Iliad and Liberal Education

Iliad, as a literary artwork, reminds of human excellence and greatness in the field of poetry. Being one of the oldest epic poems, Iliad is a product of human excellence not only in terms of form, but also the themes Homer touches upon - anger, justice, the divine, love - have challenged many great minds, and are still disputable in modern times. In this sense, Iliad serves as an epic beauty, in which Homer aesthetically harmonizes the content and the form. Therefore, if liberal education is an experience in things beautiful, should the Iliad be regarded as a part of liberal education?

            In order to analyze Iliad as a text for liberal education, it is important to understand what is meant by liberal education and the aim of this type of education. According to Strauss, “Liberal education is education in culture or toward culture.” Since culture here refers to the cultivation of mind, the aim of liberal education is to awaken the individual from his/her torpor embedded in mass democracy. To move from the concept of modern democracy shaped by the ignorant members of mass culture to the ideal democratic state, Strauss suggests individuals to transform the monologues of the greatest minds into a dialogue. That is to say, one should develop an awareness of cultural and historical differences and avoid the deterministic approach to learning inherent in modern thought. In doing so, by employing dialectics, individuals will be able to recognize and appreciate human excellence and greatness.

            Given that framework, on what, for Homer, does human excellence or greatness lay? Is it possible for the reader to develop a dialogue with Homer to realize the true ground of the dignity of man and therewith the goodness of the world? Does Iliad as an epic poem scoping on Trojan War – one of the oldest literature on human violence - somehow relate to the goodness of the world? To answer these questions one can argue how powerful is the narration of Homer on violence, as the reader identifies with that violence in the most possible peaceful way. His fulgent storytelling goes hand in hand with what is natural, and nature itself. One of the good examples of this relation to nature is his representation of the battle field before Hector kills Patroclusin in Book 16:

Winds sometimes rise in a deep mountain wood

From different directions, and the trees—

Beech, ash, and cornelian cherry—

Batter each other with their long, tapered branches,

And you can hear the sound from a long way off,

The unnerving splintering of hardwood limbs.

Homer’s use of similes of this kind takes the story of the harsh violence into slow motion, giving time to the reader to stop and think about human nature for a better understanding of being. Direct references to the god made nature, and the pure essence of human actions are represented without any signs of vulgarity. Strauss says that “Liberal education is liberation from vulgarity.” Vulgarity here, referring to its Greek use, is expressed as a lack of experience in beautiful things. Iliad, consisted of many beauties like the simile represented above, in its completeness is a form of aesthetics. Therefore, one can agree when Strauss favors the classical literature and Greek philosophy as the two fields in which one can find beauty in its highest form. Though this belief is not exclusive of the modern approach to sciences, there is a greater emphasis on the need to read classical texts for their own sakes, for the beauty they offer to the reader.

In The Republic, book 10, Socrates discusses that the art works such as paintings or poems would be dangerous for the citizens of Kallipolis. Although he claims to admire the works of Homer, those poems have the potential to be dangerous in a way that they can provoke the irrational element of the soul and be a destructive influence on the minds of those who hear it. If the effect of Homer’s poems on the ordinary citizen is set aside and the effects on philosophers is considered, Socrates’s discussion reveals how powerful Homer is as a poet even for those great minds like Plato and Socrates. Their interest in Iliad and other poems is not only because it is a pleasure to read them; but because of their power for reproduction in philosophical form. That is to say, with an erotic perspective, one may defend the beauty in Homer not as a plain pleasure of verbal excellence; but also as an object of beauty, which leads great minds to create new ideas of human greatness.

            To proceed in the line of discussion on Iliad as a part of liberal education, it is also as important for me to read and understand Iliad in its depth in order to have a full access to the works of the following great minds. Iliad’s epic beauty provided Homer an authority over the depiction of Gods and the Greek mythology in general. Since Iliad is the pioneer in bringing about the issues of the divine and justice in Western literature. In that sense, Homer can be perceived as a mediator between the history and his audience through the means of epic improvisations as it is argued in the introduction to Iliad there is no other reliable source to refer in terms of the period Homer describes. In that respect, it is that aesthetics present in Iliad which makes it as powerful as it is both for people of its age as a guide for tradition and religion, and of the contemporary as an historical source for Greek mythology and a marvelous piece of poetry.

