3 Women/Warrior

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In Which Olive Oyl and Carrie go Head to Head for the Sake of the Female Id, an English lad and an Australian bloke re-enact the tortured soul of American masculinity, Nick Nolte tries not to crumble, and Robert Altman smiles down from the heaven he didn’t believe in.

When you’re watching Robert Altman’s ‘3 Women’ on Blu-ray, it would be easy, if potentially clichéd, to equate the grain of the image with the seriousness of the director’s intent.  It’s like looking at the lined face of an old professor; but on Blu-ray you can see inside the lines.  Everything looks so clear on the just-released Criterion edition, and the California desert images are so evocative of a world that hasn’t yet left the Old West behind that it almost makes you yearn to be watching it on a scratched and faded print at an isolated Drive In.  The trouble with Blu-ray is that it makes everything perfect, which sometimes crowds out the space for an imperfect human response.  It can be a bit like looking at the Grand Canyon: contemplation is invited, analysis pretty much impossible.  (Think of the difference between watching ‘Attack of the Clones’ in high-definition [on disc or theatrically projected] and the first time you saw ‘The Empire Strikes Back’ in a theatre; the fact that ‘Empire’ felt more substantial wasn’t just because it has a better script and you were six: the grain and the matte paintings and the models and, yes, even the performances, were more real than a computer can generate, or a digital image can convey.)

But a perfect film deserves perfect presentation, I suppose.  So ‘3 Women’ has what it warrants; and it wasn’t a bad way to spend a couple of mild insomnia-induced hours the other night.  Given that the idea behind the film came to Altman in a dream, we were on solid ground.  And when the camera opens us into a swimming pool in which young people are guiding the elderly toward their metaphysical exit, we the audience are being born too, so the shift in consciousness that comes late at night - reflective, open to something new - meant it was natural for me to be along for the trip.

Altman was an intellectual artist of the most engaging kind: his camera, fluid, as Bruce Cockburn would say, like the wind in grass, inviting us to observe just like he did, around and near the action, but never in it.  He was a man of vast tastes (too easy it is to suggest that because his films had a certain demeanor that the themes were unified - I mean, c’mon, this is a guy who had Anouk Aimee take all her clothes off to make a satirical point about fashion, put US army medics in a Last Supper tableau as a preamble to suicide, and had Harry Belafonte invert everything we think we know about Harry Belafonte so that he could channel Christopher Walken into a jazz era Missouri psychopath).  The intellect and tastes here engage the question of what it means to be human - so far, so much that’s-the-point-of-art, I guess - specifically what it means for its trio of female protagonists to be human in a world that wants to make them into machines; either as workers in the factory farm, or as the receptacles of men’s lust or anger, or as the bearers of the very image of humanity by having children.

These are not likeable people - played by Sissy Spacek and Shelley Duvall and Janice Rule - walking around in circles in the water as they’re dying.  Their faces are frightening, their behavior irritating; they invite pity at best, and sometimes fear, because you wouldn’t want to get too close to them, partly because they are carrying on the surface that which you fear most about yourself: that you will never know who you are, that you will always be alone in the world, and that you will spend your life trying to impress people who don’t give a damn.

The murals that Rule is painting in the swimming pool evoke archetypal myth; but the pool obviously has to be drained to permit the paint to dry: it’s a barren space for her to project her fantasies.  The 3 women seem to be animated only in their dreams: when Spacek’s Pinky convinces herself that she is someone else; when Duvall’s Millie thinks of the near-ridiculous cowboy Edgar; when Rule is painting ancient stories without ever uttering a word herself.  No one could accuse Altman of wanting to be someone else - or at least no one could accuse him of being obsessed with trying.  Is this the task of living: to avoid wanting to be someone other than who we are?  Maybe.  But is his coruscating critique of the lives of these women just cynicism?  Does the fact that the film opens with people walking round in circles, waiting to die, suggest nihilism on the part of its director?  I don’t think so.  ‘3 Women’ is the work of a man in love with cinema (not just the obvious antecedent in Bergman’s ‘Persona’, but the mythic American West too, and there’s even a touch of ‘The Exorcist‘ in the nightmare sequence toward the film’s climax)  - and just as Kubrick saw ‘The Shining’ as an optimistic film because it avers a belief in an afterlife, you can’t be entirely cynical if you’re in love.  There’s a very telling moment when Millie walks in on an elderly couple making love, on a night when they are distressed by something that has happened to a loved one.  Bad things happen, but you can still live; as a certain other film-maker/lover might say.  We’ve mislaid some of the tools that might be useful in determining how to function as a whole person; the task for now is to figure out how to figure out who you are without stealing someone else’s soul.

