Comparing Affairs: The Graduate vs. Norwegian Wood

If there is one thing that humans are seemingly designed to do, it is to find connections. It is the reason why science exists, and also why many superstitions exist. I found myself in a rather uncanny coincidence when I just so happened to see The Graduate one weekend and Norwegian Wood the next. Both films are about an affair. Not only are they about affairs, but they are both about young men trying to find themselves through these affairs. So I thought to myself, why throw away an opportunity to do some film analysis?

The Graduate starts off with Benjamin Braddock graduating college and returning home to the tune of “Sound of Silence” by Simon and Garfunkel. The song foreshadows this ennui and boredom that Ben feels after (and perhaps during) his college experience. He ends up driving Mrs. Robinson, his father’s friend’s wife, home, and shortly after, she offers Ben to have an affair with her (cheating on her husband). While the affair goes on, Ben begins to be pressured by his parents (whom Ben is keeping his affair with Mrs. Robinson a secret) to date Elaine, Mrs. Robinson’s daughter. Ben attempts to sabotage his date with Elaine but they end up really enjoying themselves anyway. Mrs. Robinson tells Ben that he can’t date her daughter, and this makes Ben want to be with her even more. Elaine goes back to college while Ben begins to follow her everywhere she goes in order to marry her (to the tune of Scarborough Fair). Though Elaine is already engaged to someone else、and Ben is determined to follow her everywhere, even to her own wedding with somebody else. He bangs on the church glass and starts a brawl to help her escape. The movie ends with both of them on a bus, having escaped the wedding party, but not the ennui that fills them (indicated by the same song that started the film,The Sound of Silence).

Norwegian Wood, on the other hand, takes place in 60’s Japan, where we follow the story of Toru Watanabe. The movie starts though with the suicide of Watanabe’s best friend, and it shows him as a quiet fellow that is focused primarily on studying and various jobs he has to work for money. He runs into Naoko, his best friend’s girlfriend before he committed suicide. They seem to hit it off, but after their first sexual experience together, it becomes clear that Naoko may not be emotional adjusted enough for a relationship (or even normal life for that matter). She is sent away to a therapy facility in the middle of the forests in Kyoto while Watanabe is left to continue studying on his own. In that time, Watanabe falls in love with Midori, a smart woman who does not seem to have any problems with emotions (in fact, if anything, the initial problem is that perhaps she is almost too reserved in her emotions). Watanabe has to then deal with whether he should stick with Naoko and try to be her emotional support or should he switch to Midori whom he has less of a emotional connection, but has a much better intellectual connection. As the story goes, he gets closer to Midori, but as Naoko starts fading away, he becomes more adamant that he must stay with Naoko to the point when he promises that they will live together. Unfortunately, Naoko ends up taking her own life, and the movie ends with Watanabe telling Midori that he wants to be with her.

Both films actually have many similarities. Both are set around the 60’s-70’s, both have young men trying to figure out what they do, but where they differ completely is how the movies themselves try to tell the story. The Graduate is much more about showing shots of the characters at particular angles and giving montages to really give the audience a feel of the story. Music also plays a big role, filling in the emotional holes where the dialog just can’t express what the characters are feeling. A lot of the story in The Graduate revolves around people’s inability to communicate their needs. Whether it is Ben’s inability to express his ennui, Elaine’s inability to communicate what she wants, Mrs. Robinson inability to communicate just about anything about herself, and almost the comical way Mr. Robinson seems to misunderstand everything anybody says. Norwegian Wood on the other hand revolves around the narrator’s inner dialog, conversations between characters, and character confessions for much of the story of the movie. It is the visual focus of The Graduate that makes The Graduate a better movie for me, but it is the characters in Norwegian Wood that make it the better story for me.

It is that conflict between better movie making and better story-telling that makes me question what I really want out of a movie. Cinema is, in essence, visual story telling, but there are so many other elements that comprise a movie that it comes down to personal preference to what a person really values and pays attention to. The Graduate has some extremely memorable camera shots (especially the shot that shows Mrs. Robinson after Ben tells Elaine about the affair in the corner of the hallway, she looks so small and helpless in a way that words can’t easily express in that short a time) that defines that movie and makes it a classic. On the other hand, the moral and emotional struggle that Watanabe goes through about dealing with someone who is suicidal, but then having to deal with his own needs, is much more compelling. While Ben is sympathetic due to his own depression and ennui, he often comes off as creepy and obsessive about Elaine. Doing things like following her to college, never leaving her alone, and just generally being a pest to all those around him. In the end, that is sort of the point of the movie; showing how his behavior didn’t really make anyone happy in the end. There is a sense though that, in The Graduate, that if Ben was a different person and made better decisions, he could have been happy, which heightens the tragedy at the end. In Norwegian Wood, there is a sense that people are just sort of filled with ennui normally and people have to do what they do in order to be happy. Depression in The Graduate seems like a disease everybody has, while Norwegian Wood treats depression as a normal thing that people get sometimes.

