On a recent longhaul flight, which is about the only opportunity I have to watch movies, I was very taken with the espionage thriller, ‘A Most Wanted Man’. Based on the novel by John Le Carré of the same title, it was Philip Seymour Hoffman’s last leading role before his death in February 2014, and he was most convincing as Günther Bachmann, the man running the slightly shady, under-the-radar team whose aim was to develop intelligence about potential security threats in Germany and beyond. As an example of character acting, it was excellent, and well worth watching.
What prompted me to write about the film here, though, was not a new-found desire to review the latest Hollywood releases; rather, it was a phrase in the film which jumped out at me, and which made me think. Years of seeking the moral message in anything I see, read or experience have perhaps attuned me to identifying key moments and messages in films and books, but the fact that this particular phrase was repeated – and emphasised – later in the film gave me the sense that it was not accidental on the part of the writer and director. I would need to read the original book to see if this was Le Carré’s intention from the outset; whether or not it was, and whether or not he explores in greater depth the ambivalences around the behaviour of our intelligence forces as they seek to protect us, the effect of the phrase in the film remains.
The phrase uses a comparative adjective to indicate why the protagonists are doing what they do, and there is a point at which, despite coming from different angles, two key protagonists agree that they do what they do because they are trying to ‘make the world a safer place’. This phrase is especially and tragically relevant in the wake of the dreadful Charlie Hedbdo murders in Paris, and it struck me particularly because for over a decade now, I have spoken out about the role of education in our society as being to try to ‘make the world a better place’. I have two main messages that I give to young people about their education: first, that they owe it to themselves to make the most of this education – to grow, to stretch themselves, to become the best people they can be; secondly (and ultimately), that they are doing this in order to help make the world a better place.
Hearing the same conviction but with a different comparative adjective – and, fictional or not, one imagines this conviction to be held by real-life protagonists in the same field – made me wonder what would happen if we reached out and sought more comparative adjectives to slot into the phrase. What about helping to make the world a fairer place? A healthier place? A more tolerant place? A cleaner place? Different comparative adjectives will resonate with different people; each of us could very probably pick his or her favourite – the one which we find most inspiring and energising.
Just one adjective would suffice, given that none of us can take responsibility for doing everything in life. Think, though, what you could do with a single comparative adjective. If each of us were to commit to a single comparative adjective in the phrase ‘to help make the world a …. place’, just imagine for a moment what could happen. Just think of the change we could make, together.
Pick yours today – and seek to make a positive difference in 2015 and beyond.