The Lilac Government - Anecdote

          

         The liberation movement at the end of the 1960’s has nearly resulted in a civil war in Turkey between the nationalists and socialists, which ended up with the military coup in 1971. Many socialists were arrested and soldiers were searching the houses of the socialists for potentially harmful political books. It is not surprising that The Republic was the hand book of the socialists who were in search of the ideal city. The name ‘Plato’ is translated to Turkish as ‘Eflatun’, which is also the same name for the color of lilac. While soldiers were searching for the books to be burnt in one of the socialists’ house, they came across with The Republic, on which was written ‘Eflatun - Devlet’ in Turkish. The exact translation makes it ‘the lilac government’ in English. Just like the carefully educated guardians of Kallipolis, the Turkish guardians were also kept away from the dangerous books, which could harm their belief in their government, that is why they could not recognize The Republic. Instead, their reaction was that they said they have heard about the red government before, but not the lilac one. So they did not take the book to burn with the others.

            It would be unreasonable to compare here the political system of Turkey with the system in The Republic. However, for the sake of the argument, it is possible only to say that at that time the Turkish political system was an unqualified copy of the totalitarian regime that Socrates describes. Socrates’ theory on the ideal city mainly relies on the education of the guardians and the philosopher kings. Assuming that philosophers are the ones who have the knowledge of the good, they should be the rulers and provide the proper education to the guardians for the common good of the city. The system he represents can be seen as a totalitarian regime in the sense that philosopher kings, who have the knowledge on ‘the good’ that the citizens are not able to access because of their inabilities, will decide for the common good of the passive demos. Although the city is ruled by autocracy, it is not tyrannical regarding that all the guardians are good to the people and the city is imagined according to the harmony and the happiness of the people. This harmony was the reason for the Turkish socialists’ interest in the book. In their egalitarian beliefs, they wanted to approach to a better state similar to the idealized system in Plato’s book. One can argue that the missing point in their actions relating to the book is Socrates’ argument on the will of philosopher kings to rule. Socrates claims that the philosopher does not have any interest in ruling the city, but because he is the only one who have the wisdom to rule the city, it is in a way demanded from him and he should not resist to that demand. This argument shows that the change should start within in the individual so that they will be able to demand the service of the best ruler. Nevertheless, socialists of the time wanted to bring the change to the public by political means, but the individuals were not introduced with the idea of the good. At this point, what I would like to claim with the above anecdote is that the political reading of the book, as the socialists did, can be misleading. To put it differently, Socrates tries to avoid the political understanding of his  arguments in the book, when Adeimentus and Glaucon demands him to explain how it can be possible to create such an ideal city, and pull their attention to the philosophical argument first to give them a perspective on the philosophical inquiry.

            In order to differentiate the philosophical implications of the text from what has actually been said in the line of argument on justice in Kallipolis, it is important to look at the path that Socrates’ argument follows. In the search for the true nature of justice, first Socrates introduces the idea of ‘the goodness’, which exists on a transcendental level. Since this abstraction is beyond human understanding, he assumes a city which consists of a ruling class, guardians and the public. He claims that the only possible connection of the city with the idea of the goodness can be through the philosophers because only philosophers recognize and take pleasure in the single form behind the multiplicity of appearances. Guardians are educated through this understanding of the good to be courageous enough to protect it. Then he uses this analogy to reflect the virtues of the soul, in which there exist both rational and irrational elements. At that point, the analogy of the city and the soul collide in each other and the state of the city does not fit in the state of the soul. Adeimentus and Glaucon, with Eros in themselves, demand Socrates to explain how such a system can be applicable insistently with the desire to believe in the idea of the good. Socrates, satisfied to see that the discussion triggered the desire for the search of the true nature of the individual, then passes on the topic of the philosopher’s education.

