Why are some choices so hard to make? They seem to have grown ever more difficult, not least for vulnerable youth, due to the facility of …? Oh, smart phones, “flipper” TV, and the rest, which offer such addictive, deadening competition of sorts. I.e., the lures of many easy, but non-beneficial choices, vs. tough but more useful ones.
Which I guess I’d better explain a bit. First let me note, however, that I was moved to hatch a few thoughts on this subject by recalling a fine French flick I saw in my comparative youth circa 1970.
The film was called “My Night at Maud’s,” and created by Eric Rohmer, among the best of “New Wave” movie-makers back then. Along with other flicks in a series, this was one of his “moral tales,” and it really highlights our theme re making tough but positive choices in life.
It stars handsome, dark-haired Jean-Louis Trintignant (one of Bardot’s loves in real life) as an engineer in a French city, a guy who’s mainly happy with his work, but searching a certain type of lady to make his life more complete. What kind of woman would that be?
In his case he wants her perhaps to be blond and definitely a practicing Catholic (as he is); and one desiring a family. The “moral choice” part of his character holds out for this, and yes, he does see a “Françoise” at church who may just fill the bill.
Meanwhile, however, temptation hits when a raven-haired tigress named Maud gets him over to her place for what she evidently wants – a night of fun! There the male lead is well-tested by this “Night at Maud’s,” wanting to, not wanting to, wanting, not…
Ultimately, he makes the difficult, but right choice, holding out for his oh so suitable Françoise. In the film’s last scene he’s obviously over the Maud-lure, and seen at a summer beach with his lovely wife, and their little boy, too, playing peacefully in the sand.
But needless to say, all that was part of a very different world from ours. Yes, there WERE temptations back in the late ‘60s or early ‘70s (and I don’t mean the famed Motown group); but these types in “Maud” who were Catholic back then were mostly authentic (if not flawless), having endured real nuns, priests, and strictures, absorbed Latin Masses as kids, and grown up with a palpable fear of hell.
Today religion is mainly watered down in the Western world, and again, competing amusements and yes, vices are too easily located. Pot shops abound in both cities and small towns. On the super-addictive internet, there is garbage galore. Gambling, including the mania of “prop betting” on football or basketball games, has become child’s play, if potentially very costly; and you all know the rest of a long, dangerous litany.
Making the “moral” choices might of course sound a bit stodgy, as a way of framing what I’m trying to argue here. Better perhaps to reiterate more simply: it’s become increasingly hard to make these “tough choices” period; yes, ones that might really set this or that existence on a more salutary path.
All again triggered for me by the memory of Rohmer’s fine film? I’d say so, though parenthetically, I’d add that most other avant-garde fare of that time hasn’t worn well at all. I’d expect few to put themselves through anything French directors like Jean-Luc Godard made in that era.
But Rohmer’s “My Night at Maud’s” really does raise a valid point via interesting characters, dialogue, and plot line. I.e., about opting for life changes that ultimately become more utilitarian than just immersing oneself in transient pleasures (such as dope or booze binges, hours and hours expended on video games, channel surfing, etc., etc.).
All this “tough choice” business again more onerous now than a half-century ago, especially for those fully raised in the environment in which we now find ourselves. Worth a try anyway? Even buoyed up by support groups (or friends) of different kinds?
Why NOT? Or so it says here …