENCRANTZ The single and peculiar life is bound
With all the strength and armour of the mind
To keep itself from noyance; but much more
That spirit upon whose weal depends and rests
The lives of many. The cess of majesty
Dies not alone but like a gulf doth draw
What's near it with it; or it is a massy wheel,
Fixed on the summit of the highest mount
To whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things
Are mortised and adjoined, which when it falls
Each small annexment, petty consequence,
Attends the boisterous ruin. Never alone
Did the king sigh but with a general groan.
(Edition: Thompson and Taylor, London: Arden, 2006, based upon the 1604-5 Second Quarto Text)

This is a brilliantly expressed example of the literature that pictures the king's body as microcosm and allegory for the state and nation. Here the king's body underpins those of all his subjects, and the end of the monarchy ('the cess of majesty') spells national doom.

It strikes me that while there are medieval antecedents for this, the supremacy of the monarch in this passage really goes beyond anything that would have been considered acceptable in the middle ages. A medieval monarch's position, while instituted by God, even rhetorically required the support of his nobles, freemen and of course the Church. The early modern exalted position of the monarch, however, sidelines or subordinates (see, for example, the king as head of the Church in Protestant countries) these earlier actors.

Moreover, this elevation of the monarch was connected to a massive growth in the state, which did not truly exist before the late middle ages. Standing armies and hosts of civil servants (arguably petty-bourgeois wage recipients) marked the numerical growth in the state, which from the fourteenth to the seventeenth century greatly expanded its administrative and repressive capabilities. This coincides, of course, with the beginnings of a mercantile and later manufacturing bourgeoisie in the towns and the creation of the first, commercial colonial empires. Why is absolutism linked to the decline of feudalism and the growth of the bourgeoisie? Please do recommend reading and share your thoughts.