RE: Dead Man Walking & 12 Monkeys
 
Thanks again for all who responded to my call for 12 Monkeys reactions.  We had
our Film Forum discussion of it here last Fri. and I mentioned some of your
comments--especially the one about "nostalgia for the present."  One of the
students at the Forum also pointed out how Cole's 1990s prison/asylum
experiences were just as (or more) dystopic than his future situation.
Unfortunately, we didn't quite get to a discussion of how two female characters
"save" Cole in both time periods: the psychiatrist and the "insurance"
scientist.  I just saw Dead Man Walking and find an intriguing parallel with
Sister Prejean.  Both films (though one radically fictional, the other
disturbingly factual) show men trapped by perverse/ethical systems, who need
women, as romantic, maternal figures, to help them find sanity, ethical
responsibility, and spiritual hope (if not physical freedom).
 
Is this a trend in current film?  Would anyone like to trace precedents?  Does
this popular depiction of a cinematic pieta show a stale archetype, an
oppressive stereotype, or a new power for women in mainstream film?
 
One more question about Dead Man.  There's been much discussion on this list
about the politics of the film.  But I was amazed (and gut-wrenched) by how well
Robbins played the edge of conservative/liberal, victims' vengeance vs. sympathy
for scapegoat (or just wrongness of state killing)--and kept both sides in play.
 I even felt a very ironic justification for capital punishment in the film's
redemptive conclusion: if Penn's character had not been sentenced to death,
would he ever have come to the confessional, ethical point which he resists
until the last minutes with Sister P?
 
Mark Pizzato
U of St. Thomas
(though I'm not a Thomist)
 
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