“He Wishes to Think!”…and Maybe Dance with Mr. Kelly: Inherit the Wind A White Tower Review

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"He wishees to think!", Charles Darwin, Christianity, Courtroom Narrative, Dick York, Donna Anderson, Education, evolution, Evolution is not JUST a theory, Film, film review, Frederic March, Gene Kelly, Harry Morgan, Henry Drummond, history, Human evolution, Human Ideas are Grander than any Religion, humanity, Idealism, Individual Will, Inherit the Wind, Jerome Lawrence, John Thomas Scopes, Philosophy, Play, Political Discourse, Politics, Public Education, Public speech, religion, religious corruption, Robert E. Lee, Robert Osborne, Scopes Trial, Spencer Tracey, Spencer Tracy, Stanley Kramer, Turner Classic Movies

Honestly the most disappointing part of the film is the fact that Gene Kelly doesn’t tap dance.  The man shines as a wisecracking journalist who always has something clever or witty to say, but after a while I kept wondering what was keeping the man from dancing right in the middle of the courtroom.  I recognize that Inherit the Wind is based on an actual play and that drama typically avoids frivolities like dancing, singing, and general merriment, but I mean, it’s Gene Kelly.

One of the greatest pains about living with the cable package that I do is that I don’t get Turner Classic Movies.  Though I get plenty of other channels I usually wind up watching only PBS or Cartoon Network for Adult Swim, although I will admit without shame that Steven Universe and Adventure Time are also some of my favorites.  But I miss TCM because so much of my childhood was my parents turning the station on and then taking care of chores or other household tasks leaving me alone with Robert Osbourne who would introduce film after film with his encyclopedic knowledge of cinema history.  On one side note when Robert Osbourne passed away earlier this year it the first celebrity death which really made me cry because so much of my childhood was tied with that man.  TCM always promised wonderful movies, and it’s because of that channel that I eventually discovered films like Annie Hall, Spirited Away, The Seventh Seal, the original Scarface, The Great Dictator, and eventually Inherit the Wind.

Growing up in a private Christian school it’s nothing short of a miracle (though I despise using that poor word) that I ever came away knowing what evolution was, let alone what it argued.  Fortunately, I had a biology teacher who was a scientist as much as he was a Christian and so he taught us the scientific theory without remorse or shame.  When I got to college I eventually wound up tutoring biology and more or less teaching it for four years to freshmen and so in that time I managed to learn a great deal about the scientific principle, being able to argue against anyone who argued that it was “just a theory.”  During that time I met my wife, who herself is a biologist, and so recently when I discovered that the library had a copy of Inherit the Wind on DVD, I checked it out and showed it to her.

To be honest, she didn’t really respond much to it, and this is probably because I forgot that Inherit the Wind is more of a film about lawyers and philosophy than it is about the principle of evolution.

Based on the play by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee (no not the Civil War Era general, unless that man had a secret past historians
don’t know about) Inherit the Wind is based upon the Scopes Trial, sometimes referred to as the “Monkey Trial,” which took place in the early 1920s.  The case in question centered around a man named John Thomas Scopes who dared to teach his high school students about the theory of evolution despite there being a state law which prohibited the practice.  Inherit the Wind rewrites the case but insofar as it changes the names of the characters involves and loads the court proceedings with grand speeches about individual will and human initiative.

Most of these come from Henry Drummond the Clarence Darrow substitute played by Tracey in one of his most iconic roles.  Tracey shines continually during the film offering one beautiful statement after the other about the human race.  During one exchange he speaks with Matthew Harrison Brady whom he has called to the witness stand, and during his interrogation he offers this gem:

[challenged to say if he considers anything holy]

Henry Drummond: Yes. The individual human mind. In a child’s power to master the multiplication table, there is more sanctity than in all your shouted “amens” and “holy holies” and “hosannas.” An idea is a greater monument than a cathedral. And the advance of man’s knowledge is a greater miracle than all the sticks turned to snakes or the parting of the waters.

I regularly read the early essays that I wrote for White Tower Musings, and with some embarrassment, but not much, I recognize this exact sentiment dominates most of my writing.  I was reading a lot of Christopher Hitchens at the time and so the humanism just infected my prose.  But even after the embarrassing grammar errors have been corrected and I’m left with that rough early material I still find in my early arguments this exact position to be true in my heart.  I’ve written regularly about atheism, but never outright about my humanism.

I’ve developed into my own self and am now comfortable with who I am and what I believe.  My life is a godless one, and while there are some that would pity me for that I stand firm by the conviction that ideas are a far greater testament to humanity than any church or sermons preached therein.  The ideas of Marx, Freud, Hobbes, Beauvoir, Sartre, Camus, Voltaire, Steinem, Trotsky, Bradbury, McCloud, Nietzsche, and yes even Darwin constitute a greater monument to the capacities of human beings.  These ideas inspire and drive more personal ambition, innovation, discovery, and insight than any god could possibly do.  Ideas offer up new visions of reality, and this to me has always been far more interesting than any Psalm or Prophet.

