Commentarama Issues Microsoft Fatwā

It is with heavy heart. . . no, forget that, I’m pretty happy about this, perhaps even manically so! I have decided that the time has come to rid the world of a scourge that has plagued it for far too long. Thus, today, in the spirit of peaceful co-existence, I’m issuing a fatwā against Microsoft. Yeah, @#$%ing Microsoft.

This has been a long time coming. Why? Well....

(1) I’m sick of the fact I have to spend more and more time turning off stupid features and deleting bloatware. It’s gotten so bad that what used to take an hour to set up is now taking 5-6 hours and despite my best efforts still clogs my harddrive like a lifetime of cheeseburgers squeezing my heart.

(2) I HATE the fact that arrogant Microsoft employees want to control how I set up my computer. What do I mean? Every new edition takes away features that let you customize your computer. They have even bought out programs like Tweak UI and sabotaged them just to eliminate my ability to make changes like removing the stupid arrows on the desk top icons. What kind of power-mad control freak tries to take away existing options like that? Does the furniture company tell me where I can put my couch?

(3) Stop spying on me. I mean it.

(4) I am not retarded. I don’t need my documents gathered into 14 places on the hard drive just in case I can’t find them in the other 13. Seriously, W.T.F.! I do not need you protecting me from doing things to change my computer. I do not need a bazillion backups for every moment of my computer life. Stop trying to automatically turn features back on that I’ve disabled.

(5) Stop installing half-versions of Windows on machines which keep me from being able to recover from a serious virus. . . which I only got because of your buggy code!!

And that brings me to Windows 8, the Satanic Version. Last Thursday, we the moronic public got the first glimpse of what the “geniuses” at Microsoft have planned for their next operating system. You better sit down for this.

Since they think we’re all retarded and since they haven’t been able to compete with anyone else’s phones or tablets, they’ve decided to turn the desktop into a tablet. Here’s an image of what the new Windows 8 will look like. Oh, and it has a touchscreen keyboard.

Go ahead, punch the wall, I’ll wait for you. I will not put this on my computer. And if I am somehow forced to because there are no other options, I will become a terrorist. . . I kid you not.

Not surprisingly, the techie person who announced this in a newsvertising article thought it was great: “Windows 8 looks like a step in the right direction for Microsoft.” But the public ain’t buying it. In fact, of the 491 comments that appeared in the first 20 minutes, not a single one was even slightly positive. To the contrary the comments ranged from “No, f*ck no” to “Window F*ck You will be the official name” to “Are these guys @#$% retarded?” and everything in between.

Of course, there could be a plus side to this. Microsoft doesn’t care what the public says. To the contrary, they seem to revel in going against the wishes of their market. And one tech guy thinks this may be the end of Microsoft.

The description was an eye-roller and then a shocker, as the demo of this turkey turned up with a pop-up on-screen keyboard, which is the way the keyboard crops up with a phone or tablet. I'm not sure what Microsoft is thinking, but a typical desktop computer actually has a real keyboard. You know, Microsoft even makes such a device. I'm using one now.

The basic thesis that people want exactly the same look and feel across all their personal platforms is frankly idiotic. But Microsoft is a subscriber. In this instance, all the company will manage to do is kill the platform where this UI does not belong: the desktop workstation. And that would be the end of Microsoft.

Let’s hope.

Somebody. . . looking at you Google or China. . . should take Windows XP, change it enough to get past the copyright, and then put that out as an alternative to Microsoft’s stupidity. I would do it if I had the slightest tech skills. Heck, I’d put it out for free just to destroy the company.

And that brings me back to the fatwā. Since the destruction of the company is unlikely, I hereby instead authorize and command you that if you ever meet a Microsoft person to punch them in the face. And if they are a senior manager, then use a tire iron. And if you’re ever in Seattle... well, a picture is worth a thousand words.


And so it was foretold by prophesy.

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Film Friday: Cube (1997)

I know. . . I know. . . you’ve never heard of Cube. Well, you should have. Cube is a Canadian science fiction/psychological thriller that’s become a cult classic. It's got an interesting story, a very believable atmosphere, and it's surprisingly gripping. It’s also got a fascinating take on the nature of evil. Sadly, it squanders a bit of its potential with political correctness, but overall it’s absolutely worth seeing.

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Film Friday: Halloween (1978)

I enjoy Halloween. I like Donald Pleasence and Jamie Lee Curtis, and I enjoy John Carpenter’s style. The story is good enough, if you switch your brain to “off” before starting the film. And it’s just creepy enough to enjoy. So why do I have so much ill will for this film? Because Halloween gave birth to the modern slasher flick, and it established every one of the genre’s stupidest conventions.

** spoiler alert **

The Plot

Halloween is the story of Michael Myers. He kills people. Why? Because they were there? The film doesn’t know why and doesn’t really care. As the film opens, Myers escapes from fifteen years of custody and returns to Haddonfield, Illinois, where he apparently intends to kill anyone who appears on film. His sister, Jamie Lee Curtis, appears on camera. So does Donald Pleasence, who is ostensibly hunting Michael Myers, though really he seems more interested in running around town proclaiming that he is "too late" to do whatever it was he was planning. For the next 91 minutes, Myers kills everyone except Curtis and Pleasence. Roll the credits.

So What’s The Problem?

My problem with Halloween stems from the total nonsense Carpenter uses to create his villain and the fact this nonsense became the template for slasher flicks. For example:

• We begin with Myers’ character. He has no personality or emotions and he does not speak. He is, for lack of a better word, functionally catatonic. Yet, he's also somehow a genius who can plot revenge, track people down, and do things he never learned to do (like drive) with little or no difficulty.

• Moreover, despite being effectively catatonic, Myers has the moves of a hyper-trained special forces operative. . . maybe even a Hollywood-style ninja. How?

• He's stronger than ten people, even though he’s never worked out in his life, and he cannot be brought down by mere physical injury. Indeed, no matter how much you wound him, he shows no signs of being wounded. Nor can he be killed because he’s crazy and crazy makes to invulnerable to bullets. Yeah, that makes sense.

• Strangely, Myers has the ability to know where characters will be in the next scene. Indeed, somehow he manages to place himself perfectly to surprise any character that separates from the others.

• He also has the ability to hide in plain sight, to hide behind objects that are too small to conceal his body, and to appear and disappear through closed doors and windows without making a sound. He's ultra swift and super silent.

• He also can move vast distances instantly, e.g. between houses on different blocks. Not to mention he can find the home of the person a character is talking to on the phone. . . as if he has callee id.

Does any of this make any sense? No. But for Carpenter it didn’t have to. Carpenter wasn’t making a movie with a complete story. He was making a series of murderous vignettes, which he then strung together to form a movie. We accept the lack of coherence between the vignettes because Carpenter has enough talent as a filmmaker to disguise those problems and because he gives us a strange enough villain that we spend more time pondering what he is doing rather than trying to determine how he's doing it.

The whole film is gibberish. But that wouldn't bother me if this has just been a one-off film. But it didn't stay a one-off. The formula escaped and became the template for every stupid slasher flick that followed over the next thirty years. Ug.

So What Does Halloween Mean?

Halloween has no meaning. Some have suggested Halloween is a social critique of the immorality of young people in the 1970s. They point out that Myers’ victims were all sexually active and abusing alcohol or pot when they were killed. By comparison, the lone survivor, Curtis, was chaste and innocent. . . except for that scene where she was smoking pot. So scratch that one.

