I had occasion today to watch the famous scene in the movie Philadelphia where Tom Hanks listens to Maria Callas sing the “La Mamma Morta” aria from Umberto Giordano’s opera Andrea Chénier. The character Hanks plays — “Andrew Beckett” — is dying of AIDS, pulling his IV pole around the room, as he encounters Callas singing music of death, hope, transcendence, and the energy which links us all together — love. The power of being alive. The power of art to capture the essence of our humanity. Obviously, Beckett is thinking of himself. He is affixed on his mortality and the tragic brevity of life, and he is preparing to die. Beckett is grieving. He is sad to leave, although “sad” does not capture the depth of his feeling. He is sad for himself, sad for the Maddalena di Coigny character of La Mamma Morta — sad for all of us, sad about our transient human lives. He is in awe of the passion and power that burns inside us — the emotional and spiritual energy at our core — the brilliant blinding light of his soul (“I am love! I am love!”), which he knows will soon go out. Andrew Beckett was a man who lived and loved. Soon he will be nothing. He will be food for worms.
You can watch the clip and see it for yourself —
It is powerful art. The movie Philadelphia deals with discrimination against homosexuals during the AIDS crisis during the 1990s, and the scene is fully set in that context. But the power of Denzel Washington witnessing Tom Hanks lay bare the humanity of his grieving soul moves beyond the particular of that time and place. It is a metaphor for anyone who is dying and in despair of the fact. It is universally applicable to all who are dying of lung cancer, congestive heart failure, ALS, cystic fibrosis, Alzheimer’s, AIDS, or any of the thousand other ways in which our bodies fail us and we “shuffle off this mortal coil.” Sooner or later, this means all of of us. We are born, we grow, we suffer, we die.
That scene resonates strongly with me. I identify strongly — I totally would be a character like Andrew Beckett of Tom Hanks listening to some famous piece of classical music while looking death in the face. But unlike Beckett, I have never much liked opera. Or, more to the point, there are wonderful passages of opera but they are surrounded with “filler” music: there certainly is powerful poetry in opera, but there is also plenty of forgettable prose. I guess that is necessary when telling a full story, but I prefer my classical music to be pure in its use of metaphor — without words, mostly. That is why I love Mozart, Beethoven, Grieg, Tchaikovsky, Dvorak, and Rachmaninoff. I remember reading back in the 1990s that Maria Callas, the woman singing in the that clip with Tom Hanks, had a huge following among homosexual men. Maybe that is why director Jonathan Demme chose that music and that singer for the scene in Philadelphia. I never cared much about opera or Maria Callas; La Mamma Morta aria does not speak to me in the same way. Most likely the fault for that lies with me, and not in the singer or the the music. I remember watching the scene of Pretty Woman where the heroine watches opera for the first time and makes the following claim:
“People’s reactions to opera the first time they see it is very dramatic; they either love it or they hate it. If they love it, they will always love it. If they don’t, they may learn to appreciate it, but it will never become part of their soul.”
Well, count me as one of those who didn’t love opera but came to appreciate (some of) it. There are parts of Wagner that are to die for, but I certainly have never cried while listening to opera, as the characters played by Hanks and Roberts do. Perhaps I have a heart of stone. Maybe I am tone deaf. Never enjoyed much of anything by Giuseppe Verdi or Giacomo Puccini. Overweight ladies screaming and engaging in artistic hyperbole. Over the top. Too much. Not my cup of tea.
But I do remember listening to Mozart’s Requiem again and again during 1989 in my small apartment at 944 Tiverton Ave. in Westwood. I was just about done as a college student at UCLA, and I had my dad translate the Latin for me and I even memorized most of the text of the “dies iræ, dies illa” section. I still have those Latin prayers mostly memorized because of the music it is set to. I am a bit embarrassed about this in retrospect. I could have engaged in much happier activities during my senior year in college, I think to myself. Why not wait until later when death was closer to me, as Tom Hanks does? Well, I am not sure. I know the elderly Persian manager of that little apartment complex remarked on hearing that music so loudly, and he seemed impressed I was listening to any classical music at all. I was embarrassed when he mentioned it. I felt slightly as if he had been eavesdropping on me during a private/intimate experience in my home. All this contemplating upon dark themes. I feel the same when I think about how I listened so much to the Black Celebration album by Depeche Mode in a similar fashion around that same time. Why was I thinking so much about death when I was so young?
Like Tom Hanks character Andrew Beckett, I have a strong saturnine streak which would lead me to listen to such music even in good, healthy times. “Andy” Beckett was obviously well acquainted with opera and Maria Callas well before he became infected with the HIV virus. That was not the first or fifth time Beckett had listened to La Mamma Morta (his “favorite aria”); he was not a beginner to classical music: this was an artistic acquaintance which had turned into a prolonged love affair. He had been listening to this piece of music for many years. Perhaps similar to Beckett or Maria Callas herself, I have an ear for tragical music. I am like Shakespeare’s Jaques who “can suck sadness out of a song the way a weasel sucks eggs.” But an ear for melancholy even in good times sets the stage to revisit that music when catastrophe hits for real. This is what happened with Beckett in the movie Philadelphia. I recognize a kindred soul when I see one.
Watch for me, when I can, to be sitting alone listening to something sad. Close to crying, but not crying. Maybe sometime in the future, like Andy Beckett, I will cry. Cry when it is time to cry
The reality is that I do much less of this than I used to. Why? Because I am married with children and so do not have the time or privacy to sit there and indulge such a funk. Those who live with me would definitely be concerned if I played La Mamma Morta — or Mozart’s Requiem — over again and again at full volume and sat there absorbed in it. It would not go over well, especially with my daughters. So I refrain and have for some time. Maybe I am healthier for this. My obligations to family keep me on the straight and narrow. No lengthy examinations of Yorick’s skull for me.
But maybe there will be more time for this later in life? When my daughters have moved out? When I am retired? Dying?
My father told me once he walked into his his elderly father’s house once and found him listening to Beethoven with the stereo turned up to the highest volume. “It was right as he was beginning to lose his mind, and he knew he was losing his mind. And his hearing, too, was almost gone.” my dad explained. “My father was just sitting there absorbed by the music, and he seemed to know the end was near.” My grandfather was in his late 80s and had to move out of his house soon thereafter. There he was, wrestling with his mortality, like the Andy Beckett of Tom Hanks, mourning that which went beforehand — and everything that was ending — his decline, his death. The end. Of everything.
“Old man! ’tis not so difficult to die.” Byron’s Manfred posits. But it is “not so difficult”? Really? Or is it exactly the opposite? Is it hard to die?
“Yes!” I think it is the answer. “It is hard to die.” I remember reading that Ben Franklin, on his deathbed, was reported to have sighed and said, “Even dying is hard.”
Yes.
It is hard to die.
“Andrew Beckett was a man who lived and loved. Soon he will be nothing. He will be food for worms.”
