Wednesday
Feb042009
Darkness
Wednesday, February 4, 2009 at 12:10AM
So I tried to watch No Country for Old Men the other night. It was shot incredibly well, the writing and editing was top-notch. It won a ton of awards and it probably deserved them.
I have to say, though, I just didn't care and I quit watching. The story was full of evil and I just decided I'd had enough.
I tend to like dark movies, stories, songs, etc... Maybe it was growing up with a fairly sheltered childhood. A lot of the music and other art I was exposed to in my youth showed mostly good and happiness. Fairly basic wisdom shows us that to know how good the light is, we need to understand the darkness, and I probably went out in search of the darkness for a season, just to grasp that.
Good art tends to show both the good and the bad of a scenario, and it serves to evoke thoughts, discussions, inspirations we wouldn't have otherwise.
I think, though, that I have reached a season where I'm cutting myself off from some of that darkness. Not because I'm scared of it or I want to be shallow. It's because I'm alive. One look into my heart, my mind, my desires, my angers puts Heath Ledger's Joker to shame. There is no darkness on film that comes close to the darkness in me. I don't feel I am in need these days of studying the depths of depravity.
In contrast, becoming more aware of my own darkness, my own sin, really does serve to show me how wonderful truly good things are. I feel like I'm enjoying nature more than ever, laughter, getting lost in a beautiful melody. My heart seems to be opening to a wider spectrum of both darkness and light.
It's often a fight to enjoy good things. I don't know why that is, but I know it's true. It's like making yourself get off the couch to do the dishes and exercise. You know you enjoy the ends and often even the means, but you just don't want to move.
So this isn't to say "Don't watch this movie, it's bad!", it's just to share where I am right now. I asked for your reactions to that specific movie the other night just to see what others thought. Some of you learned great things from it. That's awesome.
I have no grand statement tonight. I just want to make the most of my time, to be present today so I don't have to regret it tomorrow. My darkness will continue to be evident to me, and to everybody who knows me, but I want to start learning more about the light. Pray for me, as I will pray for you, that every evil we see would drive us to learn more about what is truly good, and through that live in and enjoy this world that can be so very, very dark.
I have to say, though, I just didn't care and I quit watching. The story was full of evil and I just decided I'd had enough.
I tend to like dark movies, stories, songs, etc... Maybe it was growing up with a fairly sheltered childhood. A lot of the music and other art I was exposed to in my youth showed mostly good and happiness. Fairly basic wisdom shows us that to know how good the light is, we need to understand the darkness, and I probably went out in search of the darkness for a season, just to grasp that.
Good art tends to show both the good and the bad of a scenario, and it serves to evoke thoughts, discussions, inspirations we wouldn't have otherwise.
I think, though, that I have reached a season where I'm cutting myself off from some of that darkness. Not because I'm scared of it or I want to be shallow. It's because I'm alive. One look into my heart, my mind, my desires, my angers puts Heath Ledger's Joker to shame. There is no darkness on film that comes close to the darkness in me. I don't feel I am in need these days of studying the depths of depravity.
In contrast, becoming more aware of my own darkness, my own sin, really does serve to show me how wonderful truly good things are. I feel like I'm enjoying nature more than ever, laughter, getting lost in a beautiful melody. My heart seems to be opening to a wider spectrum of both darkness and light.
It's often a fight to enjoy good things. I don't know why that is, but I know it's true. It's like making yourself get off the couch to do the dishes and exercise. You know you enjoy the ends and often even the means, but you just don't want to move.
So this isn't to say "Don't watch this movie, it's bad!", it's just to share where I am right now. I asked for your reactions to that specific movie the other night just to see what others thought. Some of you learned great things from it. That's awesome.
I have no grand statement tonight. I just want to make the most of my time, to be present today so I don't have to regret it tomorrow. My darkness will continue to be evident to me, and to everybody who knows me, but I want to start learning more about the light. Pray for me, as I will pray for you, that every evil we see would drive us to learn more about what is truly good, and through that live in and enjoy this world that can be so very, very dark.
Reader Comments (12)
Andy, I appreciate what you've said very much, and I think I understand you quite well. I said the other day that I loved No Country, and I did. At that time, I was at a different point in my life, and I may have needed such a dark film. Now, though, as you say, I'm becoming more aware of the darkness inside me, and I've been wondering a lot lately why many well-made films are also very dark films. What are we really trying to tell ourselves?
Somehow the good and beautiful and true can seem also bland, unromantic and without appeal. But this way of thinking is actually blindness. But somehow our world is so skewed sometimes that we think darkness has the only key to profundity. How wrong can we be?
"It’s often a fight to enjoy good things. I don’t know why that is, but I know it’s true. It’s like making yourself get off the couch to do the dishes and exercise. You know you enjoy the ends and often even the means, but you just don’t want to move."
That's an incredibly profound paragraph.
" 2. Jud says:
February 4th, 2009 at 9:36 am
“It’s often a fight to enjoy good things. I don’t know why that is, but I know it’s true. It’s like making yourself get off the couch to do the dishes and exercise. You know you enjoy the ends and often even the means, but you just don’t want to move.”