More interestingly, the film may have been intended to include a feminist message. The producer, Debra Hill, was a feminist. And she and Carpenter often included “strong roles” for women in Carpenter’s horror movies. The role of Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) is cited as being one of these roles because Curtis survives and she does so with her own wits. But if that’s true, then the fact that Halloween became the template for the ensuing wave of slasher flicks should come as a special disappointment to feminists. Indeed, modern slasher flicks are often about as misogynistic as rap videos -- using heavy doses of T&A to put a lot male A's in the seats.

In the end, I think that it’s impossible to get any meaning out of Halloween because the movie makes no sense when you break it down. The truth is this film is nothing but exploitation. Carpenter set out to create a film based entirely on shock rather than horror, a film with no intellectual pretenses, a film that would scare you simply by shouting “boo” over and over again, and he succeeded beyond measure. Indeed, the $320,000 they spent on this film turned into $55,000,000 in gross revenue. But that's about all the depth you'll really find.

The Nature of Evil -- The Anti-Liberal Evil

So what does this film tell us about the nature of evil? Not a whole heck of a lot, with one exception. I would argue Myers’ character is a response to the prior two decades of liberalism. How’s that for unexpected!

In the 1960s and 1970s, liberals constantly whined about root causes "making" people into criminals. Everyone had to have a reason, something that pushed them to become evil. Liberals just would not admit that some people were simply rotten. Myers is one of the first human character in many years (probably since In Cold Blood (1967)) who was evil because that was his nature. He wasn’t rebelling. He wasn’t backed into a corner or exploited. He wasn’t abused as a child. He wasn’t drugged or programmed by the government. He was just evil. In fact, the biggest disappointment of the remake in 2007, directed by Rob Zombie, other than the dreadful quality of the film, was that Zombie explained Myers’ evil as being the result of his coming from a broken home and being bullied in school. Boo hoo.

So in the end, Halloween was an ok movie that should have slowly faded into movie history. Sadly, it didn’t. Instead, it became a template for slasher flicks. And slowly, but surely, this template has come to dominate the horror genre because it takes no talent to write or direct a knock-off of this film. And that’s Michael Myers’ greatest evil.

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Film Friday: Night Of The Living Dead (1968)

George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead is a seminal movie in the horror genre. If you haven’t seen it, you really should. Not only was this one of the first horror movies to lift the genre from kiddie fare to more adult horror, but it is one of the few horror movies that achieved the intellectual potential normally associated with top notch science fiction. Plus, it's a really good movie.

** spoiler alert **

Filmed on a $114,000 budget by a Pittsburgh-based advertising man with no prior experience in the movie industry, Night of the Living Dead became one of the all time classic horror movies. It’s grossed more than $42 million ($690 million in 2008 dollars), spawned numerous sequels and given birth the horror sub-genre of zombie movies.

The Plot

Night of the Living Dead begins in a cemetery where two young people have come to visit the grave of their father. As they return to their car, a small number of individuals stumble and meander toward them. Barbara (Judith O’Dea), the sister, is spooked by this. Her brother Johnny is not, and he teases her with the now famous line: “they’re coming to get you Barbara.” And they do. Soon Johnny is dead and Barbara is running for her life. Barbara stumbles upon a seemingly deserted house. When she finds a corpse inside, she attempts to flee the house, but is stopped by Ben (Duane Jones), a black man. Ben warns her of more zombies outside the house and begins boarding up the entire house. Soon they are joined by others, including a couple that is hiding their sick daughter in the basement -- she’s been bitten. The rest of the movie involves this group of people trying to decide what to do now that the dead have risen and are walking the earth.

The Movie’s Place In History

Night of the Living Dead deserves its place in history. The movie is creepy, even by modern standards, and well acted -- even though the actors improvised most of the dialog. It was also ultra cutting edge. Indeed, at the time, horror movies were essentially aimed at children. The monsters were fake, there was no gore, the heroes acted like dime store John Waynes, and the government swooped in to the rescue in the nick of time. This one was different. The gore (though practically non-existent by modern standards) was harshly criticized at the time. The monsters were real. The danger was real. The theme was harsh, and the acting dramatic rather than melodramatic. This was the stuff of nightmares and the end result was a movie that was not suitable for children -- and many critics were outraged.

The movie also took a huge risk in making Duane Jones the hero. Indeed, Jones was one of the first blacks to play a lead role as a hero in a movie aimed at white audiences. It was not at all clear that white audience would accept a black hero, except in movies that specifically addressed race -- like In The Heat Of The Night. But they did. In fact, in many ways, this movie expressed Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” sentiment better than other movies of the era because the other characters did not make Ben’s race an issue, i.e. they simply accepted him as a person. Interestingly, Jones bears most of the credit for creating the role because he refused to play the character in the way it had originally been conceived, which had been of a much lower class.

This movie also deserves its place in history because it created the zombie movie genre, which continues to turn out a near-copy of Night of the Living Dead each year.

Why Zombies Are Terrifying?

So what makes zombies terrifying? For one thing, they present a high level of danger. They are difficult to spot in a crowd, because they appear basically human. They are relentless, they do not need sleep or rest like we do. Simply wounding them won’t stop them and they only need to bite (or scratch) you to defeat you. And they have math on their side because their numbers increase exponentially. This puts the entire human race in danger once you have one zombie. (Also, while we used to find comfort in their slow speeds, 28 Days Later took that away from us when it introduced fast-twitch zombies.)

But more fundamentally, zombies frighten us because they represent the destruction of the thing we cherish the most -- our individuality. Being self-aware, the one thing in the universe of which we are absolutely certain is our own existence. Along with this comes the sense that we are unique, something we prize highly -- even people who follow the herd in all aspects of their lives still think of themselves as unique individuals. Further, we believe that we are more than the sum of our parts and that this extra bit -- call it a soul or spirit or simply "I" -- will live on after our bodies fail. The prospect that this might not be true terrifies us. And this is where zombies strike. One bite from a zombie can take this all away, it can destroy the very thing that makes us what we are. That terrifies us because it represents a kind of total and permanent death that we fear more than anything else, i.e. zombies destroy the part of us we thought could not be destroyed, and make us face the prospect of non-existence.

Nature of Evil

Finally we come to the nature of evil question. Are zombies evil? Actually, no. The force that created them can be evil, but the zombies themselves are not evil by most moral definitions because they don’t have free will and they lack any intent to do evil. Instead, they are acting purely on instinct, like sharks or the alien in Alien. We may not like what they do, but we really can’t call them evil.

Interestingly, zombie movies are not actually about zombies, they are about the relationships of the people who are running from the zombies. That makes zombie movies rather unique in the horror movie world. That’s also what keeps zombie movies fresh (or should): the fact that any number of dramas or social commentaries can be played out within a zombie movie. For example, The Night of The Living Dead has been said to be about either racism or the Vietnam War (though I don't actually buy into either theory). Shaun of the Dead, apart from being parody, is also a social statement about the zombie-like state of modern culture. And if you want an example of something that is essentially a zombie story, but hardly qualifies as horror, look to the Borg episodes (pre-Borg Queen) in Star Trek: The Next Generation.

In Night of the Living Dead, the zombies seem to have been created by a natural force, i.e. there is no evil mastermind behind their rampage. None of the characters really qualify as evil either. But collectively, they manage to achieve some evil things. Indeed, it is rather clear that the humans have a tremendous advantage over the zombies. They are smarter and faster and they are securely locked in. The zombies have no ability to break down doors or walls, to use tools or fire, or to trick the humans outside. Thus, if the humans worked together, they could make the house secure until help arrived or other arrangements could be made. But they don’t work together because a raft of human emotions get in the way. Some are afraid, others are angry. One guy doesn’t like taking orders even though he clearly lacks the sense needed to pull through this crisis with his own faculties. And when the characters get angry or scared, they start sacrificing or endangering each other to protect themselves. Thus, the evil here is what happens to normal people when they find themselves under extreme pressure, i.e. when society breaks down. In effect, we become the monsters.

