This article was first published as a Film and Bible Blog article in Culturewatch. © Tony Watkins, 2012.
For discussion material on this film, see my Damaris Film Blog discussion guide and additional questions for reflection in my Film and Bible Blog article.
Olga Kurylenko and Tom Cruise in Oblivion
© Universal Pictures, 2013. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
Jack Harper (Tom Cruise) and Victoria ‘Vika’ Olsen (Andrea Riseborough) are stationed in a tower 1000m above the surface of a ravaged Earth. It is sixty years after the moon was destroyed by an alien ship, which unleashed immense destruction on the planet. Humanity won the ensuing war, but nevertheless had to evacuate the virtually uninhabitable planet for a colony on Titan. Now a vast operation to extract vital resources from Earth is nearing completion, but gangs of surviving scavengers (‘Scavs’) pose an on-going threat. Jack serves as one of the last repair technicians for the drones which defend against the Scavs, while Vika is his communications officer, maintaining contact with the operations centre in the ‘Tet’, a space station in orbit high overhead.
After five years, their tour of duty is almost over. While Vika can hardly wait to leave to join everyone else on Titan, Jack is reluctant. He feels a profound bond with Earth: it is home, despite all that has happened. This connection is reinforced by images that flash through his mind: they feel like memories, yet they can’t be, as he and Vika had their memories wiped before their tour of duty commenced. With just two weeks to go, Vika picks up a strange signal coming from somewhere in their sector. When Jack investigates, he discovers that the Scavs have set up a homing beacon. It’s not long before he learns what it was for: something from space crashes to the ground, and in the wreckage he finds pods containing humans in a suspended state. Jack is horrified when a drone arrives and starts destroying them, but he manages to rescue one. It contains a beautiful woman named Julia (Olga Kurylenko). But how does she know his name? And why are the Scavs trying to capture, rather than kill, him?
Tom Cruise in Oblivion
© Universal Pictures, 2013. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
contains ideas which are familiar from other science fiction films. In particular, it echoes one of the key ideas in The Matrix (1999): a central character whose understanding of his existence is at odds with reality. Like Neo (Keanu Reeves) in The Matrix, Jack has a ‘splinter in his mind’. It is not so much a feeling that something is wrong with the world around him, as a sense that something is wrong within him. What Jack believes to be phantom memories of an earlier time and place feel very real to him, and he can’t explain it, or even admit it, to Vika. Neither can he tell Vika just how deeply he feels the attachment to Earth; to admit that he feels like it’s home is one thing, but the idea that he has actually built a sort of home would be too much for her.
In the normal course of events, Jack would never discover the truth about who he is and where he fits into the world. Like Neo, and like Truman (Jim Carrey) in The Truman Show (1998), he may be troubled, but he nevertheless accepts the reality with which he is presented. So do most of us, most of the time. As we go through life and accumulate insights into the way things are, we gradually construct and refine a mental map of reality, which is our worldview. Much of the time this worldview mapping is a subconscious process: we experience things and we learn things from others, and little by little our understanding of the way things are is reinforced until we find that we have a very fixed way of navigating through life. When something doesn’t fit with this, we tend to rationalise it away. We forget that our worldview maps, like some old map of the world, are incomplete or are decidedly sketchy in some areas, and we overlook the fact that something which doesn’t fit may be the key to new understanding. As with Thomas Kuhn’s famous notion of paradigm shifts in scientific theories, a new idea will only be considered seriously when there is a significant accumulation of difficulties with the established framework.
Andrea Riseborough in Oblivion
© Universal Pictures, 2013. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
In Truman’s case, his determination to find the love of his life eventually enables him to overcome the obstacles placed in his way to prevent him from discovering the truth. Both Neo and Jack, however, only realise that their mental map is woefully inadequate because of intervention from outside: both meet people who prompt more questioning (Choi and Dujour knock on Neo’s door; Julia tells Jack, ‘You are not who you think you are’), and others who spur them to action. Neo meets Morpheus, while Jack is captured and taken to Malcolm Beech; both men are challenged to follow the evidence to discover how their mental maps of reality are wrong. ‘They lied to you,’ Malcolm says. ‘It’s time to learn the truth.’ Jack’s pursuit of truth means daring to go into an area he has believed to be dangerous, where he discovers something that challenges his entire sense of identity: his doppelgänger, dressed identically, performing an identical role with identical equipment, except with a different zone number on his jacket.
As we discover more about Jack’s origins, it seems a little surprising that he does not simply accept his situation at face value and unquestioningly obey every instruction from Sally. Why is he unlike Vika in this respect? Presumably the answer lies in some defect in his manufacturing process, but we never discover what. Until the very last scene, in fact, it seems that only Jack number 49 has a love of old books and memories of the original Jack’s life. Whatever the cause, the effect is that Jack not only feels a connection with the old Earth, he also has the courage to seek out the truth, wherever that might lead him. This is what marks him out as special to Malcolm. Despite the scepticism of the Scav second-in-command, Sykes (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), Malcolm intuitively knows that Jack will be determined to find the truth and will be brave enough to face it. We suspect that Vika would respond differently: if she was presented with the same challenge, would she respond in the same way, or immediately report in to Sally?
Tom Cruise and Morgan Freeman in Oblivion
© Universal Pictures, 2013. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
Jack’s courageous self-sacrifice to liberate the last remnants of humanity is inspired by lines from Macaulay’s poem ‘Horatius’:
To every man upon this earth
Death cometh soon or late.
And how can man die better
Than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers,
And the temples of his Gods.
