I am lying in bed on a stale Saturday morning with my eyes fixed at the ceiling, feeling strange. Last night I watched 'Unforgiven'. The protagonist in the movie went back to his old ways one last time, for good, or so the director would have us believe. I thought there wasn't anything dramatic in it; just the case of 'once a crook always a crook'. However, its difficult to choose who's good when the choices thrown at you are a hoard of prostitutes, a corrupt sheriff, and a ruthless killer. Makes the prostitutes look like angels and the pimp a saint. I thought the underlying point of the movie was the murk between good and evil. One can be a renegade or a patriot, depending on where you stand to judge.
The other movie I saw last week was a Hitchcock classic where two men meet on a train with one of them suggesting they eliminate a problem person in each others' life. He calls it 'murder swapping' where each man would not feel guilty, because he is murdering a stranger. How morbid ! How psychotic! Yet as the story unfolds, the audience is almost led to believe that it is not only a cunning idea but also very plausible and positively brilliant. In the end I almost wished them success for the sake of a happy ending to the movie... Bollywood style ! But then, a master like Hitchcock can make you believe anything.
That brings us to a moot point. Is it important to inculcate 'good' in a human being (early in life) or is it paramount to be able to teach him to dwell more in the 'murk' so that one can keep a balance between good and bad (later in life)?
Man typically spends the first quarter of his life learning the ways of being righteous, following the tenets of virtue and the doctrines laid down by society's pedagogues. The next quarter is spent in doubt. It is spent in questioning all that the first quarter taught. Ironically, it is society that lobs these grenades of doubts at him. Those who did not take the first quarter seriously will survive with minor bruises and lacerations. Those who took it seriously would lose the proverbial 'arm and a leg'. I wonder what the third and fourth (if there is any) quarter is like. Does it yield an answer or is the conundrum something we must take to our grave? Why do we teach our children something we doubt ourselves and are sure will only hinder their survival in this brutal battlefield? Why not be a Hitchcock and show them the dark side early in life to tell them that 'there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so'?
Good movies are made by great men who present their life's lesson on screen. Maybe there's something to learn from them.
The other movie I saw last week was a Hitchcock classic where two men meet on a train with one of them suggesting they eliminate a problem person in each others' life. He calls it 'murder swapping' where each man would not feel guilty, because he is murdering a stranger. How morbid ! How psychotic! Yet as the story unfolds, the audience is almost led to believe that it is not only a cunning idea but also very plausible and positively brilliant. In the end I almost wished them success for the sake of a happy ending to the movie... Bollywood style ! But then, a master like Hitchcock can make you believe anything.
That brings us to a moot point. Is it important to inculcate 'good' in a human being (early in life) or is it paramount to be able to teach him to dwell more in the 'murk' so that one can keep a balance between good and bad (later in life)?
Man typically spends the first quarter of his life learning the ways of being righteous, following the tenets of virtue and the doctrines laid down by society's pedagogues. The next quarter is spent in doubt. It is spent in questioning all that the first quarter taught. Ironically, it is society that lobs these grenades of doubts at him. Those who did not take the first quarter seriously will survive with minor bruises and lacerations. Those who took it seriously would lose the proverbial 'arm and a leg'. I wonder what the third and fourth (if there is any) quarter is like. Does it yield an answer or is the conundrum something we must take to our grave? Why do we teach our children something we doubt ourselves and are sure will only hinder their survival in this brutal battlefield? Why not be a Hitchcock and show them the dark side early in life to tell them that 'there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so'?
Good movies are made by great men who present their life's lesson on screen. Maybe there's something to learn from them.