I think that is why I prefer Norwegian Wood better as a movie. It may not be nearly iconic or the camera work, acting, etc. may not be as good as The Graduate, but Norwegian Wood has it where it counts: story. The Graduate is a comedy that tries to be serious, but Norwegian Wood is a drama, that in retrospect can be kind of funny. I feel that the act of “funny in retrospect” is much truer to life, and it makes the more compelling film. Either way, I would encourage you to see both.  

Love Songs

Originally I thought I was going to talk about just the idea of love, and what it really means. The problem with trying to pin down and define “love” is either you get a definition that is either too long and elaborate or something that is much too short and general. Looking up “love” in the dictionary is also rather unsatisfactory (though that may be because I find that the dictionary is just an intellectual crutch for people who can’t accept that the world is subjective not objective). Maybe that is why if there is a medium of expression, that medium probably has almost too many examples of attempting to define love. Perhaps it is just human nature to see love in so many things as well. If there is a blue car parked right next to a pink car, you can bet that someone on the internet has posted that picture on Valentine’s Day. For me, the best medium for trying to live up to that both simultaneous heavy and light subject of love (“I sure love ice cream, but anyway, when do you think it is too early to tell someone I love them?”) is music.

Music and love both seem to occupy this space of “I am not sure why it works, but boy do I need it” territory for me. Sure, I could think up some intellectual reasons why I need to experience both, but much like defining love, all the reasons tend to fall flat, like trying to explain why I like the color yellow or why I like apples. I might be able to link it up to an event in childhood or some sort of genetic need, but in the end, I feel that unless you are Oliver Sacks or have a similar expertise in brain function, you are not going to get very far. Despite the intellectual challenge, music does seem to somehow bridge that gap and make the experience of love a relate-able thing. The combination of appealing to the intellectual side of the brain with lyrics and rhythm, and then appealing to the emotional side of the brain with melody and hooks, makes music very much like love in a way. But the only way I can prove this point is by showing (playing) what I am talking about. So, for your enjoyment, is some of my favorite love songs.

Love Story (You and Me) - Randy Newman

Some songs state their point with bombasts of over-done music and lyrics, but there is something just so real and genuine about this song. It is the type of love that is beyond just a lust, the type of love that people strive for. There is also a certain melancholy about the song, but that is what makes this song so interesting. Love doesn’t just mean “happiness all the time,” love is also for (and arguably most important) the melancholic, angry, or sad times.

Book of Love - Magnetic Fields

I can’t decide if this song is trying to be sappy and saccharine, or a bit of a satire. Perhaps it is the super low voice, or maybe the premise that the Book of Love is “long and boring.” Either way, it is that same line between satire and real sentiment that love also saddles.

Michelle - The Beatles

Probably the most pure love song there is. It is not hard to theorize that love songs were invented to tell someone that they love them in an inventive way and this song is a perfect example of that.

Renewal

I usually don’t like to write about work. Mainly for professional reasons, but it also feels contrary to the point of “Better Door than Window.” My idea is to “open the door” on ideas, not to provide a window into my life. There are sometimes when the stories that we live through my be more educational than if I were just to tell you something. This is one of those times.

So, I’ll start this story back in 2011, when I was on winter vacation and visiting my family.

While I was at home in the US, I wanted to get my American Driver’s License renewed. I wasn’t super keen on driving in the US, and sort of wanted to just relax at home, but I figured I should get my license renewed just so I can drive somewhere when it was too cold and late. I was dreading having to go to the DMV and was procrastinating the whole thing. It was then my parents told me that the policy in my state had changed, and the only thing a person needed to do to renew their driver’s license was to stick a sticker on the back of your license that they had already sent. My license was about 6 months out of date, so I was happy that I could put the sticker on and be done with it. Even with that simplicity though, I remember my parents bugging me at least twice about doing it. I finally did it and spent some time driving. I am always surprised how easy it is for me to switch from driving on the left in Japan, to driving on the right in the USA. It made me realize how much driving is just following the guy in front of you.

