depression

The Dead Zone (1983) and the heroic struggle

Posted on by Austin Fitzgerald

One day, during my freshman year of college, my Literature professor asked the class a seemingly simple question: What is a hero? I raised my hand. This was a question I had thought a lot about while working on my own writing, so I felt qualified to answer, even if I knew my answer wasn’t going to be exactly what the professor was looking for.

“A hero is someone who suffers, whether through a tragic flaw in their own character or through an external force,” I said. “The heroic struggle is not only against an antagonist or villain, but against the suffering itself. In the end, the hero manages to perform an act of good in spite of — or even because of — that suffering.”

Frodo goes through hell to destroy the One Ring in “The Lord of the Rings.”

I had a few examples in mind, both from literature and personal experience, when I said this. There was Frodo Baggins, who experiences physical and mental anguish, loss, and betrayal on every step of his journey before committing a selfless act to save those who, in a sense, have inflicted that pain upon him. There were the tragically flawed heroes of Shakespeare, whose Hamlet is plagued by his own indecisiveness and suffers for it at every turn through the horrific consequences of his impulsive but well-meaning actions. There were the doomed heroes of Ken Kesey’s “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” and “Sometimes a Great Notion.”

There was my own father, who toiled in a nightmarish, oven-like blade factory for decades to give his sons the opportunities he felt he never had. He had his own “tragic flaws,” to be sure, but more than anything, he faced the great Enemy Without a Face, the menacing but untouchable fog of a society that wanted nothing more than to pound him into the ground (the same fog, perhaps, as that glimpsed by Chief Bromden in the opening scene of “Cuckoo’s Nest”). But for all the suffering that followed him from childhood into his final days, he succeeded in giving me the skills I would need to survive the world that haunted him.

Unfortunately, my vision of heroism as tragedy did not sit well with the professor.

“No no no,” he replied, waving his hand dismissively. “I’m talking about heroes in the literary sense. The classical sense. A hero is a character of noble birth and unnatural talent who performs great deeds in pursuit of honor.”

This is a picture of Beowulf.
Beowulf, a “hero in the classical sense.”

Technically, he wasn’t wrong. And I can’t say I was surprised by his reaction; In 5th grade, I answered an essay prompt about “Heroes of the 20th Century” by writing about a Holocaust victim and was similarly “corrected.” But the professor’s dismissive attitude was also representative of what I saw — and still see — as restrictive cultural ideas about what constitutes heroism.

The Dead Zone — Tragedy as Heroism

When it comes to film (this is supposed to be a film website, after all), this sort of suffering hero is as rare as they come — The Lord of the Rings being a notable exception. It’s important to clarify that I’m not talking about films like The Last Samurai, Avatar, or Dances with Wolves, which, despite having tragic elements, tend to depict legendary martyrs pursuing — you guessed it — honor and glory. They also tend to transpose historical and cultural suffering onto white saviors, which has been discussed adequately elsewhere (for the record, I still like these films). Nor am I talking about the murdered-wife-and-kidnapped-child trope that fuels tragedy-chic violence from a neatly manicured but oh-so-depressed bad boy.

No, I’m talking about real suffering. The kind that overwhelms the hero physically and mentally, the kind that isn’t overcome merely by defeating a villain or learning a life lesson that could have been gathered from a Saturday-morning cartoon. This is suffering that can only be defeated by the sheer power of the human will, almost always leading to an emotional climax that I believe is unmatched in its power by any other type of story.

That’s why I was pleasantly surprised when I recently re-watched “The Dead Zone,” a film from 1983 that was somewhat popular upon release but has been largely forgotten by today’s moviegoers. Directed by David Cronenberg and based on a novel by Stephen King, “The Dead Zone” is not a typical horror film. Rather than relying on gore, jump scares or a cackling, mustache-twirling villain, Cronenberg grounds the film’s horror in the suffering endured by the film’s main character, Johnny (Christopher Walken).

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD

Johnny (Christopher Walken) with his cane, an ever-present reminder of the painful price of his “gift.”

