Don’t we all usually regard as artistic and ingenious those artists whose views of the world happily coincide with our own prejudices?
And yet, “12 Angry Men” is one of the most popular movies on IMDB. Are any of the people watching this movie any less inclined to believe the government needs to get even more tough on crime? That those who are accused are almost always guilty? That accusers never lie?
Terry Gilliam is one of a few directors I both admire and disagree with. His films are often wildly inventive, original, and satisfying, yet I find myself disagreeing completely with what he is saying. His message is very clear: Reason sucks; go with your feelings.
The most definitive expression of that philosophy is the scene in the theatre in Baron Munchausen, when the heroic soldier (played by Sting) is brought in to meet the mindless functionary, The Right Ordinary Horatio Jackson (Jonathan Pryce) who is running the town. It seems the soldier risked his life to lead a bold counter-attack to drive back the enemy and rescue his comrades. The functionary orders him executed. You can’t have idiots like that going around demoralizing the rest of the troops by making them feel inferior, can we?
The functionary is the embodiment of the “Age of Reason”, given as the time period of the events of the movie (at half past ten). We are given to understand that he aspires only to reasonableness, and tries to do what is logical and rational.
There’s something repellent in this characterization– I immediately thought of all the soldiers who die when fanatical idealist leaders, delusional, faithful to their ego-centric visions of their own greatness, order troops to attack against overwhelming odds, in defiance of “reason”.
Like? Like Napoleon, with his vision of defeating Russia? His dream of a greater France dominating the world?
In “Baron Munchausen”, there is a traveling theatrical group in town and it is performing a play based on wildly improbable exploits of Baron Munchausen. The real Baron shows up too, and stops the production to lecture the audience on what “really” happened. Munchausen has a soft spot for the ladies, and a hint of dementia. When Horatio Jackson’s efforts to save the town from the Turks fail (Munchhausen is also, incidentally, responsible for the Turkish attack), Munchhausen makes a balloon out the ladies’ underwear and sails off to fetch help. First stop, memorably: the moon.
Gilliam might argue that the millions who died in the Soviet Gulags, died in the name of “Reason”. Dialectical materialism. They certainly died in the name of collectivism, but then, all nationalist philosophies are, at heart collectivist. I might argue that the millions who died in the two world wars died in the name of romantic, nationalist feelings. A core component of Nazism, certainly, was a romantic belief in Germany’s “destiny”, in the cultural and intellectual superiority of the German peoples. The Nazis also believed in science– conducting medical experiments on many of their victims. But then, so did the allies– inventing and using the nuclear bomb.
Or is it more prosaic than that? Would you rather live in a world of logic and order, or a world of feeling and surprise?
We always use examples of the worst extremes to prove our points. The odd thing about Gilliam is that he mocks reason because he doesn’t believe in it. If you scan the history of satire in the western world, most of the mockery is directed at people who claim to be rational but, in fact, are not. No– Gilliam doesn’t believe in reason. He believes in magic.
In the Wizard of Oz, Dorothy finds out that she could have returned home any time she wanted to, by simply clicking her heels together and repeating “there’s no place like home” to herself. That’s the bourgeois fantasy of people who find exciting, daring adventures entertaining because they never actually live them. In a reasonable world, Dorothy needs to ask for directions, and then follow them.
But it’s the dominant belief of our time– if you want something, go after it, keep at it until you succeed, and never give up.
William Blake said “the road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom”. Or, better: “Art is the tree of life. Science is the tree of death.”
Gilliam’s Movies
- The Adventures of Baron Munchhausen
- Time Bandits
- Brazil
- Fisher King
- Brothers Grimm