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Film Friday: Prince of Darkness (1987)

Continuing our discussion of the nature of evil, today we turn to John Carpenter’s Prince of Darkness. This relatively unknown movie is one of my favorite horror movies and is possibly Carpenter’s best. What separates this movie from the pack is the clever manipulation of our emotions to generate fear and the use of intellectual horror to create a terrifying movie. In essence, it inspires helplessness.

** spoiler alert **

The Plot

As an old priest dies, the last member of a forgotten order -- the Brotherhood of Sleep, Father Loomis (Donald Pleasence) is sent to wrap up his affairs. Pleasence discovers something in the basement of the closed church where the old priest lived as a caretaker: a glass cylinder containing a swirling green fluid. Pleasence calls upon Professor Howard Birack (Victor Wong), an expert in subatomic physics. Wong agrees to bring a group of students from several scientific disciplines to examine the cylinder. This group includes Jameson Parker (Simon and Simon) and his love-interest Catherine (Lisa Blount).

As they begin their investigation, they learn the object does not obey the normal laws of physics, and it's locked from the inside. They also begin to experience the same dream whenever anyone takes a nap. This dream purports to be a warning from the future of something evil that emerges from the church. Meanwhile, Pleasence and Wong study the diary of the old priest, which identifies the green fluid as the Antichrist. And it’s alive.

What Sets This Movie Apart

What sets Prince of Darkness apart from other horror movies is that Carpenter seeks to generate emotional and intellectual terror rather than shock to drive this film.

Emotional Terror

To create emotional terror, Carpenter uses our fear of helplessness against us. He does this by putting the characters into a creepy setting, exposing them to danger of which we are aware, and then making them oblivious until it is too late.

Carpenter starts with a truly creepy setting: an old church. But, interestingly, he doesn’t cheat to make it creepy, as so many other horror movies do -- think about how many horror movies take place in decaying castles with rooms that scream “fire damage” or spaceships, e.g. the Event Horizon, decorated with black walls and random spikes sticking from the walls. Indeed, the church is exactly what you would expect. Its room are the right size and shape. The walls are painted like you would expect for an old church. The floors are made of wood and the furniture fits the decor. You wouldn’t want to live there, but you wouldn’t run for your life either. This is the kind of building we’ve all been in and can relate to and that gives the movie an instant authenticity that so many horror movies sacrifice in trying to create their ambiance.

Carpenter then makes the church feel claustrophobic by making us feel trapped. When the scientists arrive at the church, we see homeless people gathering outside. As the movie runs, more and more gather, and soon we realize there will be no escaping the church. Yet, we recognize the danger long before the characters do. This not only triggers our fear of being trapped, but it also triggers our natural instinct to help others. But since we cannot help them, we feel helpless, which brings on a sense of fear.

Carpenter then plays on our fear of being alone, our fear of losing our identities, and our fear of betrayal. As the thing in the basement begins to take people over one at a time, we find ourselves terrified as we helplessly watch unsuspecting students and scientists milling around as the possessed people approach them. There is little more terrifying than watching a monster slowly walking toward an unsuspecting character. What’s worse, everything that happens is avoidable if only the characters could put all of their knowledge together, but they cannot -- only we can, and we cannot help them. This fills each scene with terror as we can see the danger standing there in plain sight, but the characters simply cannot see it for themselves. Thus, the film fills us with a sense of helplessness in the face of this terror.

Also, the entire time, Carpenter cleverly uses the soundtrack to manipulate us. The music sits entirely in the background and you barely notice it. Yet, Carpenter uses the bass to drive your heart rate -- just as sitcoms use laugh tracks to trigger laughter. In this way, he expertly controls the tension of each scene without the audience even realizing it.

Intellectual Horror

In addition to playing on our emotions, Carpenter offers genuine intellectual horror -- something increasingly rare in horror movies. Intellectual horror comes not from shock, but from finding something that terrifies the audience deeply and putting them into a state of mind where their deepest fears could be realized. In this regard, Carpenter aims right at the heart of our belief system: be it religion or science.

What Pleasence discovers in the diary of the dead priest is fascinating and terrifying. Pleasence discovers that Christ was real, though he was merely an advanced being, not the son of God. His purpose in coming to Earth was to warn mankind that an evil creature, a sort of Anti-God, was trying to break into the universe. To help this Anti-God achieve that goal, there was an Antichrist (the son of the Anti-God) who would open a doorway. But Jesus trapped the Antichrist in the cylinder and gave the cylinder to the human race to guard.

This discovery causes Pleasence to lose his faith. He realizes this Anti-God is real evil, and it horrifies him that the church decided mankind wasn't ready for this knowledge and decided instead to treat evil as a theoretical concept to be found within each of us. Consequently, not only is his theology premised on a lie, but mankind has failed to heed the warning of Jesus and now stands unprepared to combat this evil.

But, at the same time, the movie tells us that science is wrong as well. Not only are the rational scientists given undeniable proof of the supernatural, but they are confronted with the realization that everything they thought was true about the universe is false, and the laws of physics which they thought controlled the universe are in fact meaningless. Indeed, this creature obeys no laws of physics. Interestingly, this is essentially how science would define “evil” if it were asked -- a lack of order or structure to the universe.

Accordingly, we are confronted with a world in which the things we rely upon to explain the world -- religion and science -- are suddenly shown to be false. Intellectually, there can be little more terrifying than realizing that nothing we know is true. Not to mention that we now know there is something nightmarish waiting to break into our universe and there are fates worse than death.

In the middle of this, Carpenter raises questions of self-sacrifice. What would you do to save the world? And to what could you condemn another person to save the world? Moreover, Carpenter smartly lets the characters engage in discussions of theology and scientific theory throughout the film. Thus, he puts the audience into the right mindset to consider these issues as they arise -- unlike most horror movies which simply dump these questions on the audience unexpectedly at the end.

The Dream

Finally, we must mention the dream, which Carpenter uses expertly. First, by having everyone have the same dream, we grasp that the dream must be something other than everyone just having nightmares, i.e. it is a real warning. Secondly, by letting the dream unfold in pieces, Carpenter gives the audience time to speculate as to its meaning and how it will finish. When you let the audience fill in the blanks, as Carpenter does, they will always find something more terrifying than you can present because they will fill in with the things that scare them personally. But most importantly, Carpenter uses the dream to raise the odds the characters face. In a normal horror movie, good will defeat evil unless evil achieves some goal. But here, we know from the dream that a future exists where evil has prevailed. Thus, rather than fighting to prevent something that is in doubt, these characters are struggling to overturn something that appears inevitable. Intellectually, this raises the level of the challenge significantly. And since we’ve been told that neither science nor religion has the answer, we have no idea how we can fight this thing, i.e. we are left intellectually helpless. Thus, the audience spends the movie struggling to find the answer to avoid a nightmare that seems inevitable. That is intellectual terror.

Try finding that in a slasher flick!

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Film Friday: Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983)

“October is a rare month for boys.” It’s also one of my favorite months. And nothing says October more than leaves changing colors and horror movies. So let’s spend October looking at different horror movies and contemplating the nature of evil, beginning with an October classic that contains both horror and changing foliage: Something Wicked This Way Comes.

** spoiler alert **

The Plot

Based on a Ray Bradbury novel of the same name, Something Wicked This Way Comes is the story of Will Halloway, his friend Jim Nightshade and his father Charles Halloway (Jason Robards). Will is thirteen years old and it’s October. On a stormy night, Will and Jim see a spectral train roll into town. With it comes a mysterious carnival, Cooger & Dark’s Pandemonium Shadow Show.

