Desperately Searched: Andrew Kevin Walker

Let's take a poll: 

Who agrees with this line from the film Doubt? 

When you take a step to address wrongdoing, you are taking a step away from God, but in his service.

Well, do ya... punk?

This post is long. 

Doubt is a film much like receiving Chickenpox at a young age; it hurts, and sometimes even the memory of it stings, but you are better for having gone through it. It provides you with a sort of invincibility if you can withstand it. 

As a long-time survivor of doubt myself, drinking from that cup is, in some ways, like coming home. It is at once a feeling of warmth as well as shame. 

Warmth: because you can see that others process 

and are affected by the world in a manner similar to yourself. 

Shame: because you now see yourself as a card-carrying club member 

of society you'd rather not be numbered among the ranks of.

A conversation arose in a pub. 

One man was drinking a dark beer, the other hot tea. 

The discussion of why people do the things they came to pass. 

The beer drinker noted, 

"I wouldn't be too quick to label between good and bad people."

He took another swig, 

"I feel uncomfortable saying there is such a thing as good and bad people."

The tea drinker enthusiastically nodded, 

"Yes, because good and evil don't exist."

The beer drinker paused mid-swallow. 

This was not the conclusion he intended the conversation to reach.  

Later in the week, I pondered over such things as this. 

I pondered and pondered.  

After many-a-thought, my mind declared to me that I needed to seek something of an authority on the matter, for it is not good enough merely to show the ramifications of (what I would call) evil actions. The philosopher can decipher any one singular act as the mere consequence of environment, or the psychological progression of an innocent on a certain path by some previous incident. 

No. Showing the effects of maleficience makes no impact. 

What then could be shown? What then could be proven? How do I show that good and evil exist if actions alone are not worthy of judgment? 

I am not akin to the depths of wrongdoing. I am not knowledged in the education of the motion of the deeper of evils. I know not their shadowy ways. But then I ask in fear, if not I, who does know? Who could be my Virgil on this spiral of hell? 

 Enter Andrew Kevin Walker. 

disclaimer: the content of this post gets decidedly darker from here on out. Reader beware.

According to imdb, he has produced only two scripts that are wholly his. The rest of his writing credits are shared. 

The two films that he alone hath penned are 8MM and Seven. Whilst I considered his personal canon, a vague recollection of the drama surrounding the production of 8MM came to mind. 

As it turned out, Mr. Walker walked (ha!) off the set over changes made to his script. Apparently, as studios are apt to do, the ending was changed to bear a more hopeful, optimistic hue. This infuriated Walker to no end, and he later refused to have his name associated with the picture. I knew this story, but also recalled 8MM as a pretty damn dark film. I was curious as to how the script could have been any bleaker.

So I scavenged the internet until I came upon Walker's original script. I read and read and read. 

By tale's end, my soul was flayed open by the nuance of the difference between the script's denouement and that of the film's. It happened as follows: 

In the film: a load of horrific eye-gouging events occur. 

Our protagonist somehow makes it through it all. 

He returns to his wife and child. 

He embraces his wife and says abruptly, "Save me."

In the script: a load of horrific eye-gouging events occur.

 Our protagonist somehow makes it through it all. 

He returns to his wife and child. 

A montage is expressed, showing our protagonist returning back to normal life. 

One day he abruptly burst into tears and cries out, "Why, why, why?!" 

He goes home, embraces his wife and says, "Save me."

All the violence, the murder, the extremes of sex, the snuff -- it's all their in the film. But what the studio balked at, what they couldn't reckon themselves with, is that evil has a lasting effect. You can't just experience it and move on. 

Let's explore the plot for a bit.

Brief Referendum: 

A new film entitled The Hunter has something to do with a search for the Tasmanian Tiger.

The tasmanian tiger went extinct in the thirties. 

The slogan for the film stands as:

Some mysteries should never be solved. 

That may be true, but who can ever resist?

Back to the business at hand. 8MM.

• Nicholas Cage is a P.I.
• FYI: That's good.
• An old lady pays him to watch an 8mm film her recently deceased husband had in his vault.
• That's good, right? I mean, we all like movies.
• Turns out the film is of snuff nature. 
• Shucks. That's bad.
  
• Cage is paid to go hunt down the makers of said film.
• Cage hires a porn-store dayworker to be the Virgil to his Dante.
• Our Virgil takes us down and down the circles of porn hell.
• That's bad.
• Bad stuff happens.
• That's very bad.
• A masked-man is our main villain.
• More bad stuff happens.
• That's still very bad.
• Even more bad stuff happens.
• Make it stop!
• Masked-man is killed. We never know learn his identity.
• That's good?
• Bad stuff stops happening. 
• Good... I think??
  
• The movie is over.
• ???

Okay, how about Walker's previous movie, Seven?

• Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman are cops.
• That's good!
• A fat man is murdered. 
• That's bad.
• Turns out the murderer, John Doe, is a serial killing.
• That's worse.
• Bad stuff happens.
• More bad stuff happens.
• John Doe turns himself in.
• Hooray!
• Even more bad stuff happens.
• Wait... that's bad! But I the bad guy was already caught!
• John Doe is killed. We never really know his identity.
• That's good, I think. 
• Morgan Freeman tells us the world is not a good place.
• Don't says those words, Morgan... don't say those words!
• The movie is over.
• Sigh. 

WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?

Both stories deal with the concept of a master play of evil, and a slipping into the recesses of dark knowledge by the ardent protagonists. 

A couple scenes in each story contains very telling monologues which stand -- if we consider our surroundings with care -- as hidden compasses. 

Purview the internet and you'll find several different drafts of Walker's Seven. The most dramatic changes come in the final act. In one draft, while John Doe is being transported into the desert, Freeman (Somerset), Pitt (Mills) and the cold murderer have a brief back-and-forth about the purpose of all Joe's scheming.

SOMERSET
You want people to question God's existence?
You want them to...

JOHN DOE
No!! No!! I want them to question their own existence.
I want people to question their own existence.

MILLS
You really think what you're doing is 

God's good work?!

JOHN DOE
The Lord works in mysterious ways.

It should be noted that throughout the story, Detective Somerset, though wholly repulsed by the things has is brought to see, is innately curious to understand it all. Wherein Mills simply writes John Doe off as a lunatic, Somerset sees him as too calculated to be purely motivated by insanity, and so works hard to comprehend the killer's drive. 

See it yet? That police car conversation changed when it made it onto the screen -- it adds a similarly complex nuance to Joe's motive.

MILLS

Wait, I thought all you did was kill innocent people.

JOHN DOE

Innocent? Is that supposed to be funny? An obese man... a disgusting man who could barely stand up; a man who if you saw him on the street, you'd point him out to your friends so that they could join you in mocking him; a man, who if you saw him while you were eating, you wouldn't be able to finish your meal. After him, I picked the lawyer and I know you both must have been secretly thanking me for that one. This is a man who dedicated his life to making money by lying with every breath that he could muster to keeping murderers and rapists on the streets!

 

MILLS

Murderers? 

JOHN DOE
A woman...

MILLS

Murderers, John, like yourself?

JOHN DOE

[interrupts] A woman... so ugly on the inside she couldn't bear to go on living if she couldn't be beautiful on the outside. A drug dealer, a drug dealing pederast, actually! And let's not forget the disease-spreading whore! Only in a world this shitty could you even try to say these were innocent people and keep a straight face. But that's the point. We see a deadly sin on every street corner, in every home, and we tolerate it. We tolerate it because it's common, it's trivial. We tolerate it morning, noon, and night. Well, not anymore. I'm setting the example. What I've done is going to be puzzled over and studied and followed... forever. 

See it yet?

If Se7en exists as a strange testament as to one man's effort to make mankind reflect on his evil ways, then 8MM is the scalpel which focuses finely on the deeds themselves. 

Our Virgil has seen much. We trust him and know him to be true because whilst working in the porn-shop, our P.I. spots him highlighting selections out of what appears to be a porno-mag. Who does that? Answer: no one. He was reading legitimate literature, but hiding it behind the perception that he was the common dreg, getting off on some new comic fantasy. Anyway... the point is, we trust him. That's why we're inclined to believe him when he goes on this rant:

MAX
(aka Our Virgil)
Know what else? It's only gonna get worse. More and more you'll see perverse hardcore coming into the mainstream, because that's evolution. Desensitization. 'Oh my G-, Elvis Presley is wiggling his hips, how offensive!' Nowadays, MTV's showing girls dancing around in thong bikinis with their asses hanging out. Know what I mean? For the porn-addict, big tits aren't big enough after awhile. They have to be the biggest tits ever. Some porn chicks are putting in breast implants bigger than your head, literally. Soon, Playboy is gonna be Penthouse, Penthouse'll be Hustler, Hustler'll be hardcore, and hardcore films'll be medical films. People'll be jerking off to women laying around with open wounds. There's nowhere else for it to go. 

As I contemplate that slippery slope argument, I ask you, gentle and patient reader, why are vampires so popular now? What is so alluring about attractive cannibals? 

Look at the most heinous of all crimes.
What do they consist of?
Sex and blood.

It's no coincidence.

From the dawn of time, poets and philosophers alike have recognized BLOOD as the life of a being -- as the essence of a soul. And SEX. As Christians we recognize it as the symbol of God's relationship with us. We see the Church in the New Testament (and Israel in the Old) consistently spoken of as the Bride. Christ Jesus is our Bridegroom. Think of the book of Hosea. The harlotry of Hosea's wife, Gomer, as used as a direct analogy for God's people's unfaithfulness to God. They turned to idols instead of their Lord. God speaks of this as adultery; sex with another. 

It's no coincidence. 

When captured by the bad guys, our protagonist, Nicolas Cage aka Welles, has one question left nagging at him.

WELLES
Just tell me. Tell me some more of the secrets you and Christian shared. What kind of degenerate pervert was he really? What the fuck did he want with a snuff film?

LONGDALE
(aka bad guy lawyer)
You're asking me why.

WELLES
I'm asking.

LONGDALE
A man like Mr. Christian, a great man... all his money, all his power... a man who had everything there was to attain...

WELLES
Why did he buy a film of some poor, lost girl getting butchered?

LONGDALE
Isn't it incredibly obvious?

WELLES
Enlighten me.

LONGDALE
Because he could. He did it because he could.
(pause)
What other reason were you looking for.

That's the type of evil that our John Doe was evilly trying to destroy
-- killing evil by evil --

PURPOSE

 Here's why this discussion is relevant to us.

Andrew Kevin Walker's brief resume shows us something that we ourselves perhaps couldn't see. 

He spares us the action steps of becoming evil -- he shows us its mechanism. And most importantly, he shows us its futility. 

Vainly, I'll try as best as I can to summarize:

1. Evil exists.
2. It functions in a certain direction. Always forward.
3. There is a curiosity that we may have towards dark knowledge, but it will never satisfy.
4. Evil is never static in that it is insatiable.
5. Evil is perpetually inclined towards sex and blood. 
6. Participation, on any level, always ends in futility.

Remember the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil? "And Evil". Let us not be so arrogant as to forget that there is such a realm of information; that rabbit hole exists, and it falls forever downward.

Through Andrew Kevin Walker we see a revelation of the reality of evil motivation. My controversial claim is simply this: that such a gift was given to Mr. Walker from the Lord. This is perhaps a part of his cross to bear. This is, in some fashion, a responsibility in that it is a gift, and we are remiss to bury our God-given gifts.

GENESIS 6:5-6, The LORD say that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.  And the LORD was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. 

And so are told, and so we can see.

As for us, we are now given a new context in which to understand PHILIPPIANS 3:8 ...whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

Doubt ends with the two main nuns of the film sitting on a bench. 

SISTER JAMES
I wish I could be like you.

SISTER ALOYSIUS
Why?

SISTER JAMES
[tearing up] Because I can't sleep anymore.

Sister Aloysius, the nun who gave us the quote about stepping away from God in his service long ago, sighs and admits:

SISTER ALOYSIUS
Maybe we're not supposed to sleep so well. 

"Everybody Needs a Friend"

What an audacious script. The Jodie Foster directed, Mel Gibson comeback flick, The Beaver, is a dazzling experience. The story adroitly spans, in equal measure, the comedic and crushingly devastating aspects of severe depression.

Whilst the Beaver and Mel go about seeking forgiveness from the world, a side story unfolds, culminating in a brave, albeit strange, philosophy.

Gibson's son in the film makes a heck of a high school living as a scam-artist. He's paid as the ultimate ghost essayist. The situation reaches a new height of grandeur when the hot, cheerleading valedictorian pays him off to write her graduation speech for him. Naturally, they fall in love. And just as naturally, their relationship hits some snags.

And so it is to culminate in a speech. What words did he write for her? What words will she add to his? How will all the king's horses and all the king's men put humpty-dumpty back together again? That's what we want, right? We want resolution. We want the pieces of the puzzle to come together. We want, as an audience... we want. And so she says...

I'm not okay. Not at all.

The truth is

I'm missing something...

So what do I do with that?

What do any of us do?

This is an inspiration; this worldview. Generally speaking, the films that dare to say the world is irreparably broken are the ones that, from the opening frame, immerse us in the ugly. My mind drifts to 8mm. After nearly two hours of seeking out this horrendous masked murderer, our loyal hero finally finds him. He pulls off the mask of the deranged pervert only to find the look of a common man. The killer gloats back:

What were you expecting? A monster?

What is intrinsically intriguing about The Beaver, is it never sets out to be a film about brokenness. We are expecting to be told that everything will all be alright. This is what we've come to expect from the cinema.

Here is truth: the world is dark, the world is broken. Most of the time I don't know what to do with that.

Sadly (for me), the graduation doesn't end at the question. The gallant cheerleader presses on:

This is what I believe:

Right now in this auditorium

there is someone who is with you

someone who is willing to pick you up

dust you off 

kiss you

forgive you

put up with you

wait for you

carry you

love you

so while everything might not always be okay,

one thing I know is true;

you do not have to be alone.

And then I get frustrated. Is this true, that everyone has somebody?

No. 

It can't be true.

Some people have lived cursed lives, beaten and horrifically mistreated by those who should have cared. Some people have alienated anyone who ever dared to share affection. Some people are just too darn shy to have friends.

Here's what I believe: 
Everything is not alright.
Everything is not going to work out.
But it is a great story, this life.
The best.

You see, grace is the end result of all this. It has to be. It's the only way this scorched Earth can hope for a happy ending. Grace. Grace. God's grace.

We can't, by our own will, fix the world. We're too dumb, too self-absorbed, and too rotten.

But I do believe that there is someone who is smart enough, wise enough, clean enough.

A good lookin' dude -- that Marko fella.

My good buddy, Marko Kotnik, came up with an idea. He calls it RewardHero. You can check out his website at rewardhero.com. The basic idea is to create a system in which people can easily return items back to the folks who lost them. It's something of a big lost and found, with an emphasis on the returner of said lost item being a hero.

What inspires me about rewardhero.com is that it seems to be fundamentally about grace. Find a wallet -- return it. Sure, you'll be rewarded for your good deed, but that's not really the point. The point is to be a hero to someone you've never met. Show that person that grace exists. Show a kindness. Be more than what is expected of you. Be more than a man. Be a hero. And all it takes is to show some stranger a bit of grace.


Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Hebrews 4:16
By grace this world will be saved. There's no other way. There's no other hope.

In Haste: 8MM

Grotesque deeds cause us to weep.  We are both curious of their existence, and yearn to know all the 'whys'.  Why would anyone do these things?  Why do people let this happen?  Why does God let this happen?

8MM is one of those little films that reminds you that the rabbit hole of vile human acts goes farther down then many folks realize.  And it's just a slice of it.  Just look at the comments that people make on imdb forums for films like 8MM or any true sadomasochistic sexual perversion film and you can fall swiftly down that hole yourself without realizing it.

I came across the film after wanting to see other films by screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker (who wrote the masterful screenplay for Seven), but I've since learned that he became so exasperated with the film's rewrites that he refused to ever see the film.  That makes some sense, as the plot felt quite jerky to me, running amok between intriguing meta questions, and very commercial moments.

There's a lot of talking about 'snuff' films and what they mean in 8MM, but one brief scene tells us all we need to know.  After serving brutal vengeance to the murdering snuff artists, our protagonist returns home and sobs.  There's no satisfaction in defeating evil in this way.  To encounter such things is to be imprinted with the character of this weary world.  And that burden is too much to carry.  Mourning may be the only authentic response.

Psalm 137:1-4, King James Version:

By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.

 We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof.

 For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion.

 How shall we sing the LORD's song in a strange land?