The Party’s Over

 

‘THE GUEST ROOM’ TELLS A HARD-HITTING STORY OF HUMAN TRAFFICKING

2/29/16

“Richard Chapman presumed there would be a stripper at his brother Philip’s bachelor party.”

That’s the opening sentence of “The Guest Room,” the latest novel by bestselling author Chris Bohjalian. Few opening sentences have done a better job of capturing the zeitgeist.

Richard, we soon find out — we find it out in the same paragraph, in fact — is a family man with a nice home and a good job (working in mergers and acquisitions). But Richard has been asked to host this bachelor party, and although he isn’t “especially wild about the idea of an exotic dancer in his family’s living room,” he also doesn’t want to be a “prig” and “put a damper” on things. There’s a sort of unspoken agreement all around that men must engage in one last night of debauchery before they get married, and that it’s the duty of other men to help them do it. So his wife takes their little girl away for the weekend, and Richard gets ready for the party.

By the time it’s over, two men are dead, two girls are on the run, and Richard Chapman’s quiet, comfortable life is shattered.

“The Guest Room” tells a devastating story that raises some uncomfortable questions. It forces us to look at our own casual, unthinking attitudes about sexuality, and it asks us to explore how they shape our behavior. It asks how those casual, unthinking attitudes affect other lives as well as our own. It asks us to consider whether we can really keep the darkest parts of our lives separate from the things that matter most to us. It explores the blurriness of the line between watching depravity and joining in.

Bohjalian goes back and forth in time, describing both the aftermath of that fatal night and the events that led up to it. The narrative shifts among Richard’s story; his wife, Kristin’s, story; and the story of Alexandra, one of the strippers at the party that night. Each of them, in its own way, is deeply jarring.

Alexandra, a young woman from Armenia, narrates her own part of the story, giving us a firsthand look at the long and tortuous route that brought her to New York and that bachelor party. As a girl she was ambitious and hardworking, longing to be a ballerina. After she was orphaned at 15, her mother’s boss told her he would send her to a prestigious ballet school in Moscow. Instead, he had her abducted, raped, and taken to the brothel that would be her home for the next several years. Alexandra isn’t even her real name. Her real name, Anahit, was taken from her, just like everything else.

Alexandra’s and Richard’s lives collide at the bachelor party in ways that leave Richard stricken with shame. The party starts to degenerate into something very different as the men discover that the strippers are more than strippers — they’ll do anything they’re asked to do. And then for no reason that Richard can understand, he finds himself in the guest room with this girl, both of them undressed:

“He ran his own hands along the skin of her thighs and felt the goose bumps. Her skin was smooth and tight, but all he could sense was the reality that the poor thing was cold. And instantly he had taken a step back.

“As drunk as he was, there was still some small part of his temporal lobe that recalled he was married. That recalled he was a father.

“As drunk as he was, he realized that this had all gone too far.”

This is true in more ways than he can fathom. When Alexandra’s friend and fellow stripper Sonja murders their Russian guards in an act of desperation and vengeance, and the two young women bolt into the night, there is no way to keep the story secret. The news gets out, and Richard’s house becomes a crime scene. His marriage and his job are in jeopardy, and — perhaps worst of all — his nine-year-old daughter, Melissa, understands just enough of what’s going on to be furious with him.

He doesn’t yet know that the decision he made in the guest room, the realization that he could not betray his marriage for a moment of pleasure, had a profound effect on Alexandra. That muddled, split-second decision to do the right thing changes both their lives, offering them both a chance at redemption — though the cost will be staggeringly high.

Bohjalian’s characters haunted me for days after I closed the book. Their story makes it clear just what it does to us to live in a society that celebrates permissiveness, instant gratification, and living in the moment. Richard’s view of himself and his life is forever altered when he realizes that he almost had sex with a stranger simply because he was offered the opportunity — and altered even further when it’s brought home to him that the young woman in his guest room was a slave. He can hardly stand to be with his brother, Philip, and the other guys who were at the party; despite the horrific way it ended, they’re still enthusing over what went on before.

“It was like f—ing a porn star — but real!” Philip exclaims about his time with Sonja, just minutes after mentioning that his fiancee is so angry with him about that night that she may call off the wedding. It’s as if he’s reached a man’s ultimate goal in life and has no concept of anything better. As for Richard, who started out rationalizing it all — “he told himself the entertainment would be some girl from Sarah Lawrence or Fordham or NYU . . . who understood intellectually the cultural politics of stripping and viewed herself as a feminist capitalist” — he can rationalize no longer. Now, all he can think is “[Alexandra] was just a kid. It just wasn’t fair.”

Though it doesn’t preach or moralize, the story brings home again and again the ways in which every choice we make, every unthinking action whether large or small, influences the lives around us. The moral bankruptcy of our culture is inescapable in its pages. When Alexandra tells us that she and her friends watched “The Bachelor” and the Kardashians as a kind of escape from their lives as sex slaves, the reader hardly knows whether to laugh or cry.

When “The Bachelor” is the best we have to offer, when strippers at bachelor parties are seen as as a normal and even healthy thing — how many times have we seen this mentality on sitcoms and even on family shows? — when our whole culture is obsessed with sexual gratification, we have a lot to learn, and a lot more to unlearn. What seems like a little harmless fun isn’t just unhealthy for ourselves. It may be a matter of life and death for others.

“The Guest Room” is a mainstream novel, and in keeping with its subject matter, it contains profanity, sexual scenes, and moments of intense violence. More than that, it’s filled with details that aren’t explicit but that linger unpleasantly in the memory — as when Alexandra matter-of-factly explains that some of the girls are dressed to look older but others to look very young indeed, for the men whose tastes run in that direction. Or the moment that Kristin, finally allowed back in the house after the police are finished with it, is horrified to find a used condom from the party in her little girl’s bedroom.

As I implied before, this is not an easy read. But it is a well-crafted story with some incredibly important things to tell us about ourselves, if we can bear to listen.

Image copyright Doubleday. Review copy purchased from Barnes & Noble.

Gina Dalfonzo is editor of BreakPoint.org and Dickensblog.

 

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Articles on the BreakPoint website are the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the opinions of BreakPoint. Outside links are for informational purposes and do not necessarily imply endorsement of their content.

To Shame the Strong

 1/2/16

BOTH WOMEN AND MEN HAVE HEROIC ROLES TO PLAY IN ‘STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS’

(Note: This article contains major spoilers about “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.”)

What is left to say about women’s roles in the new Star Wars movie? The fact that a young woman named Rey (Daisy Ridley) is learning to wield the Force and the lightsaber this time, instead of a young man named Luke, has attracted its full share of cultural commentary. Is Rey the heroine we’ve been waiting for, or is she just a Mary Sue, too perfect to bear any resemblance to reality? Does her presence signal that we’ve arrived at full gender equality in the movies, or do we still have a long way to go? Or are her lead status and her formidable skills supposed to suggest actual superiority to males—and if so, does that mean the Star Wars franchise has sold out to a mindset that denigrates men in order to lift up women?

It’s that last pair of questions that takes my train of thought in a slightly different direction. We can’t answer them without taking the time to study the male roles in “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” more closely. When we do, we find one role that only a man can play, being played in a most uplifting way.

Fathers, Daughters, and Sons

The Star Wars films have always placed special emphasis on fathers, both good and bad, and the legacy they pass to their children. In “The Force Awakens,” it falls to Han Solo, of all people—Harrison Ford’s reckless and charming rogue whom we met back in the first Star Wars movie—to demonstrate noble fatherhood.

Rey may be strong, clever, and an extremely good mechanic and pilot for one of her tender years, but like the rest of us, she can’t exist in a vacuum. She lost her family long ago, and has clearly suffered from the loss. When she meets Han Solo, she helps him repair and fly his hobbled spacecraft, in a sequence that does make her skills seem too good to be true. But what we miss, if we’re too busy rolling our eyes over that, is that there’s more than one force (sorry) at work—that we’re seeing not just the strength of a woman, but also the compassion of a man. Han’s respect, his trust, and his unobtrusive guidance in the areas where she doesn’t know quite as much as he does (such as how to fire a blaster), meet a deep need that has gone unmet for most of Rey’s life.

This is quickly picked up on by the villain of the piece, Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), when Rey falls into his hands. Able to read her thoughts, Ren discerns that Rey thinks of Han as a father. He has little to say on the subject, beyond a terse “He would have disappointed you.”

He’s wrong, as Han will eventually show up with Rey’s friend Finn (John Boyega) to help her escape. But it’s not really her relationship with Han that’s on Kylo Ren’s mind; it’s his own. We’re dealing with the same old troubled father-son relationship we had with Vader and Luke way back at the start of this series, only it’s been flipped. Now it’s the father, Han, who’s determined to win back his erring son, Ren.

