LIFE LESSONS FROM CLASSIC MOVIES, PART 2

Mar 30, 2025

My mom and I have continued our weekly ritual of watching vintage musical movies. It’s our Technicolor respite from the relentlessly stressful news.

These musicals are sometimes wonderful, sometimes cringy. Well, often cringy. Might I call your attention to a 70-year-old Maurice Chevalier in Gigi as he winks and ogles his way through the song “Thank Heaven for Little Girls.” Seems to me the lyrics here did not age well. They did not grow up in the most delightful way.

Still, I love watching these films with my mom. And no matter what, in addition to the cringy parts, I always find some life wisdom. So, with that, I present Part 2 of my series, “Life Lessons from Classic Movies.”

Movie: Gigi

(A young woman’s romantic adventures in 1900 Paris, starring Leslie Caron).

Wisdom: Don’t forget that human memory is super-fallible.

Thankfully, the above-mentioned Maurice Chevalier sings some less inappropriate songs. For instance, “I Remember It Well,” a duet with a (fully grown) woman in which they reminisce about their long-ago date. It goes, in part:

Him: We met at 9
Her: We met at 8
Him: I was on time
Her: No, you were late
Him: Ah yes, I remember it well
Him: We dined with friends
Her: We dined alone
Him: A tenor sang
Her: A baritone
Him: Ah, yes, remember it well

As you can see, the joke is that he does NOT remember it well. And she probably doesn’t either.

I love it because it underscores just how objectively terrible human memory is. Study after study shows our memories are often self-serving, frequently unreliable, occasionally fabricated, and easily manipulated. Just one example: The classic study in which people watch a film of a car crash and then have to estimate the speed of the car. Their estimates varied depending on whether the questioner used the word “smashed” or “bumped.”

I’d advise Maurice to stop with the denial and accept his bad memory. When you accept that your memory is fallible, it can be disturbing, but it can also be liberating. I’ve found it helpful in many ways. It makes me less stubborn, more humble, less likely to double down on a false claim. For instance, here’s the way I used to answer a question from Julie.

Julie: “Did I give you the car keys?”

Former AJ: “Nope, absolutely not.”

As opposed to…

Julie: “Did I give you the car keys?”

Current AJ: “I don’t have a memory of it, but it’s possible.”

And then I’ll spend a few seconds searching for keys in my backpack.

Sometimes I even find them there.

Movie: Funny Face

(Audrey Hepburn and Fred Astaire go to Paris for a fashion magazine event).

Wisdom: Hero worship is dangerous.

This 1957 movie stars Audrey Hepburn as a nerdy bookstore employee who becomes a supermodel – which is supposed to be surprising because she allegedly has a weird-looking face. Seriously. The movie’s premise is that Audrey Hebburn is odd-looking. Hence the title “Funny Face.:

Maybe I’m an outlier, but to me, Audrey Hepburn’s face is one of the most conventionally beautiful faces I’ve ever seen. It’s as if Dustin Hoffman were cast as someone who was eight feet tall, and we all had to try to pretend that he was towering over his co-stars. I felt like I was being gaslit (a word based on a movie that came out more than 10 years prior).

Anyway, in the movie, Hepburn’s character goes to Paris to study at the feet of a brilliant philosopher whom she worships. It turns out the philosopher’s a creep and wants a not-so-Platonic relationship.

This plotline resonates with me because I think hero worship is one of the scourges of modern society. We live in an era dominated by the Cult of Personality in politics and entertainment.

My take is that, yes, individuals can be inspiring. But idolizing one person makes us blind to their weak spots. I say: replace hero worship with admiration-plus-a-dash-of-skepticism. Or else, instead of idolizing everything about a person, focus on a specific idea or action that they took — not the totality of their character — because every human is flawed.

I experienced this with my latest book, The Year of Living Constitutionally. My favorite Founding Father is Benjamin Franklin. He’s wise, innovative, witty, hardworking, compassionate, and on and on. But he was far from perfect. He was a terrible father and husband, for instance. I can be inspired by his best qualities while keeping clear of any pedestals.

Movie: Lili

(a young French girl joins the carnival).

Wisdom: We all contain multitudes.

This movie has 50 percent of the same letters as Gigi, and also happens to star Leslie Caron as a young naïve French girl who captures the attention of a much older man. What are the odds? It’s a Trend of Two, as I used to say when I worked in magazines.

Anyway, in Lili, Caron plays a 16-year-old girl who becomes part of a carnival puppet act. The puppeteer, a man named Paul, has four puppets, each with a different personality. Lili’s job in the carnival is to chat with the puppets as the audience looks on.

At the end, the puppeteer says to Leslie, “I’m fond of you, but let’s wait until you are a more appropriate age before pursuing a relationship.” Just kidding. The puppeteer confesses his love to Lili and asks her to be with him. But Lili is confused. She’s been interacting with Paul’s puppets more than the human Paul. Who is Paul, really? Which of his four puppets represents his true personality?

Paul says…All of the above!

“I'm Carrot Top: Confident, clever, capable of running his life and yours.

And I'm Golo the Giant: Cowardly, stupid, longing to be loved, clumsy, and in need of comforting.

And I'm Marguerite, too: Vain, jealous, obsessed with self, looking at my face in the mirror. Are my teeth nice? Is my hair growing thin?

And I'm Reynardo: the thief, the opportunist, full of compromise and lies. Like any other man, I have in me all these things, and as many more again.”

I like this scene because I believe we are all a combination of characters. The unitary self is a myth. Humans underestimate how much our personalities shift over the years, days, even hours. Different situations bring out different parts of us. It depends on so many factors – how much sleep we get, whether we feel intimidated, whether someone compliments us that morning or insults us.

I find this perspective helpful because it makes me (I hope) less judgmental. If someone acts like an asshole, I remind myself they are not always an asshole. That is not the essence of their being. It’s just that their asshole puppet was ascendant in that situation. Maybe they just got demoted at their job, maybe their cat meowed all night and kept them awake. Maybe they just realized they can never again sing their favorite classic song in public because it is so icky.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on these and any other movie lessons.