The Remains of the Day

Loyalty is usually described as being an admirable trait.  Furthermore, it is good to be loyal in most instances.  However, sometimes loyalty can be a bad thing.  This idea is examined in the film, The Remains of the Day, directed by James Ivory and based on the Kazuo Ishiguro novel. 

The movie stars Anthony Hopkins as a butler in England after World War I.  He serves for a man, Lord Darlington, who has ties to British government and his house is used as a meeting place to discuss politics and what to do with Germany in pre World War II times.  Throughout the film, Hopkins is very loyal in his service.  He never questions the meetings that go on in the house and believes Darlington to be a great man.  The film is very interesting when it jumps forward to present time.  Twenty years later, Darlington is portrayed as a traitor and a supporter of the Nazi cause.  He realizes how misguided his loyalty was back then.  In the film, there are two scenes where people question about where he comes from.  He denies ever having served or to have known Lord Darlington and only states who he is serving presently.  Overall, Hopkins gives an excellent performance has an old school butler who has his own traditions and likes things done a certain way.  His loyalty and a new housekeeper who falls in love with them challenge his way of life.

In Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel, An Artist of the Floating World, the main character is that of Masuji Ono.  Ono is much like the character of Anthony Hopkins.  Both did things before World War II that they later on regret.  Ono turns to painting propaganda where Hopkins blindly serves Lord Darlington.  At the time, both men thought what they were doing was justified and good.  Towards the end of the film, Hopkins remembers the good old days before the war.  There is a certain nostalgic quality to which Hopkins remembers these days.  Indeed, Ono thinks about the good old times before the war throughout Ishiguro’s novel.  Furthermore, late in the film Hopkins admits to the fact that he did indeed serve Lord Darlington and he was a good, honest man with the best intentions.  In another parallel, Ono talks about how he made mistakes but he made them with the best of intentions.  One of Ono’s companions, Matsuda, only wants them to be remembered as making good decisions at the time and to be proud of what they did.  Ono and Hopkins are much the same man and the circumstances surrounding their positions in the film and book are also very similar.