The ultimate conflict with religion, and this comes from having grown up in it and reflecting upon the experience, is that it offers only one vision of reality: god is the source of everything.  Once one has accepted this worldview the achievements or discoveries of mankind becomes secondary.  What is the origin of life, god.  How did DNA develop, god.  Why should man be benevolent to his fellow creatures, god.  I could go on with this but I’m supposed to be writing about a film.  I’ll settle on the fact that religion as an ideology is constricting because it limits the ultimate potential of man into one single reality rather than leaving him open to new ideas, and when Christianity festers into the realm of politics it has a limiting effect on free will or free thought.

Drummond’s regular speeches note this when he further questions Brady about Cates and faith:

Matthew Harrison Brady: We must not abandon faith! Faith is the most important thing!

Henry Drummond: Then why did God plague us with the capacity to think? Mr. Brady, why do you deny the one faculty of man that raises him above the other creatures of the earth? The power of his brain to reason. What other merit have we? The elephant is larger; the horse is swifter and stronger; the butterfly is far more beautiful; the mosquito is more prolific. Even the simple sponge is more durable. But does a sponge think?

Matthew Harrison Brady: I don’t know. I’m a man, not a sponge!

Henry Drummond: But do you think a sponge thinks?

Matthew Harrison Brady: If the Lord wishes a sponge to think, it thinks!

Henry Drummond: Do you think a man should have the same privilege as a sponge?

Matthew Harrison Brady: Of course!

Henry Drummond: [Gesturing towards the defendant, Bertram Cates] Then this man wishes to have the same privilege of a sponge, he wishes to think!

This line alone has become its own sort of icon in terms of the legacy of the film.  Most of the “commercials” that saw on TCM would always have this one line, with Spencer Tracey making his grand and dramatic gestures.  And the word “grand” seems the most fitting in describing much of the approach of Inherit the Wind because so often the film feels like one speech after the other.  This can sometimes come at the expense of the narrative, but at the same time this doesn’t kill the film.

Ultimately Inherit the Wind is a courtroom narrative, and such stories tend to be limiting in terms of what a director can do in terms of narrative.  Within such narratives the viewer is given a lawyer, maybe two if the director wants to develop both sides of the case, and so the viewer is usually left becoming a member of the jury as they try to decide who’s side is right.  The exception to this would be To Kill a Mockingbird where the viewer is given no chance to see the opposing lawyer’s arguments because they know already that Atticus Finch is the “right” lawyer.  But the courtroom narrative is classic in that its origin are in antiquity.  The ancient Greeks are attributed with establishing most of the traditions  and foundations of Western civilization, and the use of the courts and rhetoric is perhaps one of the most crucial developments of their culture.  Though each city state was different in their application of the law, a policy existed in ancient Greece where, if a man found himself compelled to go to trial, he would be forced to act in his own defense or else serve as the prosecution.  As such a study of rhetoric wasn’t just something for leisure, it was of paramount importance to the individual citizen.  A man (because it was ancient Greece, don’t forget that) had to know how to arrange words so that he could defend himself.  The setting of the courtroom is one as old as recognizable civilization, and so while Inherit the Wind can feel like one long series of speeches, in the film’s defense, that’s exactly what a courtroom is.

Stanley Kramer who directs the film would only a year later direct the movie Judgement at Nuremberg which also starred Spencer Tracey and as in both films he manages to construct real characters outside of the courtroom so that the viewer isn’t left simply listening to speech after speech that are devoid of personal character.  The strength of Inherit the Wind isn’t just that it constantly sings the praises of humanism in defense of Darwinism, it is instead a film about a strained friendship that climaxes in a courtroom.

Henry Drummond and Matthew Harrison Brady are two old friends who have had a falling out because of their difference of opinion about religion.  In one scene the pair of them are rocking on the front porch of their hotel and discussing the nature of faith when Brady asks his friend a question:

Matthew Harrison Brady: Why is it, my old friend, that you’ve moved so far away from me?

Henry Drummond: All motion is relative, Matt. Maybe it’s you who’ve moved away by standing still.

The success of this scene is largely on Tracey, but then again, I’m biased in this capacity.  Tracey as an actor manages to convey a down-to-earth man who has ingested and processed the humanities and knowledge of mankind but not gone so far up his own ass that he’s lost the ability to shoot straight or be humble.  Inherit the Wind as a film is often a film about Henry Drummond and his attempt to level the people around him who have gotten so concerned with the religious abstract and one quote in particular seems the best demonstration of this.

Matthew Harrison Brady: [to Henry Drummond] They’re looking for something that’s more perfect than what they already have. Why do you want to take that away from them when it’s all they have?

Henry Drummond: As long as the prerequisite for that shining paradise is ignorance, bigotry and hate, I say the hell with it.

I’ve written, some would say too much, about my upbringing in East Texas and my observation of religious people so I won’t go back over stories that are beginning to become adages rather than accurate memory, but I will defend this line because I’ve heard this argument before.  “Even if god doesn’t exist it gives people hope,” is a line that reeks of false conviction and is in fact one of the most pathetic arguments I have ever heard.  If I can stay on topic, the film Inherit the Wind portrays Christianity often as an antithesis to reason and moral virtue and so the reader who believes in god may shout harrumph and not bother seeing the film.

