25 August 2009
Good
)Published on August 25th, 2009 @ 01:00:13 pm, using 1281 words, 671 views
Fielding Pierce’s* beautiful chiseled face makes room for Irish eyes, traces of a blue collar background and a tranquility that should be beyond anyone. Out of those, what interests me suddenly is the tranquility, not the face (borrowed from an actor) and not any given circumstances but that brand of serenity that’s able to withstand even an outburst of anger, raised voice and all. That brand of serenity which will vie for control of a body and its soul and come out on top. There’s peace for a nucleus in him (or the appearance of it, for true peace can only be identified from within) and a bubble around it for protection. There is a soft spokenness to Fielding that the angles of his face strive to contradict.
That’s a quality shared by three other fictional characters I’ve revisited in memory recently: Gilbert Grape (What’s eating Gilbert Grape), Private Witt (The Thin Red Line) and John Halder (Good). Soft spokenness as the contour of a grappling with goodness.
Gilbert and Fielding share a want. Gilbert voices his when prompted. Only a specific question will stir up a desire and even then it’ll be arrived at with difficulty. Routine wears the only available pair of pants. In a cinematic utopia, Celine (Before Sunrise / Before Sunset) might venture in assessment: ‘Not wanting anything, isn’t that… a symptom of depression? Yeah, that is, right?’ Mr. Grape would’ve smiled one of his noncommittal, faraway smiles. Partly sad, partly resigned, partly irrelevant.
Yes. There is a gloomy aura to Gilbert Grape. There is good reason for it and beneath the layers of his sedate humanity there is also goodness in him. Plain and simple.
Becky: Tell me what you want as fast as it comes to you. Ok?
Gilbert: Ok.
Becky: Ok, what do you want?
(pause) Faster!
Gilbert: Ok, I want a new thing. House, I want a new house for the family. (sighs) I want a… I want momma to take aerobics classes. I want Ellen to grow up. I want a new brain for Arnie. I want…
Becky: What do you want for you? Just for you?
Gilbert: I want to be a good person.
(What’s eating Gilbert Grape)
Fielding’s want comes at a crossroads, the defining moment when his planned out future begins to ooze from the blueprint in undisciplined, unpredictable fashion. His future has accompanied him for so long it’s assumed the status and nature of a dream. Cumbersome and hazy. A dream that can turn threatening once it begins to take up space in real life, promising to change it from top to bottom, for better or for worse. A coin toss in charge of the outcome. In the worst case scenario he will be immersed in a routine he might not approve of in theory but ultimately end up getting used to. Is there anything more frightening?
His want is revealed rather than answered, having been kept like a secret, as this precious jewel he fears losing and is helpless to protect and helpless to retain.
Fielding: Can I just say something and then we don’t ever have to talk about it again?
Fielding’s Father: Of course.
Fielding: I want to be good.
(Moved, his father hugs him)
Fielding’s Father: You are good. Maybe you’re too good, huh?
Fielding: I don’t know what I am.
(Waking the dead)
A sense of destiny wears the only pair of pants there. The kind strong enough to get you to join a system that doesn’t necessarily represent your innermost beliefs. The kind capable of convincing an already susceptible young mind (ruled by the intoxicating powers of youth) of its ability to steer the waters. But then, if it joins in (in outnumbered fashion, mind you) intent on prevailing, how likely is it that it’ll succeed?
Gilbert puts his own life aside to care for his handicapped family. Fielding does the same to a once-in-a-lifetime connection to fulfill a dream turned into destiny.
Private Witt is something else altogether. He doesn’t wish to be good. He rolls up his sleeves and sides with it - sticks up for it and around to see it move down our collective list of priorities. He epitomizes good and conscience with his own pair of Irish eyes (or his ‘Christ-like thousand-yard-stare’ in the words of F.X. Feeney in his defense of The Thin Red Line which appeared in The L.A. Weekly in 1998 - an article I keep to this day it so matches my opinion of that movie.)
Witt knows the way. He is all clear-headedness, all uncompromised humanity and reason in the face of everything that is most inhumane and senseless. I fell in love with Witt at first sight. Fell in love with how certain he was. A quiet, thinking being. Someone who could grasp what eludes collective understanding, everything that has in it to split the world in two - obvious to some, incomprehensible to others. He stood on the side of what is deemed circumstantially wrong but timelessly noble, on the side of instinct and disobedience. On the side of individual independent thought.
Easy for him though, against the backdrop of a war… Or is it?
Easy as so many things in history are now easy to discern in hindsight. Slavery, the Holocaust, wars, corruption, prejudice… and still they all happened and continue to.
Private Witt: [voice over] We were a family. How’d it break up and come apart, so that now we’re turned against each other? Each standing in the other’s light. How’d we lose that good that was given us? Let it slip away. Scattered it, careless. What’s keepin’ us from reaching out, touching the glory?
Private Witt: [voice over] This great evil. Where does it come from? How’d it steal into the world? What seed, what root did it grow from? Who’s doin’ this? Who’s killin’ us? Robbing us of life and light. Mockin’ us with the sight of what we might’ve known. Does our ruin benefit the earth? Does it help the grass to grow, the sun to shine? Is this darkness in you, too? Have you passed to this night?
(The Thin Red Line)
John Halder, Viggo Mortensen’s character in Good although essentially good, allows himself to be swept with the tide, compromising here and there and always optimistic that things cannot be as bad as they look. That is until music makes itself heard, not in the imagination but in a concentration camp.
Sometimes it takes a radically misplaced piece of the puzzle to open your eyes. Uncharacteristic tidiness to tell you an argument has taken place. Multiple apparitions of a deceased loved one to convince you of your innate human instability (when you’ve been raised to believe yourself incorruptible.) And by then, it could be too late. Whatever good inhabits us is not to be taken for granted. It is just as gaseous as Fielding’s brilliant, well-meaning and dubious future, as Gilbert’s daily toiling for the sake of family, as Witt’s resolve for the sake of right.
Good is hazy. It springs from mysterious sources eternal and it can be counted on to never stay. Goodness is sometimes discernment and good judgment, sometimes vanity, sometimes a split second of lucidity and often a consequence of happiness.
*(Waking the dead)
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Thanks to The Hobbem for bringing up ‘good’ what it seems like ages ago… Better late than never, right, Hobbs?
Gavin Rossdale - Love remains the same
This post is the creative work of Iris Watts Hirideyo and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Random thoughts, musings, good, goodeness, movies, characters, Waking the dead, Fielding Pierce, Billy Crudup, Gilbert Grape, Johnny Depp, Thin Red Line, Private Witt, Jim Caviezel, Good, John Halder, Viggo Mortensen, tranquility, serenity, dream, destiny
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