As is usually the case with Star Wars, we’re fed just a little backstory at a time, so there’s much we don’t know about this family’s history. We do know that Han Solo is, as always, far from perfect; his son’s rebellion caused tension in his marriage and sent him on the run, far from home. Now he doubts his own ability to influence the young man. But urged on by wife Leia (Carrie Fisher)—“You’re his father,” she says simply, as if that means everything—Han summons the courage to confront Ren.

The Weak and the Strong

From their brief, powerful meeting, we gather this much: It wasn’t a lack of fatherly love that sent the son to the Dark Side. Something else is going on here. As Han approaches his prodigal son, Kylo Ren accuses him of being “weak” and “foolish,” and declares his own intention not to be like that anymore.

But wait a minute. He’s talking to Han Solo—the daring adventurer-turned-war-hero with the cocky smile, whose exploits have won the adulation of generations. Han Solo is weak and foolish? Compared to what?

Compared to Darth Vader, Ren’s maternal grandfather. In a short scene earlier in the film, we saw Ren address Vader’s spirit and ask him for help. He knows the story of that famous tyrant (though he seems to have slept through the part where Vader finally turned away from darkness), and that’s his chosen role model. That’s the kind of power and strength Ren wants.

That’s what drives him to murder Han Solo, at the moment when Han has just begged him to come home and promised to do “anything” to help him.

Now, say what you will about the problems with the Star Wars films—the sometimes clunky dialogue, the plot holes, the inconsistencies and coincidences and the religious jargon that gets downright wacky—there are some things they do very well, and I don’t just mean depictions of spaceships and giant planet-destroying weapons. One of those things is depicting familial love, and another is creating iconic images.

Both come into play when the dying Han Solo reaches up with one hand and cradles the cheek of the son who just ran him through with a lightsaber. Without that gesture, Han’s death scene would have been simply horrifying; that last forgiving touch transformed it into a poignant moment will take its place with the greatest moments of the series.

A Role for Everyone

But I’ve gone off on a tangent—we were talking about male and female roles, weren’t we? In the Internet age, where these things are disputed all day long and every one of your Facebook friends seems to be taking a different side, sometimes it’s difficult to figure out exactly where to come down. But the particular debate inspired by “The Force Awakens” misses something when it concentrates solely on the female characters, because there’s a lot here that’s helpful when we’re thinking about masculine paradigms and how they play out.

We have the still-resonant memory of the cruel and powerful villain that was Darth Vader. And we have the grandson who idolizes him, tries to be like him, and partially succeeds for a time—but finally ends up seeming petulant and, yes, weak, prone to temper tantrums that undermine the aura of cool confidence he strives for. (The hilarious Twitter parody account “Emo Kylo Ren” didn’t just come out of nowhere.)

But then we have some men who demonstrate genuine strength. Finn is one of these—a former stormtrooper who has deliberately turned his back on the murderous ways of Ren and his First Order, and chosen goodness. Another is Kylo Ren’s father.

Frankly, when Han Solo strode onto the bridge where he would face Ren, I was rooting for him to give the little punk a beatdown. And he just might have pulled it off, even though he was so much older now than when we first met him. Harrison Ford has earned a lifetime’s worth of action-hero capital playing not just Han Solo, but also Indiana Jones and Jack Ryan and heaven knows how many other tough guys, and he cashed in every bit of it here—but not through flashy heroics. He did it when his character showed heroic—dare I say Christlike?—love. Nothing he could have done would have been manlier than that.

It’s a classic paradox: The weak and foolish (or those who appear so to the tyrants of the world) will shame the strong.

So does the precociousness of Rey suggest that there’s nothing left for men to do in the Star Wars series? Not by a long shot. Rather, when we see it in the context of the community around her—especially when she finds encouragement and inspiration from one brave and loving father—we see that there’s plenty of heroism to go around, and that everyone, regardless of gender, has a part to play and a way to help. If we take away any lesson from the gender dynamics of “The Force Awakens,” that should be it.

Gina Dalfonzo is editor of BreakPoint.org and Dickensblog.

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Articles on the BreakPoint website are the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the opinions of BreakPoint. Outside links are for informational purposes and do not necessarily imply endorsement of their content.

Happily Ever After, Again

 

‘CINDERELLA’ IS A WELCOME RETURN TO DISNEY’S ROOTS

3/14/15

Once upon a time there was a film studio with a back catalogue full of some of the world’s most beloved fairytale films. There came a time when the people at that studio decided they needed to start making new, live-action versions of the old animated films. So they carefully studied the zeitgeist, and they made villains into misunderstood but well-intentioned victims of the patriarchy; they made princes either evil or useless; they made romance either stifling or dangerous; and they made families into hotbeds of deceit and betrayal.

And then, one fortunate day, someone at that film studio smacked his forehead and cried, “Wait a minute! What are we DOING!?”

Only such a major epiphany could have led to Disney’s new live-action “Cinderella,” a thoroughly charming, blessedly old-fashioned film. Director Kenneth Branagh and writer Chris Weitz have fleshed out the characters, the relationships, and the story in ways that make sense and add depth, instead of turning them completely upside down and inside out. Moreover, they’ve deliberately given us a heroine whose strength is her kind and generous heart.

In this version of the tale, young Ella (Eloise Webb) is the happy child of a loving marriage. Her childhood, in a beautiful house in the country, is nothing short of idyllic, until she loses her mother (Hayley Atwell) to a sudden illness. Her mother’s dying words to her, “Have courage and be kind,” sear themselves into Ella’s mind, becoming almost a mantra for her. As she grows into a young woman (played by Lily James), her kindness becomes an inspiration to almost everyone with whom she comes in contact.

But not quite everyone. When her father (Ben Chaplin) marries again, Ella’s stepmother (Cate Blanchett in a vividly venomous performance) and stepsisters (Sophie McSchera, Holliday Grainger) look down on her, thinking her values hopelessly out of date. Gradually, contempt turns into mistreatment, and Ella, sleeping on the floor by the fire to keep warm, becomes Cinderella.

For a children’s fairytale film, “Cinderella” offers a surprisingly realistic — though not overly gritty — portrayal of how emotional abuse can escalate over time. Always trying to be helpful and respectful, Cinderella is ever more ruthlessly taken advantage of. She does her best to stand up for herself when she can — the film doesn’t advocate being a doormat — but she’s reluctant to try to get away, as she draws her courage and comfort from the beloved old house where she and her parents were once so happy. But one day, when things get to be too much, she escapes for a little while to ride her horse in the forest, where a handsome prince (Richard Madden) just happens to be hunting . . .

“Cinderella” seamlessly blends traditionalism with innovation, faithfully following the outline of Disney’s 1950 animated version but bringing out new facets of the story. Again and again, at pivotal moments, the story turns on an act of compassion. There’s a strong focus on family bonds, as the prince (“Kit” to his nearest and dearest) has almost as strong and loving a relationship with his ailing father (Derek Jacobi) as young Ella had with her parents. And we’re shown how three different characters’ response to grief shapes their lives and characters. Ella and Kit both have to deal with the loss of parents, but they choose to become better people for it; Ella’s stepmother, by contrast, lost her first husband, “the light of her life,” and she let it make her hard, bitter, and grasping. We’re not asked to sympathize with evil in this film, but we are given an illuminating glimpse of how evil got to be that way. And at the end, we are shown the nobility of forgiveness.

Rather than deconstructing the story as other recent fairytale films have done, Branagh and Weitz instead strengthen it by giving us these thematic ties between the characters and their respective storylines. On occasion, the film pokes a little fun at conventional fairytale tropes, as in a scene when the ball is about to begin: The king chides his son for wanting to marry a woman he’s seen only once in the woods, and Kit retorts that everyone else is expecting him to marry a woman after seeing her only once at a ball. But for the most part, it treats those conventions lovingly and respectfully.

The icing on the cake is the lavish sets and colorful costumes. The palace is everything a palace should be and more, and Cinderella’s home, at least before the evil stepfamily takes over, is so cozy-looking and prettily decorated that I would have happily moved in myself. CGI is, of course, necessary for some scenes, like the one in which the fairy godmother (Helena Bonham Carter in a delightful comic turn) is transforming things, but it enhances the scenes instead of bogging them down. I was particularly taken with the effect of lizards turning into footmen, their movements satisfyingly jerky and lizard-like throughout the whole process.

As a great fan of the animated “Cinderella” when I was a child, I never expected Disney to give me a new version I would like even better — but I was wrong. The new “Cinderella” is a film Disney can be proud of, one that gives kids a refreshingly good role model and a wonderful filmgoing experience. It will leave viewers, if not happy ever after, at least very happy on the way out of the theater.

