"Something is happening here but you don't know what it is, do you Mr. Jones?"
-- Robert Zimmerman, 1965
I do not believe that the greatest evil is done by people who necessarily think of themselves as evil. Because evil doesn't often recognize itself. In "Chinatown," Noah Cross says: "Most people never have to face the fact that, at the right time and the right place, they're capable of anything." Implicit in this statement is his refusal to accept responsibility for what he has done. As he says, "I don't blame myself." There's great truth in Cross's words, and also in a corollary I'll propose, which goes like this: "Most people refuse to face the fact that, at the right time and the right place, they can rationalize anything." (See this post for more on that score.)
I think the most inherently "evil" person I've ever known, the one who did the most careless damage to people around him, was not a mere malevolent creep but someone who was pathologically clueless and could not conceive of anything or anyone beyond himself. He was a parasite, sucking the life blood out of those closest to him. His hosts -- er, "friends" -- eventually came to see that he considered them (if he considered them at all) insignificant -- unintended consequences of himself -- while people who knew him only casually (which was the best, and perhaps only, way to "know" him) thought he was just a really nice guy. He needed symbiotic relationships to feed his sense of self, and any harm to others as a result of his appetite was nothing more than acceptable collateral damage. If he was aware of it at all.
I see these patterns not only in everyday life, but in the behavior of governments, bureaucracies, businesses, public officials, and tyrants of all stripes. And I think it all comes down to that common quality of cluelessness -- either obliviousness to the consequences of one's words and actions or reckless disregard for them. Woody Allen (who, by the way, made a great movie about cluelessness, "Another Woman") divided the world into the "horrible and the miserable." For the sake of this essay, I would like to propose that we divide rampant worldwide insanity into Two Kinds of Cluelessness: 1) Literalism: Those who are certain they know something, but don't know that they don't understand it; and 2) Über-Solipsism Narcissism: Those who are certain they understand something, but but don't know -- and don't care -- that they don't, because everything is only about them anyway.
I will always remember reading "Catch-22" at the tender age of 15, because I was already aware of this kind of insanity in people around me (family, friends, schoolmates, teachers, President Nixon and Vice President Agnew, the Watergate crew, and even -- in my craziest moments -- myself), but I'd never seen anybody else recognize it -- and play with it -- so hilariously. It was a huge catharsis for me, an acknowledgment of my pent-up frustrations, and I laughed until I cried and cried until I started laughing again.
Let me give you a pair of examples from the "Cinema Interruptus" I did with "Chinatown" in April at the Conference on World Affairs in Boulder, CO. First, let me say it was a fantastic experience for me, and that the participants in the audience were inquisitive and incisive and generally brilliant, as always.
And then there were these other two...
EXAMPLE #1. Literalism: Those who are certain they know something, but don't know they don't understand it. There's this guy who always comes to the Interruptus, always sits in the same spot in the auditorium, and whose purpose for participating is to show off his book learnin'. The audience can't stand him, and they often tell him to shut up, but sometimes he does have interesting and enlightening bits of information to provide. He just doesn't seem to know the difference between the relevant ones and the irrelevant ones.
So, remember, we show the movie all the way through on Monday, then spend eight hours over the next four days (4 to 6 p.m., Tuesday through Friday) going over the movie, shot by shot. This time, late in the week, he chose to read an excerpt from Robert Towne's screenplay. I didn't know where he was heading with this, so I let him go ahead. He read this passage (and if you haven't seen "Chinatown," you should stop here), as J.J. Gittes looks through the window of a house to which he has followed Mrs. Mulwray:
Evelyn is pacing back and forth in and out of his line of vision. After a moment someone rises INTO SHOT -- obviously from lying on a bed. The figure is just a few feet from Evelyn. Her tear-stained face comes INTO VIEW. It is unmistakably the girl Gittes had last seen with Hollis Mulwray. Mulwray's girlfriend.I asked him what point he was trying to raise, and he said it was this: The screenplay clearly states that the girl was Hollis Mulwray's girlfriend.
Well, yes, because at that moment in the screenplay (and in the film), that's what Jake thinks. It's from his POV. The whole movie is about his flawed vision.