            The introduction of the discussion on the philosopher’s education takes the argument to another level. This part of the book can be seen as the exercises part at the end of a chapter. While discussing the virtues of the philosopher like wisdom, good memory, and justice, Socrates further provokes Adeimentus and Glaucon, already planted with the idea of the good, to practice philosophical inquiry. According to the path that Socrates follows, one can argue that the sections in his divided line analogy at the end of book 6; conjecture, belief, thinking, and understanding, refer to the phases they have been through from the beginning of the discussion. Adeimentus and Glaucon in book 6 are in the thinking section regarding their enthusiasm to have the knowledge of the good that Socrates is talking about. Socrates claims that it is not possible for humans to fully understand that transcendental energy, but tries to improve their vision with the allegory of the cave that one should go out in the sun to have a better understanding of the ideal forms. Here, he uses the philosophical nature as an image to describe the divine motive in the individual soul. In a way, his discussion leads Adeimentus and Glaucon to the highest degree in the divided line, which is understanding, through being aware of that philosophical nature of the soul to get out of the cave.

            To conclude, when Socrates asks in book 5 that "do you think our inability to show that it is possible to found a city in the way we have described makes what we have to say any less valid?", this question alters our understanding of the function or significance of Kallipolis by freeing the reader from the political constraints of the city and emphasizing the importance of the education of the individual soul. Just as Glaucon, the reader is also encouraged to search for the divine in the soul. If it can be recognized through the help of the proper education,  then the discussion on justice will come to an end because it is impossible for the individual to act unjustly after reunifying with the knowledge of the good. In other words, with this question the reader realizes that Socrates wants to stimulate the change that is required for a just society starting from the individual and his main aim is to practice this educational matter with the people he is in dialogue with, in that case they are Adeimentus and Glaucon. What Plato does with The Republic is to invite a large number of the readers in the discussion, again for the educational purposes that he believes in just like Socrates.

Philosophy and Storytelling: Socratic Theology vs. Hesiodic Theology on the Basis of Rationality

The Greek word “theologia” is a compound of “theos”, which is God, and “logos”, which is discourse. The word is said to be used first by Plato in The Republic, but Tom Griffith in his translation refers to the term as “to talk about Gods”.  The importance of Gods is obvious in both Hesiod’s and Plato’s texts and the talks about Gods repetitiously partake, but there is a slight difference between Hesiod’s discourse and Socrates’s. To be able to decide whether Socrates is rational and Hesiod is irrational or vice versa, these two different attitudes towards Gods should be examined.

            To make a rational analysis on the two different theologies and their rationality, it is meaningful to define rationality first. The etymological root of the word “rational” is the Latin word “ratio”, which means “reason”. Therefore, a rational theology should be a reasoned discourse about the Gods. What is meant by reasoned discourse is that contradiction should be removed from the line of argument. In this context, my claim is that Hesiod’s text includes inconsistencies concerning the understanding and application of goodness.

Works and Days is a text in which Hesiod tells the stories of Gods to show his brother Perses the good way of living, and gives him advices to go that way. By telling the myths about Prometheus, Pandora and the five Ages of Man, he gives a description of Gods to whom he attaches human emotions. The Gods in Hesiod’s text are more or less like human beings in their relations to each other and mortals. They expect to be honored by the sacrifices of the mortals, get angry by their disrespectful actions and take revenge by punishing them. The distinction between mortals and immortals is based on a power relation. The Gods, who have the power to create as well as destroy, are superior to the human kind in that respect. This reduced power relation between mortals and immortals results in a utilitarian understanding of goodness and justice. Hesiod advices Perses in the lines 279-285, to be just in order to be nourished by the Gods:

But to man he has given Justice and she proves to be far the best;

for if a man, of his knowledge, wills to speak justly, to him

Loud-Voiced Zeus grants prosperity;

but to him who will lie by witnesses, swearing falsely,

consciously, and injuring Justice shall fall to sin past cure,

his generation after him is left weaker;

but the generation of the just-swearing man remains better then before.

The leitmotif of Hesiod’s words above is that justice brings humans prosperity and unjust behavior will be punished by Zeus. Distant from understanding the true nature of goodness, Hesiod’s reasoning in the just behavior is materialistic gain or the fear of the God. To me, this approach to justice is contradictory to the concept of being just, because justice can only be applied for the sake of justice not for the sake of any other materialistic concerns, or it would not be a just behavior.

