"Supreme art is a traditional statement of certain heroic and religious truth, passed on from age to age, modified by individual genius, but never abandoned." William Butler Yeats
“You’re upside-down on your house mortgage,” a banker tells Brendan (Joel Edgerton): “upside-down” means “perverse,” and the house is a symbol of the soul because a home houses the body the way the body houses the soul; that his “house is upside-down” and the bank is going to foreclose, symbolically translates to him being on the brink of losing his soul.
The reason for him losing his soul is his younger brother, Tommy (Tom Hardy). Tommy is short for Thomas, and Thomas means “twin.” Most characters in art are doubles or mirror images of the main character (in this case, Brendan) and the point of the work is for the main character to achieve unity; artistically, Tommy is that part of Brendan causing him to be “upside-down.”
Tommy and his estranged father Paddy training for the Sparta tourney.
What the film uniquely and powerfully achieves is illustrating how the salvation of a man's soul is inherently part of his masculinity as well. But what do I mean by "competing modes of masculinity?" At different times, in different historical settings, art has been an arena of various models of what our country should be like, what the family should be like, how to deal with evolving social issues, how women should act and the consequences of them not acting in a particular way, etc.
Singing cowboy sensation Roy Rogers in The Carson City Kid.
During and after World War II, when men were returning from the killing fields, film offered various role models for men (to help with the transition from soldier back to husband, son, brother, employee, etc.), including the genre of the singing cowboy. The advantage of the singing cowboy was that the poetry of his song gave him a chance to release his humanity while the physical demands of upholding justice and overcoming "evil in the land" were also fulfilled so he maintained his self-respect. As the Cold War became a permanent feature in the post World War II world, American culture decided--through trial and error--that the singing cowboys weren't the best "mode of masculinity" to present to the world of the American male. With the Korean and Vietnam wars, the poetry and humanity of men's role models vanished, just like in the 1978 Vietnam epic The Deer Hunter which Warrior invokes in the opening sequence.
Tommy in a vicious cycle of self-destruction.
Earlier I wrote that Tommy is a double for Brendan, but there are characters who also act as doubles of Tommy, extending the importance of his role within Brendan's struggle. Tommy is a marine involved in two life struggles, one he loses and one he wins. He and friend Manny are being bombed "by their own country" and Manny dies trying to save Tommy; secondly, in deserting the marines after Manny dies, Tommy sees a tank turned over with marines trapped inside, drowning.
Tommy going to the gym to get into training.
The bombs being dropped by his own country are the obstacles of American culture to letting men live out their own masculine identity, trying to chip away at them to make them fit into a small cubicle (this was skillfully explored in the 1999 hit Fight Club, when Tyler [Brad Pitt] says it all, "We are a generation of men raised by women,"; but don't get me wrong, American culture also doesn't want women to live out their genuine feminine identity, either. American culture wants men to be women, and women to be men). A part of Tommy is killed by his own country; in trying to save what he can of himself by deserting one war, he saves another part of himself by tearing the door off a tank to save the drowning marines, because he himself is drowning, and he goes to fight a different war (in the fighting cage).
Brendan with his trainer Frank, because in training, Brendan has to be "frank" with himself, otherwise, he will never know who his true enemy is. The role of Frank brings the poetry of music back to the masculine identity in a way that hasn't really existed since Roy Rogers.
Is all there is to the "masculine identity" a buff body and a cage fight?Yes, and no. When taken as greater, metaphysical metaphors for the spiritual struggle, yes, but if taken just on the surface of a man's need to know himself, then the answer is no.
300: the movie that told men it was okay to be men. The great battle film has a place of honor in Warrior: the tournament Brendan and Tommy compete in is called the Sparta Tourney with a $5 million dollar prize, winner takes all. For Warrior, the Spartans are the new role models because of their willingness to stand and fight against whoever or whatever the enemy might be. But the men of 300 also demonstrated an ease in other life-settings men of our day need to see: honoring their wives, training their sons, leading and defending their people, being with each other, loving their children and facing death.
