RETURN

The Universal Theme: A Study of Values in Film

Thomas Hooker

            In Drama Appreciation class, we learned that most screenplays have as their main themes the ten commandments (more as an example of universalized morality than as an attempt to conform to Judeo-Christian ethics), the seven deadly sins, and man, woman, birth, death, infinity.  The problem is, in effort to appeal to broad audience, rather than show examples of people following the ten commandments and avoiding the seven deadly sins, they do just the opposite.  That these are not treated as absolutely sacred leads to two explanations.  First, there is the strong possibility that drama is more in line with social justice than it is with direct morality.  Second, there is one point that perhaps there is something more important even than the ten commandments.  What could this be?  The only thing that could possibly be more important still would have to be whatever is motivation behind why one should follow such laws and avoids these seven deadly sins.  Since love, nature, and family are essential to create and preserve existence on this Earth, I chose to use them as sample guidelines behind why the ten commandments should be followed, as law should never be followed for its own sake.

            My first film was Clan of the Cave Bear, which discussed the time between the Neanderthals and the Cro-Magnon. The beginning scene shows animal paintings, representing deference to the natural world.  Next, the main character loses her parents already reaching significance of home and kin. She who is an orphan, gains a connection to almost an adopted clan, when a lion marks her while trying to eat her.  The cave bear clan is weak on the other hand because they lack a proper cave, a dwelling place to go home to.  They talk about abandoning the child Ayla, but the recurring message in this film is about accepting others.  It is about finding a place not only in the universe through nature, but finding personal nature through the process of identifying with (or differentiating oneself from) one’s family.  The clan’s memories are not hers, and even learning the ways of the clan, she is an outsider by her very nature.  However, it is her love for the tribe and not her responsibility to it that allow her first to hunt for it, and later to bear children for it.  Religion is also an important part, though in these movies, it seemed less common than the others to the various movies. It is insisted that she receive an animal spirit, to which Kreb the Mog-ur (“priest”) summons a mountain lion.  In this movie religion is also combined with ritualistic song and acting, for the purposes of building community.  Therefore, religion may be viewed best not as an independent force, but one in service of nature and family.  It is this virtue of love of this family that surpasses any love from sense of obligation that allows her to eventually become a spirit.[1]

            Next, I watched His and Her Circumstances, also called Kareshi Kanojo  in Japan, which was essentially an Japanese animated romance story.  It  begins with a young lady who seems popular, attractive, athletic, and knowledgeable in her studies.  Or at least this is the way it seems, as in truth not only her grades and athletic ability, but even her physical appearance is to a large extent a front.  When she goes home, she puts on a gymsuit and works all night to be the best at everything.  In America, the motivation for such behavior would be mainly success and having a good career, but in Japan, where honor and saving face is everything, this girl, Yukino, is primarily motivated by praise and her image. However, her chief rival, a boy named Arima, finds out about it.  As she trusts him to keep this secret, they gradually realize their love is more important than either success or image.  She learns to reach for Arima and in so doing she drops the charade she has been keeping.  Doing so also causes her grades to slip, as she neglects her studies to be dating.  The principal becomes concerned as their class position has dropped, and tells them to split up so that they can regain their status.  Instead, they decide that they are too important to each other, and declare they will try to do both dating and studying.  The principal calls in their parents to talk sense into them, but the parents are even worse, and declare that they have more pride in their children being able to make their own decisions and express their love than they are concerned about grades.  Like Clan of the Cave Bear, the common teachings are much the same, emphasizing the importance of love and friendship, finding self, family and through symbolism even nature is emphasized.  For instance, in one scene, a cherry blossom petal floats onto a scale in the science lab and outweighs the metallic weight, symbolizing that enjoying one’s youth and the natural world is more important than factual information.  Another student works to discredit her now that she has shown her true colors, but it is revealed that this girl has her own agenda centered around regaining her own lost popularity.  The problem with success is that there will always be someone better, making success meaningless, and Yukino is skilled enough to discover and expose the girl.  When this girl’s plot is revealed, Yukino accepts her as a friend.  Thus, while before she had flatterers, she now has genuine friends.  Finally, the last part is about actualization, for she has been living a lie so long, she doesn’t know her talents, and has to discover acting as her strength.[2]