But the screenplay SAYS it's Mulwray's girlfriend.
Yes, but you already know that he, and we, will soon find out that is not true, because that's the whole last part of the movie and we've already seen the whole movie.
But since the screenplay says it's Mulwray's girlfriend, maybe this is some other girl.
Well, OK, you just go ahead and believe that if you like, even though you know that the movie then makes absolutely no sense....
Later it occurred to me that maybe this guy was a fundamentalist who also insists that every word in the bible is the absolute truth. And I guess you could say that, if you read every word in the bible in isolation, without connections to any of the other words. What we have here, I suppose, is a failure to connect the dots.
EXAMPLE #2. Über-Solipsism Narcissism: Those who are certain they understand something, but but don't know -- and don't care -- that they don't, because everything is only about them anyway.
After the whole thing was over, I was wrung out (that ending isn't easy to take, no matter how many times you see it, and we'd just invested about ten and a half hours in it). I was saying thanks and goodbye to people and, when the auditorium was nearly empty, a straggler approached me with a question:
I just came in at the very end and I wondered who killed whom and why.
Why would I tell you that if you haven't been here all week and you've never seen the movie?
Well, I wanted to come but I didn't have time. There were other panels I wanted to go to.
Well, there were other panels I wanted to go to, too. But we just put in eight hours discussing this movie and now you expect me to give you a one-paragraph synopsis? Why would I want to do that?
(I look up and notice that Sergio, the sound technician, is making the "crazy" sign. But the young woman doesn't seem crazy, except when she talks.)
I like to know what happened so I can talk about the movie with people.
How can you talk about the movie if you haven't seen it?
Oh, I do that all the time. I had a great conversation with some people about "Fight Club" a couple years ago and I still haven't seen that.
(Starting to get flustered.) No you didn't. You didn't have a "good conversation" about "Fight Club" because you had no idea what the conversation was about. You hadn't seen the movie.
Well, I have a whole pile of books at home that I haven't read and I like to talk about them.
Yeah, we all have piles of books we haven't read, but that doesn't mean we can talk about them.
Just tell me what the movie was about. Please.
(I succumb. "Chinatown" is well-known to have a rather complex story. I use all the characters' names and try to make it sound as inane and incomprehensible as possible and say it as if it was all one sentence.)
There. Does that help you?
But why did he kill him, and did he really kill him or did he have someone else do it for him?
(Yeah, and what about Ida Sessions?)
Look, do you know how insulting this is to me an and all the other people who've been here all week?
(I start to walk away.)
I don't mean to insult you. I told you I wanted to come, but I had other panels to see and I don't have two hours to spare to watch a movie.
And I don't have two hours to talk to you. Goodbye.
Even now I find it hard to believe I had that conversation. [One reader has wondered how this would have played if I was being "Borat-ed." I must say, the comparison did occur to me...] Reminds me of a friend who worked at a film organization and was asked to gather some facts and put together a proposal about some issue or another. When she presented her proposal to her boss, the boss looked it over and said: "But this is not what I believe!" My friends swears that's true. Never let facts or analysis get in the way of a belief!
Now, I'm not saying that these people are evil. Just that their thought-processes are, um, evil-enabling. And that they don't have a clue...
Those two stories are shockingly disturbing because I know dozens of people who are like that. The second example reminds me of the part in "The Squid and the Whale" when Walt is talking about "The Metamorphosis" (which he hasn't read) and he calls it "Kafkaesque," prompting his lady friend to say, "Of course it is, Kafka wrote it." That's how I imagine the young lady's past conversations about "Fight Club" and future conversations about "Chinatown."
In example one the man you describe is clearly 'That Guy', a phenomenon I noticed at college. 'That Guy' is especially prevalent in philosophy, film, and computer classes; ie any class where a person could have tangential knowledge to the class at hand. He will often raise his had, offer some inane comment referencing something we never learned, nor will learn, in the class, and sits down to watch the professor try his hardest not to call him a pompous ass. The rest of the class rolls their collective eyes. Apparently, 'That Guy' exists outside of college lectures....
