Staring at Mortality

Death scenes make for potent drama, right? There's the death that causes one of the characters to rage against the heavens (as seen in many of these clips from The Lord of the Rings and the Star Wars series)...



There's the quiet passing and whispered goodbyes (this also from The Lord of the Rings at the request of my younger daughter)...



And then there are the scenes where the filmmaker shows us the quiet moments before death and lets the audience make the logical and emotionally wrenching conclusion about what will happen (like this scene from Titanic that always kills me)...



Why are so many of our stories filled with death? For one thing, it's a way to bring the story to a close. When the character dies, his or her story is finished. (Spoiler alert: Unless you're Gandalf.) It ties up a loose end in the plot and gives us greater insight into the characters, although that last bit comes very close to sounding like The Dark Knight's Joker. ("You see, in their last moments, people show you who they really are. So in a way, I know your friends better than you ever did. Would you like to know which of them were cowards?") I do think that it's somewhat true to say that at the end of your life, when there aren't any more personal consequences for what you say or what you do, you can really be yourself.

I guess that cinema mortality provides us with a safe space to contemplate our own inevitable demise and by extension what kind of person we want to believe we are, which is why a film like Seeking a Friend for the End of the World is so watchable. In it, everyone is faced with imminent doom so there's a reaction in there for everyone to identify with. (Warning: spoilers throughout.) There's suicide, assisted suicide, anger and rioting, no-holds-barred partying, denial, extreme denial through survivor mentality, hopeless resignation, and a final search for purpose and meaning. Somewhere in the film there's got to be a scene where people in the audience could say, "That's what I would do."

Maybe we'd have a series of reactions as we grieve for ourselves. We'd go through all of those stages - denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance - at our own pace and in our own order, but I think that all of us want to believe that when we finally come to our own end that we will have made it to acceptance. That's what kills me about the Titanic scenes - the acceptance. I know watching the movie from a historical perspective that nearly everybody on that boat is going to die; that some of them could find acceptance and peace in their final moments is the kindest blessing we could wish on them. So to see that blessing granted is almost like witnessing a miracle.

The end of Seeking a Friend similarly had me choked up. As Penny (Kiera Knightley) and Dodge (Steve Carell) lie in bed facing each other waiting for the meteor to collide with Earth and end all life, Penny is still bargaining. She doesn't think it's fair that she just found love; she just wants a little more time. This reaction elicits both empathy and tension from the audience. We have come to expect that love through adversity is rewarded in cinema. We want them to have more time together too, but at the same time we realize that the meteor is unstoppable. We tensely await the moment she accepts her fate because to leave her trapped forever in our minds in a state of anxiety is just too cruel.

It's Dodge who brings about a feeling of catharsis for both Penny and us. He brings her to accept both of their deaths. He reassures her that their destinies only came together BECAUSE they had so little time left - that the end of their lives also brought them the thing they had both been seeking: true love. Perhaps that sentiment is corny, but it is the other aspect of cinema deaths that we personally crave - meaning.

Our fiction is very good at providing meaning. Everything in a book, movie, or TV show is there for a reason; it has a purpose. And the deaths in these stories are imbued with meaning. They happen for a reason. That person's life and death had an effect on the universe. Someone was there to mourn them. Someone was there to shout, "NOOOOOO!"

And I think we all crave that for ourselves - the comforting knowledge that we had an effect, that we mattered, that someone else cared, that our lives had purpose and meaning. Cinema deaths allow us to experience that vicarious death. We are both the dying and bereaved. And we cry at movies, not just because a character that we have come to appreciate is leaving us, but because we are leaving them. But we leave knowing that we will be missed, which is really all we can ask of life.

So we continue to watch sad movies really because they give us hope for ourselves. As we vicariously experience the end of the character's lives, we too prepare ourselves to face death. Watching them meet their finality with grace, dignity, and acceptance, surrounded by people whom they have impacted,  gives us faith that such a thing can happen for us to. That, in our final moments, we too will receive that kindest of blessings.

Next up: Something less morbid: Neil Young whips his hair back and forth.

Louie, Like Abraham, Wrestles with God

Louie can be puzzling the first time you watch it. Louie is not a sitcom. It’s not a drama, it’s not a stand-up concert, it’s not an art film. Louie is just an experience like few others on television right now.

I have to admit that when I watched the first couple of episodes, I felt let down. Louie did not act like other tv shows I was watching. The comedy club footage made it seem like it was going to be like Seinfeld, but the stories weren’t really stories and they didn’t have jokes. The character of Louie wasn’t even always likeable, with his excessive profanity and extremely harsh and out of left-field “I’m just telling it like it is” observations. I wanted this Louis CK (star, director, writer, and editor of the series), but instead I got a guy who calls a kid who can’t open his milk “a little b***h.” Not to his face, mind you, but it still put me off a little.

