the remains of the day-the film -...

Chapter IV

THE REMAINS OF THE DAY-THE FILM

REMAINS OF THE DAY-THE FILM

Filmography:

Director

Screenplay

Background Score:

US. Release

Costumes

Art Direction

Running time

Cast:

Stevens

Miss Kenton

Lord Darlington

Mr. Lewis

Stevens Sr.

Cardinal.

Ismail Merchant, Mike Nichols, John Calley.

Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (Adapted from a

novel by Kazuo Ishiguro).

Richard Robbins.

1993, Columbia Pictures.

Jenny Beaven, John Bright

Luciana Arrighi, Ian

135 minutes

Anthony Hopkins

Emma Thompson

James Fox

Christopher Reeves

Peter Vaughn

Hugh Grant

Remains of the Day: The Film

I have divided the 135 minute long film into 58 scenes, which

mayor may not coincide with the actual screenplay of the film. This

division is purely content based but not totally divorced from the

form it follows, because the form always dictates the manner in

which the content is presented. The technical definition of a scene

from the point of view of a film is - "a scene is a series of shots taken

The Remains of The Day-The Film

at one basic time and place; it is one of the basic structural units of

film with each scene contributing to the next largest unit of film

syntax, the sequence".

I shall discuss each scene in detail and also compare it with

the text on which it is based. Some of the scenes however have no

counterparts in the text but have been created on the basis of certain

facts available in the text; such scenes will also be analysed at

length. The addition, deletion or changes of details within a scene (if

we consider The Remains of the Day the written text as a point of .

reference) will also be discussed.

This exercise will be undertaken to sieve and separate the 'new

text' that has emerged as the film version. The process of

transformation from the written text to a visual text will be closely

traced in all the scenes. Some of the scenes will be subjected to

detailed shot breakdown to understand how meaning is being

constituted and conveyed. I shall also try and discuss how that

varies or influences reader- viewer's response to the film.

This would inevitably bring us to the question of sequence and

structure of the film text as compared to that of the written text, the

narrative voices employed both in the text and the film and also

comparing the syntax of the film and the text. The following

structural model has been employed to analyse the film text and to

compare it with the written text. (See enclosed chart-I). Henceforth,

the written text will be referred to as the 'source text'.

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:SOURCE NARRATlIVE (Writttm 'Text)

SCREENPLAY

(MISE-EN-SCENE)

Deletion

Effects

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Scene 1: The Auction Scene

The film begins with the still of a sketch of a large mansion with the

title of the film appearing on it along with the credits. The audio track

plays a stretch of music, which plays repeatedly through out the film

as a background score. This shot of the film functions as the cover

page of a novel which introduces the author and the title of the novel.

In this film shot, a small logo is seen underneath the title, which is

that of a flying eagle. This logo appears later in the film on the top of

the Darlington House next to a blue flag as if it is the family crest of

Lord Darlington. These kinds of details are missing in the source text

and are entirely the director's contribution. The architecture and the

layout of Darlington Hall (which is almost a character in itself) is

never dealt with in detail in the source text and the director in order

to recreate visually depends on stray facts casually mentioned in the

source text. This kind of visual representation necessitates that

details like the family crest are added. Whether such a detail was

added to give Darlington Hall a time and a place and the symbol of

eagle erected intentionally to convey a particular image of the

tradition and history of Darlington Hall, or whether purely because a

particular location with an eagle flying on the top was available for

shooting which led to an afterthought and thus a creative addition

was made is purely a matter of conjecture. In fact the film crew shot

Darlington Hall in six or seven different locales since no one single

house satisfied the needs of the screenplay. (TLS Nov 11, 93). Hence

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, visual representations are not only mediated by the directorial

interpretation alone but also practical and physical exigencies like

the availability of a proper location. These instances are like the

interpolations in a text.

The still shot is superimposed by an iris effect on the screen

which gradually expands to reveal a car moving away from the screen

and the camera following. The car winds its way through green, lush,

countryside of England with the audio track playing the now familiar .....

background score, which is c··a continuous repetition of a brief

notation. A female voice-over is foregrounded and we hear a letter

written to one Mr. Stevens being read out .The letter mentions

Darlington Hall and the days spent there by the writer and narrator

of the letter. As the camera follows the car, a large mansion slowly

rises to the view. The car stops in front of the house where other cars

are also parked. The letter informs the reader that the Darlington

Hall was to be auctioned as mentioned in the 'Manchester Guardian'

and that many newspapers were of the view that the traitor's nest

should be brought down.

While the voice-over continues on the sound track the reader-

viewer ( a reader-viewer is one who has ideally read the text before

watching the film based on it) immediately correlates the mansion on

the screen with 'The Darlington Hall' of the source text. The scene

shifts to an auction and the camera frames an auctioneer who

initiates bidding for an 'Elizabethan portrait of a portly gentleman'.

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The camera focuses on the auctioneer who alternately looks to his

left and right while bidding, followed by a close up of a man dressed

in a cap and a long overcoat with his right hand raised. Bidding

progresses on the soundtrack. The reader-viewer has a close up of f

the gentleman in a cap who shifts forward in his chair eagerly and

the bidding goes up to 11, 500 guineas and the camera which is

focused on the gentleman entirely during the bidding shows his relief

at its completion. The camera now shifts to the portrait in question.

The soundtrack comes alive with the female voice-over, which

continues reading the interrupted letter and shares information that

one Mr. Lewis an American gentleman is the new owner of Darlington

Hall. She further mentions her anger over the disparaging remarks,

which appeared in various newspapers about Darlington Hall, and

how Mr. Lewis was a Congressman who visited Darlington Hall in

1936.

As the visual cinematic text begins to unfold on the screen the

reader-viewer is aware of the texts, which simultaneously begins to

operate right from the first shot of the film. In one text the reader-

viewer starts filling the gap between the written text and its cinematic

version. The reader- viewer presumes that the gentleman who is

shown at the bidding must be Mr. Farraday of the novel, the new

owner of Darlington Hall. The cinematic text however informs us that

the gentleman in question is not Mr. Farraday but one Mr. Lewis a

Congress man who had visited Darlington Hall during the 1936

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conference. The reader-viewer is immediately aware of the changed

content of the text; the conference took place in 1923 according to

the source text and Mr. Farraday never attended it though he is the

present owner of Darlington Hall. Moreover the entire first scene

cannot be located in the written text. Details like the 'Manchester

Guardian' and Darlington Hall being called the 'traitor's nest and the

auction of an Elizabethan portrait, among other things helps the

viewer to contextualise the scene. The Elizabethan portrait once

again appears at the end of the film so as to provide the entire visual

narrative with a linking device.

Whereas the addition of the above mentioned details like the

'Manchester Guardian' is a way of historically contextualising the

film, an added detail like Darlington Hall as the traitor's nest

immediately prepares the VIewer for a story which deals with

someone who betrays his . nation. But changing the name of a

character and providing him with a past could have been done to give

the American owner an extended role in the scheme of things so that

he does not merely remain a guest appearance. Making Mr. Lewis a

rescuer of Darlington Hall and saving Lord Darlington's legacy from

ignominy also serves another purpose. The 'Mr. Lewis' of the source

text openly insults Lord Darlington in 'the great conference and is

condemned by others. Now how does one refurbish the tainted

portrayal of Mr. Lewis the American in the film- you not only expunge

his condemnation and his insults from the conference scene but also

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replace Mr. Farraday of the source text with him. Thus an obvious

ideological shift occurs in the first visual representation of the written

text.

Mr. Lewis of the cinematic version thus produces a series of

sub texts open to interpretation. He is a typical prototype of a

noveau-riche American who has enough money to buy the 'British

Heritage' but does not necessarily understands it. The famous

Hollywood actor Christopher Reeves synonymous with the comic

strip figure 'Superman' plays the role of Mr. Lewis in the film. The

character of superman epitomises the ultimate 'American Dream' of a

perfect man, a total antithesis of a post-Iapserian Adam. Christopher

Reeves thus carries with him the entire semantic range associated

with the image of a 'Superman'.

Christopher Reeves playing an American owner of a blue

_ blooded British prop~rty serves a dual purpose. It not only satisfies

the American audience with its appetite for a tall handsome

'Superman' image of an American saviour of the British heritage but

also caters to the popular British notion of a rich American who has

money but no 'culture'. Thus market drives also determine the

manner of visual representation, in this case this film was sent as an

entry for Oscar awards and hence the target audience is of great

consideration.

The film begins with the narrative voice of Miss Kenton while

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the source text begins with the first person account of Mr. Stevens

the protagonist of the story. While Miss Kenton's letter functions as

a commentary for the first few shots of the film, Stevens' first person

account in the source text provides a unidimensional view of the

happenings between 1923 and 1936. There are one or two hints in

the source text about the content of Miss Kenton's letter to Stevens -

about it being nostalgic and that it was the first letter in seven years

and that Stevens re-read it several times. Miss Kenton's full-bodied

letter in the film however provides yet another view of the years spent

in Darlington Hall. While the source text is entirely Stevens'

reminiscence, the film has flashbacks that are entirely Miss Kenton's.

Scene 2:Present Day Darlington Hall

The soundtrack continues with Miss Kenton reminiscing in her

letter. On the screen we se<:; Stevens opening French windows (this

shot gets repeated again in the film so as to provide a linking

narrative device) and slowly walking outside the room. Stevens closes

the same French windows in the last scene of the film as if to

indicate the beginning and end of a glimpse inside Darlington Hall

and Stevens' life.

Meanwhile Miss Kenton's letter continues in the soundtrack.

She reminiscences about the army of under-butlers at Darlington

Hall and we immediately see a few under-butlers waiting outside a

room. The camera zooms out slowly to show these under-butlers

163


while still maintaining its focus on Stevens inside the room. As

Stevens walks out of the room towards the camera, the voice-over on

the soundtrack mentions depleted staff and the under-butlers

immediately vanish from the screen. It seems as if Stevens walks in

from the past to the present and this is achieved in one fluid

continuous movement of the camera. Stevens while arranging the tea

tray for Mr. Lewis looks out of the glass panel of the kitchen door to

the corridor outside and we see Miss Kenton walking towards the

door and vanishing midway - a cinematic technique employed to

suggest that Stevens while remembering the contents of her letter is

also remembering her walk down the corridor. To maintain a

narrative consistency Miss Kenton is shown walking down the same

corridor elsewhere in the film as part of a long flashback. Another

point of interest here is that Miss Kenton's voice-over in the first

scene serves as a mere commentary but in the second scene the

moment the voice-over is superimposed over shots of Stevens it

becomes a part of Stevens' memory.

The second scene continues in the present time frame with

Stevens walking with his tea tray from the kitchen to the library. The

second scene of the film again does not have a counterpart in the

text. Mr. Farraday's interaction with Stevens in the written text

reminds one of P.G. Woodhouse's 'Jeeves'. Stevens is extremely polite

to his new employer in the source text and is always at his wit's end

trying to keep up with the 'inconsistencies' of his employer's

164


behaviour. He says at one place:

"Over the following days, however, I came to learn not to be surprised by such remarks from my employer, and would smile in correct manner whenever I detected the bantering tone in his voice, Nevertheless I could never be sure exactly what was required of me on these occasions. Perhaps I was expected to laugh heartily or indeed reciprocate with some remark of my own. For it may well be that in America, it is all part of what is considered good professional service that an employee provide entertaining banter". (p.1S)

Now such a statement from a butler who is always willing to

please his new master reveals his sincerity, his eagerness to please

and his simple beliefs. There are numerous such examples in the

source text, which not only evoke humour but also provide an insight

into the character of Stevens whose only pre-occupation is to be a

'great butler'. Elsewhere in the source text he says:

One programme I listen to is called 'Twice Week or More' which is in fact broadcast three times each week, and basically comprises of two persons making humorous comments on a variety of topics---- I have been studying this programme because the witticisms performed on it are always in the best of taste and, to my mind of a tone not at all out of keeping with the sort of bantering Mr. Farraday might expect on my part, (Faber and Faber, pp. 130-131).

However the interaction, which unfolds on the screen in scene

two, fails to establish any significant relationship between the

employer and employee, and is not indicative of Stevens' efforts to

please his new employer. Let us examine what gets conveyed in this

scene.

We find Mr. Lewis sitting in the library and reading a

newspaper in his dressing gown. Stevens enters with a tea tray. The

camera closes in on Stevens pouring tea and at the same time tries to

165


hide a burnt toast in his pocket. The reader-viewer wonders why a

butler of Stevens' calibre should do that. Though there are

confessions in the source text by Stevens' of his having made some

faux pas' lately but trying to hide a burnt toast would not be

definitely a part of that.

Mr. Lewis watches him from the corner of his eyes and says,

"Stevens another burnt toast eh?"

"I am sorry sir, but the rule here in the kitchen is that the cook cooks the breakfast while her assistant toasts the toast.

Why don't you get a pop up toaster?

Sir it is not a new gadget that we need but a revised staff plan". (ROTD-The fllm)

We next see the bewildered close-up of Mr. Lewis, an unrepentant

Stevens' back is turned to his employer and he almost snubs him

and says that a revised staff plan would be more appropriate than 8_

new gadget. What gets conveyed through this dialogue is Stevens" .:~"""

behaviour bordering on contempt as if he is trying to teach his

millionaire American employer a thing or two about the British

etiquette on house keeping. Stevens then mentions his desire to visit

the countryside. Mr. Lewis magnanimously offers him a car. Stevens

mentions his intentions to meet the old housekeeper. Miss Kenton,

which would solve their staff plan. Mr. Lewis wishes to know whether

Miss Kenton was his girl friend. Stevens denies and walks out of the

room as if offended. Mr. Lewis placates him by saying that he was

166


merely joking and tries to diffuse the situation by drawing his

attention to the tradition of obituaries in the British newspapers and

his admiration for it. Stevens however continues to be glum and

merely says 'indeed sir' and walks out of the room. Stevens does not

in any way appear to be embarrassed or confused in his interactions

with Mr. Lewis in the film. In fact it is Mr. Lewis who seems unsure

as to how to break the ice with Stevens.

Scene two of the film has been recreated with details taken from

page-12 of the source text and Mr. Stevens describes it in the

following words the substance of which is not evident in the film:

Naturally, I felt the temptation to deny immediately and unambiguously such motivations as my employer was imputing to me, but saw in time that to do so would be to rise to Mr. Farraday's bait, and the situation would only become increasingly embarrassing. I therefore continued to stand there awkwardly, ------- (p.14).