The next day, strange and evil things begin to happen to the townsfolk. Their teacher, the elderly Ms. Foley is made young again. The one legged barkeeper is given a new leg and the vision of himself as a star football player. And so on. But none of these gifts come without a price, and the man holding the ticket is Mr. Dark (played by a then-unknown Jonathan Pryce). Dark is not human, though what he is we do not know. What we do know is that he is but one of the evil things behind the carnival (watch for Pam Grier as the Dust Witch), and they are here to feed. What do they feed upon? They feed upon our negative emotions. They feed upon greed and pride and vanity and regret. And the man in town with the biggest regret is Will’s father.

To overcome Dark, they must overcome their own negative emotions. This sets up a fascinating struggle, a battle of wills, between Dark and Will and Will’s father. Indeed, the scene in the library, where Dark tempts Will's father, is so incredibly well done that the scene alone makes it worth your time to see the movie. But there is much more to the movie as well.

In the end, the movie is not ingenious, it’s not terrifying (its effects are about equivalent to Tron, another Disney product of the era), and it did poorly at the box office ($19 million worldwide). Nevertheless, this is a wonderfully enjoyable movie. It is a movie oozing with childhood memories, both of friends, times and places long gone, and it speaks so well to the relationship between young boys and their fathers, and between fathers and their sons. It is the kind of movie that makes you wish you hadn’t wasted so much of your youth and makes you wonder if you aren’t wasting too much now. Roger Ebert, very accurately, called it “a horror movie with elegance.”

The Nature of Evil

Since we’re talking about the nature of evil this month, let’s see what Something Wicked has to say on the topic, shall we? Unlike modern horror movies where the evil character often is evil simply because that’s what the plot calls for and where the evil is merely sadism attendant to murder, Something Wicked offers something more.

Something Wicked presents the idea that evil is powerless against you unless you give it power over you. Dark has a physical body and he displays magical powers, and it would seem he could roam the city doing as much evil as he desired. Yet, he doesn’t. Indeed, as the movie progresses, it become clear he can’t. He only has power over those who have accepted his gifts.

And why would someone accept his gifts? Because they let their negative emotions control them. Ms. Foley longs desperately to be young and beautiful again. She accepts the gift of youth. The barkeeper longs to have both legs again and become a great football star. He accepts the gift of being made whole. The barber longs to have women desire him. He accepts the gift of virility. Each of these people surrender to their vanity, their lust, their regret and make themselves vulnerable. Each of them longs for something they knew they could never get, and each of them longs for it so much their own desires blind them to the evil of what is being offered. In other words, they want it so much they can't see it's too good to be true. And once they accept the gift, Dark has them in his power and they are lost.

But those who do not succumb, like Will and his father, remain protected from Dark. The are beyond his power. Indeed, as mentioned before, there is an incredible scene in the library where Dark comes to find the boys and to temp Will’s father. Will’s father deeply regrets he hasn’t been a stronger father figure for Will. When Will was young, Will fell into the river, but Will’s father was unable to save him because he couldn't swim. Another man saved Will. From that moment on, Will’s father has regretted his weakness and has lived in fear that Will views him as weak. That regret has caused him to waste many of the best years of Will’s life, hidden away in the safety of his library.

It is that regret, that allows Dark to temp Will’s father. But at the same time, in a scene played to perfection by an increasingly agitated Pryce, we see that Dark can tempt, but he cannot take. He has no power over Will’s father unless he accepts the gifts Dark offers. We see the same thing at other times in the film when Dark cannot temp lightening rod salesman Tom Fury and in the failure of Dark's efforts to force Fury to reveal critical information to Dark.

In this message, we find both hope and a warning. We find hope because we are told the power to protect ourselves from evil lies within ourselves. If we do not give in to our darker emotions, evil cannot touch us. But there is also a warning, in that many of the emotions we feel regularly can make us vulnerable (who hasn’t felt regret over something they did or did not do).

Further, there is another fascinating aspect about the evil presented in Something Wicked, which adds to this warning. Unlike so many evil characters today, Dark has an actual motivation -- in other words, he’s not evil merely to give the hero something to overcome or because the director wanted to present a sadistic character. As Pryce himself tells us, the carnival travels the world, only staying in any location until they are chased away by the coming storm that always follows them. During the short time they have in any location, they feed on the negative emotions of the locals. Indeed, it is those negative emotions that call them in the first place.

Thus, Something Wicked warns us that not only do we make ourselves vulnerable to evil if we surrender to our worst emotions, but we make ourselves a beacon for those who would exploit us. And in many ways, this is great advice for the real world. Would you fall for the snake oil salesmen you see on television -- everything from fake weight loss products, to phony impotence cures, to beer that promises to make you attractive to the opposite sex -- if you didn't let your regrets and desires weigh on your mind to the point where they could overwhelm your better judgment? Would you fall for a political demagogue if you didn't succumb to your own envy, your irrational fears or your hatreds? And isn't the fact that we do succumb what keeps these evil creatures coming after us.

That message is what makes Something Wicked a fascinating first shot for our October examination of the nature of evil. Not only does our own surrender to our own weaknesses make us vulnerable to evil, but it is that very vulnerability that gives evil fertile ground in which to grow. In effect, we create our own monsters.

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Film Friday: The Final Cut (2004)

We all know the evils inherent in letting an all-seeing, all-powerful Big Brother spy on every moment of our lives. But could we achieve similar evils without government involvement? Do we have more to fear from each other, than we do from mystery cabals? That’s the question that underlies The Final Cut, a fascinating film starting Robin Williams and James Caviezel. George Orwell meet the camera phone.

** spoiler alert **

The Plot

The Final Cut, written and directed by Omar Naim, is a complex movie that takes place in the near future, at a time when many people have recording devices implanted in their brains when they are born. These devices, called Zoe Implants, record everything that happens during the person’s life. When the person dies, the implant can be removed and the footage taken a “cutter.” A cutter uses a device called a Guillotine, to edit the film down to a few minute tribute, called a rememory.

As the story opens, we learn that Alan Hakman (Robin Williams),a skillful cutter whose services are highly prized by rich, immoral patrons because of his willingness to overlook their indiscretions when he cuts the rememories, is haunted by a memory from his past. When he was a child, he watched a friend fall to his death after Williams apparently goaded him into doing something unsafe. Terrified, Williams ran from the abandoned warehouse, never to return. These memories become a recurring theme, as we slowly learn the truth throughout the movie.

Returning to the present, we see Williams’ work on display. He has cut a rememory and receives much praise from the friends and family gathered. But the deceased was not a nice man. As Williams wanders around the reception meeting people, we, the audience, are shown images that Williams removed that relate to the people he meets, such as the woman with whom the deceased had an affair. This gives us our first clue that Williams’ character is not as pure as one might suspect.

As Williams leaves the reception, he encounters a group of protestors. These people protest the very concept of allowing such devices to be implanted. They argue the mere fact that such devices could be inside anyone means we have lost our freedom to be ourselves, as we must always be cautious of being recorded. They further argue that rememories rob people of their memories because the video images can alter long held beliefs which formed our very personalities -- a common theme in sci-fi, the idea that we are the sum of our experiences.

Another charge is made against Williams specifically, by the lead protestor, James Caviezel, who claims Williams is complicit in covering up the evil deeds of rich clients.

Williams soon is called upon to cut another rememory. This rememory will be for an executive (Bannister) of the company that produces the Zoe devices. No sooner does Williams get this contract, than Caviezel tries to buy the Bannister footage from Williams. Caviezel knows the executive was corrupt in some manner (though he does not know precisely how), and he hopes to use the footage to discredit the company and have the Zoe devices banned. Williams refuses and begins to cut the footage.

