Complacency Corrodes: Remembering to Resell Our Relationships

'I've always heard that the ideal marriage should be something of a mystery. That your husband should remain a kind of stranger to you. Someone whose acquaintance you'd like to renew every day.’
Jill Baker, ‘That Uncertain Feeling’

'That Uncertain Feeling' is a fine 1941 romantic comedy directed by Ernst Lubitsch. 

Merle Oberon stars as Jill Baker, a society woman in her mid 20s who has developed intermittent hiccups. At a friend’s recommendation, she visits a psychoanalyst. He suggests Jill’s problem may be more than physical.

Psychoanalyst: Most people know nothing about themselves. Nothing. Their own real personality is a complete stranger to them. Now, what I'm trying to do is to introduce you to your inner-self. I want you to get acquainted with yourself. Wouldn't you like to meet you? Don't you want to get to know yourself?
Jill: No. You see I'm a little shy. 

After an exploration of Jill’s condition, the psychoanalyst concludes that her hiccups derive from irritation with her husband Larry.

Jill has been happily married to insurance salesman Larry, played by Melvyn Douglas, for 6 years. However, she reflects on the fact that she can’t get to sleep at night because of Larry’s heavy breathing and she is woken every morning by his gargling. She resents that he considers it unnecessary to shave before dinner if they don’t have guests; that when she’s on a diet, he eats steak. She is vexed by the affectionate poke in the stomach he gives her every now and again. And she notices that their conversation when he returns from the office is mostly monosyllabic.

Moreover, when Larry does engage Jill it’s to discuss his less than fascinating work issues. The final straw comes when he asks her to host a dinner for prospective Clients at the recently merged Universal Mattress and United Furniture companies.

'Success in business is fifty per cent hard work and fifty per cent the right cigar.’ 

Jill determines that her relationship with Larry has run its course. Soon her head is turned by eccentric pianist Alexander Sebastian.

Alexander: Let me warn you that I say what I think. I'm a complete individualist… I'm against Communism, Capitalism, Fascism, Nazism. I'm against everything and everybody. I hate my fellow man and he hates me.
Jill: It sounds rather amusing.

When Jill embarks on an affair with Alexander, Larry is mortified. His colleague advises him to apply his talents in salesmanship to win her back.

‘There’s only one thing you have to sell - yourself. The most important Client you ever had in your life is waiting for you. And her name is Mrs Baker. Now you’re the best salesman in the business. There’s nothing wrong with your marriage. You just have to resell it once in awhile.'

And so Larry plots a series of schemes to defeat the maverick pianist and regain Jill’s affection. 

‘You’re going to accuse me of something which I’m going to deny and you’re not going to believe.’

‘That Uncertain Feeling’ is something of an undervalued screwball gem. It’s fascinating to see a mid-century depiction of psychoanalysis, and indeed I was quite taken by the thought of meeting myself. An awkward encounter, I imagine. No doubt we’d find each other rather annoying.

In particular I was impressed by the film’s characterisation of complacency corroding a seemingly happy relationship. 

We take each other for granted. We cease to demonstrate interest or solicit opinion. We make assumptions about our present based on our past. We become absorbed in our own plans and preoccupations. Our conversation becomes monotonous, repetitive, predictable. We fail to recognise and rein in our irritating habits. 

Complacency can be a variegated condition. I had a colleague who thought he was on tip-top form: engaging, charming, full of bright ideas. But in fact he was only luminous and appealing when he was at work. At home he was an exhausted, inarticulate lump slumped in an armchair watching telly. Eventually it all came to a head. 

I’m sure complacency can be just as damaging to professional as personal relationships. On reflection I’m not sure I was the best office mate. I now regret the piles of paper with which I surrounded myself, the communication by Post-It note, the Boots Meal Deal consumed in silence at my desk every lunchtime. 

I had a Client once who came in to complain. He was thinking of putting the business up for Pitch. It wasn’t that the team was doing anything wrong exactly. But the meeting that he should have been looking forward to each week had become rather tedious. And he found the ‘metabolism’ of the relationship was just incredibly slow. 

'The tragedy of life is often not in our failure, but rather in our complacency; not in our doing too much, but rather in our doing too little; not in our living above our ability, but rather in our living below our capacities.'
Benjamin E. Mays, Civil Rights Leader

Of course complacency can be conquered. We can wake up and be attentive. We can commit our time and invest our attention. We can be interesting and interested. Like Larry, we can resell our relationship.

Perhaps we should all pause to reflect - maybe even book an appointment with ourselves. Those intermittent hiccups we’ve been suffering could indicate a more fundamental malady.

'Conversation don't come easy.
But I've got a lot to say.
If you look at what we once had
Well, it feels many moons away.
But I came for you.
I've dreamt names for you.
It's true.
No one makes me high like you do.
And I craved for you.
I lost sleep with you.
No one loves me quite like you do.’