Image copyright Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. “Cinderella” is rated PG for mild thematic elements.

Gina Dalfonzo is editor of BreakPoint.org and Dickensblog.

‘Mr. Smith Goes to Washington’: Not without Honor

 

THE FILMS OF 1939, PART 10

10/3/14

Frank Capra’s “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” is one of the best-remembered films in a year full of great ones. Whenever its title is mentioned, we recall the Washington, D.C., setting; the patriotic montages; the thrill of watching the young senator played by James Stewart heroically fighting corruption. We remember basking in the warm, sentimental glow that only Capra can create, and wishing there were more Mr. Smiths in this world. We may even remember wanting to be one ourselves.

But if that’s what we remember about the movie, we’re remembering the wrong things.

When it opened in October of 1939, “Mr. Smith” was seen as anything but warm and sentimental. Gritty, dark, and dangerous were more like it. Members of Congress protested it, journalists warned against it, and Ambassador Joseph Kennedy (father of JFK) tried to shut down its European release.

When you go back and take another look at the movie, it’s not hard to understand the strong reactions. For Capra sets his idealistic hero — who gets compared by other characters to everyone from Don Quixote to the biblical David — against a very dark backdrop indeed.

The film opens with the news that one Senator Foley has just died. Already the members of his political machine, run by a crook named James Taylor (Edward Arnold), are squabbling over who will take Foley’s place. Sen. Joseph Paine (Claude Rains) has just come from his colleague’s deathbed, and all he can say is, “It couldn’t have happened at a worse time.” For without Foley, the machine may not be able to push through a bill that would bring illegal profit to Taylor and his cronies.

Governor Hopper (Guy Kibbee) impulsively appoints widely respected youth leader Jefferson Smith, a man who quotes Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln to his troops of wide-eyed Boy Rangers. The governor is gambling that the young man is too naïve, and too excited at the very prospect of being in the nation’s capital, to understand that a graft operation is taking place under his nose.

But Jeff learns the truth from his secretary, Saunders (Jean Arthur), a longtime cynic who’s drawn to Jeff’s idealism and integrity in spite of herself. When he tries to bring that truth to light, Taylor’s machine moves with terrifying efficiency to crush him. False testimony is given, signatures are forged, newspaper editors are bought, and a massive smear campaign is carried out. Even worse, Senator Paine, Jeff’s political idol and mentor, publicly betrays him. By the time Jeff’s being accused of letting Americans starve to death, modern viewers have come to realize that there truly is nothing new under the sun.

But just when Jeff is about to quit in despair, Saunders urges him back to the Senate floor for one last-ditch effort. This is what everyone really remembers: the climactic filibuster sequence, anchored by a performance from 31-year-old James Stewart that showed a power and maturity beyond his years.

Capra had as usual assembled a fine and colorful cast — in addition to the unfailingly great Rains and Arthur, there were Beulah Bondi as Jeff’s supportive mother, Harry Carey as the enigmatic president of the Senate, Thomas Mitchell and Jack Carson as sympathetic reporters — and all were at the top of their game. However, the film ultimately rested on Stewart’s shoulders. He was the third choice for the part, and when “Mr. Smith” opened, he was billed second after Jean Arthur. But what he achieved here would bring him his first Academy Award nomination and earn him a permanent place on the A-list. He infuses his characterization with passion, anger, pathos, and wry humor, making Jeff Smith’s battle a deeply real and gripping experience.

And not a sentimental one. There’s no denying that Capra could be the most sentimental of directors, but here he restrains the impulse, slipping up only once or twice. Wonderful little charcter-building moments litter the film (a running gag where Jeff starts crashing into things every time Paine’s pretty daughter (Astrid Allwyn) speaks to him; the revelation that the hard-bitten Saunders keeps a doll in her desk drawer), but they fit seamlessly into the narrative. The focus is tight and the pace hardly ever lets up.

This was the second of Capra and Stewart’s three films together, and the two brought out the best in each other, creating some truly inspiring moments. But we can’t realize just how inspiring they are if we focus only on the feel-good side of films like “Mr. Smith,” and ignore the grim reality that Stewart’s character is trying to transcend.

That reality points to an inescapable truth: No one really wants to be a Mr. Smith. We may think we do, but we don’t. Look around and see if you can spot a politician or commentator who doggedly sticks to certain old-fashioned principles and values, or who talks unironically about loving America. How popular are these people? Are they celebrated or ridiculed? Usually it’s the latter — and that ridicule often comes from the same people who claim that we need more Jefferson Smith types in politics.

Jeff himself is the kind of guy who easily falls into traps set by members of the press, then goes around punching them for misquoting him. He keeps pigeons and uses expressions like “doggone it” and “colder’n a mackerel.” And he stands on the Senate floor reading aloud from the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bible. If Jeff Smith existed today, Jon Stewart would make sure his political career ended before it even got started.

It doesn’t matter that Jeff practices what he preaches. (It’s worth noting in this context that “Mr. Smith” is one of the exceedingly few films from that era in which an African-American character — one of Jeff’s Boy Rangers — is shown as being on an equal footing with his white peers. When Jeff talks about the promise of America being for those of every “race, color, or creed,” he means it.) He would still have to be punished for being hopelessly out of step with the powers that be.

Even Mr. Smith doesn’t want to be a Mr. Smith. Hours into his filibuster, Jeff says wearily to the assembled senators, “I’m sorry, gentlemen. I know I’m being disrespectful to this honorable body. I know that. A guy like me should never be allowed to get in here in the first place, I know that. And I hate to stand here and try your patience like this, but — either I’m dead right or I’m crazy!” He perseveres because he knows the things he’s standing up for are so important that they must be defended, even at great personal cost.

Capra was able to make this film so good because he both believed in the American ideal, and understood how easily it could be co-opted and undermined by the unscrupulous and the greedy. America, he’s telling us, should be celebrated because it’s the kind of country that can produce a Jefferson Smith; but at the same time, we must always be on our guard, because it’s also capable of destroying one.

In the final analysis, that theme is more than just an American one; it’s universal. Someone else warned us, long before America’s founding, of that double-edged sword in human nature: “A prophet is not without honor except in his own country, among his own relatives, and in his own house.” (Mark 6:4, NKJV) Looking back from 2014, it’s easy for us to celebrate Jefferson Smith and his “plain, decent, everyday, common rightness,” as Saunders puts it. But the ultimate takeaway from this classic should be a question for each of us to ask ourselves: If Mr. Smith went to Washington today, what would we do with him?

For Further Information:

“Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” was nominated for 11 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director (Frank Capra), Best Actor (James Stewart), Best Supporting Actor (Claude Rains, Harry Carey), and Best Screenplay (Sidney Buchman). It won one, for Best Original Story (Lewis R. Foster).

“Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” is available on Blu-ray and DVD in a special 75th Anniversary edition.

Additionally, “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” was on Chuck Colson’s list of “50 Films Every Christian Should See.”

--Gina Dalfonzo 

Root Problem

 

‘PERSON OF INTEREST’ AND FEMALE MORAL AGENCY

9/23/14

 

Jonathan Nolan’s “Person of Interest” returns to CBS tonight for its fourth season, and with it comes one of its biggest unresolved problems from season three. It’s still got its fascinating and highly relevant premise: A small group of vigilantes try to use an all-seeing surveillance machine to save lives. It’s still got all the dilemmas that result from that premise, and it’s still got the ethics and subtle sense of hope that point to the possibility of finding a way through those dilemmas. It’s still got most of its excellent core cast—Michael Emerson, Jim Caviezel, Kevin Chapman, and Sarah Shahi—though Taraji P. Henson’s conflicted police detective was regrettably killed off. In short, it’s still got a lot of what has made it one of the best (and most underrated) series on network TV.

But it’s also got Root.

Root, played by Amy Acker, is a deeply unstable hacker, who chose her name based on her obsessive interest in computers—“Root” signifying “root path.” But lately, she reminds me more of the botanical meaning of the word: “Root” as in “root that digs in and spreads kudzu-like growth all over the place, choking the life out of everything in its way.”

In other words, we’ve got way too much Root, and it’s throwing the show off balance.

It didn’t have to be this way. Acker (as I’ve had occasion to observe before) is a talented actress, and the character had a lot of potential. She was introduced in season 1 as a force of chaos, reminiscent of Heath Ledger’s deranged Joker from another Nolan family project. She was clever, devious, and utterly ruthless. With her brilliance, she was set up to work as an effective foil to Emerson’s Harold Finch, who is also brilliant but has the kindness and selflessness that she lacks. And as a lover of machines and a hater of humanity, Root’s presence had very interesting implications for a show about a team dedicated to using machines to serve humanity.