[Brief note: I’ve been thinking about something that Thulsa Doom, the bad-bad-BAD guy  in ‘Conan the Barbarian’ (which I saw for only the first time this month), says to the Austrian oak at that film’s violent climax, so derivative of the final encounter between Willard and Kurtz that it’s a good thing John Milius wrote that film too otherwise Francis Coppola would be the new Art Buchwald.  Thulsa Doom killed Conan’s mother when he was a child; and Conan has pursued vengeance against Thulsa Doom ever since.  When he is just about to kill his enemy, Thulsa Doom suggests that this might not be in his best interest, because his whole identity has been so shaped by revenge that he will not know how to live after eradicating his enemy.  ‘It will be as if you never existed,’ says Thulsa; and for a moment I thought that Milius was going to tell the truth about retribution: that it serves to perpetuate, not heal, the wounds of violence.  But such moments of philosophical clarity do not a Dino de Laurentiis 80s epic make; so Conan cuts Thulsa’s head off, and all is well.  Just such a kind of vengeance drives Pinky in ‘3 Women’, and in one of the most surprising collisions of artist intent I’ve seen, you can see a populist male version of ‘3 Women’ at your local multiplex right now.  ‘Warrior’ is a far more thoughtful film than its posters suggest; in fact, it may be the post-9/11/Iraq war/war on terror/WTF just happened? movie we’ve been waiting for.  Two angry brothers and a broken dad isn’t the most original narrative trope, but neither is love conquers all; doesn’t mean it can’t contain vast emotional truth.  ‘Warrior’ is about the need to transcend the violent shadow and the avoidance of anger alike; about how being a man who hopes to do justice to the calling of being human requires integration of what is too simplistically called ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’; about how people deserve a second chance, not least because your desire to withhold that chance from those who have harmed you may actually be continuing your own experience of woundedness.  It’s a wonderfully engaging, brilliantly edited, emotionally honest film that moved me.  Its vision of what the integrated US American male could be is the inversion of Conan’s path: violence begets violence until someone is willing to change the script.  We need an interruption.]

'Warrior' is on general release; '3 Women' is available on Blu-ray and DVD from Criterion.

Returning

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Sorry, it's been a while.  But it's 8.37 on a Saturday morning, I'm watching Jean Vigo's 'A Propos de Nice' (a dialogue-free short film about French people being happy, any five minutes of which are better than 'Inception' - which is already very good, but Vigo doesn't need CGI to turn a Gallic city upside down), and for some reason I want to blog again. No big promises - but if you join me in the comments, I'll be grateful and try to write more often.

My thoughts this weekend:

The proposed North Carolina constitutional amendment to ban recognition of same-sex partnerships is antithetical to the best of what the US stands for in terms of personal liberty and the pursuit of happiness; it is opposed to the spirit of compassion and respect and love for neighbor that are at the heart of the Christian teaching that everyone who supports the amendment cites as their reason for doing so; even while its proponents believe (or say they believe) the amendment protects their own marriages, if passed it will actually actively hurt people who only want to be allowed to have a measure of protection and recognition for the love they share, and therefore it follows will in reality undermine community as the foundation of society; it continues a tragic tradition of fear being used to oppress people who are already marginalized; it serves no positive purpose and in fact reinforces the social structural realities that lead to stories such as this one.

Groups like Believe Out Loud, Equality NC, and Faith in America are good resources for information and how to take action, but I'd want to emphasize one thing that is often, by my sights, neglected in anti-homophobia/pro-humanity activism: Genuine dialogue.  I changed my mind about theology and sexuality partly through relationships with people wiser and more experienced than I, partly through academic reflection, and partly through my own experience.  This seems to me to fit with the Wesleyan quadrilateral of engaging scripture, reason, tradition and experience as we seek to discern what is right, among other historic Christian ways of interpreting the world.  It is not a betrayal of Christian principle to be open to dialogue with people with whom you disagree.  It has a long and noble history.  I'm happy to talk with anyone who wants to know where I stand, what I think, and why I believe that a serious conversation about sexuality and spirituality is not just important for the sake of addressing the injustice of inequality and homophobia, but for the future of peace on earth.  I'll write more about this later; for now, I want to invite a dialogue; and to ask you to seriously consider how we might persuade proponents of the anti-LGBTQ amendment that it is actually in their interests to vote against it.

