Servants in cinema

[Deleted]

"The Butler" starring Forest Whitaker has been in the press quite a bit recently. I have no opinion of it yet other than it sounds interesting and appears to be a superb film. It won't be released in France until next week.

But today I saw the marvelous Singaporean movie "Ilo Ilo" (winner of the Caméra d'Or at Cannes this year for "best first film") which show the trials and tribulations of a Filipina hired by a middle class family to clean house and look after their son. The family is sliding down the social scale due to hard economic times, but she is so dedicated that it is a complete tragedy when they let her go and send her back to her country.

This got me thinking about what a genre "servants in films" have become, from Gone With the Wind to The Remains of the Day, and of course not forgetting films like Driving Miss Daisy or The Help.

A few months ago, I also saw the wonderful Hong Kong film "A Simple Life" about a dedicated servant who is put in a cheap nursing home by the man whom she raised as a child. I also remember the fantastic French film "A Simple Heart" about a devoted servant who fights intolerable heartache by serving a widow who is just as unhappy.

Odd how the word "simple" crops up in movies about servants...

Even a film like "The Lord of the Rings" makes us appreciate the devotion of Sam Gangee to his "master" Frodo Baggins, based on the concept that a simple gardener will follow his employer to the end of Middle Earth.

Does anybody have any ideas about why the concept of servants in a film appeals to so many of us so much? Really, it is probably not the most noble of subjects to which we should be attracted.

[Deleted]

Perhaps because we enjoy watching films about people less fortunate than ourselves? (Assuming we're at all fortunate). It makes us take a breath and think, "There but for the grace of god go I".

We come in contact with many people who serve us on a daily basis (waiters, cashiers) and we want to believe that their lives are fulfilling/interesting because that makes us more comfortable with the roles of servant/master?

Because, at some level, we are all servants to family members and causes that demand the impossible of us and we identify with self-sacrifice?

Those are just a few I can think of off the top of my head.

[Deleted]

Since there are lots of movies about "friends" and lots of other movies about "servants" I kind of fear that there might be some sort of comfort in having the upper hand, no matter what, the idea of a "friend" who must obey you.

I suppose it is human nature, but it makes me sad. And I also know that I completely identify with the servants of the world. I never see myself in the other role.

[Deleted]

Oh, I am undoubtedly the servant type.

I've never seen this classic straight through, but I think I might watch it tonight. From what I remember of it, the trailer is very misleading.

[Deleted]

Unfortunately there is also a sinister element to the idea of a servant. In the excellent Scent of the Green Papaya from Vietnam, there is clearly a sexual desire by the "master" of the house regarding the servant, even if it never comes to fruition.



Frankly, this is not surprising, since in both this movie and in the movie I saw today, there was a scene where the servant discreetly uses the makeup of her mistress to try to identify with the upper class.

[Deleted]

And from the same year, another film about thwarted lives and sexual undercurrents in the underclass.

[Deleted]

Yes, that film marked me, which is why I mentioned it in the first post.

[Deleted]

So you did.

[questa]

In Australia the concept of servant/master is absent. In recent years the wife of an Australian ambassador, returning from a posting in UK, used the term "servants" to describe her household staff there. There was an uproar!
One has "staff" or "assistants", and they are usually on first name terms with their employers. "Right hand man" or "office manager" carry overtones of equality with the boss.

Probably due to the fact that in the days of early colonization, it was the 'servants' who survived by their wits and the masters had to come to terms with knowing they were no better than the servants.

[patricklondon]

Does anybody have any ideas about why the concept of servants in a film appeals to so many of us so much?

Perhaps because we have little or no direct experience of "servants" as traditionally understood, so there's some sort of unease that such a world might still exist or be coming back (especially if we know or suspect our ancestors were likely to have been "in service") - or even a more modern sense of guilt about people in the really crappy modern versions of such work in hotels and restaurants - e.g.,

[Deleted]

I think Britain, France and Italy have a major tradition of showing -- in both comedies and dramas -- that the servants are often the people really in charge, or at least pulling the strings to make sure that things come out satisfactorily. Naturally this goes back far before the invention of cinema since the situations can be found in all of the classical plays by Shakespeare, Molière, Goldoni, etc.

Asian depictions of servants seem completely different -- just tireless work, excessive devotion and discipline, and generally complete lack of appreciation by the "masters." Submission seems to be a hirely desirable quality in certain cultures and it is admired for the complete selflessness of people "privileged" to serve their betters.

[Deleted]

Not to be overlooked is the series of Downton Abbey....rampant and intriguing of the "servants" lives and antics.
Also, the whole PBS series of Upstairs, Downstairs covers a whole new (at the time) life of servants.
Many of the Merchant/Ivory films of the same genre also cover a slew of the same. (Room With A View etc.)

[Deleted]

Yes, I almost mentioned Downton Abbey and Upstairs Downstairs but I refrained because I have never watched either of them so I couldn't say anything about them with authority and might have risked saying something completely stupid. However, I will mention that the popularity of these series would seem to indicate that the UK is the epicentre of the concept of servitude.

I was passing in review in my mind the many French films that I have seen about servants (The Ceremony and A Simple Heart with Sandrine Bonnaire, Séraphine with Yolande Moreau... and plenty of others than don't come to mind at the moment) and nearly none of them are comedies. In fact, a number of them are about servants taking bloody revenge on their employers.

Obviously, the genre is also used to convey "revolutionary" ideas.

[Deleted]

I think many of us could identify with Babette's Feast. Combining service, food and revolutionary ideas.

[Deleted]

Now that is an odd idea to me. Babette more or less forced herself on those women, who probably thought it was a sin to be served by anybody, and then she could basically only make boiled potatoes for them to eat.

Naturally, the whole point of the movie was breaking out of this for just one meal, but after that unique feast, she just went back to serving them boiled potatoes until either she or they died of old age or disease.

Is this how it is for women in your neck of the woods, Lizzie?

[Deleted]

Oh, come on, Kerouac. Although Babette imposed herself on the sisters, she did say, "Let me be your servant, or I will surely die" (or something close to it). She worked for fourteen years with no pay, doing all of the cooking and cleaning so that the sisters could devote their energies to good works and visiting the shut-ins. And the community gave thanks to god for Babette, mostly because she was the one now baking the bread, making the soup and preparing the Ollebrod (yuck); we see her picking fresh herbs on the hillside and driving hard bargains with the merchants for freshness and quality. Although the food was ostensibly the same, they had to recognise it had improved immensely.

Really, you don't see the transcendent nature of the meal she prepared and the poignancy of the fact that it will never occur again, in her lifetime or theirs? Where's your poetic soul, Kerouac?

And revolutionary? She was a communard who fled her country after her family was slaughtered. Who's to say if she could return after fourteen years? I find her a very sympathetic character and thus from my neck of the woods. ;D