Blade Runner short thought

By Vincent M. Gaine

Blade Runner, dir. Ridley Scott (1982)

The films we discuss on this blog are often an individual view of the philosophy in [insert title here]. But we also have public discussions - Philosophers at the Cinema is a regular season of screenings at Norwich's delightful Cinema City. Recently, collective members Vincent M. Gaine and Rupert Read went on Radio Norfolk to discuss this programme and our latest showing, Blade Runner. The screening was followed by a discussion around the philosophical points of the film, which included such points as the environmental damage depicted in the film, and the importance of animals in relation to empathy and the loss thereof.

Blade Runner is a film that prompts a plethora of interpretations and debates, the least interesting of which is "Deckard - replicant or not?" Of particular interest to me is the film's future world (now only three years away), in which technology, capitalism, consumerism and advertising has completely taken over. It is testament to the film that its Los Angeles expresses so much through suggestion and implication, not explicating why large buildings are deserted, why it rains so much, what happened to all the animals. Omnipresent advertising bombards the inhabitants of this city at every turn, promoting "A better life" that seems perpetually out of reach.

Blade Runner, dir. Scott (1982)

It is unsurprising that replicants - artificial people - have become indistinguishable from humans in a world where artifice is so predominant. A key philosophical question, as discussed by Locke and Dennet, is what constitutes a person. While one can ask these questions about the replicants, it seems appropriate to ask them of the (presumably) human characters as well, not only Deckard but also Bryant, Sebastian, Tyrell and Gaff. If a key element of being a human/person is empathy, Bryant and Gaff at least are largely impersonal. Bryant refers to replicants as "skin jobs," while Gaff regards Deckard's work of licensed executioner as "a man's job." Tyrell is far from empathetic, indeed his intellect seems to have divorced him from emotion. His creation and then rejection of Rachael is irredeemably cruel - he created an entity that can think and feel, then discards her when she becomes inconvenient. Roy fares no better - his brief lifetime little more than an academic discussion for Tyrell. Tyrell's death is therefore fitting, his head crushed by Roy while (in the Director's Cut) the viewer sees the impassive and unconcerned owl. Much as Tyrell has no concern for the replicants, this artificial bird has no concern for him. By implication, nor does the film or its world. Personhood is deemed insignificant by the omnipresence of consumer technology, the agony of Tyrell evincing as much sympathy as the swift retirement of Leon. Blade Runner therefore performs philosophy through its prioritisation of commerce over humanity, as salient a message today as when the film was first released. 

Blade Runner, dir. Scott (1982)

Sympathy for the (Red-Eyed)-Devil in 2001: A Space Odyssey

By Vincent M. Gaine

2001: A Space Odyssey, dir. Stanley Kubrick (1968)

Some time ago, Peter Krämer posted some initial thoughts on 2001: A Space Odyssey, a film ripe for philosophical discussion. As something of a continuation of Kramer’s piece, I offer some thoughts inspired by discussions about the film, especially in relation to other viewers’ negative responses.

2001: A Space Odyssey regularly appears on greatest films of all time lists, including my own (nascent) list, as I (arbitrarily) believe it is the greatest piece of cinema ever made. This is a nonsense position of course, because the number of films I have not seen vastly outnumbers those that I have, but I do regard Stanley Kubrick’s science fiction opus as a truly breathtaking piece of specifically cinematic art. By specifically cinematic, I mean that 2001 expresses its themes and transports the viewer through the features of mise-en-scene, editing, cinematography and an exquisite balance between these visual features and its use of music and sound effects (including silence during the space sequences). These features are far more detailed than the more “literary” features of plot and character, and herein lies a major issue for the film’s detractors. The plot of 2001 is simplicity itself – dawn of humanity to the birth of a new species – so those looking for complex narratives had best look elsewhere. The other issue is character, that eternal element that for some is of paramount importance.

I have written here previously about my general lack of concern over character and my bafflement over the criticism “I didn’t care about the characters”. In the case of 2001, I do understand the criticism even though I would not make it myself. The principal characters of the film are Dr Heywood Floyd, Dr David Bowman, Dr Frank Poole and the computer HAL. If you insist, we can include Moon-Watcher in the opening sequence, but both he and Floyd disappear fairly quickly, leaving us with Bowman, Poole and HAL. The criticism I have come across time and time again is that Poole and Bowman provide no character to engage with, leaving HAL as the most sympathetic character by default. This is apparently a problem because HAL is a computer and has an unfortunate tendency to kill people, so the film has no sympathetic characters and therefore viewers feel disengaged.

I suggest that this character arrangement is not only a narrative strength but also key to the philosophy of 2001. The famous opening scene features hominids learning to use bones as weapons as well as using them to kill prey and rivals, a sequence that ends with a bone being thrown into the air before the longest temporal match-cut in cinema history replaces the bone with a nuclear bomb orbiting the Earth. This concern with weapons runs through the whole film, and what is HAL if not the culmination of humans’ obsession with violence and killing? The later film Dark Star (1974) may have actually featured a sentient bomb, but HAL’s homicidal actions are consistent with the dangers of technology. Therefore, it seems entirely significant that HAL is the most sympathetic, identifiable and memorable character of the film. He undergoes development and demonstrates at least the facsimile of emotions such as ambition, ego, fear and regret. Small wonder he is more engaging than the unwavering and unchanging astronauts who accompany him.