Stevens who does not appear awkward in the visual representation is

forever hounded by this thought in the source text. His concern for

not being able to provide a quick repartee to his new employer takes

up all his waking hours and an entire chapter is dedicated to such

ruminations:

It is quite possible, then, that my employer fully expects me to respond to his bantering in a like manner, and considers my failure to do so a form of negligence ---- For one thing, how would one know for sure that at any given moment a response of the bantering sort is truly what is expected? One need hardly dwell on the catastrophic possibility of uttering a bantering remark only to discover it wholly inappropriate. (p.16).

167


The reader-viewer is also aware how intelligently certain information

is conveyed through Miss Kenton's voice-over as Stevens carries the

tea tray to Mr. Lewis. She says how her marriage is over and that she

is writing to him after seven years from a boarding house in

Clevedon. Her daughter Catherine is married and she is uncertain

about her own future and her life is empty. She wishes to be useful.

The voice on the soundtrack ceases as Stevens walks into a room.

This room has blue flowered wallpaper and blue and white china in

the wall alcoves. The source text mentions this scene which took

place in the study in the afternoon. However we find Mr. Lewis in his

gown having morning tea in a blue room (is it the morning room?)

This deletion of an afternoon tea ritual along with Stevens'

ruminations definitely recreates yet another ambience not present in

the source text.

Scene 3: Stevens Begins Journey

The theme music continues on the soundtrack, a car Deimar,

Mercedes model (Ford in the source text) driven by Stevens comes

out on the road followed closely on foot by Mr. Lewis. He photographs

the car from behind. (Is it another attempt to capture in his camera a

relic from the past - a dilettantish attitude?) In an earlier scene Mr.

Lewis remarks that Stevens and the Deimar car are made for each

other- suggesting all the past that Mr. Lewis, has acquired- through

buying, Stevens fits that past very well. Stevens so to say is almost

like an antique acquired by Mr.Lewis.

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The soundtrack now has a letter in the voice of Stevens addressed to

Miss Kenton. Next shot shows a woman walking up the steps of a

boarding house named 'Blue sails' to collect a letter. The voice-over of

Stevens' letter continues and the viewer watching the woman reading

the letter concludes that she i~ Miss Kenton and that she is living in

a boarding house away from her husband. This scene also cannot be

located in the source text. Ironically, the reader-viewer with this

scene reaches Stevens' intended destination right in the beginning of

the film and ahead of him.

The first flashback of the film begins in this scene and we have

Stevens reminiscing in his letter. The soundtrack with his voice

ceases and we are visually transported to the past. Stevens

remembers the day Miss Kenton (Mrs. Benn) had arrived at

Darlington Hall. A hunting expedition unfolds on the screen and

Stevens' voice-over informs us that it was the last time, that such an

event took place at Darlington Hall. There is however no mention of a

hunting expedition in the novel. This scene shows a large number of

hunting dogs running alongside the horse riders. The scene evokes

the thirties in Britain wherein the landed gentry occupied themselves

with hunting. This additional scene thus sets the ambience and the

glamour of Darlington Hall, and frames it in time. This scene is

followed by Miss Kenton's interview with Mr. Stevens, which actually

never takes place in the source text.

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Scene 4: The Interview Scene

This kind of a scene is indeed a directorial challenge. How do you

devise dialogues for the two main protagonists of the novel who are

meeting for the first time? The raw material at hand is of course the

source text and there could be no better opportunity but to transform

Stevens' ideas about housekeeping into dialogues. Stevens at one

place in the novel mentions that:

... and housekeepers are particularly guilty here - who have no genuine commitment to their profession and who are essentially going from post to post looking for romance. This sort of person is blight on good professionalism. (p.51).

These OpInIOnS of Stevens have been transformed into

dialogues. Stevens says it while interviewing Kenton. The novel is

replete with Stevens' observations, opinions and comments. Visually

it is very difficult to translate all such opinions for every such ,

statement of opinion in the sour~e text the visual space required will ~ ...

be too long. A'sitUation needs to be created on the screen to present

Stevens' beliefs and ideas. Another alternative is to provide a voice-

over, which simply, like monologue states Stevens' opinions and

ideas but that kind of a technique can be used only occasionally as it

makes the viewing tedious. Then there is the problem of what visuals

to juxtapose with Stevens' monologue. A visual medium cannot afford

to become too verbose. Moreover in the source text Stevens addresses

all his thoughts and memories to the reader (it could be also to a

diary) whereas in the film he will be constantly speaking to Miss

170


Kenton. This immediately rules out the confidence that a reader

enjoys because in his letter to Miss Kenton we shall never get a

glimpse of Stevens with his myriad hues. How does one overcome

that problem visually ... so Stevens on the screen speaks aloud only

those thoughts which the director thinks are important and coheres

with the rest of the screenplay and thus we miss out on the essential

Stevens.

The exploration of the inner working of the human mind in a written

text or a novel is usually revealed through first person narration,

which amongst other things gives the reader a sense of the reality of

the fictional world. But in a film, attempts at first person narration

come through all too often as clumsy, ostentatious and even

pretentiously artistic. The tradition in filmmaking is to have, an

implied third person narrative, subsumed by the unobtrusive use of

technology- through editing, music, camera angles and the like. In

contrast much of the novel's subtlety is achieved precisely through

the use of first person narration. If we recall the moments where in

the novel Stevens agrees with Mr. Lewis' guests that all the arches in

Darlington Hall are fakes (p.24), the humour arises ironically and

depends for its effect upon the reader interpreting the text, situation

and the character and perceiving the various levels upon which the

text operates. In the novel, the text is open for the reader to interpret

and to discover meaning within it. But in a film, that act of

interpretation has already been decided upon; that is in the film

171


meanmg has to some extent already been discovered and

reconstituted.

In this context however one would like to mention that all the details

that are present in the first four scenes of the film- the costumes, the

decor the location are all director's contribution. To visualise and

evoke the ambience of 20's and 30's in a British Lord's house, every

little detail is researched upon. Many rooms including the library

have been shot in tight frames so that the mise-en-scene (what

constitutes a dramatic space or the frame) is not too wide. This is

where a film adds to a source text.

Scene 5: Employing Stevens Senior

In this scene we meet Lord Darlington in person for the first time.

This scene like the earlier scenes is missing in the source text and

serves as an introductory scene so as to present and introduce all the

principal characters of the novel. We for the first time see Lord

Darlington's interaction with Stevens. In this scene Stevens

introduces his father to Lord Darlington. This scene is important

since we are not only introduced to Stevens' father but also get to

know what Lord Darlington thinks of Stevens. In the source text we

are never told what is Lord Darlington's opinion about Stevens and it

is only suggested by Stevens himself. Stevens' father we know is 70

years old but has had the reputation of being a fine butler. Stevens

recounts many stories about him in the source text, however in the

172


film he introduces him as an able butler to Lord Darlington. We

never really get to kno~ through the film what respect Stevens

harbours for his father. We see an elderly gentleman who speaks in a

dialect and pants while climbing stairs. So visually we have enough

indication to realise that Stevens Senior is going to be an

embarrassment for Stevens because of his advancing years. Though

this scene does not occur in the source text but Stevens constantly

talks about his conviction that, "my father was indeed the

embodiment of 'dignity'. He in fact elaborates his idea of 'dignity of

profession' by recounting his opinions about his father and narrates

stories, which highlights his rare sense of honour and competence.

Stevens mentions all the great butlers of his times and his narration

about the history of the profession provides such legendary

dimensions that the readers cannot ignore the intensity of his

devotion towards his father and his profession. He says at one place:

... Mr. Marshall of Charleville house and Mr. Lane of Bridewood have been the two great butlers of recent times ... you may think me merely biased if I say that my own father could in many way be considered to rank with such men, and that his career is the one I have always scrutinised for a defmition of 'dignity' (p.34).

All such ruminations in the source text tells a reader how much

Stevens values his profession as a butler and how his father is his

role model. He further says:

... one has to concede my father lacked various attributes one may normally expect in a great butler. But those same absent attributes, I would argue, are every time those of a superficial and decorative order, attributes that are attractive, no doubt, as icing on the cake, but are not pertaining to what is really essential I refer to things such as good accent and command of language ... Furthermore, it must be remembered that my father was a butler of

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an earlier generation, when such attributes were not considered proper let alone desirable. (p.34).

Deletion of such details from the film gives us an incomplete picture

of Stevens, his father and their dedication to their profession.

Scene 6: Miss Kenton Brings Flowers to Stevens' Parlour

This scene opens with Miss Kenton enquiring from Stevens about the

placement of a vase in the corridor leading to the kitchen. This is the

same corridor, which the viewer sees in scene two-- used a~ linking

device, which places the viewer in a familiar territory. Next shot is of

Stevens looking out from the window to a lawn and watching Miss

Kenton as she walks down the lawn. In the next shot Miss Kenton is

shown cutting flowers from the bushes. All these shots cannot be

located in the source text.

As the scene unfolds in the source text, Stevens says that he was

taken aback when Miss Kenton walked in with a large vase of flowers

and with a smile (we see Miss Kenton's back turned to us so we do

not exactly see her smile) in the source text. She places the vase on

the table in front of Stevens but not so in the film. Almost all the

dialogues in this scene are from the source text, but certain portions

have been deleted which deletion makes the scene even harsher than

it was in the source text. Miss Kenton tries to make conversation in

the source text but her eagerness does not come through in her short

crisp dialogues. In the source text and in the film Stevens says that

174


he wishes to keep distraction to the minimum. Miss Kenton in the

source text does not take this snub seriously and continues in a

lighthearted manner: "but surely, Mr. Stevens, there is no need to

keep your room so stark and bereft of colour". (p.52) But in the film,

her rejoinder is sarcastic and she says, "would you call flowers

distraction Mr. Stevens".

At the end of this encounter when Miss Kenton abruptly and

haughtily walks out of the room in the film and Stevens is shown

laughing a small embarrassed laugh, a snort or it could be a laugh of

someone who has put Kenton in her place. He is shown smoking a

cigar and his body language conveys certain arrogance. In the

interactions in the source text Stevens definitely is a person in

authority trying to assert his position by reprimanding the

housekeeper and also patronising her by saying:

"we do not doubt your 'competence for one moment Miss Kenton" or, Miss Kenton, if you are under the impression you have already at your age perfected yourself, you will never rise to the heights you are no doubt capable of. (p.54)

Deletion of all this takes away vanous shades of the interaction

between the two protagonists. Their interaction remains a mere

verbal duel in the film hovering around the fact that Miss Kenton

should not have addressed Stevens Senior merely as Stevens even if

he was only an under-butler and she the housekeeper. Stevens'

observations in the source text that his remark takes the wind out of

Miss Kenton's sail and she seems upset. But a reader-viewer can

175


clearly see Miss Kenton fuming in anger.

Scene 7: Darlington hall Staff Luncheon

This scene like the interview scene has been reconstructed to convey

Stevens' ideas about his profession. It is interesting that two stories

about his father narrated in pages 37-38 of the source text are not

recreated in the film. The story, which could have given a glimpse of

Stevens Senior's character instead merely highlights the bravery of a

butler and shifts focus from Stevens', fundamental passion in life.

Onge again deletion of details not only shifts the story line but also

misses out on one of the main themes of the source text. The scene

begins with Stevens addressing one of the under-butlers and asking

him about his goals. The under-butler says that he wishes to be a

butler like Stevens and desires to have a parlour like that of Stevens.

Stevens corrects him by saying that every butler's goal should be

dignity with inspiration. Stevens Senior recounts his favourite tale of

an English butler who saw a tiger under the dinning table and

disposed it of quietly before laying the table for tea for the guests.

This scene is also exploited to present Stevens' ideas about 'dignity' of

a butler and he recounts a story to illustrate his point. This story is

narrated by Stevens earlier in the source text and not by Stevens

Senior. (p.36). Hence what emerges is all that is narrated by Stevens

is a part of his one long fluid memory and the sequence can be

played around with the stories could be a part of a shared memory of

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both the son and the father. The camaraderie that is evident visually

in this scene immediately reveals the relationship that the father and

son share. What could not be achieved over a few pages in the source

text is achieved in a scene. There is a call bell for Stevens Senior, but

Stevens gets up to attend to it against the code of his profession.

Miss Kenton with whom he has argued in the earlier scene

demanding respect for Stevens Senior is quick to point out the faux

pas. At the end of the scene the viewer can see that a battle line has

been drawn between Stevens and Miss Kenton over Stevens Senior.

This scene in a way also provides a momentum and a focus to the

narrative. From now on, the focus is on Stevens Senior's faux pas'

and the film progresses to establish this story line firmly. This scene

is an addition and the details have been culled out from various

pages of the source text mainly page 36. This addition scene conveys

the camaraderie and the bonding between the father and the son,

their devotion 10 tneir profession and the increasing hostility between

Miss Kenton and Stevens. The scene also provides an insight into the

microcosmic world of butlers in a Lord's mansion. It manages to

capture the ambience of Darlington Hall, and establish Stevens'

position of authority.

Since 8: The Dustpan Scene

The scene begins with a top crane shot of Mr. Stevens Senior. He is

shown mopping stairs with a dustpan. He looks visibly ill and his

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breathing is laboured hard. He leaves his dustpan on the floor of the

stairs and disappears into a hidden dOOIway built in the wall of the

stairs. Miss Kenton is shown climbing down the stairs and noticing

the broom and the dustpan and proceeds to remove it. She however

replaces them and stands thinking. Till this portion all the shots are

additions and cannot be located in the text. In the next shot she is

shown entering the library where Mr. Stevens is shown atop a ladder

replacing books on the shelves, a crane shot panning from top to

bottom frames him. Miss Kenton points out to Mr. Stevens about the

dustpan (interaction lifted from page 57-58). Mr. Stevens rushes out

to retrieve the dustpan from the staircase and meets Mr. Darlington

coming down the stairs. The entire scene has been recreated with a

few additional details thrown in. What do they do to the source text?

A page or two devoted about this incident actually is recreated into a

two-minute sequence in a 2 hour 14 minute film. The film narrative

thus focuses more on Miss Kenton and Stevens' duels and hence the

thematic focus shifts. This scene followed by others highlights Miss

Kenton's ways of getting even with Mr. Stevens.

Details in the source text mentions the dustpan lying in the central

hall and clearly visible from five doors opening into the hall. This

location has been recreated with an ornate staircase with gilded walls

in blue and gold. This could have been a cinematic compromise; on

the other hand the shift of location adds to the period setting of the

source text. The doorway, which blends into the wall of the staircase,

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is almost invisible when closed. The high ceilings, wooden staircase

also indicates old style of architecture. The mise-en-scene of this

scene thus constitutes and conveys meaning at various levels.

Scene 9: Stevens Senior's Dripping Nose

The scene open with an overhead shot IS of a group of men

discussing world affairs around a table, chaired by Lord Darlington.

