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Arlo Compaan, Transformed by Discovered Shadows, The Gerontologist, Volume 57, Issue 1, 1 February 2017, Pages 147–149, https://doi.org/10.1093/geront/gnw184
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Because our Western culture is so enamored with romantic love and so ignorant of, if not averse to, imagining love relationships that are several decades old, it is not surprising that the mythology of most popular films also idealizes romantic love, not lasting love. Two recent films, however, take a much deeper and more realistic look at long-lived “old love”—45 Years and Cloud 9. They are lovely, engaging films. In order for you to have some sense of the lens through which I am reviewing these films, you should know that I am a clinical psychologist and Jungian psychoanalyst. Over the last 50 years, I have worked with many couples in their 50s and 60s, and a few in their 70s. Whether stimulated by conflict or an affair, a critical issue for most was the question of whether they can live the next 10–30 years of their lives together and if they can, how will they do it. Few had a road map for how. This is not surprising to me because the mythology of most popular films idealizes romantic love and says little about lasting love.
I want to review the films in terms of the concept of the personal shadow, a prominent concept in Analytical Psychology. The shadow consists of the behaviors, affects, and characteristics of which we are unaware. We most often think of shadow material as negative material (as portrayed in 45 Years), but it can also involve positive material, as portrayed in Cloud 9. Like a shadow, we all are blind to aspects of what is true of us. Yet others see and experience it. In relationships what we deny to be true still affects and is experienced in the relationship. Because it is denied yet actively experienced, it creates confusion and uncertainty for both but particularly for the partner. The denial often becomes more problematic than the actual experiences. These two films do a masterful job of showing the process of what occurs when shadow material is brought to consciousness by events outside the relationship.
In “45 Years,” the organizing story line is the revelations about the marriage that result from Geoff’s learning of the discovery of the ice-encased, frozen body of Katya, his first love, who died when they were hiking in the Alps. Although Kate, his current wife, knew of Katya, she did not know of Geoff’s continued attachment to the memories and fantasies of that experience. His reaction to the letter informing him of the discovery of Katya’s body unfreezes the emotional attachment he has to his memory of Katya and he begins his mourning. As Geoff talks more about that experience, he first drops into this long lost but never forgotten romantic, idealized world of his young love. He even explores traveling back to Switzerland to see her body. Kate grounds him and holds before him the reality of the bizarreness of that plan by challenging his ideas of hiking in the Alps at his age. Geoff, Kate, and we viewers gradually become aware of how much this emotionally loaded memory shaped the marriage, perhaps even the choice of a similarly named partner. All of this happens at the same time that they are about to have a public celebration of their 45th wedding anniversary.
As the movie progresses, they and we learn the extent of how this un-mourned loss has affected the 45-year relationship. When Kate goes into the attic, finds his journal with pictures, sees a slide projector and screen all set up, and views the 35-mm slides of Katya, we see the part of Geoff that lived in the attic, still very attached to his first love experience. Kate acknowledges the power of this shadow when she says, “It is like she [Katya] has been hidden in the corner of the room all the time, tainting everything—especially the big things.” She sees his shadow, which illuminates her puzzling but long felt experience. She says, “I have not been enough for you.” Painfully she voices the shame of feeling inadequate for 45 years, of not measuring up to his ideal but unidentified image of a partner. Then, she clarifies, “I believe I was, but I don’t believe you think I was.” The scene captures how both partners struggle with romantic love, with the ideal of being “enough for each other.”
In the film, we observe Geoff’s mourning the loss of the idealized, imagined romantic world as we see him sad, angry, and depressed. He does not want to go to the party with his buddies. He visits his old place of employment and is angry over the changes. He resists checking out the hotel for the celebration. His protests are understandable, but necessary to his letting go of his images of an ideal relationship. The dark mourning is the prelude to realistically loving Kate.
The reality in all old relationships is that the other is never the ideal, is never enough. The other is always limited and inadequate. Only love at the beginning can be purely romantic love. The longer we live together, the more we see the shadow, the dark side of the partner we love. Only when we can mourn what we do not have and accept the specific limitations, life wounds and flaws of the partner, can we accept and love the reality of the partner. Then perhaps love can last.
By the time of the anniversary celebration, Geoff seems to have done his mourning over Katya, his first and romantic love. He is able to more fully embrace the real love for Kate, as he says, “Persuading you to marry me was the best thing I did. You’ve not always known that. I love you. Long may it continue.” With tears, Geoff hints at the pain he has caused her. He takes responsibility for his shadow, rather than putting it on Kate by treating her as if she is inadequate. He owns his own failures. Kate manages a mild smile, but her face holds unresolved pain. To her credit at different places in the movie, she voices her pain, irritation, and anger at Geoff. I was left wondering whether she still expects herself to be what Katya was for Geoff. Is she still angry and does she still blame him for her feeling “not enough.” Earlier in the movie, she had not wanted to hear any more about Katya and Geoff. Perhaps she has not sufficiently mourned the losses in her 45-year marriage, like her struggle with their childlessness that is evident in her face as she sees in the attic the picture of pregnant Katya. She now knows a very different, shadow side to their childlessness. She needs time to metabolize it.
