YO BOB GOES TO THE MOVIES
This weekÕs question: What are the limits of knowledge, and why?
ItÕs been said that knowing the nature of your fear reduces its power. Conversely, then, the less you understand about what frightens you, the more frightened you are. And accordingly, if what youÕre trying to do is frighten someone, you should reveal as little information as possible.
Hitchcock knew this when he made _Psycho_, but he blew it in the last two minutes of the film by allowing the psychiatrist to explain Mother BatesÕ motivations. Spielberg knew it when he made _Jaws_, but donÕt tell me there wasnÕt a letdown after the shark finally appeared.
These two master directors understood the mechanics of fear, but they were operating within the classic, Aristotelian parameters of a story: beginning, middle, end. Frighten the audience out of their wits, yes, but donÕt send them home without a resolution.
Now, however, in a popular culture that is increasingly hyperkinetic, jaded, self-referential, fragmented, paranoid and cynical, it is not only possible but advisable to dispense with the old model of entertainment. Why bother with a resolution when your audience wonÕt stop flipping channels?
No one understands this better than Chris Carter, the man behind TVÕs hugely popular and widely imitated ÒThe X-FilesÓ. Ask even the most hardcore fans of the show what itÕs all about or where itÕs going, and youÕll get an evasive answer at best. The series has been humming along for years now, and while Mulder and Scully continue to discover tantalizing bits of information that _appear_ to build upon each other, they are really no closer to the truth than when they began. Obviously, if they did arrive at any sort of conclusion, the show would lose its power to fascinate.
So the conspiracy continues, and whether weÕre chasing or being chased, itÕs always just around the corner, always a fleeting shadow.
Enter Darren AronofskyÕs _¸_, a thoroughly postmodern thriller in which nothing is resolved but much is suggested.
Max Cohen is a sociophobic recluse obsessed with the meaning of numbers. We learn that he is a mathematical prodigy who graduated college at age 14 and is able to multiply and divide large numbers in his head. He lives alone in a triple-bolted apartment with his computer, Euclid, where he searches for patterns in the complex math of everyday life: leaves on a tree, the spiral of a seashell, the flow of the stock market. Periodically, he suffers from splitting headaches that he fights with handfuls of pills; the headaches stem from an incident in his childhood when he stared into the sun and went temporarily blind.
_¸_ is the story (if story is the right word) of MaxÕs pursuit of a mysterious 216-digit number that everyone wants him to identify. It would be unfair to say what the number represents, but even if I did, it wouldnÕt really explain anything--just as the number itself, when it is finally discovered, is only a string of digits. What matters, what keeps the audience fascinated, is the pursuit--or as Max says, Òthe spaces between the numbers.Ó
The film is shot in black and white, establishing a mood of claustrophobic surrealism reminiscent of David LynchÕs _Eraserhead_. Sometimes images are sharply defined (a smashed mirror, a power drill, MaxÕs face in close-up) and sometimes edges bleed into each other (the dark beards of Hasidic Jews, the stark white columns in a subway).
As in a dream, we get the feeling sometimes that weÕve been here before, we even know whatÕs about to happen, but thereÕs nothing we can do to stop it. And because the movie was made in the late Õ90s, we are subjected to some graphic, disturbing imagery that would have been neither possible nor appropriate in HitchcockÕs day. But if youÕve watched ÒThe X-FilesÓ or seen _ThereÕs Something About Mary_, youÕre probably more prepared than your parents would be for the sight of a human brain being poked with a pencil.
Nevertheless, there are plenty who will walk out of _¸_ feeling disgusted and frustrated, asking themselves: Why, why, _why_ was this necessary? Why the graphic violence, why the self-destructive vibe, why the endless search for the unattainable? And there will be those who leave the movie despairing for the nihilistic glory of Generation X.
I canÕt answer the ÒwhyÓ questions; ask Aronofsky. The most I can say is that while I understand the disgust and frustration, I also understand what it is to grow up in a time when the concept of resolution, of answerable questions, is itself suspect. The byword of our times is Òinformation,Ó the byphrase is Òtoo much information,Ó and I applaud _¸_ for having the courage to consider the limits of knowledge.
Even in such a fashion.
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