It’s fairly ironic that someone who embodies gentlemanly etiquette likeAnthony Hopkinswould reach the peak of his career by playing a cannibal.His performance as Hannibal LecterinThe Silence of the Lambsis the kind that feels brand new every time you watch it, and it hasn’t lost an ounce of its extraterrestrial charm. Every choice he makes about Lecter is pristinely curated, with its individual elements combining to form an uncanny valley effect in its missing humanity. Hopkins may have received numerous accolades for this role, but it wasn’t his most challenging depiction of someone with a tragic lack of humanity. That honor would go toRemains of the Day, in whichHopkins gave a technically masterful performance in a scathing yet somber character studyof a man who has divorced himself from everything he cared most about.
What Is ‘Remains of the Day’ About?
Stevens (Hopkins) is the head butler of Darlington Hall in pre-WWII1930s England, wherehe rigidly follows the code and conduct of his profession to the letter. His entire identity is wrapped up in his devotion to his life’s calling, but he finds that devotion increasingly tested in different directions. His boss, the Earl of Darlington (James Fox), has gotten all too cozy with the rising GermanNazi party, courting their approval through appeasement in an attempt to control their mounting power. Stevens knows that this is wrong, but doesn’t question it or push back, due to his social position and his belief in what’s expected of him.
He also finds himself deeply attracted to Miss Kenton (Emma Thompson), a housekeeper who clearly reciprocates his feelings and intentionally provokes him, which he continues to demurely push away,considering it too improper to acknowledge anything that he feels inside. While little happens in terms of a conventional dramatic plot,Remains of the Dayderives its power from its intimate examination of the cost of burying what you truly want in favor of what you think you should need.
Anthony Hopkins Gives a Small Performance With Big Impact
Stevens' life is one of great personal tragedy, committing a constant erasure of his individual identity for the sake of a philosophy that never cared about him.Anthony Hopkins' performance has a brutality in its refined demeanor, in which he enforces a filter over every little gesture and emotion he allows himself to have. Akinto watching a pod persontry to wake back up when it’s already too late, Hopkins takes gentility and respectability and turns them into a thousand little paper cuts that bleed out his soul.
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Since it lacks an overt demonstrability, it’s in the little microexpressions he has, like how his lip curls when he smiles, or the way his voice falters when he’s caught off guard, that most effectively communicates the internal struggle that he forces upon himself.Hopkins has always been a master of using rhythm and diction to speak between the lines of the dialogue,even in his 80s when he wonhis shocking second Oscar, and his speech patterns and eyes are often the only way you can get any real insight into what’s really going on in Stevens' head. It’s a meticulous and shorn-down performance that asks Hopkins to recede in front of our eyes in embarrassment he doesn’t deserve, leaving you yearning to hug him and tell him to finally live his life.
Stevens Is Harder to Pull Off Than Hannibal Lecter
Hopkins was nominated for Best Actor for this film, and even though he didn’t win it (Tom Hankswon forPhiladelphia), I would argue thatit’s a more technically impressive performance than his work as Hannibal Lecter. Lecter is a gift-wrapped role, one that guarantees he’ll win every scene by being the primary focal point, an outsized personality who dominates the film despite barely being on-screen. Hopkins makes so many big “choices” in Lecter’s psychology, fromhis infamous voiceto his rigid body language to his improvisational flourishes, while everything about Stevens is trying to be hidden and kept secret from us.
While both characters remain stuck in your mind, Lecter does so in ways that are meant to disturb us out of lack of empathy, but Stevens does so by forcing us to recognize how we’ve all shrunk away from things we should have done.Lecter is more of a “movie character” conjured out of our nightmares, while Stevens is just a mortal human, one whose weaknesses and delusions are made punishing by how mundane they are. To some extent, it’s a matter of taste and whether you respond more to the big “showy” acting that plays more to Oscar voters or to the kind of intricate naturalism that is best maximized in front of a film camera, capturing the intangible qualities that can only be seen on a big screen. Hannibal Lecter is the onerightfully enshrined in film history as an icon, but Anthony Hopkins' turn as Stevens is trickier to pull off, and one more indicative of Hopkins' enormous acting legacy.
The Remains of the Day
A butler who sacrificed body and soul to service in the years leading up to World War II realizes too late how misguided his loyalty was to his lordly employer.
