In the movie The Wisdom of Crocodiles, serial killer (Jude Law) tells cop (Timothy Spall) that people try to fight evil by attempting to separate the criminals from the rest of the society "but the line that divides good and evil lies in the heart of every man".
Humans are described in traditional chinese philosophy as the bridge between heaven (yang) and earth (yin).
The human is viewed as being part mammal and part divine, a talking animal or a naked ape. Human beings are a mixture of spirit and matter continually torn between animal instincts and divine aspirations.
Animals aren't evil. And the divine is obviously divine. But somehow the human being has a double nature capable of great genius, compassion, creative accomplishment and spiritual wisdom, on the one hand and unspeakable cruelty, destruction and violence on the other.
There is a continual quest for perfection and a need to be superhuman or godlike combined with an ongoing fascination with evil.
The war between good and evil is conceived inside the individual psyche first and is then replayed in the world at large.
Related Posts
The Curse of the Divided Self - Part II
Beauty and the Beast
Monday, 28 January 2008
The Curse of the Divided Self
Sunday, 27 January 2008
Portraits of the Beast
The Beast, The Devil, Lucifer, Satan - whatever people choose to call the phenomenon- has always wielded a paradoxical fascination over the human psyche.
Some view the Beast as an actual entity, a fallen angel or agent of evil.
Others see the Beast as the evil part of humanity that has been projected and externalised into the Ultimate Bogeyman.
Whichever way you choose to look at it, the Devil continues to cast its spectre over the popular imagination and appears wearing diverse guises and masks in literature, theatre and the movies.
Here are a few of the more recent and more (relatively) benign faces of the Beast:
"Who can deny that the 20th century has been entirely mine?"And as "just your average horny little devil" in The Witches of Eastwick:
These are some of the more accessible, less scary portraits of the Beast. But perhaps these more palatable portraits (the approachable New York lawyer, the blue-eyed child etc.) makes him/her/it all the more insidious.
Related Posts:
The Many Faces of Faust
Beauty and the Beast
Friday, 25 January 2008
Beauty and the Beast
It's been said that every individual is made up of three different people:
- how you see yourself,
- how other people see you
- and how you really are
There is also the Shadow Self. This is the part of our self that we don't like others to see and that we like to pretend isn't really there.
The Shadow is a composite of our flaws, mistakes, fears, bad memories and 'sins'.
The Shadow Self is usually lurking behind a socially acceptable mask that is a paragon of conventional beauty.
It is often characterised in fiction as the 'mad woman in the attic' or the 'psycho behind the shower curtain'.
A lot of the time we see these parts of ourselves that we have rejected, reflected back to us in the behaviour of people we dislike or who irritate us, or in other social groups.
Sometimes other people in our lives or on our screens play out the fears and sins that we repress or are afraid of.
The Beast we fear is reproduced not only in the popular imagination but in the political arena and in society at large. For example, the so-called hoodies are like the new bogeymen.
The more that the dark side of our human nature is feared and repressed, the more it grows and is in some way expressed.
Jung, and other experts of the mind, advocate accepting the dark side of the personality in order to transform it for the better and to integrate it with our whole self.
If we are completely cut off from our dark side, a split occurs and the Shadow escapes from behind the prison of the beautiful mask and takes on a life of its own.
Jung said, "...when an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside as fate... when the individual remains undivided and does not become conscious of his inner opposite, the world must perforce act out the conflict and be torn into opposing halves.”
Every character that appears in a person's dreams can be interpreted as being a part of the dreamer's own personality.
If fiction, movies, stories etc. are interpreted in the same way, then Beauty may be seen as the Beast, Marion Crane can be seen as another alter ego of Norman Bates and Christine, the "Angel of Music", can be seen as the Phantom.
Related Posts:
Portraits of the Beast
The Curse of the Divided Self
The Phantom of the Opera
Thursday, 24 January 2008
Mirror Mirror
The previous post mentions the ghostly image of Marilyn Monroe which gazes out at people from the mirror in the lobby of the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel.
Marilyn was said to have filled every room of her (first and last) home with “floor-to-ceiling” mirrors.
The inscription on the tiles of the doorstep of this home reads: Cursum Perficio. This can be translated as: “My Journey Ends here”, “I finish my course”, “I stay my course” or “My journey is over.”
But rumour has it that she continues to roam that home.
Mind control experts are said to employ the use of mirrors as part of their programming techniques. The mirror images act as a trigger, encouraging the guinea pig to dissociate from their own identity.
In symbolism and folklore, mirrors represent gateways or portals to other worlds. They are a common feature in paranormal or science fiction enabling characters to look out into other dimensions and- equally, but more spookily - to allow beings from other dimensions to look back in turn at them.
For example, the 90s New Zealand mini series, Mirror Mirror features a mirror which enables its young protagonists to travel between two time periods: 1919 and 1995.
A memorable early scene sees one girl from 1995 staring into the mirror at a girl from 1919 who is gazing back at her. Both are in the same bedroom sharing the same moment at different times.
The girl from 1919 can be interpreted (although it is not really specified in the story) as being a previous incarnation of the girl from 1995.
The story also features Alexei, the youngest son of Russia’s last Tsar, who is secretly rescued from the brutal fate of the rest of his family and hidden in New Zealand only to be held prisoner by his “saviour”. (His saviour/captor is played by the actor who was the first to portray Spiderman as a live action hero.)
We cannot see our own faces. We know the faces of others better than we know ourselves. So mirrors are both a curse and a blessing, reminding us of who we are and not who we imagine ourselves to be.
The universe is our mirror. It is the macrocosm which reflects back the microcosm of our thoughts, fears, desires and ambitions.
Our archetypes are celebrities or “stars” who live out our fantasies and fears on a larger than life plane and Our Gods Wear Spandex
A quotation attributed to Anais Nin says: “We do not see things as they are, we see them as we are.”
Thursday, 3 January 2008
Haunted Hotels and Restless Entertainers
Ol’ Blue Eyes Haunts Law
Jude Law saw the ghost of Frank Sinatra rummaging through the drinks and snacks at the hotel mini bar in his room in a Cuban hotel on December 29, according to Showbiz news.
Law dismissed it as a drunken vision at first but was later told by staff that Frank Sinatra used to stay in that room.
Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel
Just as the Hotel Nacional de Cuba continues to host Frank Sinatra, the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel continues to entertain actors Montgomery Clift and Marilyn Monroe.
Apparently Montgomery Clift, who stayed there in 1953, roams the 9th floor corridor playing a trumpet, while the image of Marilyn Monroe is said to appear in a full-length mirror that used to be in her suite but which has now been moved to the lobby.
Clift and Monroe starred together in the movie The Misfits.
George Reeves
One of the most famous of Hollywood ghosts is George Reeves, the actor who played Superman from 1953-1957, whose mysterious death was the subject of the 2006 movie Hollywoodland.
He has been sighted at his former Beverley Hills home dressed in full Superman regalia, staring at the occupants of the bedroom before slowly fading.
