Orwell's "1984": The Kingdom of Big Brother Is Within You

George Orwell’s “1984” is a best seller again, thanks to revelations of government surveillance and the perpetually American belief that there is a movement afoot to subvert the nation. This instinct is one we inherited from the Founding Fathers, and it has largely served us well. It keeps large scale political movements from holding onto power longer than a generation. We get suspicious easily, and in Orwell’s 20^th century novel of totalitarianism, we have a brilliant story that caters to our fears, entertains us, and at the same time confirms our darkest suspicions.

Like many of my generation, my first exposure to the novel was in the year “1984,” when western democracy took the book off the shelf, looked around the landscape, and patted itself on the back when it did not see a figure comparable to Big Brother. But Orwell wasn’t necessarily interested in giving us a blueprint for how an all-encompassing dictatorship might happen if (or when) it does – his work’s power lies not in its ability to anticipate those fears to their logical conclusion. Instead, he may have inadvertently stumbled onto the logical end, not of totalitarianism, but unlimited freedom.

In “1984,” Oceania exists because of a great war, which has wiped away the previous governing powers and replaced them with an emergency government. The regime must have a perpetual crisis in order to continue its existence. The nation is ruled by a charismatic leader, and certain kinds of conduct are forbidden in order that the state survives. Citizens are constantly watched for disobedience (not only by a secret police but by each other), and that vigilance later escalates into a search for mere unorthodoxy at every level. Class or individual distinctions are seemingly wiped out in order to blend everyone together, and technology is used to keep the state in a position of power. Scarcity and want are repackaged as privilege and prosperity. History is controlled, even language is controlled, and there is always an enemy who must be defeated. There is enough here to make the easily fearful on either the left or the right in 2013 America suspicious.

Winston Smith’s life has been copied in various works of dystopia that followed – there is a minor character who mimics the rhetoric of the leader. There is a forbidden book that hints at another way. The hero is allowed to entertain the idea that the world might be rescued, or at least, his world. And that world turns at the moment the hero asks the unthinkable question, “Am I happy?”

Thomas Pynchon points out that one of the parlor games of “1984” is looking at the current landscape of this or that society and pointing to what Orwell got right, and what he didn’t anticipate. We have to remember that Orwell didn’t set out to write a definitive critique of totalitarian communism – he was a far-left socialist. What he was interested in was the ability of modern society and ideology to go a long way in wiping out the ability of the individual to define himself. When the novel opens, Winston Smith indulges in perhaps the most subversive thing he can do, outside of his affair with Julia – he begins keeping a diary. Why is this subversive? Because the individual cannot define events, or his own life, in a state-controlled environment. That is the sole privilege of the ruling power. What Oceania attempts to do is wipe out the individual, systemically at first, and if that proves unsuccessful, eventually through torture and brainwashing.

While Orwell got the technological aspect of the “Big Brother” state correct – in its ability to define the past and watch its citizens – there were a few things he didn’t even bother worrying about in his pitch-black future. For example, ethnic tension seems absent. The Party, we are told, has people of virtually every class in its ranks and leadership. But any government that encompasses multiple ethnicities and cultures will always feel tension, especially in the central question of who is making the decisions. What Orwell needs for his dystopia to work is a very docile populace, but he can get that, since he’s its creator.

Also absent is religion – any religion. Instead, devotion is poured out to the state. It is a feature of leftish visions of the future that religion is easily disposed of. The idea behind it is that enlightenment rationalism will eventually triumph and people will understand that the faiths they cling to are as vain as those of our ancient ancestors. One paradox of totalitarian cultures has been that, no matter how hard the state presses, the pressure tends to make faith even more passionate. Christianity survived in Shogunate Japan for centuries despite the best efforts of the executioner, and the church thrived in Communist China even in the crucible of the Cultural Revolution. One can make a case that Christianity surviving the Inquisition in any recognizable form is as much a facet of the faith as the zealotry that inspired the evil in the first place. A completely atheistic Oceania assumes a great deal of the people Winston Smith puts his faith in – the proles. Faiths all over the world do not survive on the hopes of intellectuals or party functionaries, but on the rank and file, the workers; the people who make our societies, free and enslaved, work. The state, any and all states, eventually prove themselves poor repositories of our dreams. The closest the language of “1984” ever gets to religious devotion is during O’Brien’s torture of Winston. Consider:

“The command of the old despotisms was ‘Thou shalt not.’ The command of the totalitarians was ‘Thou shalt.’ Our command is ‘Thou art.’”

