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Movie Monday - You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger and Christopher Hitchens
Chistopher Hitchens, who died last week, was a witty, acerbic Brit turned American who possessed the sharp, facile brain and tongue with which the English can so often stun an argument.
As an atheist, I agreed with much he said, but there was never agreement on his support of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. And, truth be told, I'm not really into witty, facile atheists since I don't think they produce any thing but bon mots, never conversion arguments. Because no matter how strongly I know the supernatural does not exist, I also know the human species (emphasis on species here) cannot extricate itself of the hold of the mumbo-jumbo.
I used to think that man created god after watching a violent storm or after the first death but now I don't think the species was capable of deep thought back at the beginning. So shit must have just happened for millenniums until.....
Read Julian Jayne’s The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind where he postulates that early man had a bicameral mind and one section of it spoke to the other. (Hearing the voice of god, anyone?) But then, 2000 years ago, the brain fused and god disappeared. (My God, My God, why have you forsaken me - takes on a whole new meaning.) And for the rest of time, mankind has embarked on the quest to find his lost god. It's a fascinating theory.
Which brings me to Woody Allen and You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger. Watch Sleeper or Bananas and I don't think you'd see the Woody Allen of today. Jabs at god and religion existed from the early films but age has fleshed out his thoughts on these concepts and what he is finally saying in quiet, slow tones now is startlingly comforting and disturbingly correct.
The ubiquitous narrator tells us from the start in YWMATDS that we're looking at a dysfunctional family. Helena, who has been dumped by her husband of many years, is visiting a "psychic", Cristal (love the name!), for guidance. Ex-hubby, Alfie, is searching for his lost youth in gym clubs and prostitutes. Daughter Sally supports her ex-MD, one-successful-novel husband, Roy, by working for art dealer, Greg, to whom she is attracted.
Get the picture? Helena is involved in mumbo-jumbo to assuage the pain (she tried suicide when Alfie left) and the rest of her family, while making some bad choices, is much more grounded in reality. Not giving away the plot, I'll say that members of the rest of the family are involved in some very, very bad choices. The curtain falls before disaster but you know that's what awaits them.
Helena is the key to this movie. Wacky Helena, who is persuaded by Cristal (who originally is a boon to her daughter because it gets Helena off her back) to believe she has lived before, guided by Cristal into a budding romance with a fellow thinker and finally advised financially by Cristal to a disastrous decision for her daughter. Wacky Helena, living in this crazy world of past lives and false fortune telling, comes out at the end of the movie as the only truly happy person. All the rational people live to learn sad truths: youth cannot be revisited, love is not always what it seems and crime does not pay. But Helena walks away with her balding, paunchy book seller and you have no doubt they will enjoy a bizarre but happy future.
I won't guess the message Allan is sending, I'll just tell you the message I got: In the end, the peace that comes with the mumbo-jumbo has its merits.
So Hitchens may have fought eloquently against the supernatural and Dawkins, et al, are still here to carry this torch ably. But in the end, we are just a species; no more special than the beaver who must build that dam nor the lemming who must race to that cliff. Like Lear, do we as non-believers, have to decide the wisdom of fighting the wind?
As an atheist, I agreed with much he said, but there was never agreement on his support of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. And, truth be told, I'm not really into witty, facile atheists since I don't think they produce any thing but bon mots, never conversion arguments. Because no matter how strongly I know the supernatural does not exist, I also know the human species (emphasis on species here) cannot extricate itself of the hold of the mumbo-jumbo.
I used to think that man created god after watching a violent storm or after the first death but now I don't think the species was capable of deep thought back at the beginning. So shit must have just happened for millenniums until.....
Read Julian Jayne’s The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind where he postulates that early man had a bicameral mind and one section of it spoke to the other. (Hearing the voice of god, anyone?) But then, 2000 years ago, the brain fused and god disappeared. (My God, My God, why have you forsaken me - takes on a whole new meaning.) And for the rest of time, mankind has embarked on the quest to find his lost god. It's a fascinating theory.
Which brings me to Woody Allen and You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger. Watch Sleeper or Bananas and I don't think you'd see the Woody Allen of today. Jabs at god and religion existed from the early films but age has fleshed out his thoughts on these concepts and what he is finally saying in quiet, slow tones now is startlingly comforting and disturbingly correct.
The ubiquitous narrator tells us from the start in YWMATDS that we're looking at a dysfunctional family. Helena, who has been dumped by her husband of many years, is visiting a "psychic", Cristal (love the name!), for guidance. Ex-hubby, Alfie, is searching for his lost youth in gym clubs and prostitutes. Daughter Sally supports her ex-MD, one-successful-novel husband, Roy, by working for art dealer, Greg, to whom she is attracted.
Get the picture? Helena is involved in mumbo-jumbo to assuage the pain (she tried suicide when Alfie left) and the rest of her family, while making some bad choices, is much more grounded in reality. Not giving away the plot, I'll say that members of the rest of the family are involved in some very, very bad choices. The curtain falls before disaster but you know that's what awaits them.
Helena is the key to this movie. Wacky Helena, who is persuaded by Cristal (who originally is a boon to her daughter because it gets Helena off her back) to believe she has lived before, guided by Cristal into a budding romance with a fellow thinker and finally advised financially by Cristal to a disastrous decision for her daughter. Wacky Helena, living in this crazy world of past lives and false fortune telling, comes out at the end of the movie as the only truly happy person. All the rational people live to learn sad truths: youth cannot be revisited, love is not always what it seems and crime does not pay. But Helena walks away with her balding, paunchy book seller and you have no doubt they will enjoy a bizarre but happy future.
I won't guess the message Allan is sending, I'll just tell you the message I got: In the end, the peace that comes with the mumbo-jumbo has its merits.
So Hitchens may have fought eloquently against the supernatural and Dawkins, et al, are still here to carry this torch ably. But in the end, we are just a species; no more special than the beaver who must build that dam nor the lemming who must race to that cliff. Like Lear, do we as non-believers, have to decide the wisdom of fighting the wind?
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