CyranoRox
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Re: Disturbing Themes of Sado-Masochism?
I was upset with the BW at first, because I do not accept influences and don't take candy from strangers; yet they swept past my defenses with V4V. I wondered if there was some RL agenda... you saw all that. I've long forgiven them, and have gone from calling them the Cabal to calling them the Clever Movie People.
**offers drinks and sweets again all around**
**mind the feathers - the cat will chase them- I'll take the boa and the hats - you can smoke back here if we open the windows.**
People I'd be proud to call my friends, people I dream of calling colleagues. 
Work with play the happy differentiation!
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5/31/2007, 9:06 pm
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Cobralily
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Re: Disturbing Themes of Sado-Masochism?
where the wakowski's failed with matrix revolutions the wildly succeeded in V i take my hat off to them or i would if i had one. V took on a life of his own isn't that what writers want?
--- How do I love \/? Let me count the ways!
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6/4/2007, 7:21 pm
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CyranoRox
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Re: Disturbing Themes of Sado-Masochism?
I wonder whether Moore didn't actually have a point, considering the initial casting of Purefoy. No one could have predicted the feat HW pulled off, though probably the BW had strong ideas about the character. But not to recognise it once it was done reflects poorly on Moore.
Is the original screenplay the same as that in From Script to Film?
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6/5/2007, 6:27 pm
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CyranoRox
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Re: Disturbing Themes of Sado-Masochism?
*bump*
the last few posts drifted off topic...
It's been on my mind- what bothers us is the image of power and authority, amounting almost to ownership, that arises from V's treatment of Evey. No man ought to wield that much power in a relationship. Evey is no habitue of bondage play - she has no sense of choosing an exchange of power in the pursuit of insight.
The only thing that can reconcile my absolute acceptance of V and his absolutely overweening actions is this: he assumes an authority beyond what becomes a man, because he is more than a man - in fact, an image of Christ, albeit drawn by those who have not quite given alligience to him. I tip my hat to Melindakitty, who saw V as Hades long time ago, which insight was a foundation of my further thought.
Work with play the happy differentiation!
and - A revolution without apocastasis is a revolution...not worth having! 
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2/23/2008, 6:18 pm
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Doctor Delia
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Re: Disturbing Themes of Sado-Masochism?
It's funny you should bump this thread up again, Cyrano; I was just thinking about this point the other day. I was reading a book review on "Maxfield Parrish, 1870-1966" in an old issue of The World of Interiors (Dec, 1999) and I came across this quote:
"He had begun his career as an illustrator and advertising artist, developing a hyper-realistic style with a penchant for fairy tales, before, in 1922, producing the discreetly erotic "Daybreak:" within three years it was estimated that one in four American households owned a reproduction of it. Nina Auerbach perfectly sums up the image's appeal in her phrase "power and erotic energy within a dream of purity" -a desription equally applicable to the US presidency, it could be said."
How else to explain the appeal of George W. Bush? Or Barack Obama for that matter?
Now I would also posit that "power and erotic energy within a dream of purity" is the core of V's appeal, as well a the reason we tend to forgive him for his actions, especially Evey's torture.
We are taken in by his apologetic gestures and tone of voice in that crucial scene when Evey discovers what's really happened to her. His face turned away from her as if to avoid her wrathful glare, that kind of pointless sweep of a gloved hand over the piano, his backing away from her...And then his strange justification: "I'd hoped there had been an easier way, but there wasn't."
As crazy as this sounds, we buy it. We buy it because we believe him: His motives are pure, because he's insane, somewhat. But he's not a psychopath.
Anton Chiguhr in "No Country For Old Men" is a psychopath, killing with apparently no feeling whatsoever. Chiguhr is pure in another way. He has a mission to do and he cannot be corrupted, not by money or emotion or anything. In some ways graphic novel V was a psychopath, just like Chiguhr, killing with about as much emotion as an insect, his mission is purely political.
But filmic V is quite human. He spends a lot of time *emotionally* justifying his actions to himself and to Evey. For example, not killing the Fingermen who were about to rape Evey. But his string of emotional justifications, however fails when he realizes that he has indeed become a monster (reflected no doubt in his physical appearance when he takes his mask off) and he cries at the end of this scene.
The first half of the film drops a lot of hints about how "pure" his motives are, despite his lust for revenge. He needs no money. He lives alone in the Shadow Gallery. He has no friends or lovers. He has only art and ideas. The only thing that could possibly corrupt him is his love for Evey, but even that is pushed aside, reluctantly. His constant repression of his emotions and his physical nature behind that mask is somewhat reminscent of Mr. Spock's struggle, and we know what a potent symbol that was. If we had any doubt as to V's motives, then we would feel revulsion for him when we remember that he had previously strung Evey up naked in chains and tortured her with water hose (among other things.)
We say that Daniel Day-Lewis ("There Will Be Blood") is such a great actor, but in many of his movies, I have no idea what is going on behind those dark, dark eyes. Hugo Weaving on the other hand, does not garner the same respect from the Hollywood community, but like John Hurt (also massively underappreciated, IMHO) you are never in doubt as to his feelings, even behind that fiberglass mask. He takes you along for the ride in a way that DD-L cannot (or will not.) Weaving totally understood the complexity of this character, and just how to portray him.
As Cyrano and MelindaKitty point out: both Christ and Hades in the same character. Quite a feat!
Last edited by Doctor Delia, 2/24/2008, 6:03 am
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2/24/2008, 5:19 am
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CyranoRox
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Re: Disturbing Themes of Sado-Masochism?
I've seen No Country since your post, and reallly wish I hadn't. That implacable killer was just depressing. But now I can look at what you meant, and overall I see your point.
I also put on Pygmalion, with a scene often omitted: Eliza gets her first bath. She screams and whimpers, she has to be just about overpowered, and then the camera cuts to Higgins and Pickering laughing downstairs.
Evey's shower is an echo of Eliza's bath, I think, as her captivity distantly recollects the remaking -the making a woman of- another London girl.
Work with play the happy differentiation! - the analytic engine seems to be on again 
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8/2/2008, 12:45 pm
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