Only later does O’Brien inform Winston that “God is power.” By this time, the use of the word “God,” even by the state torturer, seems utterly subversive.

But another faith is absent from “1984,” and that is the defining characteristic of democracy, socialism, communism and even fascism: faith in the inevitable triumph of human civilization. All governments are based on narratives, and the stories they tell must be hopeful in order to keep the population convinced of the state’s viability. Think of any speech by any president – even Jimmy Carter’s notorious “malaise” speech ends with a ridiculous flourish calling on Americans to say something good about the country, and to renew the nation’s spirit. Orwell’s vision of the future is not hopeful and does not end on a happy note – Winston is happy, but he is happy because he has totally surrendered to Big Brother and the idea of Big Brother. He knows that with this triumph, he no longer has to worry about running afoul of the state. Think again of O’Brien’s words:

“The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. … the object of power is power.”   

At any moment in a democracy, there are millions of people who feel out of power. They can respond in many ways – contempt for the ruling party, belief in the opposition (or anger at its powerlessness), pessimism that the current rulers are changing the country beyond salvation, or optimism that the nation is too strong to be destroyed. Indeed, there may be the temptation to feel all of these emotions simultaneously. That is why “1984” continually finds enthusiastic readers, no matter who is in power.  

But the work is pliable enough to give comfort and warning across the political spectrum. Take the three slogans of the Big Brother regime – War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength. If you do a quick Google search, you will find all three slogans used ironically in blogs, tweets or postings against each of the last three presidents of the United States.

Modern governments all over the globe convince themselves that a constant state of preparation for war is a deterrent to war, even as they are already engaged in war. The idea of finding freedom in complete obedience is, curiously enough, a religious idea, borrowed from Christianity with the state replacing the divine as the seat of devotion. The third slogan is more pertinent to our time – the idea that not knowing the whole truth, or even a partial truth, means that you rely totally on another to tell you that which you need to know to survive. What should be frightening to modern society is that, in our society which thrives on information technology, such a thing is already happening.

Think about it – how many people, on both left and right, rail against the news media for hiding the truth about this or that issue? But when they look for information to back up their opinions, they invariably turn to the same news media, which presumably can’t hide everything from those clever enough to see through it. Ideologies have now caught on to the idea that by having networks of bloggers, news services, polling services and other information networks, they can perpetually create a narrative that reinforces their beliefs, regardless of the facts. What results is a society where people never recalibrate their ideas based on new information, but instead explain away challenges as being extraordinary. Where no one ever wins an election or an argument, because whoever wins is illegitimate. Circumstances that might otherwise contradict their most closely held beliefs are instead examples of how right they are. In “1984,” the citizens engage routinely in conspiratorial thinking – trying to pick out the real news behind the fake, and interpret the real aims behind this fact’s prominence and that one’s obscurity. “What is the design behind the news? Where are we headed? What don’t they want us to know?”

Orwell’s great fear is of a society of automatons – incapable of thinking or feeling for themselves, eager to believe whatever is fed to them and unconscious of a common past or future. His great mistake was in probably believing the state was necessary to make this happen. There are now more ways than ever before for human beings to define themselves, a power that was unthinkable in the past. In modern society, people can differentiate themselves by fashion, by material wealth, by speech, by their sexual preference (and even their gender), by transcending class, by gaining fame or infamy, and by isolating themselves from it all. There is belonging available to virtually every role through communication. Every avenue is available, with only a little effort and luck. This is what almost total freedom looks like, on a scale even Orwell would have found unlikely.

