Commentary on Kate & Leopold

by Margaret Auld-Louie

Warning

This commentary gives away all the plot points of the movie. Please watch the movie first before reading this if you don’t want to have the story “ruined” for you. You can rent it at most Blockbuster Video stores or buy it online. I would recommend either watching the movie or reading the detailed movie description below, before reading the other sections. Otherwise, they will not make much sense to you.

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 Table of Contents

Click on a section heading below to go to it.

The value of movies

Kate & Leopold as myth

Finding balance and wholeness—uniting with the animus

Kate & Leopold on modern society

Personal reaction to Kate & Leopold

Movie Synopsis

Detailed movie description

The value of movies

After the tragedy of September 11, 2001, several actors were quoted as saying something to the effect that what they did for a living suddenly seemed trivial and pointless. They felt their work had little meaning, that it was just entertainment and not valuable like saving lives as a firefighter or policeman. It saddened me to hear that because it shows that these actors don’t realize the enormous value of what they do. True, they don’t save physical lives but their work can save people emotionally and spiritually. Great drama speaks to the human spirit; it shows us how to connect with and work with the spiritual forces within us.

I think most people don’t realize the spiritual value of movies because they are looked at as pure entertainment, unless they are “serious” dramas. Even then, movies tend to be interpreted literally, without realizing the deeper meanings that lie hidden within them. These deeper meanings can be seen if movies are viewed as reenactments of myths. People say today that “mythology is dead” but this is not true at all. Mythology is all around us in TV shows, books and movies. Like the ancient myths, the value of the modern myths is not readily apparent. Viewing these stories literally and scientifically misses the inner meaning that they contain.

The inner meaning of mythology and its relevance to our lives has been elucidated by great thinkers such as Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell. The psychologist Carl Jung was a pioneer in understanding the inner workings of the psyche, our inner “Self”, and how this relates to God and spirituality. He saw the drama of the inner psyche played out in mythology, dreams and the stories in the Bible. He coined the term “archetype” to describe the inner transcendent forces that portray universal themes, such as the hero, the virgin, the crone, etc. Today that term has become commonplace in our language. What has not become as commonplace is Jung’s way of interpreting the stories he encountered to illuminate their inner meaning.

There are outstanding Jungian psychologists who have carried on his work and brought further clarity to mythology, drama, fairy tales, Bible stories, etc. They less often look at stories from modern culture—movies, TV shows and books, which haven’t yet stood the test of time and proven themselves as “classics”. Most of these modern stories don’t have the depth and richness of classical stories. Yet, they still are valuable for teaching us the inner workings of the psyche. The value of these “modern myths” is that they speak to us in our own cultural language. We don’t have to undertake a scholarly study of past cultures to understand them, like we do with myths from other times and cultures.

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Kate & Leopold as myth

Good movies are translations of ancient myths into our current culture. As such, they can help us understand the inner workings of the psyche and how to deal with these inner aspects. It is not just the “serious” dramas that are valuable but the well-done comedies as well. One comedy that deeply touched me as I realized what it symbolized was the movie Kate & Leopold, which was released in December of 2001. Though not a box office smash nor an outstanding movie, it featured some very clever writing, good directing and excellent acting by all the principal actors. Thus, it was successful at bringing mythology to life and speaking to the heart and soul.

The critics looked at the movie literally, tearing it apart for its historical inaccuracy, such as Leopold knowing of things that didn’t exist in 1876. The director’s response to this is that he was not trying to portray a specific historical time but rather a “fantasy time” in the past, so he was not concerned with accuracy. The director’s intent was to create a romance, rather than focus on the scientific, time-travel aspect of the story.

Other critics pointed out that it made little sense for Leopold to be so uninterested in exploring the marvelous technology of 2001 or for Kate to give up her career success to go back to 1876. If one looks at the movie literally, this is true. However, if one looks at it as romantic myth which also addresses the difference between cultures, then the movie can be better understood and appreciated. Unfortunately in our literal, scientific-minded society, it can be difficult to step out of that mindset and look at something from a non-literal, mythological point of view. But once one does that, movies become more enjoyable and speak to our heart and soul.

A love story, taken literally, shows the characters finding someone outside themselves who completes them, thus perpetuating the imbalance inside. When perceived by the viewer as a literal story, the tendency is perpetuated in the viewer as well. But when understood mythically, as an interplay of archetypes, the love story teaches us about the union of the inner masculine and feminine. Viewed mythologically, Kate & Leopold dramatizes the union of a woman with the inner masculine, or what Jung called the “animus”. This union brings strength, love and meaning to a woman’s life. (In a man, the union would be with the inner feminine or “anima”.)

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Finding balance and wholeness—uniting with the animus

The lead character, Kate, is a skeptical, literal-minded business woman with no room for romance in her heart. As a result of this imbalance, she is desperately unhappy and during the course of the story she comes back into balance. In Jungian terms, Kate represents the ego that is cut off from the transcendent, from God, from the archetypes. Life is drudgery for her, she feels she has to do everything on her own and it has worn her out. Her psyche is unbalanced towards the masculine, outer-directed side with no compensating feminine, nurturing side. Kate is a successful businesswoman, “a rising star”, but she is not happy, not fulfilled emotionally or spiritually. Her work doesn’t bring her any joy or meaning. She admits to peddling “pond scum”, as accused by Leopold, but feels she has no choice in the matter. Kate’s one-sidedness, the fact that she feels she has to act like a man to take care of herself becomes evident as the movie progresses. She dresses for work in dark, masculine pants with a no-nonsense shirt and jacket. When she is mugged, instead of asking for help she goes running after the mugger to get her purse back. At work, her boss even tells her that she’s not like other women, “not really one of them”, that she “skews male”. To him that is an asset, a sad commentary on what our society and workplace demands of women to be successful. He rewards that one-sided behavior by promoting her to replace him as head of the New York office, at the end of the movie.