Over the course of my life I found people in both categories you mention highly amusing - at least if I turn the cards on them. Unfortunately this is not always possible face to face but I can have fun with them in imagined conversations [one point of literature and film].
While the first category needs tailoring to the specifics at hand - though the basic idea is to use the good old technique of argumentum ad absurdum* - the second is very easy. Just use the Lisa-Simpson-Method, recount another movie/book as Lisa does when Bart asks her to "help" with his book report. I forgot which book he should read but Lisa recounts Gilligan's Island ...
Either the woman approaching you turns in circles nobody is interested in first hand experience - that is, she is most likely a literary scholar dabbling in Postmodernism - or she will be the laughing-stock for the rest of her life.
Oh yes, I have a mean streak and I do not stand fools easily. Reminds me of the seventh Doctor ...
*I know, technically a fallacy but used by philosophers as a method to find the limitations of a sound an viable argument.
That Guy survives college to go to computer conferences, too (the link is to a presentation on how to deliver a good programming tutorial).
People like Example #1 are annoying, but they deserve some credit for at least trying to understand (he made the effort to see the movie and read the screenplay). It's people like example #2 that drive me f'n crazy. What you should have done is described a completely different plot (such as the plot of It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World) just to ensure she would make a total ass of herself should she ever try to have a "good conversation" about Chinatown.
That second example is amazing! For some reason that makes me think of the person I always run into at concerts: the pale white guy in dreadlocks, man sandals and Trey Anastasio glasses who decides to dance the hacky-sack right in front of you, his face as shiny as a supplicant. Bonus points if he's wearing a Bob Marley T-shirt or busts out the Elaine Benis thumb moves.
I don't know if I would go so far to describe these people as evil, or maybe even the person you mentioned first. Certainly f'ed up and a scum of a human being, but evil?
Maybe it comes down to the same thing that dictates moral relativism, our experiences. I know someone who is far worse, someone who siphons off people, manipulates, takes advantage of and all those things that you described of the first person, but he does it knowingly. The interesting thing is that he still thinks he's justified. The ends/means b.s. I've had less and less to do with this individual, but there's still part of me that thinks he's an okay guy! That's evil, a wolf in sheep's clothing.
Is there such a thing as "logical relativism"? Because, while both of these people would annoy me to no end, I see in the person who read from the script, some form of logic working, not so much in the sense that because it says girlfriend that that's who it was. But why does it say "girlfriend" specifically. It's been a year or so since I've seen the movie, and since you've just gone through it scene by scene...I don't remember anywhere in the movie in which the characters or story refers to that character as the girlfriend. So, why should the word be in the script at all? It seems to be more a flaw in the script than in the final film, as a script should never tell you what a person is, but should show you. If one of the characters in the movie said "Maybe she's the girlfriend," I can see it being justifiable that the word would be in the script, otherwise, logically, it shouldn't be.
One of the first things they teach you in psych 101 is that everyone has their own "truth", and that included everything from moral beliefs to logical thinking...a very postmodern and abstract point of view. Some abstract is good, but this was too much for my taste.
JE: As I said at the end, I don't think these particular individuals are "evil," either. I was just trying to make a point -- also part of the fabric of "Chinatown" -- that evil can result from even innocence, naivete or the best intentions.
Everyone may have their own "truth" -- i.e., as Renoir said, "Everyone has his reasons" -- but that shouldn't mean that there's no such thing as responsibility or accountability. I know what you mean about the person you describe: I'd say his cluelessness is that he's deluded himself into thinking that he's entitled to behave the way he does simply because he is who he is. (I think that also applies to the person in my second example.) He may be a shark, but I doubt he thinks he's a bad person. To him, he's probably just pursuing whatever he wants by any means necessary. And if that means taking whatever he thinks he needs to get ahead, then he feels justified in doing so.
I guess your point is that you need help with your people skills.
JE: Exactly. It's a cry for help.
What Jim is alluding to is Narcissism. In psychology and psychiatry it is advised to treat those who surround the narcissist, and send the culprit a cease and desist. It can be a simple (and annoying) personality trait, but you can't be too careful, so always be on the lookout for the "things getting out of hand" factor and try to stop that person from hurting other people.