But what is the effect of the film engaging our sympathy with this machine? If the viewer feels sympathy for HAL, despite his ostensible status as the film’s villain, then the danger he poses is even greater than his ability to kill. He replaces the astronauts from their mission – the most important mission in human history, now supplanted by humanity’s creation rather than humanity itself – and he also replaces the humans from their role within the film. In doing so, HAL becomes the ultimate nightmare, making humans redundant both as narrative devices and as objects of audience engagement. Much as the T-1000 in Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) supplants humanity by imitating both our form and fluidity, HAL replaces us in narrative and dramatic function. 

Terminator 2: Judgment Day, dir. James Cameron (1991)

Thus 2001 is not only a space odyssey but a human odyssey, because en route to the birth of the Star Child, the film treats us to humanity’s replacement by our own creation. This is not only the Frankenstein notion of creations rising against us, but the supplanting of humanity within the relationship between text and reader. Therefore, the peculiar arrangement of sympathetic characters is integral to the film’s philosophy as it plays upon audience expectations and manipulates us to care about that which makes us unnecessary. What purpose do humans have in the advance of humanity when we do not even care about those who do it? None, the tools we construct for our purposes have purposed us out of the purpose itself.

2001’s lack of engaging characters is therefore a vital element of its philosophy, as humanity triumphs over its creation. Significantly, this is by literal deconstruction, as Bowman takes HAL apart piece by piece, HAL attempting to prompt empathy by singing “Daisy, Daisy.” If the viewer weeps for HAL at this point, HAL has won – we now feel for our dying nemesis. Only once HAL is removed from the picture can Bowman encounter the extra-terrestrial intelligence of the monolith, and evolve into the new life form of the Star Child. For humanity to evolve, the film suggests, we must move away from our creations, and that includes being cautious of how we feel about them.

2001: A Space Odyssey, dir. Kubrick (1968)

Despicable, Me? The Wolf of Wall Street

by Vincent M. Gaine

One frequent criticism launched against films is “I didn’t care about the characters”. To me this always seems to be missing a lot – there is far more to any film than character, such as plot, direction, cinematography, production design, editing, music, sound and visual effects. But conventional wisdom, in terms of publicity, audience and critical reception, keeps coming back to character, whether it is the average viewer, the critic or the filmmaker. Sometimes the expectations and strangely undefined standards of “character” relate to writing – the characters are “underwritten”, “flat”, “thin”, “one-dimensional”, but there is another form of characterisation that creates its own interpretation: when the characters are “well-written”, “detailed” and “rounded”, but unsympathetic and even downright despicable. 

Films with unpleasant protagonists include The Social Network, whose central character Mark Zuckerberg is both described as “an asshole” and as someone trying very hard to be “an asshole”, as well as The Killer Inside Me  whose protagonist Lou Ford is violent, psychopathic and misogynistic, which led to the film and its director being criticised. Martin Scorsese's The Wolf of Wall Street has also been attacked for its uncritical portrayal of the ruthless stockbroker Jordan Belfort as well as its potential misogyny. I disagree with these criticisms because they are too easy, a superficial reaction to the film that suggests an assumed moral superiority on the part of the critic. What The Wolf of Wall Street does do, however, is perform an interesting engagement with moral superiority precisely by eschewing such superiority on its own part. By refusing to offer a simplistic condemnation of the people, events and ideology it portrays, the film invites self-reflexivity on the part of the viewer in relation to their own reactions.

As a piece of cinema, The Wolf of Wall Street is more sedate than might be expected of Martin Scorsese, a director often associated with a plethora of stylistic techniques – see Raging Bull, Goodfellas, The Departed and Hugo for use of slow motion, whip pans, crash-zooms, pin holes, etc. By contrast, The Wolf of Wall Street uses little or no inflection in its presentation of the narrative, while the dialogue scenes are remarkably long, the actors given time and space to develop their performances. As a result, the traits and flaws of the characters are depicted in exquisite detail, especially the protagonist, Jordan Belfort. Jordan powerhouses his way through money, drugs, prostitutes, clients, friends, wives, and authorities with scant or no regard for consequences. While Jordan is utterly loathsome, he is never less than compelling, a hugely charismatic and enthralling presence so utterly committed to excessive consumption that he is practically a personification of unmitigated capitalism.

The film’s attitude towards the excess it depicts is neither condemnatory nor celebratory, and in its most interesting moments invites self-reflective responses from the audience, which are worth considering in detail. An early scene features Jordan demonstrating his sales technique to his employees on a customer he has cold-called. As he progresses through his sales spiel, with his disciples watching in delight, Jordan simulates unbuttoning his trousers and making a sexual conquest of his customer/victim, effectively a sexual assault. The parallel between sexual and financial success is obvious, as is the glee of Jordan’s followers, but the cinematography places the audience in a peculiar position. The camera is placed in a position approximate to the speaker phone that Jordan talks to, so the viewer is looking up at the stockbrokers who appear large and looming, especially the super-potent Jordan. While the sequence does not feature Jordan directly addressing the camera, as occurs at other points during the movie, the shot effectively positions the viewer in the position of the customer that Jordan is effectively raping. The shot therefore places the viewer in the position of the victim of Jordan’s ruthless capitalism. In the current climate of financial hardship and massive resentment towards financial institutions, The Wolf of Wall Street presents the violation of customers like ourselves.

