Re-Defining Possession: In Time

"Don't waste my time," is a familiar pun in Andrew Niccol's In Time. I was not disappointed in its approach to expanding the vocabulary of the "class wars." It doesn't matter what side you are on in the Washington tax discussions, In Time has given us some new perspectives on existence. Humanity has been writing about the war between the classes since there were classes to be at war and that someone has figured out a new way to articulate the difference is quite an achievement; regardless of where you stand on tax breaks or hikes, regardless of how often or how seldom you think of money and regardless of whether you were born to money or born to a heap of bills, it's a smart movie that, I am very pleased to announce, disappointed me in my prediction made, Wednesday, September 14, 2011.

In Destabilization: Reality and Identity, I examined trends in trailers for upcoming films (Margin Call, Contagion, In Time and Anonymous) which signaled shifting modes of identity in today's culture: disease, financial analysis, class and even the great canon of art by which culture defines itself. What I expected of In Time is that identity would be destabilized, in essence, that we would be spinning wildly out of control, like the company's assets in Margin Call, however, In Time does the exact opposite: it firmly anchors existence within the basic framework of time. We literally exist in time because without time, we don't exist.

The only way for the rich to die is basically to do something foolish or be the victim of an act of violence, so they hire two or more body guards to keep them from being robbed and to keep them from doing anything foolish so they can live forever. When Will has beaten Philippe Weis at poker and Sylvia comes to sit with him, Weis notes that Will must be confused about whether Sylvia is his mother, his wife, a sister.... then tells Will that she's his daughter, and notes how much easier things were once. Having met, Sylvia tells Will how the clock beats even the rich because they aren't allowed to do anything, they aren't allowed to live. While people don't age past 25, in this photo, you can see a "timeline" of this system developing: as the oldest in the line-up, Clara, the mother-in-law in the gold dress, symbolizes how "golden the opportunity" was for going over to this way of life; Michele, the wife in the white dress, symbolizes the faith they have that it will work out but the youngest, Sylvia in black, is the daughter and the black symbolizes "death" because she knows ("Weis" means "wisdom" or "knowledge" in German) that the system is dead because no one is living.

Instead of jerking us out of a framework in which we can live and examine ourselves, a framework of meditation and reflection, we are firmly rooted within a framework, we are forced to reflect. The idea, for example, is Darwinian capitalism, the strong survive. What's ironic about that, when Will is playing his high-stakes poker game, he cleans out multi-multi-multi millionaire Philippe Weis (father of Sylvia Weis), suggesting that Will is the stronger and should be the one surviving by the standards of Darwinism (of course, how riddled with holes is Darwinism?). So, in this way, the very model of how the society should be managed, falls apart by its own standards (which is an example of Deconstruction).

We all have biological clocks which tick and prompt us to do or not do certain acts which regard our physical and psychological existence; in In Time, the ticking clock on your arm over-rules the biological clock. Rachel Salas (Olivia Wilde) has turned 50 and laments she doesn't have a grandchild, mentioning to Will (Justin Timberlake) that so and so's daughter always asks about him; his response? "Who has time for a girlfriend?" Courtship and mating literally cost more than the advantage of doing it and provides a new way of what we take for granted: the cost of dinner and a movie and how that, in terms of dating so the species can continue, it costs us. There are 24 hours in the day and Will usually wakes up with only 18 on his clock.

What happens is, each person is genetically engineered to stop aging once they turn (exactly) 25 years old; when that happens, each person is given one year to live until your 26, unless you get more time to live on; the clock doesn't start ticking until you turn 25. By the time you have turned 25, your family needs some of your time to pay off a loan or you need to get a car, etc., so that year to live on goes fast. If you run out of time, you "time out" and die instantly. You can store excess time on these metal things that are like "time debit cards" and time becomes like money in every way: you can barter, steal, loan, and, most importantly, you can share time. In 2011, when the government can barely stay operating and tax hikes and cuts are the determining factor in your political identity, In Time definitely provides a look at how psychologically draining poverty is on people scrapping money together to pay the bills, but I don't think there is anything "preachy" about it, as some critics at rotten tomatoes are alleging.

in a prison, it's that you're not allowed into the inner circle (the time-wealthy, so to speak) where freedom is synonymous with relaxing.

Some critics have accused that the film is okay if you don't look too closely at how it all works; I would disagree, the closer you examine it, the more intriguing it becomes. Will's break out of the time ghetto comes from Henry Hamilton (Matt Bomer), a time-rich guy who has lived 105 years and is tired. Wanting to get killed, he takes his time into the ghetto where he attracts attention and is certain to get killed until Will steps in to save him. Most film critics would say that this is just a cliche film device and totally overlook the importance of this moment; however, this is the kind of philanthropy which Will does throughout the whole film and which creates the real lesson. What is most important about Henry Hamilton is his name: Hamilton.

Matt Bomer plays Henry Hamilton who gives Will the century on his clock. When Will first sees Hamilton, he's in a bar with two girls and he's bought the whole place drinks. Having drawn the attention of some thugs wanting to steal that century, Will gets Hamilton out and they spend the night in a warehouse. Hamilton tells Will that after you've lived so long, your mind is spent even if your body's not, we want to die, we need to die.

In the founding of America, in the forging of what this country would be like, how it would operate and, most importantly, how it would pay off its crippling debt after the enormously costly American Revolution, Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton was the personality winning President George Washington's attention and approval for his economic systems. Henry Hamilton, then, giving Will a century is breaking Will out of the constraint of the system the way (believe it or not) Alexander Hamilton's devotion to the free market and capitalism would help thousands break out of the constraining systems of economic establishments which ruled the world at that time, making it possible for people to move in and out of social and economic classes the way Will now (theoretically) can move from one time zone to another (time zones are the new "economic classes" in this system). That's the reason Hamilton falls from the bridge when he "times out," that bridge symbolizes "bridging" the gap between classes and time zones and the sacrifice that he's willing to make, just as Will sacrificed to save him from the thugs.