The human body is a symbol for our soul: a woman's beauty represents the virtue of her soul; a man's physical strength represents his spiritual wholeness and a knowledge of what he values and what his priorities are. A man's life is a battle, first against himself and anything that can destroy him: usually represented by a fire-breathing dragon, because the fire is the fire of his lust and passion he must learn to control.
Brendan and his wife when he tells her he's going to the Sparta tournament.
Secondly, a man battles against anything that can harm those he loves. In Warrior, Brendan "returns to the fight," because he has to raise money to make the payments on the house. Brendan is a middle-aged school teacher with a family, and his spiritual situation is that he can't continue to provide for his family (as a man wants to do) until he gets himself turned right-side up again. If a man doesn't save his own soul, he can't save his family's soul. The only way to do this, is to get in the cage where the animals and demons are and fight them with everything he has.
Tommy and his father Paddy (Nick Nolte) seeing each other for the first time in 14 years. Tommy had been a champion wrestler when growing up (meaning, he "wrestled" with the issues of becoming a man) and his father--an alcoholic and wife-beater--trained him, (meaning, he was a poor example). When Tommy decides to go to the Sparta tournament, he asks his dad to train him again because that was the one thing he had been good at. But there are two truths here: one, Tommy wants to find "safe ground" for him to build a real relationship with his dad, and two, his dad getting his own life finally straightened out means that he has the knowledge to help Tommy now when he couldn't earlier in life.
If the point of the film is for Brendan to achieve unity, how does he accomplish this? Paddy has been sober for 1,000 days and has been trying to bond with Tommy who refuses (the only man who can truly hurt another man, is his own father). Paddy, distraught, hits the bottle and gets drunk. Seeing his father vulnerable and weakened somehow moves Tommy to compassion and to forgiveness to create simply the most beautiful scene I have ever witnessed between a father and a son. Tommy quiets his father and holds him to his heart; this is Tommy's strongest moment because Tommy stops fighting himself to show mercy to his father.
On Tommy's left arm is the Virgin Mary (to see a close up just click on it).
Tommy, being an extension of Brendan with his own extensions throughout other characters in the film, has now won his greatest battle within his own heart, and so Brendan can face him now. Once the fight within the cage begins, the referee says, "Go to war!" and that's literal and spiritual. There is no holding back because of sentimental love, they are both out to win.
Brendan isn't looking at his brother, he's looking at the darkness within his own self. I could be wrong about this, however, on Tommy's right arm, it looks like a tattoo of a dragon, while his left arm is a tattoo of the Blessed Virgin Mary, so Tommy's strength is divided between good and evil.
During the fight, Brendan breaks Tommy's left shoulder. The arm/shoulder is a symbol of strength, so Tommy (as a "double" of Brendan and Brendan's own inner battles) has been seriously weakened in his ability to fight anymore, even though he tries to carry on the fight. What's important about this symbol, is the broken shoulder has a picture of the Virgin Mary on it (and is, in fact, the very last image of the movie).
Brendan in the cage fighting the Russian Koba, the undefeated champion.
Because Tommy keeps fighting even though his "strength is broken," means that Brendan can't just depend on weakening his "enemy," he has to strengthen himself; Brenden does this by saying to Tommy, in the cage of the Sparta Tourney of the toughest man in the world, "I love you, Tommy." When Brendan says that, the spell of the darkness within Brenden that Tommy symbolizes is broken and Brendan has won the match.
Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, the Ode to Joy.
As Brendan was in training for the fight, his trainer Frank had him train toBeethoven's Ninth Symphony, the Ode to Joy. The Ode to Joy is associated with resurrection because it’s a song celebrating the great Easter mystery, and as Christ went into the tomb to conquer death, Brendan goes into the cage to conquer his passions. Brendan's boss at school tells him that a "Man who is a teacher has no right to be in a cage with those animals," but until a man has been in that cage, and overcomes those animals, he has no right to be a teacher because he himself hasn't learned the most important lessons in life.