Not only is the viewer potentially positioned as the victim, but also invited to feel distinct from the protagonist precisely because Jordan is so unpleasant and non-relatable. The viewer might therefore feel superior, better than Jordan by virtue of not being so avaricious or ruthless. This encourages a sense of moral superiority in the viewer, as the hateful Jordan and his cackling cronies laugh themselves sick over the misfortune of others. This sense of superiority continues while Jordan continues to plough through everything and steadily get richer and more horrible. But the film problematizes this superiority by inviting the viewer to be horrible as well. A turning point of the film is a prolonged sequence in which Jordan overdoses on a drug and is unable to walk, but must get home. He manages to crawl/roll from the lobby of his country club back to his car, and his almost-paralysis is hysterically funny. When I saw the film, I along with multiple other patrons laughed at the spectacle of a grown man effectively moving like a baby and, eventually, pushing his car door open by extending his leg because that is the extent of his physical articulation. Simultaneously, he is trying to talk into his car phone, but his speech is so slurred as to be incomprehensible.

One of the reasons this sequence is so funny is precisely that Jordan is horrible, hateful, selfish and greedy, and it is amusing to see that the mighty have fallen. It is similar to scenes in The Simpsons based around Mr Burns being (literally) weaker than a baby. Burns is the wealthiest and most powerful man in Springfield, but cannot pull a teddy bear from the grip of Maggie Simpson. Similarly, Jordan has more money and success than the average cinema-goer could ever conceive of, but cannot even walk. The scene is funny as a piece of slapstick comedy, Jordan’s roll down the country club stairs tantamount to a pratfall, but there is also a darker element to this comedy – ha ha, this super-rich scumbag looks stupid.

The sequence progresses as Jordan drives home, his voiceover informing us that somehow he didn’t crash his car (further laughs come later when it turns out he did, repeatedly). His closest friend and business partner, Donnie Azoff, is on the phone to their Swiss banker Jean Jacques Saurel, and Jordan needs to get home because he knows his phones are tapped so Donnie is exposing illegal activities to the FBI. Donnie is as high as Jordan, suffering the same slurred speech, and the two engage in a hilarious slapstick struggle over the telephone, Jordan desperate to get Donnie off the phone while Donnie is as desperate to stay on it, but both are almost paralytic.

Things become simultaneously funnier and more sinister when Donnie tries to eat and starts choking, and I genuinely thought he was going to die – but I was still laughing (and I wasn’t the only one). It was funny to see this greedy, selfish and fairly stupid man getting himself into a situation where his own excess might kill him, but on reflection, this is a rather disturbing reaction to have. As a moral being, I feel sympathy and empathy for someone in dire straights, or at least I like to believe I do. But when the person in dire straights is contemptible, their distress might become a source of amusement.

Of course, comedy deaths are a common feature in films, one of the most famous being in Pulp Fiction: “You shot Marvin in the face!” Others include the increasingly ludicrous moments in From Dusk Till Dawn, the wackiness of Pineapple Express and the repeated (futile) attempts at suicide in Groundhog Day. These deaths are mostly for the purposes of spectacle, comedic in their surprise appearances or repetition. Donnie’s choking, combined with Jordan’s own difficulties, is something else. The prolonged nature of the sequence is significant, the distress of Jordan and Donnie protracted for maximum effect. But pause for self-reflection here: if the viewer sees these people as despicable because of their disregard for anyone else, this is because the viewer thinks themselves “better”, more sympathetic, not so callous. But surely a “better” person should have sympathy for someone in trouble. Jordan, ironically, does have sympathy, as he saves his friend’s life by expelling the blockage (once he takes the cocaine necessary to overcome his paralysis), but the audience laughed at it. This mirth creates a critique of the viewer’s own self-satisfaction in being better than these loathsome characters, suggesting that the viewer is not so much better than the characters after all. Very subtly, The Wolf of Wall Street uses its non-judgemental treatment of its subject matter to prompt self-reflection of the audience’s reactions.

The final scene of the film also prompts self-reflection, in an interesting reversal of the earlier speakerphone scene. This final scene features Jordan released from prison and delivering a sales technique seminar in New Zealand. Justice has certainly not prevailed, as although Jordan was incarcerated it seems rich people go to a better style of prison, so we see him playing tennis as though at a country club. If that’s not enough to make you angry, we see him earning yet more money at these seminars. He demonstrates a technique that the viewer will recognise from earlier in the film, but the seminar attendees of course do not. Their faces are eager and expectant, as they anticipate the wisdom of Jordan Belfort. Jordan demonstrates a simple sales premise: he hands a pen to an audience member and asks them to sell it to him. In a much earlier scene one of Jordan’s friends, Brad had mocked the stock market by demonstrating the same very simple technique:

JORDAN

[Handing Brad a pen]

Sell me this pen.

BRAD

Write this down.

JORDAN

I don’t have a pen.

BRAD

Let me sell you this one.

The seminar attendees try crude and obvious ways to sell the pen, such as saying how nice it is and that it writes, and as each one fumbles Jordan moves onto the next. As he does so, the film cuts to a reverse shot of the seminar audience, and this final shot of the film pans up to capture the faces of the rest of the seminar audience, who look remarkably like a cinema audience.