            Then, I watched Legend with Tom Cruise, which had beginning suggestive almost of Taoism.  The movie emphasizes the previously mentioned priorities as manifestations of the natural world, but it also brings into view the light and darkness within nature.  The female lead (Lily) shows her love not simply of family but also of her boyfriend and both of them share a passion toward the natural world.  On the other hand, the goblins have a love of nature but it is perversely expressed in terms of decay, as they enjoy rotting carcasses to living flesh.  The unicorns are said to only express life and love rather than words, and touching them corrupts them so that they are able to be attacked.  The lost of one unicorn turns the land into winter and decay.  Tom Cruise separates himself from Lily to retrieve her wedding ring and his love protects him from being adversely affected by the elements.  It is also his love for her that allows the faeries, as creatures of fertility, to forgive him for allowing this sin.  However, this does not change the fact that the unicorn’s horn has been taken, and Jack being a primal human, does not understand the concept of weapons besides for use in hunting, in fact even though he soon learns this vile technique, it seems slightly out of character.  Lily, seeking to repair her mistake from the forces of death and darkness, personified by an actual demon.  It was at this point that I realized the movie was allegorical.  When she tries to defeat the demon using the unicorn horn, she finds that even this is not enough as “there is no darkness without light”.  Extending the analogy to this theory, the unicorn horn being representative of love, this is saying that no love does not have the possibility of death or otherwise separation.  However, light can also triumph, as the time spent with a loved one or family member can outweigh the eventual separation.[3]

            Jean de Florette was after that, and seemed to defy the theory; however, it could simply be classified as a study in sinful behavior.  The question posed here is about the nature of sin.  If the former theory about nature, love, and family are to be considered, how is this different from the moralistic (that is, if one does said act, the following consequence will result due to rightness/wrongness) version of sin?  The definition of sin is sin in religious context is less linked to wrongdoing and it is closer to separation from God.  If God is to be found in the above things, anything that directly or indirectly hurts people or nature or separates oneself from them is viewed as sin.  In this film, the son-in-law comes home, and it seems a fairly normal family.  However, over the course of this movie and its sequel, he betrays nature (through digging the water block), love (as his former girlfriend’s son is betrayed), and family (as this family turns out to be his direct offspring).  Sin is any act that would separate one person permanently from others (that is, temporary separation such as taking a vacation is not a sin, though saying or doing something that makes another less close is), whether in stages or at once.  Fortunately, this not only jives with moral laws such as the ten commandments, but also some of the writings of religious thinkers such as Martin Buber, and his I-Thou nonsense.  There is only one major difference from the conventional moralistic, and that is that the sin is accepted as sin only when it causes separation.  Honoring the Sabbath is important when to violate would mean to exclude a lover or family member in pursuit of work, yet if one is toting more wood than the specified allowance in order to heat the family hearth, this is by no means an infringement.  This uncle and his son-in-law, however, still cannot be excused from sin.  They hide their spring in order to discourage the new buyer, Jean de Florette, so as to get him to leave.  However, his love for his family and his dreams are what keep him going regardless of what happens to him.  The schemers organize the town against him. Jean however has deep optimism and a love of nature, and manages to go with the flow even in the face of this.  Although, eventually Jean is ruined, but his legacy of the Romarin rabbits lives on and eventually in the sequel Manon of the Spring ( MGM 1987) the old schemer eventually has to think of his own legacy, namely to find an heir for his family.  Instead the son dies, and it only at the conclusion of the sequel that it is discovered that Jean’s little girl, Manon, is granddaughter to the old man.  Thus, even with all his sin, the power of family smoothes it away to some extent.[4]