Either way, this posting came as a wonderful knight in shining armor, so now I know I'm NOT going insane and other people have seen what I've seen. Thanks, Jim.
JE: Thank you, Alonso. "Narcissism" is the term I was looking for when I settled for my made-up "Uber-solipsism"!
P.S. to Phillip re: "girlfriend":
You gotta re-watch "Chinatown," pronto! For most of the movie, Jake assumes that "the girl" is Hollis's girlfriend. That's the way he and his associates refer to her, and that's who Noah Cross wants him to find. Mrs. Mulwray, trying to protect "the girl," even goes so far as to say that Hollis had told her he was having an affair and that she felt sorry for the girl and wanted to look after her after Hollis's death. Of course, she and her father know who "the girl" is -- but that's not revealed to Jake, or to the audience, until fairly late in the movie (in the famous slapping scene). That's why what this guy was saying was so bizarre. We'd already watched the movie all the way through! The screenplay couldn't identify her any other way at that point, because the reader would not have understood the reference. Since everything's pretty much from Jake's POV, we see what he THINKS he sees all the way through. And we, like he, don't find out what's really going on until it's too late...
The "evil" you described so well in your opening is precisely what I believe is the root of the problems of the world: not genuine, "let's do this to really be bad" evil, but a sort of mixture of laziness, ignorance, and worst of all, selfishness that leads to the suffering of others. (Laziness, ignorance, selfishness. Sound like the values demonstrated by, and promoted by, any particular world leader?)
As a true optimist, and someone who had been fortunate enough in my (relatively young) life to have never come across someone I could describe as evil, I was beginning to grow convinced that the whole concept of a "bad person" was a falsehood. But that all changed when, two years ago, I began employment at a job that I could describe, without hesitation, as one of the most accommodating, relaxing, wonderful jobs any individual could hope to have, a job in which every other worker was a kind, jovial human being. A job that was an all-around treat...except for one guy. A person who at first seemed nice, but through subtle actions (or inactions) revealed himself to be the most selfish, bullying, mean-spirited person I have ever come across in my life. When forced to describe him, I once was reduced to a simple statement: "If he had been alive in 1940s Germany, he would have been a Nazi". I firmly believe that. Fortunately, this person was fired from my job several months ago, an event so sublime it has forced me to acknowledge that, yes, there is in fact a divine, benevolent God.
But enough about the politics of my job...I want to just briefly touch on the two examples you mentioned. As I said, I completely agreed with your assessment of evil in the opening paragraphs, but to be completely honest, I think you might be a little harsh in grouping these two bad experiences in with a larger idea of evil.
The first example is clearly, as someone already mentioned, a classic case of the local "know-it-all", someone who, in trying to reinvent the wheel and discover something about a classic movie that somehow, EVERYONE has missed over the last thirty-three years, has in fact missed the true profundity of said classic. This guy doesn't sound so much evil as priggish. It sounds like you dealt with him in exactly the right way (by re-stating, factually, his argument...thereby revealing to all how idiotic it was).
I have to say though that in the second case, if the way you tell the story is accurate, it sounds as if you behaved a little rudely to this woman. Wait, don't bite off my head! Yes, SHE was the one who was so initially rude and thoughtless to not realize how clueless her endeavor was, but it doesn't sound as if she was INTENTIONALLY committing an affront...her casually dismissive attitude about movies was the norm for her, and while it may be frustrating to you or I, it sounds as if the woman was asking the question out of genuine naivete (which, I suppose, is the point of your post..."unintentional" evil, but I don't think it's a good example of it in action).
Frankly, your response tends to seem a little geekish...along the lines of "No, no! Don't desecrate these works that I love by lowering them to your lazy, Cliff's Notes level. You are not worthy!". And I completely sympathize with your point-of-view, since there is nothing worse than hearing a work of art you hold dear summarily dismissed by someone who has either not seen it or not paid close enough attention to it.