The Wolf of Wall Street, dir. Martin Scorsese (2013)

This final moment is the film’s strongest invitation for the viewer to engage in self-critique. The cinema audience have the sales knowledge of Jordan Belfort and could use it – doubtless many of the film’s viewers (myself included) work in sales, stocks and finance. Through the shot of the seminar audience, effectively a reflection of the cinema audience, the film asks the viewer how they would use this knowledge. Belfort’s life was certainly successful both in a monetary sense and in terms of personal satisfaction. The film does not condemn its protagonist, but the viewer certainly can out of a sense of righteous indignation. The film’s unbalanced presentation helps us to do this, because we do not see the people who lost money as a result of Jordan and his company. The film directs the viewer’s attention on Jordan because we have no one else to engage with, and the movie’s portrayal of his excess, selfishness and potential Otherness invites judgement, condemnation and mirth, but at the same time, offers the viewer a reflection of themselves. 

The Wolf of Wall Street therefore invites the viewer to see a parallel between themselves and these despicable men who profit from and take pride and amusement in swindling their clients. Furthermore, I have only identified one possible response to the film – there may well be other viewers who envy Jordan and would seek to emulate him, even if it means becoming as unpleasant as him. But whatever the viewer’s response, the cinema audience sit in eager anticipation, mirroring the seminar audience. The blame for the current financial climate is largely placed upon bankers and financial wheeler dealers like Jordan Belfort, but The Wolf of Wall Street invites the viewer to take a look at themselves, suggesting that the credit crunch and the recession cannot simply be blamed on individuals whose excess is far beyond the dreams of avarice. The final sequence draws the viewer closer, reducing the protagonist’s aura of Otherness and asking if the “poor-but-proud” attitude is quite so genuine. Unpleasant protagonists can be a barrier to engaging with a text, but in this case, a hateful central character is a route to finding the film’s self-reflective quality.

Ender’s Game: military heroics/heroic military?

By Vincent M. Gaine

Ender’s Game, dir. Gavin Hood (2013)

[SPOILERS]

Is it bad to turn children into killing machines? Of course, what sort of question is that? Is it bad to defend ourselves against annihilation? Of course not, what sort of question is that? Ender’s Game (Gavin Hood, 2013) plays these questions against each other in an interesting moral conundrum. In doing so, the film forms an interesting contrast to other science fiction adventures, especially Star Wars (George Lucas, Lawrence Kasdan, Richard Marquand, 1977-2005), Independence Day (Roland Emmerich, 1996) and the rebooted Star Trek (J. J. Abrams, 2009) and its sequel, Star Trek Into Darkness (Abrams, 2013). Ender’s Game takes place decades after Earth defeated an invading alien force, the Formics. The International Fleet, Earth’s defence force, fears another attack, and trains children as fleet officers because their brains react faster and can process more information than adults. The children command remote fighters through computer control and virtual reality, rather than being actually on the front line. The film focuses on Ender Wiggin (Asa Butterfield), a trainee in combat school under the command of Colonel Graff (Harrison Ford). Ender steadily gains in skill and confidence, but also experiences difficulties and even trauma en route to winning a decisive battle against the Formics.

On the surface, Ender’s Game appears a fairly gung-ho sci-fi action film, with an establishment scene informing the viewer that the human race was only saved by the noble sacrifice of a great leader. So far, so Independence Day, even down to a fighter aircraft flying into the belly of an alien ship. Yet a more sinister ideology swiftly creeps into the film, as Colonel Graff and Major Gwen Anderson (Viola Davis) watch the movements of Ender, literally through his eyes thanks to an implant that he willingly had fitted. Here is dystopia in subtle terms, rather than the devastated environments of Blade Runner or Avatar or the Orwellian oppression of The Hunger Games. Instead we see a public drip-fed a steady diet of militaristic propaganda. Ender’s home life and indeed existence is contingent upon this militarism, as his family discuss the war and humanity’s future over dinner, and children play at fighting Formics. The violence of Ender and his brother Peter (Jimmy Pinchak) as they play is disturbing, especially since we learn that Peter was expelled from the same training as Ender for being too savage. Furthermore, Ender was only conceived as a possible future trainee, which means that when Graff comes to take him away, the parents have no say in the matter. Children are being bred and raised for their military potential, and subsequently indoctrinated and deceived.

Despite this, Ender’s Game is not explicitly dystopian or overtly grim. Many of the training sequences of Ender and his fellow cadets are enjoyable, reminiscent of teaching and Quidditch sequences in the Harry Potter series. Parallels are drawn between growing up and advancing in training, and the relationships between Ender and his friends are warm and engaging. The zero-gravity war games look like fun, and I found myself drawn into the training of Ender, seeing it as something positive.

Nonetheless, darker elements remain, as Graff arranges for Ender to be isolated as part of officer training, and rivalries develop between the cadets. Ender is cornered by bullies and proves as savage as his brother, as he beats the lead bully badly so that ‘he can never hurt me again’, a justification Graff uses in relation to the war against the Formics. Things take an even darker turn when Ender fights another bully, Bonzo Madrid (Moises Arias), in officer training. Bonzo is badly injured and Ender is shocked and appalled at what he has done, but nevertheless does not shirk from combat. Bonzo confronts Ender in the shower room, and Ender prepares by coating his body in soap to make him hard to grip, and turns up the temperature to provide the cover of steam. Ender may be conscientious, but his combat readiness never wavers. Therefore, the training is effective in turning Ender into a dangerous combatant, and our enjoyment of the training sequences becomes problematic and uncomfortable. Zero-G games look like fun, but perhaps a more apt comparison than Harry Potter would be Full Metal Jacket (Stanley Kubrick, 1987), in which the boot camp training dehumanises the recruits, reducing one to murderous insanity. 