            Unfortunately, as it is said, this is only a theory.  The nature of truth is such that even among similar interpretations, endless variations appear, making it particularly difficult to assign an absolute truth to life. Rashomon was about the very odd nature of human nature and the essential nature of truth. In the beginning the judge is saying that he doesn’t understand at all.  What he has seen he says is much worse than all the plagues and and famines around the area, and the witnesses are decidedly skeptical, but after they hear each story they start to agree.  The peasant says that he would rather watch the rain, noting that nature may or may not be more important than complicated ethics, but it is at least more interesting.  The case begins as the woodsman finds the dead body of a samurai, a pouch, a woman’s hat, and a piece of rope.  The only thing that be clearly determined is that someone was tied up, and that the samurai died.  The thief says that he was covetous of his wife, and that the samurai harassed him when he went after her, and that he led the samurai off to a treasure hunt.  He emphasizes his status as a lover to deemphasize his status as a thief.  In this story, she makes him decide with a fight who will be the lover.  The woman’s tale on the other hand is quite different. She asks innocent as a wilting flower, and told it as if she was a victim and faithful to her husband, but after she is raped, her husband became disgusted with her.  Then, she pleads to be killed by him, but he stares with such hate in his eyes that she swooned, and woke to find the dagger in his chest.  They use a medium to find the story of the dead man, but the adage “dead men tell no lies” proves to be false.  The man tries to make himself look good by using the samurai code as a reference.  He claims that his wife begged for sex then asked the thief to kill him.  He actually narrates the story in favor of the bandit, showing the bandit willing to offer to slay her for such words.  He atones for his wife’s action by committing suicide. Finally, the woodsman speaks up, under pressure from the peasant watching the rain.  In the woodsman’s version, not one of these people is decent.  In battle, the thief and samurai act with extreme cowardice, and the women fakes tears then cackles wickedly and encourages the two to fight to death.  The woodsman is not without blame either, as the woman’s knife is stolen.  At this point the judge begins to curse humanity, but there is no basically good or basically evil about humanity.  Neither does the tabula rasa theory work, or it should be possible to raise the perfect child by now.  Instead, what this movie suggests more is that human beings are by their nature almost chaotic, and will do good acts either out of guilt or sometimes even boredom.  The same woodsman who stole the dagger, finds a child in the rain and decides suddenly that he wants to repent for his action, so he makes a move to adopt it.  The judge, now thoroughly skeptical of human nature tries to prevent him, but the woodsman explains that he already he several children in his household and one more isn’t a problem.  The  man walks away with renewed sense of faith in humanity, but really this didn’t prove any great deal of the worth of humans.[5]

            Then I watched Samurai II & Samurai III, the story of Musashi, possibly Japan’s greatest swordsman.  This film stars Toshiro Mifuni, a character from Rashomon; however,  the director has no link to the other film.  In the beginning, he challenges another warrior and Musashi easily wins.  His mentor says that he won as a warrior, but he lost as a samurai.  His love, Otsu waits patiently for him, while Musashi seeks to train his heart to be that of a samurai.  Musashi also has a great rival, who seeks his defeat.  In the third movie, Musashi trains himself to defeat his rival by farming and spending time with Otsu.  He defeats his rival, but in so doing he removes his greatest challenge, and all that remains is the challenge of raising crops and a family.  However, currently, he is still under training.  He heads to a swordsmith asking for sharpening but the smith, hearing of his reputation, declares that he will not cater to murderers.  He comes back again and asks instead to have his soul polished.  Later, he meets Otsu, after she has waited 3 years for him.  Otsu also has a rival, yet as she says “a woman lives for love, without it she’s dead,” he rival is for Musashi’s love rather than in battle.  Discovering about this, she ponders becoming a monk, but just as she is about to shave her head, the boy that saw him beat the scythe master in the temple informs her that Musashi is nearby.  Musashi during his training asks a courtesan how she achieved her composure, and she states that he lacks affection.  Otsu, trying to head near the area, is accosted and attacked by a former suitor, but she is saved by Kojiri, Musashi’s rival.  He defeats an army of 80 men singlehandedly, but after this he remember the words of his mentor and also his courtesan: “You are too strong” & “You lack affection.”  In the end of the movie, he tries to force himself on Otsu and becomes ashamed of himself, so the two separate temporarily. [6]
            Together was perhaps the best of those that I watched, as it was not some grand and fantastic story,that leaves one wondering if this theory really works in the outside world, instead it was a slice of life showing many of the pressures of the working world. Because of this, it showed much more in the context of daily concerns.  The opening scene has the child playing while the family’s child is being delivered, as if to say that the best place for talent to bloom is truly within the home.  However, the demands of the big city cry out to them, and they foolishly answer the pleas of success.  On the way to concert, the young boy meets a woman who is on verge of breakup, but actually this proves more important than any connections the father makes, aside from the first teacher.  The lady is at first rude, then recognizes him from before, and gradually becomes a surrogate mother.  The first teacher tells the boy to never play except if he enjoys playing or it is pointless.  There are two ways around any art, there is technique and then there is emotion.  It is the emotional method that the first teacher demands from him.  Although the teacher should be stressing playing, he instead gets the boy to do chores while he discusses his love life. Under this tutelage of expressional music he actually becomes better than he would be if he concentrated solely on technique.  The woman and boy wait for a birthday but are stood up, so the boy Liu and the woman Lily decide to celebrate without them, and the father meets her because the son walks home with lipstick on his cheek.  Liu leaves the teacher after a fight, and Lily and Liu go shopping.  Liu slowly becomes not only infatuated with Lily, but decides that she would make a good match for the father.  After breaking up with her boyfriend, Liu sees her try on a high quality mink coat.  The father sees a teacher who has prestige but no heart, and like a sucker he tries to employ him.  Meanwhile, Liu buys the fur coat for her by selling his violin, which enrages the new teacher.  The ex-lover takes credit, but the woman figures it out and tries to buy it back for him.  It is the other apprentice who out of jealousy shows him that the evil teacher had secretly bought it, and only after Liu’s spirit was broken would he return it.  Liu returns to his old teacher right before concert, but this is more a pleasure visit as his lessons there are done.  Meanwhile, there is a sharp contrast at the finale between Liu’s deciding to play only for family and friends (which now includes not just the woman but also the old teacher), and the other apprentice playing only for fame and recognition under the instruction of a thankless teacher.  Although society often programs us to think that the other apprentice was better off as she was “successful” this is an error, as it becomes increasingly clear that what seems mundane is more important than excellence.[7]