However, it sounds to me as if the woman simply wanted to know how the film ends, and get a basic plot description. Is this idiotic as a film fan? Absolutely! Is she robbing herself of the narrative pleasure of the film? Yes! And is that a huge loss? Definitely, for her. But clearly this is not someone for whom that is important...she has a value set different from yours, or of many film fans.
I think this woman probably wanted to know the plot so she could hold her own in a conversation about the film if she were talking with friends or fellow (ahem) students of cinema. Would she be a big phony in that situation? Yes, but one can't assume she doesn't KNOW she is being a phony. You cite this as an example of uber-solipsism (believe she understands it when in fact she doesn't care whether she does or not). I agree with the second half of that, clearly she doesn't care to truly view "Chinatown" (or, I imagine, many films) and really understand them, but I don't think we can assume that she thinks she understands those films.
Now, I will agree with you on one point: first, while I don't think her initial question was anything to get flustered about, once you were polite enough (despite your obvious annoyance) to provide a synopsis, the woman should have been graceful enough to not use you as her own personal Wikipedia and keep pressing for more details (since there are more than enough websites and reference materials to provide a detail plot description of "Chinatown"). This is where I feel this woman crossed over into out-and-out rudeness.
P.S. Sorry, but I just have to mention one other point of your story that I take issue with. You said it's not possible that this woman had a great conversation about "Fight Club", since she hadn't seen it. Perhaps to this woman it WAS a great conversation (there's not necessarily an objective court of great conversations). And, although this goes against my philosophy of viewing and understanding films, I do believe that a great conversation can take place in which one or more participants have not seen (or read, whatever) the work in question. For example, I recently was involved in a very revealing, insightful conversation about the growth of what many have dubbed the "torture porn" genre, with "Hostel" being the primary subject of conversation. While I have not seen the film (and don't plan to in the immediate future), a friend described it's developments and general atmosphere as best as he could, and as I mentioned, the conversation eventually took off and became what I would deem "a good conversation" about the motivations behind a film like "Hostel". Do I make a habit out of talking about movies I haven't seen? Absolutely not. But I wouldn't rule out the possibility of a great conversation emerging out of such a situation.
This post reminds me of the wonderment one of my childhood friends - an avid comic-book reader - felt at the thought that Magneto of the X-Men considered himself one of the good guys, not a villain. His repeated amazed observation that Magneto doesn't know he's evil echoes your sentiments above.
P.S. Don't you think it's a bit naive? We all make the choices we make because we believe them to be right; aren't we all people like the people you describe?
JE: Yes, I think we're all susceptible to denial and delusion -- but if the magnitude of cluelessness in these two stories doesn't make you laugh, then perhaps there's something to worry about. (I hope it was clear that my use of the word "evil" is meant to be at least a little bit over-the-top.)
It seems like I started running into That Uber-Solipstic Narcissist Guy primarily in film discussion classes-- his points were rarely about anything essential to the film being discussed in terms of its artistic achievement, but always more about his making sure you and everyone else knew that he knew everything important about the work. To challenge his point of view was an insult, as well as a badge of your own philistinism. To this day I don't know why more of my professors didn't advise the guy or either shut up or at least step down from his soapbox every so often and let some of the rest of us make ourselves look like fools.
More often lately, TUSNG shows up wherever there's a screening of a restored print or anything with a Q-and-A with someone attached to the production of the film. Again, he sits down near the front, and everybody-- everybody-- hates the guy, but he has no awareness, so in love with his own insights is he. A few years ago I went to see a restored print of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly-- the movie had 17 minutes of material reinserted and overdubbed by Clint Eastwood and Eli Wallach (it's the version now available on DVD). John Kirk, the man responsible for the restoration, was there at the screening and took questions. He had lots of interesting information, including some comments on his work restoring Duck, You Sucker!. He took a question from TNUSG, and as soon as TNUSG insisted on referring to the movie not as The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, but as Il Buono, Il Brutto, Il Cattivo, everyone knew we were all in trouble. TNUSG flat out told Kirk he was wrong about various comments regarding the locations of the shooting, the quality of the sound elements Kirk worked with, and even sequences in the film, some of which he clearly got wrong himself. (Where this genius got his infallible information was never made clear.) Kirk handled himself with aplomb and after five or so minutes of this B.S., our know-it-all friend shut himself up. Unfortunately, so did Kirk, who seemed to be somewhat rattled by the guy's hostile arrogance.
