Nothing is so beautiful and wonderful, nothing is so continually fresh and surprising, so full of sweet and perpetual ecstacy, as the good. No desert is so dreary, monotonous, and boring as evil. This is the truth about authentic good and evil.
With fictional good and evil it is the other way round. Fictional good is boring and flat, while fictional evil is varied and intriguing, attractive profound, and full of charm.
Simone Weil On Science, Necessity, and the Love of God
It was interesting to come across this quote again last night after thinking about Lars von Trier yesterday. Some critics have applauded him for having the courage to show evil and despair so unflinchingly. I’m not convinced. I think what Weil’s quote suggests is that von Trier has taken the easy road, since it’s not difficult to portray evil in increasingly dramatic ways. Mike Leigh faced a much harder task with Happy-Go-Lucky, having a central character who is genuinely good.
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- Roger Ebert on Lars von Trier’s ‘Antichrist’ Roger Ebert's comments about 'Antichrist' by Lars von Trier [...]...
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- Philip Pullman and his atheist fiction Philip Pullman CBE is the acclaimed author of around thirty books, mostly aimed at older children. He is best known for His Dark Materials, a brilliantly written, ambitious trilogy...
- Greg Jesson on showing the Good in films It is easy to portray human brokenness and the dismantling of the human soul cinematically. Indeed, the world is overflowing with such films. However, what is rare and exceedingly...
