The opening shot of Robert Aldrich's "Kiss Me Deadly."
You want dark? How's this for dark: Matt Zoller Seitz chillingly sets the scene before plummeting headlong into the moral darkness of Robert Aldrich's noir masterpiece "Kiss Me Deadly" (Opening Shot Project dissection by Kim Morgan here), as part of Dennis Cozzalio's "Robert Aldrich Blog-a-Thon":
It defines the difference between cynicism and nihilism, then throws down with the nihilists, if for no other reason than to show you what it means to live in a world where nothing matters. Cynics expect the worst of humanity and are rarely disappointed, but in their hearts, they hope for some evidence that humans are innately kind and that morality is more than a sucker’s game. Cynicism is pre-emptive disappointment; you can’t be let down by anyone or anything unless you secretly nurse a kernel of hope. A nihilist, on the other hand, knows that the difference between cynicism and optimism is a matter of degrees. Like Neo in "The Matrix" blocking the agents’ bullets and then suddenly understanding, truly and deeply, that the world he's long accepted as "real" is just an intellectual prison built of ones and zeroes, the true nihilist has had his moment of cosmic disillusionment, and his accompanying realization that democracy, religion, equality -- hell, the Golden Rule itself -- are all just scam jobs sold to sheep by wolves; that everybody’s mainly concerned with playing the angles and getting ahead in the here and now, even if they pretend otherwise. After realizing that morality and ethics, religion and philosophy, good and evil are illusions of various sorts, and that there’s no percentage in decency, guilt and shame vanish and life becomes a present-tense proposition, a zero-sum game played by beasts that wear suits and drive cars.In "Kiss Me Deadly," you might say the smoking gun comes in the shape of a mushroom cloud. And after watching last night's "Frontline" ("The Lost Year in Iraq") I'm still trying to decide whether the Bush administration is, in addition to stupid and incompetent, either cynical or nihilistic. I'm leaning toward the latter. It's a sign of our times: They just don't give a shit about anyone but their own insiders.
2 Comments
It's funny - well I guess not so funny - I was conversing about politics the other day, which is typically a conversation I avoid (that and religion , I prefer avoiding confrontations with people that don't think about what they are saying, and since that includes most of the populace...) but it was an intelligent enough person, so I gave in, and one thing I concluded is that not only do the Republicans care about their insiders more than anything else, but all politics has become of recent years is groups of people who do things mainly for themselves. A self gratifying club. I voted Bush the first time, and Kerry the second time, but both races were farsical; full of pandering, and back tracking, childish mudd slinging, corporate-isms. The worst of this of course was Bush's "God's on our side" mentality. To employ God into your nihilistic views of the world. It's a very sad era we live in regardless of what side you're on. There are very few true leaders out there right now, very few "men of the people" (or women). Everything is processed like high fructose corn syrup, and it does just as much damage to your body as that too good to be true corn sweetner.
Taking a longer view than the here and now, a nihilist or a cynic (I'm more of a cynic than a nihilist) would ask whether THE WORLD (in terms of both place and time) has always been a cynical place and people deep down are ... Well, no, I don't think most people are nihilistic or cynical, but simply easily used by "leaders" who play and use they with all the good, moral, idealistic talks. There is a book called "Sociopaths Next Door" or something, claiming that 1 in 4 is a sociopath at heart with no conscience, and the highly intelligent ones become respected and powerful members of the society. Sometimes I wonder if all the sound-good-feel-good idealism is in fact a more dangerous weapon than the teaching of selfishness and self-preservation. It is welded by the few brilliant sociopaths to herd the masses to do their dirty work and drive them more effectively than even actual economic incentives. A great tool. Certainly, the actual evidence to support this theory is vast. Ideals, not unlike religion, takes hold of people's heart quickly for the same reason -- it makes people feel good. Falsehood can be so irresistable...
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