I freaked myself the fuck out reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I could go the rest of my life without reading another rape scene. I know the point of art is to reflect and clarify life. To distill reality. To chop and reassemble experience. And, still, for all that, I don’t want to read another rape scene. I don’t want to see another rape scene either. I HATED every minute of the movie Taken. I wanted to scream and go outdoors for a long walk. This shit is happening. It’s happening and we’re entertaining ourselves with our outrage. Look, that vigilante guy is going to kill every freaking pervert in the place! Isn’t that fantastic! Isn’t that justice!
And, you may well ask, is it any better to kill a pregnant woman in a snow storm? Of course not. Of course it isn’t any better. We all have our stories. And sometimes, they’re simply the stories we’re willing to tell. But I will never write a rape scene. Not ever. I would spare all of us if I could.
So, the other day I got into a conversation about A Serious Man, the latest Coen Brothers flick. I really didn’t love this movie, and finally I was able to figure out why. It’s depressing and it tries too hard and it goes nowhere.
Here’s how I feel about reality in my art: I need it to move me. I live life. I live depressing and mundane shit all the time. Art can reflect that but if all it’s really saying is that life sucks and then you get cancer, well… thanks for the fucking news flash.
I don’t mind sadness or tragedy. But I want beauty, too. You can tell me about the Holocaust all day long, but if you’re going to turn it into art, then I want a soaring violin. I want the little girl in the red dress. I want the redemption.
I want , I mean I can see, the little girl in the red dress among the rubble of the bombs and tanks too. I need that. “These are the only brothers I have left.”
To hear a sweet violin. To contrast the beauty against the bare and the boring.
But, I really want to hear it.
I think The Sweet Hereafter is the movie that gets closest to stark beauty for me. The horror and love in that movie. The contrast between the various tragedies. The way the violence is almost entirely implied, and therefore, everywhere.