I spent New Years at my girlfriend’s family’s house and while having fun there, I got a little money charm in my wallet. While I don’t see myself as a superstitious person (something I have wrote in this blog before), a little charm here and there can’t hurt. Maybe what makes charms affective is how when you see them, they remind you, perhaps on only a subconscious level, about what you really need to be worried about. It is that sort of reminder that I could have used in that next month.

The reminder I needed didn’t come until I was doing a seminar about obtaining a driver’s license in Japan. I wasn’t too nervous about the presentation because I had done it the year before, but due to much too much cold weather, normal day-to-day work, and some personal anxiety stuff, I found my self to be somewhat nervous. It was that kind of excited nervous I get when I am going to get in front of a ton of people or when I drink too much coffee. I went to the presentation with my co-workers and one of them insisted about talking about people who need to go through the entire “acquiring Japanese license” procedure.

You see, for most people who want to drive in Japan they already have a driver’s license in their native country. Having a driver’s license in your native country makes getting the process of getting one in Japan much simpler than starting from scratch. Since most people who do not have any sort of driver’s license don’t get one when they get to Japan, I was curious why we needed to go over this in the presentation. It was then I learned that if you don’t get your Japanese driver’s license renewed on time, then you might have to go through most of the process again if you don’t renew it within 6 months time. I hurried and looked at my wallet and my worst fears were beginning to be realized when I saw that my Japanese Driver’s license was about 6 months and 2 weeks after the deadline.

I can’t give any good excuses why I waited that long to renew my driver’s license, except that, in the US, the driver’s license is normally the main ID I would use. In Japan I  mainly use my Alien Registration Card. I never took my Japanese license for anything other than to look at the bad picture of me. It never occurred to me that not renewing my Japanese driver’s licence could cost me dearly. I would love to be able to say that was never communicated to me and therefore I am not entirely responsible, but in the end, I know I had no one else to blame but myself.

So I told my supervisor the following Monday, and she told me to immediately stop driving and take the bus to work. To be honest, I am not the biggest fan of driving, and would rather take public transportation whenever I can. The problem is that is impossible due to the places I work being so far away from one another. Just the idea of having to go through the rigmarole of the Japanese Driving test (which by all accounts, is much more about following their rules rather than if you can actually drive) is something I would have only cooked up in my nightmares, and it was coming true. I felt like the man who found himself naked at his old school and had to retake all his high school finals again. The worst part was that it was looking like I didn’t just have to take all the tests, but 10 hours of driving lessons as well. Ten hours of driving lessons would have came out to about 100,000 yen (about 1,200 dollars).

Which is kind of funny, in a way, because at that same conference I went to, there was talks about the difference between how Japanese workers tend to deal with emotion at the workplace and how Westerners tend to deal with the same emotion. In the US, I found that as long as it doesn’t affect your work too much, showing your emotions can be a way to connect to your co-workers and make it easier to work together. In Japan, emotion in the workplace is rather discouraged. While the Western way of showing emotion is more intuitive for me, the Japanese way of not showing emotion makes a lot of sense to me. It is something that I take into consideration when I think about being professional in the workplace.

Unfortunately, when I heard the news that I would have to pay all that money to re-learn how to drive, as much as I wanted to fit into the Japanese workplace, my American instincts took over. While I never let it on how much it bothered me when people needed me to work, but any time I had any free time I would be sighing heavily to myself and have my head on my desk. I just couldn’t believe this was happening to me. While I had been saving money for a vacation or something fancy for myself, having all that money wash away and be erased in what seemed like an instant was disheartening to say the least. All because of a mistake. It didn’t even feel like a mistake, it just felt like I didn’t follow all the rules exactly and now I am being punished for it. Sometimes the worst thing we do to ourselves is not do anything at all.

I was feeling down and out, studying my own handouts that I had presented on just a few days earlier to people learning to get their own driver’s license, when I got a phone call. “What could make this any worse?” I thought to myself while picking up the receiver. I then misheard my co-worker say on the phone that he had a a “happy shiawase” to tell me (“happy shiawase” would mean “happy happiness”). It turns out that I won’t have to take most of those tests, and all I have to do is gather all the paperwork, take a simple eye test, and I could have my license renewed. I kept asking over and over again if the tests really weren’t necessary, and he kept repeating that they were not. No 10 hour classes, no stressful tests, as long as I didn’t go blind in the next two weeks, I would be fine. It turned out that because I had renewed my license in the US, I was in the clear in Japan.