But somehow, the writers who are so good at complexity in other areas of the show have allowed this character, potentially the most complex of all, to succumb to that all-too-common malady: Hot Chicks with Guns syndrome.

For the title of this disease, I’m indebted to one of the show’s own promos. (Maybe it’s unfair to put so much weight on a clearly tongue-in-cheek promo—but it’s hard not to when it unwittingly nails the problem that’s been bothering me.) But of course the disease itself has been around a lot longer. Sophia McDougall successfully diagnosed it last year in an article about why she had grown to hate the “Strong Female Character.” Writing about how “strong” in this context is now shorthand for “physically strong,” McDougall recalls:

I remember watching Shrek with my mother.

“The Princess knew kung-fu! That was nice,” I said. And yet I had a vague sense of unease, a sense that I was saying it because it was what I was supposed to say.

She rolled her eyes. “All the princesses know kung-fu now.”

There’s nothing wrong with physical strength and competence—except when it’s the only kind of strength allowed.

In the case of “Person of Interest,” it’s telling that Root has shifted from a largely intellectual character who sometimes resorted to physical violence, to a physically violent character who sometimes resorts to intellect. An actress who could have handled pretty much anything thrown at her is now playing a character whose chief traits are a permanent smirk, a steady stream of cheap jabs and suggestive one-liners, and—obviously—the ability to look hot while holding a gun.

Even worse, this supposedly strong female character has literally given up control over her own mind and her own purposes. In season 3, Root’s great admiration for the Machine at the center of the show, created by Finch, led her to obey its every command, and eventually to have a device implanted in her ear that made her its mouthpiece. Because Finch had created the Machine as a benevolent entity, this put Root in an odd situation: a villain under the command of a force for good. By the season finale, Root was lamenting the fact that she and the Machine had been unable to save the world from a sinister government conspiracy.

But here’s the problem: We never saw her actually take on that mission as her own. With the exception of one perfunctory episode where she felt a few twinges of remorse over a past killing, Root has never truly shown a change of heart about her fellow human beings. Obviously, saving the world is a good thing, and if we had seen Finch’s benevolence, working through his Machine, influencing Root to start becoming a better person, then her actions would make sense and be genuinely praiseworthy. But as it is, she’s simply slavishly obeying a Machine that she literally sees as a deity (“You invented God,” she tells Finch) just because it’s a superhuman, almost AI-level piece of technology.

This is not the stuff of which either great villains or great heroes are made, or even great anti-heroes. This is just an ill-defined character stuck in an unconvincing gray area.

So we have one female character whose will is entirely subordinate to an outside force at odds with her own previously expressed purposes. And we have another one—Sarah Shahi’s Shaw, a former CIA operative—who conveniently has that other common TV disease, Emotional Constipation. (See also Dr. House, “Bones” Brennan, et al.) In other words, we have two Hot Chicks with Guns who currently show few signs of an inner life.

This is a huge step backward from how the show used to portray women. It was made pretty clear that Henson’s character, Detective Carter, had to go because the show was transitioning from a police-procedural-style show into something more sci-fi-oriented, leaving most of her storyline behind. Fair enough. But with her we lost the only well-rounded regular female character on the show, and that loss has left a gaping hole. Two Hot Chicks with Guns cannot substitute for one fleshed-out woman with a sharp mind, a warm heart, often-clashing obligations, and a strong sense of duty and loyalty. That math just doesn’t work.

“Person of Interest” is, I think, genuinely trying to make a case for the sanctity, dignity, and moral accountability of all human beings in a world full of technology and the ethical dilemmas that come with it. That’s a laudable and very important mission. But until it drops the Hot Chicks with Guns trope and starts giving us real, complex, morally accountable female characters again, I fear it’s a mission that can’t fully succeed.

Image copyright CBS.

Gina Dalfonzo is editor of BreakPoint.org and Dickensblog.



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‘Wuthering Heights’: The Roots of Romanticism

 

THE FILMS OF 1939, PART 4

4/4/14

Classic stories are often called “timeless,” but that’s not always the most accurate description. Literary classics go in and out of fashion just as clothing does; what’s considered a literary masterpiece today may have been considered barely respectable by yesterday’s academics and readers, and vice versa.

Emily Brontë’s “Wuthering Heights” is a perfect example. When this passionate, violent novel was first published in 1847, many found it shocking. Even the novelist’s own sister, Charlotte (author of “Jane Eyre”), was taken aback by certain aspects of Emily’s work. Somehow, the fiercely private daughter of a Yorkshire clergyman—a young woman who had little formal education, seldom left home, and died at the age of 30—had managed to produce a strikingly original but profoundly unsettling love story.

Catherine Earnshaw (more often referred to as “Cathy” in the film adaptation) and Heathcliff, the wayward young lovers whose wild behavior horrifies the civilized people around them, have taken their place among the best-known characters in world literature. When Mr. Earnshaw, master of the Yorkshire estate from which the story takes its name, discovers the orphaned Heathcliff on the streets and brings him home, other members of the household scorn him, but little Catherine befriends him. Her love for him lasts into adulthood, even as her brother, Hindley, treats him like a servant. But Catherine eventually chooses to marry the wealthy Edgar Linton, leaving Heathcliff torn with rage, jealousy, and a deadly desire for revenge.

In later decades, Emily Brontë’s sole novel would rise in the critics’ estimation, due largely to its challenges to conventional Victorian mores and to the mystique that surrounded its reclusive author. In recent years, though, many have come to see it as a clichéd and overwrought story about selfish, inconsiderate people. (Despite this, or perhaps because of this, “Twilight” readers have helped keep it alive.)

Yet however high or low the popularity of “Wuthering Heights” at any given moment, there’s no denying that the romanticism it represents has worked itself into the very fabric of our culture. Professor Lilia Melani of Brooklyn College has identified some of the elements of that romanticism in “Wuthering Heights”:

• –“. . . Nature is a living, vitalizing force and offers a refuge from the constraints of civilization,
• –“the passion driving Catherine and Heathcliff and their obsessive love for each other are the center of their being and transcend death,
• –“so great a focus is placed on the individual that society is pushed to the periphery of the action and the reader’s consciousness,
• –“the concern with identity and the creation of the self are a primary concern,
• –“childhood and the adult’s developing from childhood experiences are presented realistically,
• –“Heathcliff is the Byronic hero; both are rebellious, passionate, misanthropic, isolated, and wilful, have mysterious origins, lack family ties, reject external restrictions and control, and seek to resolve their isolation by fusing with a love object. . . .”

Some of these elements will look familiar to the modern reader. If “Wuthering Heights” had few clear predecessors, it has countless descendants. Every book or movie about forbidden love, every cultural voice insisting that love transcends all and that nothing must stand in its way, owes something to that romanticism. Without it, there probably couldn’t have been a “Twilight”—or “Titanic,” or “The Notebook,” or many of our other most popular love stories.

It seems safe to say this influence is due as much, or more, to the acclaimed 1939 film adaptation of “Wuthering Heights” as to the novel itself. With two scintillating leads in Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon, a strong supporting cast led by David Niven, a script by literary lights Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, and the California landscape offering a credible recreation of the untamed Yorkshire moors, William Wyler’s film gives us a glamorized treatment of Heathcliff and Cathy’s tormented love story (or at least of the first half of it—but more on that in a moment).

Subsequent adaptations have been more faithful to Emily Brontë’s unflinchingly gritty novel—it’s hard not to feel amused when Olivier’s Heathcliff, berated by all for his “dirty hands,” finally gives the audience a glimpse of them and we see that they’re squeaky clean. But for generations, Olivier and Oberon’s Heathcliff and Cathy were the Heathcliff and Cathy.

We sometimes forget just how much Wyler’s version changes and simplifies Emily Brontë’s story. Strongly influenced though she was by Byronic romanticism, Brontë also had a cooler, more practical side. Her doomed lovers may be the most powerful characters in her novel, but she does not always portray them as admirable. There are grim and sometimes gory incidents in the book that are omitted in the film—for instance, Heathcliff viciously attacking Hindley with a knife, or strangling a dog nearly to death. Though we know Heathcliff has been horribly treated by Hindley and others—both the book and movie show us how he suffers under the merciless class distinctions of the time—his savage retaliation is more appalling than satisfying.

And in the novel, other voices besides those of the main characters are allowed to have their say. We get a sizable dose of the often sardonic and skeptical commentary of Ellen Dean, the housekeeper at Wuthering Heights; we sympathize with the downtrodden Isabella, Catherine’s sister-in-law and Heathcliff’s eventual wife, and root for her to escape from her husband’s stifling grasp. We’re aware of just how high a price others pay for the self-willed folly of the central characters—and how high a price they themselves pay. While Heathcliff and Catherine might say it was all worth it, it’s clear that there’s room for dissent on that score.

