Blogging By Cinema-light: Don't Make a Scene: The Remains of the Day

Sunday, November 10, 2024

Don't Make a Scene: The Remains of the Day

The Story: You look at Ruth Prawer Jhabvala's screenplay for The Remains of the Day and...you're amazed. It's just the dialogue with a minimum of description. No direction (James Ivory did that). No description of the room (the art department did that) or what people are wearing (costumers...). It's as simple as could be. The scene, its location and the dialog. That's it. Everybody else did their jobs.

Like the actors. Emma Thompson wasn't quite "getting it" that day, evidently, and Anthony Hopkins said something to her that clicked. She recounts the story in the documentary Merchant Ivory:

"I remember that day very well, because I came in in a sort of tension. I was heightened and I came in. We played it a couple times, and I thought 'Well...not quite working.' I said 'Ton' I don't know, I'm not quite getting this' and he said...Tony said 'It's one of those afternoons that there's a very tired bee...buzzing around (or a fly actually, nothing so romantic as a bee), against the glass, occasionally hitting it....bzzzzz....bzz. It's a sleepy afternoon. He's reading. You come in. You have no intentions. Relax. And let's see what happens.' And then what happens is this extraordinarily sex-ual, erotic moment where at the end of each "take" you know, I felt quite faint. Quite faint. And, of course, Ton'...the way he looks not at her eyes but her mouth. And then the hand comes down and you think he's going to touch her. But, he never does...It's a towering performance, absolutely...it's perfect."

We can talk motivations, we can talk cultures, we can talk about all sorts of things about why she does what she does and he does what he does. But, it's fascinating in the macro (his embarrassment about the book and his privacy and his being typed up with his job of service) and the micro (his eyes flit from her eyes to her mouth to her scalp and finally, while she's clawing at the book and his fingers, simply opens up his hand and allows her to have it). It is as counter to Hollywood romantic tradition as could be, yet it is charged with sexual and emotional tension. And it's large drama built with tiny, infinitesimal gestures.

"If your heart isn't broken by that scene, it will not be broken by anything," says John Pym, Associate Editor of "Sight and Sound" magazine.

"My God, he was good in that film!" Hugh Grant enthuses in Merchant Ivory about that scene. "If someone said to me show me perfect film acting, I'd show them Tony Hopkins in Remains of the Day and, in fact, The Remains of the Day is one of the best films I've ever seen, let alone been in."

The Set-Up: James Stevens (Anthony Hopkins) serves Darlington Hall, the estate of the Earl of Darlington (James Fox) and has known nothing else, as his father (Peter Vaughan) has also served there faithfully. He hires Miss Sarah Kenton (Emma Thompson) to be the Darlington housekeeper, and although the two are equally efficient, they are like fire and ice. Still, over time and over duty, the two begin to warm to each other and anticipate their actions and reactions.

Action.