Freud & Oedipus: the Ancient Struggle

I have found myself wanting to reference this concept a number of times  and, given some of the films which are coming out in the near future, I felt this would be a good time in which I could discuss this as a preface to discussions on the struggles between one generation and the next. I really consider Sigmund Freud to be a genius; if you enjoy what I do in trying to decode symbols and meanings, you would really enjoy The Interpretation of Dreams; it is a work of great insight and intellect; however, I do differ greatly with Freud on one of his important theories, the Oedipus complex, based upon the play Oedipus Rex by the Greek playwright, Sophocles.

Oedipus Explains the Riddle of the Sphinx, Ingres. The riddle of the sphinx was: "What walks on four feet in the morning, two in the afternoon and three at night?" Oedipus answered: "Man: as an infant, he crawls on all fours; as an adult, he walks on two legs and; in old age, he uses a walking stick". Oedipus was the first to answer the riddle correctly and, having heard Oedipus' answer, the Sphinx was astounded and inexplicably killed herself by throwing herself into the sea, freeing Thebes from her harsh rule. Ironically, it is also a riddle to which many feel Oedipus himself is cursed to kill his own father and marry his mother (the words of the oracle) but it's really just the sensationalism of the generation gap.

In the play, Oedipus, orphaned, is told that one day he will kill his father and marry his mother; unknowingly, Oedipus quarrels with a man whose chariot blocks his path and kills the man who is the king and happens to be his father and thereby has to marry the queen, his mother. Freud saw the play performed and, for him, a light went off which explained everything he had been struggling with, in Freud's own words: "His (Oedipus') destiny moves us only because it might have been ours — because the Oracle laid the same curse upon us before our birth as upon him. It is the fate of all of us, perhaps, to direct our first sexual impulse towards our mother and our first hatred and our first murderous wish against our father. Our dreams convince us that this is so." There are several problems with this, unfortunately, by Freud's own standards.

Oedipus & the Sphinx, Moreau.

The first problem is: there is nothing unconscious about Freud's reading of Sophocles' play.
Freud based his principles upon the suppression of our desires, burying them in our unconscious so we wouldn't be tempted to act upon them. Sophocles, however, has all this out in the open, for all to see, so it doesn't qualify as something being suppressed (you may very well argue that it is suppressed for Oedipus, yet he is merely a character, a projection of Sophocles' imagination, so Oedipus doesn't have an unconscious of his own to suppress desires, Oedipus is a vehicle for Sophocles). As I have said in the section of "Decoding" in How To Eat Art, art cannot decode itself. The very identity of art depends upon the "hidden nature" of it, in symbols, theory, ambiguous language, jokes, etc., but art cannot tell you what it is about, it can only try to create a pathway and then lead you upon it. Freud's reading of Oedipus Rex is claiming that it has decoded itself, and that's impossible.   

Sophocles, the great playwright of Athens.

The second problem is: Oedipus Rex didn't change history or lives.
After the great debut of his play, no one ran out and started murdering their fathers or raping their mothers, no one exclaimed liberation over what Sophocles "revealed" to them, according to Freud's interpretation of the play. So, what does this great play mean, if it doesn't mean what became a stable foundation of psychoanalysis even up to this day?

Albert Greiner as Oedipus in 1896.

I would like to posit that it was about what was all ready going on.
The time in which Sophocles was living is called the Golden Age of Greece, or the Age of Pericles, after its first citizen. When most of us think of Greece, this is the age we think of: Socrates, Aeschylus, the Acropolis, Hippocrates, Herodotus and many more, flourished during this period, but it wasn't always like this, and I believe this is the point of Sophocles' Oedipus Rex.

In order for the Age of Pericles to become great, they had to kill their father, the blind bard Homer. The greatness of the heroes in the Homeric epics the Iliad and the Odyssey suffocated all later generations of Greeks; while offering perfect role models for the Greeks, it also made it impossible to surpass their achievements. As Greeks, specifically those in Athens in the 5th century BC, were trying to work their own way, their own path, their own destiny, Sophocles--I believe--felt this will of the times and characterized it in the story of Oedipus: killing his father the king who stood in his path was killing the obstacle which stood in their way of becoming their own people with their own identity, of seizing the motherland of Greece and bearing their own fruit, by their own will. They would no longer look up to the Homeric heroes, they would make themselves worthy to be looked up to by future generations.

The Iliad, Book Book VIII, Lines 245-53, late 5th Century AD.

What's my basis for this?
This is what every generation does.
The older generation is always struggling to "stay in power," remember their achievements and continue on their way; the younger generation is always trying to find their voice and break free of the restraints put upon them by the previous generation. Films such as The Shining, The Outsiders, Tangled and I believe the upcoming films Snow White and the Huntsman and Mirror, Mirror will all detail this struggle of one generation against another for the sake of preserving or forging their identity.
Expect more to come on this topic.

The sofa Freud used in his sessions.

Even More Upcoming Films

2011 has been a great year for films and, from the looks of it, 2012 is going to continue on. AS OF NOVEMBER 23, I ADDED ANOTHER 3 TRAILERS TO THIS POST (The Woman in Black, Rampart, and Gone). This is my third post of trailers I think you might like and should be aware of (and if you missed them, the first one was Some Films I Am Anticipating [Man on a Ledge, Battleship, We Need to Talk About Kevin, The Raven, The Avengers, Devil Inside, Girl With the Dragon Tattoo] and the second one is A Few More Upcoming Films [Snow White and the Huntsman, Mirror, Mirror, The Hunger Games, Albert Nobbs]).
Here we go:

The first thing you should be noticing is: it is a silent film.
There is no sound in this film and it's in black and white. Why would this movie be made? Whenever Hollywood puts out a movie about making movies, it's because Hollywood is doing some self-reflecting. I don't think it's a coincidence that The Artist (all ready released in Belgium) reminds me of the 1952 classic Singin' In the Rain which was also about Hollywood's "conversion" from silent films to talkies. Why is this being made? Hollywood is realizing that it is being converted to a "talkie" film industry by talking about problems, politics, the economy, terrorism, what it means to be male and female, class wars, etc., and while this has always been conscious, it has become far more so in the last few years as audiences themselves have been forced by politics to examine their own beliefs and positions on "hot topics" and controversial issues.

