[lit-ideas] Re: Mr. Brooks
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 26 Nov 2007 15:44:52 -0800
Jane was raped? I didn't forget to mention that. I missed it entirely.
She told her parents the father of her child was a married man. If she was
raped and killed the person who raped her, that would give her an
understandable motive for the murder. I took her father and Marshall to be
suggesting that she had inherited Brooks' serial killing proclivities. But
if it was mere (mere compared to Brooks' addiction) revenge, why would her
father and Marshall worry that she has inherited her father's inclinations?
Perhaps I'll watch it again to see reference to the rape which I missed on
the first watching.
You too readily
From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
Sent: Monday, November 26, 2007 3:30 PM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Mr. Brooks
"Mr. Brooks -- and two reflections on the philosophy of art"
L. K. Helm:
"This voice is
personified as Marshall, the suave and sophisticated William Hurt whose
urgings seem intellectual rather than psychotic. Brooks and Mrshall
converse throughout the movie. ... William Hurt is superb as Costner's
voice."
You think? I found him _perverted_. For some reason, all the roles I've seen
with Hurt are of the "perverted" type. Last one, playing the father of
"Going Wild".
Manuel Puig, the openly homosexual Argentine writer (of "Kiss of the Spider
Woman") would refer to "Hurt" as "La Hurt" -- and wasn't he happy as a queen
when it got the Oscar? (In said film, Hurt plays the Argentine homosexual,
and the novel is better than the film, in that at least it mentions _real_
places -- workingclass neighbourhoods too -- in Buenos Aires).
"I felt a bit guilty for liking
Mr. Brooks."
Right. I think it should be _illegal_ that criminal types can become
'heroes' (or anti-heroes, even) of pieces of fiction. A bit like "In Cold
Blood" (in "Capote"). Criminals cannot have a _voice_.
"He
doesn't do anything sexual or perverted to his victims although his victims
are shown as doing sexual things to each other and Mr. Brooks as being a
major coitus interruptus."
Exactly. To make it more explicitly, he is a _voyeur_ which sounds like a
pretty _perversion_ to me, and as a voyeur he can only _jerk_ while watching
others doing it.
"now he has slipped and is in the house of
a couple he spotted at a dance studio."
I noticed some racial profiling here -- the male is supposed to be
_attractive_ but totally 'emasculated' -- after all, he is a Latino dancer.
What is it with the American culture that a Latino is usually seen sexy
_only_ as a dancer -- cf. Mario Lopez. Surely there are sexy South American
'beauty' philosophers.
"Brooks kills the couple"
--- I think there is a symbology there in that it's during orgasm which the
French call "la petite morte"
"Brooks is having his own problems
with a serial-killer wanabe."
I want this wanabe to pathetic and again, another criminal who shouldn't be
given a _voice_ or an image even!
" Marshall wants him to let Jane go to jail"
I think you forget to say that Jane has been RAPED -- another sexual
perversion. So it's one perversion reciprocated by a crime in this case -- a
vengeance quite uncalled for.
"The detective hunting him is Tracy Atwood played by Demi Moore. She is
not
the clumsy French superintendant played by Francois Perier who follows
ineptly in the pattern of Porfiry Petrovich who pursued Raskolnikov in Crime
and Punishment."
Exactly. She is a good Southerner instead. I loved her, and think she steals
the film. I have only seen a COUPLE (literally two) of her films ("Bobby
Kennedy" the other) and she has impressed me so good. I like her in
interviews, too, and admire her for various reasons (Although she hasn't
written a treatise in philosophy. You see how open-minded philosophers can
be).
"She is every whit as good
as they are."
And she is very white, too. I love the contrast of her excellent skin with
that wonderful dark black hair she displays. Must be one of the few Beverly
Hillers who will _not_ go "blonde".
"He isn't violent in any of his
relationships. On one occasion he starts to speak harshly to his daughter
but quickly apologizes. "
Well, depends on how you use 'relationships'. Broadly, his victims _are_
related to him, and he has killed them.
: Alcoholics
Anonymous' alcoholics and drug addicts are well known in our society. We
don't condemn such people. We sympathize with them and wish them well. We
hope they will overcome their addictions. And in this movie, that is what
we are encouraged to do - or are we?"
--- Well, it didn't work with me. Problem with scripts is that they _are_
unrealistic. Unlike people one may know who are into AA, or drugs. It would
be perverted to try to empathise too much with a character. They don't
deserve that! (This is a serious aesthetic concern. We shouldn't feel pity
with "Anna Karennina" this philosopher says -- in Arquette, "Aesthetics in
the analytic philosophical tradition"). By displaying catharsis with a form
of art, one is redirecting good energy into a bad field -- as one could be
doing something with _real_ people instead.).
"He is a clever intelligent fellow who presents CSI experts
with nothing to work with."
Well, Costner -- a favourite of mine -- is perfectly cast here. Most of the
Hollywood types _are_ so perverted that they would be unrealistic playing
the part.
"Furthermore the only people we see him kill have
flaws. Maybe they don't deserve killing, but we don't like them, and maybe
that is a criteria Mr. Brooks uses - to kill people most of us wouldn't
like."
---- Well, the Latino dancer I don't think had a flaw other than a cheap
taste for some cheap muscular dancing. But I get your point.
"Could
that happen in this case, the case of a serial killer who is presented as an
attractive figure we can sympathize with?".
Well, this relates to the two points I was making:
(1) half-jokingly. Good characters should be _good_ in more than one way.
(2) Katharsis as the aim of art is a misconceived philosophy of art.
Your point about 'sympathise' may do with a pre-Platonic philosophy of art
based on "Mimesis" (Auerbach), but I wouldn't like to buy it either. Surely
the effect of a work of art on the addressee is a matter of dispute, but
since 'ascribing' intentions is a defeasible business, and it's only the
intention that makes the act criminal, I would consider these points when
arguing the case you are presenting.
" The movie ends with his saying the prayer
they taught him at Alcoholics Anonymous including praying for the strength
to accept the things he cannot change."
--- Yes, which relates to Aristotle's _akrasia_ (or, as Geary prefers,
_incontinentia_ -- "hey, aren't you being anal-retentive").
I would think that his _race_ (Caucasian) is something he cannot change (but
cfr. Michael Jackson). So I would be careful with "cannot change". Surely a
sexual perversion seems like the animal some behaviourist psychologists
_think_ you *can* change. I don't mind about the perversion per se but when
it borders crime (as in the worst passages of Sade or Masoch) one _has_ to
draw the line, and a prayer will do, but in the gallows.
Thanks for sharing your comments with the list. Very interesting.
Cheers,
JL
Buenos Aires, Argentina.
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