            Dark City is perhaps one of the strangest of the films I saw.  Although not a foreign film, I watched it to test the quality of this theory against modern American films, this one being science fiction.  The man named John Murdoch wakes up in a room with no recollection what has happened to him, and in fact, he isn’t even sure that his name is indeed John Murdoch.  It seems that he is a wanted harlot killer, but something odd is the case from this supposed evidence.  For instance, he is married and has no motive to do such a thing.  Regarding his marriage, supposedly his wife has been cheating on him, but even this has missing parts.  For instance, the two of them supposedly met at a place called Shell Beach, but there don’t seem to be any streets leading there, the subway doesn’t go that far, and whenever he asks people for directions, they mention something but then realize they’ve forgotten.  Murdoch however, stays up all night, and finds that not only does this night never end, but during a certain time, all people in the city except a few that have managed to wake up during that time are put to sleep.  Meanwhile, the scenery vastly changes and the people who are asleep are imprinted with false memories using a serum.  This reality of the city is made to change through a reality-altering type of psychokinesis called Tuning, which is somehow also learned by Murdoch.  The memories on the other hand, are the work of a medicine used by Dr. Daniel Schreber, a psychotherapist in collaboration with the Strangers, as these odd reality-molding creatures are called.  Their purpose for messing with memories is to find out what the nature of a soul is, as their race is dying out unless they understand a means to preserve existence.  Murdoch in his effort to understand himself, first visits his “wife” and then he looks for his family, and then he looks for the nature which is lacking in this world, specifically Shell Beach.  In the first, he finds that even had he not known her before yesterday (whenever that was without a sun), he still has feelings for her. In the second, he finds verification to his suspicions, and in the third he finds solid evidence.  He tries to break open the wall where Shell Beach should be, and this opens a void that threatens to suck him and his compatriots into outer space. The Strangers, finding his Tuning talent, try to reprogram him with their own hive memories, so as to gain this soul of his.  However, the good doctor Schreber has other plans, and gives him a serum with his past combined with a how-to on Tuning, in hopes that he will be able to fight these Strangers.  Once he defeats them, he first rebuilds the natural world, at least to the limited extent of his own memories.  Then, no sooner does he finish this, but he tries to make time flirting with his former wife. Why? As he loosely puts it to the last remainder of the Strangers, “you wanted to know what it was that makes us human, you’re not going to find it here,” he says pointing to the brain, implying that the emotions are slightly more important than the memories. [8]                         