I would hope they would consider the opposite.

Rather than being a film that does nothing but damn Christianity, the film in fact is a call for sanity.  I’ve seen by the example of a small handful, what can happen when those who are religiously inclined, open their minds and hearts to new ideas and allow their faith to deepen because of the challenges of science, technology, and discovery, and while I will continue to debate them about the foundation of their reality I will always respect their level head.  Inherit the Wind is not a film that damns Christianity, it only damns those who would prostitute religion for political gain.

The Christianity that is on display in the film is not a sane ideology, it is a bullying, stunted cancer that eats away at the people of Tennessee by leaving them terrified and in a place where progress is associated with the devil.

Drummond answers this in what is quite possible the most beautiful lines of the film:

Henry Drummond: Progress has never been a bargain. You have to pay for it. Sometimes I think there’s a man who sits behind a counter and says, “All right, you can have a telephone but you lose privacy and the charm of distance. Madam, you may vote but at a price. You lose the right to retreat behind the powder puff or your petticoat. Mister, you may conquer the air but the birds will lose their wonder and the clouds will smell of gasoline.”

There’s a great number of reasons for watching a film like Inherit the Wind, the largest being that it’s a film that helped establish the courtroom drama as a narrative structure.  But for my opinion Inherit the Wind is a beautiful film about humanism overcoming bigotry and the importance of individual integrity.  Even if the reader disagrees with the theory of Evolution and what it argues about the origin of human life, they would hopefully agree that an individual person has the right to believe what they want to believe and think what they want to think.  I believe that flat-earthers are idiots, but if they believe that the earth is flat and they have come to that decision on their own that I have no business telling them how to think.

It is when one uses violence or intimidation to justify their world view that action is necessary.  Hiring lawyers and going to court will not provide the satisfaction that might come from punching somebody right back in the nose, but it will keep more violence and bigotry from occurring.  The courtroom is a space where philosophy can be argued and defended against the cruel and fanatics.  It is a space where the ideas and progress of humanity can be argued and defended and where a man can stand up and say firmly, “I think.”

This year will mark 92 years since the original Scopes “Monkey” Trial, and a film like Inherit the Wind is wonderful reminder that even close to a century later we’re still having the discussion of evolution, and whether or not teachers should be allowed to teach it.  The clouds smell a little more like Gasoline, but there are far more people willing to stand up and say without shame or fear, that “I think.”

There’s also people like me who are still waiting for Gene Kelly to start tapdancing.  But you can’t always get what you want.

 

 

 

 

*Writer’s Note*

Having more or less taught biology for four years it’s important to make sure the reader knows this: Evolution is not JUST a Theory.  This unfortunate, bullshit line has been crafted by critics of evolution, however it demonstrates their ignorance of what a scientific theory actually is.  In the humanities a “theory” is just an idea about reality than can be easily accepted or rejected.  The reason for this is that in the humanities you are dealing with subjectivity of human experience.  What I see and believe is different from what the reader sees and believes and so we could look at the same painting by Rembrandt and come to different conclusions about what it means or what its origins were.

The humanities are SUBJECTIVE, while science and mathematics are OBJECTIVE.

If something is a Scientific Theory that means it has been tested literally millions of times by scientists all over the world who are trying to refute the conclusions of the original hypothesis.  This constant testing is not just an effort to disprove other people, it’s an effort to make sure that the facts that are being expressed by science are accurate.  Human beings can observe evolution in lab settings as well as the wild, and the mountains of evidence in the fossil record only further demonstrate the fact of evolution.  If something is a “theory” in science it is because scientists are firm in their conviction that it is a fact.  There is a “chance” that it could be refuted by new evidence, but it is a “chance” the way there’s a “chance” that I could go out on a date with Matthew Lewis.  It’s not that it isn’t possible, it’s just probably probably probably not going to happen, but, I can dream.

 

If the reader would like a more nuanced explanation of the difference between a scientific Law and Theory they can follow the link below to an article my wife found for me when I asked her about the difference:

https://www.livescience.com/21457-what-is-a-law-in-science-definition-of-scientific-law.html

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The Inconceivable Four: Divinity, Manhattan, the Monolith, and the Time Traveler

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"arrow of time", 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Brief History of Time, A Brief History of Time: From The Big Bang to Black Holes, Abram Adams, Alan Moore, Back to the Future, Bender, Bender's Big Score, Book Review, clocks, Comics, Cube, Dave Gibbons, Divinity, Dr. Manhattan, evolution, Film, film review, Fourth Dimension, Futurama, geometry, graphic novel, H.G. Wells, Human evolution, Literature, Math, Novel, Perception of Time, Philosophy, Reality, Role of Science Fiction in society, Science, science fiction, Space, Stanley Kubrick, State of Being, Stephen Hawking, The Monolith, The Time Machine, The Time Traveler, Third Dimension, time, Time Travel, U.S.S.R., Watchmen

I’ve tried once to explore the fourth dimension, but only in writing.  I was taking a creative writing course and riding the high of being one of the few top writers in the class.  This wasn’t ego on my part, because if it hasn’t been made apparent at this point in my life my fatal flaw is my inability to sing my own praises.  Whatever the case most of the students in the class would confide in me and tell me that they thought I was a great writer and the teacher seemed to support this sentiment, and riding that high I thought about Stanley Kubrick.