But there is another important issue in this film: Hollywood's method of "discovering" new talent.
The film is a cliche, one after another, but we shouldn't let this turn us off: this is part of self-reflection, when you can see patterns of behavior you then get into a position to reflect upon it. The deaths of young stars such as Heath Ledger and Amy Winehouse (granted, she was a musician, but a part of the fame industry) has provided a wake-up call about the wreckage it causes in the personal lives and souls of those making films. The sudden rise to stardom of Peppy Miller and the failing career and marriage of  George Valentin is precisely the self-examination people have been calling for from Hollywood for years.

One last point I would like to make: 1927.
The roaring twenties preceded the Great Depression but the analogy to the economic times of the impending disaster is a ripe formula for the times we are living in today. I hate to say it, or put it in these terms, yet it's a fairly well-accepted thesis in art: when times are troubled, art is great. The Obama administration has been terrible for this country, but it has awakened the artistic spirit of Hollywood to produce great films, and, after all is said and done in The Artist, I think we will find that Hollywood is calling on itself to become "the artist" and not just the capitalist industry of entertainment.
After reading a review, I have discovered that the entire film is silent with the exception of a dream that George has where everyone else can talk except him because he has resisted the "conversion" to talkies; this has an interesting link, in my mind, to Take Shelter (discussed below) where Hannah, the little girl, is deaf and her father is trying to "convert" everyone to seeing the storm that he sees coming.
(Here is a review of The Artist here).

The Skin I Live In  from the Internet Movie Database synopsis: "A brilliant plastic surgeon, haunted by past tragedies, creates a type of synthetic skin that withstands any kind of damage. His guinea pig: a mysterious and volatile woman who holds the key to his obsession."  Why would this be important? Well, how important have plastic surgeons become? There are times when plastic surgery is very serious, and the skill of the surgeon helps correct the effects of an accident or birth defects, etc., but that's not what we think of when we hear the term, "plastic surgeon," is it? Like The Lorax below, (from Dr. Seuss), The Skin I Live In is about how much we can change our environment and get away with it before the initial conditions we have altered starts backfiring. 

I doubt that its accidental that Antonio Banderas' Robert Ledgard invokes Nathaniel Hawthorne's story about a scientist who decides to re-do his wife's face and ends up killing her: there is a boundary between science's ability to serve and science's ability to destroy, and the spiritual being of the surgeon decides the outcome (compare, for example, Abraham Van Helsing, the vampire slayer and his employment of science to aid his faith instead of replacing his faith). The mask she wears in the picture above provides a clear indication of which way this film is heading: science today is destroying us, not serving us, and it's because we are becoming the servants of science. It will be interesting to watch these repercussions.

The great Margaret Thatcher is a personal heroine of mine; I doubt that Ronald Reagan could have brought down the Berlin Wall without "the Iron Lady" standing beside him and "standing on principle" as she did throughout her administration. The Iron Lady, like The King's Speech and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is one of a growing number of films of the British Empire exploring its identity as an empire in today's world, how it got here and why, and quite frankly, whether or not it wants to stay. I expect this will be a strongly anti-socialist film, firmly rooting the time of Thatcher politics in a capitalist atmosphere and attempt to boost British morale after the protests and riots of this summer. I have just found a not-so-complimentary review of The Iron Lady from Time-Out London here.

The extraordinary attention In the Land of Blood and Honey is receiving is partly because the film is both written and directed by famed actress Angelina Jolie. The atrocities of the Bosnian Wardifference, as the French term it, is present everywhere and always, just sometimes more evident in one culture over another the question will be, will the well-trained Miss Jolie be able to not only incorporate appropriate techniques to tell her story, but give us a story worth telling in the language of today? I'm willing to give her the chance. 

Mr. Clooney is currently on my good-guy list for making The Ides of March (please see my posting The Ides of March: Assassinating the Democratic Party).  The Descendants has received rave reviews from critics who have so far caught the film (especially for Mr. Clooney's performance). Despite this, I want a reason to watch the film and this is it: Matt King (Clooney) reminds me of the westerns of John Wayne, in which the characters he portrays symbolize the Founding Fathers at odd with the way(s) America has been developing. That he's a land baron trying to sell real estate in Hawaii (the newest of the 50 American states) and he is estranged from his wife, translates, to me, as a political agenda (if his wife symbolizes the U.S.). His two daughters remind me of How the West Was Won, the two separate possible developments for the United States, between the agricultural life and the urban, industrial life. I am expecting pretty great things from this film, I will hate to be disappointed.

I have yet to see Anonymous, the film about Shakespeare's identity (my local theater assures me we will be getting it in...) but, the way Shakespeare is iconic to England, Marilyn Monroe is iconic to America, and just as Anonymous questions Shakespeare's identity, so My Week With Marilyn questions the identity of America's most famous actress:

This really isn't about Marilyn Monroe; this is about America. In the life of the icon, America is seeing its own story, its own troubles, its own heartbreak. If we want to have an idea about what's wrong with America today, we should watch this film. There is another important aspect of it, one I refuse to let die down: it takes place in Great Britain, like Cowboys and Aliens and Captain America, My Week With Marilyn is making a point of keeping strong the U.S.-British Alliance, or, in this case, the U.S.-British love affair.

There's really only one detail about The Darkest Hour which intrigues me: it takes place in Russia. This is an example of movies educating us, because when I saw the trailer for it, all I kept thinking about was a line from the James Bond film, Quantum of Solace: "The Russians aren't selling to us." That might not have been the line exactly, but the Russians not putting their vast reserves of oil and energy on the market is probably the whole purpose of this film given they spend some time in this trailer showing us how Moscow has "fuel to burn." Who are the aliens attacking to get that energy? It could be any one of us... but this is a serious film about a serious problem in international politics which could effect each of us directly.