Stevens Senior is shown serving drinks. The camera takes a close -

up of his dripping nose and a drop goes plop in to tl-.e drink, which is

noticed by Lord Darlington. The audio track actually plays a sound

effect of the drop falling plop into the drink. The camera focuses on a

young man (medium-shot) speaking passionately against Germany.

Stevens' notices his father's dripping nose and offers him a

handkerchief. Once again this scene is an addition to prepare the

audience for a conference that is to take place at the Darlington Hall.

Mise-en-scene frames the fire crackling at the fireplace. Lord

Darlington speaks highly of Nazi Germany where he saw happy,

employed people. The scene abruptly shifts with the voice-over of a

young man inquiring about the Jews in Germany. Both the young

man's query and the earlier observation of Lord Darlington are on the

sound track and their faces are off camera. The camera leisurely

pans over the painting on the wall and Senior and Junior Stevens in

attendance with their hands folded. A simUltaneity of experience

captured in Cinema where both the soundtrack and the visual do not

179


correlate and yet the viewer can take in the room with its people,

hear them and imaginatively place them in the setting without

necessarily seeing them as they speak. However the camera eye

chooses to move away to other quarters even if the viewer wishes to

continue watching the speakers. This intentional moving away of the

camera while the disembodied voice-overs carry on, forces the viewer

to participate and fill in the gaps with his or her own narrative. The

viewer tells oneself, "oh I see the servants are in polite attendance

and what a relief that Stevens has finally noticed Stevens Senior's

dripping nose and offered him a handkerchief.". In the source text,

Miss Kenton mentions to Stevens about Stevens Senior's dripping

nose over a tray full of soup bowls. In the film the director chooses to

dramatise this entire scene in the backdrop of an official meeting.

This achieves two things, Stevens Senior's failing faculties as an

under-butler is highlighted upon and also Lord Darlington's political

stand and his-efforts in the arena of world politics are introduced.

However why an entirely new scene was crafted out and chosen over

so many that were available is anybody's guess.

Scene 10: The Chinaman Episode

The scene that unfolds in pages 57-60 of the source text is

dramatised in this scene. Miss Kenton walks into the billiard room

where Stevens is cleaning sports trophies. She tells him about a

wrongly placed Chinaman outside the door. Stevens says he is busy

and refuses to go out and have a look at the wrongly placed

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Chinaman. Miss Kenton stubbornly waits outside the door. The

details that have been added are interesting. Stevens watches Miss

Kenton standing outside in a threatening pose, through a keyhole.

The idea which gets conveyed to the viewer that Stevens is trying to

avoid her but the manner employed is hardly in keeping with

Stevens' character; it makes him appear childish, playing a cat and

mouse game. However the dilemma Stevens goes through inside the

billiard room in the source text elevates the inherent comedy of the

situation to a sublime level: -

Miss Kenton was evidently still outside. Resolved not to waste further time on account of this childish affair, I contemplated departure via the French window. A drawback to this plan was the whether - that is to say, several large puddles and patches of mud were in evidence and the fact that I would need to return to the billiard room again at some point to bolt the French windows from the inside. Eventually, then, I decided the best strategy would be simply to stride out of the room very suddenly at a furious pace. I thus made my way as quietly as possible to a position from which I could execute such a march ---. (p.58).

I t does not seem that to re-enact this was a cinematic challenge.

Details like it being "a grey drizzly day", (p.56) and that the billiard

room had French windows and Stevens wanting to make his escape

through them are left out. Instead additions like Miss Kenton saying

that, ''Do you think it's a fantasy-- a fantasy a result of my

inexperience". (TROTD-the film) is again an addition very similar to a

dialogue in the dust-pan scene where she cribs like a petulant child

and says, "I suppose it was my mistake - one ofmany", merely focuses

Miss Kenton's hurt and consequent vindictiveness.

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Additions like the mid-close up of an amused figurine of a Chinaman

with its head bobbing in perfect synthronisation with the musical,

soundtrack suggests that the viewer should watch the scene in a

light hearted manner. A perfect analogy would be the Hindi films

where if the performers fail to convey tragedy on the screen - a

piercing note from a violin on the musical track suggests the viewer

that what you see on the scene is tragic, lest you felt like smiling.

Stevens in the film makes his escapes through a hidden door in a

book shelve, a setting detail which again brings back the memories of

big castles with secret doors and passages.

Scene 11: SummerHouse

Lord Darlington is shown with two men discussing an American

Congressman Lewis expected as a guest in the forthcoming

conference at Darlington Hall. There is a condescending exchange

about this American fortune hunter and Americans in general. Again

an episode has been dramatised at length and by now the viewer is

totally engrossed waiting for Stevens Senior to make a fauxpas as

anticipated by Miss Kenton in the earlier scene. Stevens senior falls

carrying a huge tea tray and Lord Darlington rushes in to with the

addition of the scene and the focus of the novel entirely shifts to

Stevens Senior.

Scene 12: Stevens and Darlington in the Study

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In the novel this episode is narrated sequentially much earlier in a

flashback (p.60-62). In the film however such complexity has been

avoided and narrative style is sequential. Stevens is remembering all

these events during his journey to west of England and all these

flashbacks occur (fourth scene onwards in the film) in the source text

on day two at Salisbury.

In this scene we see Stevens entering the study (or is it the library?).

In the source text there is a distinction made between the two, while

in the film it is always a room full of source texts that Lord

Darlington in. Lord Darlington enquires from Stevens about his

father's health and proceeds to warn him about the impending

conference and its 'considerable repercussions'. Once again there is

an inclusion of a story about Lord Darlington's German friend and

his tragic suicide in post war Germany. The significance of this

addition is that it gives an insight into Lord Darlington's stand on

war treaties, which he claims were harsh on Germany, example being

his close friend. This addition achieves compression of the narrative,

and once again places the narrative in a historical perspective.

In the source text the story about Herr Bremann unfolds in pages 70-

72 and Stevens reports, as he overheard it and was later told of

Herr's demise by Lord Darlington himself. Now to compress it in one

scene was a great idea but one wonders where Lord Darlington would

have narrated it to Stevens himself. Stevens' understanding of the

situation in the source text was that Lord Darlington was hurt by

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Herr Bremann's suicide and hence tries to rally around people for

Germany's cause. That coming from Stevens is believable but Lord

Darlington's justification for his political stand would not be

conveyed to Stevens as it IS done in the film. Lord Darlington's

verbalising it in so many words to Stevens is improbable. Lord

Darlington says this to a friend while Stevens overhears it in the

source text:

Wretched thing is, this treaty is making a liar out of me. I mean to say, I told him we wouldn't be enemieS"'once it was all over. But how can I look him in the face and tell him that's turned out to be true? (p.73)

In the film, the above statement becomes a dialogue between Stevens

and Lord Darlington. Stevens recalls elsewhere in the source text -

I am pleased to recall the memory of that moment as he spoke those heartfelt worlds in the near-empty banquet hall. Whatever complications arose in his courtship's course over subsequent years for one will never doubt that a desire to see justice in his world lay at the heart of all his actions. (p .73)

Now we never find out what is the depth of Stevens' reverence for his

Lordship in the film. That gap exists because Stevens' thoughts are

never visualised on the screen. It is indeed a cinematic challenge to

visualise a person's thought. The usual cinematic technique is to

have it as a voice-over in the voice of the actor. This technique often

tends to make the film soundtrack heavy and the audience

concentrates more on the sound track than on the scene unfolding

before their eyes. In spite of this drawback, the voice-over of Stevens

could have been used sparingly if not extensively. For e.g. Stevens,

observation about Lord Darlington in the source text could have been

184


superimposed over the scene: -

It was a ploy of Lord Darlington's to stand at this shelf studying the spines of the encyclopedias as I came down the staircase, and sometimes to increase the effect of an accidental meeting, he would actually pull out a volume and pretend to be engrossed as I completed my descent. Then, as I passed him, he would say 'oh, Stevens, there was something I meant to say to you'. And with that, he would wander back into his study, to all appearances still thoroughly engrossed in the volume held open in his hands. It was invariably embarrassment at what he was about to impart which made Lord Darlington adopt such an approach and even when once the study door was closed behind us, he would often stand by the window and make a show of consulting the encyclopedia throughout our conversation. (pp.60-61)

This observation of Stevens has clues even for visualisation (used

sparingly in the film) and would add to the suitable comic nature of

the narrative. And again visualisation of Lord Darlington's speech to

his friend in an empty banquet hall in half shadows that, "he fought

that war to preserve justice in this world. As far as I understand, I

was not taking part in a vendetta against the German race" (p.73),

would have highlighted the poignancy in the film. In this scene when

Lord Darlington intersperses his directions to Stevens about Stevens'

father with the story··of his German friend, it somehow takes away

the pathos felt by Lord Darlington in the source text.

However this scene elaborately visualises the detailed setting of the

study (or the library)). Besides books along the shelves in wall, the

hanging dome shaped lights, elegant white couch, paintings on the

wall and a golden retriever on the couch who gets a pat from Lord

Darlington is part of a detailed mise-en-scene. The source text does

not tell us like many other things that Lord Darlington had a pet

185


retriever, but details like these only add to the ambience without

necessarily shifting the thematic focus of the story. Stevens recalls in

the source text many powerful and famous visitors to Darlington hall,

celebrities such as Prof. Maynard Keynes and Mr. H.G. Wells,

visualisation of such personalities even in passing would have made

the narrative interesting.

Scene 13: Stevens Senior Relieved of Duties

The scene begins with a shot of sun rising, followed by shots of a

youpg man carrying baskets of wood from a stock of piled with fuel

wood, the scene is bathed in sun ray streaks suggesting early hours

of the day, shots of kitchen table being washed with hot water and

the floors being mopped forms a part of the visual collage. Stevens

shown walking up a flight of narrow backstairs and meets a young

boy carrying buckets upstairs. Stevens instructs him to smarten up

and wait at the table. Stevens enters his father's room, who is sitting

in' his bed as if waiting. Stevens relieves him of his duties and

Stevens Senior is very upset and wants the steps in the lawn to be

set all right in the summer. Stevens looks sad and yet businesslike.

All the dialogues have been lifted verbatim from the source text.

Scene 14:Looking From the Window

In the next shot, Miss Kenton is shown walking down a corridor, she

stops and looks outside through a window and finds Stevens Senior

checking the steps to the summerhouse. Miss Kenton calls out to

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Stevens and they both silently watch Stevens Senior retracing his

steps to the summerhouse with hands lifted in air to balance a non-

existent tray. This scene is bereft of dialogues but visually eloquent

and achieves much more than the description in the source text. It

highlights the pathos of the scene, the fact that Stevens Senior is

unable to comprehend and come to terms with his fall. He is looking

for reasons outside himself, which is indeed poignant. Now let us

compare it with as it is described in the source text:

Then as we watched, he walked very slowly up the steps. At the top, he turned and came back down a little faster. Turning once more, my father became still again for several seconds, contemplating the steps before him. Eventually, he climbed them a second time very deliberately. This time he continued on across the grass until he had almost reached the summerhouse, then turned and came slowly back, his eyes never leaving the ground. In fact, I can describe his manner at that moment no better than the way Miss Kenton puts it in her letter; it was indeed as though he hoped to find some precious jewel he had dropped there. (p.67)

Scene 15: Stevens gives the New Duty Chart to Stevens Senior

Stevens is shown giving instructions to his father with a trolley of

maps and brushes, asking him to look for dust and dirt and to polish

the brass. Stevens Senior rushes off with his trolley to undertake his

job with a great gusto, the scene has been recreated on the basis of

the following details in the source text:

The sight of his figure pushing a trolley loaded with cleaning utensils, mops, brushes arranged incongruously, though tidily, around teapots, cups and saucers, so that it at times resembled a street Hawker's barrow, became a familiar one around the house ... and he went about his work with such youthful vigour that a stranger might have believed there were not one but several such figures pushing trolleys about the corridors of Darlington Hall. (p.78)

The focus of the film continues to be on Stevens Senior, which rises

to a crescendo as the conference approaches.

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Scene 16: Preparing for the Conference

Stevens shown giving pep talk to his staff about the significance of

the impending conference. He has a staff plan and asks his staff to

be proud of the job they do. Once again a scene has been dramatised

and dialogues provided to Stevens based on clues in the text. His

voice and face superimposed over a collage of visuals depicting hectic

preparations of the conference - polishing, cutting, pruning of trees,

beds being made, chicken and lambs being dressed and put over fire,

crates of wine arriving. This scene effectively visualises the frantic

pace and scale at which preparation is underway.

Scene 17: Arrival of Mr. Lewis

A car arrives and a gentleman disembarks and looks appreciatively at

the facade of Darlington Hall. The camera shows the family crest of

an eagle on top of the building and a blue flag with an emblem of sun .

on it. Again a familiar shot used as ~ linking device and for

establishing the setting. The viewer immediately recognises the

gentleman as Mr. Lewis the present owner of Darlington hall.

Scene 18: Stevens Asked to Educate Cardinal

Stevens informs Lord Darlington about Mr. Lewis' arrival. Lord

Darlington asks Stevens to help Reginald with the facts of life.

Reginald Cardinal in the film is Lord Darlington's godson and David

Cardinal's son as in the novel. Lord Darlington's dialogues are more

188


or less from the source text but once agam, there are some

noteworthy deletions. Lord Darlington mentions Sir David his friend

who is no more, whereas in the source text its made amply clear that

Sir David helps Lord Darlington in organising the seminar and it is at

his repeated bidding that Lord Darlington is forced to ask Stevens'

help. How does doing away with Sir David help the script? Sir David

does not appear in the source text in person; so mentioning him in

the film script would have hardly been a problem.

-":".'

Lord Darlington in the film pauses to look into a book before

continuing to explain to Stevens his task. In the source text it is

Who's, Who' that Lord Darlington consults, a habit which is referred

to in the source text to warn the reader beforehand. However it

suddenly appears in the film without a warning and hence fails to

evoke any desired comic effect as it manages to have in the source

text:

Lord Darlington called me into his study, and I could see at once that he was in a state of some agitation. He seated himself at his desk and, as usual, resorted to holding upon a book- this time it was 'Who's Who' - turning a page to and fro.

'oh , Stevens' he began with a false air of nonchalance, but then seemed at a loss how to continue. I remained standing there ready to relieve, I remained standing there ready to relieve his discomfort at the first opportunity. His Lordship went on fingering his page for a moment, leaned forward to scrutinise an entry. (p.81)

The decor of the study is perfect in the film, besides rows of books on

the shelves, there are figurines on the mantelpiece.

