Can Someone Please Help Me Understand "Finishing The Hat"?

[RentBoy86]

Posted: 7/24/07 at 12:57am

Sunday in the Park With George is one of my favorite musicals, but I have NEVER understood the point of "Finishing the Hat." I know art is open to interpretation, but I don't know where to start. I'm just not sure what the point of the song is? It's a beautiful song, but I'm just at a lost. Is it about how he can't move on with his life? How he can't let things go? How he puts art before anyone else?

[ljay889]

Posted: 7/24/07 at 1:01am

For ME. It has to do with George coming to terms with the fact he lost Dot. But he's too involved with his work to really ponder on it. So instead of mourning over losing Dot; he keeps painting and keeps missing out.

Others might see it completely different.
Updated On: 7/24/07 at 01:01 AM

[brdlwyr]

Posted: 7/24/07 at 1:04am

He tells Dot, "You will be in this picture." She discounts that. That is brutal! The painting is his work and his art.

"Point" of the song, that is funny!

[Roninjoey]

Posted: 7/24/07 at 1:08am

It's pretty straightforward. He views the world through a window while he finishes the hat. He can't help but see the world from a remove, and his art is the only thing that seems truly important and immediate. Still, there's this girl who he likes quite a bit, but he understands why she has left him--even appreciates her motivations, but still is left quite unhappy (George is a selfish creature).

In a way I think George is expecting himself to eventually be satisfied with his art and then be ready to join the real world, but he knows that the woman he wants won't wait for him. All the same, he gives what he gives, and the former is just a personal lie anyway.

He keeps falling back into this monotonous, almost mechanical attention to his painting, but can't help to occasionally peer up from the canvass and see the real world. Then it's back to the hat.

[brdlwyr]

Posted: 7/24/07 at 1:27am

George loves Dot. He paints. It is his talent and passion. Dot goes to the follies. He has to finish the hat, because that is his job to finish the hat. He does not lie.

RJ, I love your version also!

[sondhead]

Posted: 7/24/07 at 1:45am

"It's pretty straightforward. "

Ya..

It's not near as "deeper weird meaning behind the words" as its title might lead you to assume. Just remember that "finishing the hat" is his way of saying he is obsessed with his art. Other than that, it's pretty straightforward.

[Jon]

Posted: 7/24/07 at 5:51am

I think the song is also partially about George not wanting to face the real world, and using his art to create an artificial world that pleases him more than reality. "Look - I made a hat - where there never was a hat!" Rather than trying to paint a hat that resembles reality, he is painting something that only exists in his imagination.

[SeanMartin]

Posted: 7/24/07 at 6:32am

One more thing to add into all this:

It's a song about obsession. And it's the kind of obsession that ruins him personally while rewarding him professionally.

And how many people do we know like that?

[sweetestsiren]

Posted: 7/24/07 at 6:44am

I think that Roninjoey's interpretation would be closest to mine. But in addition to the sadness of losing Dot, the song is also about the pure joy that George feels in creating something new. He knows that looking at the world the way he does is detached and unhappy, but when the song's performed well, there should also be this elation at being wrapped up his painting. And that keeps being interrupted by his regrets about Dot, but in the end, it's clear that he's made the only choice he can, which makes the song so sad to me.

[artscallion]

Posted: 7/24/07 at 7:58am

Jon, I agree with you on the importance of that particular line. But we differ in our interpretations.

Sweetest, I agree. It has to be about the joy as well. I'm a painter and, while the whole song moves me, that one line, "look I made a hat, where there never was a hat" is the one that always moves me to tears. He's saying, "yeah, all that sad, pathetic, tragic stuff I just sang is true, but look! Look what I did! Look what came out of it! That wasn't there before. It's new!!"

I think many artists have a kind of God complex. It's the "creation" aspect of art that drives them. It's a powerful feeling to make something out of nothing. George sees, and regrets, the price he pays. But he knows that, compared to the feeling he gets from painting, he has no choice.

This song explains to the audience "why" he treats Dot the way he does.

Updated On: 7/24/07 at 07:58 AM

[sweetestsiren]

Posted: 7/24/07 at 9:29am

I had actually typed the, "Look, I made a hat!" line to reference that feeling, but I wasn't sure exactly how to put it. Looks like someone else did it for me, and I agree completely.

[Ourtime992]

Posted: 7/24/07 at 12:51pm

There is one line that hasn't been mentioned yet that speaks volumes to me:

"The woman who won't wait for you knows that however you live there's a part of you always standing by, mapping out the sky, finishing a hat, starting on a hat..."

George is saying that Dot matters a great deal to him, but his work has always come first, because even when he's with her part of his mind will always be creating. I think he feels like it's his destiny to create, something out of his control. He's also saying that, as much as Dot's leaving hurts him, he believes she always knew that it would be that way.

And when he finishes this painting, there will be another, and another. As long as he lives he will be an artist, and in some way, his obsession with his art means that he will never feel free to love without reservation.

The whole song is the process of him rationalizing and coming to terms with that fact.

[ashbash1990]

Posted: 7/24/07 at 12:55pm

I think George is coing to terms with Dot leaving him, and why in the end she didn't understand about his need to create.

"Look, I made a hat! where there never was a hat!"

[kelzama]

Posted: 7/24/07 at 12:58pm

OCD, clearly.

[wickedrentq]

Posted: 7/24/07 at 1:02pm

The Look I made a hat line is my favorite part of the song too...