            The seven deadly sins also should be treated according to this or something similar.  Gluttony is often treated as only a food thing, but some people are gluttons for a certain addiction, constantly going back to get more and more of this. It typically refers to having anything to a greater amount than you should. This relates as anywhere from a minor alcohol problem to an a major drug addiction or an addiction to a certain type of entertainment makes you more consumed with this than spending time with others, and thus it not only defies temperance but also the love of one’s family.[9]  Lust is the antithesis of a working family, and it is secondarily a perversion of love.  It is not merely an overdose of affection, as this could actually be classified under gluttony, but the misuse of it.  Love is sometimes mistaken for lust, as in overly romanticized drama or literature where people constantly “fall in love” rather than decide to keep their old sweethearts.  This can cause anything from divorce, adultery, to half-brothers and half-sisters.  This is why I tried to avoid films that were more involved with lust than with love, though some of them were fairly close.  The cure to this is self-control but also faithfulness. [10]  Greed is against nature as it strives to compete rather than to live in harmony.  Contrary to Darwin’s theory nature is geared more towards harmony than competition as predator and prey keep each other from overpopulation.  Greed is wanting to get what one “deserves” of not just money but other things that are to be had, without proportion to this harmony.  Thus, the antidote is generosity.[11] Wrath or Anger is an act against nature, as humans to survive needs to grow and reproduce, by in one angry act, this process is cut short.  It acts normally as first a quick response to a trigger, but it gradually evolves into a vicious cycle.  Why?  Because no matter how many people for vengeance, it isn’t worth enough to bring back the equivalent to a single living person. The only antidote to it is kindness, and more importantly, patience.[12]  Pride is also against nature though it is acting towards one’s own nature.  It is valuing one’s self over others to the point where one constantly strives to be recognized and admired.  It may also be a form of vanity. It violates nature, as it treats the self as something beyond the other animals, and occasionally beyond other humans, thus throwing the concept of natural order out the window.  The cure is a bit of humility.[13]  Envy and sloth are the main sins of this list that I am guilty of, so I will handle them together.  Unlike greed and pride, envy is not an active sin.  As greed is wanting to have to greater and greater extent, envy is more about wanting to be what other people are.  It does not actively seek to take this though, as first of all such things are difficult to attain (you may study harder to attain another person’s grades, but you won’t have their natural skill in the subject), and second, it normally works secretly, denying even its own existence.  Sometimes, envy works on the social level, such as relations for prestige. As envy is passive-aggressive, Sloth likewise is the essence of passivity, doing nothing but resting.  Actually, though, sloth can be potentially quite active, but the difference from this and true activity is that sloth is mainly ritualized work, without any zeal.  Thus the antidote to both of these is passion (zeal) and love.[14] 

These three values may or may not be the ultimate value in the universe; however, without these entirely, it is difficult or fruitless to attempt to find one’s own meaning, as until one puts one’s family and loved ones first, one is still largely bound by the constraints of these sins.  The same is true of the ten commandments, as all of them can be explained away in terms of these, it is likewise very troublesome to try to obey these if one has only themselves to go with and is not caring about the feelings of others when for instance choosing not to commit adultery.  In fact, most great world literature must at least accept this to be of any worth.  As it is said, “If I had the gift of being able to speak in other languages without learning them, and could speak in every language there is in heaven and earth, but didn’t love others, I would only be making noise.”[15]  Part of the problem of much of the movie industry though is that even recognizing these things as important, most directors and actors have some trouble distinguishing lust and love, as does a sizable portion of the population.  It is thus the mission of film, that if these things are to be valued indeed, it is up to the movie industry to learn what nature, love, and family truly mean.

Bibliography

Anno, Hideaki. His and Her Circumstances. A.D. Vision: All-Region DVD Color, 1998.

Berri, Claude. Jean de Florette. Orion: NTSC VHS Color, 1987.

Campolo, Anthony. Seven Deadly Sins. Victor Books: Illinois, 1989.

Chapman, Michael. Clan of the Cave Bear. Warner: NTSC VHS Color, 1986.

Chen, Kaige. Together. MGM: NTSC VHS Color, 2003.

Inagaki, Hiroshi. Samurai II. Home Vision: NTSC VHS Color, 1967.

Kurosawa, Akira. Rashomon. Home Vision: NTSC VHS B/W, 1951.

Proyas, Alex. Dark City. New Line Home Entertainment: Region 1 DVD Color, 1998.

Scott, Ridley. Legend. UMVD: Region 1(US) DVD Color, 1986.

The Living Bible Paraphased: Red Letter Edition. Tyndale House: Illinois, 1971.