This still provides some interesting information. For example, does this shot look familiar? It should, it was used in Casino Royale, the James Bond high-stakes poker game. The metal device in about the center of the frame is a "time machine" which allows time to be taken from one person to another at the poker table. Where else have we seen time bets in a game? The second Pirates of the Caribbean film, Dead Man's Chest, when the "men" on board the Flying Dutchman bet the time they have remaining on the ship.

The Bonnie and Clyde image of Sylvia and Will robbing the banks and rich of their time to give to the poor isn't what upsets the system, and it isn't what is going to correct the system in the film or in America. What really disrupts the system is Will sharing from his own meager resources. What I have not mentioned heretofore, is that to pass time from one person to another, the classic handshake is used. The great symbol of equality because it confirmed that a person wasn't carrying weapons and could harm you. The hand is a symbol of our strength, and the handshake is the symbol of brotherhood. Will is a generous guy, whether it's to those he knows or the Timekeeper Raymond Leon (Cillian Murphy) who pursues him and Sylvia trying to bring them to justice. When Leon gets shot and doesn't have enough time on his own clock to make it until other timekeepers arrive to take him in for treatment, Will gives Leon more than enough to stay alive, even as Will doesn't have much time himself (all the time had been confiscated by Leon earlier so Will is "broke" again).

Timekeepers are the cops for In Time; here, Cillian Murphy portrays Timekeeper Leon who pursues Will and Sylvia to keep time out of the wrong hands. When bribed by Sylvia's father to ignore Sylvia's illegal activities, Leon won't take the bribe of a thousand years for himself. It's interesting because, in a showdown with Will, Will notes that Leon "can run," which is the ultimate sign of the ghetto, because only those who "don't have time," have to run to make it stretch. Leon validate that he's from the ghetto, but he found a way out, and Will quickly points out to him that he's not letting anyone else get out.As a timekeeper, Leon gets only enough time to keep him going throughout the day. Mr. Murphy has done a fabulous job in everything I have seen him in, from the Batman films to Inception and now In Time.

 What's interesting is, when Will takes Sylvia hostage so he can get away, and he's running out of time and needs some from Sylvia, she won't share to save him. They wreck the car and she's robbed, leaving her with only minutes; Will shares his remaining time with her, remarking that sharing is a good idea now, and I think that's really what the film is about. It's not taking money away from the rich or raising taxes, none of that matters, but what does matter, is how we treat each other. For example, I needed four new tires on my car earlier this week but could only afford three, so I told the mechanic which ones I wanted switched out; a couple of days later, I remembered to check the remaining one in case it needed to be aired up and saw that it was a new tire. I thought, "Oh, no, they changed the wrong tires!" Going around again and again, examining the tires, yea, the mechanic went ahead and gave me the fourth tire I needed, and in addition to that, he looked just like Tom Hardy, tattoos and all! As Christians, that's what makes our world go around, giving of what we have and humbly receiving what we don't have. God bless him.

The car crash when Sylvia has been robbed of her time and wants Will to give her some of his. The car provides an interesting "vehicle" of thought and symbols in the film (see picture below). When Will travels through the time zones to his ultimate destination, New Greenwich, named, of course for the Greenwich Mean Time which standardizes time throughout the world, he buys the car and the dealer tells him that delivery charge is included in the fee; delivery for what? For displaying, just like the red convertible from Tower Heist. "Display it? I'm going to drive it!" Will responds, but this ultra expensive purchase and the turning a vehicle (a device for utility) into an object of display is one of the dividing lines between the upper class and lower classes. Further, during a car chase, Sylvia asks Will if he knows how to drive. "What's there to know?" validating that he "didn't have time to learn" because he didn't have the time to spend buying a car because he was working trying to get enough hours to make it through the night.

This is the reason why, as the film itself names it, that robbing from the banks and the rich to give time to the poor won't disrupt the system: the prices for everything goes up as the poor get more and more time. It doesn't effect the rich, they live in a different time zone, only the poor have to deal with inflation. "Taking," the film makes clear, isn't going to be what solves the inequality between the classes, only the kind of conversion that Sylvia has experienced on a massive scale, and a generosity of heart will genuinely change things.

This guy is a Time Mission manager, meaning, that there are places giving out time just like soup kitchens and shelters. After stealing a large quantity of time, Will "holds up" this guy who says he doesn't have much time, he gives it all away, and Will says I know, and gives him a lot of time so he can give it away. Notice, especially in this shot, and in the poster art, that green is the main color of the film. Green is the color of hope, because no one really has hope of "getting free" of the system, but it's also the color of envy because Sylvia envies those who can do foolish things and really live with the time that they have, whereas the poor envy the rich for being able to relax.

This is a great time to talk about the "God Factor" in films. For example, in a film such as The Lord of the Rings, while God is never mentioned, it is a Christian film because it's based on the moral teachings of Christ, the same with The Chronicles of Narnia. Some films, such as Ultra-Violet and Inception, provide you with a world that is recognizable, but the order of reality has to be established by the film makers; because they mention God--even if that's only taking the Lord's name in vain--it's an order which recognizes the Order created by the Divine Will, and anything which goes against that is unnatural. In Time also acknowledges God in the same way (one character is even named "Constantin" after Constantine the Great), but what is the greater act of blasphemy, the engineering the body not to age past 25, or lots of people dying when they can't afford to live any longer so that a few can be immortal and "live forever?" Or, is it that good people let that happen? We have to remember that Time comes from God, the one Who exists beyond Time.

Price includes delivery charge for display.