It is around this time we learn, though we are never told directly, that the executive molested his own daughter. Williams seems appalled but he doesn't stop because he believe everyone deserves a good rememory, no matter what they’ve done. As he cuts, he spots a man in one of the frames at a party attended by the executive. Williams believes this man to be the childhood friend he left for dead in the warehouse years ago. As Williams attempts to find this man, Caviezel plots to obtain the Bannister footage, leading to a series of confrontations with quite a few surprises.

The Review

Before we discuss this film, let me warn you that while this film should fascinate you, and it definitely will keep you thinking for days after you’ve seen it, you will not enjoy it. It’s not to meant to be enjoyed. Like 1984, this film is meant to disquiet you. Let me also warn you there is a trick to watching this film. If you accept the normal Hollywood standards of good and evil, and you try to see Williams as the good guy because that’s what you’ve been taught, you will misunderstand this film. It is only when you let Hollywood’s lessons go and you see Williams as the villain he really is that this movie achieves its full potential.

Why You Might Think Williams Is The Good Guy?

There are three bad reasons you will want to think of Robin Williams as a good guy in this film (aside from any good will you may already have for him). The first, is that Hollywood teaches us that when a person has a trauma in their past, their present is haunted by that trauma and their actions are excused. We are taught, that if only they could resolve that trauma, “the real person” -- a miraculously wonderful human, will spring forth. Williams has such a trauma from his youth. It haunts him. Indeed, much of the film is about him trying to resolve this issue. Thus, according to Hollywood formula, Williams stands ready to be born-again as an new and perfect man.

Secondly, Hollywood tells us that where there is a bad guy, there must be a good guy -- false logic which Roman Polanski manipulates so beautifully in The Ninth Gate. And the villain here is clearly James Caviezel. We know this because he’s a zealot and all zealots are evil. He is obsessed with this one issue; it consumes him. His group even protests at funerals. What more proof do you need? How about an admission that he killed someone to help his cause and a plot that involves him killing again. And since he’s clearly evil and he focuses his anger on Williams, Hollywood teaches us, Williams must be good.

And if that is not enough, the movie itself misleads a bit, by advancing two strawmen arguments against Williams and then beating them up. Do you remember the charge that Williams distorts history by cutting out all of the evil deeds of his clients? The movie points out that this is really no different than what is done in eulogies today. And that’s true. We don’t use funerals to present “fair” pictures of the dead. We don’t dig up and expose all their secrets. So what makes Williams evil for doing to the Zoe footage what we ourselves do with our speeches, our photographs and our video cameras? And what about the argument that it’s wrong for Williams to knowing the secrets of people who have not shared them with him (e.g. the woman who had the affair with the deceased man)? Is that not an unheard of invasion of privacy? Actually, no, it’s not. Lawyers, doctors and priests know these things today. Indeed, when you share a secret with someone, you have no guarantee that they won’t share it with others.

Thus, we see the allegations of evil made against Williams as false, i.e. he is wrongly accused. Ergo, Hollywood law declares him innocent and, therefore, good. But this too is false logic, especially as neither allegation is what make Williams evil. He is evil because he abuses his power.

Why Does It Matter How You See Williams?

But why is it so important to recognize that Williams is a villain? Because the story barely works if you keep trying to shoehorn this odious man into the cookie cutter form of a good guy. If you don't understand that Williams is a villain, you will be unable to grasp the purpose and meaning of the film.

Indeed, many critics just saw this film as a thriller about a man, pursued by others, who hope to obtain video he possesses which might bring down an evil company. And they found this movie to be unfulfilling. Indeed, they complain bitterly about their disappointment in the film. They wonder why the conspiracy isn’t a bigger part of the movie, why the subplot about the molested girl doesn’t turn into chase scenes with men in black suits hunting down Williams and the girl as they head to the sole good agent in the government who can bust the case open and save the day. They wonder why Caviezel doesn’t suddenly reveal that he works for some mystery cabal intent on taking over the world. And they complain that Mira Sorvino is miscast as William’s love interest because she doesn't seem like the kind of woman (too hot, too young, too different) who would be interested this sad little man. . . even if he is the hero.

But if you realize that Williams is a villain, then the movie becomes inspired. Williams portrays a man who thinks he is a decent man, who seems meek and kind on the surface, but who abuses his power without a second thought. For example, in a scene dismissed as an "awkward" romantic moment by the critics, Williams treats Sorvino to a video he has created of recorded dreams -- a sort of greatest hits from people he’s cut. But is this really romantic? If a photo developer kept your best family prints and shared them with his dates, is that romantic or creepy? Is it not an abuse of trust to do this?

And speaking of abuse of trust, here's why Sorvino doesn’t fit with Williams: the only reason she dates him is that he manipulates her. Her former soul mate, a man she loved deeply, died. . . and Williams cut his rememory. In a scene that is truly enlightening of Williams’ character, Sorvino discovers that Williams used the Zoe footage from her dead boyfriend to learn about her deepest feelings and desires, and used that knowledge to present himself as her perfect man. Suddenly, we see abuse of power in a truly vile, invasive form. And while the critics complain that there is no attempt reconciliation (thus making Sorvino irrelevant), smarter viewer understand how truly devastating this revelation was to Sorvino, what an utter betrayal this was, and what it says about Williams that he would do this. They also understand how damning it is that he simply moves on without her.

But there is something much worse. Consider again the comparison to the eulogy. The movie makes the point that a rememory is nothing more than a eulogy, and there is some logic in this. But Williams goes beyond merely turning a blind eye about the dead. When he meets the molested daughter of the executive, the little girl reaches out to him for help. Yet, he initially turns a blind eye to this supposedly on principle.

But after he discovers the footage of his supposedly-dead childhood friend in the Bannister footage, he becomes obsessed with finding out more about this man. When Bannister’s wife refuses to help and orders him to ignore everything except for the few parts of Bannister’s life that are needed to make the rememory, Williams ignores her demand and invades the family’s privacy to satisfy his own curiosity. But even worse, he now exploits the little girl’s plea for help to give himself a chance to use the girl to get information about the man. Thus, he slowly builds up her trust just so he can get the information he needs. And when he has what he needs, and the mother orders him to leave and to never mention again what he has learned about the family (after the Bannister footage is accidentally destroyed), he does so without a second thought -- entirely abandoning the little girl.

To punctuate this point, we see the girl’s reaction as she knows she has been abandoned by Williams to the uncaring (and likely complicit) mother. Interestingly, we also see, momentarily, footage from the Zoe device implanted in this girl. The implications of this are very disturbing, though they are not openly touched upon. Consider that we cannot see this footage until she has died. It is possible this glimpse is just for our benefit, as a sort of -- “someone will know one day” type moment. But at the end of the film, there is a strong implication that everything we’ve seen in the movie was being witnessed by a cutter, whose identity you will learn near the end of the film. Knowing that Bannister’s footage was lost to them, could our seeing this footage mean that the little girl was murdered so the zealots could obtain this footage? There is no direct evidence to support this, but there is a suggestion to that effect at the end of the film. I can say no more, but this is something to consider when the film ends.

In any event, this level or evil and selfishness by Williams is truly staggering, and should inform our view of Williams’ performance (which is much stronger than the disappointing One Hour Photo (2002)) -- unless you insist on trying to make Williams into the hero.

So What Does This Film Tell Us?

Ultimately, this film tells us that it doesn’t take government to create the kind of dangers we were warned about by civil libertarians. It tells us that we must tread cautiously with new technology that gives people significant power over the lives of others. It tells us that we must develop a code of ethics for all to follow, and that some inventions, even those that don’t seem significant, are perhaps, a genie we should not be let loose from the bottle.

