A Hidden Life of Love
Sacrifice in Malick’s Cinematographic Philosophy
(A Foretaste)
One of the most powerful scenes in Terrence Malick’s film A Hidden Life is the final meeting between Franziska Jägerstätter (Valerie Pachner) and her husband Franz (August Biehl) shortly before he is to be executed by the Nazis. Jägerstätter’s lawyer (Alexander Fehling) attempts, one last time, to persuade Franz to join the Nazi war effort, but Franz ignores the rational arguments of this educated professional, looks over to Franziska, and asks: “Do you understand?”
Malick dedicates a considerable amount of time in the movie to the failure of various characters to understand Franz’s decision not to fight, having made up his mind that to do so would be tantamount to “swearing an oath to Hitler.” His fellow villagers, his neighbors, the mayor, his parish priest, the local bishop, and even the judge who ultimately pronounces the death sentence all appear to sing together: You will change nothing!
We intuitively cry out for the same reaction: a greater effort on Franziska’s part to save her husband before he is put to death. She is, after all, the one who will be left behind to raise the children, work the farm, and live alongside people who will always question her actions. And who else was truly in a position to disapprove Franz’s decision? Yet she acquiesces.1 She hears her husband loud and clear and replies simply: “I love you.”
Franz Jägerstätter’s sacrifice appears to be in vain. He did not stop the war. Hitler’s army was not weakened by being one man short. History took its course regardless of the moral stand of a lowly Austrian peasant. Franz’s act may indeed have gained nothing, but it revealed something: a hidden life of love. This juxtaposition of a sacrifice for nothing and a hidden life of love is the focus of our interest here, and it is, we believe, what Malick elucidates most strikingly in his film.
That Malick’s strong philosophical background is imprinted in his cinematic output is a “truth universally acknowledged.” It is nonetheless important to note that unlike other films that are subjected to ex-post philosophical-theological interpretations irrespective of the author’s intentions, Malick’s films are philosophical in their very conception. Robert Sinnerbrink, a lifelong interpreter of Malick’s work from the perspective of existential phenomenology, suggests that Malick’s movies are philosophy. He writes: “Malick’s films elicit and evoke forms of experience that often invite metaphysical reflection or prompt one to seek comprehension by having recourse to philosophical reflection. Philosophical ideas, in turn, can serve as heuristic devices to help open up or articulate aspects of the film or the significance of the experiences—aesthetic, ethical or metaphysical—to which it gives rise.”5 We would agree. We would also suggest that sacrifice and love, although highly inflated concepts in philosophical discussions, are of great importance. Drawing on the thought of Søren Kierkegaard and Martin Heidegger, we will argue that Malick’s artistic depiction of Franz Jägerstätter in A Hidden Life makes a valuable contribution to existential phenomenology.
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