For everyone, but especially for Christians, we have to be mindful that "Our time is not our own," and every second is a gift from God and we will be accountable for every second, if it was used to make acts of sin or make acts of virtue, like my mechanic, again, God bless him. Is what we are doing "worthy" of our time? Is what we are "spending" our time on "valuable?" What do we "give" our time to? When Hamilton tells Will, "Don't waste my time," it is really God telling us, "Don't waste my time," because we will be accountable for it all at any moment.

As Sylvia notes, when your clock starts, the first thing everyone does is look in the mirror, because that's how you're going to look for the rest of your life. There is a lot of "sameness" in the film, rather like Interview With the Vampire, being "forever young" turns into a curse because, not having the ability to change, you also don't have the ability to really grow-up and become "Weis/wise" and this is the purpose of the car chase scene that takes place with Will going backwards: "backwards" symbolizes making mistakes, so Will is able to outrun his pursuers based on his wisdom he has attained from making mistakes, which the rich aren't allowed to do because they are supposed to live forever, and the only thing the rich can't afford, is to make a mistake, not being able to ever learn anything, they are slowly forcing themselves into non-existence because they won't be smart enough to protect the system that protects them.

Deconstructing Volatile Risk: Margin Call

In the very beginning, a group of "clean up" teams enter the company's floor and proceed to lay-off nearly 75% of the analysts. I can't explain it, but it gave me an eerie feeling of  the French Revolution and the guillotine. Then, as the film progressed, more and more verbals verified the analogy: "I need your head to feed to the floor," "Did you get the axe?" "You're still alive." All these little sparks add to the growing bonfire that purges and destroys the company we are watching. Deconstructionists like solid opposites when they analyze artwork, and in J.C. Chandor's Margin Call, you can take your pick, but the opposition between "clean" and "dirty" is the obvious choice for me.     

The film, in my estimation, is fabulous on numerous levels, but first and foremost, Margin Call starts with a great script. The two most important moments in a film is the very beginning and the very ending: the beginning because it sets the pace and gives you your first impression of the director's approach; the ending because it's the director's last chance to leave you with an impression, his summarizing thesis, so to speak, and Chandor uses both effectively. The opening picture is of New York City, distorted, super fast-paced, with the mumurings of voices and phones, everyone saying something and yet nothing at all, idle talk, as philosopher Martin Heidegger called it. The last scene is of Sam (Kevin Spacey) digging a grave, and it's just the noise of the shovel coming through the dirt in the dead of night. Chandor goes from the very abstract to a very real, intimate grieving, where the dirt actually becomes something clean compared to what you have just been through.

"Clean," and "dirty." Those two simple words take on numerous meanings throughout this complex film. The image of "cleaning house" when the lay-off crew comes in establishes how this is going to backfire. Eric Dale (Stanley Tucci) is a boss who specializes in high volatile risk management; he's been working on an equation that demonstrates that the company is over-invested in worthless stocks. As he's getting laid off, the team brought in to do the dirty work, uses highly sterilized language to make the "severance" as neat as possible in the"transition" to his new life. This reminds me a lot of the guillotine, which was a very "clean killer" of the elite and peasants alike.

When the lay-off crew comes in, Will Emerson (Paul Bettany) tells them, "Keep your heads down and just ignore it," that is, the tapping on shoulders and people loosing their livelihoods, just ignore it. This advice is pretty much the same thing that they will do as they are rapidly selling-off the worthless holdings of the company to their fellow investors and knowingly running businesses into bankruptcy.

As Dale tells the executioners that he needs to finish this equation, they politely tell him, "This is not your problem anymore." "This," is the equation that will rivet the American economy into the Great Recession, but "this" is a case of mistaken identity: when the lay-off crew was going around and tapping people on the shoulder so they would know they were next in line, it's Peter Sullivan (Zachary Quinto) who is tapped as being "Eric Dale."  Peter points to where Eric is, but this is no accident: it's symbolic of the equation and the "mistake" that Eric Dale had pointed out a year earlier and everyone mistook for something else entirely. After he's "released," the company has turned his phone off; after Peter breaks the news of what has happened, they spend nearly the whole rest of the night trying to get a hold of him. Towards the end, he shows up to just sit in the room, quietly, while the brokers work the fire sale, and they end up paying him $176,000/hour to just sit there, when yesterday, they booted him without even a cell phone and on half-salary.

Eric Dale (Stanley Tucci) on the chopping block.

My favorite shot of the whole film is when Jared Cohen (Simon Baker) and Sarah Robertson (Demi Moore) are "going down" in an elevator (because the company is going down, as in, the Titanic) and there is a little cleaning woman, with her cart of cleaners, standing in-between these two major Wall Street "players" who made millions of dollars last year but she, as a symbol of the necessary fall they both must take in order to "correct" the markets that their greed has helped to propel. The little woman is so tiny and never says a word, doesn't even look at them, but she's the one, symbolically, bringing down the whole company, like the grim reaper. It's the cleaning job that she's doing which is making them look so... dirty. And that's a way to compare these two words, "clean" and "dirty":  is it the worthless stocks that are dirty or is it the way they get rid of the dirt that's dirty? Does getting rid of the worthless stocks actually "clean house," the way they tell other brokers, or does it turn the company into a house of abominations?

Simon Baker as Jared Cohen. At 44, he's called "the wonder boy" because he rose to prominence so quickly in the world of stock analysis. It's his call to sell everything and to anyone who will buy.

Another image of cleaning is, after the longest night of meetings and immoral discussions, Seth (Penn Badgley) is in the bathroom locked in a stall, crying, because he survived the execution team earlier that day, only to know that this "day of liquidation" is his last because of everything that has happened. He hears someone enter and start doing something. He pulls himself together and exits the stall where he sees Jared Cohen, shirt off and giving himself a shave before the early morning meetings begin. As a reader kindly pointed out to me, Seth tells Cohen that being in stocks is all he ever wanted to do, opening himself up and "exposing" his vulnerability as, Cohen, who keeps shaving, merely replies, "Really?" But, knowing that his shirt is off, we know that Cohen is "exposed" and in "keeping himself clean", he's willing to do something dirty, and axing an underling in the firm is one way to accomplish what he's willing to do. Who else have we seen shaving? Jonathan Hawker in Dracula when he was ridding himself of his "animal tendencies" so that he could see the Count Dracula's (please see For the Dead Travel Fast: Dracula).