As others have said, there is at least an attempt on the part of your Guy #1 to understand what's going on, though his insistence on the literal and refusal to process what he's seeing is maddening. On the other hand, I don't think I've ever heard of anyone as up front about their own intellectual corruption as that woman you encountered. How convenient it is that all of these works exist simply so she can have fodder for cocktail conversation. This is a nightmarish extension of the old scenario that always used to play out with various relatives of mine-- my sister became so engrossed in Dressed to Kill the first time she saw it (on cable, I think it was) that she perversely insisted I tell her what was going to happen so she didn't have to sit there and squirm with dread and anticipation like the rest of us did when were blissfully ignorant of the plot. The more I refused, the angrier she got. She wanted the resolution, the closure, without having to go through the tease and torment that is part of De Palma's design.
But your woman is far worse. Wouldn't it be fascinating (and at the same time repellent) to be able to listen in on one of those conversations she has? I'd only be able to take so much before I'd have to interrupt by suddenly popping out from behind the drapes, all Marshall McLuhan-like, and demand she either expound on elements she couldn't possibly know about from some Website synopsis or, preferably, admit that she has no idea what she's talking about. Don't you wish life was like this?
Jim!
Thank you, Chinatown has come swooping back into my head! It only took a brief rebriefing. Okay. The guys an idiot. I'll probably pull it off my shelf and watch it anyway.
I do agree with everything else you said. My psychology teacher might have stopped agreeing with you at some point. I've just read "The Brothers Karamazov" and they go rather deeply into Dmitry's psychology, giving reasons for and against his grip on reality, trying to base the outcome of the trial - what his level of accountability should be based on the "truth" that was apparent to him in the moment. Much of that legal parrying has remained and he wrote that super deluxe novel in 1890. I do feel people should be held accountable for evil actions, but a lot of people have gone through great pains to make it a very gray area.
Yes, I laughed. I know you weren't being serious about the use of the word evil in these instances, but it makes you wonder just what level of crazy or evil Saddam was or Kim Jong is when compared with the two you mentioned. Do they see things they do as normal? Does Bush read or does he just have people give him a quick debriefing of everything that's happening?
Oh (off subject)! Go see "Rescue Dawn"...fantastic.
I'm a person #1, but I'm trying to reform.
Still, I can't help myself....
I have studied paraphilia and sex offenders to some extent. People who have sex with children (and their daughters) are motivated by the same thing as those who have sex with animals and dead people-- it's a non-rejecting partner.
The John Huston character in Chinatown does not fit the pathology. Yeah, they don't all fit the pathology; but the pieces really really don't fit together here. I have little difficulty understanding why some fathers rape their daughters, but it doesn't make sense to me that this guy would.
You diddle your kids when you don't have power over anything else, not when you have all of California wrapped around your little finger.
@Alex Jackson:
It's a metaphor.
Sincerely,
Kent M. Beeson
Well, I guess that this is where we stem off from smart-assery and into meaningful discussion.
I agree that it's a metaphor actually, but I question if that actually excuses the film.
Don't you think that as soon as you establish that it's a metaphor it makes Evelyn's suffering less real? As a metaphor, it becomes just one of Robert Towne's points put cleverly.
The lady wasn't that bad. A lot of times we can see a movie three or four times and still find the film confusing. Most people don't get the intricacies in film making anyways. I doubt she really wanted to know what film stock the director was using to emote a certain reaction.
She wanted to know basic plots. I disagree with the above posters in that number 1 is less evil, number 1 wasn't out there to find out what's really going on, number 1 was trying to show off to the rest how clever he is.
At least number 2 was there to learn something. Although something must be said for someone who 1) remembers "great" conversations about movies from years ago 2) can't figure out how to use the internet and look up plot points on these films.