Finally, Compare Williams To Depp

Finally, as an interesting aside, compare the portrayal of Dean Corso by Johnny Depp with the portrayal in The Ninth Gate of Alan Hakman by Robin Williams. In many ways, at their cores, the characters are identical. They are both nihilistic, self-centered, remorseless, shameless, evil beings, and both are mistaken by the audience for good guys. Yet, the two characters are played very different -- and yet both are believable. Depp plays Corso as confident to a fault. He is disorganized and ruffled, but he takes what he wants without hesitation. He is aggressive. But Williams plays Hakman as passive-aggressive. He must trick others out of what he wants. He is cowardly, fastidious and sniveling.

One wonders, how these movies would have changed if the characters had changed places? I doubt the devil would have been interested in Hakman, and I can’t see Corso caring about having killed a childhood friend. Thus, while they are identical at their cores, they are entirely different people who can’t be exchanged for one another -- unlike any two villains from your typical mainstream Hollywood film. It is an interesting comparison that shows once again, that evil can come in many forms. . . unless you’re in a mainstream Hollywood film.

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Film Friday: Capricorn One (1978)

Some movies are cultural markers. They highlight the beginning, or end, of an era. Capricorn One, directed by Peter Hyams (Outland, 2010), is such a movie. Capricorn One marks the moment American culture recognized that average Americans had not only lost their faith in their government, but actively began to believe their government capable of great evil. Capricorn One marks the beginning of the Conspiracy Era.

** spoiler alert **

The Plot

Capricorn One opens as NASA prepares to launch the first manned mission to Mars. Astronauts Charles Brubaker (James Brolin), Peter Willis (Sam Waterston), and John Walker (O.J. Simpson) board the rocket. The Vice President sits in the reviewing stand awaiting the launch. The President did not come because many have begun to question whether the country can afford to continue exploring space in bad economic times. As the countdown slowly winds down, the capsule door suddenly opens. The astronauts are told to leave the capsule and are whisked away to a waiting plane. The rocket takes off without them.

There was a mistake, Dr. Kelloway (the always-fantastic Hal Holbrook) explains to the confused astronauts. A simple mistake. A contractor messed up, and if the astronauts had remained on the rocket, they would be dead by now. Unfortunately, Holbrook continues, the mistake was discovered too late to be corrected in time without scrubbing the mission. Scrubbing the mission would have meant the end of the program. . . and an end to manned exploration in space. So an alternative plan was formed. They would fake the Mars landing on a studio set. And when the rocket returned to Earth, Brubaker, Willis and Walker would be secretly flown to the splash down site, where they would await rescue, before returning home as badly-needed heroes.

Left with no choice, the astronauts reluctantly agree to participate in the deception. But on its return, the capsule loses its heat shield and burns up in the atmosphere. The astronauts are dead. And when Brubaker, Willis and Walker figure out what happened, they realize NASA can’t afford to let them be seen again. The chase is on.

The First Modern Conspiracy Movie

Released a few years after Watergate, Capricorn One marks the moment the American public first began to believe that their own government was capable of great evil. It marks the beginning of the modern conspiracy theory. Prior to Capricorn One, conspiracies were confined to criminal endeavors or foreign agents. Rarely did the government set out to deceive the population. And when it did, as in Close Encounters, it was done by honest government officials who were looking out for the best interests of the public. The idea of manipulating the American public for personal gain or to protect an agency from embarrassment was simply unheard of. . . and the government never killed its own people (except spies).

Compare this to the modern version of conspiracies, as seen in virtually any movie today. Typically, the most important officials in the government have entered into a secret deal to engage in some nefarious activities that will cause significant harm to the American people. Their motives are sinister, and their methods are murderous and sadistic. Modern conspirators waste no time sending out armies of black-clad, cold-blooded killers to eliminate anyone who even tangentially stumbles upon the conspiracy.

Capricorn One is the movie that marked this change in our culture. It is the film that first told us the American government itself could be a sinister, evil force -- not just a single bad actor in the government. And interestingly, intentionally or not, Peter Hyams lets us watch this transition within Holbrook’s character as the movie unfolds.

Indeed, when we first learn of the conspiracy, Holbrook acts like every other “conspirator” you could find in a 1950’s movie. He is the noble civil servant, pressed into a difficult corner, looking to do the right thing for the American people. He believes he is acting for the good of the public. He wants to protect the efforts of the thousands of people who toiled to make this program work and to save science from the budget axe of a short-sighted Congress. He wants to give America back its heroes and he wants to avoid causing another devastating blow to America’s self-confidence -- an issue on many minds during American’s national post-Watergate malaise. As he explains what happened to the astronauts, he is clearly heartsick. There are times you think he may cry, and you share his pain. Equally importantly, he doesn't threaten the astronauts. He reasons with them and pleads for their support. He does not want to hurt anyone.

But then things begin to go wrong. A NASA employee notices the telemetry readings cannot be correct. He brings this to Holbrook’s attention. But unlike modern conspirators, Holbrook doesn't have him killed. He gives the employee a chance. He tells the employee the machine is broken and instructs him to disregard the data. But the employee persists, and soon he attempts to share this information with a reporter friend -- Robert Caulfield (Elliot Gould). It is only then that the employee vanishes and a cover up put into place to hinder Gould’s investigation.

The treatment of Gould too is telling. Had this been a modern conspiracy movie, Holbrook would have ordered Gould eliminated. But that doesn’t happen here -- no black van appears to take Gould away in the night. At first, Gould is merely misled. They try to throw him off the track. But he persists. So they sabotage the brakes on his car. Could this kill him? Yes, but more likely it was only a message, as they easily could have killed him if they wanted to. When he doesn’t get this message, they frame him for drug possession, which gets him fired. With this “threat” neutralized, they ignore him. . . they don’t hunt him down.

But soon a much more modern conspirator emerges in Holbrook. When the capsule burns up on reentry and the astronauts escape the studio facility, Holbrook stops being the innocent conspirator of the 1950s and transitions into a role that would become Hollywood cliché: Holbrook sits behind a desk in a far away office, issuing terse orders over a phone to capture (and possibly kill) the three astronauts. He literally sends black helicopters to hunt them down.

Holbrook has lost his innocence, and so has the culture. Gone is the idea the government can be trusted and will never hurt us. In its place, people now believe in black helicopters and hit squads. And this reflects in the increasingly nasty tone most conspiracy theories have taken in our culture. The government doesn’t just hide the truth about aliens anymore, it blows up buildings to “hide the truth.” It doesn’t just act in our best interests anymore, it now manipulates us so it can carry out its own sinister agenda.

Capricorn One marked the moment this transition began. (Interesting, many credit Capricorn One with popularizing the moon landing conspiracy -- a ridiculous bit of paranoia, bad science and false logic that 6% of Americans, 28% of Russians and 25% of Britons believe.)

Death of Professional Journalism

Capricorn One also marks the dying gasp of old school, professional journalism, an issue highlighted this week by the passing of Walter Cronkite. Indeed, Capricorn One not only shows us what journalism was, it hints at what journalism was about to become.

Consider the character of Robert Caulfield (Elliot Gould). Gould is not a modern attack journalist. Notice, for example, how gently he treats Kay Brubaker (Brenda Vaccaro) when he believes her husband has given her clues about what is going on. He doesn't run over and shove a microphone in her face, he asks for an interview. He is respectful. He even asks for permission to delve into more “personal” questions. And unlike modern reporters who love to hear themselves speak, he listens, he does not talk. Nor does he speculate. Nor is he a tabloid journalist, not by our standards. Gould suspects that something is amiss with the Mars landing because his friend told him about the telemetry and because his friend disappeared. But while this would be more than enough evidence for modern journalists to this story, Gould doesn't write the story because he simply doesn't believe he has enough verifiable facts. Thus, he represents old-school journalism.