After a serious traffic accident, Johnny, a mild-mannered schoolteacher in rural Maine, experiences the following series of unfortunate events, in order:

  • A coma that lasts for 5 years, during which his girlfriend marries someone else. No, she does not have a change of heart after he wakes up — they remain separated despite the love they share.
  • The emergence of an ability to sense tragedy in the past, present or future of anyone he touches. This quickly becomes a painful burden, as he cannot touch anyone without receiving unwanted information through shocking, violent flashes. He is forced to become a social pariah by skeptical reporters and an ever-needy public desperate for his help.
  • The death of his mother, due at least in part to stress caused by negative media coverage of his newfound abilities.
  • The discovery that he is not recovering from the coma, but is in fact slowly dying.
  • A bullet wound in the shoulder, sustained while helping the police track down a serial killer.
  • Death.

With a list like that, one might expect the film to be hopelessly dour, even pointless. But the immense suffering Johnny endures affords the film tremendous emotional weight as it builds toward its climax, when he must choose whether to assassinate a U.S. Senate candidate he knows will eventually become a tyrannical president who will start a devastating nuclear war.

Fictional characters are often presented with a weighty moral decision, but they are usually in a position that makes that decision relatively easy. Perhaps they are the “chosen one,” surrounded by an adoring cast of sycophants that will honor their heroism with joyous whoops or an ecstatic parade. Perhaps the hero is so uncommonly intelligent that he “defeats” the choice itself, finding a way to do the right thing without suffering any consequences.

In Johnny’s case, only he knows what Greg Stillson (Martin Sheen) — a shrewd politician whose violent vindictiveness and borderline insanity is unknown to the public — will do in the future. Going through with the assassination means being known not as a hero, but rather as a black mark on the history of the nation. That makes “the right choice” the ultimate act of selflessness from a man who has every right to be selfish.

Johnny, making his choice.

Indeed, Johnny receives no material reward for his final act. While he misses the kill shot, he does manage to end Stillson’s political career, effectively preventing nuclear war. But he is mortally wounded in the process, and though he is comforted by his former girlfriend — whose love for him still lingers — she will be forever confused, perhaps even angered, by his actions. There are no convenient fantasies of martyrdom, no adoring masses. No easy outs. Only one true source of solace exists for Johnny as he dies: he did the right thing.

If that doesn’t bring a tear to your eye, I don’t know what will.

In a culture that punishes outcasts but hails disingenuous modesty as heroism, here is the black sheep of heroes who just wants to be left to die in peace. Here is a hero who claims victory over the cruelest adversary of all: pain.

-AF-

What ‘Blade Runner 2049’ means to me

Posted on by Austin Fitzgerald

We often hear that films, like all forms of art, are “subjective.” But what does that actually mean?

There is a deeply personal side to watching movies that we rarely acknowledge. Reviews, for good reason, generally address the more “objective” qualities of a film—the quality of its camerawork or soundtrack, for instance, or whether or not its actors were convincing in their roles. Then there is film criticism, which, like its literary counterpart, delves into the themes and background of the work. But even if you combine these, as Roger Ebert often did, you still have only half the picture of the true experience of a film.

How were you feeling when you entered the theater? Were you still thinking about how your boss chewed you out earlier in the day? Maybe the film triggered a long-forgotten childhood memory, or a character’s voice sounded just like your mother’s. Perhaps a comic relief sidekick everyone hated was your favorite character, if only because you once knew someone just like him.

These are not objective measures of a film, but we should not discount them, either. After all, there is a reason few critics agree on their favorite films. What pushes a film from great to magnificent is not perfect technical precision or classically trained actors; it’s the moments when something inside us connects with something in the film, and for a time, the line between reality and performance fades away.

With that said, let me tell you about a time when, for me, a great film became magnificent.

I saw Blade Runner 2049 four times when it entered theaters in October of 2017. I like to watch great films more than once, but four times in the span of a few weeks was unusual even for me. I’ve already written an analysis of some of the film’s themes, which provides plenty of reasons why I should like it, but that’s not the whole story. You see, in October of 2017, I was working as a manager at a big-box retailer (if you would like to know which one, consider that the experience of working there felt like repeatedly banging my head against a brick wall, and its name references that same wall). Despite several positive developments in my life (including marriage), I was languishing in depression. I have always had something of a morose personality, but the deeply cynical realities of working in this particular environment were driving me into the ground at an alarming rate.