Hello Jim,
I was there at the Cinema Interruptus, and I know exactly who you're talking about in Person #1. He drives me nuts every year. Anyway, after reading all this discussion on narcissism and and the lack of self awareness, I realized that this falls under what I think of as my own personal Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle: In my experience a person either knows who they are, or where they are going, but are inherently incapable of knowing both. (Look up the real Principle to understand what I mean if needed.) There are those who are blessed with self awareness, and are hopefully happy with who they are, but where they're going with their lives doesn't matter so much to them. Then there are those career driven purposeful, run them over with a freight train people who have ambition and goals, but lack complete self awareness as to whom they're harming in the journey to their destination. Most people are a happy medium, but the more you try for one, the more you lose sight of the other.
JE: Drew, that's an interesting viewpoint. I have a similar one that friends and I used to apply to ourselves as job applicants. There are two kinds of people: Those who have a realistic idea of who they are, what they know, and what they can do, and who go after jobs that are challenging, but for which they're confident they are qualified. Then there are those (the freight trains you describe) who will say or do anything to get the job, confident that they will be able to bluff their way through afterwards. Problem is, the latter usually get caught sooner or later....
I agree that it's a metaphor actually, but I question if that actually excuses the film.
Excuses it? I'm not sure what you mean.
Don't you think that as soon as you establish that it's a metaphor it makes Evelyn's suffering less real?
How so? I mean, if we were able to somehow transport ourselves into the world of "Chinatown", so that it was the real world to us, and Evelyn was a real person, then maybe I can see your point. But we can't -- they're just fictional characters, we're just spectators -- so your statement doesn't make sense to me.
As a metaphor, it becomes just one of Robert Towne's points put cleverly.
I guess this is where we differ -- the metaphor isn't just a point delivery system, it's why we read and watch stories. It's what separates the newspapers, the things we line the birdcage with, from the stories we tell over and over again.
As a metaphor, it becomes just one of Robert Towne's points put cleverly.
I guess this is where we differ -- the metaphor isn't just a point delivery system, it's why we read and watch stories. It's what separates the newspapers, the things we line the birdcage with, from the stories we tell over and over again.
To tell you the truth, I kind of prefer that kind of broad fantastic/romantic kind of filmmaking. My top ten of all time would include films like Days of Heaven, Eraserhead, and 2001.
Chinatown is not a film of this pedigree. Jake gets his nose cut and it doesn't heal, he walks through the movie with a bandage over it. Evelyn shoots her father and he doesn't die. In the audio commentary for Se7en David Fincher mentions a scene where Jake goes to somebody's office and then just walks around until somebody comes down to see him.
And most importantly, it's a film noir that's shot in color.
The skinny of it is that Polanski is introducing reality, in all its messiness, into the film and establishes "messy reality" as the dominant flavor.
Once he establishes that tone though, the film loses all rights to play the "it's a metaphor" game.
I wouldn't complain about Yellow Bastard in Sin City not being a proper pedophile, because I mean, it's Sin City. It's been established that it's all movie artifice and none of these characters are particularly three-dimensional. But with Chinatown, this divorce from reality doesn't fit the tone of the rest of the film.
Don't you think that as soon as you establish that it's a metaphor it makes Evelyn's suffering less real?
How so? I mean, if we were able to somehow transport ourselves into the world of "Chinatown", so that it was the real world to us, and Evelyn was a real person, then maybe I can see your point. But we can't -- they're just fictional characters, we're just spectators -- so your statement doesn't make sense to me.
Um.
If Noah Cross had an actual motivation for raping his daughter and the rape was something other than a metaphor for how he is raping the land or him being a monster while putting up a perfect fascade, or whatever; if he was actually a fully-developed character, then his rape of Evelyn may seem more real; and you know we might even momentarilly forget that these are fictional characters and think of them as real ones.
Don't you think that it's easier to sympathize with real people (or ones that we have momentarilly been fooled into thinking are real) than fake ones?
I was under the impression that this was an obvious self-evident truth.
The skinny of it is that Polanski is introducing reality, in all its messiness, into the film and establishes "messy reality" as the dominant flavor.
