Lying, Frailty, and Florence Foster Jenkins

Lying, Frailty, and Florence Foster Jenkins August 25, 2016

Got to see Florence Foster Jenkins!! Sorry about the exclamation points. I am rarely overcome by the remotest desire to see any movie. But this year I have seen not only Star Wars (which was fine since it’s the same movie over and over again, this time with even the same people), Love and Friendship (which is so good I’m going to buy it when that’s possible), and now Lady Florence. Maybe the apocalypse is nearly upon us.

You’ll be happy to know, this moving is completely and totally worth the trip to the movie theater.

I, as you might expect, had several thoughts percolate up through the bright lights of the movie screen. I’ll try not to give anything away, except that the story of her life is on Wikipedia, and she is a well known figure, and so the movie isn’t any kind of surprise. I’m hoping to do a little more reading in order to discover where artistic license coincides with true historical fact. In the main, the movie itself was completely charming and Meryl Streep, of course, was perfect as always.

But the true star, as so many have said, was Cosmé McMoon. Truly, his face drove the whole movie forward. If you saw it for no other reason, it should be to watch his face as Florence sings.

But now on to other interesting questions. Whether these are really the true questions of Florence Foster Jenkins’ life, or whether the actors and directors just felt like bringing them into sharp relief, I don’t know, but they are pertinent considerations for our time.

The first is about lying. Florence is physically weakened and, how shall one say this delicately, mentally unstable. Is that too harsh? She has illusions and delusions of grandeur and those in her life do nothing to bring the troubling light of truth anywhere near her. She believes she is giving a great and beautiful gift to the world.

Everyone coming out of the theater, me included, is very likely to turn to the person next to them and say, “please don’t do that to me.” Please don’t let me sing at Carnegie Hall if I shouldn’t sing there. The clutching at the hand, the depth of the pleading tone, these are passed from one movie goer to the other. Because the fact is, every single person has a blind spot, don’t they? Except me, of course. (That’s just a little joke.) The business of being human means suffering from limited ability and even knowledge, even about oneself. Human community is necessary for some kind of level of sanity, for truth about oneself.

And yet, truth is very hard, and lying is advantageous. And so we all lie to each other constantly. The question is, when should the lying cease?

So self delusion–how much is too much? That is question one. As to question two, I felt myself mourning something I think we are letting slip through our fingers in the west, and that is human frailty itself. I hate to be a one horn blower, but this movie was essentially pro-life. Not baby life, obviously, since there weren’t any in the movie, and it’s probably mean to make a baby listen to Florence Foster Jenkins sing. But life in a human frailty sense.

Have you noticed? We aren’t really supposed to accommodate or go along with the frailty of human kind? Illness, disability, mental trouble–if you aren’t at the peak of emotional and physical health you’re culturally invited to think about whether or not your life is worth living. It was not just charming, but frankly shocking–because there are so few visual images of it in modern society–the tender hearted care of the husband and pianist for Florence. Neither stood to gain very much. Both ended up sacrificing their lives and ambitions to carry Florence along towards what she wanted, even though what she wanted was completely ridiculous. But both had such deep, conflicted, troubling affection for her that their enablement was tempered by loving kindness, patience, and sorrow over her suffering.

I couldn’t help but think of the way God carries us along, though we are broken and wrong and lying to ourselves, how he imbues us with dignity that is deeply undeserved. The messy trouble of humanity–the ironic mocking laugh set against the kindness and care of someone who decides that one single other person is so worth it he will recede into the shadow–is there room to make this choice, at least in a public way, any more?

So it’s a great movie, and I’m sure you should go see it!


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