TITLE: The other side of beauty AUTHOR: Joe Johnson DATE: 5:54:00 AM ----- BODY:
H.R. Giger is a master of synthetic aesthetics, and by that I mean nothing less than the ability to understand and combine the most beautiful and ugly aspects of creation. There's something compellingly beautiful about his alien creations. Something that draws us in to their sleek, feminine qualities. It's very difficult to duplicate. One step in the other direction - to add a few more teeth or more dramatic angles - and they simply become monsters.

Horror films have attempted to find that balance of extremes: violence and calm, gore and sensuality, beauty and ugliness. Consider the Hellraiser series, as the films play on grotesquely designed, sensual demons. They do something that goes back far in the study of aesthetics. They understand that the contrast of beauty and ugliness creates a tension and energy that lures the human animal into some level of primitive excitement.
Whether it's the modern horror movie or the medieval judgment play, ugliness is an important component of understanding beauty. Humans live in a strange condition of balanced contradictions. Anyone who thinks people are basically good should be around a mob that hasn't slept or eaten in 2 days. We are draw to violence and brutality, to exploited sexuality and domination. It's the reason dictatorships and politics will always exist - and perhaps why the ultimate form of biblical government is a monarchy.

One question provoked by St. Paul is whether a Christian should look at, or even consider, ugliness. In his letter to the Philippian Church, he writes, "Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things." Some interpreters have turned this passage into a ministry of positive thinking. Others strongly argue that it's utterly inappropriate for a Christian to expose his or herself to the other side of aesthetics.

Unfortunately, we have a difficult situation: the world is at least as ugly as it is beautiful. We aren't excused from ugliness, though we are supposed to cling to beauty.

That becomes a bit of an issue in horror films, or even films that spend a great amount of time on the uglier aspects of the human condition. One of the most difficult things about being a film-phile, of being a lover and critic of movies, is that so many of the greatest works are about the fallen state of humanity. Like Shakespeare, modern storytellers are drawn to the tragedy.

There is something to learn from watching ugliness, whether it's a Scorsese saga or a David Fincher murder picture. Perhaps these two contemporary directors do it better than anyone else. Despite their fascinations with violence and darkness, they are artists who never deny beauty. Even their ugliness is beautiful. This may seem like a small concession, or even a fan's manipulation - a strained attempt to avoid the American Evangelical tension of Christianity and watching rated-R movies. Rather, it is a vital distinction between exploitation and art.

Scorsese, perhaps because of his embedded Catholicism, is constantly aware of the human-God paradox: the balance of crucifixion and resurrection, of incarnation and deity. He understands beauty so deeply that his ugliness is stronger, more effective. And the same can be said about the inverse: his ugliness makes his beauty clearer. Nowhere is this more obvious than the relationship of innocence and filth between Travis Bickle (Robert Deniro) and Betsy (Cybill Shepherd) in Taxi Driver. Her innocence fascinates and compels Travis, but his filth can't comprehend or control it. It devolves into something else, but the contact changes him. He develops a noble, though perverse, desire to be good, to be beautiful, in his attempt to save the young prostitute, Iris (Jodie Foster).

David Fincher's films are an aesthetic triumph. From Alien3 on, he contrasts and controls the elements of darkness and vulgarity with the rules of symmetry and composition. He makes beautiful ugliness. Fincher, both thematically and technically, integrates the full aesthetic of perfectly and beautifully designed fallen-ness. Alien3 is driven by the qualities of masculinity and femininity, of stark evil and goodness co-existing. Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) becomes a Christ figure - complete with outstretched arms sacrifice. She sacrifices her beauty to battle ugliness. And like Father Karras (Jason Miller) in The Exorcist, her sacrifice to ugliness is designed to preserve beauty and goodness.

Se7en is the masterpiece statement on beautiful ugliness. Even the rain is transformed into a symbol of the pervasive presence of sin. It is a powerful look at the deceptive and persistent draw of sin, that eventually it will corrupt and stain even the most beautiful and innocent qualities of this life, even the desire for justice. But in that understanding, and under Fincher's perfect combination of themes and aesthetics, something else emerges: the clarity of the human condition. We are drawn to Luther's famous statement: simultaneously saint/justified and sinner.

The problem with the human condition is that, because of our fallenness, we tend to understand the good virtues most clearly in contrast with the evil. Fincher and Scorsese both yield to the temptation to exploit evil, but neither completely forsakes the triumph and necessity of good. And for that reason, no matter how ugly their films become, beauty is ultimately their aim and their redemption.

Labels: ,

--------