So, who is the toughest man on the planet? Any man brave enough, and strong enough, to be the man he's called to be in life.
A bulldozer takes down a group of fruit trees; the disruption causes a bat to fly out who takes the fruit; the bat flies to a pig pen and a pig eats the bat’s feces that drop into the pen. That pig is taken to a restaurant.
TRANSLATION: A corporate world has knocked out Christianity (group of trees represent the tree of life, the Cross [Psalm 92: "The just will flourish like the palm-tree and grow like a Lebanon cedar]) and the fruit of Christ’s victory, love. The bat represents Satan (please see For the Dead Travel Fast: Dracula) and the bat taking the fruit and defecating is the stealing of our birthright (the fruit of Christ’s victory) and us getting the “filth” of sin instead. The pigpen represents the lower passions and our appetites. What is most important about this scene, is that it’s the very last one in the film; the first scene is "Day 2" of the virus' incubation, and we don’t get back to "Day 1" until the end. What was Day 1?
The Garden of Eden, the eating of the forbidden fruit and the committing of Original Sin, the "ground zero" of the virus' birth, as Contagion calls it.
The breakdown of society and the buildup of a virus.
The film itself invites us to this kind of analysis because the virus is “broken down” and analyzed, translated, graphed and discussed in hopes of a cure. This is why symbols are essential to art: symbols can say what society censors us from saying, what we don’t have the courage to say, and what we don’t have the desire to see and hear.
The film emphasizes this through the use of noise, silence, blurs and sharp focuses: director Steven Soderbergh artistically trains the camera to blur some images while sharply focusing on others; the background noise might be excessively loud while an important conversation is taking place and we don't hear a word of it. All this translates to, "We won't see what the film wants us to see (we see things only blurred instead of "in focus"), and we won't hear what the film is trying to tell us (because we are listening to pleasing noise instead of the urgent, important call being made to us)." (Please refer to my post Gestures: the Significance of the Insignificant and the example of The Exorcist).
Next, the symptoms of the disease verify the symbolic translations: coughing, fever, head pounding, swelling of the throat. The “fever” represents “burning,” and I don’t want to say burning in hell, but burning with passion. Elizabeth’s (Gwyneth Paltrow) is obvious, she's having an affair on her husband Mitch (Matt Damon), but Dr. Mears' (Kate Winslet) "burning fever" is her passion for getting the epidemic under control and the film itself, through her boss Ellis (Laurence Fishburne) keeps reminding her of this (for the dangers of being a workaholic, please see my post Se7en and the Eighth Deadly Sin). The swelling of the throat symbolically represents the opening of the mouth to “take in” what our appetites crave and then our throats (symbolically) swell to not be able to take in anymore and choke us on the very appetite that infected us (rather like a drug addict who has to keep taking more drugs and then dies of an overdose because he can't take it anymore).
When the trash isn't taken out society breaks down.
The pounding head is a reference to the distinction made between faith and reason, and when one doesn't have faith, they lose reason as well. There is a rather graphic autopsy done on Elizabeth. I've never seen the top of the head shaved/skinned off a person in a film, and this "looking inside" her brain is important: the virus has eaten it away. When the film first opens, "Day 2" of the virus lifespan, there is darkness, coughing and background noise. When it fades in, Elizabeth already coughs and her phone rings; we find out that she has just been with a man named John Neil with whom she had an affair before her marriage to Mitch.
Mitch (Matt Damon) realizing that society has broken down when mobs start attacking government vehicles after they run out of food to distribute. Mitch is immune in more than one way: he doesn't give into the fear and panic (he gets upset, but that's human) but he remains civilized and that's what he's determined his daughter will do, too.
The darkness opening the film is quite literal: not only is the audience in the dark about what is going on, but Elizabeth, too, not just about the disease she has, but the darkness of sin, and in that context, her coughing takes on the "sickness unto death" which weaves its silent way throughout the entire film. Elizabeth is in a casino when she makes the call to John Neil with the proposal of renewing their affair: the environment of drinking, gambling, and who knows what else provides her with the proper incubation "temperature" to renounce faith and go with her appetites instead; what destroys the brain destroys the soul.