Peter Sullivan (Zachary Quinto) and Seth (Penn Badgley) on "execution day." Their boss, Eric Dale, has just gotten axed and is leaving. As Peter says good-bye, Eric hands him the flash drive with the equation that will change the world overnight. The funny thing about Peter's character, throughout the film, he's the nice guy, the caring, sympathetic guy who doesn't look at how much people are making, but the burdens they have to carry. At the end of the film, his friend Seth gets axed and Peter gets promoted, having lunch with Cohen, you get the idea that "he's succumbed to the dark side."

The bathroom is used extremely effectively in the film. Besides the incident noted above, when Sam is being "prodded" by the big boss, John Tuld (Jeremy Irons) on whether or not he's going to participate in the fire-sale, it's in the bathroom, and he's been washing his face, but no amount of washing will take off the dirt of these sins. This has to be a reference, veiled as it is, to Akira Kurosawa's 1957 film Throne of Blood.  Based on Shakespeare's  MacBeth,  Asaji, a wife guilty of provoking bloodshed, tries to wash blood off her hands when "nothing is there," although this is a reference to the sin upon her soul. This, too, comes back on Sam when, at the end of the fire-sale, he's done what he said he wouldn't do and, for the company, it's been a success, "successfully destroying their own jobs." He's expecting to get fired, "a mercy killing," and is shocked, even outraged, when he discovers they want to keep him for "at least 24 months." After John Tuld provides him with a demeaning history of capitalism, justifying what they've done and validating that they did "the right thing," Sam says he'll stay, "because I need the money" and you know, he'll hate himself forever.

Kevin Spacey as Sam Rogers, the boss of the trading floor where everything happens. His boss is Jared Cohen and his boss is John Tuld  (Jeremy Irons). It would be wrong to not expect a great performance out of Kevin Spacey, and Margin Call provides him with a range of emotions and delicate situations to explore artistically. But it is always wrong to give sole credit to the actors: I have seen great actors do lousy performances because they didn't have a director who could guide them; with this cast, Chandor gets rave reviews for being the director that this caliber of talent deserves.

When we first meet Sam, he's in one-quarter profile. Permit me to warn you, Chandor has baited this scene extremely well. We realize there are tears in his eyes and he's been crying, when asked what's wrong, he says his dog is dying, he's been spending a $1,000 a day trying to keep her alive, but she has a tumor. It's difficult to sympathize with a guy who is crying over a dog but not his employees who just got axed, and a foolish man who spends $1000 to keep a dying dog alive. But, as I said, this scene is baited, and this is what Chandor wants you to think: at the end, when all we hear is the sound of the shovel digging a grave in the night, its the dog's grave, but what the dog has come to symbolize is Sam's own being, his loyalty to the firm.

Sarah Robertson (Demi Moore) and Jared Cohen (Simon Baker). In the trailer, you get the idea of a relationship existing between them and that doesn't happen. Robertson thinks better of herself than anyone else thinks of her and it's her head--as the chief risk manager--that Tuld feeds to the brokers on the floor for their fiasco; but she gets a nice package.

This is the sign of great writing: what was a thing of repulsion for the audience at the beginning (a sign of his waste and non-prioritizing of his employees over his dog) is now sad and pitiful; the dirt of the grave, the ultimate sign of dirt," dirt itself," is now turned into something that is supposed to be "clean," because the act of burying his dog in his ex-wife's yard (the home that used to be is) is the only act of cleansing left to him. What's ironic is, she calls the police because he was digging a hole in her yard when she should have called them because of all the lousy stocks he sold that day. As the film fades out, you still hear Sam struggling to bury his dog in the darkness of a yard where he no longer lives.

His first look at the truth.

One of the great metaphors the film uses is "the music has stopped" and this happens at least three times: when Peter's finally gotten to the end of the equation, he pulls out his earplugs and literally, the music has stopped; when Sam sits in his office, listening to piano music through headphones, his feet slip off his desk (his will is going against the will of the firm to cheat other investors) and the music stops. There is total silence but big boss John Tuld says that he has heard the music stop and they must be the first ones to do something about it. Why does this metaphor work? Music symbolizes the pace, the rhythm, the harmony, the order to which we have been tuned, and when this has stopped, that means there's going to be chaos. Yet there is also the alternate reality, or a pleasurable background noise, drowning out reality, so we can keep marching to a beat that is out of sync with the reality we want to ignore and when that music stops, it's always an ugly silence of overwhelming truth that is to be heard, and nothing else.

Ear phones come out and, literally, the music has stopped

This film operates on many levels and easily merges several aesthetics to create an effortless work of perfection that can't be appreciated on one viewing alone (that's why I'm anxiously looking forward to this on DVD so I can watch it again). But, like the great Westerns of the 1950's, Margin Call is about capitalism. When America chooses to reflect on where it's been and why things are the way they are, it first looks to capitalism. Nearly all the great Westerns (especially those of John Wayne's) are about how capitalism should work; Margin Call is about how capitalism does work. And it's not the greedy, unethical brokers and analysts who are the problem.
We are the problem.

Paul Bettany as Will Ermerson, one of the important characters who offers America a glimpse of itself. Seth and Peter ask him if he really had made over 2 million dollars the year before and he answers yes, then they ask him the key question: where did it all go? About $300,000 went to the mortgage, $150,000 to his parents, $400,000 went for a rainy day, $150,000 for a car, $75,000 went to hookers, booze and a good time, but mostly hookers, and then $50,000 went to clothes. It's also Will who breaks it down for the audience that greedy people like all of us are the ones to blame for what's happening, because we all want "jut a little more," and when does that "little more" everyone wants finally tip the scale?