But how many of your friends’ Facebook statuses look exactly the same? How many times do they share with you the same images, videos, or faulty facts? How often do we dismiss a certain piece of news because it does not fit into our neat ideological categories? How many tweets do you read that seem like an untold number of other tweets? How often do the same stale jokes clog up your phones from people who have all convinced themselves they are original, funny, and utterly unique? The danger of modern society may be not of automatons created by the state, but created by the culture, who all look utterly alike while they are all the time convinced they are different. Add to that an atmosphere of cynicism and irony, where even the worst news about society gives us new fodder for snarky comments, an atmosphere where history is dismissed as irrelevant, the product of a conspiracy. Where people stay in barely defined roles or avenues handed to them by their politics or culture because they do not believe there is any way to something else. Suddenly you don’t need Big Brother watching you – “1984” is within you. 

I also wrote about the NSA surveillance scandal in relation to Francis Ford Coppola's film "The Conversation" here. 

Set Your Fields on Fire

The award-winning novel by William Thornton

Available now

Read the first chapter here

Some of the coverage of "Set Your Fields on Fire"

 You can order "Set Your Fields on Fire"for $14.99 through Amazon here.

It's also available on Kindle at $3.99 through Amazon here.
Read an interview I did with AL.com on the book here.   
Here's my appearance on the Charisma Network's CPOP Podcast. 
Here's an interview I did with The Anniston Star on the book. 
Shattered Magazine wrote a story about the book here. 
The Alabama Baptist wrote about the book here.
This piece appeared in the Marietta (Ga.) Daily Journal.
Here's the write-up from The Birmingham Times.
Read a story for Village Living here.
This story appeared in The Trussville Tribune and this video.

Here's my appearance on East Alabama Today.
Story and video from WBRC Fox6 here. 
Here's the write-up in The Gadsden Times on the book.
Read a piece I wrote for WestBow Press about writing the book here.
A piece about some inspiring works for me.

This is another interview with the fleegan book blog here. 

Read a piece I did for WestBow Press about writing the book here.
Read another interview with the fleegan book blog here. 

Citizen Kane: Who Is the Greatest?

A cynical, slightly silly old man sits in a nursing home, begging a reporter for a cigar. He is, as a long-time friend remarks, suffering from old age, “the only disease you don’t look forward to being cured of.” And in the middle of answering the reporter’s questions about events in the now distant past, this elderly veteran of New York’s 19^th century newspaper wars says, almost offhand, “Of course, a lot of us check out without having any special conviction about death, but we do know what we believe in. We believe in something.”

The speaker is the ancient Jed Leland, and like many of his fellow characters in “Citizen Kane,” Leland’s observation says a lot without saying much of anything tangible. The underlying statement seems to be a recurring theme in the film – the passage of time, and the humility it forces on us all. But it also illustrates the multiple meanings that we as individuals perceive, ascribe and sometimes force onto our lives and the lives of others. What do we believe in, assuming we believe in anything at all? 

“Citizen Kane” routinely makes it onto lists of the greatest films ever made, and just as routinely sits at the top of most of them. Entertainment Weekly was the latest this month, calling Orson Welles’ immortal first movie the greatest motion picture ever. There are many reasons for this – its use of cinematography, its rich backstory and the identification we as film buffs feel in associating its title character with that of Welles, and his contemporary inspiration, William Randolph Hearst. But I don’t wish to write about “Citizen Kane” in those terms, since this has been done much more expertly and much more extensively by people who can devote insight into Gregg Toland’s images, or Bernard Herrmann’s score. Instead, I want to pay attention to the story, strangely enough perhaps the least appreciated of all of “Citizen Kane’s” many fascinating aspects. One might ask, even though there is no overtly religious content, if “Kane” is the greatest Christian movie ever made. As I’ve stated before, the absence of Christ from a work of art can also attest to His presence in the world. What does the fictional life of Charles Foster Kane say about Him? 

Kane (Welles) is a newspaper tycoon, a man who owns an empire of newsprint at the turn of the century in America, and parlays his personal fortune into fame and power. He is a uniquely American success story – his wealth built on a gold mine that providentially fell into his family’s lap. And so Kane rises from poverty to the pinnacle, nearly parlaying his yellow journalism into a political career. However, his affair with a singer (Dorothy Comingore) hastens his downfall, and his megalomania results in him leaving behind two wrecked marriages, his only heir dead, his life lasting long enough to see most of his wealth and power stripped away, until he is almost totally alone. His last, enigmatic word on his deathbed, “Rosebud,” sends a reporter, Thompson (Wiliam Alland) on a quest to unlock its meaning. Though he doesn’t learn what “Rosebud” was, we the audience do. But we are not fully sure what it really means. There is a sense when viewing “Citizen Kane” that while we may understand the story in part, like a single human life, there is something that we are missing which keeps drawing us back. We feel that just because a particular life, a particular story, has been recognized in part, that does not mean that it has been fully understood. The film is, as Jorge Luis Borges declared, “a metaphysical detective story.”

