Films/DVD Asylum

Posted by halfnote (A) on March 30, 2007 at 22:43:47

In Reply to: This is interesting... posted by afilado on March 29, 2007 at 22:47:06:

"Your first sentence could be said about virtually any film ..."

Really? Could it be said about Jaws? Or Meatballs? I used the word "didactic;" while not entirely inappropriate, perhaps "dialectic" would have been more more to the point. The film, quite consciously, sets up mirror images, opposing poles, of good and evil, morality and immorality, of the police, say, and the underworld, and then begins to dismantle them. The uniform, the identifiable good, is replaced by the more ambigious "under cover" guise. The good is infiltrated by the evil, the evil by the good. The Damon character assassinates his superior, the Nicholson characerter, on "moral" grounds, because he is a "snitch". There is a simple irony here: the Damon character is himself a snitch. His outrage is sparked by the realization that his moral compass has been lost, that he has, in effect, been worshiping a false god. And isn't the Nicholson character just a replacement for the Priest he served as a boy? The DiCaprio character's origins are from the opposite pole of the social order: though he has a criminal background, he gravitates toward the police. Without getting into a carefully premediated exigesis on the films themes and conceptual structure, I think it is fairly easy to agree that this dialectic was consciously contrued and explored by Scorcese. The film's dramatic development can be seen as an exercise in cancelling out these polar opposites, in an attempt to arrive at come irreducible kernal of meaning, or morality, or goodness.

Mind you, I have seen the film ONCE. But these themes struck me as preoccupations of the director.

With regard to "blowing brains out," this is a central image that reoccurs, not accidentally or without conscious purpose thoughout the film. Think of the number of such executions. Also, remember the police instructors explain in almost pornographic detail what happens when a certain shell enters the brain, with the little pieces of of the shatter bullet cutting though grey matter like tiny razor blades. To me, this suggested oblivion, nihilism, the existential irradication of meaning, morality and human impetus. This blackness highlights and exposes the futility of human action, and casts a tragic pall on the characters whose actions are predicated upon the arbitrary human contructs of good and evil, and of morality. That again relates to the idea of "frocks" and "uniforms." Moral action in this film is reduced to a costume; or, it could be argued that Scorcese really intended to show that morality transends costumes and human endeavor -- that, again, demonstrates the dialectical nature of the film.

Do you find this kind of studied exploration of morality and meaning and human motivation in "virtually any film"?

As to the derivative nature of the film, it is artistically irrelevant. Shakespeare's greatest play "King Lear," was derivative. Kubrick's undeniable masterpiece, "2001," was derivative. So? But derivativeness is certainly NOT a basis to demean or devalue an artistic work. Often, it is suggestive of a broader range of reference, an consciousness of literary and artistic tradition, which ought to militate in the opposite direction.

Before I saw this film, I was ready to dismiss it myself. "Oh no! not another Scorcese crime flick! And now they're rolling out Jack Nicholson as a bad guy? What happended, was DiNiro too busy?" The only reason I ordered it was because there was absolutely nothing else on television on a night when I really felt like watching television. But I found myself, as the film unfolded, with a greater and greater appreciation of what Scorcese was trying to achieve.

I am sorry if this is not as lucid as it might be. Heck, I'm not writing a term paper here. But I hope that, at least, you can see there is some empiracal basis for my assertion that this movie, itself masquerading as a simple crime flick, an underlying high seriousness.