Americans want to live beyond their means, and for each person, "beyond" takes on it's own level of reasonableness. In Dante's Divine Comedy, it's the inner ring of the Seventh Circle of hell, the Violent, where moneylenders are placed with blasphemers and sodomites. Many have questioned why Dante would do this, but the sin of blasphemy (sins against God) is a sin of violence, and just as the act of sodomy is a fruitless act (two men can't get each other pregnant) so moneylenders are trying to make something that can't grow (money), grow (interest should not be a sexual act to get money to bear more fruit). These inversions against the natural order of how things work is blatantly evident in Margin Call: the two most frequently used phrases are, please excuse me, "Fuck me," and "Jesus Christ." The name of God is naught but an act of violence and anger, and that's the reason why they unload those worthless stocks, instead of using the Lord as a model of sacrificing themselves and generously drawing people's attention to what has happened so everyone can help absorb the loss, they want to "save themselves" but are really condemning themselves and that's because they don't really know what "Jesus Christ " means.

One should always expect great things of Jeremy Irons, and he doesn't disappoint. You want to trust him, he's so charming and easy; you're terrified of him because he's worth a billion dollars (before the equation came out into the light) and he could chew you up and spit you out in one breath, and he does it all with the utmost ease. What Margin Call does really well, among many things, is expose both Tuld's and Sam's lack of knowledge about what stocks are, what they do and how they operate, the circumstances and consequences, the shallow reasons the men on top got there and what they are willing to do to stay there.

At one point, Seth says, "It all seems like a dream," and Peter responds, "No, I think we just woke up." The problem is, the stocks that had been analyzed were based on historical patterns of volatility, risk assessment based on historical models, and the history of capitalism; it's not like this is the first time that this has happened. This has happened plenty of times, and it will continue to do so, so we had better "take stock" of what Margin Call has to teach us about the people we trust, gambling in the market and the ugly nature of our own greed.

Due to numerous questions, comments and some deeper reflection on my own part, I have created an annex post for Margin Call which talks about why Peter was the one to work out the formula, why Sarah got fired, Eric's bridge-building, etc., Margin Call a Few More Things here.

At Eternity's Gate: Van Gogh and the Infinite Struggle (Painting)

At Eternity's Gate or On The Threshold of Eternity, Vincent van Gogh, 1890.

The work of Vincent van Gogh is always valuable for studying symbols and spirituality: he himself was going to be a preacher and the Bible influenced everything, simply everything that he did artistically. This particular painting is worth a thousand words, specifically, those words of Christ and of His saints. (NOTE: this analysis pertains only to the painting At Eternity's Gate, completed by van Gogh circa 1890; this discussion is in no way meant to invoke, infringe upon or profit from the 2018 Julian Schnabel film At Eternity's Gate starring William DaFoe which has absolutely no relationship to this post or blog in any form whatsoever). 

1882 lithograph by Vincent van Gogh.

Why is this such a powerful piece? Because the contradiction absorbs itself.
As the old man sits there, in a posture of anguish, it's the warmth of the fire providing the “light of illumination” and the “warmth of life.” The fire is the sign of the Holy Spirit (think of the fire at Pentecost) and what keeps the fire lit? The wood, and the wood is the sign of Christ, for by the wood of the Cross, humanity was set free, and by the wood of the Cross, the Holy Spirit sets us free from our sins. There are three examples of wood within this painting: the wood in the fire, the wood of the chair and the wooden planks of the floor.

The wood in the fire is whatever it is the man grieves over, it's his sin or his fear, his anxiety or his pain, whatever the Holy Spirit has required of him, is in that fire, and the purgation of the Fire of the Spirit is setting him free, even at the very moment he appears to be enslaved to grief. That's the chair, the wooden chair where he sits symbolizing the Cross and the throne which this man is working towards as his heavenly reward. Just as the Cross was turned into Christ's Throne, so this man's chair, the poverty of it, will be turned into a throne in heaven.

Russian Icon of Moses and the burning bush (in the upper, right hand corner). As the bush burned, yet the bush was not consumed, so we are burned by the purgation of the Holy Spirit. The Lord appeared to Moses as a burning bush because that was the state of Moses' own soul, burning with the love of God, and a prefigurement of Christ's Sacrifice, for he would hang on the "burning tree," the Cross, which burned with His Love for fallen humanity.

It's the wooden planks of the floorboards that serve as the foundation (also prevalent in the Bedroom at Arles, and in both paintings, the floorboards point out of the painting towards the viewer, extending themselves into our plane so we can extend ourselves into van Gogh's): without the foundation of first, Noah's Ark and secondly, Christ's Cross, this man, nor any man, would be able to hope to enter at eternity's gate, for in both Noah's Ark and Christ's Cross, the salvation of man has been promised by God.  Why wood? Because of the curse of the tree from which the forbidden fruit was taken; by wood was man condemned so by wood man is redeemed.

Bedroom in Arles, 1888, Van Gogh Museum.

The dominant coloring of the painting is blue, suggesting the melancholy of the man's soul, yet depression can also be the doorway of wisdom. I do not, under any circumstances wish to diminish the suffering of clinical depression and the hardships it brings, however, the saints have written at length on the sorrows which can burden a soul being tried by fire, and that which they have written of, van Gogh has painted. The “frame” around the fire is done in a deep blue, so we are invited to “frame” the fire in the guise of wisdom, which blue symbolizes: the deeper the color of blue, the deeper the wisdom attained (which is why Mary is always depicted as wearing blue).