These lines speak to him, and embolden him, because heroism is somehow in his DNA. The Scavs, too, have great courage in the face of fearful odds, because it is part of being human. This is not to say that everyone is brave; some people are clearly braver than others, but we recognise it as a quality of humanity at its best. So is the urge to find truth. Not everyone is passionately concerned for truth, but, again, we recognise truthfulness – and determinedly seeking for truth – as a quality of humanity at its best. According to the Bible, such qualities are inherent in human beings because we are made in the image of the God who created us; we are ‘like him’ (Genesis 1:26). ‘Image’ is not about us looking like God, who is spirit (John 4:24), but about us sharing something of his attributes. It is why we are also relational, rational, moral beings. Yet the tragedy is that all of these qualities are corrupted or suppressed within us, as we are also beings who have rejected God’s authority over us and turned our backs on him. So we are often fearful, and we suppress the truth because it is more comfortable for us to live a lie. We take the easy route, like Vika. Presumably Jack would have done so, too, had the Scavs not intervened.
Tom Cruise in Oblivion
© Universal Pictures, 2013. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
The Bible’s depiction of our situation as human beings suggests some interesting parallels with Jack’s existential crisis. From beginning to end, it shows that the physical reality which is our daily experience is not all there is; there is another dimension to existence because the entire cosmos is the creation of God who is above and beyond our four dimensions of space and time. Its worldview map has, as it were, coastlines and entire continents that are missing on the maps of many people. It also suggests that we don’t simply fail to notice that we should have something else on our maps, but that we deliberately suppress the idea, and refuse to draw in that area of the map. The Apostle Paul wrote to the early church in Rome:
But God shows his anger from heaven against all sinful, wicked people who suppress the truth by their wickedness. They know the truth about God because he has made it obvious to them. For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God. (Romans 1:18–20)
Jesus Christ also accused people of refusing to follow the truth. He equated knowing the truth with knowing him: ‘You are truly my disciples if you remain faithful to my teachings. And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free’ (John 8:31–32), but his hearers denied that they needed to be free or to change their thinking. Later, he identified himself as the personification of truth: ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me’ (John 14:6). Paul and Jesus challenge us to pay attention to the splinters in our mind that should alert us to another dimension of reality, and to have the courage to pursue the truth about God. As for Jack, the cost of doing so may be considerable, but it is infinitely preferable to living a lie.
This article was first published as a Film and Bible Blog article in Culturewatch. © Tony Watkins, 2012.
For discussion material on this film, see my Damaris Film Blog discussion guide and additional questions for reflection in my Film and Bible Blog article.
Jack Reynor in What Richard Did
© Artificial Eye, 2013. Used by permission.
Richard Karlsen (Jack Reynor) has just finished school, having grown up in a prosperous area of South Dublin. The last summer holiday before university stretches ahead of Richard and his friends. Athletic, good-looking and confident, Richard is the undoubted leader of the group of teenagers. He has everything going for him, and a world of opportunity ahead. He has big ambitions to play professional rugby while studying full-time.
Richard and a group of friends, and their friends, head off to the Co. Wicklow coast for a beach party. Some stay with Richard in his parents’ beach house, while others camp nearby. Richard meets Lara (Róisín Murphy), the girlfriend of his friend Conor (Sam Keeley). There is an immediate connection between them, and a short while later, after they meet again at Conor’s 18th birthday party, they begin a relationship. It starts well, but for all the excitement of young love, it brings problems too. After a while, Richard begins to be critical of Lara, and he gradually loses his self-assurance. A drunken row with Conor at another party pushes him over the edge and threatens to destroy all his hopes for the future.
What Richard Did is very loosely based on the novel Bad Day in Blackrock by young Irish writer Kevin Power. It was filmed on location in Dublin and Wicklow over a period of just five weeks in late summer 2011. Ed Guiney, producer of What Richard Did says, ‘I read the book, liked it and optioned it. Lenny [Abrahamson] was the first person I gave it to – as we’ve worked together so much – and he saw something in it. There aren’t that many contemporary stories about Dublin, particularly South County Dublin and children of the boom. I thought it had something to say.’ Abrahamson was very taken with the character of Richard. He observes, ‘I’m always very interested in characters that are forced to deconstruct their sense of themselves, or for whom the conditions of their lives are radically changed and Richard is one of those characters.’
What Richard Did
© Artificial Eye, 2013. Used by permission.
Richard brims with all the unassailable confidence of a bright, sporty, popular eighteen-year-old from a privileged background. Having just left school, and with the start of university a couple of months away, the summer is a time for relaxation and enjoyment with his friends. The beach party at which he first meets Lara is on his territory at his family’s beach house; people are there at his invitation. When he invites Stephen on a whim, Richard’s standing and charm are sufficient for him to be able to reassure Stephen’s mother about his welfare. He is the alpha male, as he demonstrates when rescuing Sophie from her assailant in the local pub. Richard has everything going for him.
How deep does a young man’s self-assurance really go, however? What does it take to crack the façade and expose the insecurities and shortcomings within? Not much, it seems. Although the event which threatens to derail Richard’s future is extremely serious, the flimsiness of his veneer is actually first revealed by something as simple as Lara’s quietness over dinner with his parents. Richard has, it seems, quickly formed the judgment that Lara – being pretty, intelligent and engaging – is an ideal match for him. But in the daunting context of the first meeting with the parents, she becomes more reserved, and fails to demonstrate the qualities that Richard values. He is disappointed: the opportunity to gain his parents’ approval in a new, mature aspect of life – his choice of a mate – has been lost. This relationship has the potential to confirm his transition to adulthood and that every part of his life is prospering. But instead he fears that his parents have been underwhelmed by Lara. The real problem is not that it reflects badly on her, but that she reflects badly on him.
It seems such a trivial incident, but this first blemish grows quickly, and Richard’s cool, calm surface begins to peel back. Before Lara, he was self-contained, and related easily to everyone in his social circle, as well as to his parents’ generation. But once he is associated with her, Richard needs her to fulfil the key function of bringing him approval. So at the ill-fated party, he becomes isolated and resentful – as well as drunk – because she mingles with others, not with him. In the unspoken social competition with his peers, he senses that he risks losing his alpha male status should this relationship fail. This anxiety is naturally focused on Conor, who has lost Lara to Richard, but clearly would like to win her back. Fuelled by alcohol, their rivalry and Richard’s growing insecurity come to a head, and Richard abandons restraint and all pretence to coolness, with terrible consequences.