            Another contradiction in Hesiod’s theology is that although he claims the ones who live their lives truthfully and care for justice and goodness in their actions will be rewarded by the Gods, one cannot be sure about their destiny because it is all up to Zeus’s will. After making a long list of things to do to have a good life according to Zeus’s will, Hesiod informs Perses that Zeus’s will is unstable:

But sometimes the mind of Zeus, aegis-bearing, is one way

and sometimes another; for mortal men it is hard to fathom.

Is it possible to lead a just life according to the God’s will, which is a part of its unstable nature? How did Hesiod have the access to that detailed knowledge about the Gods’ existence? There seems to be no answers to and even place for this sort of questions in Hesiod’s text. Hence, the appearance of Gods in Hesiod’s text is ambiguous and his theology is inconsistent according to the above arguments. The underlying reason for that inconsistency is that Hesiod’s discourse on the Gods is formed on the basis that Zeus is the outer authority to whom mortals should obey and make sacrifices. In a way, human actions are in the control of Zeus, which means that he may be held responsible for both the good and bad in human actions. At this point, what Hesiod does is to draw the territory of the human actions according to an outer authority and come up with conclusions in this context, without questioning the reasons for that kind of actions.

            On the contrary, in Republic Socrates, follows a path in his discourse on Gods starting from the individuals’ actions and their consequences. By applying dialectics, he questions the nature of justice and just behavior. He emphasizes the importance of knowledge and wisdom, which are the greatest virtues of the soul, in order to be able to apply justice. For a deeper understanding of the soul he uses the allegory of the ideal city. In his argument a greater emphasis is put on the education of the guardians of the city through which the argument is then carried on the level of self-discipline. The main point in Socratic theology is that individuals are held responsible for their own actions, and if there is to be a control mechanism for their actions, this mechanism will be set through the education of the soul and the body to create a balance for all the elements in the soul. He places Gods in his allegory as the role model for the ultimate goodness. Goodness is the only characteristic that he attaches to the existence of Gods. This ideal form of the good then becomes his reason in explaining the importance of self-discipline and education as he derives in Book 2 that “Since god is good, he could not be responsible for everything. Some of the things that happen to men are his responsibility, but most are not; after all, we have many fewer good things than bad things in our lives. We have no reason to hold anyone else responsible for the good things, whereas for the bad things we should look for some other cause, and not blame god.”At this point, his arguments complete a circle, he starts with the need of proper education to have a better understanding of the true nature of things and then this understanding again leads to the importance of proper education of the soul and body to handle the consequences of being. Although it is sometimes hard to fully follow his reasoning, what I look for, in my quest for rationality in his theology, is the absence of contradiction and I can claim that there is an apparent consistency in his arguments. 

            To conclude, Socrates and Hesiod were different in the methods they used to develop their arguments, the method of the former is philosophizing on the human existence, and the latter is storytelling on the existence of the Gods. According to the Latin writer Varro, the discourse on the Gods can be distinguished into three categories; mythical (concerning the myths of the Greek gods), rational (philosophical analysis of the gods and of cosmology) and civil (concerning the rites and duties of public religious observance). It will not be wrong to claim that Hesiodic theology is more coherent with the mythical discourse and Socratic theology with the rational discourse.

Jules ve Jim

Jules ve Jim, izlediğimde hayran kaldığım ve hakkında yazmak için epeyce heveslendiğim bir film. Ortam çok uygun, dışarıda sakin bir yağmur var, gece olmuş, rahatsız eden tek bir ses yok. Bilgisayarın karşısına geçtim ve kahvemi yudumluyorum. Bir aşk filminden bahsetmek için en uygun koşullar altında üç bardak kahve içtikten sonra hala tek satır yazamadığımı farkediyorum. Yeni Dalga’nın en iddialı aşk filminden bahsetmek için oldukça klişe bir romantizm halindeyim, bunu farkeder farketmez kendime gelip, Truffaut’nun filmde şiddetle kaçındığı bu verili duygusallık halinden acilen çıkıyorum.