Kubrick is a bit of an acquired taste, and sometimes I do honestly believe some critics sing the man’s praises because they want to make other people think that they understand his creative ethos, but being a teenager I suffered the delusion that I would be a film director and so I began watching interviews with film makers who would often drop the man’s name.  On a small tangent my desire to be a director shifted after reading Slash’s autobiography and so for a number of years I suffered under the delusion that I could be a rock star.  This faded when I remembered I had little to no musical talent.  Kubrick was a film maker that I enjoyed because his narratives were so eclectic.  Looking at just few years he made in respective order: Paths of Glory, Sparticus, Lolita, Dr. Strangelove, 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange, and Barry Lyndon, and to put this in perspective he moved from a World War I epic to a gladiator rebellion, to a Pedophile capturing a young girl, to the Nuclear apocalypse, to a science fiction philosophy opera, to a dystopian nightmare, and finally to a period piece about an Irish peasant ascending to the British Nobility.

2001: A Space Odyssey is probably one of his best known films, though often because many people in the 70s got stoned and watched it with their kids.  What they missed in their induced state was that in his own way Kubrick was attempting to do what I tried in my own small essay about how we tell stories.

Human beings exist in the third dimension, and if I can remind you of your brief high school geometry class the third dimension’s quality is that it allows figures to move through space.  In the first dimension objects and organisms could only move to the left or right, whereas in the second objects could then move up and down left and right.  The Third dimension allows objects and organisms to move forward and back and they do this by moving through space.  Human beings exist and interact with a three dimensional reality, and it needs to be made clear this is a simplistic breakdown of a complicated philosophical, mathematical, and psychological problem.  Many scientists turned philosophers have mused about our three dimensional reality, and looking to inspiration from science fiction authors, the next frontier seems to be to understand if it possible to break into the reality of the fourth dimension who’s defining quality and nature is time.

Steven Hawking, the noted theoretical physicist and part-time Simpsons character, explores this in his book A Brief History of Time.  When I first read the book I was fresh out of high school and it should be noted that at the time I understood little if any of the actual text, however over time this changed.  That’s a bad joke so I’ll move on.  In a chapter dealing with wormholes, pockets of space in which it is believed human beings might, and a big emphasis on might there, be able to move through large stretches of the galaxy relatively quickly Hawking writes:

Because there is no unique standard of time, but rather observers each have their own time as measured by clocks that they carry with them, it is possible for the journey to seem to be much shorter for the space travelers than for those who remain on earth.  But there would not be much joy in returning from a spae voyage a few years older to find that everyone you had left behind was dead and gone thousands of years ago.  So in order to have any human interest in their stories, science fiction writers had to suppose that we would one day discover how to travel faster than light.  (161-2).

It’s important to note that, while Hawking is an unapologetic science fiction fan even once appearing on an episode of Star Trek, the passages immediately following this quote explains why these writers’ descriptions of travels through space and time were rather inaccurate or else impossible.  The problem of human beings entering or attempting to move through the fourth dimension is either plagued by the actual science, or the fact that actually passing into that dimension requires individuals who are willing to do so without concern of what they’re leaving behind.  As such I look back to Kubrick, but before I do I look to H.G. Wells.

Hawking actually bothers to mention Wells at the beginning of the chapter from which I received the previous quote, and the reason for this is Wells’s small novel The Time Machine.  The book is a slim narrative but contained within its pages is in fact some of the earliest inclinations of the science that men like Steven Hawking would write into reality.  Wells, it should be noted, is often considered one of the “founding fathers” of science fiction, and while it should be noted that there were other writers writing into similar territories and ideas, Wells work boosted the aesthetic of science fiction into something concrete and often inspired future engineers and scientists.  Looking at just the opening pages of The Time Traveler it’s incredible to see the man’s foresight:

“Can a cube that does not last for any time at all have a real existence?”

Filby became pensive.  “Clearly,” the Time Traveler proceeded,” any real body must have extension in four directions: it must have length, breadth, Thickness, and—Duration.  But through a natural infirmity of the flesh, which I will explain to you in a moment, we incline to overlook this fact.  There are really four dimensions, three which we call the three planes of Space, and a fourth, Time.  There is, however, a tendency to draw an unreal distinction between the former three dimensions and the latter, because it happens that our consciousness moves intermittently in one direction along the latter from the beginning to the end of our lives.  (4).

The” arrow of time” is a concept that is explored even outside the studies of physicists and mathematicians for poets and writers have been relying on that damned symbol almost since the first arrow was painted on a wall.  It should be noted that part of the reason for this is that the shape is incredibly phallic, but I don’t have the time to explain that all of history is just men measuring dicks.