In his book, The Big Ego Trip, psychiatry professor Glynn Harrison outlines several aspects of insecurity, including a ‘moral dimension of insecurity.’ Richard is not only grief-stricken and guilt-ridden, he is also overwhelmed with shame. Harrison notes that, ‘As guilt is the emotion linked to specific wrongs I commit, shame is the emotion that springs from being the kind of person that does that sort of thing. Shame, indeed, is the emotion of inferiority.’ This, surely, is what Richard experiences. Director Lenny Abrahamson observes, ‘Most of us know very little about ourselves. This is something that we begin to understand as we get older, but it’s an insight that’s largely hidden from teenagers. In What Richard Did we see a teenager having to digest a lifetime’s worth of self- disillusionment in one big blast.’ He discovers what men often don’t realise until later in life: that the alpha male image is an act, a veneer rather than the reality, but he fails to learn from this. Richard’s actions after Conor’s death are motivated by his need to repair the damage caused to his image – in his own eyes, as much as in those of others. Although he reaches the point of telling Lara that he will turn himself in to the police, he is ultimately driven by the need to cover over the cracks and once more be seen as a success in every aspect of life.
Jack Reynor and Roísín Murphy in What Richard Did
© Artificial Eye, 2013. Used by permission.
The fact that he gets away with his crime, that he simply continues with his charmed life, is disturbing to many viewers. But Lenny Abrahamson and actor Jack Reynor succeed in making us likeRichard. We don’t quite see the events unfold through his eyes, but we accompany him right through the film, so we feel it when he unravels, and we are disappointed, as he is, at the prospect that his potential will be wasted. And yet we also feel that there should be justice, and that he should not get away with it. Moral philosopher Bernard Williams introduced the concept of ‘moral luck’. How we evaluate the morality of an action depends on how things turn out, which is inevitably bound up with circumstances – and luck. For Williams, ‘human deeds need to be judged retrospectively and there is a close relation between the visibility of crime and its gravity’. If someone gets away with their crime, over time the seriousness of it diminishes. Richard feels that luck is on his side as suspicion never falls on him, and as he continues his life, his actions seem to weigh less heavily on his mind. Inevitably, some have paid a high moral cost (Conor’s family, in particular), but Williams denied that moral values are higher than any others, such as personal happiness. This line of moral reasoning would justify Richard in valuing his promising future more highly than the moral value of doing the right thing, or the truth value of the Harris family knowing who was responsible for Conor’s death.
And yet, as with Woody Allen’s Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989) and Match Point (2005), many of us feel dissatisfied with this. We still find ourselves instinctively longing for justice when we see someone apparently getting away scot free. It could be argued that this is merely the product of growing up in a society with a well-established justice system: we are conditioned to expect crimes to incur punishments. The Bible, however, sees this instinct as something inherent in human nature because we are made in the image of God (Genesis 1:26–27). He is seen as a moral being right from the beginning of the Bible: he gives Adam and Eve commands to be obeyed (Genesis 1:28; 2:15) and places a single restriction on them: not to eat the fruit of the ‘tree of the knowledge of good and evil’ (Genesis 2:17). Throughout the Bible, God is seen to be deeply concerned about righteousness and justice (e.g. Psalm 89:14; Isaiah 28:17), and expects humans to have the same priorities (e.g. the king in 2 Chronicles 9:8). In the New Testament, the apostle Paul say that even those without an explicit knowledge of God’s moral requirements still instinctively know what is right (Romans 2:14–15). Yet we also do wrong things, and this, too, is a human instinct. Genesis 3 is the account of the first humans giving in to temptation and breaking the one moral restriction on them: they ate from the prohibited tree (Genesis 3:1–7). They discovered that they now knew evil as well as good (which they already knew) – not objectively from outside, as God knows it, but experientially, from the inside, as lawbreakers. Ever since, human beings have experienced the tension of knowing what the good is, but repeatedly doing what is wrong. Paul says we ‘suppress the truth by [our] wickedness’ (Romans 1:18). So we don’t always do the right thing, because we are more concerned about furthering our own goals or satisfying our own desires.
Roísín Murphy in What Richard Did
© Artificial Eye, 2013. Used by permission.
This is a very different understanding of morality from that of Bernard Williams. Indeed, isn’t Williams’s insistence that morality is no higher than any other value equivalent to Adam and Eve placing their freedom at a higher level than obeying God? The biblical perspective of human beings bearing God’s image, while also rejecting his moral authority, makes sense of the way we feel when we see a character like Richard escaping justice, and even more so when we hear of someone in real life escaping justice after doing something terrible.
The desire for justice is not all we feel, though. We don’t want Richard to get away without paying some cost for his crime, but neither do we simply want him to be punished. After all, this is no premeditated murder, but the unfortunate, unforeseen result of a drunken brawl. Perhaps we reflect our creator in another way in that we have a deeper longing for redemption: we want to see him called to account for his actions in order that he can face who he really is and become a better man as a result. This, though, is Hollywood redemption – the happy ending that comes through someone realising the error of his ways. Redemption in the Bible is of a deeper sort altogether. This redemption is entirely the gift of a God who loves us and wants us to be his children, but is so morally pure that we can never be good enough for him. The resolution to this dilemma is that, in the person of Jesus Christ, God himself pays the price for our crimes, so that his justice is satisfied, and he attributes his righteousness to us in place of our moral corruption. Paul writes in his letter to the church in Rome:
For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard. Yet God, with undeserved kindness, declares that we are righteous. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins. For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood. . . . God did this to demonstrate his righteousness, for he himself is fair and just, and he declares sinners to be right in his sight when they believe in Jesus. (Romans 3:23–26)
People like Richard may escape justice in this life, but since God is the judge of all humanity, there is no escaping his ultimate justice – except through this gift of ‘undeserved kindness’. But that requires people like Richard to recognise that their veneer of having everything and needing nothing is mere pretence, and to admit the shame of, as Harrison says, ‘being the kind of person that does that sort of thing’. And that is true of all of us.
