Gotham Diary:
Courage
5 February 2014
While I was watching Hannah Arendt last night, Kathleen came home and said that she was too tired for anything but sleep. (It was about half-past ten.) I put the DVD on pause and went in to sit with her while she got ready for bed. She had lots to say about work — she usually does, these days. The stream of mordant commentary seemed to rouse her, so, when it subsided, I ventured an idea that had come to me the other day while we were on the iPhone with Megan and Will. She seized my proposal with interest, and was soon lost in “the one thing the Internet is good for.” She was still at it when I came back, over an hour later, after I’d seen all of Margarethe von Trotta’s film.
***
It occurs to me that some readers might raise their eyebrows at my interrupting a movie that I was watching for the first time for a chat with my wife, but I rather think that I got more out of the picture for the break. More and more, worthwhile movies seem to handle like worthwhile novels, and need to be put down from time to time, especially around the middle, just to settle the mind. I know, for example, that the two keys to the film’s narrative climax were more on my mind than they might have been, for having bobbed up repeatedly while I was in the bedroom with Kathleen. Both were introduced with barely more than a glance in the earlier part of the film.
In the first, one of the three judges in the Eichmann trial puts it to the defendant that, had there been more “civil courage” in Germany, the Nazi scourge might have been resisted. In the other, the young Hannah is seen telling her mentor and soon-to-be lover, Martin Heidegger, that his talk of “passionate thinking,” bringing together two things that everyone is taught to keep separate (passion and reason), deeply unsettles her. At the end of the movie, as Arendt was losing dear friends who were alienated by Eichmann in Jerusalem, it was clear to me that her stubborn display of civil courage was motivated by her passionate thinking on the subject of Eichmann and the “Jewish leaders” with whom he so adroitly interacted. My insight enlarged what was in any case a powerful drama — with a performance by Barbara Sukowa, in the title role, that I can only call enchanting — into perhaps the most compelling movie about the actively intellectual life that I have ever seen.
Part of me wants to rattle on about the fantastic, almost lurid sexism in Hannah Arendt. It is all a matter of words, but it nonetheless makes the male offenders look grotesque. The gravamen of the charge against Arendt was that she was “arrogant,” committed to her convictions no matter how much pain they might cause in others. She is accused, in effect, of unwomanly behavior. But the glory of Hannah Arendt is that she was essentially a brilliant thinker and only incidentally a woman or a Jew. This would not be so remarkable in a man; indeed, the gender aspect wouldn’t even come up. In Eichmann in Jerusalem, Arendt carefully constructed the argument that the “Jewish leaders,” with whom Eichmann became so palsey when it was a question of encouraging Jews to emigrate, steamrolled the delivery of the unfortunates whom they represented to the death camps. This was, perhaps understandably, mistaken for “blaming the victims,” but that isn’t what Arendt was doing at all. She made it clear that the members of the Judenrat didn’t see themselves as victims; they believed that they would be given special treatment. This delusion took a very long time to dissipate. If Eichmann in Jerusalem had a message for contemporary readers in 1963, it might well have been a warning to be wary of the old men who were used to being in charge. In charge of Israel, especially.
Part of me is more interested in a distinction, which I think von Trotta’s movie illuminates with attractive clarity, between courage and heroism. I called Arendt’s courage “stubborn” just now; it certainly wasn’t heroic. The filmmakers take pains to show how uncertain Arendt was of the virtue of her position. She could not convince herself of a preferable alternative, so she stuck with it, but doubts assailed her. She was deeply wounded by friends who turned their backs on her, and she showed it. There was none of the reckless self-regard that characterizes heroism, even if her enemies charged Arendt with it. She suffered for being right, but she never reveled in her suffering.
Having read Eichmann in Jerusalem for the first time late last year, I can’t say how well Hannah Arendt might stand up for viewers unfamiliar with the book, but perhaps my suspicions would be best expressed by my advice to anyone who has read the book: Re-read Chapter VI, “The Final Solution: Killing,” and the four chapters on deportations. (This might well kindle a desire to re-read the book in toto.) It’s not the contents of these chapters that is so important as the blend of evidence and sarcasm. In the end, Arendt wasn’t arguing a point in Eichmann in Jerusalem so much as showing that those who thought that they were doing justice weren’t doing a good job of it. She detested the sentimentalism that infused the proceedings. She was appalled that Eichmann might be taken to be the victim of a show trial. And she wanted to show that the intellectual mediocrity that made Hitler appealing to millions was still a force to be reckoned with.
Anyone can be a hero, if the circumstances are just right. But only a deep thinker who is truly engaged with the world can be courageous. True courage is never foolish, and without deliberation we are all likely to be fools.
***
Another part of me wants to shriek: “All that smoking!” Smoking indoors has become so unusual (at least in my part of the world) that I felt that von Trotta was overworking the old vice to a distracting degree. That was only one of many small imperfections in Hannah Arendt. Another was Janet McTeer’s portrayal of Mary McCarthy. One of the bonds between Arendt and McCarthy was their formidable self-possession: like brilliant generals, they were in full command of their resources as a matter of course. McTeer’s McCarthy struck me as too loose, too noisy. Another bumpy presentation was that of The New Yorker‘s Frances Wells (Megan Gay). Neither of these actresses is an American, much less a New Yorker, and it showed. (Nicholas Woodeson was, however, quite good as William Shawn.) Manhattan was represented by views across the East River from Brooklyn and Queens, but Arendt lived on the Upper West Side (of course), and it would have been more interesting to show the view of the Hudson from the front door of her apartment building, at 370 Riverside Drive. Overcoming all of these little defects was Barbara Sukova’s utterly convincing impersonation of an émigrée in New York. She was magnificent when addressing students, and I was left with distinct regret at not having been lucky enough to take one of her classes.