The Time Machine made its first appearance in 1895 and, according to some, effectively established the genre of science fiction though this last point is debatable.  What’s still incredible about the book is how well Wells managed to explain out the idea of dimensions in just one paragraph.  Employing the “arrow of time” in order to convince his companions about his ideas concerning the fourth dimension, The Time Traveler, who is never named by the narrator thus launching him into the territory of archetype, manages to begin the first question: can man step out of his comfort in the third dimension in order to see his potential.

That last word has been chosen carefully as I get closer to my later conclusions.

But along with his observations of the abstract concept of time the Time Traveler also makes a fascinating observation about human beings:

“Well, I do not mind telling you I have been at work upon this geometry of Four Dimensions for some time.  Some of my results are curious.  For instance, here is a portrait of a man at eight years old, another at fifteen, another at seventeen, another at twenty-three, and so on.  All these are evidently sections, as it were, Three Dimensional representations of his Four-Dimensional being, which is a fixed and unalterable thing.  (6).

From here the Time Traveler makes his argument that it would be possible for man to break free from the “arrow of time” from which he is forever caught by his perceptions, and, given the supposed hypothetical conditions, almost anything could be possible, specifically time travel.  Because this is the late Victorian period and science had only proceeded so far The Time Traveler produces the Time Machine, and it’s important to note how that dates the book, but not necessarily in a bad way.  It’s through an external device or machine that man is going to be able to achieve his destiny and this idea of man riding a kind of time traveling vessel is not outdated for the Back to the Future movies proved that this concept is still alive and well.  What changed over time is revealed in this second quote.

The Time Traveler notes that human beings are three-dimensional beings but that is only because they haven’t unlocked the ability to see and observe their true potential.  This is actually a brilliant idea being expressed that, while it has enormous philosophical implications, seems to counter act the very necessity of a time machine. Simply put, human beings are Fourth-Dimensional creatures they just haven’t realized how to actually tap into that reality. Human beings typically perceive their existence like a three dimensional cube.  They recognize the length, width, and girth of the physical space they occupy, but because they can only perceive time as an arrow moving through time they don’t recognize that they are actually able to be a four-dimensional cube, a shape that, in its true form is malleable and constantly regenerating itself.  I don’t want to suggest that this is immortality, but the direction two science fiction narratives have taken seems to be just that.

I had no real intention of reading Divinity because before I saw the advertisement in the back of Faith Vol.1 I had no idea that it actually existed.  The image of an astronaut, later revealed to be a cosmonaut, caught me because despite my trepidation I do actually enjoy science fiction stories they just have to be grounded in or around planet Earth or its history.  I asked my friend Michael (one of the three Michael’s I know and talk to regularly) what the book was about seeing as how he is the go-to Valiant expert.  His exact description was: “I mean, I liked it. If you ever watched 2001 and were like “man, this sure would be better as a superhero comic”, well, that’s Divinity in a nutshell.”  Given the fact that I loved 2001: A Space Odyssey (though let’s be fair I really like the idea of it far more than the actual film) I was intrigued and so I bought the book a week later and devoured it in four days.  The only reason it took four was because I tend to read books one chapter at a time per day; it helps me get through a lot of books.

Divinity is about a cosmonaut named Abram Adams who assigned a top secret task of being launched into space.  The U.S.S.R., desperate to defeat the Americans launches Adams to the very edge of the galaxy and when he arrives at his destination after years of isolation and Cryogenic stasis he encounters an energy force, a plane of white light that some would call god and other might refer to as the ground of being, that enters his body and alters his consciousness.  Abrams effectively becomes a god but what’s most important is the fact that the story is told is a splintered fashion.  Rather than follow Adams and then show MI-6 sending in The Eternal Warrior and X-O Manowar to take him down, Matt Kindt writes the book so that events are taking place in the past, in the present, in the future, in individual’s imaginations, and in people’s memories all at the same time.

Abram Adams hasn’t just become just a superhero, his has accessed his fourth dimensional being.

Reading Divinity I was struck by how much I thought of the graphic novel Watchman and my favorite character from that book Dr. Manhattan.

Watchmen was published through the years of 1986 through 1987 in twelve installments, which is rather fitting given the clock imagery deliberately inserted throughout the book.  If the reader has never read it before that’s a terrible shame because there really are few great books in existence and Watchmen most certainly fits that category.  The graphic novel follows a group of superheroes in the year 1985 right after one of them, the sociopath ex-government agent The Comedian, is thrown from his apartment window and killed.  From there the characters Rorschach, Silk Specter, Night Owl, Ozymandias, and Dr. Manhattan each in their own way try to discover who is trying to kill former superheroes and why, while in the background a nuclear war is looming against the U.S.S.R. and President Richard Nixon seems only to be baiting and encouraging it.  There’s also a pirate comic book that’s being read throughout the text but that’s for another essay.  While each hero has at least one issue dedicated to them, it was the Dr. Manhattan chapter that always intrigued me (Rorschach’s is really fun too, though I use the word “fun” loosely) because it’s written from his perspective after he retreats from planet earth to live on Mars.  Dr. Manhattan is more or less a god and became so after he was working on a particle physics experiment that went horribly wrong and ripped every atom of his body apart.  He eventually pulled himself back together and became Dr. Manhattan, but what’s most important about his character’s chapter is its narrative structure.