Lucy Rose, ‘Conversation'

No. 302

Garbo’s Hat: Recognising People’s Right to Be Wrong

Greta Garbo was a Hollywood star of the silent era, adored for her luminous on-screen presence, her sophisticated beauty, her worldly-wise personality. With the advent of ‘talkies’ MGM became nervous. What would audiences make of her heavy Swedish accent? They delayed as long as they could. Then in 1930 Garbo played the eponymous heroine of ‘Anna Christie’. She walked into a bar, collapsed into a chair and demanded:

'Gimme a whiskey, ginger ale on the side, and don't be stingy, baby.’

The studio publicised the movie with posters proclaiming: ‘Garbo talks!’ The public were delighted, and ‘Anna Christie’ was the highest grossing film of the year.

Garbo subsequently performed in a succession of classics, including ‘Grand Hotel’, ‘Queen Christina’, ‘Anna Karenina’ and ‘Camille’. She consistently played melancholic and melodramatic heroines. She was compellingly serious, earnest, pensive. But gradually her popularity began to wane, and in 1939 the studio decided to change tack, casting her in an Ernst Lubitsch comedy, ‘Ninotchka’.

Buljanoff: 'How are things in Moscow?'
Ninotchka: 'Very Good. The last mass trials were a great success. There are going to be fewer but better Russians.' 

Garbo plays Ninotchka, a Soviet special envoy sent to Paris to organise a sale of royal Russian jewellery. She is sober, stern, judgemental; unimpressed by bourgeois capitalism.

Ninotchka: 'Why should you carry other people's bags?'
Porter: 'Well, that's my business, Madame.'
Ninotchka: 'That's no business. That's social injustice.'
Porter: 'That depends on the tip.'

Wherever Ninotchka goes in Paris, she is taken aback by its indulgent Western ways. All about her seems shallow and superfluous, petty and pointless. She spots a couture hat in a shop window. It looks rather like a lampshade.

Ninotchka: 'What's that?'
Comrade Kopalski: 'It's a hat, Comrade. A woman's hat.'
Ninotchka: 'How can such a civilization survive which permits their women to put things like that on their heads. It won't be long now, Comrades.'

 Ninotchka also encounters the debonair Frenchman, Count Leon (played by Melvyn Douglas). She recognizes that he is rather charismatic, but dismisses him as entirely frivolous.

 'Now, don't misunderstand me. I do not hold your frivolity against you. As basic material, you may not be bad; but you are the unfortunate product of a doomed culture. I feel very sorry for you.'

Gradually, however, Ninotchka is seduced by the charms of Paris and the Count. And soon she cannot resist the hat she recently found so contemptible.

‘Ninotchka’ is a magnificent comedy, bristling with elegant witticisms and sharp social satire. It reminded me that, growing up in the midst of the Cold War, we were often prompted to consider the differences between Soviet and Capitalist societies. 

To teenagers like me Communism certainly had its appeal: the avowed commitment to equality, the intolerance of plutocrats, the celebration of the workers, the military caps with retractable ear-flaps. But we were also, of course, aware of the suppression of individual freedoms, of Stalin’s dark secrets. And there was a nagging sense that Communism was somehow dull, dreary and joyless; that it didn’t accommodate human foibles and foolishness - the insignificance of pop, the frippery of fashion, the triviality of brands and advertising. In short Communism didn’t seem to afford people the right to be wrong. And this seemed somehow very important to me.

If you work in the field of marketing or advertising and were fortunate enough to grow up after the fall of the Berlin Wall, it’s still perhaps worth reflecting on the differences between Capitalism and Communism. You may conclude like me that ordinary people are capricious, fickle and flighty. They oscillate between profound passions and shallow affections; between ardent commitments and superficial attachments. They can be both serious and silly; consistent and erratic. They can comfortably hold two mutually opposing ideas in their heads at the same time. And that’s what makes us human.

In the critical scene of ‘Ninotchka’ our heroine sits down in a restaurant and orders raw beets and carrots. The owner is unimpressed:

'Madame, this is a restaurant, not a meadow.'

Count Leon does everything he can to entertain her over lunch - all to no avail. Finally he resorts to a joke.

 'A man comes into a restaurant. He sits down at the table. He says, "Waiter, bring me a cup of coffee without cream." Five minutes later the waiter comes back and says, "I'm sorry sir, we have no cream, can it be without milk?"'

Ninotchka is still not amused, but when the Count accidentally tumbles from his chair, she breaks into cascades of joyous laughter. Ninotchka’s defences have been breached by a ludicrous pratfall. And Garbo shows a hitherto concealed gift for comedy.

This time round the promotional posters were headlined: ‘Garbo laughs!’

'By the look in your eye I can tell you're gonna cry. 
Is it over me?
If it is, save your tears for I'm not worth it, you see.
For I'm the kind of guy who is always on the roam,
Wherever I lay my hat, that's my home.’

Marvin Gaye, Wherever I Lay My Hat (That's My Home) (Barrett Strong/ Marvin Gaye/ Norman Whitfield)

No. 207

NOTES FROM THE HINTERLAND 5

‘Words Without Thoughts Never To Heaven Go’

Bernardo: ‘Who’s there?’
Francisco: ‘Nay, answer me: stand and unfold yourself.’
Hamlet, I i.

