Blog Justification and Art

So the thought of creating a blog has long been merely a fashionable one to me, until the musings of my two buddies (cf. Lew and Cloaks) have proven their communicative value. Plus, I've experienced (not just viewed or read) some great art this weekend, and I've taken the authoritative stance that my thoughts are bloggable (cf. "blog-worthy" -Merriam Webster). My blog will not follow MLA guidlines, however I do plan on attributing everything wonderful I post to other people.

Last night I sojourned to the cities to see the Coen Bros. new film "No country for Old Men," adapted to the screen from Cormac McCarthy's (my favorite living author, cf. future post) second most recent novel. There was a huge line outside the Uptown Theatre, and my first thought was that these people obviously didn't know what they were in for (cf. Peasley's pessimistic disposition). The film/book is about a young working class vietnam vet who stumbles onto a drug deal gone wrong in the desert, finds a bag of bills, and takes it for his own. Only too late does he realize the stupidity of his on-a-whim decision. The drug lord sends a host of men to retrieve it - including a homocidal stoic who flips coins to decide who he shoots in the face and who he lets alone. The main character with the least screen time, though in my opinion the character who fills out the real meaning of the film (cf. Film title and Yeats' "Sailing to Byzantium"), is Sheriff Bell, played by Tommy Lee Jones, whose philanthropic motives of being a law man are shattered and he becomes disilusioned at the kind of violence and genus of criminals he is dealing with. The movie offers no poetic justice, only ruthless killings and the conclusion that even people's hopes are more than often too mortal. The crazy-killer-man rolls his eyes at those who think their fates could be otherwise. And, metatheatrically speaking, he (and McCarthy) roll their eyes at those of us who are discomforted by lack of positive resolution in our lives (or in the plots of our art). The movie, however, ends on an amazing note -- with Sheriff Bell's narrative of the dream of he has of his father, walking ahead of him on horseback, silent, carrying a fire in a horn, communicating a steadfastness of human meaning via the symbolic love implicit in familial relationships.

The hope this last scene gives is too mysterious for me to venture that people en masse will find it redemptive of the film as meaningless blood-bath. However, McCarthy seems to be showing us something entirely realistic: that here on earth justice is always delayed if not absent in our sufferings and the cruelty we witness in the world. He refuses to give a false hope that everything will be fine and dandy on this side of death. And he also neglects to give us any good reason to believe that there's better things on the other side. However, he shows us what truly is good about life, and the mystery of this in spite of the utterly ruthless nature of the universe. McCarthy like many good artists (Dostoevsky, Melville, Shakespeare) and biblical literature (cf. Job, Ecclesiastes, the book of Mark) refuses to allow us the notion that everything will be nice and fine when we most want them to be.

Art piece 2: I finished reading Shakespeare's King Lear just a few hours ago. It was my first read through, and I'm going to need some time to really process it. But I was so excited to read it since I'd read so much about it before hand. King Lear is selfish in the beginning, giving favor to his two wicked daughters and condemning to exile his one honest one. Shortly his two daughters turn on him, leaving him almost completely naked in the rain, and they vie with eachother and their husbands over power for the rest of the play. I don't really feel up for supplying the details right now (cf. I should reading Cicero's Pro Caelio this minute), but let us say he endures a terrible exile through which an inner-transformation seems to take place, which is exhibited explicitly in the final scene when he weeps over his dead daughter.

All this to say: I have long been quite disillusioned at how superficially Christians view and appreciate art. Too often the good books, movies and music have little to do with the actual Christian vision, and more to do with feeling comfortable. I will call this the Disney-ification of Christianity. As was reminded me earlier reading Kim Paffenroth (a great Catholic literature critic), the book of Mark originally did not end with the resurrection, only with the crucifixion. I assume the Church Fathers included this at a later point, and understandably so for the sake of unity of mind, or that the ending was tacked on through text transmission (which is common even as late as in Shakespeare manuscripts). However, imagine that this was so.

Thought experiment: Now imagine what Mark (who got much of his account from Peter and therefore knew of the resurrection) was thinking if he did not include the resurrection in his gospel.

Blogwell,
Peasley