He is affixed on his mortality and the tragic brevity of life, and he is preparing to die. Beckett is grieving. 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. I am love! Andrew Beckett was a man who lived and loved.
Soon he will be nothing. He will be food for worms. It is powerful art. The movie Philadelphia deals with discrimination against homosexuals during the AIDS crisis during the s, 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. 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.
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. I remember reading back in the s 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:.
If they love it, they will always love 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.
I model the level of detail of the musical analysis as well as the importance of analysis for understanding the text. And I give firm examples of how specific and detailed analyses can provide insights into the meaning of song, both on the surface and at deeper levels. Students may take a variety of approaches to this assignment, both in terms of their analytical focus and their interpretation of the film and the opera scene.
The assignment leaves plenty of room for independent and creative thought. It provides a vehicle in which students must show why analysis matters, whereas in my experience too many students seem to wonder why it matters.
Analysis allows an opportunity for students to explain precisely how the music reflects the libretto and how the film scene reflects the music. In addition to its tangible analytical, interdisciplinary, and contextual rewards, the assignment also offers intangible rewards. By using a scene from a popular and award-winning film, featuring well-known actors, this assignment also reaches many students through a genre with which they have strong familiarity. It haunts him, much as it haunts the audience.
It began as an aria introduced and translated by Beckett word for word. We know its meaning on the surface level from the text and context in the story. And then we feel it haunt us and confuse us as it does him in the ensuing scene, its impact more transcendent than the text implies.
The only thing we know for sure is that he has connected, through art, with Beckett, the man he once judged and reviled for his homosexuality, on a deeper level. He also had the opportunity of interviewing numerous Oscar nominees, Golden Globe winners and film industry giants such as Guillermo del Toro, Oscar Isaac and John Leguizamo among others. During his time at Fordham, he studied abroad at the Jagiellonian University in Poland.
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