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Scene 19: Stevens Educates Cardinal

An excellent example of the British stiff upper lip, inhibitions to talk

about sex, sex education couched in euphemisms. In the source text

Stevens tries twice to engage Reginald, Lord Darlington's godson in

trying to convey him the facts of life and both the attempts are

hilarious. It is the second encounter, which has been visualised. How

would one visualise the following details of the source text:

I crossed the grass quickly, placed my person behind the bush and before long heard Mr. Cardinal's footsteps approaching. Unfortunately, I misjudged slightly the timing of my emergence. I had intended to emerge while Mr. Cardinal was still a reasonable distance away ...

.... As it happened, I emerged a little late and I fear I rather startled the young man, who immediately pulled his attach case towards me and clutched it to his chest with both arms (p.89).

In the film Stevens almost tip toes around the garden as if snooping

around and suddenly chances upon Reginald Cardinal ~ighting a

cigar with his back turned away from the camera, who .jumps in

fright. Their meeting is cut short with Reginald informing Stevens

about Dupont's arrival. However the scene fails to evoke any laughter

except for the humour inherent in the situation and the dialogue.

Scene 20: Arrival of Mr. Dupont

The scene begins with a camera close up of Dupont's feet. Dupont

instructs Stevens to get a pot of hot water and salt while Mr. Lewis

enters and introduces himself to Dupont as Jack Lewis. Mr. Dupont

makes a disparaging remark about London, - "they made me do an

190


eternal sight seeing in London. I had already seen the tower of London"

(ROTD-The Film). Mr. Lewis without reacting mentions that

developments at Darlington Hall will not please Dupont and he must

have a word with him at the earliest.

In the source, text Mr. Lewis and Dupont are said to be old

acquaintances and Dupont has been described as a tall elegant

gentleman with a beard and monocle who arrives in a foul temper

but his mood lightens on seeing Mr. Lewis. In the film Mr. Dupont is

short, stockily built and does not seem to be acquainted with Mr.

Lewis. Another omission which otherwise would have been

interesting to watch is the French-American alliance against England

in general and against Lord Darlington in particular.

Scene 21: The Conference

Guests are shown arnvmg, trunks and suitcases are carried

upstairs. The camera (zooms in or dollies forward) enters a room

where the conference is in progress and Stevens is serving cigars. A

tea table is being laid outside the conference room. Series of shots

are superimposed over one another to show the audience from

various angles. The camera does not focus on the speaker, the

soundtrack plays the voice of the speaker who speaks about the

rebirth of Germany and the harsh treaty imposed on it sixteen years

ago. The soundtrack keeps fading in an out as if the director chooses

to make only some parts audible and not the entire speech. In terms

191


of visuals one notices Mr. Dupont shifting uncomfortably in his seat

and Mr. Lewis looking around suspiciously. Mr. Dupont whispers to

Stevens for bandages and his whisper is loud enough to be heard

over the speaker's voice. Mr. Dupont follows Stevens outside and Mr.

Lewis follows them and expresses his desire to have a word. Dupont

doesn't seem too eager. Stevens takes them through a series of rooms

and the objects shown define a familiar territory, we see our famous

Chinaman in one room, the blue staircase in another shot and finally

through various anterooms to the billiard room. When Stevens is

about to take off Mr. Dupont's shoes, he is called away by an under

butler and Mr. Lewis finally takes off Dupont's shoes and looks

exasperated.

Now why would Stevens leave his work midway when there are no

instances of his doing so in the source text, it looks as if he was

looking for a.I'l: excuse to get away. When Mr. Dupont asks Stevens to

help him with"his shoes, there's a distinct pause as if Stevens is

surprised that he has been asked to perform such a duty. On the

other hand, the American Mr. Lewis bends down to do the same

when Stevens suddenly leaves. This throws an interesting light on his

characterisation. In the source text, Mr. Lewis and Dupont are not

only friendly but are almost always together, interacting in a

surreptitious manner. Mr. Lewis though genial and pleasing in

manner appears 'duplicitous' in Stevens' eye. But in the film Mr.

Lewis seems well meaning, desperate to stop a catastrophe. Mr.

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Lewis, in the source text appears to be someone who is constantly

instigating Dupont to take a stand against Lord Darlington. One may

pause and ask what the compulsions are that transforms Mr. Lewis

characterisation. From someone who is conceited, conspiratorial and

conniving in the source text he is changed to someone who is polite,

well meaning almost with a messianic mission to stop the Europeans

from committing a blunder of lifting impositions placed on Germany.

Is it because in the source text we perceive Mr. Lewis from Stevens'

politically unlettered eyes and in the film we have the director's

politically correct account. Or the compulsions to refurbish Mr.

Lewis'image is an ideological shift where an American is always right

as he is the global leader in world economy and world politics. It is

interesting to note that market driven compulsions often perpetuate

images, which would be contrary to reality especially if the images

are constructed in Hollywood. So we see Mr. Lewis (Christopher

Reeves) with his archetypal image of a 'Superman' trying to save

Europe inevitably hurtling towards the Second World War and when

he fails to do so, he saves Darlington Hall from ignominy by

purchasing it.

Scene 22: Stevens' Father Taken Ill.

Two maids looking on, Stevens finds his father slumped against his

barrow in a corridor. He instructs John to take hot water for Mr.

Dupont while he calls out to him and bends down to unclench his

father's fist from the barrow and takes him in his arms. Cut to

193


Dupont soaking his sore feet in salt water. Stevens Senior is shown

being taken upstairs in a bath chair. Miss Kenton informs Stevens

that she has informed the doctor and as she has some time on her

hands, she would stay back to look after his father. Stevens has a

word with the doctor who inquires about his age and informs Stevens

that his father is not doing well and should be informed in case he

deteriorates.

Somehow rrun never plays a part in the filming of these scenes

whereas in the source text "the conference began on a rainy morning

during the last week of March 1923". Omission of grey rainy

mornings may have been due to incidental difficulties during the

filming for it may not have been a rainy season. However Stevens

Senior's age is said to be 75 but in the source text it is 72. The scene

ends in a dissolve.

Scene 23: Preparations for the Conference Dinner

A collage of shots is superimposed over one another. Call bells

ringing for under-butlers, servants running up and down, dinner is

being prepared in the kitchen by large number of servants, Stevens

inspecting the dinner table with a measuring scale and giving

instructions to an under-butler and Stevens whistling as if he is

almost content and happy. This is the first time the character betrays

an emotion. The reader-viewer is confused that why now when his

father is lying in his bed, ill. However the collage brilliantly visualises

194


numerous details in a very short time span and evokes the ambience

of the preparations for the conference effectively. This visualisation is

absent in the source text; however the mise-en-scene of the film

would be incomplete without such a visualisation and a backdrop of

hustle bustle would be required to convey the same.

Scene 24: Stevens visits his Father

Stevens visits his father and enquIres about his health. His father

wishes to know if everything is in order. Stevens informs him how

everyone's busy in the kitchen preparing the last Dinner of the

conference. Stevens Senior then shares a confidence with his son

that how he had loved his wife and how love one day went away from

his life. He also tells Stevens that he hopes he had been a good father

to him and that he has been a good son. The foregrounding of love

begins in this scene. We shall see how this one dialogue will once

again shift the thematic focus of the source text. The focus of the film

will now shift from Stevens Senior to the loveless life of Stevens.

Scene 25: Dinner Scene

Overhead shot of a long rectangular table with several formally

dressed gentlemen at either side of the table. A mid shot of a German

Lady addressing the congregation expressing her gratitude on behalf

of Germany for the mood of friendship and goodwill extended. She

says Germany wants friendship and peace. Mr. Dupont rises to

express similar sentiments and says that he would try and change

195


the course of his national foreign policy towards Germany and feels

that the Americans do not know the horrors of the war. Mr. Lewis

immediately rises and proposes a toast for Lord Darlington's

hospitality. Everyone rises to raise a toast-- again an overhead long

shot. Mr. Lewis continues to express his viewpoint that he feels Lord

Darlington is a classic English gentleman but is an amateur in

politics. According to him Europe in the present day was a place for

realpolitik i.e. politics of the reality. There's silence as no one

responds to Mr. Lewis' remark and when he raises his glass no one

reciprocates. Lord Darlington rises to make his position clear once for

all and says that what is being perceived as amateurism is actually

honour and he only desired to see justice and goodness prevail in the

world. There's a hearty applause to Lord Darlington speech while

Stevens is called out of the room.

Interesting shifts in the filming of the scene can be noticed. In the

source text Mr. Dupont spares no effort in condemning Mr. Lewis'

brand of politics. He says in the source text:

There is I believe an imperative to openly condemn anyone who came here to abuse the hospitality of the host, and to spend his energies solely in trying to sow discontent and suspicion. Such persons are not solely repugnant, in the climate of our present day extremely dangerous ....

.... You see, I refrain from outlining just what this gentleman has been saying to me - about you all. And with a most clumsy technique, the audacity and crudeness of which I could hardly believe. (pp.l 00-10 1)

In sharp contrast Dupont in the film says almost nothing. Similarly

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Lewis' dialogues have nothing about the French Gentleman. This is

how his speech and characterisation progresses in this source text:

I don't have anything to say to the nonsense our French friend has been uttering ....

.... Gentlemen like our good host still believe it's their business to meddle in matters they don't understand. So much hogwash has been spoken here these past two days. Well -meaning naive hogwash. You here in Europe need professionals to run your affairs. If you don't realise that soon you are headed for disaster. (p.lOl)

What emerges is a bitter quarrel and Lewis and Dupont appear

in very poor light in the source text. In the film however the eventual

meaning which gets constituted through this deletion of dialogues is

that Dupont is an inconsequential French gentleman with a sore foot

and ill fitting shoes. Mr. Lewis on the contrary appear' as the 'cool'

American worldly wise, a man of the future. His character has been

meticulously whitewashed. He raises a toast in honour of Lord

Darlingt?n but in the source text it is Dupont the French diplomat

who remembers to honour Lord Darlington. Mr. Lewis in fact walks ."~

up to Lord Darlington in the film and apologises for having criticised

him and says how he respects and honours British tradition and that

he had spent some part of his childhood in England. Lord Darlington

warmly accepts his apology and says that he likes a good clean fight.

Why such pains to refurbish Mr. Lewis' image? Is it to maintain a

consistency in the script wherein Lewis will be the saviour of

Darlington Hall at the end of the story. Since all that we see in the

film is not Stevens' version (reader-viewer almost forgets whose

197


account they are watching) hence there's a license to do away with

Stevens' bias or it could be because America will be a great market

for the distribution of the film and hence all such precautions.

Scene 26: The Song Sequence

Stevens shown walking out of the banquet hall to Miss Kenton

waiting almost in darkness. Miss Kenton informs him of his father's

death. Stevens excuses himself and as an after thought tells Miss

Kenton how his father would have wished him to continue working.

NexJ shot is of the room where guests are lounging around drinking

and listening to a German woman delegate singing a German song. A

song at this juncture is a technique to buy time for Stevens whose

father has just expired and the mood of the viewers is sombre. It also

does away with the need to show Stevens' immediate reaction and

acts as a finale to two simultaneous eyents ending at the same time

(sort of a climax). In between the song'we see Stevens serving drinks

and Mr. Reginald speaks to Stevens about how he would visit

Darlington Hall in spring when everything is burgeoning. Stevens

politely stands looking away, responding in monosyllables. He looks

glum rather than gloomy. Stevens proceeds to serve other men and

meets Lord Darlington who congratulates him and enquires whether

he is coming down with a cold. In the source text however Lord

Darlington had said "you look as though you are crying" but in the

film he positively looks as if he has a cold. This is one of the greatest

observable gap in the film. Stevens the main protagonist always looks

198


cold, uncommunicative almost rude. If that IS how the

characterisation is sketched In the screenplay then that IS not an

exact transcription of the novel. The gaps could occur at three stages.

Now a character is first sketched by the screenplay writer keeping in

mind the limitations and advantages of visualisation and then the

director interprets it further depending upon his mode of

presentation and his interpretation. The actor finally performs the

role adding to it his own screen image and finally his interpretation of

the role.

In the source text the scene of the banquet has been described thus:

... the effect produced by unbroken lines of gentlemen in evening suits, so outnumbering representatives of the fairer sex, was a rather severe one; but then again in those days, the two large chandeliers that hang over the table still ran on gas- resulting in a subtle, quite soft light pervading the room- and did not produce the dazzling brightness they have done since their electrification. (p.98)

In this visualisation no chandeliers are in sight but lots of

lights on the wall definitely make the scene bright.

Scene 27: Stevens Seniors' Death

Stevens is shown walking in to the room of his father. He speaks to

the doctor who tells him that he suffered a stroke and did not suffer

much. Stevens walks up to his father lying in the bed and touches

his forehead as if to check his temperature. Miss Kenton and few

others look on as Stevens asks the doctor to attend on Mr. Dupont

who is in pain which again goes to show how Stevens' profession

comes before everything else:

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Even so, if you consider the pressures contingent on me that night, you may not think I delude myself unduly if I go so far as to suggest that I did perhaps display, in the face of everything, at least in some modest degree, 'dignity' worthy of someone like Mr. Marshall- or come to that, my father. Indeed, why should I deny it? For all its sad associations whenever I recall that evening today, I find I do so with a large sense of triumph." (p.IIO).

Does that scene of triumph get conveyed to the reader-viewer? May

be one cinematic device could have been Stevens writing his diary

or reading it, a third voice-over reading out all such dialogues would

have perhaps given it a touch of story-telling. This lack of insight

into Stevens and deletion of his views and opinion take away from

the. characterisation of Stevens. As far as the film is concerned,

Stevens' father dying is a midway point in the film and end of part-

1, so to say. In the source text, this ends the day two- Morning at

Salisbury, reverie. At this point in the film the second flashback

ends. The source text, however, has series of flashbacks but all

through Stevens' eyes.

Scene 28: Stevens Resumes His Journey

~.

Stevens shown driving into a small town with narrow lanes. The

theme music plays in the background and a church bell rings

somewhere in the vicinity. Stevens enters a grocer's store to collect a

letter. He asks for two apples. On being asked of his whereabouts, he

mentions Darlington Hall and the grocer asks him if he knew Lord

Darlington the Nazi. Stevens merely says that the present owner Mr.