Jules (Oskar Werner) ve Jim (Henri Serre) Paris’te bohem hayatı süren, sanat üzerine yaptıkları hararetli konuşmalarla dostluklarının kuruluşuna şahit olduğumuz iki genç adam. Catherine (Jeanne Moreau) ise ikisinin de hayran kaldığı parlak gülüşlü tanrıça heykelinin apaçık vücut bulmuş hali. Mevzu bahis de, bu iki birbirine düşkün dost ve delidolu Belle Epoque tanrıçası arasında 1. Dünya Savaşı öncesinden Büyük Buhran sonrasına uzanan 20 yıllık bir aşk üçgeni. Truffaut öyküyü Henri Pierre Roche’un 75 yaşında kaleme aldığı, otobiyografik ögeler içeren romanından uyarlamış. 1962’de film çekildiğinde daha neredeyse yönetmenlik kariyerinin başlarında olan Truffaut’nun heyecanı Roche’un olgunluğuyla birleşince, lirik olduğu kadar da gerçekçi bir film çıkmış ortaya.

Filmin başarısı sadece senaryodan ileri gelmiyor tabii ki. Yeni Dalga tekniklerini konuya ustalıkla yediren Truffaut, Fransa’nin Lale Devri olarak tanımlanabilecek 1. Dünya Savaşı öncesi ve savaşın getirdiği sıkıntıların hüküm sürdüğü takip eden yılların, birbirine zıt atmosferini döneme son derece uygun geçişlerle yansıtmış filmde. Bu iki farklı atmosfer ve karakterlerin gelişimi; gerçek mekan kullanımı, kostümler hatta Picasso’nun değişik dönem tablolarının ince detaylar olarak kullanıldığı sahnelerle verilirken, filmin doğallığına en ufak bir gölge düşmemesi açısından karakterlerinde makyaj bile kullanmamış Truffaut. Akımın anarşist tavrına uygun olarak en az karakterler kadar özgür kılınan kamera da döne döne kendi etrafında bir çember tamamlamak, hızlı panlar yapmak suretiyle karakterlerin neşeli vurdumduymazlıklarını aynı tempoyla kaydederken, uzun planlar ve derin fokuslarla da içten içe yaşanan kaosu da yansıtmaktan geri kalmamış.

Jules ve Jim’de oyunculuklara hayran kalmamak da mümkün değil. Filmin adının Jules ve Jim olmasına rağmen sıradışı karakteri ve etkileyiciliğiyle olayları kendi ekseninde döndüren Catherine’i canlandıran Jeanne Moreau, kusursuz oyunculuğuyla beni de bir izleyici olarak etkisi altına aldı. Ele avuca sığmayan neşesi ve çekiciliğinin yani sıra aniden duygusal boşluklara düşen Catherine karakterinin, Truffaut’nun diğer filmlerinde de konu edilen, dengesiz olduğu için korkulası ama bir o kadar da tapınılası kadınlarının en detaylı portresi olduğunu söylemek hiç de yanlış olmaz. Erkek karakterlerini de Jules ve Jim gibi tutarlı, abartısız, gerektiği kadar karizmatik ve aynı ölçüde naif karakterler olarak seçen Truffaut’ya yöneltilen kadın düşmanlığı iddiaları olduğunu söyledikten sonra yönetmenin filmlerindeki hümanist yaklaşımından bahsetmenin yeridir diye düşünüyorum.

Filmin romansı havasını korumak ve karakterlerin iç dünyalarına girişimizi sağlamak için anlatıcı olarak kullanılan üst ses Truffaut’nun her üç karakterle de aynı mesafeyi korumasını sağlayan en önemli unsur olmuş. Bu kaotik aşk üçgenini, aşıkların gözünden değil de dışardan izlemek Truffaut’nun kamerasından sonra, bu sefer de izleyicisine tanıdığı bir özgürlük. Karakterleri için herhangi bir yargıda bulunmayan yönetmen, izleyicinin de taraflı bir empati kurmasına olanak sağlamaması açısından hümanist olarak nitelendiriliyor. Kadın düşmanı iddialarının doğruluğuna Truffaut filmlerinde kanıt bulamamış olsam da, Jules ve Jim’in Catherine’e aşık olduğu gibi, kendisinin de aşkı tehlikeli ve çekici bulduğu kadınlarda aradığına dair bir izlenime kapıldığımı rahatlıkla söyleyebilirim ben bu tutkulu portreden. Zaten konu bir auteur yönetmenin sinemasıysa, onun tutku ve arayışlarının şahidi olmaya davetlisiniz demektir. Keyfinin çıkarılması tavsiye olunur...