But the movie ramps up the romanticism and quiets those other voices to little more than a whisper. The once-acerbic Ellen (Flora Robson) is reduced to saccharine sympathizing. There are significant differences in Cathy’s portrayal as well. Catherine in the novel is brought to grief by her own self-centered passions. Having given up the freedom of wandering on the moors with Heathcliff for a prestigious position as Edgar’s wife, she can’t endure her new role; she storms and cries and works herself into fits, until she finally makes herself deathly ill. But Cathy in the movie simply loses her will to live and dies gracefully in Heathcliff’s arms when he comes to see her one last time.

Also, the movie entirely leaves out the section of the novel devoted to the children of Catherine, Heathcliff, and Hindley. As a new romantic drama plays out among this second generation, we see a chance at redemption for them, as Heathcliff’s attempts at vengeance and control slowly weaken. The film, by contrast, leaves us with a last shot of a ghostly Heathcliff and Cathy, whose love has indeed transcended death, walking away across the moors. They, so to speak, have the final say.

With all this, “Wuthering Heights,” as a film, is still worthy of the label “classic.” Its spellbinding performances and award-winning cinematography are still worth watching. It’s worth considering as a cultural milestone as well—to help us understand the root of so much that’s inherent in our culture today.

“Cathy, if your heart were only stronger than your dull fear of God and the world I would live silently contented in your shadow,” Heathcliff says in the film. “But no, you must destroy us both with that weakness you call virtue.” Again, these are sentiments that are all too familiar to us now. If “Wuthering Heights” feels clichéd to us today, it’s because it was itself the source of so many clichés. But it’s not a bad idea to remind ourselves of where these ideas came from, and of the destructiveness that so often lurks under their alluring promise.

For Further Information:

“Wuthering Heights” was nominated for eight Academy Awards, and won one: Best Cinematography, Black-and-White.

“Wuthering Heights” is available from Amazon and Netflix.

--Gina Dalfonzo 

Blessed Are the Introverts

 

OF CHAMELEONS, SWANS, AND SIR ALEC GUINNESS

4/2/14

One of the finest actors of the 20th century was also one of the most elusive. Sir Alec Guinness, born 100 years ago today, had the chameleon-like gift of disappearing completely into each character that he played. So completely, in fact, that this very prominent actor often appeared to be hiding in plain sight.

It’s mind-boggling to realize that the same man played Dickens’s sinister Fagin in “Oliver Twist,” Chesterton’s gentle Father Brown in “The Detective,” the menacing yet hapless Professor Marcus in “The Ladykillers,” the tragically self-deluded Colonel Nicholson in “The Bridge on the River Kwai,” the bumbling butler in “Murder by Death,” and the wise Obi-Wan Kenobi in “Star Wars.” It isn’t just that the personalities are different. Everything is different—the walk, the mannerisms, the posture, the demeanor. It’s as if the actor transforms himself into a different person every time.

In one of his earliest films, the black comedy “Kind Hearts and Coronets,” Guinness plays eight members of the aristocratic D’Ascoyne family—male and female, young and old—and does it so expertly that it’s difficult to believe you’re not watching eight people.

Guinness’s gift was such an exceptional one that it seems to have left people at a loss to understand exactly what he was doing—or even who he was. Many fans end up frustrated by their attempts to peer behind the mask. Novelist John le Carré, who got to know Guinness when the latter portrayed his iconic character George Smiley, suspected that Guinness’s reserve was a product of his difficult, fatherless childhood. Le Carré told “The Guardian,” “I think that, because he had no centre himself, to play the part of a man like Smiley—who can enter one shell after another—was a very strong refuge for him.”

Which brings me to my own interest in the elusive chameleon.

My fascination with Alec Guinness began when I picked up a copy of his first book, “Blessings in Disguise,” at a used bookstore. Being on a British classic film kick, I thought I could learn a lot about the genre from one of its greatest stars. But I didn’t really know what to expect. Some readers, like le Carré’s interviewer at “The Guardian,” claim that Guinness reveals nothing at all about himself in his books.

Nothing could be further from the truth. What I found in that book surprised and delighted me. Far from just another celebrity penning just another vapid celebrity bio, I found a man who could really write. I found a person who loved books, music, art, and life. And I found a personality that was charming, thoughtful, astonishingly humble, and very funny. His tales of mishaps onstage, on set, and on his ship in World War II frequently had me in stitches.

I found a man of deep faith, as well. I had known Guinness was a Catholic, having read the touching story of how his conversion began while he was playing Chesterton’s priestly detective. But I hadn’t known just how much that faith shaped his thinking, his behavior, and his life, until I read his own quiet but fervent words about it.

And yes, I also found that man of reserve I’d heard about. Guinness writes fondly but sparingly of his wife, Merula, and son, Matthew; he offers lively stories about his many friends, but very little “dirt.” He could be fastidious and brusque, though he regretted the tendency. “Oh, dear! I hate myself today,” he writes in “My Name Escapes Me,” sounding a familiar note of self-criticism. “At Mass this morning I replied abruptly when a woman sat down beside me and asked, knowingly, if I was who she thought I was. I fear I spoiled Palm Sunday for both of us.”

These elements carry through all three volumes of his memoirs (plus a “commonplace book” of quotes, musings, and anecdotes). Guinness writes honestly and yet guardedly, like a man who’s willing to share much and yet still keep something to himself. This reserve, which puzzles or repels some people, is one of the things I found myself liking most in him. Somehow, in the reticent pages of a memoir by an elderly British actor, I had discovered a kindred spirit.

For an introvert, this can be an experience as rare and exciting as finding a diamond in the street. In her bestselling book “Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking,” Susan Cain makes a convincing case that extroversion has been the “cultural ideal” for the past century. Thus, many of us grow up believing that shyness and reserve are something to outgrow or simply push past; if we can’t manage it, we feel weird and isolated. Standing up, speaking out, putting it all out there . . . that’s what gets rewarded and encouraged. People get nettled when they think you’re holding something back—as demonstrated by le Carré’s casually brutal comment about Guinness.

But shielding and protecting your “center” doesn’t mean you don’t have one. It may simply mean that you know you have something worth protecting. I certainly think this is true of the man I met in “Blessings in Disguise” and its sequels, although I recognize in his writing the same anxieties and insecurities that plague so many of us introverts.

“Personally I have only one great regret—that I never dared enough,” he writes in “A Positively Final Appearance.” That’s an extraordinary statement from an actor whose work was showered with awards, accolades, and affection—not to mention one who risked serious injury doing his own stunts in various Ealing comedies. But that’s the creed of the introvert in an extroverted culture: No matter what you do, no matter how hard you push yourself, no matter how much you give . . . it’s never quite enough.

Yet if le Carré and others—if Guinness himself—considered it cowardly for him to hide himself beyond recognition in each part that he played, others have recognized the sheer brilliance, hard work, and dedication that the effort took. At the same time, more people are realizing that his kind of introversion isn’t such a terrible thing. In recent years, you’ve probably noticed, the Internet has brought us all kinds of manifestoes and memes celebrating introverts. (A friend once asked me why there were so many. My opinion was that the Internet had helped many of us realize, for the first time, that other people like us actually existed!)

Sir Alec didn’t live to see the age of memes, and even if he had, I don’t know whether they would have appealed to him. Nonetheless, he did pretty well without them. I think that, aided by faith, family, and friendship, he was ultimately at peace with himself and what he saw as his limitations.

There’s a scene in the movie “The Swan” in which Alec Guinness gives Grace Kelly (another performer who’s often been called too reserved) a little speech about how some people are just naturally lofty and aloof, like swans, and that’s how they have to stay forever because they can’t be any other way. I’ve never liked that speech. The life he’s describing sounds stifling.

But I’ll never hear the speech the same way again, after getting this behind-the-scenes peek from Guinness in “Blessings in Disguise”:

“‘A touch more wind on Grace’s hair,’ they said one afternoon at M.G.M. as Grace Kelly and I, hand in hand, stood at a plaster balustrade apparently gazing out over a non-existent lake. They turned up the wind machine slightly and it blew dust in Grace’s eyes, so she had to retire for an hour to be re-made up. When she returned, the director, Charles Vidor, said, ‘More wind, fellas, but without the dust.’ It came with a whoosh and blew off my toupee. Grace cried with laughter and had to be repaired again by the make-up artist. Another idle hour. In the end they resorted to wafting a gentle breeze by waving a small board at us.”

If there’s one thing Sir Alec Guinness taught us, it’s this: Don’t pity or disdain the introverts; sometimes we’re having the most fun of all. And sometimes, what looks like our weakness turns out, after all, to be our God-given strength.

