Earlier this week I saw Burn After Reading, the Coen brothers film currently in theaters. There are plenty 
characters in pursuit of happiness, though it’s obvious from the start that no one is going to capture the prize. As in many of the Coens’ comedies, characters driven by some combination of selfishness, misunderstanding, stupidity, or yearning bounce off each other in increasingly outrageous and improbable ways.
Low-level CIA analyst Osbourne Cox, played by John Malkovich, is told he will be eased into a lesser position at the State Department. At once pompous and profane, Cox takes delight at proclaiming his superiority to the morons who surround him. He quits his job in high umbrage and decides to take some time off and write a memoir about his work in the comically misnamed intelligence community. Osbourne’s plan doesn’t sit well with his wife Katie (Tilda Swinton), who already is thinking of leaving him in preference for her lover Harry Pfarrer (George Clooney). She sees a plump and vaguely reptilian divorce attorney, who gives all the right advice about trying to save the marriage but whose smile widens and eyes glint when he details the ways he can make life miserable for Mr. Cox should that become necessary.
Following the attorney’s advice, Katie makes a computer disk of financial records; the disk also happens to include background material for her husband’s book. The disk eventually falls into the hands of two employees at a local fitness center, Linda Litzke (Frances McDormand) and Chad Feldheimer (Brad Pitt), who mistakenly conclude that it contains intelligence secrets. Linda is desperate for money to bankroll a complete remake of herself via cosmetic surgery, so she enlists Chad to help her solicit a reward for the disk’s return. Their efforts turn into attempted blackmail, and, once rebuffed, into an effort to sell the disk to Russian spys. As things start going wrong Linda becomes increasingly frantic, imagining that she and Chad are trapped in a deadly struggle between American and Russian agents. There is deadly menace here, but it comes not from the spy communities but from their own misguided actions.
So, who’s pursuing happiness? Osbourne Cox isn’t particularly interested in happiness, instead being content with misanthropy and alcohol. Katie Cox is after a better mate, though what would make her happy is probably not intimacy or companionship but having someone she can control. In any event, Harry backs away at the prospect that their affair could turn into a serious commitment. He is the hedonist here; he is looking not for a relationship to make him happy but for sex with any woman whom he can manage to bed. One of his conquests happens to be Linda, who is earnest about finding happiness through self-improvement. The improvement she seeks, though, is not psychological, spiritual, or even behavioral, but physical. She’s convinced that a smaller butt and bigger breasts will win her the man of her dreams. It seems impossible, though, that romance could ever bring anything other than momentary contentment to someone so self-absorbed.
The only character who seems the least bit happy is someone who isn’t pursuing it. Pitt’s Chad is serenely clueless. He’s a creature of the moment—chewing gum, sucking a water bottle, or listening to his IPod with intense and rapturous single-mindedness. For him, bliss is living in the moment. In contrast, when he has to make future plans his forehead creases and a pained expression settles on his face. Like the Deltas in Brave New World, he is much better off when others do the thinking and he is left to enjoy life’s simple pleasures in peace. In a film saturated with folly, he’s the only fool who is satisfied.
Life Assays 
September 28, 2008 at 4:22 pm
I have seen previews on television for the film Burn after Reading, and after reading this I think the movie sounds like one that is worth watching. The specific instances that happen in this film are very relatable to real-life events. For the most part, people want to be happy. We think things and do things every day that we hope will bring on positive emotion and happiness. However, the characters in the film are not necessarily trying to make themselves happy off of positive emotion, as you stated. Many of the characters are “self-fashioning” themselves in hopes that this self-fashioning will make them happier people. Cox tries to make his life happier by quitting his job and writing a book, but this obviously wasn’t his idea of happiness before he quit. His wife, Katie, isn’t necessarily self-fashioning herself, but more or less creating a new life for herself that she can manage to control better. Linda wants to change her entire physical self with plastic surgery, so she is dramatically fashioning herself to be something she is not. As we can see, these characters are all trying to become something that they weren’t at the start.
I don’t necessarily think, however, that this idea of self-fashioning is the best way to make yourself happy. It’s shallow and vain and most people will probably end up unhappy because sometimes it’s not entirely possible to change your entire self into something that your not. If people constantly were let down during the process of self-fashioning, this would not produce overall happiness. The film shows us that Chad’s character is happy with the simple things and with not changing who he is; so perhaps the overall idea of the film is to accept things the way they are and to enjoy folly instead of fighting against it.
September 29, 2008 at 8:12 pm
Danele,
You mention the characters engaging in “self-fashioning.” Certainly they do. Of the characters you mention, Linda Lipski is most determined to remake herself, with the chosen instrument of self-fashioning being the plastic surgeon’s knife. The idea that by changing our bodies we remake who we are apparently resonates with a lot of people now–not only surgeons but also gyms, personal trainers, diet programs, and vitamin stores cater to the belief that remaking our bodies also remakes ourselves.
I agree that self-fashioning isn’t a particularly effective way of seeking happiness. The American tradition of self-improvement dates at least to Ben Frankin. As I recall, though, for him the goal was to become more virtuous rather than to be happy. Perhaps that’s a better justification for remaking oneself.