The work suit of the man is also blue.
From what van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo, we know that he had planned this specific arrangement since the first drawing he did in 1882: “Today and yesterday I drew two figures of an old man with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. I did it of Schuitemaker once and always kept the drawing, because I wanted to do it better another time. Perhaps I’ll also do a lithograph of it. What a fine sight an old working man makes, in his patched bombazine suit with his bald head.” The blue of his work clothes are not nearly “as deep” as the blue of the fireplace frame, meaning, he still has “work” to do.

The Madonna in Sorrow, 17th century, Sassoferato.

That's the genius of the painting: the parables of Jesus and the lofty, mystical writings of the saints, are all summarized in this one, simple, poor room, with a lonely man, experiencing the anguish of the soul, the great struggle we are all called to. He is fully clothed in the “garment of wisdom,” which is also the “bridal gown” of the soul, and, importantly, upon his feet are work shoes, symbolizing that his will (the feet) is united to doing the work of the Cross. His arms, the symbol of his strength, is also clothed in blue, meaning that he leans upon his hard-won wisdom for his strength.

But there is another element to the man: his hands.
At best, the darkness of them suggests dirt, and this could either be taken as his humility or the dirt upon his hands could translate as the “dirt of sin” but I think the atmosphere of the painting—and the tendency of the spiritual life—is the humility of the man, his hands in a posture of the prayer of suffering, and the dirt symbolizing his humility (for dirt is lowly). The reason I don't think, in this instance, it's the dirt of sin on his hands is because, when a person is spiritually advancing and has arrived as far as “eternity's gate,” they are not going to commit a mortal sin to separate themselves from the Face of God. “The beginning of wisdom is to fear the Lord,” which means the fear of offending God by our sins, and this man is obviously clothed in the garment of wisdom.

Yet his hands are so dark, they nearly appear decayed, rotted, as in death. This is the great contradiction which Christ calls us to: unless a grain of wheat falls and dies, it cannot bear fruit. It is only through death to the world that we can gain eternal life, and that is the purpose of the plaster wall behind the man, the white of the wall symbolizing his faith which he has used to cut himself off from the worldly pleasures and material goods of the world (note the emptiness of the room). Those who have read  The Undead: Nosferatu  have already noted the man's head: his baldness is meant to draw attention to the head and emphasize the man's knowledge, that not only does he have faith, but he knows; although he suffers a grief that only he and His Maker knows, he trusts that this suffering will be the the final test to enter eternity's gate.

What does it mean, to be “At Eternity's Gate?”
To be at the finish line, but not to have crossed it. To be as far from hell as is humanly possible before death, but to still be susceptible to falling into hell. To be in the spiritual position where everything matters, where only the heart can mutter the alleluia that will win the moment, and secure the grace to enter through eternity's gate for eternity. To be at the gate in the greatest moment of darkness before the greatest dawn comes to light your soul, eternally.

Imitations: The Thing

The Thing was a film I was looking forward to: the concept of a monster imitating humans, tissue extraction, cloning, the Arctic, all kinds of variables peaked my interest over the remake of the original 1951 version of Howard Hawks' The Thing From Another World. So what happened? The same thing as in Paranormal Activity 3: there is a moral discontinuity issue that I have really been thinking over, trying to work it out, hoping it would come to me and get untangled, but alas, I think it is just an example of poor writing and, moral discontinuity which seems to be the real monster lurking in theaters these days..

Actually, "the thing" is incredibly well done, in my estimation: it's very gross and a bit of a hybrid monster between an insect, that large mouth/pit that's going to eat Luke Skywalker in Return of the Jedi, and finally, a touch of Tremors. It's pretty gross. And on top of that, it eats you and imitates your cells, so it re-creates an exact replica of you.
Well, nearly exact.

And this is really the big, moral knot that I have with The Thing:  the thing cannot replicate anything that is not organic, so gold teeth (which the Arctic team uses to identify who is human and who is not), a titanium screw for holding a broken arm together, an erring... these are the indications of what the monster cannot reproduce (yes, the ones with porceline fillings are in trouble because the others can't see the false gold teeth). It can even continue being symphathetic towards people, it can show fear, it can display the entire range of human emotions. So The Thing tells us that what's uniquely human is what is fake about us.

I have tried elaborate schemes to support a viable thesis, for example: it was the experience of having broken his arm that makes Henrik unique and that uniqueness is what the thing can't reproduce; the titanium brace is just the symbol of it, the artifact, the memento; the act of getting a cavity and the filling is... a unique experience,.... but the mouth symbolizes the appetites. A cavity would equate sin, decay, rot. The filling isn't really a "conversion" experience... loosely considered, it could be a "healing" experience, but what's the significance, symbolically speaking. of the difference between the gold and the porceline fillings? And then, you have the real wrench in the works: an erring.

Joel Edgerton in The Thing. His gold erring is on his left lobe.

Warrior, starring Joel Edgerton, has been one of my favorite films of the year (please see Warrior: Competing Modes Of Masculinity). Nearly everyone gave a good performance in The Thing (the Norwegians were great) but another interesting aspect of it is, like Paranormal Activity 3 and Killer Elite, it takes place in the 1980s: this has become a serious storyline development, because, in the 1980s, there were no cell phones, internet, personal computers, there was no Facebook. To intentionally make a horror film prior to the dizzying introduction of the "digital revolution" is taking us back to the dark ages.

But there is something else important about the 1980s: men who were gay wore an erring in their left ear. In The Thing, I had forgotten this until the film was over, but that certainly contextualizes a comment made by Edgerton's character Sam Carter: "You don't want to be locked up in a storm with 14 Norwegian men." At the time, after he has expressed so much interest about finding out about his basketball team, the Cavaliers, you don't consider that he's gay; the small gold-loop erring is a bad fashion decision. This is the reason for the lack of romantic involvement between Carter and Kate Lloyd.