Image copyright Peter Stackpole for Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images.

Gina Dalfonzo is editor of BreakPoint.org and Dickensblog.

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Articles on the BreakPoint website are the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the opinions of BreakPoint. Outside links are for informational purposes and do not necessarily imply endorsement of their content.

Youth Reads: Thirteen Reasons Why

 

BY JAY ASHER

3/11/14

(Note: This review contains major spoilers.)

“Do not take me for granted . . . again.”

Clay Jensen can’t believe it. It’s Hannah Baker’s voice, coming out of the old stereo in his garage. But Hannah Baker is dead. One day she didn’t show up at school, and then the word began to leak out: Hannah had killed herself.

But now Clay is finding out that she did one last thing before she died. She recorded her story on cassette tapes, and mailed them to a classmate. Her instructions are clear: “Rule number one: You listen. Number two: You pass it on.” In all, 13 people are scheduled to receive Hannah’s tapes: 12 students and one teacher. Thirteen people who affected her life in different, ineradicable ways. And none of them, after listening to her story, will be the same.

“Thirteen Reasons Why,” the popular debut novel by Jay Asher, is a dark and sobering read. Hannah’s story is full of the grim details that characterize so much of teenage life today, the kind of details that adults hate to think about.

There was the date who trapped Hannah in a restaurant booth and tried to molest her. There was the classmate who spied on her through her bedroom window. The girl who pretended to be her friend just to use her, and the girl who involved her in a drunk-driving accident. The guy who raped a drunk girl at a party, not knowing that Hannah was an inadvertent witness. The kids who made fun of her, the kids who spread rumors and told lies about her, and the kids who believed all the rumors and lies.

All these incidents piled up into one big “snowball,” leaving Hannah feeling alone, betrayed, and helpless. In addition, her parents, preoccupied with business troubles, didn’t have much time for her. And the teacher she tried to confide in, in a last-ditch effort to save herself, finally sent her over the edge.

“Thirteen Reasons Why” is a book that’s been frequently challenged in schools and libraries, for reasons that are probably obvious. Letting a young reader explore the mind of a teenager this troubled, in a setting this dark, might justifiably worry a parent. The dramatic tone that makes her story appealing to this age group could conceivably make Hannah’s frame of mind a little tooappealing.

On the other hand, Asher works hard to provide some balance. As Clay listens to the tapes, we see him engage in a mental dialogue with Hannah’s voice. Silently, he reminds her that he was never cruel to her, that he would have helped her if she had let him, and that the decision to end it all was ultimately her own decision, not one she was forced to make.

And this is all true. Clay is a decent young man, someone Hannah liked and wished she could have opened up to. Clay’s friend Tony, who turns out to have a surprising connection with the tapes, is also kind and decent. The trouble wasn’t that Hannah didn’t know any good people. It was that her trust had been betrayed so many times that, ultimately, she couldn’t bring herself to trust again.

As previously mentioned, “Thirteen Reasons Why” contains discussions (and some mild descriptions) of sex and underage drinking, as well as profanity. There’s little reference to any sort of belief system that might have encouraged and sustained Hannah. An unintended result of this, I believe, is that the story places a lot of responsibility on its young readers. It sounds at times as if only the kindness of another person could have pulled Hannah back from the brink; the book doesn’t suggest that she herself might have found tools, such as faith, to face her challenges.

The message that teens need to learn to treat each other with more respect and kindness is an important one. (In fact, the book ends on a hopeful note when Clay, inspired by Hannah’s story, reaches out to another lonely girl.) But letting a teen think that he or she might be the one person standing between a peer and suicide . . . for some teens, that might be too heavy a burden to bear.

Still, the issues covered in this book are very real issues for a lot of kids, who don’t always know how to handle them. Not even adults do, sometimes. One scene that rang depressingly true was the scene in which Hannah’s teacher tried to counsel her.

Feeling depressed and disgusted with herself, Hannah had given in to a sexual encounter with a boy she despised, which left her feeling even worse. But her teacher told her there were only three things she could do: file charges (which she knew would be wrong, since she had consented), or confront the boy, or “move beyond this.” Hannah recognized that none of these “solutions” would help her, but she didn’t know what else to do. In a society where we refuse to talk about the moral implications of premarital sex, or the value of repentance, I found this scene all too believable.

Parents should give some serious thought to whether their kids can handle this book, and if they do decide to let their teens read it, I would strongly advise that they read it together. It could lead to productive family discussions about problems that teens face (Asher says in a Q&A, in the most recent edition, that many teens say the book has helped them deal with such problems), but only if parents are willing to walk through it with them.

For Further Information:

“Thirteen Reasons Why” inspired the “Thirteen Reasons Why Project,” where teens are encouraged to share their thoughts and feelings about the book.

Also, the book is currently being developed into a movie, starring Selena Gomez.

Image copyright Razorbill. Review copy obtained from the reviewer’s local library.

Gina Dalfonzo is editor of BreakPoint.org and Dickensblog.

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Articles on the BreakPoint website are the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the opinions of BreakPoint. Outside links are for informational purposes and do not necessarily imply endorsement of their content.

The Things We Share

 

AN EVANGELICAL LOOKS AT CATHOLICISM

12/31/13

I keep a rosary in the drawer of my bedside table.

It’s not that I use it to pray. As a lifelong evangelical Protestant in good standing, I don’t even know how to pray the rosary.

This rosary belonged to my Grandpa Tony. It’s the only thing I have of his—not counting the beautiful wooden doll chair he made for me, or the card in his tiny, cramped handwriting that he sent when I had appendicitis, or the little gadget he constructed to extract the toast from the toaster. Those are all things that he gave to me or my parents, but the rosary was something he owned and used. It was part of his life. That’s one reason I keep it.

But that’s only part of a larger reason. The rosary is a reminder not just of my grandfather, but also of his faith. And that faith matters to me. Though I grew up in a different tradition, I like to focus on the things we had in common—like the fact that he worshiped the same God that I do.

That’s a contentious thing to say these days. I wish it weren’t. It pains me when I hear some evangelical Protestants say things like “Catholics have crucifixes because they ignore the importance of the Resurrection.” (No, they don’t.) Or “Catholics don’t pray to God.” (Except when they do.) Or talk about how Catholics used to torture and kill Protestants, without mentioning that Protestants used to return the favor. Or refer to “Catholics and Christians.” (My favorite response to this comes from John Fischer’s novel “Saint Ben”: “‘. . . In 249 A.D. [Catholics] were the only Christians around. You either believed or you didn’t.’”)

In an old episode of “Mystery Science Theater 3000,” there’s a scene where a bunch of vampires throw a victim onto a ritual bonfire, and show host Mike Nelson quips, “This is what Southern Baptists think Catholic Mass is like.” It cracks me up because, exaggerated as it is, there’s a kernel of truth in there. I heard many a horror story about Catholicism at my Baptist high school. And I continue to hear them from various quarters today.

Out of ignorance, or misinformation, or sometimes just a fervent desire to separate themselves from error, many well-intentioned evangelical Christians believe and spread gross untruths about Catholicism. In my experience, many are unwilling to engage with Catholics themselves on these issues; they prefer to get their information, such as it is, secondhand.

I couldn’t do that if I wanted to. Though my parents left the Catholic Church before I was born, Catholicism, for good and ill, has been part of my life as long as I can remember. I’m surrounded by Catholic relatives, co-workers, and friends. I attended two years of Catholic school, where I was taught by a loving and gentle nun—and I grew up hearing my parents’ tales of Catholic school in the 1950s, with nuns who were anything but gentle. My great-aunt Sister Mary Anunciata used to collar me at family reunions and tell me my mother was doing me wrong by raising me as a Protestant, while I squirmed uncomfortably. (I did say “for good and ill,” didn’t I?)

And every time I stayed with my father’s parents, I attended Mass with them. I did the standing and the kneeling and the rest of it. So although I’m no expert on the Catholic faith, I’ve seen enough to feel baffled and bemused by some evangelicals’ confident—and wrong—ideas about it.

Of course, I don’t want to let my personal stake in this issue interfere with my judgment. I’m not arguing that, just because I dearly loved my grandfather, whatever he believed must have been true. What I am saying is that what I have seen and heard from Catholics doesn’t match what some evangelicals are saying about them. And on a larger scale, I’m suggesting that the Catholic faith doesn’t deserve to be treated like the redheaded stepchild of Christianity.