Yet, his editor, played by David Doyle (Bosley of Charlie’s Angles), sees him as a tabloid journalist. He repeatedly assaults Gould for proposing wild theories, for failing to gather facts, and for failing to cover “hard news” like train derailments. He laments what Gould means for the future of the profession. And in making these complaints, he foreshadows the exact road journalism would take, and it would do so largely because of the new trade in rumor, paranoia, and conspiracy. Thus, as with the shift in thinking about conspiracy theories, Capricorn One gives us a look at how journalism once was, and shows us where it would head in the Conspiracy Era. And that’s the way it was.

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Film Friday: Rope (1948)

Alfred Hitchcock's most twisted film, Rope, is the story of two men who kill their friend and then host a dinner party over the chest in which they’ve hidden the body. And that’s just the beginning. If you haven’t heard of Rope, there is a reason. Calling Rope “an experiment that didn’t work out,” Hitchcock bought back the rights, along with four other “lost Hitchcocks” (The Man Who Knew Too Much, Rear Window, The Trouble With Harry and Vertigo), and he kept them from being shown in public for 30 years, until his daughter released them after his death.

** spoiler alert **

Rope: Hitchcock's Big Experiment

Based on the 1929 play Rope’s End by Patrick Hamilton, Rope was Hitchcock’s most experimental film. Indeed, not only was this Hitchcock’s first color film (ditto for Jimmy Stewart), but the film was shot in ten segments, ranging in length from four minutes to ten minutes, with each segment being filmed as a continuous take. Thus, as the camera and sound gear moved around the set (the film takes place in an apartment), the film crew rolled away walls and returned them, the prop men moved furniture out of the way and returned it, and the actors followed an elaborate choreography to keep out of the way of the film crew. Amazingly, you never notice.

The Story

Inspired by the real-life murder of fourteen-year-old Bobby Franks in 1924 by two University of Chicago students, Rope opens with Brandon (John Dall) and Phillip (Farley Granger) murdering their friend David by strangling him with a rope in their apartment. The scene opens as David gasps his last breath and goes limp. Brandon and Phillip then stuff David’s body into a large chest in the middle of the apartment. They killed him because they wanted to prove they could commit the perfect crime. They chose David as the victim because they viewed him as "inferior."

To satisfy his twisted ego, Brandon complicates matters by inviting David’s father, aunt, and fiancee to a small dinner party that will be held in the apartment. Unbeknownst to Phillip, Brandon upped the ante by also inviting David’s former best friend, who used to date David’s fiancee, and their former teacher, Rupert Cadell (Jimmy Stewart). At the last moment, Brandon further ups the stakes, by moving the dinner party from the dining room to the living room and choosing to serve food off the chest in which David's body is hidden. As the guests begin arriving, Brandon tells us, “Now the fun begins.” And so it does.

As the story unfolds, Hitchcock gives the audience a steady dose of black humor, allowing us in on the joke as the characters deliver dozens of lines like “these hands will bring you great fame,” and as Brandon makes repeated subtle references to David’s being dead and steers the conversation to the topic of murder. But with each passing joke, Brandon pushes further, becoming more and more careless and maniacal, while Phillip begins to crack.

Yet, Hitchcock tricks us into cheering for Brandon and Phillip. He does this by using their bickering to force the audience to empathize with them. Like Quentin Tarantino does in Pulp Fiction, Hitchcock uses their interaction to pull the audience into their relationship. You become invested in them. Combined with the sense of belonging one gets with being “in” on a joke, as we are with Brandon's repeated jokes at the expense of his guests, the audience slowly begins to pull for these two villains to get away with their crime. Indeed you find yourself increasingly tense as it gets more and more likely they will be caught. We even find ourselves becoming annoyed with David’s father, who is preoccupied with his missing son, and who repeatedly ruins the party for us with his sour concerns. We no longer see him as a caring father. Instead, we see him as the guest we wish hadn't been invited.

We also begin to distrust and then even dislike Jimmy Stewart, who becomes suspicious and begins to investigate. The more he pushes, the more unhappy we become. In a brilliant bit of manipulation, we watch Stewart use a metronome to force Phillip to play the piano faster and faster, as Stewart crossexamines him about the holes in their story until Phillip nearly breaks. But rather than celebrate Stewart's victory, this only increases our feelings of unease and disgust with the weakening Phillip, who is falling apart before our eyes. We begin to wonder, will we make it to the end of the party before he breaks.

And then, to prove to us that we now emotionally support the murderers, Hitchcock presents us with a tremendous scene where we watch the maid clearing the plates and candles from the chest. As the other actors continue their dialog off camera, we watch her slowly, but surely clear the chest and finally reach to open it. By that point, we are on the edge of our seats, wanting to scream to Brandon: "look what she's doing! Stop her!" We are rooting for the bad guys.

The Message

But just as we succumb to Hitchcock’s manipulation, Jimmy Stewart snaps us back to morality. In a moment reminiscent of the speech given by Jose Ferrer in The Caine Mutiny (1954), which changes the entire emotional complexion of that film, Stewart makes us realize that Brandon and Phillip are indeed monsters and we should be ashamed of having hoped for them to pull off their crime. For Stewart realizes that he is the reason Brandon and Phillip killed David, and it makes him sick. He recalls how he discussed with them the intellectual concepts of Nietzsche’s Ubermensch while they were students and how he advocated to them (as he does earlier in the film during a conversation which upsets David’s father) the idea that superior men not only have a right, but a duty, to murder inferior men. And even though he never meant his comments to be taken literally, he now realizes how dangerous his words were when spoken to impressionable young men. . . men like Brandon, who may honestly believe Stewart would approve of their “work of art.” Therein lies the message: words have power and we must take care in choosing what we say or we will rue the consequences.

And when Stewart understands how he shares the guilt for the murder he believes has taken place, Stewart shows the audience a level of horror in his face and in his shaking hands that Stewart has never shown in any other film. And when we see this, we too feel sick for how we laughed and condoned and enjoyed being on the inside earlier.

If there is a flaw in the film, it is that while Hitchcock can force us to root for the two murderers by engaging us in their relationship, he never does manage to make us believe their views about superior humans. Thus, while we do eventually feel shame for hoping they get away with the murder, it is not as deep as if we had come to accept their philosophy before Stewart exposes it. It is the difference between being ashamed of having laughed at an inappropriate joke, versus being ashamed at having told it. Indeed, I believe this is why The Caine Mutiny speech ultimately has greater effect -- because we never consider that we could be wrong until Ferrer speaks, whereas here we always knew Brandon and Phillip were wrong, we just didn’t mind.

As an aside, there is another message hidden in here, which is Hitchcock's statement against anti-Semitism. It is implied that David's family is Jewish and that this may have been part of their motivation in choosing him, something that is reinforced with the discussion of Nietzsche's theories, which became a core of Nazism.

Implied Homosexuality

Finally, it's worth noting Rope was notorious because of the implied homosexuality of the main characters. Indeed, the film was banned in several cities because of it. Yet, while it is clear the characters are meant to be gay (as indeed were the real University of Chicago students upon whom they are based and as were actors John Dall and Farley Granger and the writer), the implication is not obvious to the casual observer, who could easily see their relationship as being explained merely in Brandon bullying the weaker Phillip.

In any event, I highly recommend this film.

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Film Friday: The Ninth Gate (1999)

Hollywood loves evil. . . cartoon evil. From sulking cannibalistic serial killers to Al Pacino’s devil screaming about being a lawyer, all of Hollywood’s evil characters display uncontrollable sadism and megalomania. They yell and scream and prance around shooting their underlings or kicking puppies so the audience knows they are evil. And every once in a while, a truly sinister one whispers ominously. . . and then prances around shooting his underlings and kicking puppies. The Ninth Gate rejects that. The Ninth Gate is an indictment of Hollywood’s version of evil. It is a warning that we have been so blinded by the glitz of Hollywood evil, that we can no longer recognize the real thing.