Full Metal Jacket, dir. Stanley Kubrick (1987)

Full Metal Jacket has an easy job of being critical of warfare, because the Vietnam War is incredibly controversial and largely seen as senseless opposition to the spread of communism. Furthermore, Kubrick uses horrific images of victims to underscore his critique, something that a film like Ender’s Game, aimed at a family audience, cannot do. Yet here the film interrogates our expectations, as we expect a straightforward tale of good VS evil in a family-oriented, blockbuster adventure like this. Instead, we encounter a disturbing vision of militarism that turns children into killers and where the lines of right and wrong are far greyer than in Star Wars or Harry Potter.

Ender’s subsequent training is undertaken by Commander Mazar Rackham (Ben Kingsley), the hero of the opening sequence who supposedly sacrificed himself to win the first war against the Formics. His heroic death is another piece of propaganda, the man made into a legend because legends are more inspirational than leaders. The most disturbing piece of propaganda comes at the film’s climax, as Ender and his team succeed in their final exam: the apparently simulated destruction of the Formics’ homeworld. This scene is, on the one hand, a dazzling visual feast. Ender’s team of squadron commanders engage the enemy forces, utilise ingenious strategy, and finally deploy their weapon of mass destruction to spectacular effect. Much as in Star Trek or Star Wars, the viewer is treated to the visual pleasure of spaceships blasting away at each other. I imagine that aficionados of video games might gain particular pleasure from the battle sequences, as the vessels are controlled through joysticks and control pads, as well as direct physical manipulation. 

Ender's Game, dir. Gavin Hood (2013)

Even without a background in videogaming, I still found the film’s combat simulations thrilling and enjoyable. However, as the exam approached its climax, I sensed that something was wrong, because why was the film spending so much narrative time and visual spectacle (which is, let us not forget, a significant portion of the film’s budget) on this sequence if it were not the climax of the film? My sense of misgiving was confirmed after the test was completed and the squadron celebrated with jubilation. Once again, this was reminiscent of similar triumphant moments like the destruction of the Death Star in Star Wars, the intertextuality made stronger by the presence of Harrison Ford.

Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, dir. George Lucas (1977)

Graff’s congratulations to Ender, however, are very different from Han Solo’s ‘Great shot, kid, that was one in a million!’, as the reaction of the senior officers is far more sober than the cadets or, indeed, the audience. Graff reveals that this ‘simulation’ was an actual assault on the Formic homeworld, and is immensely grateful to Ender for ending the war and (according to him) saving mankind. Ender, however, is horrified at destroying an entire species. 

Ender is not the only one horrified by his actions: so are we, in shocking contrast to our earlier reactions. As viewers of a sci-fi spectacular, we expect grand set pieces, space battles and explosions. The film rewards our expectations but with a caveat of ambiguity: we enjoy the spectacle but simultaneously feel uncomfortable. The discomfort is caused by, firstly, children being used as weapons, which plays on our discomfort around the corruption of innocence and exposing children to the horrors of the world. Secondly, the cause is not at straightforwardly righteousness as it could be. It is completely understandable that we defend ourselves and many a film would treat this unproblematically. Ender’s Game, however, asks us to consider whether survival of the human race is justified when the price is so high. Quite apart from the eradication of an entire species, compassion and humaneness are what make us human: the pilots and commanders of the International Fleet sacrifice their humanity for the cause of victory. Much as Rupert Read has argued that humans are made ‘alien’ and ‘other’ in Avatar, in Ender’s Game humans make themselves monstrous, even as they try to overcome what they perceive as monsters. Here be monsters indeed, but rather than looking like giant ants, they look like Han Solo and Mahatma Gandhi!

The film asks what is justifiable to expect from a sci-fi blockbuster. Ender’s maturation is similar to the journeys of young heroes Luke Skywalker, Harry Potter and James Kirk (in the new version of this character played by Chris Pine). These young heroes have an unambiguous heroism about them – Obi Wan Kenobi informs Luke that he must ‘become a Jedi’, while Captain Pike informs Kirk that he sees the ‘greatness’ in him. Kirk, as presented in J. J. Abrams’ version of Star Trek, is unproblematically destined for greatness, mostly down to blind luck and occasional flashes of insight. Similarly, Luke Skywalker and Harry Potter must confront, respectively, the Dark Side and the Dark Lord that they are associated with, but there is never any doubt that Luke and Harry themselves are ultimately good. Ender displays conscience to balance his military skill, but he has a very dubious form of ‘greatness’ thrust upon him that gives him nothing but guilt. The heroes of such blockbusters regularly travel into darkness, but Kirk, Luke and Harry remain largely untouched by it, whereas Ender is indelibly stained. As a viewer, we are also stained, because we enjoy the spectacle and action which is bound up with Ender’s development that, surely, we knew was leading towards the attack. We were looking forward to the devastation we see, because that is what the genre offers. Ender's Game therefore performs philosophy by challenging generic expectations and our own enjoyment of violence. 

"If I go with you now my soul will never be happy": Gothic Investigation as Therapy in The Awakening

By Vincent M. Gaine

This essay discusses the Gothic themes of The Awakening, and the therapy undertaken in the film by balancing emotion and intellect.