‘Who do men say that I am?’

We know that when Welles first began casting about for stories to film, one of his first ideas was adapting Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness,” but with a twist – the camera would be the narrator, and we would view everything from the perspective of Marlow, whose face we might never see. “Kane,” though, is this concept in reverse – we view the life of Kane but not over his shoulder. Instead, we view it through the lives of friends, business associates, and those who perhaps knew him best. The question of “Rosebud” gives us a mystery, and a window into the man. These “witnesses” to Kane’s rise and fall are his guardian Walter Thatcher (George Colouris), his business associate Mr. Bernstein (Everett Sloane), his friend Jed Leland (Joseph Cotten), his second wife Susan Alexander, and his butler (Paul Stewart). But because Welles allows each different witness to tell the story in part, we see different facets of Kane. He’s the same man, of course, but we understand him in a more fully-formed way. 

Take Thatcher for example. When he first encounters Kane, his charge is a boy, unaware that his mother has signed him over to a bank, in effect. From their first meeting, Thatcher sees Kane as a bad seed, and he is made complicit in the boy’s flowering. As we continue with Thatcher’s story, we see the old banker as perhaps feeling misunderstood, or even cheated by how the boy turned out, yet Kane is unapologetic toward him. Because he is suddenly wrenched from them, Kane is forever left as a boy straining to regain his forgotten toys, left beneath the falling snow. He wants new buildings, new passions, new objects of love and new worshippers. Later on, when Thatcher confronts the young Kane in the newspaper office, we see Kane as a great figure – full of wit, and willing to pick a fight. He perhaps cares about people and his power enough to seem a responsible fellow, even as he picks a fight that he hopes will develop into a war for the sake of his circulation numbers. We see Thatcher shaking his head at a familiar argument he has probably had thousands of times with this willful little boy, now fully grown and playing havoc with the economy. 

That makes us feel for Kane only a few minutes later when we witness one of his humiliations. It is in 1929, when Kane is humbled by the Depression, that he declares, in front of his old guardian, that if he hadn’t been very rich he “might have been a really great man.” Thatcher seems surprised that Kane doesn’t believe he already is, and genuinely interested in knowing what Kane would rather have been. Kane’s answer, as might be expected, is in a way affectionately poisonous to his old guardian. That animus is all the two of them have ever known of each other. 

Thompson next goes to Bernstein, who is the most loyal to Kane of all the people the reporter interviews. For this reason, it is Bernstein’s sequence that allows us to see Kane at his most favorable. Bernstein is a money man, but he doesn’t see the mere accumulation of wealth as a great accomplishment. Bernstein obviously sees Kane as a remarkable man whom he had the pleasure of serving. Remember it is Bernstein who recounts the moment of Kane’s Declaration of Principles, his version of the Shema , his one commandment– I am the publisher, and you will be my people. There were things about him unpleasant, but he did great things. Bernstein seems to be the only character who feels comfortable enough with who he thinks Kane was. For him, the inexplicable was a part of Kane’s character. 

Leland’s entry into the story is necessary for two reasons – to give insight into Kane’s marriages, and insight into how Kane treated his friends. Leland is like Kane, in that he grew up in privilege, though his family lost everything. And Leland is in his youth an idealist, which is what draws him to his friend Charlie. Many years later in the nursing home, the old Leland is still bitter about Charlie’s failure to live up to his best hopes. That is why he begins the story of Kane’s fall.

