Midrash, an ancient
commentary of Hebrew Scriptures, can be related to the Ten Commandments in order to
understand how the medium challenges us to find meaning. The tradition of
Midrash focuses on biblical texts in order for the individual to “focus on the
deep meaning and look to a comparative meaning”. The purposes of these visual
mediums are used for the audience to go beyond the text of these scripts and to
be able to connect their own lives to the Ten Commandments. Specific visual
mediums are used in Krystof Kieslowski’s film Decalogue to show the audience an individual interpretation of the
Ten Commandments. The two separate Decalogue
clips were a representation of one of the Ten Commandments. The first clip displayed the first
commandment: “Thou shalt have no other gods before me” and the second clip
displayed the sixth commandment: “Thou shalt not kill”.
There are visuals used in the first Decalogue clip used as a symbol in order to bridge the gap of
understanding of the first commandment. As said by Stanley Kubrick, he uses
dramatic action in the story for the “audience to discover what’s really going
on rather than being told”. In the first film, the little boy asks his Father,
“What is death?” The father responds with a biological reference (“the heart
stops pumping blood”) over a spiritual reference (relating to God, after-life,
the soul, etc.). His Father is very stubborn and relies heavily in what can be
calculated and measured; therefore, believing that he is always right and
believing in no greater God. The visuals are used to form an emotional
connection to the audience in order to convey the interpretation of the first
commandment. The film destroys the arrogance of the Father and conveys, “Thou
shalt have no other gods before me” through the death of his little boy. Since
the Father claimed his calculations were correct about the ice being strong
enough to hold his son on the ice, the ice breaks proving that a greater God
could only have corrupted these calculations. Relating back to Kubrick’s
reflection on the Decalogue, “you
never see the ideas coming and don’t realize until much later how profoundly
they have reached your heart” can relate to the man who sits on the ice by the
fire, without saying a word the entire film. The visual used in this situation
is his emotion when he wipes a tear, and presents the question from the audience of whether or not
he is a personification of God. Therefore, the purpose of Midrash is accomplished
while the audience is left struggling to find the meaning behind these symbols
to unravel the text of the first commandment.
Decalogue related to feeling by presenting emotion in the audience. Midrash was used to present such emotion. For example,
in the second clip we viewed of the Decalogue
that conveyed the meaning of the sixth commandment, mixed emotions were planted
in the audience. When the main character mistreats most of the people he comes
in contact with, the audience automatically believes he should get revenge.
When the film shows the man murder the taxi driver, the way that they set up the
scene with the taxi driver’s last words of
“child” and “wife” makes us feel sympathetic. The dramatic action of him
killing the taxi driver with the rock allows the audience to feel sympathy for
the taxi driver and hatred for the killer. Therefore, the emotions are
installed by the way the action is presented. To go into more depth, if the man
killed the taxi driver because he was in pain, dying from illness (with good
intentions, knowing he would be happier in an after-life), we would view it
differently than him killing him for no reason. In being faithful to the Ten
Commandments, we automatically see killing as wrong, and later interpret it as
a disloyalty to God and the Ten Commandments. That is why Kieslowski says, “It very quickly
became clear that these would be films about feelings and passions, because we
knew that love, or the fear of death, or the pain caused by a needle-prick, are
common to all people”. Meaning that Kieslowski was able to make the emotional
connection because he knew the audience was familiar with the feelings of love,
death, and pain.
In the second clip when the
killer says, “They are all against me” and another man responds saying, “No,
they are against what you did”, forced me to create a question. When do we draw
the line for a bad deed to define a person as bad? Do you think one bad deed,
such as murder, can define that person and their faith? Since the film allowed
me to connect the Ten Commandments and how faithful my commitment is to God, I
would say this film does work to contextualize and integrate the code into an
individuals’ life. Both clips in the Decalogue
related directly to one of the Ten Commandments, which automatically connected
to my personal life, and my relationship with God. The purpose of life on Earth
is to live for God and to worship Him above all of His creations. The ultimate
meaning of eternity is conveyed through the Decalogue
in relation to our faithful commitment to our relationship with God. This film
displayed the affects of violating the Ten Commandments in order to convey life
on Earth and its importance to your eternal journey.
Stanley Kubrick wrote the
following in this regard in the the foreword to Kieslowski &
Piesiewicz, Decalogue: The Ten Commandments, London: Faber &
Faber, 1991,
No comments:
Post a Comment