You guys brought up a lot of interesting points. It is the first time in the show, he acknowledges any feelings for Dot, any upsetness/remorse for her leaving him. But then as Sean pointed out, he is immediately pulled back into his world of obsessive creativity.

He then sings about the two sides of being an artist: having to be remote from the outside world, but then sings about the passion of planning a sky.

It's definitely also about his preference for his artistic world of tranquility from the outside world, a point that is perfectly brought back in "Sunday." He sees both worlds, but accepts that his preference will lie with ihs own world of creativity before the warm world of human emotion. He also mentions that the only woman who could keep him in this real world is not the kind that will tolerate and wait around for him--Dot. The two worlds are referred to in the song: "Studying the hat/Enterting the world of the hat/Reaching through the world of the hat/Like a window/Back to this one from that." Back to this one from that is referring to both worlds.

And near the end of the song, George reconciles himself to the loss of Dot, recognizing that his world of creativity will always come before the world of human emotion, so he is incapable of giving himself to another human like Dot, and the childlike delight of look I made a hat is his being satisfied with his decision.

So simpler put, my interpretation is that this song is the moment of truth for George. Not that there was ever a danger of him choosing the world of human relations over art, but this is the moment where he ultimately decides, without a doubt, it will be the world of creativity, and so he must let Dot go, but again that last line...gah, the way it sums up the song...l know I'm repeating myself, but when he finally makes that decision, and says that line--it's his own satisfaction with it, that he is no longer torn, but knows where he belongs and is happy with it.

It's also interesting that...I'm pretty sure it's the songs Finishing the Hat and Art Isn't Easy that are derived from the same melody. In one song, the artist chooses to forego human relations to create, while in the other, the artist is bitching about all the human relations he must make, keep, and be in constant supervision of, in order to create. Very interesting contrast.

[JRybka]

Posted: 7/24/07 at 3:17pm

this is what is so amazing about Sondheim and more so about this show and how it is about art and artists and what we has a people view as art.

His life is his work. Dot sums it up when she says to him later.. Run to your patings, hide behind your work.

That is his crutch. He knows the needs to do something right but cannot as he is obsessed. His passion for his art is more then his passion for anything.. even if it means losing the one thing that he loved almost as much as his paints (Dot)

It is a truly sad point where you almost wonder if he has Aspurger's. I have always thought that seeing as he is always so detatched to REAL life.

[Roninjoey]

Posted: 7/24/07 at 3:36pm

I've met people like George who are so singlemindedly devoted to their vocation that it seems to crowd out everything else. I think Sondheim and Lapine are trying to evoke that sort of personality with genius.

The play makes it plain that Dot is not the first relationship of this sort George has had, but the lyrics make me think that Dot is special to George, and that the very fact that she left is part of what makes her so special to him--he wouldn't have been able to respect her any other way, even if it upsets him.

[Ourtime992]

Posted: 7/24/07 at 5:02pm

OCD, clearly.

Funny you should say that, because I actually wrote a paper in college for a clinical psychology class about this character, using a textual analysis of Finishing the Hat to justify various elements of schizotypal personality disorder.

[best12bars]

Posted: 7/24/07 at 5:18pm

George has trouble connecting. His window into the world is his art. He "sees" and relates to the world by painting.

The only way he knows how to express his feelings for Dot, and for life in general, is by "finishing the hat" (which is symbolic of whatever he is working on at the moment). It's an obsession with him, but it's also a necessity.

Without "the finished hat" he is lost. He hasn't fully expressed himself.

That's how he is able to relate, sort things out, respond to, and understand the world.

By finishing the hat.

[HeidiPuck]

Posted: 7/24/07 at 5:22pm

Not really in relation to the show, but this song perfectly describes all of the artists I know (as well as myself). Once the creative process starts, there's an inability to stop the process that results in either complete isolation or a distance between you and the rest of the world. The artist knows that they are separating themselves, but simply can't help it - the drive to create is too great.

Within the show, I think anything I could have said about it has already been said...

[wickedrentq]

Posted: 7/24/07 at 11:30pm

Ooh, good point best12! I like that interpretation.

[RentBoy86]

Posted: 7/25/07 at 2:11am

This whole discussion is just gearing me up for the revival next year. I can't wait. It will be sheer brillance.

Also, on a side note, do you think this show could work on film? I sort of think it could. But part of me wants only the first act - and maybe they could incoporate "Move On" into the movie as well. Although, there are some great moments in Act II. But I think Act 1 is a show itself - which I know was the original idea. But I think with all the color and light of film, this could be a beautiful movie.

[Ourtime992]

Posted: 7/25/07 at 3:16am

Well, I'm a big fan of this show and yet...everytime I put in the video I find myself getting a little bored about 2/3 of the way into Act One. Right around when the soldiers are there, and Dot goes to Louis, and George's mom sings that dissonant song. Of course, when that painting comes together it totally redeems itself and I'm in love with it again.

Then after intermission I inevitably have the realization: ah crap, we've got that whole chromolume thing to sit through. Then it's good song, good song, good song, strange thematic ending scene, WTF -- and another GREAT song.

I turn it off and think, "man, I love that show."

[Roninjoey]

Posted: 7/25/07 at 3:34am

I adore "Beautiful", it's one of my favorite Sondheim songs.

[best12bars]

Posted: 7/25/07 at 8:38am

"Changing... It keeps changing...

Quick, draw it all, Georgie.

Sunday's disappearing all the time."


The older you get, the more powerful that song becomes.