“The mass of men lead lives of
quiet desperation,” Henry Thoreau once wrote, and there was a time when I led such
a life. I vividly recall sitting in my office once many years ago, working at a
job that had nothing to do with who I was or wanted to be, and suddenly being
so overwhelmed by the panicky realization that I was wasting my life, that I had
the distinct sensation I was bursting out of my skin.
I changed direction after that,
but untold numbers of others before and since came to a similar epiphany too
late, and passed their remaining days wrestling with regret for a soul-numbing,
unfulfilled life. Who among them wouldn’t have jumped at the opportunity to turn
back the clock, be free of the trap they built for themselves, and get a fresh
start, a second chance?
Last Tuesday the Criterion
Collection released the DVD and Blu-ray of director John Frankenheimer’s Seconds, a 1966 cautionary tale which spins
that yearning into a Twilight Zone-style,
existential nightmare. It starred the hunky Rock Hudson, of all people – Hollywood’s
beloved leading man at the time, more commonly associated with tame romantic
comedies – in perhaps the most daring role of his career (he shared the film’s
lead role with familiar, older character actor John Randolph).
Warning: MILD SPOILERS AHEAD
Presented with the same
opportunity, Hamilton follows in Charlie’s footsteps; the Company arranges his “death”
and he is transformed by plastic surgery into the younger, dashing Tony Wilson,
played by Hudson.
Hudson is Hamilton’s “second,” a “reborn”
with a fresh identity as a moderately successful painter with a Malibu beach
house. But the restless Hamilton never embraces living this comfortable lie.
“Somewhere in the man,” says his young new girlfriend, “there is still a key
unturned.” Once he discovers the shocking truth that others in his Malibu artist
community are reborns like him, he goes back to the Company for another
go-round, a better fit.
He ends up in a Purgatory-like waiting
room where he encounters Charlie, who is himself waiting for another turn. It
seems Charlie’s rebirth wasn’t all it had cracked up to be. Hudson explains to his
commiserating friend what drove him to accept the Company’s offer in the first
place: “The years I spent trying to get all the things that I was told were
important, that I was supposed to want. Things – not people or meaning, but
things.”
Hudson is optimistic that this time he’ll get life right. This time he won’t simply exist – he’ll live a fully authentic life. But when his
name is finally called in the waiting room, he learns to his horror that he has
run out of second chances. You half-expect Rod Serling to step into camera to
add a darkly poetic moral to the tale, something about being careful what we
wish for, or making the most of the one life we’re given.
The L.A. Times called
Seconds “an uncompromising critique
of modern life,” “a relevant dissection of consumerism and conformity, and a
blistering portrayal of freedom.” Our awareness today that the secretly gay
Hudson was leading a double life up until his final weeks on earth (he died of
HIV-related complications in 1985) lends an extra layer of power and poignancy
to this film about authenticity and fulfillment.
It’s human nature to see the grass as greener on the other side, to yearn
for a do-over to reverse our failures, missteps and regrets. But as Arthur
Hamilton learned the hard way, we are who we are and this is the life we have.
Thankfully, every morning we are
given a second chance – to pick ourselves up, recommit to fulfilling the
potential of our most authentic selves, and give meaning to our lives through
purpose. Every morning is a new opportunity to live in such a way that – as
Tony’s girlfriend put it – we don’t leave that key inside us unturned.
(This article originally appeared here on Acculturated, 8/22/13)
