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Mel Gibson's movie The Man Without a Face, Selected and introduced for ELLOPOS by Nat Gerrs
Page 5
BOLD - PROVOCATIVE - FRESH - I can come up with so many words for this wonderful 'out of nowhere' film. After watching this film in 1993, I lived in a state of stupefied depression", Rob Britt writes. We shall see (parts of) the rest of the story later on, presenting some audio excerpts. I'd like to think now, why the movie can be so depressing.
McLEOD'S living in a mask has weakened him, he is even now, after he met Norstadt, ready to give up (actually, the script initially had him commit suicide) - he decided to turn this new relationship into a memory and Norstadt, as a good student, obeys.McLeod did not die and it was not necessary for him to concede to the society's conditions, always fearful of the freedom and thoughtfulness of love. This is why we talk about a decision. He wanted to protect the genuineness of their relationship in Charles' mind, he wanted to protect Charles' face. But what face? Did he have a face after Patrick's death?
McLeod's voluntary disappearance and Norstadt's obedience are the equivalent of a mutual suicide - and a shrewd one. Now if one of them dies, the other won't even know. They can pray forever for each other's well being. The film ends like a circle - no better or worse, no doubts, their perfection is sealed, they have each become the mask of the other in a dream without end. They can be in the crowd, as well - the rebel a soldier and the hermit a saint. They carry a cross, with none crucified.
This is how we understand it, this is how Charles lives in it: "But there is always a face before me now, somewhere out beyond the edge of the crowd".
Where Plato and Shakespeare are used, it should have been obvious, that a face can not live in a mask - by a mask, hidden in a mask or despite of the mask. And now we have two masks and two men who had a face. And it is not only this! I wish it were only this, because the director wanted some kind of a High Flight end, which he could not achieve of course in the conformity he produced in order to avoid an unhappy end, so that he tried to give at least a promise of such a Flight by pretending they have and will have a face - and this goes beyond wearing them a mask or indicating their future as an echo of their past, beyond even trying to dress Shakespeare in Plato's clothes.
Cf. Someone Like Hodder | Rilke, Letter to a young poet | Jaspers, Truth is in communication | J. O. y Gassett, The Revolt of the Masses | Tom Schulman, Dead Poets Society | Wordsworth's and Magee's poems | K. Mansfield, There was a child once
More by Nat Gerrs : Why Europe? | J. M. Lefévre, The White Thinking
