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The Row Boat

"Had we but world enough, and time..." *

An Exchange on the Oscars

2/26/2008 08:56:37

On Feb 25, 2008, at 9:49 AM, Barbara Croissant wrote:

Nate,

Yesterday I saw No Country for Old Men and thought it was awful. We wonder why people shoot students in schools and shoppers in malls. Movies like the one that won "best film" are training future killers. It's a nightmare. I also saw There Will Be Blood and thought it was awful too. A hardened depiction of two monsters. What is wrong with Hollywood and our country that killing is so rampant and acceptable behavior?

Disgusted,

Mom

The Oscars

On Feb 25, 2008, at 11:46 AM, Nathan Schneider wrote:

Mama,

Yes, I saw both movies too and have been thinking a lot about these issues. They are rather demonic films.

There is of course the sense in which a culture should be familiar with the possibility of evil, cruelty, and violence. Whether our "entertainment" is the place to do it seems questionable to me. My friend just made the point that, compared to the usual action flick, these films actually portray violence as quite disgusting and horrific and destructive.

In those terms, these films are able to make powerful points and leave us affected. I thought the final scene in Blood, for instance, was a compelling parable for the triumph of American capitalism.

Nevertheless, what is the effect? The more of these films we see, the more we become desensitized. Merely seeing violence, without experiencing its effects on our own lives, gives the impression that it is an aesthetic event; it is obviously not.

These films, I suspect, rise out of a culture that has banished physical death, violence, and tragedy from its own midst. They are left as pure, empty, aesthetics, to be toyed with by filmmakers. People (and I include myself among them) crave violence in entertainment because our wars are fought on TV and our relatives die in hospitals, handled by professionals. They arise out of boredom—just as in the story Dostoevsky repeats in Notes from the Underground, that out of boredom Cleopatra would stick needles in her servants' breasts in order to hear their agony.

And the effect? Though hotly debated, studies have pointed to a correlation between violence on film and violent behavior. You are right. I'll join you in mourning the Oscars!

*
Nathan Schneider

On Feb 26, 2008, at 7:26 AM, Barbara Croissant wrote:

Nate,

A friend's husband's response to my dislike of No Country was that the movie shows how violence can happen anywhere to innocent people. He thought that was an important point. Maybe, but does that make it worth an Oscar?

Another way to look at it is that both movies provide mirrors of a country at war. In that sense, Hollywood is doing us a favor by allowing us to see ourselves and think about what we are becoming as individuals and as a country with aspirations for higher ideals. I sadly noted that the kids who give the killer in No Country a shirt, subsequently fight over who gets the money.

I also wonder what higher thoughts these directors have when they make these films. Or are they just toying with our emotions and jerking us around? I personally hold that the arts are at their best when they transcend ordinary fare and show us higher ground. When that doesn't happen, it gives rein to heavy self indulgence. It is one of the problems I have with contemporary art (paintings, sculpture, etc.) in general.

For my money, if I were Gandhi, I would go on a hunger strike. Humans can be so much worse than the animals they kill for food.

Mom

re: An Exchange on the Oscars - 2/26/2008 19:34:22
Posted by BT

I actually liked NCFOM, although haven't read the book. I saw it as a sort of fledgling theodicy tale, where the sheriff's inner struggle at least somewhat redeems the brutality. It is bleak, though.

There's been some interesting stuff written about Cormac McCarthy's novels making sense as Gnostic parables (Gnostic in the sense of: Creation being inherently botched). I fully agree that any t-shirts of the bad guy would be quite grotesque, though. His wacked-out code of conduct could almost be a symbol for "natural law" gone haywire...the way he dismisses the other character's girlfriend's comment at the end (he responds to her "you don't have to do this..." with his "people always say [that]") is metaphysically loaded, as is the sheriff's last soliloquy (re: dream of making fire in dark & cold expanse)...

That said, I'm not in any hurry to watch it again.

p.s. - 2/26/2008 19:47:41
Posted by BT

Especially re: this exchange toward the end (pasted-in below) -- perfectly represents the logic & consequences of an extreme reductionist determinism (! -- re: "I got here the same way the coin did")...

---

CJ: You don't have to do this.

C: People always say the same thing.

CJ: What do they say?

C: They say “You don't have to do this.”

CJ: You don't. . .

C: This is the best I can do. . . Call it.

CJ: I knowed you was crazy when I saw you settin there. I knowed exactly what was in store for me.

C: Call it.

CJ: No. I ain't gonna call it.

C: Call it.

CJ: The coin don't have no say. It's just you.

C: I got here the same way the coin did.

re: An Exchange on the Oscars - 2/27/2008 11:45:43
Posted by nathan

Thank you for posting these!

I agree, regarding both movies, that there is much in them. They are innovative, powerful, and worth thinking about.

In religious terms, there is the dilemma sometimes posed this way: Yes the devil and his works are interesting, but they are still evil.

I, along with humanistic apologetics generally, tend to insist on the basic goodness of the interesting. But this is a position that can only come out of distance. I can only afford to appreciate these films if something deeply valuable to me (i.e. my children) is being harmed by their effects.

This is why I suggest that a society that is more beset with its own precious mortality might be somewhat less appreciative. In this way I find my mother's perspective really quite instructive. A mother, perhaps uniquely schooled in her contingency, seems to have special insight.

re: An Exchange on the Oscars - 2/27/2008 13:19:24
Posted by nathan

I was also struck by the sociality of watching these films: the company.

NCFOM I saw with my father, and was able to enjoy it in a sort of male-way. Both men (though both rather squeamish), there may have been some pressure to endure the violence unaffectedly.

TWBB I saw with my girlfriend, whose sense for movies much resembles my mother's. She was disgusted, and the whole time I could sense that in her and felt bad for taking her to see it. While watching, I kept thinking that perhaps I would be able to better-intellectualize the whole thing if I were with my father again, or better, a friend my age who likes that sort of thing.

In college, I (and so many of us) endured a lot of tiresome, difficult movies for the sake of intellect and challenge.

Would I want to keep doing that? Maybe. There are payoffs. But at this point in life I begin to resonate more with the mother/girlfriend perspective. As I suggested earlier, they seem to inhabit a world of less distance from loss, from reality. I, whether humanistically or humanly, appreciate that.

re: An Exchange on the Oscars - 2/27/2008 18:14:58
Posted by BT

...I can only afford to appreciate these films if something deeply valuable to me (i.e. my children) is being harmed by their effects.

Did you mean "not being harmed..."?

For me morals/concern/etc. and "intellect" aren't mutually exclusive...yet I'm definitely not rushing out to watch NCFOM again, either, and I haven't seen TWBB (and probably won't). I just don't buy into the male/female essentialisms (women as having "less distance from loss," etc.?), but I agree that many movies (if not almost all, nowadays!?) surely aren't worth their production costs, or people's attention.

C. M.'s recent novel The Road was even bleaker & more brutal than NCFOM in some ways, yet the ending was very moving. He definitely doesn't develop his women characters, though, at least from what I've read/seen.

re: An Exchange on the Oscars - 2/28/2008 07:30:24
Posted by nathan

Yes, you're right. I meant that!

I listened to The Road once on a drive through the California desert; I found it bleak and harsh, but far less violent. I liked it. My Heideggerian professor, Thomas Carlson, LOVES it.

He does seem to avoid women characters like the plague. I wonder if they occur in any of his books at all.

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