** heavy spoiler alert **

The Plot

Directed by Roman Polanski, The Ninth Gate is the story of Dean Corso (played perfectly by Johnny Depp). Corso is an odious little man who acquires rare books for well paying clients. We first meet Corso as he tricks a young couple out of a rare copy of "Don Quixote." Soon Corso is summoned by Boris Balkan (Frank Langella), a collector of books about the devil. Balkan has acquired a copy of the “Nine Gates to the Kingdom of Shadows” by Aristide Torchia. This rare book (only three exist) supposedly will allow the reader to summon the devil. Balkan suspects his version is a forgery and pays Corso to inspect the other two copies. Corso is told to obtain an original, non-forgery by any means possible. Thus begins Corso’s journey.

When Corso begins comparing the books, he discovers that Torchia hid a secret in all three books as a kind of puzzle. Each book contains nine supposedly-identical engravings. But Corso realizes that three of the engravings in each book contain subtle differences and that the engravings with those differences are signed “LCF” (meaning Lucifer).

As Corso examines the books, people around him start dying. He is also chased by a sadistic woman named Liana Telfer who wants Balkan’s copy of the book (Balkan took it from her husband). Telfer belongs to a cult and intends to use the book as part of a Satanic ritual. Corso also meets the Baroness Kessler, who claims to have seen the devil in her youth, and who has since dedicated her life to writing about the devil. Telfer eventually steals the book from Corso, and Balkan kills her to reclaim it. He then uses the book himself to attempt to conjure the devil. But the final engraving is a forgery. Thus, when Balkan sets himself on fire, much to his surprise, he burns. As he burns, Corso shoots him. Corso then retrieves the real engraving, which reveals the location of the ninth gate. As the story ends, we see Corso walking through the ninth gate.

The Message

The Ninth Gate is about real evil, and that evil is Corso. Corso systematically abandons God by engaging in each of the seven deadly sins and ultimately declares allegiance to the devil and voluntarily pass through the ninth gate. But can the audience see this?

To test the audience, Polanski does more than just tell us the story of Dean Corso. Indeed, he attempts to distract us with the over-the-top, pro-forma Hollywood evil of Balkan and Telfer. Polanski knows that we are so accustomed to Hollywood evil and Hollywood formula that we will see these two as “the” evil and we will dismiss Corso’s own evil. Indeed, like Pavlov’s dogs, we’ve come to expect that all evil is larger-than-life and that where there is an evil character there must be an opposing good character. Thus, we are conditioned to see Corso as “the good guy” and we cheer him on, no matter how evil he becomes. And evil he does become.

Throughout the movie, Corso’s evil continues to ratchet up notch after notch and Polanski turns each of these notches into a test for the audience. In each instance, as Corso undertakes his relentless, remorseless journey of evil, we are offered a justification for his conduct. But we are also shown why that justification is not valid. Can we recognize the truth? For example, Corso drinks and smokes to excess. Sure, it’s gluttony, but we all do it. He pushes away two beggars, but they didn’t seem very likeable. He steals from a dead man, but we’re told “he’s dead, why worry about him.” When Corso defrauds the couple of the "Don Quixote," we don’t mind because they are shown to be greedy people hoping to profit off their father’s stroke. Yet, we’re also shown that the father suffers when he see Corso’s actions but is powerless to stop him. Thus, our excuse that only bad people will suffer from his conduct is shown to be false.

Corso accepts Balkan’s assignment to do “whatever it takes,” which we know to be wrong, but we understand his motivation because Balkan offers him a tremendous amount of money. Indeed, our greed blinds us to the truth. When his best friend is killed because of this assignment, we nevertheless want him to continue -- after all, he’s dead, why worry about him. Corso sleeps with Liana Telfer under false pretenses, but we don’t mind because she’s evil and she was trying to use him. Later on, he even kills Telfer’s henchman, but it’s all in self-defense, right? Actually no. Corso kills the henchman after he knocks him unconscious. Corso could have simply escaped, but he was angry so he chose to kill the man. Anger, by the way, was once considered the worst of all sins.

And let’s not forget that Corso also kills a second time. He kills Balkan after Balkan sets himself on fire. But that was a mercy killing, right? He didn’t want Balkan to suffer in the fire, right? Actually, look again. Corso watches Balkan burn with more than a hint of satisfaction on his face. It is only near the end, as Balkan is about to die from his burns that Corso shoots him, to satisfy his own vengeance.

Further, consider the young woman with no name. She is the devil. How do we know this? We are never told who she is, but we are given clues -- like the rest of the film, her identity is a puzzle to be solved. Of all the characters, she is the only one with supernatural powers (she floats on air in one scene and changes her form in an airport in another). Also, her’s is the face of the woman riding the beast in the final engraving, and when she and Corso finally have sex, her eyes glow as the flames build behind them, making her physically appear as the devil might.

As the devil, Hollywood tells us she would be interested in Balkan or Telfer, but she’s not. She wants Corso because unlike the fake evil of Balkan or Telfer, Corso offers real evil. Indeed, interestingly, despite obsessing over the devil their entire lives, neither Balkan or Telfer ever realize that she is the devil -- even though she is standing right before their eyes. She is simply not what they expect, she’s not grandiose. Continuing this theme, Balkan even has a painting of the location of the ninth gate in his library at the beginning of the film, but never grasps its meaning. Polanski’s point in this, is that evil stands before us all the time, but we don’t see it because we are looking for something too grandiose.

With regard to Corso, the young woman renders her verdict when Corso kills the henchmen. She watches the murder with glee and then says with admiration, “I didn’t know you had it in you.” He has passed the test.

Finally, Polanski gives us huge hints from Corso’s own mouth. When he first deals with Balkan, Corso says to Balkan “my god” and refers to him on the phone as “his master’s voice.” While these could be viewed as nothing more than expressions or clever turns-of-phrase, they are instead meant to alert the reader that Corso worships the man who pays him. He has no other allegiance. When Corso discovers the puzzle within the three books, he says, “I’ll be damned,” as indeed he will. And when he finally decides he no longer cares about Balkan’s money, but instead wants to solve the puzzle and conjure the devil himself, he says to the young woman, “my god” -- effectively declaring a new allegiance to the devil. These are clues into the nature of Corso’s soul.

Each of these clues combine to show us that Corso is the true evil in this movie. He is the one the devil considers most compelling. That we lose sight of Corso’s evil because it is not over-the-top like Balkan is Polanski’s point. We the viewers cheer Corso along in his journey. We fail to see the evil in his acts, we justify what evil we do see, and we happily share his fate. That is the message of this film. It is no coincidence that the only two people to see the devil for who he/she really is are Corso and us.

Irony Gone Wild: The Critics

Let me finish with a bit of irony regarding film critics. As you know, film critics like to think of themselves as a nuanced and insightful group. They routinely claim to see a hundred shades of meaning in every hamburger and they love to complain that Hollywood never produces intelligent films. So what did they say about the very thoughtful and nuanced The Ninth Gate?

According to Roger Ebert, Johnny Depp played Corso “too odiously” to be the hero. Hmmm, sounds like someone didn’t understand that Corso’s surrender to evil was the point of the movie. The NYT said the movie wasn’t sufficiently scary. Of course, I hear that’s a common complaint about Socrates as well. Entertainment Weekly didn’t think the ending was spectacular enough. . . maybe Depp should have kicked a puppy?

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