Faces of infection and disease.
Alan Krumwiede (Jude Law) plays a blogger who may or may not be telling the truth. The film intentionally presents us with "unreliable narrators" and ambiguous information which makes it difficult to know what is true and what is not. Krumwiede claims to have had the disease and then been cured of it by a medicine called Forsythia the government is holding back; the government does tests on him and claims that he never had the illness but made millions by saying he had. There is a startling trait Krumwiede has, reminiscent of another Jude Law film, Sherlock Holmes, where villain Lord Blackwood has a crooked front tooth; the same physical deformity is given to Jude Law, suggesting that Krumwiede isn't "talking straight."
Jude Law as blogger Alan in Contagion.
The handshake becomes almost obsolete during this time and Ellis (for Ellis Island and the difference between freedom and licentiousness) points out that you offer your hand to show that you aren’t hiding a weapon and that you mean no harm. When Elizabeth “shakes hands” with the cook in the restaurant where the pig is being prepared, she does mean harm: she’s renewing an affair and hiding her sin is hiding a weapon. The trailer for Contagion makes it look like the virus is passed via birds, and there is serious suggestion that it is passed by "one touch transmission," which invokes the 1998 Denzel Washington film Fallen where a demon is passed person to person through touch.
Dr. Ellis Cheever.
What about the cure?
Dr. Ally Hextall (Jennifer Ehle) provides it for us. She goes to the father, the divine physician, and reminds him that he had taken on the illness for us and suffered what we suffer so we might be cured... Okay, Soderbergh doesn't mention Jesus as the Divine Physician that directly, however, Ally realizes that one of the vaccines developed has saved one of the monkeys; to save time (on research and development) she gives herself an injection and goes to visit her father, a doctor, who himself became ill with the disease while tending the needs of his patients. Ally's vaccine--more symbolic than literal in the film--is what arrests the spread of death in the world.
So much breakdown that a call to 911 automatically goes to a recording.
The vaccine is inhaled through the nose, because we have “a nose for trouble,” and can “be led by the nose” to do what we shouldn’t do. Those who take the vaccine wear a blue wrist band, blue representing the “wisdom” not to commit the sins that led to the disease and the wrist band (which might be a traditional sign of "bondage" or a "shackle") here seems to represent the discipline not to commit the sins which will spread death, destruction and mayhem in our souls and throughout the world.
Jude Law as Alan Krumweide. His blog site is called "truth serum" and, for being the first to recognize that an epidemic was starting, his readers started calling him a "prophet." When, however, the government alleges he faked his illness to send the stock of the medicine up, the government reveals how he "profits" from his readers by giving them a serum with less than the truth in it. "A blog is graffiti with punctuation," and that is certainly the case...
Steven Soderbergh directed the hit film Sex, Lies and Videotape (1989) when a man having an affair with his sister-in-law ends up losing everything, so him now lending his talent to a major film about a woman having an affair and getting a deadly disease isn't a big leap. Through artful use of noise and silence, focus and blurs, Soderbergh and cast create an important social document filled with traditional symbols employed as a warning about the contagious nature of sin and the death that our "private" sins spread throughout the world.
Loosely based on the Clifton Webb and Maureen O’Hara hit Sitting Pretty of 1948, The Help gives those on the bottom and on the outside a chance to critique those on top and on the inside; obviously, in a situation such as this, boundaries and social conventions are the real subjects and the characters mere vehicles to see our own selves in action, in our worst moments. Films such as this don’t work when we push it to that safe arm’s distance and see “everyone else” and not ourselves; we all do something, regardless of class, race, religion, profession and where we live.
