"Scent of a Woman"—After 34 Years of Watching, I Finally Understand "Integrity" (Part 1)

There are only one or two films in my life that I would choose above all others.
That is the 1992 film "Scent of a Woman."

It is known as the film for which Al Pacino won the Academy Award for Best Actor, but the reason it is unforgettable to me is neither the Best Actor award nor the famous tango scene.

It is that speech delivered in the auditorium of a prestigious boarding school at the end of the film.
I have never known a film that depicts "how one should live" as directly as those ten-plus minutes. For over thirty years since I first saw it, whenever I have felt lost in life, I have returned to watch this film.

And each time, I make new discoveries.

In fact, there is a special reason why this film is unique to me.
I was living in New York when the film was released.
Therefore, this film is not a story on the other side of the screen.
It is a film that overlaps with my own life.

I was inside that movie.

Many of the landscapes that appear in the film were part of my daily life.

The lobby of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel.
The small bar at the Hotel Pierre.
The alley on the east side of the River Café in Brooklyn.
Port Washington on Long Island.

The bar at the Pierre was my favorite place, as quiet as if the hustle and bustle of Midtown were a lie. I often drank gin and tonics there after work.

I once had a lunch meeting with my boss at the River Café. When you step out onto the terrace, the Manhattan skyline spreads out before you. The photos I took back then still show the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center.

The road where Lieutenant Colonel Frank drove the red Ferrari was just behind the River Café.

Sands Point, the setting for the final part of the film, was right near the golf course I often played at back then.

That is why I have a strange feeling every time I watch this film.
I am not just watching a movie.

I am returning to the New York of those days.
And every time I see the image of the Twin Towers, which are now lost, I quietly feel the passage of time.

"Integrity"

The climax of the film.

The blind veteran, Lieutenant Colonel Frank Slade, stands at the podium to protect a boy named Charlie.

Charlie refused the temptation that his future would be guaranteed if he snitched on his friends. Frank shouts with a passion that borders on anger.

"He is not the kind of person who would sell someone out to buy his own future."
And he says that everyone reaches a crossroads in life.

You know which path is the right one.
But that path is difficult.It's too damn hard.

That is why people choose the easy path.
They choose self-preservation.
They choose personal gain.

But Charlie was different.

He might lose his future.
He might lose his scholarship.
Even so, he did not sell his soul.
And Frank says quietly:

His soul is intact.
When I first heard those words, I was speechless.

Words I have thought about for twenty years

Actually, I wrote an article about "integrity" nearly twenty years ago.

Is it "sincerity"?
Is it "nobility"?
Is it "aspiration"?

Or is it a balance of "ethics," "ability," and "ambition"?
I have been searching for the answer all this time.

At that time, I remembered Yukichi Fukuzawa's "An Encouragement of Learning."
In Chapter 12, it states, "A person's conduct must be noble."
Furthermore, in Chapter 5, it continues:

"It lies in the single act of comparing the state of things, aiming for the higher path, and never being satisfied with oneself."

When I was young, I thought, "This must be integrity."
However, now that I am older and have watched this movie many times, I think:
Perhaps integrity is something much simpler.

Integrity isnot selling one's soul.

Now, I believe that is enough.

Twenty or thirty years ago, I was trying to "define" integrity.

But now it is different.
I feel that this one line from the movie speaks more to the essence than any definition.

Integrity is not something to be explained.
It is a way of life itself.

However, that is not all this movie taught me. There was another theme hidden in that speech—one I have been thinking about for many years through my work in consulting.

When I was young, I did not understand the weight of these words.
But now I do.

What Lieutenant Colonel Frank was talking about was not education in the narrow sense of schooling.

Cultivating men of character.
The making of men.

When I was young, I thought this phrase was about "educational theory."
But now, as I approach seventy, I have finally realized it meant something else.

What Lieutenant Colonel Frank was talking about was not school education.

What does it mean to cultivate a person?
And what, in the end, was the work I have been doing for over forty years?

In the second part, I would like to write about that.

To be continued in Part 2