This article was first published as a Film and Bible Blog article in Culturewatch. © Tony Watkins, 2012.
For discussion material on this film, see my Damaris Film Blog discussion guide and additional questions for reflection in my Film and Bible Blog article.
The end of the eighteenth century was a time of great change in Europe. Enlightenment thinkers challenged the traditional structures of society, which kept all the power in the hands of the state and the church. The lives of ordinary people were shaped by customs, traditions, and oppressive laws, which kept the majority in servitude to the nobility. States like Denmark had strict censorship laws which prohibited people from expressing, or coming into contact with, any ideas contrary to official dogmas. Nevertheless, the ideas of thinkers like Kant, Rousseau, and Voltaire spread around the continent, holding out the promise of freedom and reform to the people.
This is more than simply the background to the historical events depicted in A Royal Affair, but one of the main forces driving them. When Caroline Mathilde (Alicia Vikander) arrives at the Danish royal court in 1766 to be the wife of King Christian VII (Mikkel Følsgaard), she is told that some of books she has brought with her are prohibited. We are not told what these books are, but given the way in which she is eager to borrow a copy of a book of Rousseau later in the film, it seems likely that they are Enlightenment texts. Caroline finds her new life hateful and imprisoning because of the erratic and wholly unreasonable behaviour of her husband. But, three years later, hope comes from an unexpected source: Christian’s new personal physician, Johann Struensee (Mads Mikkelsen), who is very much a ‘man of the Enlightenment’.
Struensee has arrived at court as a result of a ploy by two aristocrats – Rantzau (Thomas W. Gabrielsson) and Brandt (Cyron Bjørn Melville) – who had been banished from the court for their Enlightenment sympathies. They came across Doctor Struensee in Altona, a Danish colony in northern Germany, and had read some of his anonymous writings praising the French freethinkers. King Christian was not far away in Hamburg, too ill to continue on his grand tour of Europe, and Rantzau saw an opportunity: if Struensee could become Christian’s personal physician, he could use his newfound influence to get Rantzau and Brandt back into the inner circle at court.
Mads Mikkelson and Alicia Vikander in A Royal Affair
© Metrodome Distribution, 2013.
Caroline despises Christian for his promiscuity and mental instability, and is hostile to the new doctor who encourages him. But when she spots his Enlightenment books partially concealed behind others on a shelf, she is intrigued. She takes out his copy of Rousseau and, quoting the most famous line: ‘Man is born free and everywhere he is in shackles,’ asks to borrow it. So begins a friendship which eventually moves from shared intellectual interests and concern for freedom to become a love affair.
Love is the second main force driving these events, and – as so often – it apparently trumps all other concerns. Struensee is passionate about rationalism and about freedom, but when he decides that he is free to have sex with his friend’s wife, he has surely abandoned rationality. Brandt warns him of this before the affair begins: ‘Men ignore reason when it comes to beautiful young women. . . . You’re a fool. I like you a lot. I don’t want to mourn by your severed head.’ He and Caroline justify themselves in expressing their love because Christian has no interest in her, and because they believe that marriage, along with religion and other norms within society, detracts from personal freedom. Marriage certainly can take away personal freedom in a destructive way, when one partner is abusive, oppressive, or promiscuous, as Christian is. But properly understood and lived, marriage is about the voluntary surrender of some personal freedoms (such as the freedom to fall in love with anyone) in order to discover the greater freedom of a relationship of absolute trust, commitment, openness and intimacy. That is, in fact, what Struensee and Caroline want for themselves, but it’s not possible for them because Caroline is already not only married and the mother of a young boy, but married to the king and the mother to the crown prince. Their affair is not only inappropriate and ill-advised; it is dangerous to them and to the country.
Alicia Vikander and Mads Mikkelson in A Royal Affair
© Metrodome Distribution, 2013.
Struensee also loves (in a non-sexual way) his friend Christian, and encourages him to take his position seriously and use his power to influence the privy council. The king begins to be committed to Enlightenment ideals, but his progressive ideas – and Struensee’s growing hold over Christian – bring hostility from the council, especially Count Von Bernstorff (Bent Mejding), and Guldberg (David Dencik), who is a confidante of Christian’s stepmother, the Dowager Queen Juliana Maria (Trine Dyrholm). This is not merely a conflict of intellectual ideas, but of morality. Guldberg complains that, ‘The king is letting himself be dictated [to] by a man of the Enlightenment. Denmark is one of the last posts in a depraved Europe,’ because for him the Enlightenment is about abandoning the moral principles on which European society has been based. For Struensee, however, the old guard’s grasp on power and its commitment to the feudal system is an offence against the dignity of human beings, who should never be ‘owned’ or oppressed by anyone.
Caroline reflects in a voice-over, ‘We thought we could have it all. We were naïve. For a while it felt like we could do something. Bring about change. Our group of freethinkers grew. And so did our ideas. But ultimately the council was too strong. And the harder it became, the more times he was rejected, the more despondent Christian became.’ When the privy councillors vote to have Struensee expelled from Denmark, Christian dissolves the council and declares himself and the doctor to be the cabinet. Caroline’s voiceover continues, ‘It was almost too good to be true. To see our thoughts and ideas become reality. We sat up nights. In the following months, hundreds of laws were passed. Everything was possible. Denmark had become a pioneering country admired across Europe. The Enlightenment had finally arrived.’
Mads Mikkelson and Mikkel Følsgaard in A Royal Affair
© Metrodome Distribution, 2013.