Lewis has employed him. Back in his car he opens the letter and

reads; Miss Kenton's voice-over begins on the soundtrack. She asks

200

The Remains of The Day-Tl1e Film

him to meet her at the seaside cafe opposite the pier and remembers

the days she spent at Darlington. The location of this scene is not

mentioned in the film however in the source text it is Day Two-

afternoon at Mortimer's Pond at Dorset. The grocer in the film does

wish him Good- afternoon but this scene once again has been

improvised. Stevens does not at this point in the source text receive a

letter from Miss Kenton. The source text has no reminiscences by

Miss Kenton. However in the film, the third second flashback begins

at this point and we have yet another narrator's perspective in the

film. Next shot shows Miss Kenton asking Lord Darlington if she

could bring in the two Jewish girls looking for employment. Lord

Darlington is in his library and converses with the two girls in

German. He welcomes them to Darlington Hall and the girls express

their gratitude. Miss Kenton shows them out. Again a scene

constructed with sundry details spread out in the source text and the

employment episode is completely an addition, however the source

text does talk about the Jewish girls in employment.

Scene 29: Arrival of Sir Jeffrey with his butler

Shots of cars arriving at Darlington Hall is followed by shots of Lord

Darlington walking out from a room followed by Stevens and other

under-butler's in attendance. This collage of diverse activity bound

together by the background music, which is businesslike constitutes

meaning that certain guests have arrived and Lord Darlington is

welcoming them. Lord Darlington welcomes Sir Jeffrey who has a

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retinue of servants. Next shot is of a butler climbing up the stair who

meets Miss Kenton, a note of exclamation for having recognised each

other. Again an addition perhaps to support the change in the

screenplay which is from now on about Miss Kenton's life seen from

her perspective. Too many characters without fitting into the tight

135-min screenplay perhaps might create confusion and hence they

are linked to the main protagonists of the film. In the film, we have

an additional character in 'Tom' playing Sir Jeffrey's butler. Miss

Kenton seems to be acquainted with him from an earlier place of

work. Tom goes on to marry Kenton later on in the film and appears

thrice with Kenton and once with Stevens in the film. In contrast,

Tom is a character who never appears in the source text. He is

merely mentioned as Mr. Benn whom Kenton gets married to.

Creating a full-bodied character with dialogues so as to provide that

crucial third angle in a love triangle further shows that the film's

focus is very different from that of the source text.

Another interesting detail is that Miss Kenton is never referred to by

her first name in the source text and hence we do not know her

name. In the film however it is Tom who calls her Sarah and we

discover that her nickname is Sally. By providing these, two

characters with names the film foregrounds their personalities and

their relationships.

202


Scene 30: Dinner with Sir Jeffrey

The camera focuses on soup being served on a plate; Sir Jeffrey

enquires if the soup had meat in it. Stevens spells out the ingredients

and the recipe. Sir Jeffrey justifies ensuring the racist mores for Jews

gypsies and Negroes. He feels prisons and concentration camps are

all part of the same penal system.

Few gentlemen are seen sitting around a round table. Candles are lit

all around and butlers are seen serving. Another gentleman informs

how all trade union rubbish is banned in Germany. Sir Jeffrey feels

that England in going down the drain. Jeffrey enquires if there's

butter in the dish being served and refuses to have it.

Once again, a scene, which is an addition, may be to hint at how

Lord Darlington is getting involved with fascist leanings and that also

provides the story with a forward momentum having once again

introduced two separate and yet concurrent events; Miss Kenton's

meetings with Mr. Benn and the beginning of Lord Darlington's

liaison with the Germans.

Scene 31: The Parlour Scene

The scene opens with a gramophone being played and a song comes

to life, 'It's a wonderful life' (perhaps from Frank Capra's film by the

same name... year 1938?). An interesting cross-reference and

intertextuality which locates the narrative in 1938 in and around

203


Second World War. The film forever pushes the story nearer to the

war; the conference of 1923 has been changed to 1938. A scene in

Stevens' Parlour where Stevens and Benn are shown sharing a drink

and smoke. A rare insight into Stevens' mind, on being asked that he

looked a contented man, Stevens replies that one would be content if

one served one's master to satisfaction especially if the master was

superior in moral stature.

When Mr. Benn questions Lord Darlington and his men's moral

stature and mentions having heard something fishy, Stevens cuts

him short and appreciates a particular line of the song playing in the

background. He then says that he never listens to what is being said

and he does his own work. Miss Kenton comes in with fresh soda

and replaces the empty bottle. Mr. Benn invites her for a drink. But

Miss Kenton excuses herself almost as if in deference to Mr. Stevens.

Mr. Benn remarks on, her being a good-looking woman. Stevens

remarks that he would be lost without her. Again a statement totally

uncharacteristic of Stevens, the Stevens whicH. the reader-viewer

knows of. He qualifies his statement to say that an able housekeeper

like her is indispensable especially when serious matters are being

discussed within the walls of Darlington Hall.

The addition of this scene merely shows Stevens' growing attachment

with Miss Kenton and vice-versa. Stevens is almost insular to

happenings in the world and does not feel the important to have an

individual stand on the issue and is content to merely serve his

204


master. He appears arrogant and conceited in demeanour.

Scene 32: Lord Darlington's Dilemma

Again an addition to highlight perhaps Lord Darlington's dilemma.

He walks into his study and the two Jewish girls Elsa and Elma

(names changed from Ruth and Sarah in the text) are seen placing

firewood in the fireplace. Darlington sits down to read from a book

about how Jesus Christ was a Jew himself but negated their nature

and literally abandoned them.

It is interesting how Lord Darlington's dilemma is being resolved

through religious interpretations. How can a Christian who talks

about goodness and justice justify persecuting Jews? Biblical

theories would come to rescue. The film version forever seems to be

refurbishing tarnished images. Lord Darlington has to appear just'

for an English image is at stake. It would be politically incorrect to

appear a Jew hater in a post Nazi world especially if one has a film

like Steven Speilberg's The Schindler's list in the recent viewing

memory.

Scene 33: Lord Darlington Asks Stevens to Relieve The Jew

Maids

The scene opens with Lord Darlington reading a newspaper in his

bedroom. His bed is strewn with books and papers. He tells Stevens

to relieve the refugee girls and when Stevens hesitates Darlington

tells him that he has to consider the matter in a larger context

205


keeping in mind the well being of his guests. An attempt is made to

show that Stevens has an opinion by making him hesitate. Stevens

even remarks in favour the maids. In the source text Stevens merely

says, "beg your pardon" and does not hesitate even once:

-my every instinct opposed the idea of their dismissal. Nevertheless, my duty in this instance was quite clear, and as I saw it, there was nothing to be gained at all in irresponsibly displaying such personal doubts. It was a difficult task, but as such one that demanded to be carried out with dignity. (p.148)

Scene 34: Stevens Informs Miss Kenton about the Dismissal

Miss Kenton is shown very upset and angry at the dismissal of the

two Jewish girls and warns Stevens that if they go, she would also

leave. Stevens looks helpless and sounds apologetic. His blindfolded

faith in his lordship comes through and he says that: You and I are

simply not in a position to understand concerning, say the nature of

Jewry. (TROTD-The Film) The manner in which he says it in the film

shows that though he does not wish to doubt his lordship, he himself

lacks conviction. He looks down, rubs his finger along the

mantelpiece and appears awkward and apologetic. His performance

conveys his doubt, his helplessness, eloquently. The cinematic text

thus visualises Stevens' dilemma without taking recourse to dialogue

but through mere body language and halting delivery of the dialogue.

The meaning that gets constituted through this is much more than

the content of his dialogues.

Next shot is that of Lord Darlington morosely looking outside the

206


window, watching the rrun and one or two inmates of the house

rushing indoors to escape rain. An addition perhaps to add to the

pervading gloom due to the dismissal of the Jews or an impending

sense of doom.

Scene 35: Appointing A New Maid.

Stevens and Kenton shown interviewing a girl for a maid's post. Miss

Kenton wants her to be employed and Stevens disagrees but gives in

later and ask~ her to take on full responsibility for the maid. He then

ask~ Miss Kenton about her plan to leave. Miss Kenton mentions her

cowardice, as she has no family and nowhere to go she feels

ashamed at her act. Stevens consoles her by saying that she is very

important to the household which is almost an admission of his love

for her but when she responds he immediately withdraws in his shell

and talks about the maid's employment. Now this scene has been

constructed with two separate events taking place at different places

in the source text. Stevens never admits any emotion towards Miss

Kenton in her presence in the source text. When Miss Kenton

mentions her shame to Stevens, Stevens looks outside towards the

poplar trees and Miss Kenton is gazing thoughtfully at the fog. This

event happens a year after the dismissal of the Jewish girls in the

source text and the employment of the maid takes place immediately

after the Jewish girls leave. Moreover Miss Kenton's confession is

followed by Stevens confession in the source text when he says that .

he also found it wrong to have dismissed the Jew girls. Miss Kenton

207


is almost hysterical and says :

Do you realise, Mr. Stevens, how much it would have meant to me if you had thought to share your feelings last year? You knew how upset I was when my girls were dismissed. Do you realize how much it would have helped me? Why, Mr. Stevens, why, why, why do you always have to pretend? (p.153).

In the film, Kenton does not betray any such emotion. In the source

text this scene ends with the following description, which could have

been visually recreated, in the film:

She did not say anything, and as I was leaving I glanced back at her. She was again gazing out at the view, but it had by this point grown so dark inside the summerhouse, all I could see of her was her profIle outlined against a pale and empty background. I excused myself and proceeded to make my exit. (p.154)

This scene rendered so would have been poignant and could

have captured the tenuous emotional links developing between the

couple without Stevens having to awkwardly verbalise it out of

context. Flashback three ends here in the film~ Scene 32 onwards the

inputs are from the episode Day Three- Evening, Moscombe near

Tavistok, Devon in the source text.

Scene 36: Stevens at an inn

The car comes to a halt - the visual backdrop is of evening, sun

setting in the distance and, a bird calling out. A close-up shot of a

beer mug being filled - Stevens being served and the barman and

some one called Harry Smith chatting him up. Stevens claims to have

been associated with foreign policy of the country in an unofficial

capacity and to have consorted with the likes of Churchill. A

208


gentleman named Richard Carlisle walks into the bar and on being

introduced to illustrious Stevens, he expresses surprise and Stevens

either to escape any further probing or to escape the crowd retires.

Escorted by the innkeeper he walks up to his room and looks around

thoughtfully. The room is small and Stevens looks at it, sits down

and grows thoughtful. The fourth flashback begins with a dissolve. A

ten page long episode in the source text is reduced to a few minutes

in the film. Stevens misleads the village folk with his talk about

Churchill. The simple village folk who talk knowledgeably about

principles of democracy get taken in by his 'dignity' - the only thing

close to Stevens~ heart.

Scene 37: Stevens Humiliated

The earlier scene ends in a dissolve and we see Stevens walking into

a room where Lord Darlington is entertaining guests. He is way laid

and asked a series of questions, by a gentleman of foreign affairs and

to each he replies 'Sir, I am unable to be of assistance'. To the

consternation of Lord Darlington and amusement of others, the

gentleman proves his point that how people like him are unable to

run a country. This scene is recreated from page 195-196 of the

source text. In the film, the third flashback ends here. In the source

text Stevens debates with himself on this episode which once again

the film fails to convey:

Let us establish this quite clearly; a butler's duty is to provide good service. It is not to meddle in the great affairs of the nation. The fact is, such great affairs will always be beyond the understanding of

209


those such as you and I, and those of us who wish to make our mark must realise that we best do so by concentrating on what is within our realm; that is to say, by devoting our attention to providing the best possible service to those great gentleman in whose hands the destiny of civilization truly lies. (p.199)

Scene 38: Stevens Confesses To Carlisle

Richard Carlisle is shown driving Stevens to his car. He tells him that

he seems to be a manservant of some sort. Stevens admits being so

but denies having known Lord Darlington and then proceeds to

comment on Lord Darlington's pact with Hitler and an attempt to file

libel suit against a newspaper, almost escaping trial for treason.

Stevens now does an about turn and admits knowing Lord

Darlington and says how Lord Darlington in his last years admitted

having made a mistake and being vulnerable and gullible. On being

asked about his opinion on Lord Darlington, he says a butler is not

supposed to have opinions. Richard then asks him whether he made

his own mistakes. Stevens tells him how he is on his way to make

amends. The details of this scene have been changed. Richard

Carlisle in the source text never asks Stevens whether he has made

any mistakes of his own or does Stevens say anything about his trip

being an attempt at making ani.ends. This detail completely changes

the plot of the source text. The viewer not only has been told of Lord

Darlington's mistake but also that Stevens has a very individualistic

stand different from that of Lord Darlington and is trying to rectify

his mistake. This is where the film changes focus entirely. It is only

210


at the end of his journey and at the end of the source text that an

overwhelming realisation surges in on Stevens that in his blindfolded

faith and loyalty to Lord Darlington he never made his own mistakes.

In fact, the interaction between Stevens and Richards in the source

text is subtly humorous. Richard asks Stevens what is dignity' and

Stevens delightfully answers:

I suspect it comes down to not removing one's clothing in public". (p.21O).

Scene 39: Lord Darlington's Confession.

The fifth flashback begins in this scene. Stevens' sequence of memory

is altered. In the source text this scene with Miss Kenton happens

earlier to the incident in Lord Darlington's drawing room and is part

of a reminiscence during his stay at the inn.

Actual Sequence of Events Sequence of Sequenc Stevens' Memory e in Film

1. Dismissal of Jew Girls 1 1

2. Appointment of Lisa 4 2

3. Miss Kenton teases Stevens about 5 4

good looking girls

4. Stevens asks Miss Kenton why she 2 5

did not leave

5. Stevens informs Miss Kenton that 3 3

Lord Darlington regrets dismissing

the Jew girls ~

6. Miss Kenton chances upon Stevens 8 8

reading a novel

7. Incident at Lord Darlington's 6 9

drawing room

8. Arrival at the inn. 9 7

9. Interaction at the inn. 7 6

211


Stevens shown ironing a newspaper, theme music playing. Stevens

pulls the window curtain apart. Lord Darlington conveys to him Lord

Halifax's compliments about the silver. Now this incident is

remembered by Stevens in the source text in the Taunton, Somerset

episode while in the film it occurs after Stevens has visited

Moscombe. Now in the film, there is hardly any mention of time,

location or place. One wonders about such deletions. The author

takes such elaborate pains to chalk out a route for Stevens and

Stevens as mentioned in the source text relies heavily on Mr.

Symon's volume on the West country. The names of places that

Stevens visits during his journey in fact act as punctuation to his

reminiscence, they act as episodic divisions of a long fluid memory.

Lord Darlington says he is very sorry for having dismissed the Jew

girls and wants to compensate them and asks Stevens if they could

be traced. Stevens informs him that they are in Surrey and do not

wish to be separated again a detail that has been added.