Once he establishes that tone though, the film loses all rights to play the "it's a metaphor" game.
I guess we'll have to disagree, since to me, it's never a game -- it's the whole point of the enterprise. Every story has the right -- and I'd add "responsibility" -- to play the metaphor game, whether the story is completely fantastical or contains "messy reality", as you coined it.
Don't you think that it's easier to sympathize with real people (or ones that we have momentarilly been fooled into thinking are real) than fake ones?
I don't find Noah Cross or any of the other characters in "Chinatown" fake. I feel I'm given enough information to get what he's about.
Now, thinking about it, I can think of one example where I think I agree with you -- The 40 Year Old Virgin. IIRC, Steve Carell has, in a sense, withdrawn from life, and this is represented by his action figure collection. That's the metaphor, and I'm on board. But (again, IIRC), he isn't shown to be an actual geek/nerd/SF buff/what have you -- he just collects these figures. And that violated my sense of reality -- I can't imagine someone collecting those things and not be in the geek culture. So there's a case where "metaphor only" doesn't cut it. If there's a difference here (and if you don't see it, that's fine), it's the difference between Carrell being the main character, the one whose arc we're invested in, and Noah Cross, who has little screen time and whose arc isn't necessary for us to know. After all, he really is the Monster here, the boogieman, and Nicholson is powerless to stop him/it.
[sidenote to Jim: any way you can make this comment box bigger? I'm gettin' claustrophobic here.)
It sounds to me like you have the curse of knowledge -- because you know something about how real pedophiles are, any depiction that wants to come across as "real" had better stick to the facts, or else you're not going to buy it. If so, fair 'nuff -- we all have spheres of knowledge that keep us from enjoying certain stories. But in the case of Chinatown, I don't share your stance.
Alex: It's interesting that you say Cross raped his daughter. She doesn't say that. Gittes asks her directly: "He raped you?" She shakes her head and turns away in shame.
In "Chinatown," it's always more complex than you think: "You may think you know what you're dealing with, but believe me you don't."
Saying that Cross's "rape" of his daughter is simply a metaphor for "raping" the land doesn't really work. First, he didn't necessarily rape her; second, he's incorporating the valley into the city. It's not so simple...
"In two examples".
Heh.
That actually struck me as kind of funny tonight.
Welcome to the world of a high school teacher.
Just as one last thought on true evil, is there any greater evocation of it than the ending gesture by John Huston in "Chinatown", smothering his (grand?) daughter in a perverted, sickening attempt to "comfort" her and "shield" her from seeing her mother's corpse? Whenever I see that ending, in which Polanski seems to be saying that evil will always win and will continue through the generations, I always get a shudder.
JE: And it's all brought about because of people who mean well but don't understand what they think they know (or don't know that they don't understand): Jake, Loach (who fires the fatal shot), Lou... Cross thinks he's doing the world a favor by planning for "the future" (as he sees it), and feels he's entitled to his parental rights to see his daughter/granddaughter. He says to Evelyn "She's mine, too," and she replies, "She's never going to know that." In the last shot of Cross and Catherine, he's putting her hands over her eyes -- also attempting to shield her from seeing. But now that "the girl" is in his clutches, what will she know about her mother, Hollis, and her father/grandfather?
A few of the salient features of pathological narcissism are a sky-high sense of entitlement, and a need to prove to everyone in the room that they are smarter and belong in elite company.
These features are clearly visible in Noah Cross (he believes he's got the right to impregnate his own daughter); Person #1 (though bright, he's got to prove it in public over and over again); and Person #2 (who believes she has the "right" to ask myriad questions about a lecture she showed up at the last minute for).
As much as I admire Polanski, and Chinatown as one of my all-time favorites, he is not exempt from the same: think of him justifying his infidelities while Sharon Tate was pregnant with his child; his tryst with a teen (capable of *anything*...)
Drawing their worth solely from outside sources, these folks usually leave nothing but confusion, anger, and broken hearts in their wake. And like Jake, those around them often don't really know what they're dealing with.
Good post, Jim.
Sorry Jim. Didn't have time to read your post, or the comments.
Could you paraphrase for me?