Like Divinity, Dr. Manhattan is experiencing the past, present, and future seemingly all at the same time and looking at just a few passages from the book it becomes clear that his perception of time far exceeds human understanding.

I should finally address my contester however, for they remind me that most people cannot or will not perceive anything outside their own dimension.  What the point, or why should I care about books that are written about people outside of my own perception?  It’s impossible for human beings to break free from the “arrow of time” and spending your life trying clearly will only leave you isolated or destroyed or alienated from society, so why not try and enjoy your life?

These are all excellent points, and to be fair I’m not sure I have a satisfying answer to them.  Carpe Diem, or seize the day, may be a platitude but it’s one that leaves average people generally satisfied and happy with their lives.  Human beings have yet to reach a point in their evolution so that they would be able to access the Fourth-Dimensional being that they are, and it’s likely that such a stage is hundreds, if not thousands, of years away anyway, but books and films like Divinity, The Time Machine, Watchmen, and even 2001: A Space Odyssey try to offer up ideas of how human beings might access that next level.  For the most part it seems that humans will have to wait until a supernatural entity, whether it’s the black monolith or the white plane, arrives and bestows knowledge of being to them, but at least in the case of Watchmen and The Time Machine there’s an idea that, through their own devices, humans might make the next step themselves.  Even if it is through technology, humans might be able to expand their awareness and being and that’s an important idea, because in many ways we’re already trying to do just that.

Steven Hawking ends A Brief History of Time with a thought concerning the future of physics, philosophy, and possibly that of mankind:

Up to now, most scientists have been too occupied with the development of new theories that describe what the universe is to ask the question why.  On the other hand, the people who business it is to ask why, the philosophers, have not been able to keep up with the advancements of scientific theories.

He concludes then:

However, if we do discover a complete theory, it should in time be understandable in broad principle by everyone, not just a few scientists.  Then we shall all, philosophers, scientists, and just ordinary people, be able to take part in the discussion of the question why it is we and the universe exist.  If we find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason-for then we would know the mind of God.  (191).

The purpose of science fiction is largely to ask questions either about the nature of human beings, or their future.  While many have taken the opportunity to explore thought experiments and the more morbid conclusions concerning the future of humanity a few select have decided to question what if human beings could become more and explore a new dimension of being?  A while the general conclusion is that the result of this experiment would result in alienation or some kind of self-destruction I would argue that that reaction is rooted more in those left behind than those moving forward.

The closest success human beings have made in understanding this new state of being is fiction, and that’s perhaps the most telling but also the most encouraging.  Scientific enterprise depends upon imagination, and as more and more writers explore the notions of time travel and accessing new states of being, so too will scientists who will change our world in ways we can’t possibly even imagine.

Though if we ever get to the point where we start sending Bender back in time to steal precious masterpieces, we may have taken it a step too far.

 

 

*Writer’s Note*

While I was working on this review I found this essay on The New Yorker Website.  Enjoy:

http://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/hearing-and-seeing-2001-a-space-odyssey-anew

 

**Writer’s Note**

I’ve included links to three videos below.  The first is the “star gate” sequence of 2001: A Space Odyssey

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ou6JNQwPWE0

The second link is the final three minutes of the film in which the astronaut Dave ascends to a new state of being:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXS8P0HksQo

I’ve also found a small documentary a YouTuber produced in which he explains the Monolith.  This interpretation, as he notes, created a bit of a controversy because many fans loved the idea but certain film scholars didn’t.  I’ve posted Part 1 here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSo6s_xrj4c

JAWS From The Abyss: The Nightmares of Land Monkeys

Tags

Boobs, evolution, fear, Film, Great White Sharks, Herman Melville, Infinity, isolation, JAWS, Literature, Moby Dick, ocean, Philosophy, Richard Dreyfuss, Rob Zombie, Roy Scheider, sharks, Sperm Whales, Steven Spielberg

If a film can scare the pants off of Rob Zombie, then you know for a fact that it’s either brilliant, terrifying, or a combination of both. The movie JAWS recently celebrated its 40^th anniversary and as part of a promotional event TCM hosted a nationwide showing of the movie in various select theaters across the country. Since my father saw the film when it first came out, we decided to go watch it in the theater as part of a fathers day party. But before I can continue I have to tell my “JAWS Story.”

My father is a loving, intelligent man, but for whatever reason he had trouble figuring out the change-the-channel button on the T.V. remote. One night, when I was about the age of five or so, the movie JAWS was on, and the film had just hit that part when the shark sinks the ship. I was spared the scene of Quint’s demise, where blood squirts from his mouth before the final crunch and he’s dragged under, but before Dad could change the channel I watched Brody run into the sinking boat and a great white shark burst into the water filled boat snapping its huge jaws. At that age images in film a magical realism defined by hyperbole.

