‘An Affair to Remember’ or — Soft Toughness?
Why do Leo McCarey’s film always make me cry? Even ‘Duck Soup’ (1933) has me in tears, albeit because I’m howling with laughter. But the rest just emotionally destroy me. But why?
I think it’s for the same reason both Ozu and Kaurismäki (not a surprise as McCarey influenced Ozu and Ozu, in turn, influenced Kaurismäki) also devastate me and I suspect the reason is this — an aching humanity and a total lack of malice. This could be why, despite its many flaws, ‘An Affair to Remember’ (1957) had me in floods, and not for the obvious reasons. After all, it’s great but can also be a pretty sappy and languorous romance that seems in zero rush to actually get anywhere. But god, how I love it.
The story is very naughty as two people, Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr, meet at on a cruise to New York and start kissing off camera (best off-screen kiss ever?). The only problem is both are already attached to other people and so the two decide to meet, in six months time, on top of the Empire State building. This will give them both the time to break up with their partners and for Grant, a feckless artist and playboy, to get his life together. If they are both serious about this romance then they’ll move heaven and earth to be there.
However, on her way to the rendezvous an overly excited Deborah Kerr hurriedly runs out into the street and… and… oh, I can’t. It’s just all so… You get the idea.
Oddly, though, it’s not these moments of heart-tugging high drama that activate my water-works.
No, it’s more the way conflict and tension are handled here which is, in typical McCarey fashion, incredibly touching. For example, when Kerr admits to her beau that she loves someone else his reaction isn’t one of anger, rejection or rage but aching understanding. Oh my god, these are fully formed human beings! There are no histrionics, blaming or recriminations; just unconditional understand and care. This guy genuinely LOVES her even if it means losing her. Waahhh!
Not only that but there’s technical brilliance in this scene too, and it is lurking in the background. Kerr’s with her lover in his New York apartment but she can’t stop thinking about Grant and that huge erection she’ll soon be on top of, something signified by the fact that McCarey has the Empire State Building constantly following her in the background, never letting her forget what she finds impossible to forget anyway. It actually seems to be shadowing her, almost like a stalker, until she opens the window to the outside world expecting liberating relief from the emotional claustrophobia only for it to suddenly appear as a reflection in the glass. It has pounced on her! It has intercepted her! How can a 1,250 ft building move?! It can’t, but McCarey sells the illusion with utter skill, both demolishing Kerr’s heart and the insidious lie that McCarey was a visually uninteresting director in doing so. It’s an incredible and beautiful visual flourish and one that Jacques Tati would lift wholesale for ‘Playtime’ (1967), but Tati was obviously so enamoured by it that he milked it to death, stripped it of all meaning in the process and, hence, rendering it into nothing more than a gimmick.
This scene is even initiated by a wonderful touch. It’s when Kerr and her lover are watching Grant and his fiancée being interviewed on TV about Grant’s trip. The host is asking Grant soft-ball questions whilst, back in the apartment, Kerr’s man is innocently quizzing her about her cruise despite the fact that she’s too busy trying to read Grant’s answers and extract life-changing interpretations from his fiancée’s reactions to even notice. This means there’s about six different and distinct interactions going on concealing four different meanings between five different people, three of whom aren’t even in the same room. Now THAT’S some impressive writing.
Or, if you want another piece of evidence for why McCarey was untouchable in the humanity department notice when Kerr interrupts Grant to point out to him that his voice has just cracked with emotion. It’s almost totally unnecessary but it’s possibly the most important line in the movie. It’s these sorts of written but natural feeling interruptions, those little interjections which reveal everything, that McCarey and his co-writer Delmer Davis did so well.
Not that it’s all perfect. After all, McCarey could also be an arch moralist (like Rohmer, McCarey was a practising Catholic and it shows in both their films) with a somewhat condescending and conservative mindset (just listen to the lyrics of those fucking god-awful songs the children are singing if you want proof of that!). We can be naughty, sexy, flirty and even indecent but there will always be a price to pay. And let’s not forget, for all the laughter and romance, the underlying toughness in McCarey (again, something lurking in both Ozu and Kaurismäki), and we must also remember his statement that the only we get out of life is in a box. It is our mortality, our inescapable death and not the romantic gestures, which power our tears in McCareys’ films. This is why McCarey shows such respect for the elderly in his movies — they know they are flesh.
He might also be the best director who ever worked who had such an incredible ability and interest at pulling the background characters into the central emotional ‘action’ at play. Nobody is left out in a McCarey film; all and everyone are included because humanity is a form of congregation. This, again, is what makes us cry, because it means we’ve been included too.
But it is the moments of brilliance, the sublime balancing of comedy and heart-break that hit hardest. Notice the scene when they’re all at the theatre. A beautiful woman sitting behind Grant is highly sexually aroused by him and let’s him know it by loudly whispering to HER partner “I love our seats”. All Grant can do is give his female companion a shrug of innocence at the fact that he can’t help it if he’s so god-damn fuckable. It’s hilarious… only for McCarey to then hit us in the guts with a punch so powerful that our intestines practically explode.
This is why you always have to be on your guard with McCarey’s films as despite their apparently fluffiness they frequently pack a powerful punch.
