Its the End of the End of the World as We Know It

They say that feelings don't count as evidence. Who is they? I have a feeling that I don't know. But one thing that I do know is that feelings are a useful tool to lead us to things...even evidence. So, let me begin with a story.

Two days ago, I watched most of the movie "Equilibrium," most meaning the important three quarters. In some ways, it is a very good movie, one that points out yet another way in which an intelligentsia and a sheepish population can produce a horror. For those of you who don't know, in the world of "Equilibrium," the rulers have produced and mandated with death a drug that, according to the movie, stops pain, war, and sorrow by stopping feelings. I think it's more like it stops them by stopping feelings, Chestertonian moments, wonder, Dasein awareness, and I-Thou relationships. (Philosophy may begin in wonder, but logic definitely does not, considering that an absence of feelings does not prevent the main character from believing a cloaked variation on the Final Cause argument.) Regardless, the resistance movement regards the ability to exercise their gifts (I almost said God-given, but in the context of this particular movie, which is under suspicion of being slightly anti-Christian; that is a question for another day) as a right which it is worse than death to not be able to exercise. The main character joins them, has a few Chestertonian moments, kills the ruler, and liberates the world. A bit formulaic perhaps, but if you're following an archtypical story, there's going to be a few repeated elements. And that's usually a good thing. Why then, did I feel so unhappy for about an hour and a half after watchin the movie? There's the fact that Equilibrium follows the formula that stipulates that the story must be interrupted every so often for a sequence of slowed-down, over-dramatized violence, but I don't think that that is enough to account for such a thing.

I think that the real reason, following Chesterton's comments on Isben in Heretics, is that "Equilibrium" does not really provide an arresting vision of a world with what the resistance is fighting for. There are those one or two moments where you realize, by something as simple as the character touching a stair-rail, just how vital life beyond the drug is. But there's no happiness: no member of the resistance is ever seen doing something happier than reading Yeats. Even the room of hidden forbidden objects, with its snow globes and Beethoven LP's has no people enjoying themselves. More importantly, it has no religous symbols, instead it has small pictures of scantily dressed women. The captured resistance member says that she lives to feel...and although she mentions love she doesn't say or even imply just how much she loves, or Who the object is.

Unfortunately, this absence of happiness is compounded by the shallowness of all the characters. Only the main character and the woman who converts him have more than a functional role in the story, leaving the world with feelings almost as empty as the world without them.

Like Isben, Equilibrium warns of the horror of evil, and does so effectively. Like Isben, Equilibrium does not know what goodness really is. Like Chesterton, I find it quite lacking.

Harry Gregson-Williams

In response to my previous post, I will open for discussion a composer
who is apparently free from the Ecumenical Philosophy: Harry
Gregson-Williams.

I have noticed a new style of music emerging. My theory is that it
evolved from various television drama shows (not that I have seen
many). This style is a very rhythmic and driven style designed to keep
the audience on the edge of their seats. I am no expert on this
particular style, but I have definitely noticed it's emergence. It
appears to be accomplished with heavy accents and fast-paced moving
parts, primarily in the strings. A few movies that appear to have used
this new style extensively would be: The Lion, The Witch, and The
Wardrobe, Prince Caspian, All three of the Pirates of The Caribbean
movies, and National Treasure one and two. Now that you have these
films called to mind, you might be thinking that this is just typical
action music, right? Well, it's my opinion that until at least the
seventies (probably until even later), action-music was scored in a
neo-classical way. That's right, if you think about the harmonies
used, this will make at least some sense. But the turning point is
Lord of The Rings.

I myself have seen very few of the movies made in the eighties to
the present. However, I think this new action style might have
emerged in Lord of The Rings. The score to Lord of The Rings
has many moving parts in the action sequences, but still appears
to use many of the old neo-classical harmonies. There are heavy
accents in some places of course, like the Isengard theme, and this
set up the development of the new action style (which in my
hypothesis was already being developed in the TV dramas).

So, what do you all think? Is this a good style? It's true, it doesn't
seem to place the accents on the weak beats (yet), but how good
is it for your blood pressure?