That’s an incredibly profound paragraph."
I agree. I deal with that every day...and it hurts every time I lose, but I continue to do so. It's a cycle, you know? And I hate it.
I don't go to many dark movies like this, but when ones are as acclaimed and done so well as No Country for Old Men, it's a bit harder to do so.
I guess I can stomach some dark movies, and I defintely have in the last year or two. It's interesting to see what makes these movies work and to dwell on these evil characters for a time, but I make sure that I don't dwell on them too long. Actually, to be honest I don't even really want to see those movies again - maybe in 5-10 years, but I've definitely passed up opportunities to see them again. I agree, it's just not good to dwell on that evil.
This is certainly thought provoking. I will definitely +1 on the paragraph: "It’s often a fight to enjoy good things. I don’t know why that is, but I know it’s true. It’s like making yourself get off the couch to do the dishes and exercise. You know you enjoy the ends and often even the means, but you just don’t want to move."
I REALLY enjoyed reading that. I wonder though, for the sake of discussion, the implications of saying that to know how good the light is, we need to understand the darkness. If God is light and in him there is no darkness at all -God certainly doesn't need to understand the darkness to know the light [if he did then he didn't know the light until sin came into the world!]...perhaps we can say "well that's different; that's God". But Adam and Eve had a better relationship with God and knew the light better before they knew the darkness.
I don't want to mince words and take this off topic, or put words in your mouth -but I wonder if it's more accurate to say that sometimes God uses the darkness as a means by which to show us the light, but the desired outcome is that we would know light for what it is and not merely for what it's not; just like God's goodness does not need evil to establish the fact that it is good....does knowing God's goodness always require us to know evil first?
But at the same time, and perhaps this is more of what you are saying -I often look at the darkness of my heart and consequently I have no choice but to acknowledge the goodness of God. Knowledge of God and knowledge of man are so intertwined that to know one is to know the other and to reflect on the truths of one forces us to acknowledge the truths of the other...so maybe on this side of heaven we cannot divorce knowing darkness from knowing light.
That being said I just looked at how much I typed [sorry to anybody who took the time to read this!] and realize I went way overboard...I pretty much just typed a stream of consciousness, but since I haven't posted here in a couple weeks maybe this will make up?
Thanks Josh, that's a great point you make. Adds another element to the way I'm thinking it all through.
Andy,
Let me start by saying that, on appreciating the good and little things, I'm passing on to you the blog of a former classmate (in the website section). He's a Seattle guy and writes much better than I do...I love his thoughts on food.
As for "No Country for Old Men,"
I understand where you are at. I definitely stomached the film waiting for what ended up being the final scene. It probably helped that Sarah and I saw it in the afternoon at a theater of elderly people who were actually cursing loudly at the movie. Maybe the humor in that made the experience more bearable.
If you are someone who has not seen the film, you probably don't want to read on. If your name is Andy and you think you might borrow the film and use the chapter function to get you to the final chapter, then you might not want to read on either...
If I remember corrrectly, the final scene is Tommy Lee Jones sitting at the table with his wife. In light of all the darkness that has been happening throughout the film which he can't explain, he recounts to his wife a dream that he had.
Here is that dream which speaks for itself....
"it was like we was both back in older times and I was on horseback goin' through the mountains of a night. Goin' through this pass in the mountains. It was cold and
snowin', hard ridin'. Hard country. He rode past me and kept on goin'. Never said nothin' goin' by. He just rode on
past and he had his blanket wrapped around him and his head down and when he rode past I seen he was carryin'
fire in a horn the way people used to do and I could see the horn from the light inside of it. About the color of
the moon. And in the dream I knew that he was goin' on ahead and that he was fixin' to make a fire somewhere out there in all that dark and all that cold, and I knew that whenever I got there he would be
there. Out there up ahead. And then I
woke up."
“I am more afraid of my own heart than of the Pope and all his cardinals.
I have within me the great Pope: Self.
I more fear what is within me than anything that might come from without.”
-- Martin Luther
Dan- great point on the multiple viewings. I really liked No Country but I have had no desire to see it again. Andy- Great post. I guess I am thinking too much about this right now to have much in the way of opinion. Maybe later after I digest it a bit more.
Yes, Bobes. Yes. There is hope even in a movie as dark as No Country.
Now, Burn After Reading on the other hand...
i liked "no country", but if you didn't watch until the end, i think you missed the point of the movie. thanks to bobes for posting the text of the dream, as it's integral to the plot. the point, it seemed to me, was that there is darkness and someone needs to be brave enough to run out into it with a tiny little light so they can build a bigger light to guide the next person. jones character spent the whole movie pretty well stagnated by his fear of this darkness. a fact that's only revealed to him in the dream.
i liked burn after reading better, though, so what do i know?
Hmmm, I recently read Cormac McCarthy's The Road. It was one hell of a book, pretty dark, sad, even scary. Now that I think of it, I don't recall any other book that made so nervous while I was reading, not since maybe my childhood.
Anyway, reading Bobes comments above, makes me think that one of the recurring themes in McCarthy's work is that of "carrying a little light amidst all that dark of human existence".