But their relationship is a complicated one. For example, why does Kane finish Jed’s scathing review of Susan’s operatic performance? Because he still feels for his friend, and he wants to rekindle his friend’s hero worship. Writing such a review would be true to their younger selves. But if that’s the case, why does Kane then fire Jed even though it is he who finishes the review? Because he has to – his own employee can’t show up his wife. Kane tries to buy off Leland’s favor to no avail. Leland responds by sending him back the Declaration of Principles, as worthless as the torn-up check. What is the Declaration now? “An antique,” Kane declares, as he knows about himself what Jed later says, that he never had a conviction except himself. 

Susan’s story takes up half of Jed’s recollections, and her piece dominates the final part of the movie. Her story, consequently, is the most important in unlocking the mystery of who Kane is. Kane meets Susan on his way to a warehouse to see relics from his past – the antiques from his mother. He is alone on this personal “sentimental journey,” when he first encounters his future second wife. Who is Kane? Well, she doesn’t know who he is – this means she’s simple. He seems flabbergasted that she likes him, even though she doesn’t know who he is. (Is Kane talking about the private man, or the public one?) But it is telling that the first time we see the snow globe that inspired Kane’s final word, it is in Susan’s apartment on their first meeting. 

There have been intimations of a Freudian connection here, that Susan in some ways reminds Kane of his mother.  We know from Jed Leland that Kane knew immediately what kind of woman she was – a less educated, presumably more pliable mate. But he sees in her simplicity something he has been aching for, and he begins making her over into what he wants. This brings up an interesting question – does her innocence attract Kane and simultaneously make him want to transform her into something like himself? Why does she have to be an opera singer, and not just a singer? Because he’s Charles Foster Kane. How can his wife be anything other than just as grandiose as he? Her greatness reflects back on him. It is telling that later, when Kane frantically claps after her first performance, he stops just at the moment when the spotlight finds him. In the end, Susan too wants love on her own terms, just like him. That is what drives her away. 

‘Who is the real Charles Foster Kane?’

Using the storytelling devices of montages, flashbacks and a non-linear timeline, we assemble a rough sketch of who we think Charles Foster Kane was. But one of the reasons the film continues to work 70 years after its creation is that the film doesn’t really answer definitively that question. In fact, we aren’t even sure whether Kane is a good man who goes bad, or a bad man who only wanted to fool people into liking him. In the original trailer for the film, Welles tells the audience that he doesn’t know what to tell them about Kane. He is “a hero, and a scoundrel, a no-account and a swell guy, a great lover, a great American citizen, and a dirty dog. It depends on who’s talking about him.” He invites the audience to decide for themselves. 

Or does he? Welles’ use of light, camera angles, deep focus photography and long takes to depict action were identified by the critic André Bazin as the most accurate way of depicting life. But these devices are not neutral in telling the story. For example, when Welles puts his signature to the Declaration of Principles, his face is shadowed. This gives us the impression that his motives are not entirely pure. As stated before, when Kane claps, by himself, for Susan, the spotlight finds him – revealing him, so to speak, as more interested in his own glory. He will not be made a fool, he later insists, as though he now sees himself exactly as such. We never really see Thompson’s face, since he functions as the audience’s stand-in, but also because his life, for the purposes of this inquiry, isn’t important. Some faces, some lives, are without illumination. Some lives deserve explanation, and some do not. Some lives explain themselves, and some beg for obfuscation. By doing this, Welles tells the story, but he is also subtly indicating how we should feel about Kane, even if we perceive him intellectually as something else altogether. The complicated portrait that follows is more lifelike as a result.

“Love is not the subject of ‘Citizen Kane,’” Welles said, many years after the fact, a surprising statement for multiple viewers of the film. It seems to us that the film, if it’s about anything at all, is about the pursuit of love. It is possible Welles meant romantic love, which is certainly true. Kane doesn’t seem to burn with romantic passion for his women as much as he burns with an unfulfilled longing. Does he need his mommy? Kane does seem starved for mother love. His father felt he needed “a good thrashing,” but his mother curiously decides to show her devotion to him, to protect him, by sending him away. 

The word “Rosebud” sounds feminine, but it is later revealed to be the name of Kane’s childhood sled, left back in Colorado. So it is revealed as a childish thing, a sentimental thing, but that endears him to us, in that we realize how far away Kane possibly traveled from the thing he missed most – the person he could have become if he had never left the security of Mrs. Kane’s Boarding House. Welles said the “longing for the garden,” for the untroubled past, was a common trait of humanity and civilization. 