[SPOILERS]

The Awakening, dir. Nick Murphy (2011)

The Awakening (Nick Murphy, 2011) is a Gothic ghost story 
that presents a therapeutic union of emotion and intellect. The heroine, Florence Cathcart (Rebecca Hall) represents both scientific rationality and the dangers of emotional repression, and an initial assumption that rationality and intellect are preferable to emotion and unsubstantiated belief. Across the narrative of the film and through the development of Florence’s character, an emergence, the titular ‘Awakening’, of emotion takes place, the film presenting Florence’s encounter with the paranormal as therapeutic and challenging the initial presumption. However, the film does not offer a valorisation of emotional indulgence and a simple leap of faith, but rather a balance between the intellectual and the emotional. The film therefore presents the attentive viewer with a warning against excessive rationality but also against emotional indulgence.

Florence’s therapy is, in part, a generic resolution for the Gothic narrative, which often displays ‘the discovery and release of new patterns of feeling’ (Ellis, 458), a release that is often tied to the Gothic heroine: ‘the release of feelings as the preeminent domain of the Gothic explains the persistence of women as vehicles for delivering its effects’ (Ellis, 458). This emotional release is the resolution of a central gendered tension within the Gothic tradition between intellect (male) and emotion (female): ‘From a feminist point of view, the coherence of gender conventions keeps women oppressed’ (Ellis, 458). Whether this is the first Mrs Rochester in Jane Eyre or the governess in The Turn of the Screw, female emotion is contained (or at least should be contained according to the societal institutions of the Gothic world) by male intellect. Within the conventions of the horror film genre, the woman is often presented as both victim and monstrous, a representation of castration anxiety and the dangerous Other to masculinity. This dangerous Other needs to be contained, repressed and denied expression, especially in terms of her sexuality. The Awakening demonstrates an understanding of these conventions and plays with them to create its therapy for Florence.

The film quickly establishes Florence as a sceptic reliant upon scientific method and equipment, reminiscent of Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) in The X-Files (1993-2002). After the first scene shows Florence debunking a false séance, she is hired by a boarding school that has recently suffered a death, which some attribute to a ghost. At the school, Florence investigates and establishes that the victim died of an asthma attack, but cannot explain the mysterious sights and sounds she encounters. Aided by history master and WWI veteran Robert Mallory (Dominic West), school matron Maud Hill (Imelda Staunton) and a pupil who remains during the school vacation, Tom (Isaac Hempstead Wright), Florence investigates further. Along the way, she nearly drowns in a possible suicide attempt, develops a romance with Robert and is almost raped by the school groundskeeper, Edward Judd (Joseph Mawle). Eventually, she discovers that the ghosts are part of her own history, as she lived at the house as a child before it became a school, and experienced terrible trauma that she has repressed. Confronting this trauma both lays the ghosts to rest and reunites Florence with her full memory.

The incomplete resolution provided by Florence’s explanation of the boy’s death demonstrates a recurring disjunction throughout the horror genre, that between the normal and the supernatural: ‘The narrative quest of the horror film, then, is to find that discourse capable of solving this disjunction, explaining events’ (Gledhill, 353). This is the quest of the ghost investigator, and indeed many a detective who attempts to explain the seemingly impossible. In the mould of Sherlock Holmes, investigators endeavour to debunk supernatural explanations, such as the existence of a monstrous hound or the presence of ghosts. In this investigative narrative, resolution comes with the revelation that everything has been the act of tricksters, as demonstrated in the opening sequence of The Awakening when Florence exposes a group of con artists. Yet the explanation may be incomplete, the ghost story rife with ‘ambivalence or tension [that] is between certainty and doubt, between the familiar and the feared, between rational occurrence and the inexplicable’ (Briggs, 176). 

Ambivalence may result in a lack of certainty, but that does not prevent a resolution for the characters/viewer. This resolution however, does not come from a single source – Florence’s scientific investigation may expose the séance as a scam, but there are clear gaps in her expertise and righteousness. The victim of these con artists slaps her in anger, because the séance gave her hope that her deceased child was in the afterlife, and Florence has destroyed that hope.

The bereaved mother clings to an irrational, inexplicable hope, an emotional lifeline severed by the (limited) conception of scientific rationality that Florence operates with. The scientific explanation gives the mother no comfort, whereas believing in the scam could have. Knowledge, it seems, is not enough. Rationality and the intellect seek to contain, control and neutralise emotions, especially fear. We fear the unknown so try to understand more, know more and therefore neutralise our fear. This is what Florence does throughout the film, emphatically stating at one point that she will not live with fear. This approach towards emotion is similar to patriarchy’s attitude to women – contain, control and neutralise. Florence is unwilling to be contained, and does so through male-coded acts of professionalism, trouser wearing and scientific method. But arguably this masculinises her, and what The Awakening demonstrates are the dangers and ultimate futility in attempting to suppress and deny part of one’s own identity. The film’s therapy, therefore, repudiates and debunks patriarchal/rational containment of femininity/emotion.

The bereaved mother equates Florence’s heartlessness with her childlessness, this lack signified as aberrant and unnatural. This is perhaps ironic considering Florence’s reliance upon scientific, i.e. natural phenomena in her work and the apparatus that she uses to measure these.

Florence, The Awakening, dir. Nick Murphy (2001)

Furthermore, it relates what she does with the conceit of the Gothic genre, as ghost stories challenge the rational order with ‘what is perceived as fearful, alien, excluded, or dangerously marginal’ (Briggs, 176). These dangers may be the past, the dead, war, and challenges to the social order of patriarchy. A further demonstration of Florence’s ‘aberrance’ is the concern of Sergeant Evans (Steven Cree), who fears suspicions of both personal and professional impropriety. To the first, Florence attempts to assuage his concerns by reassuring him that his wife is very lucky, but there remains a sense that her work is aberrant and unusual. Professionally, Evans is concerned about taking instruction from a woman, finding it a compromise of his masculinity. To this, Florence is largely contemptuous, indicating her disregard for traditional gender roles.