I've seen actual weather shots like that on the Weather Channel lately.
A film like this can't succeed in reaching audiences unless there is something that everyone is actually seeing, but no one is talking about (in reading a review of the film, I just found out that his daughter, Hannah is deaf, so this adds, like The Artist [discussed above], a sense of not being able to communicate). The audience has to be able to identify with the main character; if he's going insane, that's not going to draw audiences in because we can't and don't want to identify with a lunatic, so there has to be a basis, real or symbolic, by means of which we can understand what he's going through. The important line of this is: "I missed you in church today."  This could be taken as a film of "the rapture" theology, but if he's stopped going to church, the question is, where will he take shelter? (For a review of the film, please visit Static Mass reviews here).
I'm interested to see it.

Just as the trees are being shoved out of the environment in The Lorax, so we are shoving the very stuff of our human nature out of us. While it will appear to many to be a "green," pro-environment film, I'm going to try seeing the trees through the forest: I think this more aptly describes the state of our souls; why? How is the boy in the trailer communicating with the girl? Through objects, a ball and then a model airplane, but she's communicating with him through a story, the legend of the trees, a growing and living thing instead of his world of technology (and there's nothing wrong with tech, I couldn't be talking to you now if there was) but, as in The Skin I Live In, we have to examine the life we create for ourselves and make sure that it's sustainable for our souls.

The cult of the warrior princess is an important part of femininity: there's a difference between women trying to be men and women fighting the actual battles that women are uniquely called to fight. Disney's Brave appears to be undermining masculinity (as many films do) and taking those virtues to put on a young girl, i.e., girls are better at being men then men are. This is not only a travesty to femininity, but to masculinity as well (in the perverse gender wars, no one is winning). If the symbols of this film can be read as spiritual ones, then this could be a good film, but don't kid yourself, just because it's animated doesn't mean that it's a Christian friendly film. There are definite battles that women are uniquely called to fight, does Disney realize and uphold that?

There are only two words which make me have any interest in this film: Steven Soderbergh.
It's not that I want Soderbergh to be Christopher Nolan, but I want Soderbergh to do more Soderbergh. This doesn't look like the great stuff I saw in Contagion.  There must be a reason why he would agree to make Haywire, I'm just not seeing it from the trailer, in terms of technique or story. The worst thing the great Soderbergh could do is to "play it safe": he should be taking every risk he possibly can, because that would not only be good for him, but for the film industry as well.

Don't let this film fool you: this is serious stuff.
I know I haven't posted on the Pirates of the Caribbean series, and now I can tell that's a serious fault of mine, but The Pirates! Band of Misfits takes place in Victorian England, the "cult of failure" (they are misfits) is being celebrated and, just like pirates themselves, this is a very underhanded film that will make you identify with a pirate captain and make you want him to succeed in his "quest" to excel in robbing, pillaging, raping, and generally undermining the values of civilization of which pirates are at odds against. I know I sound like a stick in the mud, but when a entertainment company like Disney is celebrating everything that undermines society, we have to ask, who are the pirates and what values are they attacking? When a film like this succeeds in making fun of culture (Victorian culture, specifically) that's a first step in not taking ourselves seriously (we believe we deserve to be made fun of) so we won't stand up and defend our values and our faith (against gay marriage, for example). There is a lot going on in this, the actual film may be different, but this potentially could be dangerous.

"Places to pillage and people to skewer," this is the thesis of the film, and the foundation of the contemporary "heroes" of films. The actions and ideas which are inherently against civilization--and Christianity--are being celebrated and glorified.

This is the dangerous point: heroes are no longer the heroes of films because a hero is someone who practices virtue; exhibiting virtue in a film will drive away a large portion of the audience who themselves will not exercise virtue, so it's easier to make a villain--someone who exercises vice--a hero, that way, everyone can identify with them and no one is offended.  The cult of mediocrity is itself a mediocre road to take because film makers can't make films about heroes if they know nothing about it themselves, and everyone loses when that choice is made.

 Everyone knows I am not a fan of the Harry Potter series, and that's probably what turned me off fro the trailer of The Woman in Black to be released February 2012, but I am very much liking what I am seeing in this trailer, and a few others I have seen for it. The house is always a symbol for the soul, and when you have a haunted house, that means the separation of the soul from the body (I have to be intentionally ambiguous here because stories do different things, so we have to allow room for creativity). But a haunted house is a way of discussing the soul and sins that are haunting the soul, and symbolically, it's the weight of sin keeping a spirit earth-bound because it can't lift up its heart to God, the weight of sin pulling it down to keep it attached to whatever worldly thing dominated it to begin with.

This film gives us toys and children, and both are important.
One of the trailers gives us some very explicit images of "toy" monkeys playing instruments, and that is a direct reference to Darwinism, which still dominates the American mind-set as being the correct understanding of man's development. Those toys are going to be an imperative symbol in this film but, as I have mentioned elsewhere (for example, in discussions on The Sixth Sense) children are great to have in horror films because they haven't learned to "look away" or bury contradictions like adults have: when children see bad behavior, they know it better than adults do, and that's the irony of children "teaching" adults how we should behave. I am very excited about his film and grateful that I only have to wait until February to see it!

Why would Rampart be an important film?
Well, maybe it won't. The truth is, our fragile society exists upon the law, and when those who are supposed to enforce the law are those very vices the law is supposed to protect us from, we are in trouble; this is the basis of most cop films, but they really aren't about cops, they are about us, and how we ourselves are breaking the laws, but just because we aren't getting caught with cameras or going on talk shows, doesn't mean that we can get away with it. How many of your co-workers, for example, have you seen get verbally abusive or be verbally abused? When someone has done that to you, you know how violent and painful that can be, but what is the punishment? We willing point our fingers at people and say they are the problem, and willingly excuse our own faults, as if the Sicilian mafia were the standard of morality by which the Lord will judge our actions. Rampart might not be good, or it might be very good, about showing us ourselves.

There is one specific reason I am interested in Gone: it's about who is abducting woman and killing them. This specifically reminds me of the important line from the upcoming film The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo that I am not going to go see. Women have been spiritually being killed by various forces in our culture which is militarizing them and converting them into men; I am hoping Gone, being released in February, will validate what Christian culture already knows.

