Did he ever question the morality of what they did? “I’m very proud that there were people in my family who made difficult choices in a difficult time,” he says. Matthew Bondurant
I haven’t seen “The Proposition” but some critics compare “Lawless” favorably to it. That is, they liked both films: “uncompromising”. So I saw “Lawless”. Basically, it’s a story about blood, guns, blood, guns, fast cars, guns, blood, brass knuckles, knifes, throat-slitting, with a few characters and plot points strewn around to disguise the sequences as “film”. Beverly Hillbillies meet The Godfather. “Uncompromising”.
If you made a film about sex as uncompromising as “Lawless” is about violence, you would have lots of shots of sexual organs, sexual intercourse, oral sex, sodomy, and so on, with intermittent snatches of dialogue, and then, I suppose, someone could say it was an “uncompromising” film about something. Implying, of course, that that was a good thing, an artistic thing– something of which you might reverently whisper: “authentic”.
Roger Ebert loved “The Proposition”. I’ll have to see it to judge for myself, but the plot summary sounds even more violent than “Lawless”. [I just noticed that Ebert did not like “Lawless”. See link on the right.] Both films were written by Nick Cave, renowned for his “authentic” music, including the inimitable “Curse of Millhaven”, a very dark song I like very much.
Uncompromising it is.
It is films like “Lawless” which have led me to question the value of films that sell you, as it’s main virtue, a lack of compromise. Here’s the key thing, the bait and switch: the compromise is not in the sense that it shows you things that are so troubling and disturbing and honest that you will be discomfited– no, no. In fact, what it is selling you exactly is the most comforting, cliché-ridden, boring truths imaginable: people do bad things to each other. If someone does something bad to you, it is pleasant to do something even worse to them. And if someone does something unpleasant to a member of your tribe (be it family or friend or nation), it is extremely pleasant to unleash a torrent of violence upon them, especially if it includes lots of explosions, fires, and helicopters crashing.
Teenage boys, especially are convinced that the violence in movies like “Lawless” imbue the story with some kind of profound meaning.
Nor is it uncompromising in the sense that it humanizes people who appear to be monsters. No, they really are monsters. Not that we should all get hysterical about what monsters they are. No, we need to grow up and acknowledge that people are monsters. If you have already done that, there is nothing shocking in “Lawless”. They are human, all right. Though the film is embarrassingly sophomoric when dealing with Bertha and Maggie (poor Jessica Chastain– a very good actress– has almost nothing to do in the second half of the film, except to look solemn and concerned whenever Forrest feels any pain).
What is a little shocking is how much pleasure people take in watching other people suffer horrible pain. People are lined up at the theatres to see these films. They love them. There is nothing that is more pleasant to the average citizen than to go watch a movie that depicts violence, sadism, and torture. Are we really all that shocked when something like Aurora happens? Or is it all a big put-on? “I would never do something like that because I am a good person”.
What’s also shocking is the romantic attachment we seem to feel to these rogues who make money by selling addictive substances that destroy people’s lives and inflict untold misery upon millions of children and spouses. I don’t mind that anyone humanizes them or portrays their characters in depth, but it is fascinating that the only constituency of moon-shining that is not given the slightest regard in “Lawless” is, say, the children of some alcoholic farmer who gets his supply from the Bondurants. That alone doesn’t make them monsters but an “authentic” film would tell us that this is what they, the Bondurants, and the corrupt police, are selling. The film-makers want us to believe that Jack is honorable in some way because he’s loyal to his family and nice to Bertha.
He’s also stupid if he thinks selling moonshine is a harmless vocation.
I don’t reject the use of explicit violence in film. Both “Bonnie and Clyde” and “The Godfather” featured unusually explicit, bloody murders, but both of them also offered some insight into character and culture. In a sense, Michael Corleone stands in for all of us who think we value family more than almost anything. What does that mean anyway? Given a different place and time are most of us capable of murder?
Today, in the same Franklin County, it appears to be methamphetamine that these same tight-knit families are selling.
So Matthew Bodurant proposes the ultimate euphemism, spoken like a true writer, with a genius for finding some way to tell us that the doesn’t approve of his moon-shining, murdering distant relatives of whom he is so proud. They didn’t commit crimes: they made “difficult choices”.
Gosh, even Ebert didn’t like this one.
Bill’s list of truly disturbing, “uncompromising” films:
- Carnal Knowledge
- Cool Hand Luke
- We Need to Talk About Kevin
- The White Ribbon
- The Third Man
- Autumn Sonata
- Dr. Strangelove
- The Seventh Seal
- Coma
- The Conversation
- The Godfather
- Shoah
- The Pianist
- Midnight Cowboy
- My Winnipeg
- Kid with a Bike
- Monsieur Verdoux (Perhaps the most genuinely subversive film of all time)
Uncompromising TV
Breaking Bad