This disregard continues, as Florence repudiates the role of a ‘lady’, a role challenged by the aftermath of the Great War in which over 30% of Britain’s male population was killed. Florence’s lover died in the trenches, and in the absence of male presence she has made a new role for herself as a professional, emancipated woman. Evans’ concerns are over the traditional role and place of women, which Florence and indeed the film has little interest in.

By contrast, the more modern Robert Mallory is comfortable with Florence’s professionalism. Robert is a casualty of war in both body and mind and, like Florence, he lost people in the War, witnessing these deaths first hand and suffering injuries himself. Furthermore, Robert displays post-traumatic-stress-disorder and performs self-harm as a form of penance. His reference to seeing ghosts himself could be literal or figurative, but in contrast to Florence he is not dismissive. Within conventional terms, he is more ‘feminine’ than she is, given to emotional indulgence through his self-harming and uncontrollable panic attacks.

Florence’s lack of femininity is characterised by her reliance on traditionally male concepts of rationality and science, and a disbelief in concepts such as ghosts, Father Christmas, the Tooth Fairy and, more controversially, God. Florence’s early description of these concepts is derisive, suggesting a scornful attitude to beliefs in what cannot be scientifically proven. To include God in this list emphasises Florence’s reliance upon science, simplistically presented as the opposition to faith and religion. Furthermore, Florence seems uninterested in significant emotion as a whole, her general demeanour one of slight amusement. It would be a mischaracterisation to describe her as cold, as she displays warmth and compassion to the children of the boarding school and there is attraction between her and Robert. Yet repression runs throughout the film, and has done so in the protagonist’s history as well.

Repression, especially in relation to women, is a Gothic trope: ‘The vast, imprisoning spaces that appear so regularly in the Gothic as castles, monasteries, and actual prisons can be read as metaphors for women’s lives under patriarchy’ (Ellis, 458). The school in The Awakening serves a similar purpose; Florence’s return to her former family home perhaps a re-entry into the oppressed position of women that her self-determined role repudiates. Being the site of her original trauma and false memories codes the house as the manifestation of the prison in her mind, which must be returned to, questioned and investigated in order to be understood. Thus it is through her investigation into the paranormal events at the school that Florence undergoes therapy as to who she is and where she came from, acquiring a more complete understanding.

Nor is repression confined to women, as the boarding school represses its students, through its stone walls, stern lines of the mise-en-scéne and its own institutionalised rules. Such a trope appears in much horror cinema, including an early adaptation of Robert Louis Stephenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, directed by Rouben Mamoulian (1932). In this film, the ‘dark, foggy, labyrinthine streets of London give an expressionist sense of the confinement and hypocrisy of this society, with its outdated Victorian mores … [and] the character of the young man hemmed in by conventionalities’ (Kaye, 244). The students and staff of the school are also trapped by particular, outmoded versions of masculinity. One of the teachers, Malcolm McNair (Shaun Dooley), keeps his students in a state of constant fear and canes them for the slightest misdemeanour. Robert tells Florence that the boys are ‘scared to death’, and this could be attributed to the school itself rather than any supernatural occurrence. 

Indeed, the goal of this discipline, the creation of sturdy young men, is misguided. McNair found one of the boys, Walter Portman, up at night, and placed the boy outside to get him to ‘man up’. The terrified Walter succumbed to an asthma attack, essentially dying of fright because of an attempt to make him tougher. The standard macho way of dealing with fear, the film suggests, is a fallacy – a more caring and sympathetic approach can produce more capable people.

The stylistic tropes of the horror film are used to create this sequence of terror, but it is significant that what is actually terrifying are completely human acts. While there have been moments of supernatural horror in the film, the revelation is that human acts of cruelty and murder are what scared and scarred Florence. As these memories resurface, scaring her afresh, the viewer shares her terror and comes to the same understanding, undergoing the same therapy. The presumptions as to where Florence came from are shown to be incorrect, as are her assertions about positive mental health as she confronts her childhood trauma.

Violence and suffering are intrinsic to the school, most obviously in the figure of Judd but also in the violent history that Florence has repressed. It is significant that Judd avoided military service but is himself violent and, interestingly, killed by a gun that Florence strikes him with to escape his rape attempt. Violent death is, it seems, not confined to the battlefield. This proves to be the case as Florence’s memories return – her father murdered her mother with a shotgun (much like Judd’s), then attempted to kill Florence herself but, accidentally, shot her half-brother Tom and then himself. Florence’s ‘awakening’ is expressed through discontinuous editing and unstable cinematography, the past and present merging as the viewer sees both the adult (Hall) and child Florence (Molly Lewis).