The film only hints at Kate’s dark side. She will never be an adventurous, playful, pregnant woman like Katya. It is not who she is. In the movie it is not clear if Kate knew and accepted that this was not who she was. Or does she still long to be the ideal partner for Geoff? Is this too some of her sadness at the end of the movie? For a relationship to survive well, both partners need to know that each has a shadow that makes life difficult for the other. Old love inevitably sees the shadows. Young romantic love sees no shadows. Lasting love has romantic moments in the midst of the awareness of the shadows.
Early in the film, Kate and Geoff are reminiscing about their early years together. Kate identifies another relationship shadow when she comments, “We both were going through something unpleasant and yet we never talked about it all these years.” Geoff had lost his pregnant partner and Kate had lost her mother. It seems that talking about their personal pains and struggles was not a part of the intimacy of their relationship. It was in shadow for both. Their relationship had more to do with being responsible and doing what was needed and expected. Kate captures this when she says following their conversation about her not being enough, that they will “go to bed, get up and start again.” This was the strength in their 45 years. But intimate sharing of personal emotional struggles was absent—a shadow element. Hopefully, because of this experience, being able to talk about emotionally painful experiences may become a part of their senior years.
As a contrast, “Cloud 9” portrays the transformation of Inge, a 67-year-old woman, who discovers her positive shadow through a sexually alive relationship with Karl, a 76-year-old man. In her long-term marital relationship, she had not come to know the passion of her own sexual body. In contrast to “45 Years,” no earlier life trauma is the cause of this passion being in shadow for Inge. Rather she just had not experienced this kind of archetypal energy with her husband. Early in the movie, Inge was not conscious of anything missing in who she was or in her 30-year marital relationship. Later in the movie in response to her husband Werner’s angry question, “Why did you do this?” Inge says, “It just happened.” Although Werner saw her as intentionally doing this, Inge experienced her behavior being driven by inner feelings and energies of which she was unaware. They were in shadow when they moved her to deliver the altered trousers to Karl’s place. Later when Karl asks her why she came to his place, she acknowledges noticing the erotic, desiring look in Karl’s eyes when he brought them to her for alteration. Something in her could not resist.
By this time, Inge has reflected on her experience and is able to consciously own some of what happened to her. It is fair to say that she did not know what she was missing nor of what she was sexually capable. She had accepted life with Werner without the sexual passion and delight that she eventually experiences with Karl. The contrast between the sexual scenes with Werner and Karl makes this quite clear. It is only out of the experience with Karl that she comes to know her body’s capacity for deep passion and pleasure. By the end of the movie, she has fully embraced her body experience. It is no longer in shadow for her. It is noteworthy that it took considerable mental effort for Inge to embrace the unconsciously motivated attraction to Karl and the full pleasure capacity of her own body. The scene where she pleasures herself in the bathtub reveals her transformation as a deeply personal embracing of body pleasure. It is delightful to see a movie that represents well the sexual transformation possible in the senior years.
Of course, this precipitates a dilemma for Inge, as all shadow exposures do. Can I stay in the passionless marriage with Werner who prefers to view beauty through train windows? Or must I feel, touch and smell life’s beauty in the nakedness of the forest pond and the passionate bed as Karl prefers? The experience with Karl brought into Inge’s awareness what was not present in her marriage and what erotic passion she can joyfully experience. Neither the absent passion in the marriage nor her body’s sexual passion is any longer in shadow. Most affairs are consciousness raising experiences and are energized or precipitated by shadow material. Their larger aim is greater consciousness. So the partners must now deal consciously with the shadow material and make decisions. Inge clearly decides in favor of embracing her sexual body. She also must decide about the relationship. Werner’s anger is clear in the movie. He finds himself unable to see his own shadow and cannot embrace the possibility of his own change in order to transform the relationship so they might be able to stay together. His apparent suicide at the end of the movie makes that clear.
Affairs almost always confront the partner with his or her insufficiency. If the partner who has not had the affair is able to learn about her or his own shadow and not deny it, the possibility emerges of working out a new relationship. That process is rarely depicted in popular movies and is not in Cloud 9 either. Toward the end, Inge knows and loves the pleasure of a passionate sexual relationship. If Werner does not change, staying with him will be more difficult than when her passion was in shadow. Her own shame and guilt over the affair adds another layer to her struggle. The movie depicts well how difficult the decision is for Inge.
Both movies show how dealing with unexpected events that illumine positive and negative personal shadow material creates difficulties for everyone. As is most often the case, both movies present stories where the process of exposing shadow material is initiated outside of conscious decisions. They powerfully reveal that making shadow material conscious rarely makes decisions easier, but it may make them better. I loved how both movies capture well our life struggles with becoming conscious of shadow feelings and behaviors. It is especially gratifying and hopeful to see this growth portrayed in individuals over 60 years.
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Author notes
*Address correspondence to Arlo Compaan, PhD, Analyst Training Program, C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago, 10217 W. Lincoln Hwy. Chicago, IL 60423. E-mail: acompaan@sbcglobal.net