It was too good to be true. Struensee soon takes all the power for himself, demonstrating the validity of Lord Acton’s famous aphorism, ‘Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.’ From the perspective of around 240 years later, many of the laws initiated by Struensee seem self-evidently right: the abolition of torture, the abandonment of press censorship, introduction of a general inoculation, abolition of corporal punishment for peasants, reduction of the power and privileges of the aristocracy, and the end to ownership of peasants. The problem is in the way that Struensee sidelines everyone, even his friends, while grasping tightly to his power. In this he is doing just what his opponents had done, but, as with his love affair, he can justify it to himself because he feels he is doing something good. But Struensee has created something of a perfect storm for himself: the combination of deeply aggrieved enemies who have lost their positions of power, the exclusion of friends, the marginalisation of the king himself, and the continuation of an illicit affair in the royal palace. He has produced conditions which will inevitably lead to his downfall.
Arguably, Struensee’s biggest problem was that of the entire Enlightenment project: he had many right and proper moral insights into the state of society, but he failed to understand that freedom must always operate within limits. His opponents cared nothing for the freedom of the common people, and had the temerity to associate their oppression with religion. He cared immensely for the freedom of the common people and therefore set himself against the oppressing aristocracyand against religious faith. But in doing so, he cut himself off from the very thing that would enable him to understand what true freedom is. It can never be absolute; total freedom is ultimately destructive of goodness and even life, because it becomes totally self-seeking, riding roughshod over others. True freedom is a life lived in relationship with God, for which we were created. The Apostle Paul describes it in stark terms as being ‘slaves to righteous living’. If we turn our backs on that, we become ‘slaves to sin’, which ultimately ‘leads to death’ (Romans 6:16–18). Struensee’s precious Enlightenment had its intellectual and moral roots firmly in the Reformation of the two centuries previously, but while it continued working through the ethical implications, it abandoned the biblical foundations. Perhaps if Struensee had not accepted the false antithesis that reforming society required rejecting God, and had instead lived by authentically biblical values, he would have had the same passion for reform, but his thirst for freedom could have had entirely creative, not destructive consequences.
This article was first published in Culturewatch. © Tony Watkins, 2012
Berberian Sound Studio is an extraordinary, profoundly unsettling film like no other. It’s the second film by independent British film-maker Peter Strickland, confirming the talent he demonstrated with his acclaimed debut Katalin Varga, which won the Silver Bear at the 2009 Berlin International Film Festival.
It stars one of the very best character actors around, Toby Jones, as Gilderoy, a diffident, unworldy English sound engineer. Working in a studio in his garden shed, he is highly skilled at recording and mixing sound for documentaries about the South Downs near his Surrey home. But the film opens with him arriving at the studios of an Italian film company in the 1970s. All Gilderoy knows about the film he is to work on is that it is called The Equestrian Vortex. He is unnerved when it turns out to be a graphic horror film – a giallo film – which is entirely out of his range of experience.
 Toby Jones in Berberian Sound Studio
© Artificial Eye, 2013. Used by permission. Apart from the red and black title sequence of The Equestrian Vortex (in classic giallo style), we see nothing at all of the film, though it is being projected into the studio while the sound is being added. Apart from this title sequence, the only snippet of any film we see within Berberian Sound Studio is from Gilderoy’s Box Hill documentary, which comes within the nightmare final act. We do see two jobbing actresses – Silvia (Fatma Mohamed) and Claudia (Eugenia Caruso) – recording dialogue and blood-curdling screams in a cramped sound booth while they watch the projected film. We also witness two foley (sound effects) technicians – Massimo and Massimo (real-life experimental sound artists Jozef Cseres and Pál Tóth) – producing the sound effects of bodily mutilation by hacking watermelons to pieces, smashing marrows on the floor, and drowning cabbages. When Gilderoy first witnesses them attacking watermelons, while watching one of the scenes being projected, he is disturbed, and only reluctantly accepts a piece of melon afterwards.
The reserved Englishman contrasts sharply with the demonstrative Italians, and finds everything about the experience unsettling – including his difficulties in getting the cost of his airfare refunded. Producer Francesco (Cosimo Fusco) assures him he will deal with it later, but then claims it is the responsibility of secretary Elena (Tonia Sotiropoulou). Elena is unwelcoming and uncooperative to the point of being hostile, and Gilderoy’s attempts to get his money become increasingly fraught. It gradually becomes apparent that this is emblematic of the corruption which pervades the production. He clearly only feels comfortable when he is fiddling with the wonderful array of analogue sound equipment (which forms a significant part of the film – this is a real homage to analogue sound engineering). As he lovingly tends to the equipment, reflects on his recently completed documentary about the natural history of Box Hill, and reads letters from his mother telling him about a family of chiff-chaffs nesting near his shed, we get the sense that he was profoundly content with what he perceives to be an idyllic life back home in Dorking.
 Toby Jones in Berberian Sound Studio © Artificial Eye, 2013. Used by permission. As Gilderoy is confronted by the graphic scenes, he tries to register his discomfort about working on this kind of horror film, but the director Santini (Antonio Mancino) rebukes him: ‘Horror film? This is not a horror film. This is not a horror film. This is a Santini film. True, a Santini film is violent, I know. But questa è la vita – this is the life. It is part of the human condition. Please, please, Gilderoy, don’t call my film a horror film again.’ And later, as Gilderoy attempts to express his revulsion over flashback scenes of the torturing of alleged witches, Santini insists that, ‘These things happened, yes. This is history. And a film director must be true. I hate what they did to these beautiful women. Really, I hate it. But it is my duty to show. The world must know the truth and to see the truth.’
The problem is that, while Gilderoy’s antipathy to the project and to his Italian colleagues grows, he is becoming implicated in the whole sordid business. He has become a collaborator. He may have accepted the piece of watermelon reluctantly and distastefully, but he accepted it nevertheless, and his doing so is symbolic of his participation. This is almost hinting at a corrupted eucharist, in which, by accepting and eating something representing flesh (bread, in the case of communion, representing the body of Christ), he signifies his participation. His attempt to leave the studio is half-hearted and ineffectual; he is too much of a timid Englishman to really challenge the forceful Italian director. The one person with whom he makes a connection, Silvia, tells him that he is going about getting his money in the wrong way: ‘You don’t just ask. You shout and stamp your feet.’ He tries this with Elena, but to no avail, and it is the only time he shows any assertiveness.