Before we get into the rest of the film, let me offer Skeeter’s (Emma Stone) mother, Charlotte (Allison Janney) as a “microcosm” of the rest of the film: she has cancer, like the various social diseases throughout the film (and we can compare Charlotte to Jackson society because Jackson gave birth to Skeeter’s understanding of social norms and abnormalities just as her biological mother did). Due to the cancer, Charlotte has lost a significant portion of her hair and wears wigs, not all of which look great on her, rather like society trying to put a wig on our own “revealing” (balding) behavior we don’t want others to see.
Charlotte's dress (symbolically) doesn't fit Skeeter. The green of this dress (juxtaposed to Hilly's green dress later) is the color of hope for Skeeter, but Skeeter has different hopes of her own from her mother's hopes for her.
By the end of the film, Charlotte has ditched the wigs in favor of a turban style "wrap" with a gemstone on it and announces to Skeeter that she is going to fight the cancer and she is determined to get well. The determination to heal signals that Jackson, too, will heal and overcome the cancer eating away at it, and Charlotte’s gem-adorned turban symbolizes that she has gained a new, greater wisdom from her own mistakes that she’s not going to repeat nor allow to continue.
Octavia Spencer as Minny Jackson and Viola Davis as Aibileen Clark.
“The help,” appears, on the surface, to refer to the “hired help,” i.e., the black maids; but the beauty of the film is that it goes deeper than that. An old black maid named Constantine Jefferson (and, yes, you should be thinking of President Thomas Jefferson and his life-long affair with his black maid Sally Hemings) has raised Skeeter since she was a baby; when Skeeter goes through those awkward years, Constantine gives her a powerful pep talk, full of love, because Constantine herself has had the same struggles Skeeter now endures, although Constantine’s comes from race discrimination, Skeeter’s discrimination comes from not being pretty (enough).
Constantine and little Skeeter.
Abigail and Minny are being forced into ever greater indignities and Skeeter is “the help” they need to get attention to their plight. The Ladies Auxiliary Club is “the help” the black children need to ensure they have enough food during the winter months, but the Ladies Auxiliary Club is also enlisting “the help” of the governor to establish a state law that households with black servants must have separate bathrooms for them. Skeeter’s mom Charlotte receives “the help” from her women’s club in firing Constantine for (supposedly) overstepping boundaries during a (white) party. Cecilia Foote (Jessica Chastain) has Minny giver her “the help” she needs in understanding why she is so ostracized and Minny gets “the help” she needs from Cecilia when no one else will hire her because of “something she did.”
Bryce Dallas Howard as villainess Miss Hilly Holbrook.
Miss Hilly (Bryce Dallas Howard) refuses to allow Minny, her black maid, to use her (a white woman’s) bathroom; Minny uses the bathroom anyway and Miss Hilly fires her for it. Returning with Miss Hilly’s favorite chocolate pie, Minny tells Miss Hilly (as she’s eating her second piece of the pie) to “Eat my shit.” Minny baked her own feces into the pie.
Minny about to get fired for using Miss Hilly's toilet.
Miss Hilly’s “fear” of disease being contracted from the sharing of bathrooms is its own disease (towards the end of the film, she gets a large, red… “bump” on her lip, symbolic of one, the disease she was afraid of getting from “shared” bathrooms and two, the problems she has spread like a disease throughout Jackson society because of her shallow perceptions). "Minny's" name is like "mini," too short, or not measuring up. Minny's retaliation at Miss Hilly reminds us what Christ said: it's not what we put in our mouths that makes us unclean, it's what comes out of our mouths that makes us unclean. Miss Hilly (whose own name suggests a "hill," an obstacle to the smooth relations in society) and her agenda of segregation--a form of hate--is the disease and makes her unclean, yet Minny feeding her "shit" is also an unclean act, to say the least, illustrating the compounding of problems.
Celia Foote is always putting her "foot" in her mouth.
Similarly, Skeeter’s boyfriend Stuart doesn’t giver her “the help” she needs in terms of encouragement when he doesn’t support her book (he's not a good "steward" of her talents); Jolene doesn’t offer “the help” Abi needs when Miss Hilly accuses her of stealing her silverware, etc.