Towards the end of the film, when "Sam" and Kate appear to be the only two remaining people, the thing has gotten everyone else, Kate comments to Sam that his erring had been the reason she knew he was still a human because, again, the thing couldn't have replicated his erring, and he points to the wrong ear where the erring had been, so she knows he's been killed by the thing. So how would--in a morally continuous way--the erring missing, a sign of homosexuality in the early 1980s (in the beginning, she's listening to Men At Work's hit Who Can It Be Now, so it's around 1981-2) be a sign of unique individuality and experience? And this is another problem: Kate has fillings. And there is really no reason why she should be a heroine, she hasn't done anything heroic. I am probably being picky, but I just couldn't make a moral connection anywhere in the film.  

Like Captain America, it opens in Antartica (or a frozen desert, in other words; interesting, Cowboys and Aliens opens in a desert environ; we can never underestimate the importance of these kinds of locations, especially when they are being repeated throughout several films). Like Cowboys and Aliens, the gold fillings in teeth play an important role in understanding the monster, I just haven't been able to figure out what that role is in The Thing, and like Paranormal Activity 3 and Killer Elite, it takes place in the 1980's. I believe that the monster imitating the humans in the film is going to be an example of identity destabilization which will probably be in films such as Anonymous and In Time and probably many others. So it's a timely piece, I just don't feel like it has really achieved anything. (For reviews on some of the films named, please see Cowboys and Aliens: the US-British Alliance, Captain America: a Movie Of Movies, Killer Elite: Definitions of Patriotism, Paranormal Activity 3: It Runs In the Family and, just for fun, a note on Kate listening to Men At Work's Who Can It Be Now? in Australian Apocalypse: Men At Work).   

Tower Heist: From Great Men To Little People

The first image shown is that of American Founding Father Benjamin Franklin, on the $100 bill.
The last image shown is Josh Kovacs (Ben Stiller) being escorted into jail for two years for burglary.
At one point in the film, I had hoped that Arthur Shaw (Alan Alda) was actually going to be innocent, and that everyone who had wanted to triple their portfolios learned that when you play the market you are gambling. I do NOT want to sound mean or insensitive to so many people who have been swindled by the stock market and brokers who have violated their trust; but the stock market, and this week's opener Tower Heist does illustrate how we liberally interpret what belongs to us and what we are willing to do to keep it... or get it back.

Before I go any further, I want to say a word about what makes this site different from others: I don't really rate entertainment value, acting ability, special effects or predict Oscar contenders; I try to decipher the social document that I believe films are, why they are made, why so much money is invested in making them, why they are such a big part of American culture and why we enjoy them so much. I think the audience I watched the film with really enjoyed it, and the chances are, you will too. I think everyone gave good performances, it was a "tight" script (no dangling ends) and the cinematography was good.

The opening image of Tower Heist. The image of the $100 bill is on the floor of the swimming pool, suggesting that Tower residents are "swimming in money" and that the image of successful people is directly tied to money. Mr. Fitzhugh (Matthew Broderick) says that stock market fraud, "At some point, stops being about securities and is a matter of catering," to keep up the appearance of success, wealth and happiness.

The film makes a point to show how psychologically demeaning Mr. Shaw is to Josh and some how, that's supposed to right the grand theft Josh plans. It's the opening image of Benjamin Franklin, however, which haunted me throughout the film, the image of the Founding Father (who had his own problems and issues, no doubt) who stood for something and what he stood for is what this country would stand for, too (along with all the other Founding Fathers). What we consider this country to be today is naught more than a way to make money, lots of it as quickly as possible, and that's what Tower Heist upholds.
America is the land of those enslaved to money.

Ben Stiller as Josh Kovacs and Matthew Broderick as Mr. Fitzhugh.

Mr. Shaw is fond of calling Josh a little person who is easily replaced, but when it comes to it, everyone involved proves how little they are from the FBI agent (Tea Leoni) to the maid (Gabourey Sidibe), smaller than the paper bills that have been stolen; no one learns any lessons in this film and no one comes out a better person; only gold doesn't tarnish, but the human soul does. Tower Heist proves that we are on a "sliding" moral scale, and that not only has our credit been downgraded, so too, have our moral standards.
We were a nation of great men, and now we are a nation of little people.

Before Slide (Eddie Murphy) agrees to help Josh and the others, they go to a mall and Slide tells them to each steal $50 worth of merchandise, and makes them leave their wallets on the table to they can't buy the merchandise and claim they stole it. This is proof that this is a corrupt film, and no "It's okay to take something back that someone stole from you," the way the trailer leads you to believe (which still isn't okay)  because each one of them comes back after successfully stealing at least $50 worth of merchandise, and it appears that each item is actually worth more than that. When they return, Slide has stolen all the money from their wallets, and that's rather like us, the audience, who bring our morals with us and by the end of the film, they've been stolen.

 

 

 

 

 

Paranormal Activity 3: It Runs In the Family

It set several records.
It's pretty scary.
It does an excellent job (in my estimation) of employing techniques to convey information is a way suitable to what needs to be conveyed, including some very sophisticated techniques of noise and static.
And, as I mentioned, it's pretty scary. In fact, the guy at the theater told me he was having to card kids trying to get in who weren't 16 because so many of the shows have been sold out and the kids all want to see it.
They should see it, before it's too late. And to some degree, that's what it's about. And why it went from a record opening weekend to now having only a 66% fresh rating at rotten tomatoes. So what happened? In the words of one reviewer via twitter, "The last 5 minutes will change your life!" and I hope that it will change many people's lives. There is, however, a contradiction, a kind of fence-sitting that makes it difficult for secularists to really support it, or for Christians to really support it.