 Tonia Sotiropoulou in Berberian Sound Studio © Artificial Eye, 2013. Used by permission. Gradually, Gilderoy is sucked into the project, and after Silvia is treated appallingly by Santini, he rapidly disintegrates mentally. Echoing aspects of the films of David Lynch (there is a very particular reference to Mulholland Drive) and Ingmar Bergman, the film becomes increasingly surreal as Gilderoy loses his grip on reality and becomes unable to distinguish between the fantasy he is contributing to and real life. (It’s also possible, especially given the Lynch connection, that none of what we see is real). Strickland is clearly engaging morally with a fundamental question about the nature of existence, but the ending is very ambiguous. The question apparently confronting Gilderoy is this: is his idyllic home the real world, while he currently inhabits an unreal claustrophobic nightmare? Or is beautiful, peaceful Surrey the fantasy, while the darkness, corruption and horror of the Berberian Sound Studio reflects the true nature of the world, which is he too inhibited to challenge?
Gilderoy hates what he sees on screen and in the studio, yet he becomes complicit in its corruption. There is a profound challenge to the audience here, without Peter Strickland needing to spell it out: to what extent are we implicated in our enjoyment of, or simply our watching of, films featuring things which would appall us in the real world? Is it an adequate defence to dismiss it as merely escapist fantasy? When we pay to watch a film, such as Quentin Tarantino’s extremely violent Django Unchained, are we not inevitably expressing approval of the idea of violence being entertaining? And if so, what are we to make of the disconnection between that attitude and our attitude towards real-life violence?
 Toby Jones in Berberian Sound Studio © Artificial Eye, 2013. Used by permission. There is also a challenge to how we predominantly view life: as dark and corrupt, or as light and idyllic? The truth is that both strands are interwoven through the tapestry of life. As the letters from Gilderoy’s mother eventually reveal, violence and death pervade the beautiful natural world too. On the other hand, even in the oppressive atmosphere of the studio, there is a need for beauty, joy and celebration. During a power-cut, Gilderoy is asked to create his UFO sound effect, which he does using a wire brush and a light bulb: it’s a moment of unusual beauty. And at an impromptu celebration, Gilderoy asks what it’s in aid of, to be told that he should celebrate whatever comes to his mind. This tension is at the centre of our existence. Even in our darkness, those moments of beauty, joy, goodness and celebration awaken within us a sense of hope, or at least of longing, that things will not always be this way. It’s a longing that the Bible’s promise of a recreated world – free from corruption, exploitation, violence, and selfishness – will come to pass. On the other hand, Gilderoy’s irresolute sleepwalking into a hellish fantasy is a stark warning of altogether different outcome.
This article was first published in Culturewatch. © Tony Watkins, 2012.
For discussion material on this film, see Sophie Lister’s Damaris Film Blog discussion guide.
 Daniel Craig as James Bond in Skyfall
Image © Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures/Columbia Pictures/EON Productions. All rights reserved. Used by permission. James Bond has been in the spying business for such a long time that he really ought to be up for a long-service award. But the world’s most famous secret agent is going as strongly as ever. Since 1953, when Ian Fleming’s first 007 novel, Casino Royale, hit the shelves, Commander Bond has been suavely dealing with the enemies of freedom around the globe, both in print and on screen.
The Bond novels didn’t come to an end with Ian Fleming’s death in 1964. Kingsley Amis (under the name of Robert Markham) wrote Colonel Sun in 1968, then in the 1970s, Christopher Wood wrote novelisations of his screenplays for The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker. John Gardner continued the series during the ’80s and early ’90s, writing 16 Bond novels, including novelisations of Licence to Kill and GoldenEye. American writer Raymond Benson then wrote 9 books, including novelisations of Tomorrow Never Dies, The World is not Enough and Die Another Day, plus three short stories. In 2008, Fleming’s centenary was marked by Sebastian Foulks’s novel, Devil May Care, since which there has been one more Bond novel, Carte Blanche, written by another American, Jeffrey Deaver, in 2011, which sees Bond working in a new intelligence agency, rather than MI6. Besides these, there have also been the Young Bond series, written by Charlie Higson, and The Moneypenny Diaries trilogy, written by Samantha Weinberg under the name of Kate Westbrook.
 Sean Connery and Daniela Bianchi
in From Russia With Love
Image © Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures/
Columbia Pictures/EON Productions
Used by permission.
Of course, it is the screen incarnations of James Bond that have captured countless imaginations and generated an enormous quantity of merchandising [1] over the last four decades. Sean Connery, George Lazenby, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan, and Daniel Craig have brought the world’s most famous secret agent to life in 23 action-packed films, making it the longest-running film franchise (23 ‘official’ films from EON Productions, that is: there have been two other feature films: the 1967 spoof, Casino Royale , and the 1983 remake of Thunderball, Never Say Never Again, which saw Sean Connery return to the role). The first actor to play Bond was not Connery, however. American Barry Nelson has that honour, for a one-hour live production of Casino Royale for CBS in 1954. Then two years later Bob Holness (of Blockbusters fame) took on the 007 mantle in a radio dramatisation of Moonraker.
The appeal of Bond
What gives Fleming’s character such enduring popularity? James Bond is a hero, an British gentleman and a connoisseur of fine things, as well as being a womaniser, a gambler, a thrill-seeker, a rule-breaker and a killer. Above all, he is a cinematic icon of coolness. Bond’s life is one long adventure, bursting with the thrill of the chase, exotic and extreme situations, fabulous cars, and beautiful girls. He’s far from being a standard-issue secret agent: a good spy needs to be so unremarkable that he or she is almost invisible. In contrast, 007 likes to do things in his own distinctive way. He typically strolls brazenly into a social situation to get the measure of his enemy – he announces his presence and waits for a response.