While the racial boundaries between black and white are the obvious focus, The Help skillfully explores the other social boundaries which impair the well-being of all members of society: Skeeter’s single status and everyone fussing over her because she doesn’t have a boyfriend; Celia’s pregnancy out of wedlock and her ostracization from the rest of Jackson society, Missus Walters (Sissy Spacek in a brilliant, fun role) and her growing dementia, etc.
Social pecking order: the queen bee, the crazy old woman and the poor black maid.
The Help could have easily become a very one-dimensional film, but through it’s effortless navigating of all social boundaries (regardless of race) it manages to inspire us to carefully regard “the help” we are capable of giving to others, and “the help” we accept from others.
Before the United States entered World War II, we were an impoverished country suffering the ravages of the Great Depression which had stunted our growth. When the “boys” were returning home from war-torn Europe (even amidst the devastation) the great monuments to history and culture awakened a sense that we were a very young and un-cultured country. This translated in films as the story of young girls (the U.S. prior to World War II) to whom something happens and they then become elegant and sophisticated (post World War II): Breakfast at Tiffany’s (come on, before moving to New York she was married to Jed Clamped of the Beverly Hillbillies); Annie Get Your Gun; Calamity Jane, All About Eve, Gigi and Disney’s Cinderella, to name a few. Captain America stays in this film tradition with Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) being a weak and skinny kid (the impoverished United States) who then becomes a total beefcake (the War build-up).
Captain America knows America, in its exploitation and love of movies.
In this time of political rhetoric about America's destiny, or even whether America has a destiny, Captain America reminds us, through the voice and sufferings of a German-Jewish doctor, what America is about: heart. The serum Dr. Abraham Erksine offers to Steve tends to accentuate what is good, or what is bad, so a good person becomes better and a bad person... rotten. It's not the serum he's talking about, he's talking about "power" itself, and as Americans, we have to remember that in respecting the power that we have (or, rather, as the unfortunate case may prove to be, the power we once had).
Dr. Erksine talking about the procedure with skinny Steve on the table.
The reason it's important to remember that we love freedom and we want to insure the freedom of all people in the world is so we don't buy into a myth of America's right to superpowerism. In Captain America, Nazi Captain Johann Schmidt (Hugo Weaving, translation is "John Smith" in English, so he's potentially an everyman character) seeks a source of power from a Teutonic myth based on the inherent right of a people to rule over the world. The humility of Steve Rogers and his dedication to saving others with no regard for himself is what gives him the "true power" to defeat Schmidt who took the same serum Steve was given but it worked on his "bad qualities" to make him worse, and the same could happen to us.
Hugo Weaving as Johann Schmidt holding the Tesseract of power.
The second important aspect of Captain America, is the numerous movies it references (when I was taking notes in the theater, my pen ran out of ink, so I wasn't able to finish my notes; I'm real bright, aren't I?). The movies are to America what the Louvre is to France: it's our primary means of expression and entertainment, our deepest understanding of who we are as Americans and individuals comes from our primary artistic resource, films.
Hugo Weaving played Agent Smith
The first movie reference I noticed was Johann Schmidt played by Hugo Weaving who was villain Agent Smith in The Matrix (how many films before The Matrix can you name with Hugo Weaving?). It’s an artful connection Captain America bridges with The Matrix because, just as Agent Smith didn’t want Neo (Keanu Reeves) to fulfill his destiny, so Schmidt doesn’t want Captain America—or America—to fulfill their destiny.
Indiana Jones and Raiders of the Lost Ark
The second film referenced isIndiana Jones and Raiders of the Lost Ark twice: “The Fuhrer digs for trinkets in the desert,” Schmidt says, and because the viewer has seen Indiana Jones we know that “trinket” represents the Ark of the Covenant. The importance of this reference lies in the mythology of Teutonic heritage Schmidt searches for against the Ark and it’s relationship to the Jewish and Christian religions. Bringing the Ark into Captain America reminds the audience of all the dimensions of the (pagan) Nazi regime and why it was so important that they be defeated, as well as reminding Christians of that madman Adolf Hitler’s attempt at getting the Ark of the Covenant.