I didn’t see a fake shark. I saw a real live monster trying to eat a human being.

And then Dad changed the channel. Well, this story would just be sad if it wasn’t for what followed just a few weeks later. We went to Pasadena where my grandparents lived, the Texas city by the way not the one in California, and my grandfather decided to take us out on the ocean for the day. This would have been fine, if his boat didn’t happen to look almost exactly like The Orca, Quint’s ship, and if the waves hadn’t been so rocky. Picture if you will, a frightened five year old boy, sitting inside a boat imagining only a giant real life shark will, at any minute, burst through the walls of the rocking boat to eat me up.

The plot line of JAWS, for those who haven’t seen it, is pretty basic. A shark begins to attack the beaches of a small island town in New England that depends on Summer tourists for its economic survival. A shark is caught, but still the attacks continue until the Sheriff, a man by the name of Brody, hires a local fisherman who specializes in catching sharks. Quint, along with a aquatic biologist by the name of Hooper go out to catch the shark, and eventually discover it’s a 25 foot, three ton, Great White. What follows is perhaps one of the most epic fights in movie history as the three men try to catch it, try to kill it, and finally, as their boat is sinking into the ocean, try to outlive it. Well as you can guess they kill the shark, but not until Captain Quint has been eaten, and Chief Brody literally blows the shark up with an oxygen tank and an old Garand rifle after barking one of the most quoted bad-ass lines in cinema history, “Smile you son of-!”

Now no matter how many times I see the movie JAWS there is one feeling that never changes: I’m always terrified watching the movie. Now some might immediately ask, REALLY? Like, dude, for real? That shark was like, sooooo fake, I mean you could tell. It didn’t even look like a real shark.

Now this poorly spoken critic is absolutely right. After a few years your childish fear of the actual shark begins to break when you take a closer look at it. In fact we’ve grown so comfortable with it we’re plastering it over women’s breasts now.  You don’t believe me?  Really?  The lady on the left says otherwise.

The shark is obviously fake, but that fear is not what bothers me.

The opening scene in the film is of two young teenagers going skinny dipping. The young man passes out drunk before he can enter the water, while the young girl swims out into open waters. Now anybody who knows anything about the background of the film knows that originally Steven Spielberg wanted to have a real life mechanical shark to attack people. BUT, to quote Mick Jaggar, you can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you might find, you get what you need. The three mechanical sharks were largely duds, the first in fact actually sank and had to be recovered by scuba divers, the second shark exploded, and the third and final version, a shark named Bruce, just didn’t work. Even well into the movie the technical engineers could at most get Bruce to open and close his mouth or blink.

With this in hand, the young Spielberg was forced into a creative corner of how to actually have a shark, without an shark. The decision was to suggest there was a shark, and with the help of John Williams’s iconic melody (two notes was all it took to make an entire generation afraid to even go to the toilet for fear of water) JAWS became a box office sensation. The girl is ripped apart and dragged beneath the water, and we didn’t even see a single tooth.

Now this suspense is often the most cited source of anxiety in movie goers. Because all you see is the shark’s perspective, and the haunting two-note nightmare melody constantly humming menacingly throughout the film, people are terrified by what is about to happen.

This, is not what terrifies me about JAWS anymore.

Well what then, sir, scares you about this movie?

The answer can be found in Moby Dick.

Now Moby Dick is distinct from the film JAWS for one primary reason, the vast diversity of its audience. JAWS literally broke box office records and held that title for at least two years before STAR WARS was released. Moby Dick, is one of three books PhD’s supposedly lie the most about actually reading (the other two are Ulysses and Finnegan’s Wake). If such is the case, how could Moby Dick have anything in common with this film?

For starters Moby Dick was actually going to be in the movie. The introduction of Quint, a character likened to Ahab for his obsession with sharks, was originally going to be him laughing in a movie theater while watching the Gregory Peck film based on the book. Due to licensing issues however Spielberg couldn’t get this shot in the movie and instead Quint came into the story with the iconic scene of scratching his nails across a chalkboard during the city council meeting. While I watched the movie I noted that, at Quint’s Death when he’s literally in the jaws of the Great White, there’s a shot of him digging a machete into the beast, reminiscent of Ahab’s final struggle against the White Whale.

But the moment that most likens to Moby Dick is during the final challenge against the shark when Richard Dreyfuss’s character Hooper plans on setting up the shark cage and trying to poison it with toxins embedded into the hollow chamber of a spear. He’s lowered into the water, and once there the audience is able to really feel the ancestry of our species.

Anyone that has dipped their ears into a pool, or below the water level in the tub, knows the sensation of sound underwater. Waves struggle to move through liquid as quickly as they do through gas, that’s one of the reason’s why when noise happens under the water, it sounds diluted or dream like. Along wth this there is the inifinity of the ocean that hits us. If it is a lake or a river, there’s an understanding of boundries and the individual has the collateral that the shore is nearby I’ll be okay, I can always just move a few feet and be back on land. The ocean doesn’t afford human beings that liberty, in fact it takes it away from us. Being deep in distance of the ocean is like the abyss of space, and being isolated has the psychological effect of creating paranoia. Shapes appear and disappear in the water, and the most haunting moment of the cage scene is watching the shark swim away and slowly vanish out of sight. The land monkey knows the creature is still there, that’s its hungry, and we are far from help.