 Daniel Craig as James Bond in Skyfall
Image © Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures/Columbia Pictures/EON Productions. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
007 is not merely a hero; he’s almost a superhero – not because he has superpowers, but because he is consummately good at everything he does and is, in practice, almost invincible. In place of superpowers, on-screen Bonds have traditionally wielded a fabulous array of gadgetry: watches equipped with transmitters, lasers, or detonators; glass-shattering rings; exploding pens; autogyros; minisubs (even one disguised as a crocodile); and a frankly ridiculous invisible car. Many of the earlier gadgets were based on real spy technology – the attaché case containing a hidden folding sniper’s rifle in From Russia With Love (1963), for example. Some, like the Bell Jet Pack in Thunderball (1965), seemed outlandish but were real machines; [2] others, like the miniature underwater breathing device in the same film, were pure make-believe. Some were forerunners of real machines, like the Wet Bike in The Spy Who Loved Me (1977). 007’s cars have tended to brim with gadgets and have set petrol-head pulses racing since his first Aston Martin in Goldfinger (1964).
However, the Daniel Craig era has returned Bond to the way he’s portrayed in Fleming’s books: he is rooted in reality, he’s far from invulnerable, and the tools of his trade are realistic (even if not real). The only non-standard equipment in his Casino Royale Aston Martin DB-S is a defibrillator. Craig’s Bond may be realistic, but there is little or nothing about him that is ordinary.
Licence to Kill
The most obvious facet of James Bond’s life is the violence. It goes with his job description: he is not merely a spook, he has the famous ‘00’ number – a licence to kill on behalf of the British government. It means he is a top MI6 agent, with a duty to avert the greatest dangers facing Britain or even the world. From his first celluloid mission neutralising the evil Dr No (Dr No, 1962), through to the forthcoming Skyfall (2012), in which he has to save MI6 and ‘M’ (Judi Dench) herself, Bond fights for good and for freedom.
 Daniel Craig as James Bond in Skyfall
Image © Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures/Columbia Pictures/EON Productions. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
The greatest enemy in the earlier films was the ultra-secretive SPECTRE (SPecial Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion), masterminded by arch-villain Blofeld. SPECTRE had no national allegiances, but pursued profit and power. Inevitably, it opposed the free (and wealthy) western world, and frequently held some or all of it to ransom. SPECTRE was unscrupulous and callous, as happy to sell its services to communist powers (one of its cells consisted of members of the much feared Russian unit, Smersh, or Smyert Spionen – ‘Death to Spies’) as to fight against them. Dr No himself was part of this organisation, and planned to cause havoc with American nuclear missiles solely to demonstrate SPECTRE’s ability and willingness to commit evil acts.
007’s later enemies included the Soviet Union, China, drug smugglers, and assorted megalomaniacs, including international terrorists and media baron Elliot Carver (Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)). These baddies have often reflected the political landscape of their times, but most of them are united in wanting power above all else. They are tyrants who have no qualms about expending the lives of their minions or killing countless civilians – no price is too high when ultimate power is the prize.
 Javier Bardem as Silva in Skyfall
Image © Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures/Columbia Pictures/EON Productions. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
Some of James Bond’s ruthless opponents, though, are motivated by revenge rather than money and power – Alex Trevelyan in GoldenEye (1995), for example, and Silva (Javier Bardem) in Skyfall. Sometimes this drives Bond too, as in Die Another Day (2002) when he tracks down the person who betrayed him into the hands of the rogue North Korean Colonel Moon. In Licence to Kill (1989) Bond has his ‘00’ status revoked in an attempt to stop him pursuing a vendetta against the man who mutilated his friend Felix Leiter and killed Felix’s bride on the their wedding day. And in Quantum of Solace (2008), Bond kills the local Chief of Police in revenge for killing Bond’s ally, Mathis.
Yet even when it gets very personal for Bond, his own battles are inevitably bound up with issues of much wider importance – heroin smuggling in Licence to Kill, the threat of a North Korean invasion in Die Another Day, and monopolising Bolivian water rights in Quantum of Solace. The stakes are always high: failure could result in many deaths – a vital perspective when 007 has a baddie in the sights of his gun. Cold killer he may be, but when James Bond’s adversaries are such remorseless fiends, intent on unleashing mayhem upon innocent people, he has no option. Without this ‘super-spook’, countless lives would be lost, but his cool, even casual, efficiency while performing this aspect of his job is chilling.
 Daniel Craig as James Bond in Skyfall
Image © Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures/Columbia Pictures/EON Productions. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
Until the Craig era, the violence of Bond films was of an over-the-top, comic-strip type. The body count was high, but most deaths were instant, blood free, and almost painless. Bond – or a glamorous Bond girl – was usually lined up for an agonising, drawn-out demise, but it was always the baddies who became the victims of their own dastardly plans. Martin Campbell’s reboot of the 007 franchise, though, brought more brutal and realistic violence than before. The scene from Casino Royale in which Le Chiffre tortures Bond is tough viewing, as is the scene in which Vesper Lynd drowns. Yet even now, the deaths of minor characters Bond films tend to be unrealistic and stylised.
The violence raises important questions. Is such murderousness appropriate? What effect does it have on the audience? In some ways, a Bond movie is no different from many classic tales: a great hero fights an evil foe; the foe almost gets the better of the hero; the hero comes back from the brink of disaster and destroys the foe; along the way many people get killed. But portraying this kind of narrative on the big screen easily ends up presenting violence as a thing to be enjoyed in itself. This was very often true in the pre-Craig films. Of course, there are many films which are far more brutal, but it would be wrong to see the violence in older Bond films as therefore less of a problem because it’s less graphic. Arguably, the reverse is true: when movies reveal violence as truly horrific, they reinforce our instinct that it is to be feared and avoided at all costs. On the other hand, sanitised violence –exciting and free of messy consequences – can be seductive.