Donnie Brasco

“Biriyle aynı fikirdeysen, bilirsin mesela ‘Raquel Welsh nefistir’, unut gitsin! Ama eğer aynı fikirde değilsen mesela ‘Lincoln Cadillac’tan daha iyidir’ gibi, unut gitsin! Anlıyor musun? Ama aynı zamanda eğer birşeyin dünyanın en iyisi olduğunu düşünüyorsan ‘Papa’ gibi, unut gitsin! Ama ‘unut gitsin’ aynı zamanda cehennem ol demek de olabilir. Bilirsin mesela dilencinin teki yanına yaklaşır ve yakana yapışır, unut gitsin! Ama bazen sadece ‘unut gitsin’ anlamına gelir…”

Yeni başlayanlar için mafya dersinin en önemli konusudur jargon. Bıyıklar kesilip saçlar uygun şekile sokulduktan sonra giyilen deri ceket vitrini az çok tamamlar, ancak iş jargona geldiğinde ilk kapıyı açan anahtar kimin dostu olarak nitelendirildiğindir. Böylesine bir usta-çırak ilişkisinde usta Al Pacino, çırak ise Johnny Depp olunca kapılar birbiri ardına açılır ama çırak aslında bir köstebekse en son açılan kapı hızla ustanın üstüne kapanır.

Asıl adı Joseph D. Pistone olan FBI ajanının gerçek yaşam öyküsü Donnie Brasco. Görevi New York’ta küçük bir grup mafyanın içine sızarak FBI’a bilgi sızdırmak. Kendini Donnie Brasco adında bir mücevheratçı olarak tanıtan Pistone’nın (Johnny Depp) yolu ilk önce Lefty Ruggiero (Al Pacino) ile çakışır. Lefty yıllardır mafyanın içinde, deneyimli ama hiçbir zaman yeterli gücü eline geçirememiş bu sebeple büyük patronların haraçlarını toplama görevini üstlenmiş ve orada kalmış bir üyesidir çetenin. Kısa zamanda Donnie’ye güvenerek onu çeteye dahil eder ve Donnie, daha sonra yaptığı işlerle çete başı olan Sunny Black’in (Michael Madsen) adamı olma yolunda hızla ilerler, ta ki “onlardan biri” olana kadar.

Harry Potter ve Ateş Kadehi, Dört Nikah Bir Cenaze ve Mona Lisa Gülüşü gibi filmlerin yönetmenliğini yapmış olan Mike Newell’in Donnie Brasco gibi iddialı bir gangster filminin yönetmeni olması ne kadar ilginç görünse de aslında Donnie Brasco başrollerin karakteristik özellikleri ve mafya ilişkilerini ele aldığı açının farklılığıyla türünün diğer filmlerinden ayrı tutulabilir. Her zaman güç sahibi, yöneten konumunda görmeye alıştığımız Al Pacino’nun bu filmde beklentilerimizin tam tersine emir kulu olarak karşımıza çıkması ilk anda hafif sersemletici bir etki yaratıyor. Beklentilerimizi boşa çıkarmayan şey ise Al Pacino’nun Lefty rolünün de hakkını fazla fazla vermiş olması. Donnie’yi çeteye alma sorumluluğu, ‘ya köstebekse’ şüphesi ve olası bir ‘çağrılma’ sonunda canından olma tehlikesi altında Donnie’yle ilişkisini sürdüren Lefty’nin dram olarak nitelendirilebilecek öyküsü, bunun yanısıra Pistone’nin Lefty’ye olan sevgisi, gangster filmlerinin en karakteristik özelliği olan birbirini tutmanın sert kabuğu altında son derece duygusal, dokunur bir yerden aktarılmış. Her biri bir nevi kahramanlık seremonisine dönüşen gangster filmlerinin aksine bu tehlikeli oyunun kaybetmeye yakın tarafında olanlarının başrolde olduğu bir film Donnie Brasco.

