Intellectual pessimism and neo-conservative cinema

Lyotard (1984) voices the intellectual pessimism brought about by an inability to believe in anything, a condition that has pervaded the eighties and early nineties in Western  academic society: “Simplifying to the extreme, I define postmodern as an incredulity toward metanarratives”. (The metanarratives he refers to are of course the metadiscourses that legitimate the truth-claims of science.)

In contrast to this intellectual pessimism, the disillusionment of the ordinary citizen (which characterises much of the eighties and nineties) can be better defined as the loss of faith in those master narratives which predates positivism, and which remained more or less intact throughout modernity. These master narratives construct the “bigger picture” within which the contradictions, discontinuity and randomness that are part of real life could be seen as necessary, “logical” and even beneficial. In the eighteenth, nineteenth and to a lesser extent the first half of the twentieth centuries the “Great Chain of Being” and “Circle of Life” were examples of master narratives that dominated Western society. Although many of these narratives have their origin in religion, they also permeated the secular in the guise of, for example, optimistic liberal humanism. It is my contention that the collapse of these and other master narratives, rather than an intellectual incredulity towards metanarratives, constitutes the postmodern condition for the ordinary citizen.

Returning to my notion of an emerging post postmodernist society: contrary to intellectual debates in the eighties and early nineties on the demise of meaning (especially in the human and social sciences), there is evidence of the emergence of a new belief in historical progress in terms of knowledge and justice amongst ordinary citizens. I see this as a largely unconscious counter-reaction by “ordinary” people to the nihilism that pervaded the postmodern moment.  Unfortunately this unconscious yearning of the ordinary person for a lost time when life was meaningful is being consciously exploited (and therefore perverted) by (Anglo-American) politics / multinational corporations. It is as if Christopher Sharrett’s warning in Crisis Cinema (1993) has been taken heed of in a perverse way:

“… catastrophe is not the product of our poststructuralist trained imaginations but of our depoliticization and irresponsibility. Contemporary theory aside, critics must pay attention to the apocalypticism of the postmodern moment simply because the horrific nihilism of cultural production indeed has a relationship to measurable, material circumstances of society. We must also note – and a little panic here would do us all good- how loudly the current power structure has announced the apocalypse with its “end of history” declarations as supranational corporatism “wins” the Cold War”. (My emphasis)

The “measurable, material circumstances” of Anglo-American society is indeed being manipulated by the dominant Western power structures through the use of cultural production, in particular through mass media.

If neo-conservatism (which I consider to be the dominant post postmodernist condition) had a slow start in Thatcherism, it certainly picked up pace with the first Gulf War, and September 11^th 2001 put it in overdrive, culminating in the second Anglo-American attack on Iran in 2003.  Taking 1991(the year of the first Gulf War) as a starting point, it is possible to show how Hollywood cinema has realigned itself with this neo-conservatism in spite of the anti-Bush sentiment so vocally expressed by actors at the 2003 Academy Awards ceremony.

In this regard, a short survey of Hollywood productions of the past decade or so reveal several examples of hugely successful war films (in terms of box office figures and / or Academy Awards) that show strong evidence of what I would term a neo-conservatism couched in contrived patriotism and neo-liberal humanism.  Significantly, eight of the twelve films listed below are situated in a distant historical past. Ted Turner’s Gettysburg (1993) re-enacts the historical battle of Gettysburg during the American Civil War, Roland Emmerich’s The Patriot (2000) deals with the American War of Independance while six films, of which five were released in 2001/2002 have the Second World War as setting: The Thin Red Line  (Terrence Mallick,1998), Band of Brothers (Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks, 2001), Pearl Harbour (Michael Bay, 2001), Enemy at the Gates (Jean-Jaques Annaud, 2001), Windtalkers (John Woo, 2002) and Hart’s War (Gregory Hoblit, 2002).

Black Hawk Down (Ridley Scott, 2001) and Behind Enemy Lines (John Moore, 2001) respectively tell the stories of a U.S. military raid that went wrong in Somalia in 1993, and a fighter pilot shot down over Bosnia in 1995, while Randall Wallace’s We were Soldiers (2002) gives another account of war in Vietnam, this time through the eyes of General Harold Moore, whose autobiography the film is based on. Latest in the crop of American feel-good-about-ourselves war movies is Antoine Fuqua’s Tears of the Sun (2003) which deals with the heroic exploits of a US Navy Seals team in war-torn Nigeria. Almost all these these films affirm the concept of sacrificial violence to some extent. (See René Girard (1972) for a detailed discussion of the relationship between violence and sacrifice).

A good example of a neo-conservative film that attempts to restore the belief in meaningful life is Mel Gibson’s Brave Heart (1995), winner of five Academy Awards. It is ostensibly a red-blooded battle epic set in the fourteenth century; in reality it is a metaphor for newly found American patriotism that valorises sacrificial violence. In the climactic scene of the film,Wallace is drawn and quatered. To the end he refuses to capitulate to King Edward I, choosing to die what becomes a martyr’s death, rich in crucifixion symbolism. Given that personal freedom is a concept foreign to the era, his dying cry “Freedom!” is clearly calculated to touch contemporary audiences.

But it is not only the sacrificial slaughter of the protagonist Wallace that reveals it as an American fable. In an earlier scene Wallace attempts to unite the clans of Scotland by pleading with Robert the Bruce, a contender for the Scottish throne, to convince the Scottish nobles to take up arms. The Bruce’s father, literally manifesting the moral decay of the Scottish nobles (he is a leper) plots the betrayal of Wallace in the interest of advancing his son’s political career. In a poignant scene, where his father rationalises deceit and compromise in the interest of political advance, the Bruce curses his father, crying that he gave Wallace his word. Essentially this refers to a code of honour, exemplified in countless Westerns, where a man is only as good as his word.  Trusting a man on the basis of his word is linked to the belief theme, reinforced by the recurring motif of pledges and tokens. This stands in direct contrast to the Scottish nobles’ constant “negotiaton” in the pursuit of self-serving terms and compromises. In another confrontation with his father the Bruce rejects this calculating pragmatism, shouting: “I want to believe!”. This shout refers to more than the hero Wallace’s unwavering belief in ultimate Scottish independence and freedom, it expresses a yearning for a selfless and therefore meaningful life.

In the final scene of the film The Bruce pushes aside political pragmatism and leads his army into victorious battle with the English, and, in a final validation of the concept of sacrificial violence, urges his men: “You bled with him, now bleed with me!”. And for the benefit of those slow members of the audience that has not yet realised the significance of the foregoing, Wallace’s broadsword is hurled into the air and pegs into the grass of the battlefield, a shimmering, waving cross.