Humans are rather ambivalent about violence. On the one hand, we are made in the image of God, so there is something in us that revolts against violence. On the other hand, we are also rebels against God, and that makes us capable of all kinds of wickedness (see Jeremiah 17:9) – more than we imagine. We are not as far removed from violent people as we might imagine. We can easily look respectable on the outside, but nurture very aggressive attitudes on the inside. Jesus pointed this out when he extended the scope of the Old Testament law to include attitudes and thoughts (Matthew 5:21–28). Which of us is not guilty of anger? Jesus says that we are as guilty before God as if we had committed murder.
Bond Girls
Another element of the Bond films that has been highly stylised is the ‘Bond Girls’. From the moment Ursula Andress stepped out of the sea as Honey Ryder in Dr No, every Bond movie has featured beautiful women to set male pulses racing. In all except The Living Daylights(1987) and Quantum of Solace, James has a sexual relationship with at least one woman, some of whom, of course, prove to be enemies.
 Bérénice Marlohe as Severine, and Daniel Craig as James Bond in Skyfall
Image © Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures/Columbia Pictures/EON Productions. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
James Bond’s coolness and sophistication, together with his charm and rugged good looks, make him irresistible to most women (notable exceptions being Rosa Klebb in From Russia With Love and Miranda Frost [3] in Die Another Day). Bond even seduces the lesbian Pussy Galore in Goldfinger, resulting in her becoming heterosexual. These women are often temporary havens in his turbulent existence. While he is in their arms, the hazards of life as 007 are pushed to one side. Perhaps, even more importantly, the loneliness of the spy’s life is temporarily forgotten.
The way that Bond relates to women has evolved over the years in line with changing attitudes in society. He has always been protective towards them, with more than a little old-fashioned chivalry in his attitude, but, especially in the earlier years, he was often rather chauvinistic. More significantly, the nature of the women themselves has changed to an extent: they have certainly become more independent and self-sufficient. By the time we get to Die Another Day, Halle Berry’s Jinx is presented to us as Bond’s equal in many respects. Although the two of them become lovers, she refuses to allow 007 to be protective of her – and yet Bond still has to rescue her.
 Naomie Harris as Eve and Daniel Craig as James Bond in Skyfall
Image © Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures/Columbia Pictures/EON Productions. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
It is Bond’s protectiveness towards women that once brought him true love. In the 1969 film, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, he rescues the beautiful, but bored, Comtesse Teresa ‘Tracy’ di Vicenzo from her attempt to drown herself on a Portuguese beach. She turns out to be the daughter of crime boss Marc Ange Draco who offers 007 his assistance and £1 million if he will marry Tracy. Bond refuses, but falls in love with her and marries her anyway. His happiness is short-lived, though: as the newlyweds set off for their honeymoon, Bond’s archenemy Blofeld and his henchwoman Irma Bunt spray the car with bullets. Tracy is killed and Bond is heartbroken. In the opening sequence of For Your Eyes Only (1981), he is shown visiting her grave to leave flowers. Never again would Bond commit himself to a woman, but sexual relationships continue to be a very significant part of his life.
The Bible is clear from the outset that sex is part of what it is to be human. In Genesis 2, the first man, Adam, only finds a suitable partner when God makes the woman. ‘At last!’ Adam exclaims, ‘this is flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone.’ He instantly recognises that they were made for each other. There is something in us which longs for intimacy with the opposite sex – it’s how we were made. Bond feels that longing intensely – perhaps particularly because of his unsettled and dangerous life. But the Bible is equally clear about what God’s standard is: absolute faithfulness within marriage and no sexual relations whatsoever outside of it. Bond the womaniser seems to care about nothing other than his own gratification. There is little or no thought for the consequences of these casual sexual liaisons. Regardless of the potential physical consequences of sex, Bond seems oblivious of the emotional impact on his lovers or himself. He knows the distress of losing a lover all too well – he has grieved over other dead women besides Tracy (most notably Vesper Lynd) – but apparently cares nothing for how the women he seduces will feel afterwards.
 Naomie Harris as Eve in Skyfall
Image © Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures/Columbia Pictures/EON Productions. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
Women may be tough and independent in 21st Century Bond movies, but they continue to be objects of male fantasy. Until Casino Royale, the title sequence always featured scantily clad, or naked, dancers, most often in silhouette against a swirling background. They may be largely veiled by the visual effects, but this can serve to heighten the eroticism. If the Bond movies have any message, it would seem to be, embrace sexual freedom and don’t worry about the consequences.
Bond the role model
While few people would claim James Bond as a role model, many fans secretly fantasise about being like him – I confess that I drive differently when I leave the cinema after seeing him in action. The violence and womanising may be an enticing fantasy, but they’re reprehensible in the real world. Yet in some ways he is a good model. He is a hero prepared to risk his life for others, and who works for the triumph of good over evil. He is wholeheartedly committed to what he does, he enjoys life, he makes a point of being the best at what he does, he’s a gentleman with rather better manners than many, and he is always calm in a crisis. The films are intended as escapist entertainment, but we cannot help picking up cues for life from what we watch. Those of us who love Bond films need to make sure we pick up the good ones and don’t start fantasising about the more questionable aspects of his on-screen existence.
[1] The Corgi Aston Martin DB5 (from Goldfinger) with bulletproof shield, rotating number plates, hydraulic rams on the bumpers, wheel hub scythes, and, of course, ejector seat was perhaps the first ‘must-have’ film-tie-in toy.
[2] The Bell Jet Pack was developed for the US military. It could take a man up to 200 m in the air and keep him airborne for four minutes.
[3] Miranda Frost does sleep with Bond but it seems clear that this is merely a means to an end and doesn’t spring out of any attraction to him.
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This article was first published on Culturewatch.org. © Tony Watkins, 2012
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This article was first published in Culturewatch.org in two parts. © Tony Watkins, 2012.
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Via http://village.rhythms.org/square/mobile-infographic/
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