Month / December 2008

by Jonathan M

Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

One of the peculiarities of Western pre-scientific thought is its fondness for certain numbers.  For example, consider the tenacity of the four elements that became the four humours or the trinity that also pops up in the works of Freud and Clausewitz.  However, the undisputed king of pre-scientific theoretical numbers is the number two.  From politics to ethics, metaphysics to epistemology,  and cosmology to the philosophy of mind, humanity seems deeply wedded to the idea that reality can be seen as made up of two different kinds of things.  I suspect that this strange fetish has its roots in some banal fact about us as a species; perhaps just as our fondness for base-10 arithmetic stems from having ten fingers, perhaps our love of dualisms comes from the fact that we can all hold up our hands and say “on the one hand… but on the other…”. Indeed, the near-universality of the concept of the ‘duality of man’ is unarguably behind the enduring popularity and the flexibility of Robert Louis Stevenson’s novella Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886).

Over the years, the story of a Victorian scientist who unlocks his darker side has been interpreted in a number of different ways.  As well as the original duality of man as a mixture of good and evil, Jekyll and Hyde have also been used as personifications of introverted intelligence vs. extroverted cunning, superego vs. id and as metaphorical explorations of the use of drugs.  However, while it would be interesting to compare and contrast all of the different tellings of Stevenson’s story, this review will deal only with one; the 1931 adaptation directed by Rouben Mamoulian and starring Fredric March, an adaptation that deals with the tension between man as an animal and man as a civilised being.

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by Jonathan M

Waltz with Bashir

Charitably viewed, Ari Folman’s Waltz with Bashir is very close to being a flawless work of cinematic art.  Its subject matter is relentlessly ‘serious’ and ‘important’, its visuals are not only stylish but arresting and its structure is a genuinely inventive demonstration of the links between psychoanalysis and detective stories.  However, beneath the veneer of artistically slick visuals and introspection lies a film which, uncharitably viewed, is not only confused but actively confusing.

The film begins with an arresting scene in which a pack of wild dogs run through the streets leaving chaos and terror behind them.  They eventually stop beneath the window of a friend of the film maker Ari Folman.  In a bar, the dog-attractor explains that he has been having this same dream for years and he suspects that it is inspired by his time in the IDF when he had to shoot the guard dogs before his squad moved into a town.  Upon asking Folman if he has any similar dreams, Folman responds by saying that the war and ensuing massacre of Palestinian refugees by Lebanese Christian paramilitaries are simply not present in his system.  However, soon after he begins a recurring dream about him and two other soldiers floating in the sea as yellow flares light up a city.  Upon seeing the flares, the young men walk out of the sea and climb into their uniforms.  Concerned about this apparent memory resurfacing, Folman shows up on the doorstep of another of his friends, a therapist, and asks him what to do.  The therapist suggests tracking down the other people in the dream and the other people present at the time in the hope that they will help Folman’s memories return to him.  The rest of the film is made up of interviews with Folman’s friends and a few other people who share their memories of the war and the massacre, gradually helping Folman to remember his time in Lebanon.

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by Jonathan M

L’Argent

My review of Marcel L’Herbier’s excellent silent film L’Argent has gone up over at Videovista.

One thing that occurs to me looking back at the review (aside from the fact that I needed to do another pass through it in order to tidy up the prose… oops)  is that I think that in the film version of the story, Saccard is supposed to be Jewish.  In the original novel by Zola, Saccard is presented as an anti-Semite who manipulates the market in order to ‘put one over’ on the Jewish bankers represented by Gunderman.  However, in the film, Gunderman is not Jewish but, if anything, Aryan; a blond-haired man with a Germanic name.

Looking at the cover of the DVD, Saccard certainly seems to be presented in a pose reminiscent of anti-Semitic caricatures as a greasy, swarthy looking man grubbing a huge pile of gold.

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