Watching this scene again reminded me of a chapter in Moby Dick entitled The Castaway. In the novel there is a young black boy by the name of Pip. He exhibits many of the characteristics of boys, he sings, he laughs, he takes the world around with not too much seriousness. Now during The Castaway passage little Pip joins one of the small rowing ships chasing after a whale. That’s the manner of whaling in the old days, men would leave the larger ship and chase after the beasts. Pip is playing around, hopping out of the boat, when the men spot a whale and take off after it, and the men leave him behind. The Pequod is miles behind him, the men are rowing ever away, and Pip is left in an eternal abyss.

The passage reads:

In three minutes, a whole mile of shoreless ocean was between Pip and Stubb. Out from the center of the Sea poor Pip turned his crisp, curling, black head to the sun, another lonely castaway, though the loftiest and the brightest. (526).

This would be enough, but Melville pushes it:

Now, in calm weather, to swim in the open ocean is as easy to the practiced swimmer as to ride in a spring-carriage ashore. But the awful lonesomeness is intolerable. The intense concentration of self in the middle of such a heartless immensity, my GOD! who can tell it? Mark, how when sailors in a dead calm bathe in the open sea—mark how closely their hug their ship and only coast along her sides. (527).

The language might be a barrier to a contemporary reader, but even after two centuries, Melville’s description of isolation awakens a twitch in the back of our human consciousness. It’s because, as my clever title suggests (yes it’s clever, yes it it, yes, it, is…oh fuck you, you come up with something better, I’m sorry I love you so much, let’s not fight anymore), human beings are naked land monkeys still in the process of evolution. We live in our gravity and our uninterrupted sound, but the ocean is an alien territory to us, much like the vastness of space. One of the first exercises a   potential astronaut has to face is the isolation test, and this test is performed because the people at NASA are smart. It’s been documented time and time and time again, that if a mind cannot take that infinity and the suggestion it has upon our human consciousness, then they will never be astronaut material. If this isn’t clear enough, consider the Nieztche quote every freshman philosophy major has written on their arm or uses as the subtitle to their blog:

“Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster… for when you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you.”

It’s bad to take quotes out of context, especially Nietzsche, but in this case the quote has become a discourse outside of the intent of the original author (thank you again freshman philosophy major, you’re ruining an amazing field by being such a pompous asshole! Sorry). Some might not understand Pip’s paranoia, it’s just the ocean. That is true, but along with the general feeling of the immensity of the abyss are the monsters, which for Melville’s time, were whales. While the terrors of sharks weren’t unknown, the immensity of whales, and the jaws of Sperm whales in particular, inspired superstitions and imaginations to run rampant. Human beings are imaginative creatures, its part of the success of our evolution. We’re terrified about what’s waiting for us in the dark, and so we imagine what might exist. It could be a whale, it could be a shark, it could a skeleton hand reaching out from under your bed. And when it grabs your ankle, and slowly drags you away, it’s going to take you deep down into the dark, where the hungrier beasts await.

JAWS terrifies me, for that one scene in the cage. Hooper becomes Pip in that one perfect moment, but unlike Pip a monster actually strikes. We’re given just a few seconds to feel that old archaic dread that lingers in the DNA of our species and won’t go away until human beings have no more reason to fear.

If you don’t believe me, listen to this delightful story. A family of three were out scuba diving near a coral reef, and the son was carrying a waterproof camera. The father and mother wanted their picture taken and so the son readied the shot. He stopped. The father and mother waved but still the boy wouldn’t move. The father finally made contact and the boy snapped the picture. After a few moments they all joined back up on the ship. The father and mother, curious, asked their son, “why did you freeze there for a moment?” The boy asked, “Didn’t you see it?” When his parents said no, the boy pulled up the image and showed it to them.

The father instantly fainted and the mother was so shocked she vomited before also passing out.

The part of the story that usually follows is the actual photo itself.

Maybe you can understand their reaction?**

JAWS is a damn good film, and worth your time, for despite the fact it’s a popcorn movie (and yes, we did have popcorn when we saw it yesterday) it is able to tell a great story while still probing into that pocket of fear that still defines our genetic make-up as a species.

But just so this review is fair, remember, there are more recorded deaths each year from cows and deer, than there are by sharks. So what should you really be afraid of?

*Writer’s Note*

I’ve included a link to a small article here, in case anyone’s interested in learning about the similarities between Moby Dick and JAWS. Blew my mind.

http://mobydick.ie/2012/01/21/did-spielberg-rip-off-moby-dick/

 

**Writer’s Note**

Just so that the reader isn’t deceived, the shark photo of the divers has been revealed as a hoax.  This doesn’t eliminate the argument however for the fact that the story exists in the first place attests to the fact that the ocean still possesses the possibility to inspire horror stories and paranoia.