When the writer Colette, played by Keira Knightley, as the young wife of the much older, rather bully fake writer Willy, entered into a relationship with a woman, I was heartbroken. Oh goodness. Soon that man will find out and then! Soon the world will find out and then!
That’s how you watch a movie: anxious about the fate of the characters. Young women in films set a century ago are often victims of their time and of men, so I could already sense where this was going. Until I suddenly realized: but Colette is not a character at all. She lived, she wasn’t afraid to do provocative things, she broke free from that crazy Willy, you don’t have to be afraid of her fate.
Real life as consolation for fiction. Peculiar. I was particularly surprised by the belief I apparently had that real living people are not victims of their environment in the same way as characters.
Sometimes I wonder whether films and novels have taught us (I mean, of course, me) the right attitude towards other people. Whether I do not use the increased capacity for empathy through art far too much to see others as characters, helplessly at the mercy of their scenario.
It is not the case that you only feel sorry for characters, many characters are a lot more self-reliant than many living people. And empathy with a character is also immediately an empathy with what the assumed conventions of a certain genre are. You react to the growing ominous music and then you already know: something is going wrong.
That relief at the existence of a real Colette for whom I do not pity and for whom I do not tremble, got me thinking. More about life than fiction, by the way.
Characters are on the writers’ strings and therefore cannot be helped, let alone saved. Sometimes you can actually help people and they can also make decisions for themselves. Yet I do not always feel about loved ones as I do about Colette: perfectly capable of taking care of herself.
Why is the sadness or misfortune of a loved one so much more difficult to bear than your own?
You can say to yourself: don’t whine, don’t cry, come on, these are emotions, intense ones, but why shouldn’t you be able to tolerate them? The kind of encouragement you can never give to anyone else.
I can still see the helpless septuagenarian with his broken arm, who, years ago, was sitting defeated on a chair in the room when I left. His whole attitude expressed despair, he was sure he could neither save himself nor was he going to save himself and I was torn by remorse and guilt.
I couldn’t think: you can also adopt a different position. Because he clearly couldn’t. Nor does the sick person who clings to you in fear, says nothing, but only asks shakily: when will you come back?
Am I making helpless characters out of people who do have choices? Or is the latter mainly fiction? Some people are unable to defend themselves against the blows that life deals them – nor do I have the illusion that I can handle every blow. Far from.
But I think so about Colette – because she existed and saved herself. Because I’ve never seen her sitting in a room, desperate and lonely, her whole attitude the expression of just one wish: don’t leave me alone.