I hate to mention this, but, like a lot of fans of J.R.R. Tolkeins The Lord of the Rings, I was sorely and gravely disappointed in director Peter Jackson's adaptation; I was relieved to hear that the director of Pan's Labyrinth (2006),  Guillermo del Toro, had replaced Jackson, hoping The Hobbit wouldn't suffer as badly as The Lord of the Rings, regrettably, that appears to be a rumor only and this, too is Jackson's work... it will be released in a year. What I am upset about is, Tolkein was a devout Christian, and in Jackson's hands, I feel that this monumental work of Christian art is, frankly, butchered of all its real and intimate beauty, whitewashed for a secular audience that has enough heroes while Christians have one of their greats basically decapitated. I don't mean to be so down and grumpy, but I am down, and I am grumpy.

If Christopher Nolan does it, I'm there.
When Nolan takes a risk, everyone benefits from it: he's thoughtful and methodical and plans out everything to maximize everything. Nolan can take a basic comic book story like The Dark Knight Rises and make it a historical event. He brings out the best in special effects and, even better, he brings out the best in actors, which is far more difficult to do. Like Paranormal Activity 3, the details of this plot are being closely guarded and that will probably intensify the experience for audiences. Nolan can bring out the best in a hero and the worst in villains, while showing us how we have to choose which we are going to be, we can't sit on the bench and not participate; he brings us into his action world. Speaking of action worlds, this is starting to remind me of his thriller Inception, check out this mega-star cast: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Tom Hardy (my favorite actor in the world right now) Liam Neeson, Gary Oldman, Cillian Murphy, Marion Cotillard, Morgan Freeman, Christian Bale, of course, returning to play the Batman and Michael Caine his devoted butler Alfred, . . . and Anne Hathaway. This is an interesting article on Christian Bale discussing Anne Hathaway's casting as Catwoman. There are much better trailers on YOUTUBE but I couldn't load any of them.

I have come across considerable information on the film, for anyone who might care. It has been confirmed by Nolan and Bale that this will be the final Batman both of them do. Nolan, who resists all attempts at filming in 3-D, has successfully won the battle to film The Dark Knight Rises in IMAX instead. Past villains, the Joker, Mr. Freeze, the Riddler and Two-Face will not be returning, although other characters from the past will (as evidenced by the list of actors). Nolan has stated that this will conclude the trilogy because he will complete the Batman story in this film.

The newest installation of the James Bond franchise Skyfall has been shooting since November 10 (you can follow the official Twitter feed at James Bond 007). According to information released, Mr. Daniel Craig has confirmed that the events of Skyfall are not related to the two previous story lines of Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace.  It is being rumored that with director Sam Mendes  (ex-husband of Kate Winslet), this Bond is going to go for an Oscar. It's due to open October 2012 in London.

Water For the Sand: Martha Marcy May Marlene

This has really been an amazing year for films, not just the topics and story lines, but the new techniques film makers are employing to tell their story.  Martha Marcy May Marlene has taken critics by storm, partly because of the amazing break-out performance of Elizabeth Olsen; I tend to be pretty hard on actresses, but she was amazing and deserving of the highest praise. Critics, in my estimation, have really failed to grasp the power of this story and intentionally overlooking its meaning and consequences, blaming the script for poor writing when it's really the critics who have failed to dig into the film.

Just a quick synopsis: Martha (Olsen) had problems to begin with. At some point she joined a kind of hippie commune lead by Patrick (John Hawkes); when she joins that, he changes her name from Martha to Marcy May; after breaking into a home in an attempt to steal, one of the girls, Katie (Maria Dizzia), stabs the homeowner in the back; unable to overcome her feelings about his murder, Martha flees; she contacts her sister Lucy (Sarah Paulson) who picks her up and takes her back to her beautiful vacation home in Connecticut. There, Lucy attempts to connect with her sister who has shut-down and keeps relapsing into memories of her life in the commune. Lucy and her husband Ted (Hugh Dancy) decide to take her to a therapist; as they are driving towards the appointment, it appears that one of the men from the commune has found her and is following her to take her back.

The film illustrates how culture will take a good aspect of Christianity, strip it of Divine Love, and turn it into a sin. The commune exists because Patrick finds young women emotionally damaged and then manages to control them by twisting his power to make it seem that he loves and cares for them when he really just wants to control them, mainly for sex. By using words such as "cleansing" and "freedom," "love" and "nirvana," anyone who doesn't all ready have a solid base is easily led astray into his vacuum of power. It's interesting because Patrick is very thin, like bony thin, and the film wants to point that out by specific shots of his physique. This is important because it shows that he's really "weak."

One of the opening scenes in the film, Martha has escaped and calls her sister Lucy to come pick her up. It's maddening, at first, for the audience, because Lucy begs Martha to just tell her where she is and Martha refuses; you later realize that it's the same manipulation Martha's using on Lucy that she learned from Patrick. Each time Lucy begs her to let her come and get her, Martha makes her beg just a bit more so that Martha is enforcing her own free will to want to take Martha in; when it''s obvious to Lucy and her husband Ted that Martha can't stay, it's taken Lucy a long time, and this is part of the reason: Martha employing Patrick's manipulation.

When a group from the commune wants to break into a house, they throw rocks and small debris on the top of the roof to distract anyone who might be inside; then they enter through a back door or window, take a few things and exit. This is a perfect illustration of how the group's brainwashing techniques also work. If the home is symbolic of the soul, they throw something on top (the mind) like catchy phrases, "You should share yourself," or "Learn to trust people," to distract the person about to be brainwashed what they are really going to do: specifically, if it's a girl, Patrick is going to drug and rape her. This is one way to understand the "breaking an entrance" but it's also going in through a "side door," such as it being celebrated by the older members when a girl's had her first night with Patrick, putting a positive spin on something the girl inwardly knows is wrong. When they stole something, it was silver candlesticks which had been in a wooden and glass case. The silver, if you remember from discussions on werewolves, in Hebrew sounds like the word for "Word," so silver symbolizes the Gospel; that they are candlesticks refers to the illumination which is given to us by the Gospel. The wood of the case is the Wood of the Cross and sacrifice and the glass, of course, is illumination. Yes, these are the "cult" qualities of the commune and what they attack to take over the soul.