For What It's Worth: Oscar and I Have a Disagreement

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Oscar's Ten Best Films of the Year:

Black Swan

The Fighter

Inception

The Kids Are Alright

The King's Speech

127 Hours

The Social Network

Toy Story 3

True Grit

Winter's Bone

My Ten Favorite Films of the Year (podcast review here):

Carlos

Hereafter

The Book of Eli

Lourdes

And Everything is Going Fine

Enter the Void

Howl

I am Love

Inception

Shutter Island

How to Prevent Political Violence

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When I was growing up, I was always afraid of violence.  northern Ireland was a European centre of politically-motivated killing for most of my childhood.  Politicians and public officials were killed all the time.  Political activists who espoused violence were often killed too.  And people who had no direct involvement in either politics or violence were caught up in it, going about their business, killed in bus stations or pubs or on the street.  Nearly 4000 dead in around 25 years of intensive violence, perpetuated in the cause of two competing ideologies: should northern Ireland stay part of the United Kingdom, or be reunified with the Irish Republic, along with the attendant questions of human rights, equality, historic injustice, and the kind of stake our people would have in our own society. We took the rhetoric of 'targeting' political opponents beyond the dehumanising manifestation currently alive in US culture, and finding its horrific expression in the Arizona shootings this weekend; some of our current political representatives actually killed people themselves.  Anyone who worked for the state - police officers, civil servants, census takers - could be considered a legitimate target by Irish Republican militants; the daily nerve-wrack of checking under the car for a bomb became a fact of life.  And despite the protestations of some historical revisionists, for many Protestants, their religion and ethnicity seemed to be enough of a reason for them to be living in fear.   At the same time, the Irish Republican and nationalist community often found itself repressed by the state, living under suspicion, and abused into second class citizen status; pro-British militants killed many people just because they were Catholics.

Nearly 4000 dead; 43 000 directly physically injured.  And then, what?

We stopped.

We talked.

We took responsibility.

We made a deal.

Now, we govern ourselves; with former sworn enemies who used to violently threaten each other sitting in a legislative assembly together, not unlike a typical US statehouse; with a key difference being that we have imagined democracy as best expressed in consensus and compromise, rather than one community dominating another.  It's extraordinary - you should look into it - there are huge lessons for all of us.

Books have been written on the role that ordinary people like us can play in shaping political processes that reduce violence*, but in the simplest terms, what I want to say about the potential lessons from northern Ireland for the US at this point in its precarious history is this: You have to get to the negotiating table now.  If you wait until another shooting or bombing or threat, nothing will have been gained.

After the peace process in northern Ireland had begun to take root, I chaired a public meeting at which the person widely believed to have co-led the IRA for much of its modern existence spoke about what he would like to see change in our society.  I began the meeting by asking him if, given that he had frightened me throughout my childhood, he could give me any guarantees that I didn't need to be afraid of him anymore.  He first attempted to deflect the question, saying, 'Well, Gareth, lots of us have reasons to be afraid of various people'.  I interjected, and offered a compromise, 'OK Gerry,' I said, 'I'll make you a deal: I'll not give you any reasons to be afraid of me, if you don't give me any reasons to be afraid of you.'  It was possibly snarky, but it was a start.  We shook hands; and I haven't met him again, but he has pursued a non-violent political path; as have the rest of northern Ireland's elected representatives.

They did this for many reasons - two of which are that they realised the cost of violence is too high; and because they allowed a third party - in the form of US intervention through the presence of Senator George Mitchell as a mediator - to help them discover something like the common good.  In talking, they started to reduce their own prejudice; and eventually, people who used to advocate each other's violent death started sharing offices.  One even acknowledged praying with a man some of whose political supporters might have been glad to kill either of them only 15 years ago.

These things are possible when public representatives are given the space by their supporters to start talking about their opponents as human beings.  These things happened, not in fiction, but in the very recent past of an island only a few thousand miles away from the White House.  They happened partly because the White House offered help.  All this leads me to a simple conclusion: it is one of the gifts of the United States to help mediate in other people's conflicts.  Amazing things can happen when US humanitarian intervention takes place, to provoke a vision of possibility that transcends the belief that things can never change because they have always been this way.  The US has the gifts to help others; this may be a moment when others need to help the US.

So, offered humbly, let me, as an outsider now making my home in the US suggest a few thoughts that may deserve reflection:

The fear expressed by many at the pace of social change is real, and needs to be responded to with respectful listening, not mockery.  Sarah Palin is a human being.  So is Glenn Beck.  They speak for a large number of people, whether some of us like it or not.  They will not be calmed down by being shouted at or mocked.  The degree to which the fears they articulate are genuine will only find its proportion when their political opponents treat them with respect, or at least show willingness to listen.  It works both ways of course.

There is a relationship between the psychological cost of recent wars and violent political rhetoric.  The cultural expression of what the United States means is part of the problem: seeing itself as a hammer leads to seeing everyone else as nails.  The world is too small to afford this.

As the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 horror approaches, it would be good to take time to ask if lament was postponed in favor of revenge; and then to finally start having a national conversation about how to grieve in a way that honors the victims without turning painful emotions into a reason to create more violence.

*A new example: later this year Oxford University Press will publish a volume on the role of faith-based groups in the northern Ireland peace process co-authored by John Brewer, Francis Teeny and myself