Scene 40:Stevens and Kenton in the Summerhouse

Stevens is shown walking into the summerhouse, Miss Kenton is

engaged in needlework. Stevens informs her about Lord Darlington's

confession. Miss Kenton demands to know from Stevens why he had

not mentioned his regret at that point of time, it would have meant a

great deal to her. In the source text she is positively pensive and

212


continues to gaze outside. (quoted in Scene- 35)

Their conversation is interrupted with Lisa coming in to collect the

tray and Stevens continues to watch her as if appraising her

performance and complements Miss Kenton for having trained her

well. Now unfolds a scene, which occurs at a different time in Miss

Kenton's Parlour over a cup of cocoa but in the film it's clubbed

along with this scene. As they walk out of the summerhouse Miss

Kenton teases Stevens about how he is prejudiced against pretty girls

as they could be distractions. Stevens smiles and their body language

shows how close they have come. Visual mannerisms and small

gestures convey much more than a page of written dialogues. These

scenes are clubbed may be to enhance the impact of their interaction

at various levels minus the earlier hostility. Moreover the focus is

now entirely on the relationship between Miss Kenton and Stevens.

The film narrative will now proceed in a linear fashion rather than

the back and forth movement of the source text.

Scene 41: Lisa and Charlie

Lisa is shown walking in the lawns, smoking. Charlie another under

butler surprises her from behind and holds her in his arms to kiss

her. Miss Kenton with a basket of flower chances upon them and

calls out to Lisa to make beds and walk away. Charlie asks Lisa if

she has told Miss Kenton as yet. Lisa says, she is too old to

understand but Charlie counters her and says that she must be

213


feeling young as she is picking pretty flowers. This scene which is an

addition, in which a love affair blossoming between two staff

members highlights and provides a contrast to the developing

relationship between Stevens and Kenton. Its placement in the film is

also important as the following scene shows the developing intimacy

between Stevens and Kenton. This technique is very commonplace

and yet effective in the tradition of filmmaking

Scene 42 :Kenton Visits Stevens in his Parlour

Mis.s Kenton walks into Stevens' pantry with her basket of flowers.

Stevens is sleeping in a chair with a book in his hand. The room is in

semi-darkness. Miss Kenton asks him about the book and that

whether it was racy and Stevens refuses to answer. As if to escape

her he walks away with the book clutched tightly to his bosom and

stands with his back to the wall. Miss Kenton walks up to him with

eyes wide· in excitement and refuses to listen to Stevens. Stevens

protests about the invasion of his privacy. Miss Kenton slowly prises

the book out of his hand one finger at a time, the background music

heightens to a frenzy as if to highlight the tension in the scene. Their

physical proximity, their expressions, Miss Kenton's nervous yet

determined body language all adds to this effect. Stevens seems

almost helpless, and pleads with his back against the wall and holds

back all emotions in his characteristic reticent manner. This is the

closest they ever come. In the source text, the scene ends with

Kenton finding the book to be a sentimental novel. But in the film

214


Stevens explains that he read those books to improve his language

and further his education, which is almost a snub and Miss Kenton

retreats hurt. What appears as a rebuff in the film, in the source text

is Stevens' incapability to fall in love. His entire life is oriented

towards what is dignified in his profession. The following lines from

the source text reveals Stevens' stance clearly:

"A butler of any quality must be seen to inhabit his role, utterly and fully; he cannot be seen casting it aside one moment simply to don it again the next as though it were nothing more than a pantorrume costume, there is one situation and one situation only in which a butler who cares about his dignity may feel free to unburden himself of his role; that is to say, when he is entirely alone. You will appreciate then that in the event of Miss Kenton bursting in at a time when I had presumed, not unreasonably, that I was to be alone, it came to be a crucial matter of principle, a matter indeed of dignity that I did not appear in anything less than my full and proper role. {p.169}.

Scene 43:

Charlie and Lisa walk up to a door and Lisa knocks and enters a

room, Miss Kenton is shown sitting. Lisa tells her that she wishes to

give in her notice as she plans to get married to Charlie. Kenton

argues that she may be disappointed and would need money. Lisa

says with vehemence that they love each other and they wouldn't

need anything else. She walks out; and the sound of her feet on

wooden floorboard increases as she vanishes from sight, conveying

her eagerness to inform Charlie. They embrace as ringing call bells

provide a backdrop to their joy and they run away from the camera

hand in hand. Lisa in the source text goes away without notifying

215


leaving only a letter addressed to Miss Kenton. An additional scene

like this has been created to provide a contrast between the

relationship of Lisa and Charlie and of Stevens and Kenton and is a

simplistic narrative device to comment on Stevens and Kenton's

relationship, by throwing it in relief.

By devoting so much cinematic footage on Lisa and Charlie, the

director has made his intentions clear and that is, the love angle will

be foregrounded in the film while other aspects of the story will be

only incidental. However, we lose Stevens of the source text in the

process of conveying Lisa's conviction in love and Miss Kenton's lack

of it. To highlight Stevens' and Kenton's lack of zest, youthful vigour

to bring their love to fruition the Lisa and Charlie episode is no doubt

effective.

SC,ene 44: Cocoa Session

Miss Kenton SlpS Cocoa and looks thoughtful. Stevens tries to

console her by saying that they did whatever they could for Charlie

and Lisa. Miss Kenton feels that Lisa is sure to be disappointed.

Stevens wishes to continue discussing arrangements for the

forthcoming week. Miss Kenton says that she is tired and gradually

grows hysterical and says ''why don't you understand that I am tired"

the pent up rage, frustration all well up in that one sentence. Kenton

conveys her anger her hurt, her unrequited love for Stevens in that

one gesture. This scene has been created by condensing two separate

216


scenes together. The Cocoa drinking evenings sessions occur in the

source text several times Stevens describes them as something he

looked forward to and the breach between the two of them occur in

one such meeting. Stevens inspite of protests from Miss Kenton calls

off these evening meetings altogether; a man who at the slightest hint

of familiarity withdraws in alarm. Miss Kenton reminds Stevens that

she won't be at home the next day either. The viewer knows that this

gulf cannot be bridged ever

Scene 45: Kenton Meets Benn

This scene in the film again is an addition and cannot be located in

the text. The screenplay with its focus on Stevens and Kenton's

deteriorating relationship perhaps demands such a scene. The scene

opens with a shot of Kenton walking away with her cycle from

Darlington Hall with Stevens fram~d in a barred window looking at

her receding figure. He looks forlorn, lonely and barred at the window

unable to step out of Darlington Hall and his dignified profession of a

butler.

The symbolism is far too obvious, visually eloquent: no VOIce-over

required, no commentary is necessary. Meanings constituted thus

need help of no literary devices. Next shot is that of a pub and we see

Mr. Benn speaking to Kenton about his intentions to leave Sir Jeffrey

and his Black Shirts and set up a business of his own. He intends

setting up a small shop selling tobacco or newspapers or a boarding

217

.. ",.


house at Clevedon near the sea. Kenton speaks about how Stevens'

profession is his life and how he thinks that they should be only

concerned with their profession alone. Tom provides an antithesis to

Stevens with his irreverent use of language. Tom forces Kenton to

stay back beyond her curfew time and tells her that she does not

have to report to the barracks. He walks out with her, comments on

her rather serious sounding name Sarah and calls her intimately.

Sally. He asks her if she were asked to come and stay at a boarding

house would she agree and then kisses her passionately. Kenton

confused takes her time to put her arm around him hesitantly and

immediately withdraws. She cycles away on an ill lit and wet street in

confusion and embarrassment. A scene with Tom was perhaps

necessary to show that Miss Kenton is being forced by Stevens' rebuff

to accept Tom on the rebound. Her pent up frustrations somehow

receive an outlet in Tom and provide her with a way to escape. Tom

provides her with hope of a future companionship and togetherness

to help her get away from Stevens. The film has now almost

completely veered away from the source text to who will be Miss

Kenton's choice as a life partner? In the source text however the

reader is curious to find out what would happen to Stevens in the

immense backdrop of world events.

Scene 46: Lord Darlington waits for Guests

Lord Darlington is shown sitting in semi-darkness, wearing a woolen

cap fully dressed with a blanket over his legs, deep in thought.

218


Stevens walks in to the room for some errand. There is thunder and

storm on the soundtrack. Mr. Reginald Cardinal is shown arriving

and being received by Stevens. Reginald enquires if he could stay

over-night and Stevens informs him that they are expecting guests

after dinner.

Scene 47: Kenton Informs Stevens about Benn's Marriage

Proposal

Stevens walks into Miss Kenton's Parlour where she is shown sitting,

lool.cing into space not doing anything in particular. Stevens informs

her about Mr. Cardinal's arrival and that he could have his usual

room. Miss Kenton says that she would do it before she left in the

evening. Then she stops Stevens and tells him how her acquaintance

has proposed marriage to her and how she is thinking about it. She

pauses after each sentence; Stevens' face is inscrutable as ever. He

merely says, "I see" and wishes her an entertaining evening. This

scene has been recreated from pages 241-215. The enactment of the

two protagonists adds to the source text and brings in an element of

pathos and anxiety. Miss Kenton at the end of the scene turns her

back to the camera as if to hide her tears.

Scene 48: Dinner Scene

Lord Darlington is shown having dinner with Reginald Cardinal while

Stevens serves. Reginald enquires about his expected guests and

Lord Darlington asks him to make himself scarce and calls him a

219


news hound. A cordial pleasing conversation takes place between the

two, unlike in the source text.

Scene 49: Arrival of Midnight Guests

The scene begins with a collage of shots, Reginald Cardinal is shown .. wearing spectacles tiptoeing to a window and trying to see from

behind the curtains the approaching cars. Overhead crane shot of

three cars arriving in the night. Next shot is that of Lord Darlington

welcoming his guests, he ref~rs to one of them as the Prime Minister

(Ch.amberlain) and the other as President. A shot of Cardinal typing

conveys that he is filing a story on the secret meeting. An overhead

shot of four Gentlemen entering the huge drawing room. Another

shot of gentlemen shown into a room full of paintings, by Stevens.

They appreciate the decor of the room. The escorts comment on the

beauty of the paintings and are asked to take down the details for

future. This scene is not present in the source text, and indicates the

Germans advancing and marching into Britain. All the men converse

in German, which is subtitled on the screen. Lord Darlington walks

in and welcomes them, introductions are made and they follow him.

Stevens looks at his watch.

Scene 50: The Secret Meet

These gentlemen are shown discussing topical issues. Once again we

witness a scene which is not there in the source text. According to

Stevens' account there were only four men including Herr Ribbentrop

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the German ambassador in the source text. In the film, there's a

German, who is more of a stereotype in his arrogant manner and

looks and is reminiscent of such characters in other films. The

collage of shots in the previous scene and this one creates an

ambience of something of consequence about to commence. The

soundtrack plays music of tension and suspense. The German

gentleman is referred to as his Excellency and could be the German

ambassador Ribbentrop of the source text, however he is not the

same German whom we see during the conference. A discussion

ensues about the Germans not wishing to involve the British Empire

into war and that they are marching into Czechoslovakia. They feel

that a small country like that should submit to the thousand year old

Reich. This scene conveys the imminence of war, Germans gaining

grounds and things turning out to be quite different from Lord

Darlington's expectations. Stevens IS shown speaking to his

colleagues and consulting his watch. He looking at his watch conveys

mixed meanings, it is too late while the meeting continues, too late

for Miss Kenton's return, too late for Lord Darlington to stop the

wheels of destiny and also too late perhaps for Stevens to hold back

Miss Kenton. The source text does not tell the reader what transpires

at the secret meeting but through Cardinal's reporting we merely

suspect. Cardinal lets us in on this secret and manages to keep the

suspense alive, however in the film by trying to recreate the secret

meeting, the suspense is killed. Since whatever Reginald Cardinal'

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reports in the novel cannot be traced back to Lord Darlington and we

never witness Lord Darlington actually playing in the hands of Nazis,

we never really condemn him in the source text. In the film we

actually see him hobnobbing with Nazi aggressors and that takes

away all the mystery of his character and all attempts to paint him as

a pro-Semitic elsewhere in the film fails to absolve him in the final

analysis.

Scene 51: The Secret Meet

Steyens is shown walking towards a corridor where two under

butlers are shown seated in attendance. There's a doorbell and

Stevens' goes to open the door and rolises the attendants. He finds

Miss Kenton escorted by two policemen seeking confirmation of her

identity. Miss Kenton walks in and Stevens walks ahead in a hurry,

and says that, '1 hope you had an entertaining evening' Kenton calls

out to him and tells, him that she had accepted the marriage

proposal. Stevens congratulates her and hurries away. Kenton calls

out to him again and says that if that was all he could say after so

many years of her service. He excuses himself as he feels things of

global importance were unfolding upstairs. Kenton retorts 'when are

they not? As if in vengeance Kenton proceeds to tell Stevens how she

mimics Stevens' mannerisms to Benn and how it makes them laugh.

A desperate and a rude attempt to shake Stevens out of his almost

frigid indifference. Stevens smiles to that and merely says, "indeed"

and looks a little hurt. Kenton further stalls him by demanding to be

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relieved at the earliest but even that cannot hold Stevens back. This

scene has been culled from pages 218-219.

Kenton's following Stevens in the corridor to heap further insults on

him, visually translated has a greater impact. The reader has no

clues to the expression of Stevens and Kenton in the source text. The

performances of the actors are interpretations, which the screenplay

writer and the director have arrived on their own. Hence, what we

have here is not only a visually translated text but also an

interpreted text.

Scene 52: Cardinal Speaks to Reginald

Cardinal is shown typing while Stevens walks in with a drink.

Cardinal makes Stevens sit and tells him about Lord Darlington's

meeting and how he is there on a tip-off. Once again, two events have

reached a climax together. Miss Kenton's decision to get married and

Lord Darlington's meeting with the Germans. Cardinal tells Stevens

that the honorable Lord Darlington has been used as a pawn by the

Germans. Stevens has no opinions except that he feels Lord

Darlington's intentions are good and meant for peace in our times.

This scene has been createdfrom pages 219 to 225 and the scene is

about four minutes long. It touches upon all that Cardinal says

about Lord Darlington in the source text including how he was out of

depth and an amateur but the scene leaves out two distinct things.

One Cardinal mentions how Lord Darlington is tIying to get his

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majesty visit Hitler and secondly that our King' is pro- Nazi. Which is

again an attempt to refurbish the British image. In the source text

Cardinal is not shown typing, - but looking at books in the library.

Cardinal in his rather shortened speech (it is a fajrly long one in the

source text) mentions that the conference was held three years ago

and that according to the time frame of the film makes the present as

year 1941 (1938 being the year of the conference in the film as

against 1923 of the source text). A bare room, a statue, fireplace and

green lamp form the decor of a large uncarpeted room where

cardinal confronts Stevens.