But that explanation of “Rosebud” doesn’t ultimately satisfy us, because “Rosebud” seems to be so much more than just the name of a sled, or a time of life. For example, what is “Rosebud” to Kane when he says it? Is it a memory, or a plea, or question, or a statement? What if Kane had said, for example, “Jesus,” on his deathbed. We might wonder at the context. Religious affirmation? Profanity? Request for salvation? But by saying “Rosebud,” he seems to be saying something more than just the name of a sled. Can “Rosebud” explain the beginning of the picture and the end, with Kane an almost godlike figure ruling over a rotting empire, deciding what is truth and what are lies, who is celebrated and who is ignored?  When he tells Bernstein (and Thatcher) that he might have been a really great man, he obviously isn’t talking about his wealth or power. He means greatness in a moral sense, and this has eluded him. 

‘He got everything he ever wanted’

Jesus’ own statement about greatness – “Whoever would be great among you must be your servant.” (Matthew 20:26) – indicates how things might have turned out for Kane. If he had meant his principles, if he had been the figure in his campaign speech, then maybe he would not be the hollowed, broken figure at the end of his life. We learn more from the man who breaks him, Boss Jim Gettys (Ray Collins). There is nothing personal about it; Gettys is merely interested in survival. He just wants to destroy Kane before Kane destroys him. You can see a creeping admiration for the publisher, even in his contempt, because he gives Kane an opportunity to save himself. But Kane choses “the love of the voters” rather than the security of his family, and he loses both. Gettys understands something else about Kane through his decision to press on– his arrogance, as personified by his affair with Susan. He knows that Kane will need “more than one lesson” to understand what he is throwing away. Kane appeared to be a servant, but he is revealed as something else – a man pursuing his own reflection in the crowds that cheer him on. He believes he can tell them what to think. 

Kane’s death at the beginning of the picture establishes a pattern – of limited time. Thompson has a deadline to make in discovering the meaning of “Rosebud.” He must talk to Kane’s associates, all of whom are old. (Except for Thatcher, who is dead, and his memories are found among his papers.) When Thompson sits with Leland, Leland tells him this young doctor of his wants to “keep him alive.” Leland frustrates this by wanting cigars. He is “cursed” with memory. He seems to regret Charlie dying alone, but it doesn’t keep him from rendering merciless, bitter verdicts on his friend’s life, because time has run out on them all. And there is perhaps the most poignant moment in the film, which has nothing to do with the larger story - the speech by Mr. Bernstein about memory:

“A fellow’d remember a lot of things you wouldn’t think he’d remember. You take me. One day back in 1896 I was crossing over to Jersey on the ferry, and as we pulled out, there was another ferry pulling in, and on it, there was a girl waiting to get off. A white dress, she had on. She was carrying a white parasol. I only saw her for one second. She didn’t see me at all. But I’ll bet a month hasn’t gone by since that I haven’t thought of that girl.” 

It’s interesting that Bernstein’s version of “Rosebud” is again a feminine image. But he is telling us about the problem of time, how it runs out, and how the human heart holds onto moments that are inexplicable even to itself. Happiness may only last a fleeting second, in a crowd, never to return. It is delicately feminine in its makeup, but mercilessly masculine in its advance. “Citizen Kane’s” use of time – jump cuts, montages, time lapses – all underline the brutality and the fragility of time. We only get a little while to do what we think is right, and not much more of an opportunity to make things right. 

At the picture’s end, one of the reporters standing among Kane’s artifacts wonders what all of it is worth. “Millions,” Thompson says, “if anybody wants it.” Left unspoken is that if no one wants it, it’s all worthless. It is almost impossible to watch the film without remembering other words of Jesus – “For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?” (Matthew 16:25-26) This is the other unspoken theme of the film, the idea of value and meaning. What will we give up to get back our souls? 