This trauma is the monstrous element of The Awakening. Within Gothic horror, the monstrous ‘can be seen as embodying modern fears such as alienation, the horrors of war, and sexually transmitted disease’ (Kaye, 240). World War I casts a long shadow over the events of The Awakening’s narrative, but its 2011 release and the presence of a character suffering from war-inflicted PTSD makes it very much a post-9/11, post-Iraq War film. This is the modern fear that the film taps into, its confrontation with fears that are both overt (Robert) and suppressed (Florence), offering the therapy of balancing emotional release with rational understanding. In some adaptations of Jekyll and Hyde, ‘the story of a man’s – and by way of audience identification, a country’s – descent into bestial violence had a clear metaphorical link to the conflagration just past’ (Skal, 140, cit.Kaye, 241). Similar descents appear in The Awakening – Judd is bestially violent towards Florence while Robert is towards himself. The violence of Florence’s father is linked to animality, through the portrait of a lion attacking a horse visible behind him as he kills Tom and then himself. From this image, Florence constructed a belief that an actual lion killed her parents and scarred her, whereas she was actually scarred by the same shot that killed Tom. Man collapses into animal as part of the repression of trauma. As Florence’s memories awaken, she sees her father shooting himself, the painting of the lion merely the background.

  

The therapy of this revelation is that Florence need not be terrified little girl nor (masculinised) overly rational adult – she balances the emotional with the intellectual. Her experience at the school reawakens her emotional responses, as she weeps unashamedly into Maud’s arms. It could be argued that the awakening of her buried memories restores her to proper, feminine emotionality, but this is not the film’s therapy. As well as being able to cry, Florence has also achieved her goal of overcoming her fear – now that she knows what happened to her, she no longer fears it. And there is a danger of emotional over-indulgence still to come. 

Maud, The Awakening, dir. Nick Murphy,(2011)

Another part of the revelation is that Tom’s mother is Maud, who can see the ghost of her son and stayed with the house when it became a school. She tries to create company for Tom by poisoning herself and Florence. But while Maud dies, Florence urges Robert to get her something that will make her sick, purging the poison from her system, using her scientific knowledge to save her life. Robert is unable to find anything, but Florence’s emotional plea spurs Tom to provide her with a suitable agent. Scientific knowledge combined with a plea to a loved one ultimately save Florence’s life, as her psychological life has also been saved through an overcoming of fear through recognition and embrace of emotional trauma.

As a British horror film, The Awakening inevitably echoes Hammer Films, which often ‘allow some release of tensions, [but] ultimately they deny excesses of sensuality by punishing transgressors’ (Kaye, 246). Maud is punished for her excessive connection to her dead son, being allowed to die while Florence lives, but rather than a return to repression, Florence’s salvation is also the reason for the attempt on her life – Tom saves her because Florence tells him: ‘If I go with you now my soul will never be happy’. Rather than a return to the status quo of repression (of one form or another), The Awakening depicts therapy, the balance of emotion and intellect rather than one overcoming the other. This balance helps to neutralise ‘woman as threat’ and more as an equal partner, as demonstrated in the final scene between Florence and Robert. Robert is not a paragon of machismo, being troubled by both physical and psychic injuries, but as such, he is the ideal partner for Florence, and the film ends with a clear sense of equality and mutual recognition between them.

It could be interpreted that Florence does actually die from the poisoning, as the final scene only features her speaking to Robert and apparently not seen by the school’s headmaster, Reverend Hugh Purslow (John Shrapnel). The film’s evidence is more supportive of her having survived, however, because she leaves when Maud wanted to keep her there, and the ghost of Tom is not seen again. What is striking in the final scene is that Florence seems much warmer and less haughty than her earlier scenes. From her original position of rational superiority, she has confronted her own ghosts, literal and figurative, in a terrifying experience that leaves her deeply shaken. Yet she is able to balance this trauma with an understanding that is rational and emotional, demonstrated by her final line that closes the film ‘Not seeing them, it's not the same as forgetting, is it?’ This line expresses the therapeutic philosophy of The Awakening: the importance of remembering and maintaining a sense of the past and your experiences. Florence forgot, and then re-encountered what she had forgotten. Now she need not see, but she does remember, embracing her past and keeping it as part of her future. 

As a genre, ‘the Gothic itself is locked “in the encapsulating social systems that engender repeated trauma’” (Massé, 19, quoted by Ellis, 459), but The Awakening unlocks these systems by allowing therapy for its protagonist, confronting her trauma and integrating it into her consciousness. She does not remain in the prison, the film denying an either/or opposition, and allows her to leave, with the suggestion of a continuing romance with Robert. Although Florence and Robert make plans to meet again, the film’s emphasis is not upon this union – love is not Florence’s defining feature. Good mental health (shockingly!) may be enough for this Gothic heroine.

Florence and Robert, The Awakening, dir. Nick Murphy (2011)

The Awakening uses the tropes of the horror and Gothic traditions, such as the opposition between emotion and intellect and between masculine and feminine, to show the fallacy of these oppositions, promoting instead the philosophy of integration and balance. This is the film’s therapy, a reworking of Gothic and horror tropes through an engagement with PTSD, tied both to family trauma and the horrors of war, to provide a useful therapeutic lesson.

Works cited:

Briggs, Julia, ‘The Ghost Story’, in A New Companion to the Gothic, edited by David Punter (Chichester: Blackwell, 2012), pp. 176-187.

Ellis, Kate Ferguson, ‘Can You Forgive Her? The Gothic Heroine and Her Critics’, in A New Companion to the Gothic, edited by David Punter (Chichester: Blackwell, 2012), pp. 457-468.

Gledhill, Christine, ‘The horror film’, in The Cinema Book, edited by Pam Cook (London: BFI, 2007), pp. 347-366

Kaye, Heidi, ‘Gothic Film’ in A New Companion to the Gothic, edited by David Punter (Chichester: Blackwell, 2012), pp. 239-251.

Skal, David, ed., The Monster Show: A Cultural History of Horror (London: Plexus, 1993).