Leopold represents the inner transcendent masculine or positive animus that can bring hope, life and love to the woman, which provides inner support and guides her in following her inner truth. Without connection to him, life is empty and meaningless drudgery. The archetypal nature of Leopold is clear by his origins—he comes from the past and is a duke, a member of the nobility. Oftentimes, royalty is used in a story to represent an archetype. The archetypes are timeless and have existed throughout history, as is shown by having Leopold come from another time. Another clue to Leopold’s archetypal nature is the scene where he is successfully taming Stuart’s unruly dog. Animals often represent the instincts as well as inner transcendent forces; therefore, Leopold’s ability to tame an animal shows his affinity with it.

Leopold is also an inventor, signifying that one of the functions of the animus is to supply creativity. He has no way to realize his potential and no potential mate who is his equal, showing that the animus is not yet conscious. He needs to be known by someone (the ego) who can honor what he offers and give him a means for expressing it. For the inner, transcendent archetypes to manifest in the world, the ego must form a partnership with them and work with them. God needs man to become fully conscious, to become realized. This is shown at the beginning of the movie when Leopold is loveless and unhappy. He has not found the counterpart that can help him to express who he is, to exert his masculine force. He is unrealized in the world.

For Kate to find wholeness, she will need to open up to and unite with the animus. After giving up on chasing the mugger, Kate is astounded when Leopold comes galloping after her on a horse (the knight on the white horse), picks her up and races after the mugger, retrieving her purse. Her world view is so shaken up she sits in shock in the carriage afterwards, her mind reeling with what Leopold has done for her. This jars Kate into beginning to open to this transcendent force that can rescue her from the mundane. Another force that pushes Kate to open up to Leopold is her dreamy, romantic assistant, Darci (whose name is similar to the romantic male lead, Darcy, in the masterpiece Pride & Prejudice, by Jane Austen). She represents an inner, balancing factor that helps Kate to believe in romance and begin to open up to Leopold. Darci persuades Kate to quit being so skeptical and have dinner with Leopold. During the dinner, for the first time, Kate begins to willingly open up to her feminine side. She unwillingly experienced it earlier when Leopold rescued her purse from the mugger. She is starting to step into a more feminine role as she puts on the beautiful dress and allows Leopold to court her with a gorgeous rooftop dinner. Leopold is able to break through her barrier of fear with his gentleness, courtly manners and the joy of dancing. This teaches us something about how to deal with fear appropriately—that it does no good to either push it down or criticize it to make it go away. And in the case of joining with the transcendent, it is appropriate to have fear, since we can be consumed by archetypes if not careful.

The rooftop dinner scene also shows the emptiness of Leopold and that he needs Kate to make him complete. Internally, this would show that the animus, or God, needs us, to become fully conscious, to be able to express in the world. When the animus is unconscious, it ends up being projected onto others in the outside world. This is represented in a humorous way by Leopold being displaced to 2001. He has difficulty functioning outside of his element, people don’t believe who he is and elevators have stopped working. Perhaps this also means that it is harder to move between different levels of consciousness when the archetypes are out of their proper place. They belong inside us rather than projected outside.

The hidden drawer where Leopold keeps his mother’s ring shows that the animus keeps hidden great treasures in the psyche and in this case, great feminine treasures. So the value of the animus becomes more apparent here, as a force that sincerely loves the ego when it is approached with love, provides caring and nurturing for the ego and provides hidden treasures of great value. These treasures become available as one develops an active relationship with the animus. The look of astonishment on Kate’s face when she sees Leopold open the hidden drawer shows that the process of opening up to and believing in Leopold is still continuing and is not an easy journey.

Near the end of the movie, Kate thinks she has lost Leopold and is cut off from him forever. He has returned to the past, so the “projection” of the animus outside has been withdrawn and it has to be sought inside to become whole. The animus has “gone home” to where it belongs. The ego now needs to join with it internally and this is represented by Kate going back in time to unite with Leopold. Kate is still having difficulty believing in who Leopold is and asks Stuart to explain in scientific terms how she could possibly be in photographs of the past. But in the end she manages to take a “leap of faith”. It takes great faith to give up the illusion of control that the ego has and open up to union with the inner transcendent force. The ego must surrender control and “leap off the bridge” to join internally with the animus. As the story shows, it is like leaping off a bridge into the unknown. To the ego that wants to be in control, this is akin to suicide. But the union will lead to wholeness, to balance, instead of one-sidedness. This is illustrated in the movie by Kate having to balance her way across the highway girder before leaping off the bridge. Wholeness is now possible, for both the ego and the animus. They both need each other to be fully realized. We see here that when the ego approaches the animus openly, sincerely, with love, that the animus responds in kind and both are fulfilled.

Picture © 2001 Miramax Films. All Rights Reserved.

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