AGE-C Second Lecture for the Cornelia Goethe Colloquium
The second lecture from AGE-C in the Cornelia Goethe Centrum lecture series was delivered on the 15th November 2023 by Dr Luis Freijo, a member of the post-doctoral team from AGE-C. The lecture aimed at conveying a critical approach to ageing and masculinity in a European context through a comparative analysis of three recent European films: Pain and Glory (Pedro Almodóvar, 2019), from Spain, The Great Beauty (Paolo Sorrentino, 2013), from Italy, and The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry (Hettie Macdonald, 2023), from the UK. These films were discussed utilising the notion of the search for meaning as a common structuring theme.
Freijo started the lecture elaborating a critical framework around the three concepts of ageing, masculinity and the search for meaning. Under the argument that definition of ageing is often taken for granted in the literature, the lecture followed Kate de Medeiros in proposing a threefold explanation of the concept of ageing that entailed a chronological aspect, a biological side and a functional nature, to conclude that ageing is a process that is defined by how it is understood socially. Likewise, the concept of masculinity proposed in the lecture was also based on social theories of the construction on gender, namely Judith Butler’s, and on the importance of the body as the place where gender is constructed and stylised. Finally, Freijo drew on the work on psychotherapy by Austrian psychiatrist Viktor Frankl. Frankl proposed that the core motor of human existence is the search for a meaning to that existence, and proposed the method of logotherapy to help patients to find it. Freijo argued that the three films featured ageing male characters who were engaged in such search for meaning and that Frankl’s idea of logotherapy could be used as the baseline for comparison.
The analysis of the three films was structured in three parts, which conformed concentric circles. The first part discussed the three films in relation to how they configured the body of their protagonists, either in terms of infirmity (Pain and Glory), successful ageing (The Great Beauty), or movement and memory (Harold Fry). In the second part, these bodies are considered in relation to the space they occupy: the interior of houses where Salvador can move safely in Pain and Glory, the privilege spaces of the rich that Jep is allowed to traverse in The Great Beauty and the division between male public spaces and female private spaces in Harold Fry. The third part took a critical approach to the idea of the search for meaning and questioned what “meaning” means for each of the films. The politics of care were crucial for Salvador’s journey in Pain and glory, economic and able-bodied privilege determined Jep’s search and Harold’s individual journey rejected the possibility of a communal meaning to his search. Finally, the talk concluded with the realisation that a common individualistic take on ageing and masculinity was shared by all three films, in line with the political rationality of the neoliberalism that has reigned in Europe and the European Union since the 1990s.
The talk was met with interest by the audience, who formulated several questions in relation with Salvador’s sexuality and his use of drugs, and in relation to the prevalence of narratives of ageing masculinity in which a protagonist must flee or undertake a journey in order to find meaning. Professor Vinzenz Hediger, who chaired the panel, also made a reflection about whether the films reflected a worldview of “global capital”.
Written by: Luis Freijo
Here you can also find the audio recording of the lecture: