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. 

Fractals and Subplots

The dragon is hungry.

Subplot

I don't have any ill will towards Pontius Pilate.  I think the Gospel of John presses implicitly that we should not pity Judas Iscariot, but I still wonder about this Pilate fella.  What a fascinating question to ask: what is truth? (John 18:38)  For a man in Pilate's position, that seems like a fair question to assert, no?  And who better to ask this question of, then the King of Kings!

I am reminded of my 7th grade reading of an abridged version of Beowulf.  I distinctly recall, after a follower of Beowulf betrays him and ultimately is destroyed (perhaps by Grendal's mother?), all the town's people were slamming the dead man's memory.  Beowulf is asked to say a few words, and only a few words he uses; He was a man to be pitied.  Does Pilate belong in that camp of pitiable men as well?

I often wonder what happened to Pilate after those three days.  Surely he would have heard of Jesus' undeath.  Surely.  Christ's brothers didn't believe him during his ministry, yet James the brother of Jesus ended up martyred as the leader of the Church in Jerusalem.  Perhaps Pilate's question of truth led him to the Truth.

This thought wells within me not because I question what truth is, but because I am ever so curious as to understand what the main plot of my life is/will be.  What does my plotline consist of?  What is that truth?  Consequently, this also leaves me pondering, 'What are the subplots in my life?'  How can I decipher between what shall/should be center stage, and what is sufficiently contained as a footnote?

Recently, I was asked to make a video for Avant Ministries, proclaiming in some manner what it is I am bringing to the table uniquely as a witness to the good news of Jesus Christ.  I came up with this: watch here now!.

(I will pause now as you watch said video.) 

.

.

.

Annnnnnnnd, we're back.

But do I believe it?  Do I believe these words that slip out of my mouth?  Of the many Biblical mysteries I have struggled to bear, the compositing of James' words on faith and works with that of Paul's has never bothered me.  It seems straightforward enough to me: true faith (or belief) by necessity, bears fruit.  This fruit will be seen often by the human observer as action.

Do I believe it?  Do I hold to the words I say?  Yes.  Yes I do.  Assuredly.  Absolutely.

BUT!  I, being amongst the number of the chiefest of sinners, remain ever ready, at almost all times, to cause what must be my chief end in life, to fall to the realm of mere subplot.  My actions convict me.  I do not in earnest seek, in all moments, to worship my God and spend all my effort glorifying His good Name; that name which has been too sacred to even be uttered by the lips of us sinful mortals. Remember how Isaiah, in his great vision had his lips burned and cleansed before he could offer to serve the Lord (Isaiah 6:6-7)?  Do you remember?  Do you really?

I am a slow learner.  Daily I need to be reminded (I must remember!) to put that which must remain in focus at the center of my vision.  Nothing comes first, but Christ alone.  Oh, but how I forget!

These are pleasing words, but it paints a picture that is crisper than life.  Words can be unscrambled and set in assembly in such a way as to draw the eye towards a pristine, HD image of a perceived truth.  But life is much more like a Monet -- a later Monet -- a going blind Monet.

Each day, as I make room to accomplish certain tasks which seem good for me to fulfill, how am I to discern what avenues will lead to major plots, and which are subplots?  To put plainly, what paths are inspired with meaning, and which roads are just roads, for the sake of being roads? (All clear now, right!)

As a Christian, I strive to be earnest in my pursuit of obedience to my Father.  What does daily obedience look like?  Is obedience related to micro-managing?  Is choosing to watch one film over another a moral disposition of obedience or defiance?

Fractal

Another question that has been laying eggs in my brains, is that of evil.  Google's work slogan has famously been published as, "Don't be evil".  That sounds nice, especially for an all absorbing entity like the google monster, but in practicality, how is it done?

Sister Aloysius says to her struggling sister in Doubt: "When you take a step to address wrongdoing, you are taking a step away from God, but in his service."

Is that true?  Adam and Eve, when they were still good, knew nothing of evil.  They were naive of its being.

To desire to glorify God, should I wash myself clean of all evil, so as to once more become naive to its very presence?  How am I to interact with that?  Can I touch it, see it, hear it, without being some sort of conduit?  The good Lord renews all things.  He is in the process of redeeming the whole earth.  After our lips are burned, what part do we play?

I have long felt right in viewing many films, many books, and many lives -- I felt that I could do this chiefly to mine what is still fragrant within them.  I still can hold to the conviction that this is a good, honorable task, for our Lord Jesus Christ hung out with the scum of Israel society, and yet he brought salvation.  "As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good... to preserve many people alive." (Genesis 50:20)  Is this power held only with the Messiah, or can we too access it?

When speaking with conservative minds that wish only to do the Lord's biding, Philippians 4:8 is frequently quoted to me. "Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things."  This is recited to me as some sort of proof against smutty films.  My only response is that I see the hope of beautiful things in films like Even Dwarfs Started Small.

Over the weekend I indulged my filmatic mind by intoxicating my brains with the Red Riding Trilogy.  These are three films released last year that focus on a series of crimes in Yorkshire, England in the years 1974, 1980, and 1983 (each film covers a year).  The tagline for the films:

Evil Lives Here

Catchy, no?

Primarily, the films deal with the absolute corruption of the Yorkshire police.  It's like 5 hours of insanity.  No one is kind to anyone else, ever.

I barreled through these films.  One problematic,  grim scene after another, the themes of greed and sheer evil soaking slowly through my scalp hour by hour.  And then a miracle.  In the last ten minutes of the last film, there is this thing of absolute beauty.

I won't describe it.  That would do the scene an immense injustice.  After five hours of dread, this light floods in, and a song is sung in comfort through tears.

Ah, the salvation therein!

There are no words for such moments.

Five hours of loving people followed by that scene would have produced nothing.  I would have been numb to goodness.  Only in this world of filth and sickly detestable creatures does a moment like that barrel through the body.  It pummels the heart.  You can't hold it.  The scene is but a few seconds long, but it is all I can remember now.  What bliss!

What bliss.

My Momentarily Definitive Coen List: #4

 Shtetl Husband: What a marvel... what a marvel.

In the wake of my first experience with “A Serious Man”, I was possessed with such a rapturous yearning to assess the essence of the Coen mantra that I began this list.  What resulted was a half-assed countdown that devolved into oblivion with much haste.  And so I never came to contemplate in writing this bizarre melo-dramatic-dark-comedy-mystery.  But the day has come, my friends, for I have now revisited this super serious enigma.  

Dr. Larry Gopnik is a fine fellow, a physicist seeking tenure with two (mostly petulant) children, a wife, a neck-pussing live-in brother, and a mysteriously attractive neighbor who has a tendency towards smoking pot and sunbathing topless.  For obvious reasons, Larry's world is knowable, and therefore pleasant.  

Then bad things happen to Larry.  Bad things.  For starters, Larry's wife leaves him for a stooge.  Later the stooge dies.  Other things happen too.  But none of this is very important.

What is important, is that you, "Let it breathe."  After all, "...this is an incredible bottle. This is not Mogen David. This is... a wine, Larry. A Bordeaux."  Do you yet understand? 

Larry wants to know why.  Why are these things happening?  Perhaps Larry's Korean student, Clive, has the most accurate answer for him.  Unfortunately Larry doesn't hear it, or at very most, Larry doesn't intake it.  When told that actions have consequences, the frustrated student responds, "Yes, often."

If our work only often has direct responses, then Newton's laws of thermodynamics are not laws at all; they are only tendencies.  Every action often has an equal and opposite reaction.

The opening lines of the film are the words, "A marvel, a marvel."  Why do the Coen Brothers begin their film with such a situation?   I would venture to guess that these words are part one of a two part answer.

The resolution of the film occurs as Larry's son gets a visit with the wise old Rabbi, the very man that Larry has hopelessly pursued the council of.  With this old man lies all the hope that we can summon.  When he finally does speak, what at first sounds like rubbish is indeed intoxicated with an aura of understanding.  The rabbi quotes a rock band that the young son has been listening to -- furthermore, he gives the boy back his confiscated walkman, and leaves him only with the happy slogan, "Be a good boy."

The world is a marvel and our response to its perplexity should simply be to be good.  That's it.  That is all that Larry should worry his little head about --- and perhaps he should consider the parking lot too, if he wishes (but even that too, is really just an illustration of how the world is a marvel).

Sister Aloysius: You just want things to be resolved so you can have simplicity back.

At the end of the day, I think the embrace and intention of "A Serious Man" is humble.  Though its title mocks the concept of a far reaching ideology, its framework (Judaism) rectifies the arm's length.  Larry Gopnik thinks he needs to understand the full character of God to understand what should become of his life, but his encounters with rabbis and townspeople slowly emphasize the truth that he need not understand really any of the big 'T' truth in order to live well.  In fact he is taught that the less you deal, the happier you can be.  After all, sometimes actions have no consequences at all.  

We could end our discussion now.  We could call it quits.   

But is it fair to leave the Coen's off the hook?  It is so easy to say that life is 'a marvel', and that nothing really can be made of it beside black-and-white morality and aesthetically pleasing parking lots.  But if all things are in a state of flux, and every action doesn't have an equal and opposite reaction, then one cannot know anything.  The cat is indeed both dead and alive.  And if this is so, can you really persecute the man who killed the cat?  He may have killed the cat, but it's still purring underneath that box.  

These issues of uncertainty are at the core of the film "Doubt".  This is why the 'Sisters of Charity' at the film's inner-city school can't sleep at night.  They are plagued by the ravages of uncertainty, as they try to be 'good girls'.

"A Serious Man" is seriously unfair.  It tells me to be good in an entirely ambiguous world.  How?  Tell me how.  Do I stab the dybbuk, or leave him be?  

I can't be a good boy.  It's impossible under this lens.  All I can do is marvel.  Marvel all day.  But that's just boring and dumb.  I'd rather not be able to sleep at night.

Larry Gopnik: The Uncertainty Principle. It proves we can't ever really know... what's going on. So it shouldn't bother you. Not being able to figure anything out. Although you will be responsible for this on the mid-term.