Class Paper -- The Passenger / Il Postino: A Theme of Identity

The Passenger/Il Postino: A Theme of Identity
Italian 454
May 7, 2012


Both the film The Passenger (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1975) and Il Postino (Michael Radford, 1994) contained a similar theme. They each tell a story of a person who undergoes a change in Personal Identity. The films both ask the question: “What is Personal Identity and how can it be changed?”

The Passenger:

In the film The Passenger, its main character, David Locke, decides to escape his own life, by stealing an identity. He does this by exchanging passport pictures and wearing a dead stranger’s clothing. The stranger’s appointment book then becomes David’s guidebook for living.

By switching places with the stranger, we know David wanted to change his life. But how could he have hoped to magically achieve this without changing his own method of experiencing life?

The British philosopher John Locke (1632-1704) is known for his “Theory of Personal Identity,” which states our minds are blank slates when we are born. He believed knowledge is determined by experience. He wrote:

“What then, can grown men never be improved or enlarged in their understandings? I say not so, but this I think I may say, that it will not be done without industry and application, which will require more time and pains than grown men, settled in their course of life, will allow to it, and therefore very seldom is done. And this very capacity of attaining it by use and exercise only brings us back to that which I laid down before, that it is only practice that improves our minds as well as bodies, and we must expect nothing from our understandings any further than they are perfected by habits.”

A contemporary researcher, Paul T. Costa, Jr., PhD, the co-author of Personality in Adulthood, Second Edition: A Five-Factor Theory Perspective (Oct 19, 2005) was quoted in the New York Times in 2009.

''I see no evidence for specific changes in personality due to age,'' said the researcher, Paul T. Costa Jr. ''What changes as you go through life are your roles and the issues that matter most to you. People may think their personality has changed as they age, but it is their habits that change, their vigor and health, their responsibilities and circumstances - not their basic personality.''

In the film, David Locke was merely “role-playing” as he attempted to live someone else’s life. The Oxford English Dictionary defines role-playing as “the changing of one’s behavior to fulfill a social role.” He lived that false life, drifting rudderlessly, without ambition or planning. For this reason, David Locke, at the convergence of two mis-lead lives, his own and the stranger’s, met his death without resistance. His own underlying personality had never engaged in either life. As himself, or in the stranger’s life, he was not willing to fully participate in living nor to practice new skills, in order to improve his personal circumstances. He had carried his own Personal Identity into the stranger’s life and for this reason his character was labeled “The Passenger.”

Il Postino:

In the film Il Postino, we see the small town postman Mario Ruoppolo, awaken from being a simple, marginally educated man and transform himself into a more well-rounded, whole person. Mario is befriended and nurtured by the exiled Chilean poet Pablo Neruda. Under Neruda’s influence, Mario’s hidden talents and capabilities emerge and mature. This maturation took place because Mario was a willing participant in his own life.

At the beginning of their relationship, this dialog sets up the role of teacher and willing student:

     Neruda: It's unfair of you to shower me with similes and metaphors.

     Mario: Don Pablo?

     Mario: Metaphors.

     Mario: What are those?

     Neruda: Metaphors?

     Neruda: Metaphors are--

     Neruda: How can I explain?

     Neruda: When you talk of something, comparing it to another.

     Mario: Is it something...you use in poetry?

     Neruda: Yes, that too.

     Mario: For example?

     Neruda: when you say, ''the sky weeps, what do you mean?

     Mario: That it's raining.

     Neruda: Yes, very good.

     Neruda: - That's a metaphor.

     Mario: - It's easy then!



In the same conversation, Neruda says: “Better than any explanation, is the experience of feelings that poetry can reveal to a nature open enough to understand it.” This statement underscores Personal Identity as one of the themes of the film: Mario is open to learning and ready to experience something new. His personality will not change, but his Personal Identity will grow. Instead of merely being in awe of Neruda, Mario is eager to pursue his own path which will in turn change his own life. He becomes more aware of his self-potential and sets out to pursue new goals.



     Mario: How do you become a poet?

     Neruda: Try and walk slowly along the shore as far as the bay, and look around you.

     Mario: And will they come to me, these metaphors?

     Neruda: Certainly.



Mario concludes the film by acknowledging Neruda’s influence and he tells us these changes weren’t easy, but they made him happy.

     I wrote this poem “Song for Pablo Neruda.''

     Even if it's about the sea... it's dedicated to you.

     If you hadn't come into my life, I never would have written it.

     I've been invited to read it in public.

     And even though I know my voice will shake, I'll be happy

These few lines from Neruda’s poem, “We are Many” shows the real Pablo Neruda also gave some thought to the topic of different selves which make up Personal Identity.

     Of the many men whom I am, whom we are,

     I cannot settle on a single one.

     They are lost to me under the cover of clothing

     They have departed for another city.



     When everything seems to be set

     to show me off as a man of intelligence,

     the fool I keep concealed on my person

     takes over my talk and occupies my mouth.



In conclusion, Personal Identity does not change, however it does contain many layers of self, each part ready to be developed and brought out into the life of its owner. We each have our own unique Personal Identity, which should be utilized to its fullest potential. Our life path can be altered with effort, practice, good habits and a bit of good luck. We should not be merely “passengers” on our life’s journey.