Even as things began to look up for me, I was still waiting for the other shoe to drop. Things had been going from bad to good so fast that I wasn’t sure if the roller-coaster was almost over or if I should had been prepping myself for another drop. I had to go to the license place two times to get my JP license renewed. First time I needed to fill out some paperwork and find out what I need to get in order to proceed. Then the second time I needed to get all the stuff they requested, take the eye test, take some photos, and leave that place with a new license. Normally this not a very hard process, but I was so nervous that I would do strange things like mess up my birth date and have to manipulate the number in a way that makes it look like the real number, but just looking like it was written by a 10 year old child. Through both visits, I found myself worried that at some point someone was going to drag me aside and inform me that they are very sorry, but I needed to take all these tests and pay all this money before even thinking of getting my license back.

In the end, everyone was actually quite nice, and I got my new licence with no problem (well, except for the photographer, he was a bit of a butt, but the only consequence of that is an odd looking picture). On the way home, I began to wonder what I should take out of this. For one, I needed to buy my co-workers presents because the magic they preformed somehow to not have to not have to retake all those tests. I also needed to make sure to be more aware of when things expire. More than those things though I wanted a lesson, some sort of moral that I could bring out of all of this. I thought a lot about the difference between doing what is necessary versus what is compassionate (it could have so easily been that I would have to take all those tests and pay all that money, but I have no idea if what happened could really be called “compassion”). I thought a lot about how listening to my parents may had saved me a lot of money. I thought a lot about how maybe that charm helped me somehow. I thought about how much in life can change depending on who you upset and who you make friends with. I think the thing I thought of the most on the way home was how happy I was to have this be over with and hoping that the next crisis I have is a long way away.

Consistency, Again

The hardest part of consistency is, as one might expect, is actually doing it every time. It is all fun and easy at first, but once that initial “honey moon” period ends, you realize that you kind of have to fight to be always going at it. The word “consistency” also has an implication of the same level of quality. Though time marches on, making every attempt great, good, or at least interesting becomes more of a challenge each time. The challenge is not always just doing the same thing, but being able to be consistent even if life tries its best to get in your way.

In order to stay consistent then, one needs a drive. Motivation to get up and focus. It is easy to do this for a job just because the motivation is money, but what about creative projects? What about stuff that isn’t just for money? What if it is just to develop your own skills? It is a strange thing, especially for me, because doing creative projects should be their own reward. In a lot of ways they are, but just as nature’s natural state is one of being inert, the energy of being creative can be almost too much.

I find that writing has become like exercising. I should do it everyday but I don’t seem to have the time of the energy. The reality is that it is more that I have to make the time and get the energy myself (it also doesn’t help that if I exercise I won’t have enough time for writing and vice-versa). I also feel like there is something in the air that teaches us that if we aren’t “geniuses” or completely dedicated to an art, then it isn’t worth pursuing in any fashion. I will admit that this might be just be my own cultural assumption, but it something I have always felt and it bothers me. I know that it is important for a person to try and find the things they are best at, but then to limit oneself to only doing the things we do well feels wrong. Following the path of just trying to follow your creative potential may not be the path filled with the most riches, but it could be the path with the most learning.

I guess the real question is, is learning about yourself really that helpful? Is being consistent in order to test your resolve worth the effort? I am not entirely sure. That is another question I struggle with every so often. The more I think about it though, the more I am beginning to realize that the key might just be to make that choice and let it change you. Realise your identity through your actions and do what is best for you and the ones around you. I am not sure if the choices I made were the right ones, heck, I don’t even know if half of them were even good ones, but in the end, they were the choices I made, and those choices define me. I find it more and more absurd to think of what would happen if I took a left instead of a right, because I would have been a completely different person.

Maybe consistency is just a sort of hope; a construction people make in order to gain control of the people they become. The things people do to try and build something worth stepping onto the next phase in their lives with. The elements they save through each iteration, what people choose to be consistent about, becomes who they are. It is consistency, or perhaps the lack of consistency, that allows people able to either free themselves from their own prisons of genetics and environments, or lock themselves even further away in order to protect themselves.

So, this is my little prayer to the world. Well, to be honest, it is more like a little prayer to myself. Though as egotistical as might sound, it is important to say to yourself, with so many words (a ‘lotta words in my case), how one wants to change and how you want to change. So, me, keep on writing! This will all pay off eventually someday, if not with a paycheck, then perhaps with something more valuable than money: peace of mind.