I’m not sure what made me give the show another chance. I think it was because I wanted to watch a little tv, and Louie was the only short tv show in my Netflix queue. Something hit me when I watched “Playdate,” and that was that this show wasn’t trying to be tv, with some contrived plot and wacky neighbor – the kind of show Louis CK deliberately shows us he rejected in the second season episode “Oh, Louie.” This was a show where the stories are little filmed observations, sketches of moments, scenes of everyday life. Louie wanted to show life as it is – fragmentary, funny, puzzling, alienating, touching, evolving. It was TV not tv.

Of all which brings me to “God.” While the opening scene in the men’s room and the stand up about God’s relationship with Abraham were funny and set up the episode nicely, I want to focus on the main story. (I’m also skipping over these sections because they’re primarily where the rated R stuff comes into play.) In the main story – and there are spoilers ahead – we see nun teaching a young version of Louie learning about the torment and crucifixion of Jesus. He and his friend are not taking this discussion very seriously, which leads the nun to bring in a medical expert the next day to discuss in precise and graphic detail the physical suffering of Jesus. Louie’s friend is brought up to be the stand-in for Jesus, and at the end of the lesson, the doctor asks Louie to help him to crucify his friend for real.

It was at this point in the episode that I got very nervous. By this time in the season, grown-up Louie has been enough of a wise guy and had enough weird experiences that I honestly thought there was at least a possibility that young Louie would go through with it. Maybe he would think it was all a big set-up or that it was going to be some kind of magic trick. In any event, he doesn’t do it, at which point the doctor asks Louie why, if he can’t torture this rotten little kid, does he torture Christ with his sinning?

This question gives Louie nightmares as he remembers all of the sinning that he has done. In a moment of religious epiphany and sympathy he runs to the church, removes the nails from the crucified icon of Jesus and cradles it in his arms, begging for forgiveness. This moment was one of the most touching and deeply religious things I have ever seen on the television. You can see how, if you were expecting a traditional sitcom, you would totally be thrown for a loop.

In the morning, the nun cannot see Louie’s intentions, only his actions. She tells Louie’s mother that he has vandalized the church and suggests he be punished at home. Later, when Louie explains to his mother why he acted the way he did, Louie’s mother is horrified that the church would terrify her son that story in such a manner. She herself is not a Christian, but she recognized the importance of religion in other people’s lives and didn’t want to deprive her son of that aspect of his life. She doesn’t believe in Christ, but she does believe that his moral message of treating everyone kindly is the best path to follow.

So at this point, this episode has shown how a boy found his faith, how his faith was summarily dismissed by church leaders, and how his faith was replaced by a kind of humanism. How then to wrap all of this up? Louis CK leaves us with two small ambiguous endings, and this ambiguity makes the entire episode even better. After telling her son that there is no God, that it's enough just to be good to people, Louie's mom decides to take him out for some donuts. Except the car won't start, and they’re forced to sit there outside of the church. Just a coincidence? Another crappy event in an already crappy morning? Or is it some small sign from the petty God that Louis C.K. describes in his monologue that Louie and his mother cannot leave Him?

The second interesting coda is a very short shot where a volunteer nails Jesus back on the cross. Why include this shot? Does Louis CK just want to show that the statue was fixed after he tore it down? Does he mean it as a commentary on all of us, that we still willingly crucify Jesus? Is he participating in the debate of whether the appropriate symbol for the Christian church is one of Christ suffering (reminding us of our sinful nature) or of an empty cross (reminding us of absolution and the promise of rebirth)?

I think the answer to all of these questions depends on the person viewing the episode. Louie (and by extension Louis CK) comes across as agnostic, deeply suspicious of religion but not discounting it entirely. At the beginning of the episode, the questions he asks the man who is about to risk physical injury for “heaven” are the same questions any agnostic would ask a devoutly religious person: “Why would you do that?” “Why would you take that risk?”

These questions get at the heart of religious doubt. What purpose does religious worship serve? What happens if you devote a life to a God who ultimately doesn’t exist? What if you discover you’ve worshipped the wrong god or followed the wrong teachings or tried and failed to worship in a way that was pleasing to your god?

In this episode, Louie struggles to understand his relationship with God, in the same way that in other episodes he struggles to understand his relationships with his family, his friends, his kids, his neighbors, and everything else around him. In Louie, these struggles are honest, blunt, often funny, and sometimes not. Each show is an ambitious effort to depict an everyman’s struggle with existence. He may not even understand the fight and he certainly doesn’t always win it. But that’s what elevates this supposed “sitcom” into a rare and unique work of art.

Next up: Community: "Advanced Dungeons and Dragons" (Available on Hulu Plus)