This scene is a great example of Patrick's manipulation of Martha. He wants her to trust him about shooting some cats that are at her feet, but she doesn't want to; he uses the incident to prove to her that "she doesn't trust him" but that's Martha's fault and a sign of her weakness, she is letting the past hold onto her.

There is an intimate connection between the mind and food. 
When we first see Martha in the commune, she is setting the table for a meal; as she goes around placing the bowls at the places, she forgets to place one at the head of the table; she catches herself and puts one there and then we see that is where Patrick sits; Martha is willing to starve him as he has been starving her. The women don't eat until the men are finished and then it's obvious that the women are eating gruel or oatmeal compared to the more substantial meal the men had and we should understand this symbolically: the women are being "fed" a line of watered down philosophical nourishment to intentionally keep them weak so they are not strong enough to revolt at being sex objects. They eat only once a day in the commune and Martha's first sign of revolt is stealing bread.

Martha believes that the bartender handing her a drink is one of the men from the commune at a party her sister is having. Reflections are used to great advantage throughout the film, as in this scene: Martha "sees herself" in everything and everyone she encounters. This, regrettably, is a sign the film gives us that, despite the battle she's trying to wage, she will never heal. One night, when she's lying in bed, she turns and looks at the window; this is the bedroom, the most intimate space, so we are getting a clear "reflection" of her: there are bugs on the window, and this clearly indicates that "she has bats in the belfry" and, again, while she makes progress, it appears that she will never recover.

It's after the homeowner has been murdered that Martha helps Katie prepare a meal and, while cutting the bread that will go on the table of the men, Martha steals a bite of it and Katie (the one who stabbed the homeowner in the back) hits her on the ear and makes her spit it out. While all the girls are super thin, we can also see that they bruise easily. Yet this isn't merely a theft of bread: the Bread is the Word of Life, and no longer accepting the watered down and infrequent "teachings" of Patrick, she needs more to sustain her, physically and spiritually as well. It's after this (we know by the bruise on the ear that Katie gave her) that Martha makes her escape.
This is John Hawkes singing the "Marcy's Song" which Patrick sings in Martha Marcy May Marlene even though he's not in character in the video below; it's an eerily beautiful song and gives us important clues as to who Martha really is:

I could spend a lot of time on this song, but the important thing is: Martha, or Marcy May, is "just a picture" of what she's supposed to be, her characteristics are only vague outlines, but none of the details are filled in, and this is why Patrick likes her, on one hand, and why she's a challenge to him, on the other. I think the line, "water for the sand," is the point of the song: nothing grows in the sand, so to waste water by throwing it on sand is an act of futility. Until later in the film, you don't know if Martha has built up a significant fortress of defense mechanisms, or if there just isn't that much to her, you realize there's nothing to know, and the reason she is attracted to shallow philosophical systems is because she's shallow herself. This falls in nicely with films such as Immortals which demonstrates how evil doesn't give us knowledge about ourselves, but robs us of it.

In this scene, Martha has been crying because of the murder Katie committed; she locked herself in the bathroom (the place where our cleansing takes place) and Patrick got Zoe to get Martha to open the door and Patrick burst in and kinda threatened her. In this scene, he's coddling her--because that's how guilt works--and trying to re-establish his authority over her but she's caught on now and doesn't want to be a part of it anymore.

I do want to mention this one scene done particularly well, although every scene is done very well: Martha helps Lucy wash windows (the camera is on the other side of the glass from where they are) and Martha tells Lucy that she shouldn't smoke if she wants to have a baby. Lucy gets offended and claims that she doesn't smoke when we have seen her smoking. Because we are on the other side of the glass, the dialogue gets muffled, and so too does Martha's message. Lucy take it to be a mean act but Martha genuinely meant it, but her past behavior makes it difficult for Lucy to comprehend. Although "Lucy" means light, and she tries helping her sister, Lucy's way of life doesn't offer a really healthy balance to the hippie commune or a viable choice for Martha, which means "bitter." After Patrick renames Martha "Marcy May," Martha mentions that "Marcy" had been her grandmother's name, meaning, it was that generation of her grandmother's that gave birth to girl's such as Martha: the hippie girls and those "sexually liberated" by the revolution of flower power and birth control.

Lucy fixing up Martha for the party she's having. There's several interesting scenes, but one is when Lucy has given Martha her pink sundress to wear: sleeping on the floor, curled up, Martha urinates on herself. Waking up, she takes the dress off, wipes her self dry with it and then stuffs the dress under the mattress of the bed and walks away. It's actually possible that this is a dream because nothing comes back up about the dress and Lucy certainly would have mentioned it had she found it. Usually urination is interpreted as being cleansed or released, however, since Martha then stuffs the dress under the mattress, I think she's making an unconscious act of disrespect for her sister's lifestyle.

Nearing the end of the film, Martha sleeps on the living room couch and a man's hand reaches to touch her bare leg; because the entire film has seamlessly drifted through memories of the commune and her stay at Lucy's, like Martha, you are never quite sure where you are. Frightened, Martha starts crying and screaming, running to get a way from the man and at some point, you realize that the man is her brother-in-law, Ted (who you think has been ready to take advantage of her the whole time). Terrified of him, she runs up the stairs to try and get a way from him, kicking him backwards as he chases her, him falling onto the floor below. This is a hopeful sign for Martha: throughout the film, there is a lot of sex she participates in, so her not wanting to be touched is a healthy sign that she's starting to get her dignity back; this is re-enforced by her "going up the stairs" just like in horror films discussed last month. That Ted "falls" to the bottom means he has had a fall from grace and he was trying to take advantage of her but she has to take the blame for it.

There's a part that, I think is a dream like Martha wetting herself and hiding the pink dress. She finds a black SUV like the one the commune has. She knocks out the driver window and scratches the side of it. The problem is, Lucy also has a black SUV; if, however, this really happened, I think Lucy would have gotten really upset about it but nothing happens so that's why I believe this is a dream Martha has. The shattered driver's side window is Martha "reflecting" on who has been "driving her" and shattering that hold; her scratching the paint off the car means that she is scratching beneath the surface to see what lies beneath.

