Who Knows What the Tide Could Bring?

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"We both had done the math. Kelly added it all up and knew she had to let me go. I added it up and knew that I had lost her. 'Cause I was never gonna get off that island. I was gonna die there, totally alone. I was gonna get sick or get injured or something. The only choice I had, the only thing I could control was when and how and where it was going to happen. So I made a rope, and I went up to the summit to hang myself. I had to test it, you know? Of course. You know me. And the weight of the log snapped the limb of the tree, so I couldn't even kill myself the way I wanted to. I had power over nothing, and that's when this feeling came over me like a warm blanket. I knew, somehow, that I had to stay alive. Somehow. I had to keep breathing. Even though there was no reason to hope and all my logic said that I would never see this place again. So that's what I did. I stayed alive. I kept breathing. And one day my logic was proven all wrong because the tide came in and gave me a sail. And now here I am. I'm back. In Memphis, talking to you. I have ice in my glass. And I've lost her all over again. I'm so sad that I don't have Kelly. But I'm so grateful that she was with me on that island. And I know what I have to do now. I gotta keep breathing. Because tomorrow the sun will rise. Who knows what the tide could bring?"

Chuck (Tom Hanks)

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If the general story of "Cast Away," which premiered 15 years ago today, seemed familiar to you, it should have. It was based on a poem ("Enoch Arden") that was written more than 150 years ago by Alfred, Lord Tennyson when he was England's poet laureate.

It served as the basis for a number of movie projects long before "Cast Away," which premiered on this day in 2000, was made. In the silent era, D.W. Griffith made a film called "Enoch Arden," as did Christy Cabanne. An Australian movie named "The Bushwackers" was made in the 1920s.

Then, after talkies had been around for about a decade, Cary Grant and Irene Dunne appeared together in a movie called "My Favorite Wife" in 1940, which was being remade with Marilyn Monroe and Dean Martin as "Something's Got to Give" in the months before Monroe's death in 1962. When that project was canceled, a remake was made with Doris Day and James Garner called "Move Over, Darling."

Another movie from 1940, "Too Many Husbands," starred Jean Arthur and Fred MacMurray. It was remade more than a decade later as "Three for the Show" with Jack Lemmon and Betty Grable.

And 1946's "Tomorrow Is Forever" starred Claudette Colbert and Orson Welles — and was the first credited film appearance for Natalie Wood.

All those movies were inspired by Alfred, Lord Tennyson's poem, which was about a fisherman who went to sea and was shipwrecked. He was missing for 10 years, then was rescued, only to find upon his return that his wife (and presumed widow) had married his childhood friend, with whom she had had a child. Not wishing to spoil her happiness, he never revealed his identity to her and died of a broken heart.

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Each adaptation had different circumstances — and, in some, it was the wife, not the husband, who was marooned on an island — but it was basically the same story — a significant other was missing and presumed dead.

The story usually picked up after that significant other had been rescued, but "Cast Away" was different. The viewers followed Chuck (Tom Hanks), a FedEx employee whose plane went down in a storm, through his years of isolation on an uncharted island.

The audience had no idea what had become of Chuck's girlfriend, Kelly (Helen Hunt), until he was rescued and brought back to Memphis (which, for those of you who do not know, is the base city for FedEx). It was then he learned that Kelly had married someone else after she had given up all hope of finding him alive. It wasn't a childhood friend. It was Chuck's dentist.

Hanks was nominated for Best Actor, which I thought was appropriate, and he lost, which I didn't necessarily think was appropriate. I thought Hunt deserved a nomination as well — not for Best Actress, because she didn't have nearly enough screen time for that, but as Best Supporting Actress (hey, if Beatrice Straight could win for five minutes of screen time in "Network," why not Hunt?). Her part was important to the beginning and the end of the story.

Of course, Hunt won Best Actress for her work in "As Good As It Gets," and she got a Best Supporting Actress nod for "The Sessions." Many actresses would consider their careers successful if they had those to put on their resumes, and I don't doubt that Hunt is proud of her career, but I have felt strongly about this for a long time now. I really believe she deserved a nomination for "Cast Away."

"I always knew you were alive," she told Chuck when they were reunited. "I knew it. And everybody said that I had to quit saying that, that I had to let you go."

Then she said the words every person would like to hear from another: "I love you. You're the love of my life."

And Chuck replied, "I love you, too, Kelly. More than you'll ever know."

When I saw her deliver this line the first time, I wished the movie had given some attention to what was going on in what had to have been a frantic search for Chuck. That must have been a poignant story. We saw Chuck's transformation from a clock–driven courier to man isolated on an uncharted island where time was, by and large, irrelevant. But we didn't see the emotional roller–coaster ride Kelly's character must have gone through in the search for evidence of what had become of Chuck.

We only got hints of what it must have been like for Hunt's character, first from her husband when he came to Hanks' welcome–home rally and then from Hunt herself.

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That part of it was never really explored in those other movies I mentioned, either. That was a missed opportunity.

Bernstein's Curtain Call

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It was on this day in 1990 that the great American conductor/composer Leonard Bernstein conducted his final performance, concluding the concert with Beethoven's Symphony No. 7.

Bernstein was nearly 72 — in fact, his birthday was six days later — and he had been suffering from emphysema since his 50s. During the performance of Beethoven's Seventh, he had a coughing seizure that was so severe it nearly brought the performance to a premature end. He persevered, though, and Deutsche Grammophon later released the concert on CD.

If you know much about Bernstein, you will probably agree that was probably an appropriate way for him to retire.

The selection of a Beethoven symphony, for example, was appropriate. In the 1980s, Bernstein was the conductor and commentator for a PBS series on Beethoven's music. The series featured the Vienna Philharmonic playing all of the Beethoven symphonies, and it probably did its part to link Bernstein's name with Beethoven's in the public mind.

That was fitting. Beethoven was one of the composers Bernstein admired most.

When I say it was an appropriate conclusion to his career, though, I am thinking also about how his career began. His father was a businessman who originally opposed his son's interest in music, but he often took his son to orchestra concerts. Ultimately — and perhaps in spite of his own misgivings — he did not stand in the way of his son pursuing a career in music.

I am reminded of what Dan Fogelberg wrote so eloquently in his musical tribute to his own father: "I thank you for the freedom when it came my time to go."

Bernstein may well have faced other obstacles as he followed his star — most people do. But he was not deterred. And, because of that, the world was not deprived of his brilliance.

It reminds me of a poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson. I ask you to indulge me for a minute or two while I share it with you:

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"It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: all times I have enjoy'd
Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea: I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honour'd of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untravell'd world, whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!
As tho' to breathe were life. Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge, like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.
This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle
Well–loved of me, discerning to fulfil
This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.
There lies the port: the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads — you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."

Alfred Lord Tennyson
"Ulysses"

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I've been thinking about this poem a lot lately. And I think what it is trying to say is that it may be tempting to play it safe, but we never feel quite as vibrant and alive — even if we are in our 70s, as Bernstein was, or the aging king of whom Tennyson wrote — as we feel when we take a chance.

Perhaps that sensation of being truly alive comes from following the path we were destined to follow. Sadly, some people never discover what they were intended to do. Others do, but they take a different path because they think it will be more lucrative, even if it is not more satisfying for their souls.

Both, it seems to me, do a disservice to those people and the higher power that created them.

"That which we are, we are," Tennyson wrote.

Bernstein was no "idle king." And he did not remain idled in retirement for long. He died of pneumonia less than two months after his last concert.

How I wish I could have been in the audience when he made his final journey 19 years ago tonight.