Scene 53: Stevens Walks in on a Tearful Miss Kenton

Stevens shown walking down a corridor unlocking a door. Miss

Kenton calls out to him from a doorway; her face and eyes are puffy

and she looks apologetic. She apologies to Stevens for having been

rude to him earlier. Stevens characteristically brushes it aside and

excuses himself. It looks like another rebuff and Miss Kenton retreats

in the shadows of her door even before Stevens finishes speaking. It

conveys her rejection allover again. Stevens walks down a few steps

and enters a cellar to collect a wine bottle. Series of wine bottles are

shown stacked. He scrutinises the label on the bottle after wiping off

the moisture. He starts walking up the stairs but stumbles and the

wine bottle falls to smithereens. An external visualisation of an

internal conflict, the ever so careful Stevens shown faltering but not

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so in the source text. Stevens shown walking back to the corridor,

sound of weeping on the soundtrack and Stevens walks toward Miss

Kenton's door. Camera focuses on his footsteps walking in tiptoes

and stops short of a huddled figure. Miss Kenton is on the floor,

crying with her head on a stool. Stevens calls out to her and once

again the viewer and Miss Kenton eagerly wait to hear Stevens

acknowledge his love for her or show some sympathy. Instead,

Stevens reminds her of an unattended chore.

The reader-viewer however cannot recall the scene and remembers

an earlier scene in the source text when Miss Kenton's aunt dies and

Stevens instead of expressing his condolences walks in on a crying

Miss Kenton and reminds her of an errand. The placement of this

scene in the film is of significance. The focus is on the deteriorating

relationship between the two and Stevens' refusal to make any move

to stop Miss Kenton from leaving. In the entire scene the camera is

focussed on Miss Kenton's tear stricken face and Stevens' dialogues

show the changing expressions on .. >her face, from one of hope to

bewilderment to hopelessness. As Stevens walks off we see Kenton

doubling up over the stool crying uncontrollably a picture of complete

rejection, and hopelessness. With this scene flashback five ends in

the film.

This flashback achieves two things, one, it does not leave to

imagination the complete severing of ties between Stevens and

Kenton, and secondly it manages to highlight Stevens' inability to

225


communicate his feelings, his absolute lack of prosperity as regards

relationships. However it misses out on other areas which the source

text so eloquently foregrounds for example the political backdrop.

While the film gives prominence to the end of the relationship the

source text merely suggests it and focuses on Stevens' personal

triumph as a butler. Stevens' recollection of that day in the source

text is very different in flavour and tenor, which the film fails to

capture. Stevens in the source text recalls:

At first, my mood was, I do not mind admitting it somewhat downcast. But then as I continued to stand there, a curious thing began to take place; that is to say, a deep feeling of triumph started to well up within me. I had, after all, just come through an extremely trying evening, throughout which I had managed to preserve a -dignity' in keeping with my position and had done so, moreover in a manner even my father might have been proud of. And there across the hall, behind the very doors upon which my gaze was then resting, within the very room where I had just executed my duties, the most powerful gentlemen of Europe were conferring over the fate of our continent, who would doubt at that moment that I had indeed come as close to the great hub of things as any butler could wish? I would suppose, then, that as I stood there pondering over the events of the evening- those that had unfolded and those still in the process of doing so- they appeared to me a sort of summary of all that I had come to achieve thus far in my life. I can see few other explanations for that sense of triumph I came to be uplifted by that night. (pp.227-228).

With this scene, the reader-viewer realises that the film has produced

an altogether new text very different from the written one. The

foregrounding of the relationship between Stevens and Kenton in the

film leads to a reconstitution of the text and hence the meaning. The

Stevens of the source text and the recreated Stevens are two entirely

different personalities. This transformation occurs not only at the

level of the screenplay but also at the level of performance and

226


visualisation of details. The reader-viewer has been left far behind;

from now on, it is only the viewer and the cinematic text.

Scene 54: Kenton Meets Benn

Background score plays on the soundtrack as Stevens drives into a

seaside town. Tight frames of the town besides the pier on the sea are

shown followed by a shot of Miss Kenton touching up her make-up

before the mirror. She chooses a scarf then discards it. She is shown

walking down the stairs of the same boarding house seen in an

earlier scene in the beginning of the film. We see Tom slightly aged,

waylaying Miss Kenton to speak to her. Miss Kenton tries to excuse

herself, as she is on her way out presumably to meet Stevens. She

agrees to spare sometime and they proceed to the lounge of the

boarding house. The girl at the counter, looks on with curiosity. Tom

tells Kenton how he had wished to own a boarding house like this

and how everything did not turn out as he had planned. He is a

failure like Stevens, Stevens fails in love, Tom fails in life. He tells her

that he misses her and informs her about their daughter Catherine's

pregnancy. Miss Kenton exclaims in delight and even softens a little

towards Tom. Tom encouraged asks permission to escort her on

Sunday for tea at Catherine's.

This scene once again has been recreated entirely out of sundry

details in the source text but no such scene exists in the source text.

In fact, Miss Kenton is never actually seen in the present time frame

227


of the source text either with Tom or with Stevens. There are enough

indications in the film that Kenton might reconcile with her husband.

It was perhaps necessary to visualise this scene to show the viewer

that how Miss Kenton has choices this time but how her priorities

have changed. Tom is apologetic, Stevens continues to be reticent,

but willing to make amends. Kenton's love for her daughter makes

everything else insignificant.

Scene 55: Stevens Meets Kenton

St~vens shown sitting in a restaurant reading Miss Kenton's letter.

Miss Kenton's voice-over on the soundtrack mentions, how she

remembers the wonderful days spent at Darlington Hall. The waitress

asks him if he needs some more tea. He sees Miss Kenton now Mrs.

Benn walking up to his table. They exchange greetings and Stevens

mentions how she hasn't changed a bit. Sf3.Xophone plays a happy

dance tune, Mr. Stevens drumming his finger on the table, sunshine

streaming through the large windows in all- a happy ambience is

created. The music changes to a romantic sad song, -blue moon you

saw me standing alone without a dream in my heart', and couples

are shown dancing.

The camera pans on the dance floor and finally focuses on their

table. Mrs. Benn shown smoking and expressing her regret over Lord

Darlington's libel suit in the court. Stevens informs her about Lord

Darlington's last days, when no one came to see him and how he

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spent his days in the library speaking to himself as if arguing and

how Mr. Cardinal his Godson was killed in the war. Stevens also

informs her about his new employer the American Mr. Lewis. Mrs.

Benn mentions how she had wanted to go back to work. Stevens

looks hopeful but Mrs. Benn tells him how things have changed, with

her daughter expecting and she would want to stay near her

daughter and her grandchild. Stevens has the expression of a

rejected lover just like Miss Kenton had in the earlier scene.

The meeting between Stevens and Mrs. Benn is entirely a recollection

by Stevens in the source text and does not take place in the present

time frame. In fact in the episodic division in the source text there is

no episode titled -Day Five' which is when Stevens meets Mrs. Benn.

It is recollected on 'Day Six' of the source text and Stevens mentions

how it has been two days since he met Mrs. Benn. In visualising the

scene in the present time, we once again see scenes unfolding

through an omnipresent narrator's eyes rather than through

Stevens'. Moreover, the viewer who has' been waiting to meet Miss

Kenton so many years later (20 years according to the film) would

have been disheartened to see the meeting in flashback. Moreover

this sequential visualising of the narrative delays the end and also

holds the viewer's attention for a longer time. In the source text the

meeting takes place in a gloomy tearoom, next to a bay window in a

'gray' pool of light, with it raining outside. Miss Kenton comes to meet

Stevens earlier than her appointed time in the novel waiting alone in

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a tea lounge. In the mm, the scene is bright and gay and Stevens sits

waiting for Mrs.Benn. Mrs. Benn looks a self-assured woman of the

world. Change of music shows time elapsing and mirrors Stevens'

feeling.

Scene 56: Stevens at the Pier with Kenton

The scene shifts to the walk beside the pier on the sea. The music is

carnivalesque. Both Mrs. Benn and Stevens are shown walking.

Again a scene which is totally absent in the source text. Their

me~ting has been lengthened to catch up perhaps with the

intervening years. In the source text their meeting is as brief and as

unsatisfying as their interaction at Darlington Hall. The film perhaps

fills in and sketches a finale in detail to visualise the end of a

relationship and thus once again shifting the focus from Stevens' life

to Stevens: relationship with Mrs. Benn. While the source text

studiously avoids any interaction with Mrs. Benn, the mm constantly

hinges upon it, foregrounding the relationship over everything else.

The source text unfolds Stevens' entire life where his relationship

with Mrs. Benn is only a part of it. Mrs. Benn tells Stevens how at

times she feels she made a mistake in her life. In the source text her

confessions are more candid, she says that even now at times she

walks out on her husband whenever she imagines a life with Stevens.

She however knows that the clock cannot be turned back. In the

source text Stevens asks her if she was unhappy but in the f11m it

seems Stevens has all the answers. They sit down on a seat on the

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pIer; shots of seagulls flying around and their cnes on the

soundtrack rent the air. It is evening and Mrs. Benn says how some

people say that evening is best part of the day and mentions the

custom of how everyone claps when lights are put on in the pier in

the evening. Once again, Mrs. Benn speaks in the film what was not

there in the source text. It is interesting to note how the meaning

shifts. A stranger says this to Stevens in the source text after Stevens

almost breaks down in agony and confesses his failures to a complete

stranger:

His Lordship was a courageous man, He chose a certain path in life, it proved to be a misguided one, but there, he chose it, he can say that at least. As far myself, I cannot even claim that. You see I trusted. I trusted in his Lordship's wisdom. All these years I served him, I trusted I was doing some thing worthwhile. I can't even say I made my own mistakes. Really- one has to ask one self- what dignity is there in that? (p.243).

So we see that Stevens' tragedy in the source text emerges from his ,

realisation of the fact that he did not choo~e, either to have his own

opinions or love. But the film seems to be almost an unrequited love

story where first Miss Kenton gets rejected by Stevens and when

Stevens wishes to make amends it is too late. Mrs. Benn than says to

Stevens that, "some say evening is the best time of the day" It seems

that. she has accepted what life has to offer her in future and is

consoling Stevens.

Elsewhere in the same scene Stevens despondently mentions that his

future holds work, work and more work and his absent-minded look

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as he looks around the pier conveys the sadness that surrounds him.

The reticent, reserved and laconic Stevens refuses to let his emotions

take over and we are once again left wondering whether Stevens had

ever any depth of feeling or any capacity to feel. In the source text

however Stevens emerges from this gloom with the following self-

suggestion: -

Perhaps it is indeed time I began to look at this whole matter of bantering more enthusiastically. After all, when one thinks about it, it is not such a foolish thing to indulge in - particularly it is the case that in bantering lies the key to human warmth. (p.24S)

In the source text Stevens seems to have found the eternal

truth about life but in the film Stevens continues to be incarcerated

in the image that the director has imposed on him, that of an

emotionally frigid butler with a failed love interest in life.

Scene 57: Farewell at the Bus Stop

Stevens is shown holding an umbrella standing in the rain and

looking in the distance waiting for a bus. Mrs. Benn calls out to him

from behind standing in a bus shade. Stevens wishes her the best in

life and hopes that she will live with her husband happily. The bus

arrives and Mrs. Benn gets on the bus. They take leave of each other

by shaking hands, which they almost reluctantly let go and the

camera focuses on their disengaging hands dangling in mid air and

the bus takes off. We see Mrs. Benn's tearful figure framed against

the bus door with a curtain of rain separating her from Stevens.

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Stevens looks on as the bus moves away from the camera. He gets

into his car and sits behind his car wheel staring into the camera, his

expression inscrutable but the rain on the car windshield is

symbolic, Stevens is perhaps in tears. The shots of tearful Mrs. Benn

framed in a moving bus and Stevens sitting in his car staring into the

rain, heightens the sadness of the film, and acutely conveys the final

parting between Stevens and Mrs. Benn

Scene 58: Last Scene

The last scene of the film again cannot be located in the text. Mr.

Lewis is shown walking down the familiar blue ornate staircase and

Stevens walks out from the secret door in the staircase landing. The

camera shows how the portrait of a portly Victorian gentleman

bought by Mr. Lewis is being brought in and hung on the wall (used

as a linking device). Chandeliers are lowered and polished. Mr. Lewis

asks for Stevens' comment on his new suit and walks into the now

empty billiard room. Stevens informs him about the new

housekeeper a matron from boy's reformatory school. Mr. Lewis

comments that she would keep them from misbehaving, Mr. Lewis

tries to recall what he said during the 1938 conference and Stevens

immediately feigns ignorance (why would Stevens do that now? why

couldn't he say 'Sir, you had called Lord Darlington an amateur and

you were right?' Perhaps the director does not visualise Stevens as

someone who can accept his mistakes and face the truth in the eye).

Just then, a pigeon flies in and Lewis and Stevens try their best to

233


shoo it away. The pigeon hits the ceiling window and comes crashing

down. Lewis picks it up and releases it outside the window. Stevens

closes the large French windows and looks out at the flying pigeon,

framed against the window, the shot dissolves into a frontal shot of

Darlington Hall and the camera zooms out slowly and cranes up to

reveal lush countryside and Darlington Hall nestled in its midst.

This scene is rich in visual symbolism. Stevens will remain within

Darlington Hall as a part of the lost legacy of Lord Darlington unable

to flyaway. May be because his existence is synonymous to that of

Darlington Hall and the outside holds nothing for him. The film ends

with an indelible image of a man unable to step out from a self-

imposed prison.It ends with the image of a butler whose entire life

is only full of revelations about the true meaning of dignity. The

meaning shifts in visual compositions and a sub- text emerges as a

result of cinematic compUlsions, or purely marketing compUlsions. ,

At the end of this detailed analysis of the film, a brief summation of

the reader-viewer response would be pertinent. This critical response

would also suggest a graphic model of various sub-texts that emerge

during the making and viewing of such a film adaptation based on a

novel

The Remains o/the Day: The Novel and the film; A reader-viewer response.

The Remains of the Day (1989) a Booker prize winning novel by Kazuo

Ishiguro, is a restrained account of an old butler Stevens, who is on a

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holiday in the west country in England. His memories of his service

in a grand English House-Darlington Hall, against the backdrop of

Second World War are a gripping narrative of an individual's failure

to achieve selfhood. It is the story of an old man who is nearing the

end of his career and is desperately seeking to justify in the summer

of 1956, and a life of self denying, emotionally stifling service to an

aristocratic fascist sympathiser.