Along came 2049. Somewhere around the scene where K (Ryan Gosling) learns—or thinks he learns—that he is more than your average replicant, I began to sense a working-class parable in the making. K is essentially a slave at the beginning of the film, and he is closely monitored for any signs of dissatisfaction with his role via a “baseline test.” He is an arm of the State, which could just as easily be a megacorporation, and his identity is tied to that entity. Developing his own sense of self is forbidden for two principal reasons: First, it would affect his ability to do his job. Hunting replicants depends on accepting the narrative that they are inferior and unworthy of free will, because denying that narrative means empathizing with those he is supposed to kill or capture. Second, a sense of self, with all the emotions and aspirations that come with it, would rob the powerful of much of their hold on society. Consider Niander Wallace (Jared Leto), a rock star of an entrepreneur who derives his immense wealth and power from the assumption that his replicants are completely under his control. Lt. Joshi (Robin Wright), K’s boss, also alludes to a figurative wall separating humans and replicants that must remain in place to prevent all-out war between the oppressors and their slaves.

I connected with K immediately, because I felt similar pressures to conform and defer to questionable authority. Staff meetings were thinly-disguised baseline tests; Incomprehensibly stupid instructions were sometimes given for seemingly no other reason than to ensure I would blindly do as I was told. Employees with difficult home lives or mental issues were steamrolled unceremoniously by an unsympathetic system run by traumatized nutbags. A certain deceased entrepreneur (you might say he contributed a “ton” of bricks to the “wall” I mentioned earlier. Gosh, I’m clever) was practically worshipped as a prophet for his pure and altruistic motives, even as the corporation he founded raked in monstrous profits by terraforming local economies to suit its business model. Wallace would have been proud.

It felt good to see K realize, all at once, that he had far more potential as an individual than he had been allowed to believe. The rage and sadness he felt at simultaneously understanding the extent of his oppression and becoming aware of his own capacity for free thought made me think about how I might have been limiting myself in my depressive haze. As tears streamed from K’s face, I recalled a time when I had broken down in tears in the middle of an aisle at work, having dwelled a moment too long on the vast difference between what I wanted to do with my life and what I was doing with my life. I felt trapped on a path I had never intended to take. I sensed that K, too, felt his life had been guided by a malevolent hand.

Of course, K eventually realizes that he is not, in fact, the “chosen one” he believed himself to be. This is the film’s most brilliant touch, because by the time this happens, K has already steered himself onto a path of self-actualization. As it turns out, the idea that he was the first natural-born replicant was never his primary motivator. It was simply a push in the right direction, a red pill that allowed him to see past the life society had built for him. His true motivation is the knowledge that he is an individual, that he serves no master but himself.

This internal drive is underlined by his rejection of the replicant freedom fighters, who seem at first to be saviors but treat him as just another cog in the machine, a pawn to be sacrificed, an arm of the rebellion. He defies their orders to kill Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford), saving the old hunter instead. Rather than swapping one set of overlords for another, he serves only his own will.

The scene in which K fights to save Deckard, battling against the ocean’s inexorable tide and Wallace’s replicant minion, struck me more powerfully than any other part of the film. It has been noted by many critics that the enormous waves thrashing into K in this climactic scene function as a nod to Rutger Hauer’s final rain-drenched scene in the original Blade Runner. While this is certainly true, the waves meant something far more profound to me. As I watched K struggle to hold his ground against the unstoppable elements, I began to feel a perverse sense of pride. I know what that feels like, I thought. I’ve been doing that every day.

The waves represented every outside force conspiring to weigh me down. They represented internal forces like doubt, mental exhaustion, and fatalism. They represented the overwhelming power of a society that wanted to cram me into a corner and leave me there to rot. And yet, dealing with these same forces, K fought on.

Maybe I could, too.

From that day forward, whenever I began to slip into despair, I would remember K standing firm as waves whaled into him on the shore, and I would find the strength to keep going. I had never had what you might call an “idol” growing up, but suddenly K, a fictional character, fit into that slot perfectly. In less than two months, I found a job that was better in every way, a job where I could use my degree and where the work environment did not make me feel like I was competing on “Survivor.” This was no coincidence. Crazy as it may sound, Denis Villeneuve’s film inspired me to climb out of the quicksand and better myself. 2049 understands what it is like to be dehumanized by a power structure consumed with its own self-interest and corrupt, insular morality. It understands how people become machines, and how machines become people. Regardless of whether or not Villeneuve and the writers fully intended to create a story about a working-class drone rising up to defy the dictates of society, that was the film I saw, and I will forever be grateful for it.