Some have argued that the opening lines of Hamlet are entirely appropriate: this night-time exchange between two guards on the walls of the castle at Elsinore immediately establishes a sense of doubt about identity, a theme that sustains us through the play.

In a bold break with tradition, the director of the Hamlet currently being staged at The Barbican in London chose instead to start her production with the famous ‘To be or not to be’ soliloquy. Too bold for some, and it was announced last week that the experiment would be discontinued.

Should one side with the purists and demand respect for genius and tradition? Or should one applaud brave endeavour, even when it doesn’t succeed?

I found that, the longer I was in business, the more I had to guard against instinctive conservatism. ‘We’ve tried that before. It didn’t work.’ Age and experience can at once enhance one’s judgement and diminish one’s appetite for change.

I saw the Barbican Hamlet in preview. Benedict Cumberbatch has a strong, charismatic take on the troubled Prince; the sets are magnificent; and the production has many good ideas.

When you revisit great works, different scenes leap out at you. This time I was struck by the passage in which Hamlet’s uncle, the villainous Claudius, who has murdered Hamlet’s father and married his widow, tries to pray for forgiveness. At length Claudius concedes that, since he is still in possession of ‘my crown, mine own ambition and my queen,’ he cannot hope for absolution. His prayers are empty without genuine remorse.

‘My words fly up, my thoughts remain below:
Words without thoughts never to heaven go.’
Hamlet III, iii

Creative businesses are sadly cursed by hollow words and empty promises. We all too publicly worship at the altar of creativity without properly demonstrating our faith in day-to-day behaviour. Talk is cheap. And our belief is sorely tested when the god Mammon steps into the meeting room. Perhaps we should, like Claudius, appreciate that ‘words without thoughts never to heaven go.’

Scepticism Is Healthy for Business Too

Trouble in Paradise is a sophisticated screwball comedy from 1932, directed by Ernst Lubitsch. A romance between two upmarket con artists is tested when one of them falls for a society heiress, their next intended victim.

The film is fast paced, knowing and wry. And so beautifully written. The society heiress, Madame Colet, rejects a suitor’s advances thus:

‘You see, Francois, marriage is a beautiful mistake which two people make together. But with you, Francois, it would be a mistake.’

It’s reassuring to discover that scepticism about advertising and business was alive and well in the ‘30s. Madame Colet has inherited a perfume business and her brand is advertised thus:

‘Remember, it doesn’t matter what you say. It doesn’t matter how you look. It’s how you smell.’

In another scene Giron, the Chairman of the Board of Colet et Cie, confronts our hero Gaston, now acting as Madame Colet’s advisor:
Giron:  ‘Speaking for the Board of Directors as well as for myself, if you insist in times like these in cutting the fees of the Board of Directors, then we resign.’
Gaston:  ‘Speaking for Madame Colet as well as for myself, resign.’
Giron:  'Very well…We’ll think it over...’

I understand that in this month’s Alphabet announcement there was a nod to the HBO comedy Silicon Valley (The Guardian, 11 Aug 2015). There’s a great tradition of comic writing about commercial culture. The Office reflected business life as it is, not as we would want it to be. Nathan Barley shone a light on Shoreditch lunacy, with extraordinary prescience and what now looks like understatement. And the recently departed comic genius, David Nobbs, gave us Reggie Perrin, the middle management mid-life crisis that is sadly all too familiar.

Scepticism is healthy. It calls business to account. It shows that the public is alert to our shortcomings.
Better to be mocked than to be ignored.

Can Commerce Integrate Art and Science?

The Festival of the Opening of the Vintage at Macon by JMW Turner shows ordinary folk dancing in a beautiful bucolic scene. A few years ago research was published indicating that Turner’s depiction of the sun in this painting was based on the latest scientific thinking of his day. (The Guardian, 13 November 2011)

It transpires that Turner, whilst studying art at the Royal Academy, also attended science debates at the Royal Society, which was housed in the same building. And in particular it is suggested that Turner attended the lectures of the astronomer William Herschel, who had been examining the surface of the sun.

As an artist Turner was comfortable with, and actively interested in, science. The scientist Michael Faraday was a good friend and he knew mathematicians, palaeontologists and chemists. Science inspired him. His commitment to observe nature first hand is captured in the myth that he lashed himself to a mast during a storm, just so that he could understand the conditions; an experience that supposedly prompted my favourite Turner painting, Snow Storm - Steam Boat Off A Harbour’s Mouth. 

I regret to say that, when I grew up, art and science were taught as polar opposites. We imagined that scientists had different shaped brains and we rarely socialised with them. This dualism extended even to our TV viewing: the scientists watched The Body in Question; we arts scholars watched Brideshead Revisited (the show that launched a thousand fops)…

It’s compelling to note that many of today’s more interesting movies, dance and theatre productions concern themselves with science. The Theory of Everything had us trying to keep up with Stephen Hawking; the great Wayne McGregor creates dance inspired by neuroscience; Nick Payne’s recent Royal Court hit, Constellations, looked at a human relationship in the context of quantum multiverse theory.

Though I’ve barely a scientific sinew in my body, I believe that the future of marketing and communications will occur at the intersection between art and science. It’s logical. It's inspiring.

No. 44