Especially when we evangelicals often end up unwittingly paying tribute to Catholicism anyway. Every time we quote our beloved C. S. Lewis, we’re quoting a man who was led to Christianity mainly by two Catholics: specifically, by the arguments of J. R. R. Tolkien and the writings of G. K. Chesterton. Speaking of Tolkien, every time we talk about the Christian worldview of The Lord of the Rings, we’re talking about the worldview of a Catholic. When Protestant evangelicals helped to make “The Passion of the Christ” a runaway success, we were promoting a movie made by a troubled but believing Catholic, and starring a devout Catholic.

Commendably, some evangelicals are aware enough and honest enough to speak openly about the debt we owe to our Catholic brothers and sisters. Just recently, Russell Moore wrote an insightful article for CNN titled “Why Christians Need Flannery O’Connor.” In his tribute to this “morbid, quirky Catholic” who was among the greatest 20th-century American writers, Moore celebrates the authenticity and realism of her faith. He even has a bit of fun with one of her quips about the Baptists—his own denomination.

I’m not trying to deny the differences between Protestantism and Catholicism. They’re very real and very important. Even Chuck Colson and Father John Neuhaus, in their seminal document Evangelicals and Catholics Together, acknowledged as much: “Our communal and ecclesial separations are deep and long standing. We acknowledge that we do not know the schedule nor do we know the way to the greater visible unity for which we hope.” They added, however, “We do know that existing patterns of distrustful polemic and conflict are not the way.”

Nor do I want to be one of those evangelicals who try to turn Catholicism into the latest hot trend, just because it’s different, or exotic, or because Pope Francis is kind to the poor or talks about sex differently from his predecessors. Catholicism is not a rare orchid or a purse dog; it’s a holistic belief system, and a rigorous one at that. Those who forget this may end up biting off more than they can chew. Personally, I find quite a few insurmountable difficulties in that system, which is why I remain an evangelical.

But despite all the teachings I don’t understand or don’t agree with, I believe that there’s truth in the Catholic Church, and that this truth is a valuable common ground where evangelicals and Catholics can come together and try to do away with those “patterns of distrustful polemic and conflict.”

What truth is that? I hear some of my evangelical friends asking. This truth: the truth in the creed that I heard when I sat and stood and knelt beside my grandparents at their church. As a child, reciting this creed with them, I would scrupulously leave out the word “catholic,” thinking it didn’t apply to me. Even after I found out that little-c “catholic” meant something different from big-c “Catholic,” I still hesitated over it. Yet I could recite the rest of it without reservation.

We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth, of all that is seen and unseen.
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God,
begotten, not made, one in Being with the Father.
Through him all things were made.
For us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven:
by the power of the Holy Spirit
he was born of the Virgin Mary, and became man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered, died, and was buried.
On the third day he rose again in fulfillment of the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end.
We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son.
With the Father and the Son he is worshipped and glorified.
He has spoken through the Prophets.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come. Amen.

A quiet though affectionate man, Tony Dalfonzo rarely talked about his beliefs or anything else that mattered deeply to him. Yet he must have spoken these words thousands of times in his life. Now I keep his rosary near me, as a reminder of the things we shared.

Image courtesy of KDVR.

Gina Dalfonzo is editor of BreakPoint.org and Dickensblog. Special thanks to Marlena Graves and Lesa Engelthaler for their feedback and help.

The Joy of the Ordinary

 

THE GIFT AND THE VISION OF GENE KELLY

8/23/12

You dance joy. You dance love. You dance dreams. —Gene Kelly

I must have been 11 or 12 the first time I saw him, on a video rented from the library. I remember a dazzling smile, and dancing like nothing I’d ever seen before, and an energy that seemed electric enough to let him burst right through the screen in front of my wide eyes.

And I remember walking around afterwards in something of a daze, as if the afternoon—a perfectly ordinary afternoon—had been transformed into something wonderful.
Gene Kelly, born 100 years ago today, tends to have that effect on people. That film in which I first saw him, “Singin’ in the Rain,” “runs on happy juice,” as film reviewer Austin Takahashi puts it. As for the man who was the star, co-director, and choreographer of that film, Takahashi writes, “At one point . . . I thought to myself: ‘Wow. Whatever made this guy feel that way, I want it too.’”

After more than two decades of watching and loving Gene Kelly’s movies, I know that feeling well. Whatever emotion Kelly’s character feels, he can’t contain it—it explodes from him in a flurry of movement and music, sweeping up everyone around him. And joy is the emotion he does best. He can take something as personal and private as falling in love—something that a lot of movies try to teach us should narrow our field of view to just ourselves and the beloved one—and pull the whole world into his excitement and happiness.

Watch him in this number from It’s Always Fair Weather, for instance, after a new love has turned his life upside down. There’s a moment when he suddenly remembers that he has roller skates on (only in the movies!), and realizes that people are watching him . . . and then he shrugs off the self-consciousness and gives them the show of their lives.

But Kelly didn’t just save his emotion for romantic dances. Any dancer could do that; many dancers had done that. The dancer to whom he’s most often compared, Fred Astaire, had reached the breathtaking pinnacle of that particular art form. It took Gene Kelly to come along and transcend it altogether, not just by moving film dance away from formal sets and stages and out into the streets, but by dancing with everyone, and dancing about everything.

He did away with the hundreds of clone-like chorus members who populated earlier film musicals, and he danced not just with love interests, but also with buddies, with children, with elderly ladies—with anyone who could keep up, and with many who couldn’t but had fun trying. And he could be inspired by anything: by a desire to liven up a dull speech lesson, or a career suddenly saved from disaster, or something as simple as a squeaky board and a newspaper. Sarah Crompton in the Telegraph speaks of “the way dance sprang from circumstance and looked as normal as breathing” in his movies. Romance, friendship, work, and play were all reasons for a Kelly character to dance. It was his gift to elevate the ordinary, by finding and sharing the joy hidden in it.

In a delightful article for the Washington Institute for Faith, Vocation & Culture, the Rev. Dean Miller identifies this tendency by examining the opening sequence of “An American in Paris”:

We see Kelly begin his day with a beautifully choreographed dance around his very cramped space; opening his eyes, pulling up his bed, yawning, grabbing his towel and kicking away his chair, pulling out his table, setting the table, eating his breakfast. There is not a wasted motion.

It took me a while before I realized what was happening, but being forced to watch it over and over again was a gift. The scene became more beautiful, not less, with each viewing and I finally caught on that Kelly was not waking up, he was dancing. And in this dancing he was bringing amazing dignity to the everyday movements required of each of us, bringing beauty and imagination and creativity to his world and work. The small acts of awakening suddenly took on elegance.

Of course, celebrating the ordinary hardly means settling for mediocrity. Kelly’s perfectionism was legendary: His friend and three-time co-star Frank Sinatra called him “my wild Irish slavedriver,” and Debbie Reynolds and others have told vivid stories about how hard he worked his dancers. But without that constant push for perfection, he never could have been as generous as he was to his co-stars—he polished them until he was able to stand back and let them shine onscreen. And without pushing himself even harder than he pushed others, he never could have created so many moments of beauty.

Watch him perform “Almost Like Being in Love” from “Brigadoon”; he may be dancing on dirt, but he’d never use that as an excuse to get sloppy. Every movement is exquisitely finished, from the tipping of his hat to the pointing of his toes. His character is dancing only for a few farm animals and a bewildered Van Johnson, but he’s giving them an unparalleled moment of grace.

I use the word in more than one sense. Kelly was a lapsed Catholic, but I can’t help thinking that the faith in which he was raised had given him something that, whether he knew it or not, helped inspire his creative gift. I think that what we Christians call the “common grace” of God, His showering of gifts upon believers and nonbelievers alike, allowed Gene Kelly to find grace in the common things of life. Something in his dancing brings “the stab, the pain, the inconsolable longing” that make up C. S. Lewis’s definition of joy.

As Miller reflects on that sequence from “An American in Paris,” “The clip of Kelly became a visual reminder, a balletic Brother Lawrence reminding me that even the smallest movement can take on grace and give God glory as we dance as he does.” If it’s true for Gene Kelly, it’s true for all of us with whom he shared his priceless gift: that each moment of our lives—yes, even the rainy days—can give us reason to dance.

Image copyright Turner Entertainment Co. 

Gina Dalfonzo is editor of BreakPoint.org and Dickensblog.

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Articles on the BreakPoint website are the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the opinions of BreakPoint. Outside links are for informational purposes and do not necessarily imply endorsement of their content.

Love under a Cloud

‘THE LAST FIVE YEARS’ IS ENTERTAINING, BUT DARKENED BY FATALISM

2/16/15

The new film “The Last Five Years,” a musical that tells the story of a romantic relationship, begins just as that relationship is ending. We see Cathy, the wife (Anna Kendrick), sitting alone in a darkened apartment and reading her husband’s farewell letter, as she sings, “Jamie is over and Jamie is gone/Jamie’s decided it’s time to move on/Jamie has new dreams he’s building upon/And I’m still hurting. . . .”