Another hopeful moment, after Lucy has decided that Martha can't stay any longer, is when Martha has gone swimming; she's in the water, and it's cold, but we hear the wind blowing, and wind chimes, it's very peaceful. This has all the ingredients of Grace and sanctity and you hope that, the appointment she is going to later that day will be a new start for her; yet she looks across the lake and sees a man in a white t-shirt and blue jeans sitting on a rock and staring at her (it deliberately invokes Patrick and the commune). While he doesn't do anything, he's important symbolically: sitting on the rock means that he "is the rock" upon which Martha has built her ideas (which continuously clash with her sister's). Later that day, Ted is driving them down the road and you hear him get upset and stop the car; the guy "from the rock" ran out in front of them and then jumps into a black SUV parked on the side of the road and follows them. Then the film ends. Critics have complained about this but I find it quite simple: her life in the commune is going to "follow" Martha wherever she goes.

Where does the name Marlene come in? Whenever the phone at the commune rings, the girls answer and give their name as being "Marlene Lewis," and we see Martha being Marlene, that is, bringing another girl (Sarah whose name is changed to Sally by Patrick) into the commune by giving that name over the phone. After an incident with her sister, Martha calls the commune, as if to see if she can go back and the girl on the other end answers as Marlene. So the tragic end result is that Martha helped to perpetuate the very abuse she wants to escape. As she escapes the commune, we see Sarah/Sally stand and look at her through the window, confused that her "teacher" is leaving the life she inducted Sarah/Sally into.

One of the most important lessons my film professor taught me was to ask the question, "Why has this film been made now?" What is it about this time period which finds this kind of film/story applicable to our time? To be perfectly honest with you, Martha reminded me of Molly the intern from The Ides of March: weak and vulnerable, equating sex with love and replacing the emotions with her appetites, Martha seems to symbolize the youth of the Democratic Party who have been caught up in the "charisma" of President Barak Hussein Obama and are now trying to get away from him but don't really find the Republican party (sister Lucy) to represent their ideas bequeathed to them from the hippies (Grandma Marcy's generation; please see The Ides Of March: Assassinating the Democratic Party).

I give this film the highest marks in all regards, but it's not for everyone: if you enjoy slightly different films, you'll like this one, however, there are disturbing parts. As I said at the beginning, this has been a great year for film and Martha Marcy May Marlene is up there with the best of them.

Immortals & Divine Deeds

"Before I sell you a ticket, I just want to make sure that you know this is a really bloody film," the girl at the ticket stand said. After watching it, I wasn't thinking of the gore, (which, in my estimation, was probably worse in the first thirty minutes of  Saving Private Ryan), but what I was thinking: I can't believe they made this film. It definitely shows the consequences of the loss of virginity, it shows the consequences of not having faith and the importance of our free will in battling evil. It's not the great 300, which I absolutely loved, and there are some failings of the film, however, it doesn't fail the way I expected and I am pleasantly surprised by what they did right.

It didn't occur to me until Immortals racked in 37 million dollars its opening weekend to even bother going to see it: from the trailer, I was sure it was just going to be another Conan the Barbarian, or the re-make of Clash of the Titans and that's from tag lines and the trailers. When there is a line such as, "Even the gods need a hero," it glorifies humanity in a way that we should not be glorified. The trailer for the film is not even the movie that I saw.

Henry Cavill as Theseus, the hero of the film.

The film opens with a quote from ancient Greek philosopher Socrates: "All men's souls are immortal, but the souls of the righteous are immortal and divine."  I was a little worried that this would be taken that humans are more divine that God, or something like that, but that's not what happened. King Hyperion (Mickey Rourke) wants to get the Epirus Bow, the only weapon capable of killing the immortal gods and releasing the titans who were imprisoned beneath a mountain so they couldn't threaten the gods again. Motivated by the loss of his family to disease after praying to the gods to save them, Hyperion intends to kill the gods.

Mickey Rourke as King Hyperion.

Now enters Theseus (Henry Cavill).
His mother is very devout in praying to the gods, but Theseus is not, believing them to be only children's stories, which is a repeated theme in the film, the faithful vs. the doubting. Hyperion searches for the virgin oracle Phaedra (Frieda Pinto) so he can  try to force her to tell him where the gods hid the Bow; if Phaedra loses her virginity, she loses her visions; there are several faithful "religious" who make great sacrifices in devoutly protecting her so she won't be violated, so when she throws away her virginity, it's very disappointing, and the film knows that. In searching for Phaedra, Hyperion burns down Theseus' village, killing his mother. Theseus then vows revenge, but is sentenced to work in the salt mines where he meets Phaedra who is in hiding.

Freida Pinto as the virgin oracle Phaedra.

Theseus is the son of Zeus, the father of all the gods (Zeus is portrayed in his earthly form by the great John Hurt and by Luke Evans when in Zeus' divine form). Phaedra knows this from bumping into him and having a vision. One of her visions is of Theseus embracing Hyperion and giving him the Bow to destroy the world; at their feet lies the wrapped body of a woman, dead. Phaedra interprets the body in the vision to be the dead body of Theseus' mother, but she's wrong. (I tried to find an image of the vision and haven't been able to).

Hyperion has three characteristics: he has a large scar on his face (symbolic of the scar his family's death has left upon his soul), he wears masks and he hates cowards. As Hyperion embraces evil more and more, that's exactly what he becomes, evil. This is part of the striking wisdom of the film, that evil erases our identities from us, and this is why Hyperion wears masks. When we have committed evil acts, evil acts upon our soul to destroy our true identity, as with The Portrait of Dorian Gray, for example. That Hyperion dresses in animal skins only accentuates his devotion to fulfilling his appetites and how that, in turn, as also propelled him into "being an animal."

Phaedra and Theseus after Theseus finds the bow and has poison in his arm.

Phaedra decides to sleep with Theseus because, erroneously, she decides it's a greater good to experience things "with her own eyes and body" instead of living with her visions, as if the gift she has been given has nothing to do with her true self. This is an important point of the film, because it relates to Hyperion's wearing of the mask. Phaedra's true self is as the virgin oracle, and it's her unwise mistake not to know the difference and where her true identity lies.By making this mistake, she "loses" her life as well because she is now, spiritually, dead in sin.