Sallah and Indy remove the Ark from its resting place.
But there is a second reference to Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark: towards the end, when Captain America and one of the enemy soldiers are fighting on one of the “planes” which are going to bomb a major city, the enemy falls into the blade of the plane and gets… shredded, like when Indy fights the large Nazi German and the Nazi turns as the plane comes around and … it spews his face over everything. Invoking this scene is no surprise: Indy was as “out manned” by that big German as Steve is “out manned” by everyone in Captain America, but the reason why both Indy and Captain America are able to win that battle is not because of muscle or fancy gadgets, but because of the heart put into the fight and the stakes of the fight.
Beware of idols
I’m pretty excited about an upcoming post on Iron Man, and I don’t want to give away all my thoughts right now, but when Captain America sees a man named "Howard Stark" (Dominic West) demonstrating a flying car, Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) immediately came to my mind: not only was Tony always working on his cars in the comic-strip-turned-hit-film Iron Man, but the sharing of the last name is a dead-hit.
Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark as Iron Man.
There may also be another reference in the name "Howard Stark." Howard is a civilian pilot, and as such, references another famous Howard, Howard Hughes, who was an avid pilot (think of the film The Aviator).
The Hughes H-4 Hercules plane with Huges at the controls.
In the last scene, when Captain America wakes up and runs out onto the street of modern-day New York City, he’s confronted by Samuel L. Jackson of Pulp Fiction fame (how many films can you name that Jackson was in before Pulp Fiction?). I understand how someone could be saying, “Can an actor only appear in one movie their entire life or be forever linked back to that one role? Where does this position end?” and that’s a very legitimate question, however, with Captain America, a film wherein there are other films, and where (I hope) I have already demonstrated that there are many worthwhile references being made to many films, that this, too, is intentional.
Captain America and his international team fighting the world's evil.
Why? What’s to be gained for the narrative in “hooking up” with Pulp Fiction through Samuel L. Jackson? Conversion.
As Jules Winnfield, Samuel L. Jackson represents a character who has undergone conversion (please see Pulp Fiction: A Study In Plato and Aristotle). Just as Pulp Fiction, first and foremost, is a story of conversion, so Captain America is a story about an awakening, because when the movie starts, Captain America has been asleep for 70 years, i.e., since the end of World War II. It's very telling that the plane which wrecked with Captain America in it (and where he's been "asleep" all this time) has an "empty captain's chair," signaling an absence in leadership in America now.
Howard Stark and Steve Rogers discuss costume in Captain America.
Why are these outside film references important? It's not important, it's imperative: Captain America exhibits self-awareness, and this self-awareness keeps it from becoming like all the films; instead of becoming a wad of cliches, a redundant super-hero comic book turned movie, it reflects on the status of problems, solutions and identity in America now.
Hayley Atwell as Peggy Carter, the British training officer.
Lastly, just like Cowboys and Aliens, Captain America reaffirms the British-U.S. alliance, defiantly in the face of the U.S. President, Barack Hussein Obama (please see my post Cowboys and Aliens: The US-British Alliance). While President Obama takes every opportunity to hack away at the friendship of our most steadfast and dearest ally, Great Britain, Americans defiantly hold fast to it and refuse to succumb to his bizarre ideas.
In the tradition of great Japanese cinema, Roshomon, Throne of Blood and Seven Samurai, 13 Assassins was hailed by critics as an “old school” approach to amazing fight scenes without unnecessary special effects. But that isn’t the reason to watch it (on Netflix Instant Play this month). In the character of Lord N. is the resurrection of the Japanese Imperialist impulse which resulted in the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
Original movie poster in Japanese.