FBI ajanlığından çete üyesi kimliğine bürünen, bu kimliği sahiplenerek ailesinden kopan, mesleğine inancını kaybeden Pistone’nin dönüşümünü başarıyla sergileyen Johnny Depp’in oyunculuğunun da hakkını vermek lazım. Filmin başından beri bu dönüşümü bekler halde olan izleyicide yabancılaştırma etkisi yaratan Pistone’nın evine gidişleri, karısı Maggie (Anne Heche) ile uzlaşılmaz hale gelen çıkmazları da öykünün ritmini sekteye uğratarak ister istemez bir sorgulama boşluğu yaratıyor. Siz görsel bir ahenkle sunulan hikayenin gerçeklik payını da göz önünde bulundurarak bu boşluğu amacına yönelik kullanmaya çabalarken elinizde kalan ise FBI’in operasyon için Pistone’nın eline tutuşturduğu trajikomik çekten çok daha anlamlı oluyor.

American Beauty

“Sometimes there is so much beauty in the world…” how to complete this sentence? Ricky (Wes Bentley) says: “…I feel like I can’t take it.” Some other could say: “… it kills me.”, and some other, let’s say Alan Ball could say or had already said that we’re killing each other with our desire and obsession for beauty. There were many striking questions I was left to answer, first of all ask myself, after watching American Beauty.

What is beauty? In general, beauty is what is desirable, attractive and unfortunately more generally, sexy. In different aspects it may present innocence, pureness and childhood, yet from a different perspective it is nature, the spirit and life as a whole. In Sam Mendes’s movie, all different understandings of beauty are represented in the very core of family ties with the help of a very old technique of showing the distorted one to point out the natural form. If there is no beauty than there is no ugliness, if there are no norms to fit in than there is no dissatisfaction. To a more general extent, beauty is all around us, and what keep us from reaching it are the limitations that we surround ourselves with.

This theoretical concept of beauty may seem fugacious from the beginning to the end, but it actualizes itself in many relationships like the suppressed father and the girl trying to get recognition. In the movie, Lester (Kevin Spacey) is in some kind of a mid-life crisis and his desires are represented by the very common elements of beauty, a blonde young girl with all her nudity and the leaves of red roses, this is almost a cliché, on the other hand in Jane (Thora Birch) and Ricky’s relationship nudity is replaced by the nudity of the souls, blondness is now turned into very big and meaningful brown eyes, the red rose is a bag flying in the air. Right at this point, I should add that the scene with the bag is the most spectacular and fascinating scene in this movie, which is capable of expressing the whole idea very simply and without any words. If I go back to relations, there is even beauty in the relationship of colonel Frank (Chris Cooper) and Ricky, a very sad and sick way of love, but all of that love felt for each other has grown into an unhealthy situation with the lack of communication to point out the distortion in the American way of having a family. The most emphasized critique of the movie was made on the family values, but I think there is more to that, the film captures all the realities of individuals in their depth.

The film has a narrative storytelling in which Lester take us to the last days of his life. The positioning of the audience as an inspector is obtained with the camera capturing the town from the sky, and coming closer to Lester’s house, where we are welcomed. The neighborhood is a very typical American suburb where we see a little sample of social realities of American life, two gays living next door, the family life of a soldier and a family which seems perfectly normal at first sight and than we get into the story of these lives. The story itself is amazing enough but Sam Mendes had used a powerful visualization of some scenes to increase its effect, like the repetition of some shots to give the feeling of dreamlike desires of Lester and he also used beauty by means of reflections in a photographic manner as in the scenes where Lester and Ricky smoke joint in the backyard of the restaurant and the scene when Lester lies dead in his blood. There is also that irony of the camera use by Ricky to capture beauty especially in the scene, which we see him filming Jane through his window and we see her simultaneously on his screen, which is transmitted to us from Mendes’s camera.

American Beauty is one of my favorites when I consider the script, dramaturgy, and cinematography. All the players perform a very successful acting especially Kevin Spacey as he always does. Wes Bentley and Chris Cooper are also very good in fitting those characters. I believe that the script has a plenty of messages to be delivered and it brilliantly succeeds in its mission through the cine eye.