In the center is Hyperion wearing a mask of gold. The irony is: the gold is very valuable, the most precious metal on earth, but "What does it profit a man to gain the world and lose his soul?" which the mask covering his features symbolizes, his lost identity and lost destiny, because, when we forgo one, we forgo the other as well.

When Theseus, who doesn't know if he should sleep with Phaedra or not, agrees to what she wants, he is killing her: he not only destroys her identity as the virgin oracle, but destroys her as a woman as well. The point is emphasized by Stavros (a thief traveling with them) and because, as a thief, he signifies that he knows Theseus has "stolen" it, even while it appears that Phaedra gave it to him. Theseus embracing Phaedra is stealing her gift she has been given, and in doing that, Theseus is really embracing Hyperion, and by doing that, he kills the virgin oracle (the body of the dead woman lying at their feet) and this is how he gives the bow to Hyperion, which happens in that very next scene. In a fight, Theseus loses the bow and a large hyena takes it to Hyperion, the hyena a symbol of the appetites because it is a scavenger.

Theseus fighting the Minotaur. The half-beast that the Minotaur symbolizes is the part of Theseus he must overcome in order to use the Bow and fulfill his destiny; that the Minotaur is able to scratch him and poison him, means that he wasn't strong enough to overcome his own animal passions, so when Phaedra wants to sleep with him, he's not strong enough to resist her, hence, he's not strong enough to be the man he was destined to become. This is what "running the race" is all about. If Theseus had been going into this place to pray with his mother, he would have been prepared, but, having neglected this part of his training, he couldn't overcome the Minotaur without a bitter sacrifice, his own self.

Why does Theseus take Phaedra although he has at least an idea of the consequences to them both?
The scene before they sleep together provides the vital clue. As Theseus buries his mother in a labyrinth that is also a holy area and a place for the dead, the tip of the Bow is revealed. Theseus takes some tools and cracks open the large rock, in which the gods had hidden the Bow. Symbolically, Theseus burying his mother is burying his "earthly self," (he's half human and half divine) and his realization that the gods are real when he finds the Bow is his finding of his real identity--he's the only human who can use the power of the Bow for a greater good than selfish greed--but the rock in which the Bow has been buried is Theseus' heart which he hardened against the gods. The tools splitting the rock open symbolizes the tools of both faith and reason to open himself up to--not just believing in the gods--but accepting his destiny and true identity as well. But the poison from the Minotaur is to Theseus what the mark of Original Sin is to humans: it weakens and ultimately destroys us if not treated by the Divine Physician.

Theseus with the Bow Hyperion tries to get.

Stavros is an interesting side character, because he has been condemned as a thief and travels with Theseus. He tells them, when he was a boy, he prayed to the gods to give him a horse, and they didn't so he stole one. Later, when Theseus needs the help of the gods, Athena appears and provides them with super fast horses to take them to the place where Hyperion is. Stavros immediately knows, that's the horse he had prayed for when he was a boy. The scene is important because it shows what happens to us when we lose faith in God to provide for us: we become thieves, stealing what it is we think we need when God really wanted to give us something greater than we could have imagined.

Athena giving Theseus the horses to get them to Hyperion.

The last point I want to make: the gods.
It is as "an old man" that Zeus appears to Theseus as he grows up, teaching him and guiding him, even when Theseus doesn't believe in the gods. Zeus doesn't permit any of the gods to aid Theseus because, he says, "If we expect men to have faith in us, we must have faith in them." Zeus loves and has faith in Theseus, and wants Theseus to prove that Zeus' faith in him is justified; unfortunately, Theseus makes the wrong decisions, but the film does a good job of intentionally showing us what that wrong decision was and the consequences of it for everyone. When the opening quote from Socrates is also used in the ending, "All men's souls are immortal, but the souls of the righteous are immortal and divine," you know that it's correct: every little sacrifice we make is seen by God and written in the Book of Life, and we will be rewarded for it as if we fought a great battle.

The gods of Olympus showing up to destroy the titans. This is really one of the best fight sequences I have yet seen. Throughout the film, they don't use the stop-motion action sequences used in 300, they reserve the big techniques for towards the end of the film when the immortals are battling it out.

Granted, there are some problems with the film and I think a lot of people are disappointed in it, but that blame should be laid squarely at the feet of the director, Tarsem Singh, who also directed The Cell with Jennifer Lopez (which I didn't see) and the upcoming Mirror, Mirror which I have seen the trailer and it looks like he's done a bad job directing that film, too (to see the trailer please visit A Few More Upcoming Films and it's posted after Snow White and the Huntsman). What's good about the film seems to be in spite of Singh, but what's bad about it is his responsibility alone. If you want to see a film this weekend, go ahead and see it, but you might as well wait until it comes out on DVD.

Luke Evans as Zeus; he was also in The Three Musketeers, and The Raven.  My favorite part regarding Zeus is when he tells the other gods of Olympus that they must have faith in us; my second favorite part with Zeus is when he uses the chains to fight the titans because it symbolizes mankind being "chained" to sin, and Zeus using chains to defeat the titans with illustrates how that which binds us to our appetites is also used against us.

In conclusion, the Immortals really reminds me of the Garden of Eden: Theseus and Phaedra eating the forbidden fruit, losing their identity, Hyperion, like Satan, revolting against the gods, and the eternal battle between good and evil. I am shocked, in a wonderful way, that a film reminding us of the battle of good and evil, and the root cause of evil (the mis-use of our free will) is essential in protecting and realizing our true identities, and that our gifts reveal us more and more, and the God who generously gave us that gift. When we give our deeds to Christ, they become victories, and he, in his generosity, makes them divine.

John Hurt as the human form Zeus takes to visit and guide Theseus.

Margin Call: A Few More Things

It's just such a great movie, and there have been some people asking me more questions about it, so I am creating this annex post to finish up a few thoughts on Margin Call (original post is Deconstructing Volatile Risk: Margin Call).

Sam and Peter on the morning of  "the big day."

One question is, why is it Peter who discovers the problem formula? As Eric is being escorted out of the office after being laid off (which has nothing to do with what he's working on) he passes several people to whom he could give the flash drive to, but he passes them up. It's only after he has already said good-bye to Peter, and Eric is waiting for the elevator that Peter wants to say a few more words of goodwill to him and then Eric gives him the flash drive.