Which creates a jolt when suddenly it’s a bright, sunny day, and a younger Cathy is fervently making out with Jamie (Jeremy Jordan) on the stoop.

“The Last Five Years,” based on Jason Robert Brown’s Off-Broadway musical of the same name, has an unconventional structure that keeps taking us abruptly back and forth in time. In Cathy’s part of the story, we travel from the end of the relationship back to the beginning; when Jamie is the focus, we’re moving forward from the beginning to the end.

As one would expect, it’s not always easy to follow the narrative, though the filmmakers try to help us out with different lighting and different hairstyles for the lead actors in the different parts of the story, and a shot of the New York City skyline every time a transition is coming up. Still, this way of telling it offers the viewer an interesting and unusual perspective on this relationship, in which both characters tend to suffer from a lack of perspective.

For instance, when we’ve already seen the failure of the relationship through Cathy’s eyes, the subsequent showing of how it began seems littered with red flags. In a number set during their first sexual encounter at her apartment, Jamie sings exuberantly about how she’s the first girlfriend he’s had who isn’t Jewish like him:

“If you had a tattoo, that wouldn’t matter
If you had a shaved head, that would be cool
If you came from Spain or Japan
Or the back of a van
Just as long as you’re not from Hebrew school
I’d say, ‘Now I’m getting somewhere!
‘I’m finally breaking through!'”

Jamie’s eagerness to break free from his heritage reflects his restless, driven spirit. That drive helps him get his first book published at 23, achieve major success with it, and start a relationship with Cathy, all at once (for this stage of his life, he gets a song called “Moving Too Fast”). But that same restless spirit makes him start to feel uncomfortable as soon as he’s married to her. Though he loves his wife, he finds monogamy unexpectedly stifling — especially as his book’s success leads to plenty of meetings and parties where he’s surrounded by attractive women:

“And in a perfect world
A miracle would happen
And every other girl would fly away
And it’d be me and Cathy,
And nothing else would matter
But it’s fine, it’s fine, it’s fine
I mean, I’m happy
And I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m fine
It’s not a problem
It’s just a challenge
It’s a challenge to resist
Temptation . . .”

Cathy, for her part, finds herself resenting Jamie’s successful career as her own career stagnates. Her frustration at her repeated failures as an actress leads to the film’s funniest scene, as she skypes Jamie from Ohio — the only place she’s able to find acting work — to complain about various aspects of life there, including “sharing a room with a former stripper and her snake, Wayne.” But that resentment and frustration, unchecked, ultimately have serious consequences: After a certain point, she can no longer bring herself to support and encourage her husband in his work. Although back in the first scene she sang of being “covered with scars I did nothing to earn,” as we trace her journey back to the beginning, we see that she too bears some responsibility for the marriage’s failure.

“The Last Five Years” has enjoyable songs and vibrant performances from two very talented leads, but because we know from the first what’s going to happen, the whole endeavor has a fatalistic feel. It’s as if this relationship was doomed from the start, and that makes it increasingly painful to watch Cathy, as her story moves backward in time, appearing increasingly starry-eyed and hopeful. The film wraps up with a number showcasing the two of them at opposite ends of the story: Jamie writes his letter of farewell to Cathy, as she, five years in the past, is seen celebrating their newfound love.

As Brown based this musical on his own short-lived first marriage, there was hardly any other way it could end. And he deserves credit for making his own fictional alter ego a very flawed character, and not putting all or even most of the blame on the character’s wife. But the problem with the story’s fatalism is that it ultimately seems to leave both spouses without choices, or real responsibility, or hope. As he’s writing his letter at the end, Jamie sings, “It’s not about another shrink/It’s not about another compromise,” but the nature of the film is such that we haven’t actually seen any shrinks, or any compromises, for that matter. We saw two characters who came together, were intensely happy for a short time, and then broke apart again.

“The Last Five Years” — which opened in limited release but is widely available via On Demand and iTunes — is a bold and entertaining little experiment in filmmaking. It takes advantage of the resurgence of the musical film (Kendrick may be the first performer in decades to build her career largely on movie musicals), but scales it way down from epics like “Les Miserables” and “Into the Woods” to something much more intimate and personal. But the cloud that hangs over the relationship — the fact that neither spouse has the commitment to truly fight for the marriage, or the ability to put the other person first — can’t help but cast a shadow over it all.

Image copyright RADiUS-TWC. “The Last Five Years” is rated PG-13 for sexual material, brief strong language, and a drug image.

Gina Dalfonzo is editor of BreakPoint.org and Dickensblog.

 

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Articles on the BreakPoint website are the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the opinions of BreakPoint. Outside links are for informational purposes and do not necessarily imply endorsement of their content.

Youth Reads: Tell the Wind and Fire

 4/22/16

BY SARAH REES BRENNAN

In a future New York City, society is divided between Light and Dark, and people are treated accordingly. Those who live behind walls in the Dark part of the city are referred to as “the buried ones”; they are feared and disliked, but they’re also necessary. The Lights and the Darks practice different kinds of magic, and each is dependent on the other for their very survival.

Lucie Manette is a Light magician, born in the Dark city. Her mother was murdered and her father arrested and tortured for violating the city’s laws; Lucie decided that she would stop at nothing to get him out.

Now they both live in the Light city, where Lucie is widely admired as a symbol of freedom for what she did for her father, but all she feels about it is guilt and anguish. She can’t fully enjoy her exciting new life with boyfriend Ethan, haunted as she is by memories of the past and by her father’s shattered state. And then a new threat appears in the form of Ethan’s doppelganger, Carwyn, and Lucie realizes that even what little safety and happiness she now has could be taken from her.
If Lucie’s name rings a bell, there’s a reason: Her story, “Tell the Wind and Fire,” is an update of Charles Dickens’ “A Tale of Two Cities.” Acclaimed Young Adult author Sarah Rees Brennan has taken Dickens’ classic story and created her own version, set in a fantasy world that nonetheless contains strong echoes of the turbulent French Revolution period from the original.

Brennan skillfully weaves in Dickens’ plot threads, character elements, and language to create a story that’s both a tribute to his book, and a compelling work all her own. More than that, she understands and shares many of his views about societal conflict. Like Dickens before her, Brennan commendably resists the urge to villainize or idolize either side in the battle between the haves and the have-nots. Both authors make a strong case, as the cycle of vengeance plays out in their respective novels, that there is good and bad on both sides, and that redemption and restoration can never come through hatred, no matter how justified it may be.

Watching her beloved aunt preparing to torture one of the cruel and powerful members of the Light ruling elite, Lucie realizes, “His hate was as futile as hers had been for years. The power might have changed sides, but there was hate on both sides, inescapable. I felt like I was choking on it.”

But also, both novels have a cynical main character who experiences his own redemption and saves others out of love, his sacrificial actions contrasting sharply with the cataclysmic hatred and rage around him. Seeing this sacrifice teaches Lucie, among other things, that “People will come up with a hundred thousand reasons why other people do not count as human, but that does not mean anyone has to listen.”

Also like “A Tale of Two Cities,” “Tell the Wind and Fire” contains violent episodes. In place of Dickens’ guillotines, for instance, Brennan portrays cages in which prisoners are pierced with spikes, sometimes lingering for days. As in Dickens’ novel, the violent scenes are not explicit, but they are memorable. Other content issues include sexual references, including mention of the sexual relationship between Lucie and Ethan; though both of them come across as older, they’re still both supposed to be teenagers, so the fact that all the adults in their lives are somehow completely fine with this seems more than a little odd. As for profanity, there’s only a very small amount.

“A Tale of Two Cities” contains explicit religious elements. There are fewer of these in “Tell the Wind and Fire.” Light is occasionally referred to as if it were a deity (though not one that anyone is actually shown worshiping), and there are a few mentions of Dark rituals, including the one that created the doppelganger Carwyn. Near the end, there’s a mention of sins being wiped away, and though it’s subtler than the religious language and imagery in Dickens’ novel — and it’s not made clear who is wiping them away — it’s still a strong and significant idea.

As well as being a moving and powerful novel in its own right, “Tell the Wind and Fire” makes a good stepping stone for teens who may then want to go on and read Dickens’ original work. (Over at Dickensblog I’ve posted a piece that goes more deeply into the parallels between the two. I’ve also posted an excerpt from Brennan’s novel.) Their shared message about the dangers of hatred, and the possibility of transcending it through love and forgiveness, is always a timely and important one, in any age.

Image copyright Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Review copy obtained from the publisher.

Gina Dalfonzo is editor of BreakPoint.org and Dickensblog.