Ayna

“Genelde anılar çok değerlidir, bu yüzden olsa gerek, insan her zaman onları şiirsel renklerle süsler.”

Andrei Tarkovski – Mühürlenmiş Zaman

Gece görülen bir rüyanın sahnelerini ertesi gün değişik zamanlarda hatırlar gibi parça parça görüntüler olarak aklımda kalacak bir film oldu Ayna benim için. Tarkovski’nin zaman algısını bir bütünlük içinde yorumlayamamanın verdiği sıkıntıyla, izledikten sonra “öznelliğin bu kadarı…” demek oldu verdiğim ilk tepki. Matbaada çalışan bir anne vardı, anneden ayrılan bir baba, 2. Dünya Savaşı yıllarında Sovyetler Birliği ve büyümekte, hatta ölmekte olan bir çocuğun geçmiş düşleri. Hepsi de ayrı ayrı zamandan sıyrılmış anılar, görsellikle birleşmiş başka bir bütünlük içinde…

Film boyunca bir metaforlar zincirinin kendimce kopuk parçasını ararken Tarkovski’nin “İnsanlar Ayna’yı gördükten sonra onları bu filmin ardında başka hiçbir gizli, şifrelenmiş bir gaye yatmadığına ikna etmek çok güç oldu. Filmin gerçeği söylemekten başka bir amacı olmadığını açıklamaya çalıştığımda hep bir güvensizlik ve hayal kırıklığı ile karşılaştiım. Bazı seyirciler için bu açıklamalarım gerçekten de pek tatmin edici olmadı. Gizler, simgeler, gayeler peşinde koştular durdular, çünkü onlar filmsel, görüntüsel şiire alışkın değildiler, ki bu da beni büyük hayal kırıklığına uğrattı.” şeklinde dile getirdiği sitemi, bana Ayna’ya sade olarak tekrar bakma gerekliliğini hissettirdi. Filmde kullanılan Madrid bombardımanı görüntülerinin bana 1. Körfez Savaşı görüntülerini çağrıştırması, filmin herkesin kendi aynasına bakınca hatırlayacağı görüntülere birçok kapı açarak görsellikte bir nevi sınırsızlık sağladığını düşündürüyor. Tarkovski’nin bu en içe dönük olarak nitelendirilen filminin farklı coğrafyalardan, farklı zamanlardan ve altyapılardan her izleyiciyle hafıza üzerinden ortak bir dil kurduğunu soylersem hiç de yanlış olmaz.

1975 yapımı Ayna, Ignat’ın (Ignat Daniltsev) çocukken gördüğü rüyalarla karışık hatırladığı anılarının kişinin yaşanmışlıklarına dair içerdiği göndermeler açısından, özellikle babasının annesinin saçını yıkadığını anımsadığı sahnede, izleyenlerin kanımca benzerlik kuracağı Robert Altman’ın 1977 yapımı Üç Kadın filmini çağrıştırıyor. Düşle gerçekliğin iç içe geçmişliğinin en güzel aktarımlarından birini ise masadan kaybolan bardağın bıraktığı buğunun yavaş yavaş kaybolduğu sahnede yapan Tarkovski’nin uzun planlarıyla Yunan yönetmen Angelopoulos arasında bir bağ kurarak, Sonsuzluk ve Bir Gün’ün zamansızlığını Ayna’da fazlasıyla hissetmek mümkün.

Tarkovski’nin Ayna için kullandığı “görüntüsel şiir” tanımlaması, filmde babası Arseny Tarkovski’nin şiirlerini annesiyle ilgili anılarına üst ses yaptığı sahnelerde tam anlamını bulmuş. “Buluşmalarımızın her anını/ Bir şenlikmişçesine kutlardı./ Yeryüzünde yalnız biz vardık./ Bir kuştan daha cesur ve hafiftin/ Bir hayal gibi merdivenleri uçarak/ Yağmurlarla ıslanmış leylakların arasından geçirip/ Aynanın ötesindeki ülkene götürürdün beni.”