The character of A SINGLE MAN

A SINGLE MAN

My second assignment on this movie, I see A Single Man and think 'This is the type of movie I want to make'. Beautiful, cinematic and meaningful. 

Set in 1960’s Los Angeles, Colin Firth is George, an English professor struggling to come to terms with his boyfriend’s death after a year later. The film, directed by Tom Ford and cinematography by Eduard Grau, show George’s desires and needs on the day he prepares to commit suicide in a visually enhanced and beautifully portrayed sequence of scenes filled with ‘last moments’.

Firths character attempts to fulfill his apparent ‘want’ throughout his last day. His want is to commit suicide and in preparing for this George immaculately organizes his life. Ford shows George’s appreciation for his last day by revisiting old memories of his boyfriend in black and white whilst juxtaposing the current day in heightened colour, showing us through George’s eyes the beauty he is seeing and his appreciation for things he will never see again. George’s main want is to find peace in his last day, but the underlining feeling of the movie shows George is discovering too much beauty in the world to follow through.

The protagonists desire is to feel love, or rather that one love that he had with his deceased boyfriend of sixteen years. The film covers this last day where all he seems to encounter are different forms of love. This is evident through his random interactions with people in his life. For example, a Spanish gigolo Carlos, who’s attractive and charismatic self gives the protagonist a sense of attraction again, of lust and desire. His best friend who is also British, Frankie, reminds him of friendship and of old times. She unknowingly delays George’s suicide by demanding his presence at her home. This provides an excuse for George to delay the suicide. The last and most important relationship that develops that day is with a student from the university who intrigues George and cultivates a longing to feel an honest human connection with someone. George’s desire, through the events of his last day, turns from his want to end his grief into a willingness to live and endure.

“Death is the future,” George says innocently to his student as they involve themselves in a conversation. This single sentence displays beautifully the ‘Maslow’ for the entirety of A Single Man. It is the essence of his drive throughout; it so casually suggests his underlying need to end his life, as he feels he will eventually die and what is the point in prolonging it through this devastation. George therefore displays a need to discover as much beauty in his last day as possible. George’s decision to end his life is changed by the end of the movie, yet his fate stays the same. As he dies the audience feels his ending is timely as he has organized himself and died in a state of peace rather then depression and desperation.

Tom Ford ultimately directs Firth’s characters wants and desires towards a resolution that seems unfair yet justified. George’s ultimate desire of controlling his circumstances is achieved and therefore leaves the movie with a sense of harmony between George’s choices and his fate.

By Rachel A Giddens