J.C. Chandor directing Peter.

This emphasizes that "Peter's a good guy," he's not like Jared Cohen or John Tuld so he can be trusted to do the right thing with the information. BUT there is a bit of ambiguity because, as is noted several times throughout the film, just as the elevator doors are closing, Eric tells him, "Be careful." Is this a point of revenge that Eric is planting, on the company or on Peter, because Peter kept his job but his boss Eric loses his? Revenge on the company that's letting him go? I don't think that's possible. Granted, Eric ends up coming back during the fire sale, suggesting that we all have a price, but it appears that Eric's motivations in analyzing the risk the formula was working out is genuine and, while he's angry about being laid off, he's not taking it out on anyone.

Eric Dale getting laid off after 19 years with the company and buying a new house.

There's another question about Eric's character in the film: what's up with his monologue about bridge-building? When Will tries to get Eric to come back into the office, Eric talks about how he had built a bridge previously, that saved travelers hundreds of years in travel time, saving one individual like 130 years. This is the genius of the film: there is no such thing as saving a person 130 years in travel time when there is a good chance that they won't even live to their 80th birthday: numbers lie, and that's the point of this scene: we make the numbers tell us whatever it is that we want to believe in and then when they tell us something that is completely counter-intuitive (like I have saved 130 years of my life by taking this bridge to work instead of the longer route) we still believe the numbers because we have been taught to believe that numbers don't lie.

Peter on the day of layoffs when the "clean-up team" mistakenly taps him on the shoulder thinking he is Eric Dale, Peter's boss, who should be laid off. Nothing happens "by accident" in a film, and this "mistaken identity" validates further that it's Peter who is "destined" to get the formula right and not Eric. Why? A year previously, Eric had gone to his boss, Sarah Robertson, and told her that the company was over-investing in certain areas and she passed on the info "but not with the proper level of alert"; it's exactly why Sarah, on this day, had Eric laid off, because he was doing a better job than she was, HOWEVER, he was also--in the eyes of people like Jared Cohen and John Tuld--trying to keep the company from making as much money as it could by investing in these bad risks. Peter has to be the one working out the formula because they have already ignored Eric.

When the company is talking about just a 25% loss of value ending up costing one company trillions of dollars, those numbers don't exist, the same way, regrettably, that investors thought they had hundreds of thousands of dollars when, after the market crashed, they realized they only had a few thousand. Those hundreds of thousands never existed. And that's the point of Eric's monologue about the bridge, and I think Will understands that. When you make a religion out of numbers, you are making a religion out of something that doesn't exist but that definitely has consequences. It's because, as I all ready noted, when the name Jesus Christ exists only as a curse, you cease to be able to do the right thing and can only do the expedient thing, because all you care about is yourself, but you haven't learned how to really care for yourself, either.

So, continuing, why is it that Peter discovers the problem?
In the a meeting with Jared Cohen, before John Tuld is brought in, Peter is asked what he did previously and, like Eric, he had been an engineer. "It's all just numbers,... but the money was much more attractive here." He had been, literally, a rocket scientist, having done his graduate work on the draft caused by rocket engines, etc., etc. He was saying it too fast for me to be able to get it down, but I knew as he was saying it, that the paper he did was a metaphor for exactly what he's doing now: watching an enormous engine explode. This is why Peter is able to solve the formula: he has been prepared for it (in terms of his paper). But it's also because he's a nice guy and the "system" is going to gobble him up and make him apart of itself so that, as a nice guy, he doesn't exist anymore.

Seth, Peter and Will on top of the company talking and smoking.

The formula...
The formula Peter and Eric work on is a pattern, really, a pattern of what the markets have done in the past within certain parameters of behavior; this is really the basis of chaos theory, predicting unpredictable behavior. When you are looking for patterns, as in Daren Aronofsky's 1998 thriller Pi, you start to find them everywhere: what's a pattern in the film? First, cleaning up (which I have already discussed) and secondly, the pattern of language, specifically, "Fuck me." This is actually a pattern, because this is really the only curse that anyone in the film knows. Thirdly, the final variable in this formula I am working up, when Tuld is on his way, the camera sees Jared Cohen's back as he stares at himself in the office window (similar to the window in the picture below). He asks, "How do I look?" and it's his reflection being projected over the reflection of the city sleeping beneath him.

What does 1 + 1 + 1 = ?
Worshiping the golden calf.
As I said, the numbers in the film don't add up, either in terms of travel time on the bridge or in terms of dollars and assets, it's all imaginary, but it's all supposed to mean something and mean something important. When you have to make a science out of predicting when the stock market is going to crash, because you have started to believe that you are smarter than the market, the market isn't the only thing that will crash. The continuous use of the phrase "Fuck me" becomes, literally, a chant, a mantra, almost like a prayer, because the god that these number fiends have been worshiping is going to do exactly that to them, and lead them to do exactly that to their fellow traders, New York City and the world.

Someone asked why it's Sarah that gets fired instead of Jared Cohen?
It's the ones who see risk in the risk that are getting fired. Sarah saw risks and warned Cohen and Tuld, but didn't give the proper alert so the company could be saved; Peter, has saved the company by catching the formula before the other companies caught theirs. Cohen is staying because he's the one ruthless enough to keep making money for the company and that's the only thing that matters. That's part of the reason why Sam is so distraught when he hasn't lost his job, it puts him on par with Cohen and that's not where he wants to be, but that's exactly where his actions have landed him. When Tuld throws the investors Sarah's head, that's literally a human sacrifice such as the pagans used to perform and now the golden calf is wanting for itself. Is there anything Sarah could have done to keep her job? No, because the ones like Sam and Tuld who know nothing about markets, can easily replace someone like Sarah who does, but now, has not only cost them money, but shown how stupid they are.

John Tuld eating alone at the end, consuming, which is what he's good at.

In my final conclusion, this is an amazing film in every way. In the theater, I do want to warn you, I noticed a couple got up and left, so it's not "entertainment" in the way most people think of and there is a chance that you wont like it. However, if you appreciate how movies are made, and high quality drama, please, do check it out.