Initially, the atrocities of Lord N. led me to view him as a symbol of the Allied armies who defeated Japan and forced Japan’s unconditional surrender ending World War II: Lord N., then, seemed to be a figure wanting revenge for the World War II. The most powerful image in the film is of a devastated young girl with arms and legs reduced to stubs; her family massacred, she was a “play thing” for Lord N. who not only cut out her tongue, but levied such heavy taxes, the once fruitful home land of the girl became barren. The amputated arms of the girl represent the end of the Japanese army (arms are a symbol of strength) according to the treaty with the Allied forces, and the girl’s cut off legs symbolizes the spiritual death of the Japanese will. The barren land under heavy taxation signifies the price Japan paid for bombing Pearl Harbor when America dropped the devastating atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The tongue being cut out is the silence of Japan accepting their circumstances as a result of the War.
Within the fortified town, the attack on Lord N.'s entourage.
Although the story takes place during a time of peace, the atrocities Lord N. wages against the people threatens to plunge them back into a time of war. No one wants this and no one wants Lord N. to ascend to a position of power he has been given by being the half brother of the reigning shogun. Fearful of the results of Lord N. having power, Shinzaemon (a "retired" samurai) agrees to gather a small group to assassinate him.
It is very possible to see 13 Assassins as a call to nationalism, a rising to prepare for another Imperialist war “righting the wrongs”; it would be the same, for example, if Neo-Nazis in Germany started gaining power again, or if the Ku Klux Klan called for a new Civil War in America.
The wild spirit and "no rules" member of the 13 assassins.
There is, however, one moment demonstrating that Lord N. is not a symbol of the Allied Forces, rather, a ghost, buried deep within the history and culture of Japan: the group of assassins have taken over a town and transformed it into a fortified death trap; Lord N.’s 200 bodyguards are falling dead around their brutal Lord who, witnessing the massacre, tells his chief samurai that he intends to bring back the days of war because it will be exciting and people will value their lives more. This dedication to war definitely makes Lord N. the symbol of Japanese Imperialism itself and not a symbol of the Allied Forces.
The bloody--and awesome--battle over which side will prevail.
His death is imperative because it’s the destruction to that movement within Japanesesociety and culture that would try to achieve the goals of World War II once more; further, it’s not just that he dies, he’s beheaded (which, granted, happens frequently in this violent movie) but the cutting off of his head symbolizes that what he stands for will no longer “govern” the Japanese people (the head always symbolizes a governing function, please see “The Body” in How To Eat Art).
Samurai preparing to commit Seppuku for losing a battle.
A history film is never about something historical: it always has to be translated into contemporary terms for a modern audience to identify with it and be willing to invest their time. In this case, even as the film opens with the most traditional Harikari or Seppuku (ritual suicide by disembowelment), it's a very modern film examining the most traditional code of conduct in Japanese society: the samurai. Traditionally, the Samurai owed total allegiance to their lord and master and would die for him; in 13 Assassins, this is true, for the servants of Lord N.; however, the 13 are willing to give their lives for "the people," which didn't amount to much then. 13 Assassins is a significant re-writing of the basics of Japanese culture and tradition.
The honor of the samurai in dying for a cause greater than themselves.
The way contemporary Japanese peace is supported by the film is the two assassins who are left living: one who didn’t like being a samurai (but who had fought well and with great skill and courage) and the other the “wild spirit of the samurai” (for those who have seen it, you know which one I am talking about; for those who haven’t, you will). That one will stay and enjoy what he longs for, and the other will go to America, clearly establishes the peace between Japan and the United States, and that it will continue to the benefit of both countries.
Samurai fighting in a battle in 1561, the Battle of Kawanakajima.
The deep film of Japan’s psyche reveals a violent purgation of shogun ghosts trying to extend their influence to a new generation of Japanese from beyond the grave. The genius of the film is the recognition of the imperialist psychology being the reason Japan endured such horrors, and not the Allied Forces. The courage of the film lies in its call to discredit that facet of their culture which would plunge Japan—and the world—once more into war, while recognizing the value of the peace they enjoy today.