The novel opens with Stevens in the employment of Mr. Farraday, the

American owner of Darlington Hall, who is at times worried about the

authenticity of his employee and his acquisition: -

I mean to say, Stevens, this is a genuine grand old English house, isn't it? That's what I paid for. And you're a genuine old-fashioned English butler, not just some waiter pretending to be one. You're the real thing, aren't you? That's what I wanted, isn't that what I have? (p.124).

Darlington Hall is almost a living entity in the novel, it presents

a microcosm of British aristocracy, culture, civility, a benign political

influence and encapsulates within its folir wall the authenticity of

Englishness. Both Stevens and Darlington Hall acquire a mythical

status in the novel invoking the bygone eras of British aristocracy.

In the beginning of the novel Stevens is seen running Darlington Hall

with a reduced staff of four as against twenty-eight in the past. He

keeps worrying about his staff plan, which he feels is the

'cornerstone of any decent butler's skills'. He attributes his

occasional lapses to a faulty staff plan, without seeing like his father

235


before him that his errors are a sign of his age. Stevens is seen

planning a holiday to visit Miss Kenton, the exemplary, professional

housekeeper who left Darlington Hall in 1936 to get married. In a

nostalgic letter to Stevens, she mentions her separation from her

husband. Stevens proposes to motor down to Cornwall in order to

find out if Miss Kenton could be induced to join Darlington Hall once

agrun.

Stevens sets out in Mr. Farraday's vintage Ford and travels,

absorbed in his own memories from Salisbury to Taunton, from

Taunton to Tavistok and comes at last to Little Compton in

Cornwall. This journey undertaken by Stevens can be seen as a

journey from self-delusion to self-revelation. Before this journey

Stevens has never really spent time with himself. His journey to the

sea in Cornwall has a cinema like quality, where his entire life

passes before his eyes in a flashback and at the end of the day, he ,

experienc§s a cathartic revelation. The journey to the sea in a way

in a way forces him to encounter with his submerged self.

Stevens ruminates the past, the memorable days in the 1920's and

30's when Lord Darlington hosted, behind the scenes meetings

between powerful politicians in the hope of influencing the course of

European affairs. Stevens recalls how Lord Darlington, motivated

at first by his dislike of the way Germany was treated after the First

World War, and subsequently exploited by Von-Ribbentrop and the

Nazis, whose betrayal and villainy he failed to grasp, gets enmeshed

236


In a fascist design. Motoring through England Stevens repeatedly

returns to the question, which has been the sole agenda of his life

and that being: "In what does the greatness of a butler consist?"

Stevens has always called it 'Dignity'. According to Stevens, 'dignity'

was something that his father had, with his self control, his 'dark

awesome features', 'severe presence and his preference for being

addressed as 'Father' even in direct speech.' Stevens attempts a

working definition of 'dignity'. First, it was clearly essential that one

should be employed in a 'distinguished' household. Secondly,

'dignity' has to do crucially with a butler's ability not to abandon

the professional being he inhabits: -

A butler must be seen to inhabit his role utterly and fully; he cannot be seen as casting it aside one moment simply in order to don it the next, as if it were nothing more than a pantomime costume". (p.169)

Stevens is so concerned with 'dignity' as a condition that one must

struggle to achieve that he does not realise that it becomes a

condition from which one cannot escape. It precludes close personal

relations: -

There is one situation and one situation only in which a butler, who cares about his dignity may feel free to unburden himself of his role; that is to say, when he is entirely alone. (p. 169)

Stevens' dignity forces blindness when others try to express

affection. He is not only unable to acknowledge Miss Kenton's love

but loses it in the pursuit of an ideal service. His self-repressed life

237


dedicated to his master and his house turns out to be of no value.

Stevens manages to delude himself for years that his prestige and

dignity lay in the moral worth of his employer, in whose service one

can hope to make some "small contributions to the creation of a

better world". It takes him a meeting with Miss Kenton after twenty

years to make him realise that his life has been a failure and he

says: -

I trusted I was doing something worth while, ... "I can't even say if I made my own mistakes. Really one-has to ask-what dignity is there in that? (p. 243).

Stevens eventually breaks down at the Weymouth pier, wondering

in the sunset of his life what to do with the remains of his days.

Stevens presents a tragic figure of self-deception, self-denial and

self-repression. Kazuo Ishiguro presents a tragedy of an individual

who is a commoner suffering from a 'false consciousness'. Stevens

is truly Colonised because he never attempts to define himself

outside of his subordinate relation to Lord Darlington. Stevens

plays his carved out slotted role in a hierarchy, which not only

politically disempowers him but also dehumanises him. Stevens

cannot for instance understand Mr. Harry Smith's definition of

'dignity':

" ..... there's no dignity to be had in being a slave. That's what we fought for and that's what we won. We won the right to be free that no matter who you are, no matter if you're rich or poor, you're born free and you're born so you can express your opinion freely ..... That's what dignity is all about, if you'll excuse me, sir". (p.186)

238


Stevens however unknowingly subscribes to Lord Darlington's view

that democracy is outmoded and the will of the people being the

wisest arbitrator is sheer nonsense. He plays a willing Colonised to

a Coloniser by giving up his own political opinion in the world

affairs. Stevens' character paints a picture of confusion, conflict and

contradiction. He tries to reclaim a past in his quest for identity and

meaning. Stevens' characters is reminiscent of other such post

colonial character like Deven in Anita Desai's In Custody who gets

trapped in the past unable to apply the lessons of history to the

modern world. Stevens also fails to learn his lesson.

The awakening to the meaning of his life allows Stevens to receive

some retribution for his suffering, although the traces of

Colonialism and Imperialism cannot be fully erased. Stevens will

now try to learn to banter with his new master or Coloniser and

learn his language to c;ommunicate once again surrendering his

own. Even as he acknowledges the waste of his life in service to a

discredited master, he prepares to devote the rest of his life to

another. In the film version however Stevens' new preoccupation to

learn the art of bantering to please his new master is entirely

absent. Stevens' repartees to his employer are rather impolite. He

corrects his master's assessment of the situation at Darlington Hall

and calls it a faulty staff plan. However there are very few

interactions in the film between Stevens and his new employer to

suggest Stevens' new identity.

239


At many levels, the novel is about the repression and reclamation of

history, both global and individual. For Stevens, the evaluations of

his own personal history is inseparable from the evaluation of his

master's role in the important events of global history. The forces

and events of history are powerfully present in the novel and

enmeshed within an individual's experience. In all three of

Ishiguro's novel, A Pale View of Hills (1982), An Artist of the floating

world (1986.) and The Remains of the day (1989) there is a

devastating piece of history which remains unspoken and yet .'""'~

shapes the characters in the novel. The novel, The Remains of the

day begins in July 1956 and recounts events of 1930's. One of the

landmark events that led to the dissolution of the British Empire

after the Second World War took place in 1956 and is known as the

Suez Crisis. The Egyptian President, Gamal Abdel Nasser riding the

wave of nationalism took over the control of Suez Canal. England

and France lost their influence in the Middle East and the sun

finally set in the British Empire. The Suez Canal crisis marks major

shifts in the power relations of western Europe, signaling the rising

importance of cold war politics in international crises, and the

continuing decrease of Britain's influence as a Colonial and

Imperial power. Stevens's journey towards self realisation somehow

coincides with this historical event, just as his self-delusion and self

deception coincides with the rise of Nazism in Germany.

These historical events make their presence felt unobtrusively In

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the book. However, in the film, except for the post First World War

phase, the postcolonial convulsions are not apparent. The film

version does not mention that the story unfolds in July 1956 as in

the novel. In fact, the great conference of 1923 in the novel is

mentioned as the conference of 1936, hence there's no sanctity of

dates preserved except for highlighting the fact that Stevens'

memories lead up to the Second World War. In the film, Stevens'

failed love story gains precedence over history. A foregrounding of

Miss Kenton and Stevens' relationship in the film places the novel

in a more commercially viable genre.

In the novel Stevens uses many anecdotes to relate the importance

of dignity and restrain in his profession. He posits that his

profession itself is in some way representative of England. He says

that the "greatness of a great butler is tied to the emotional

restraint which only the English are capable of ". (p,43). Stevens

feels that the English landscape with 'lack of obvious drama and

spectacle', is beautiful-because of its 'calmness and restraint' and

i.e. the dignity which Stevens aspires for. In the novel Stevens takes

pains to describe the scenic beauty of the countryside but once

again all that visual is missing in the film version. The direct

correlation of the English landscape with England's dignified

Imperial power is totally absent in the film. Stevens' reflection on

how the Boer War is related to sharp decline in professional

standards among butlers is both humorous and insightful. But

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such insights are however, absent in the film and we hardly see

Stevens' 'false consciousness' at work.

Kazuo Ishiguro uses geography to structure the novel into various

sections - titled as Darlington Hall, Salisbury, Mortimer's Pond,

Dorset, Taunton, Somerset, Moscombe, near Tavistok, Devon and

little Compton, Cornwall and each of this section highlights issues

of national identity, class division, morality, human sociability etc.

The film on the other hand overlooks the geographical details and

skips the entire route plan which Stevens meticulously sketches in

the novel.

Ishiguro employs an interesting narrative structure in the novel.

The speaking narrative voice in the novel is not only in the first

person but addresses an implied narratee whose absence requires

the speaker some moment of revelation or self discovery. To use the

terminology of Gerard Genette, Stevens is an intradiegetic narrator.

An intradiegetic narrator is a narrating speaker who is both outside

and inside the events being narrated. A tension is produced

between these 'two characters' i.e. one of the 'narrating Stevens' and

the 'narrated Stevens'. Kazuo Ishiguro uses these two Stevens

along with the narratee to conceal and reveal information about

Stevens. If the reader assumes the role of the narratee then he is

inevitably drawn into an intimate complicity with Stevens' own acts

of self-deception and self-denial. By the end of the novel when the

narrator himself collapses, the identity with which he began

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crumbles, the narratee and the reader immediately distance

themselves to view Stevens as what he really represents. Stevens

stands disrobed, behind the cultivated, dignified, fa<;;ade of a loyal

butler we view a Colonised individual comfortable in his servitude.

His moment of epiphany goes by wasted as he grabs his mask once

agaIn.

In the film version, we have two voices reminiscing through letters.

The film begins with Miss Kenton's letter and her voice-over and

hence it is through her eyes that we see Darlington Hall first. Then

we have Mr. Stevens' letter replying to Miss Kenton remembering

days spent with her. Hence, both the main characters assume the

role of the narratee alternately. Instead of an absent narratee of the

first person account of Stevens in the novel, a narratee like Miss

Kenton in the film does not provide any room for Mr. Stevens to

self-examine himself. In fact the momentous seen on the pier,

where Stevens breaks down and confesses his failure to a complete

stranger is entirely missing in the film. Instead, we see a sad

Stevens sitting next to Miss Kenton and merely expressing

dissatisfaction with his present state of affairs. There's no self -

revelation for Stevens in the film. Stevens' deferential manner and

self-depreciatory style in the novel makes the reader reluctant to

call his assessments into question. The film does not give such

scope to Stevens and he remains reticent, reserved and almost

rudely arrogant. His characterisation instead of evoking pathos and

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sympathy evokes a frustration among his viewers.

In the novel and in the film Stevens represses his emotions to such

an extent that he is unable to recognise his feelings towards Miss

Kenton. Whereas the character of Miss Kenton hardly acquires an

identity in the novel and in Stevens' constant rejection she is almost

reduced to a non-entity in the novel. In the film, the love angle is

foregrounded and Miss Kenton appears in almost all the scenes and

hence is pivotal. The final constitution of meaning that takes place

is a failed relationship of Mr. Stevens and Miss Kenton. The film

without straying too far from the novel tries in its own limited way

to evoke a sense of romance when Stevens finally meets Miss

Kenton. They are seen sitting at a table in a restaurant where

couples are seen dancing to a romantic tune. In the novel while the

narrative continuously progresses towards Stevens meeting with

Miss Kenton, when it finally reaches that point in narrative, the

narrative skips the episode and then looks back at the meeting. In

the novel, Miss Kenton is a part of Stevens' memory- his past and

she is denied a life in the present unlike characters like Mr. Harry

Smith and others. In the film the viewer sees and feels Miss

Kenton's presence. The film thus reiterates the acceptance of

woman in reclamation of past and history unlike the postcolonial

novels.

The Remains of the Day, was a challenging novel to film as it was

thought to be sparse and cerebral. Harold Pinter tried his hand at

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the screenplay and failed. Ismail Merchant and James Ivory took it

upon themselves to complete the project. Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

known for her screenplays, which are mostly adaptations from

novels, gave a new structure to the novel trying at the same time to

retain the flavour. The difficult areas like the narrative voice, the

structure of narration with its frequent flash backs, has been

handled deftly and innovatively.

Stevens comes through as a conscientious butler whose identity is

shaped by Darlington Hall and its owner. Anthony Hopkins bereft of

all his humorous observations about life, appears a cold, frigid

middle aged man who has acquired a stiffer upper lip than his

master. Miss Kenton played by Emma Thompson; a minor

character in the novel on the contrary appears full-bodied with her

hopes, joys and sorrows, which is the fulcrum of the film. Lord

Darlington played by James Fox fits the role of a metaphor for the

decline of Britain. The new A~~rican owner of Darlington Hall, Mr.

Lewis played by Christopher Reeves, operates as statement in the

film as he not only replaces the bantering Mr. Farraday of the novel

but is shown to be the same Congressman who had called Lord

Darlington an amateur in the 1923 conference. Mr. Lewis is thus

shown to be right in his assessment, as he is now the leader of the

New World order and the savior of British Heritage synonymous

with Darlington Hall.

While Mr. Farraday in the novel is shown constantly grappling with

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Stevens' inconsistencies and wonders if he is the real thing, Mr.

Lewis seems to be at ease with him and in fact teases him about

Miss Kenton. By making Mr. Lewis the new owner of Darlington

Hall in the film, I sense an intervention of the Hollywood film

industry. It would make the film more endearing if an American is

shown to be more foresighted and the saviour of British culture and

heritage. Inspite of such efforts the film failed to receive any Oscars

and merely remained a strong contender.

The nominations for Oscars however secured the market both for

Ishiguro and Merchant-Ivory. The film can be seen as a popular

rendering of the novel with all it's intricacies and nuances missing.

The added meanings in the film however make an interesting

statement about the market driven products of art. Merchant-Ivory

productions also need to be associated with certain kinds of film

even if they were adaptations of novels. The authors they have

chosen for their films Henry James (The Bostonians, The Americans)

E.M.Forster (A Passage to India, The Howard's End, A Room With A

View), Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (Heat and Dust) are all known for their

outsider's perspective on Britain and the British. By the same logic,

Kazuo Ishiguro's novel The Remains of the Day met the

requirements of Merchant -Ivory productions.

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the remains of the day-the film -...

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