Essentially, it's about a coven of witches that kill Julie and her live-in boyfriend  Dennis and their led by Julie's mom, Grandma Lois. The only possible reason given that Lois would want Dennis and her daughter dead is that they are living together and Dennis is not the father of Julie's two girls, Kristie and Katie, and he doesn't have a regular income (he videos weddings and that's why he has so many cameras and tapes). It's not clear what Julie does but must do it very well because, in addition to having a large house, she drives a red, Mercedes-Benz station wagon. This seems a bit odd, to me. Red, of course, is the color of the appetites, and we know that Julie has several of those; a station wagon tends to be a family car and Mercedes is a luxury car, so in the car she drives (her vehicle and a sign of what her soul is made up of) she's family oriented but has an appetites for material luxury. And it takes place in September, 1988, like the film Killer Elite, also tracking some of our present-day problems back to the 1980's (please see Killer Elite: Definitions of Patriotism). 

So what's the problem with this film?
The definition of a "witch."
Usually, in my understanding, witches like sex, the more perverse and promiscuous the better (consider, for example Rosemary's Baby). So if this is really the only reason, why would Grandma "the witch" Lois brutally break Dennis' back (symbolizing that he didn't have the backbone to marry Julie) and kill her daughter? There's a lot of important issues which we could discuss regarding this film, but there is really only one that I think will finally put it into perspective: the wild card spirit haunting Julie, Dennis and the girls: Toby.

Toby is the name of the imaginary friend of the youngest of the two girls, Kristie. Toby can be violent and you get the idea that Toby is evil,... but "Toby" comes from the name "Tobias" which means "God is good," so if "God is good" is the one responsible for showing the two adulterers the price of their sin, then they must not really be witches after all, but a... prayer group? A commune of nuns? This is the problem with the film: it's trying to hide a moral message within a packaging of the occult that just doesn't make any sense; in trying to please everyone, it's pleasing no one. But the tag line, "It runs in the family," probably refers to the fact that Katie, like her mother, is living with her boyfriend in 2005 when the film opens (in 2005, the census was that nearly half of all couples were living together and not married). In 2005, the house is torn up and the box of videos with which the movie is told (home-movies all pieced together) is gone, and that's the only thing missing,... except a culturally consistent definition of what a "witch" is.

Apocalypse 2012: Obama and the 3 Musketeers

Whenever a Queen of France and a diamond necklace are connected to the possibility of scandal, revolution or disaster in general, one must first look to the affair of the Diamond Necklace involving the then Queen of France Marie Antoinette. Suspected of purchasing a grossly expensive necklace as France languished under debt and famine, the rumor of it was a trigger for the French Revolution. In Paul Anderson's box office bomb The Three Musketeers we find the reason it probably bombed: it's pro-Obama administration, placing an elaborate plan for taking power at the doorstep of Republicans.

The continual remaking of  Alexandre Dumas' 1844 novel The Three Musketeers provides cultural historians with valuable tools and clues as versions are made and re-made. Remember, a history film is never ever about history, it is always about today, and whatever Dumas intended in 1844 is radically different from what film maker's twist the plot to mean now. It is perhaps more fruitful to compare the 2011 version to the The Three Musketeers of 1973 version because a significant change takes place. In 1973, French Queen Anne was having an affair with Lord Buckingham of England, and gave him a diamond studded necklace as a token of her love. Buckingham willingly gives up the necklace to the Musketeers to save the queen whom he loves; in 2011, however, Queen Anne is steadfastly devoted to the foppish and clownish King of France, King Louis XIII.

What of the necklace? 
Being devoted to the King, Anne discovers that the necklace has been stolen and she's being framed by the power-hungry Cardinal. What does all this mean? Obama, as the President, is represented by King Louis, and the great country of America is Anne who is devoted to the King, respectful of him and in love with him; the King, however, is a bit unsure of himself and just doesn't know how to act around Anne although he loves her dearly and doesn't believe this terrible insinuation that she's being unfaithful to him (read: the latest numbers in the poll don't favor his re-election). 

A surprising characteristic of the King tells all: color. King Louis is obsessed with "what color" the fashionable Lord Buckingham is wearing and that obsession with "color"translates as an obsession with his "own color." What is so silly are the ploys they attempt to utilize to demonstrate that the King is honest, although stupid: he's playing chess with the cardinal and, upset that the cardinal is so calculating, the King swipes all the pieces off, making an idiot of himself, but showing, supposedly, that he's not a power-hungry calculator like the cardinal who wears red (red for the Republican party) and who is using a spy to frame the Queen.

Who is the spy?
Milla Jovovich who plays Milady de Winter.
Symbolically, since she's a double agent, it would be those dastardly Democrats who have switched parties and are making the King look bad because they have a "better offer" from the Republicans, and don't care about anything except themselves. And who are the Musketeers? The liberal media, of course, the film makers themselves. They claim that they have become obsolete, probably since they think it was so easy to get Obama elected, but now, they are giving themselves to the great cause of retrieving the necklace (the confidence of the King, normal, steady relations, etc.) so harmony will rule and there will "be no more war."

How the liberal media sees itself.

There is a "coming apocalypse" which clearly refers to the election of November 2012, because "they are surrounded by enemies." They certainly talk about a "new beginning" a lot, so that must be a "new beginning to the new beginning" that the Obama Administration was supposed to symbolize and... is going to make a "new beginning" if the apocalypse can be avoided. Even in the trailer, Queen Anne asks the Musketeers, were you up against "40 or 400?" "40, it was an off day," he replies, and that's how the liberal media sees the great battle they are fighting against all the conservatives who won't listen to them and trust that they can make the right decisions for the country...

And his Lordship, the Duke of Buckingham?
Those awful rich people who won't give their money to the Occupy Wall Street movement. The "flying ships" that are half-way between sailing ships and blimps symbolize the "ship of state" and how it's all just "full of hot air." It's the two powerful anti-King factions that are negotiating a peace treaty (the Republicans and the rich, but aren't they in league together?... oh, oh, I think we have a contradiction) but what is the king doing during the negotiating? Changing his wardrobe. But it doesn't matter, this is who they want to support. The movie is something that you will probably enjoy on DVD but Rotten Tomatoes reviews it at 24% rotten and now you know why.