We begin by searching for the meaning of “Rosebud,” but the real question being asked is what does Kane’s life mean, with all the striving, bellicosity, anguish, perfidy, humiliation and celebration? We sense the meaning is in the flames that consume his sled. Rosebud is junk to be discarded, as the butler nearby casually smokes a cigarette, unaware of its meaning. The music is like that of a horror picture. The moral is that the things most important to us may be worthless to the rest of the world, or in the greater scheme of life. The world often misses the point of our lives, as do we. The missing piece in all the jigsaw puzzles is ourselves, to invest them with meaning. But we ourselves search for meaning, because the picture the puzzle forms is still incomplete.  Thompson doesn’t find the missing piece, but neither did Kane. 

I remember the first time I saw “Citizen Kane.” Even already coming to the picture knowing that “Rosebud” was the name of his sled, I walked away from the screen with an incredibly hollow, nameless feeling, terrified of what my life might become if I was too careless. It is fitting that Kane’s cherished memento, stripped of value by his death, is consigned to flames. Kane has lost his life, forfeited his soul, and all that is left behind is a vast collection to be sold off or destroyed. Just a stack of jigsaw puzzles, and a parade of mirrors stretching out into infinity. 

Set Your Fields on Fire

The award-winning novel by William Thornton

Available now

Read the first chapter here

Some of the coverage of "Set Your Fields on Fire"

 You can order "Set Your Fields on Fire"for $14.99 through Amazon here.

It's also available on Kindle at $3.99 through Amazon here.
Read an interview I did with AL.com on the book here.   
Here's my appearance on the Charisma Network's CPOP Podcast. 
Here's an interview I did with The Anniston Star on the book. 
Shattered Magazine wrote a story about the book here. 
The Alabama Baptist wrote about the book here.
This piece appeared in the Marietta (Ga.) Daily Journal.
Here's the write-up from The Birmingham Times.
Read a story for Village Living here.
This story appeared in The Trussville Tribune and this video.

Here's my appearance on East Alabama Today.
Story and video from WBRC Fox6 here. 
Here's the write-up in The Gadsden Times on the book.
Read a piece I wrote for WestBow Press about writing the book here.
A piece about some inspiring works for me.

This is another interview with the fleegan book blog here. 

Read a piece I did for WestBow Press about writing the book here.
Read another interview with the fleegan book blog here. 

The Son of Man and the 'Man of Steel'

So when did Superman convert?

That's the question that some are asking after the premiere of "Man of Steel." Within a few hours of the film's premiere, some news sites were already pointing to allusions to the Christ story in the latest take on the 75-year-old superhero. Others pointed out that Warner Bros. was using subtle marketing to make the connection. It isn't something the director Zack Synder is shying away from either. In an interview, he is quoted as saying:

"Making him Jesus is a mistake, but allowing people to have a conversation about whatever relationship they have with the Jesus story through the movie is undeniable in the material, and if you don't include it in the film, then you're really sort of denying the mythology that is Superman."

1978's "Superman: The Movie" was the child of many screenwriters - Mario Puzo, Robert Benton, Leslie and David Newman, but traditionally Tom Mankiewicz bears most of the credit for shaping what director Richard Donner called an unfilmable script into what became the first two Superman pictures. It was Donner's film that was the first to tie the Superman legend to the Christ story, and Mankiewicz's decision to do so.

The pivotal scene in the 1978 movie comes when Clark Kent (Christopher Reeve), for reasons he cannot explain, has traveled to the North Pole, heeding the call of the mysterious green crystal that was within the spaceship that brought him to earth. Clark hurls the crystal into the water, and it creates the Fortress of Solitude. Inside, Clark converses with a recording of his long-dead father, Jor-El (Marlon Brando).

For his journey to earth, Jor-El prepared lessons for his son on the laws of space and time, on earth culture, philosophy, physics, etc. Within the Fortress, this ghostly presence begins to instruct Clark on his true identity as Kal-El, the only survivor of the destroyed planet Krypton. Just prior to Clark's return to humanity, Jor-El warns him that he is "forbidden" to interfere with human history, but that his leadership should stir humans to do so. He then reveals his ultimate aim for his son:

"Live as one of them, and discover where your strength and your power will lead you...They can be a great people, Kal-El. They wish to be. They only lack the light to show the way. For this reason, above all, their capacity for good, I have sent them you - my only son." 

I remember the thrill - and the simultaneous feeling that something had been violated - that ran through me when I sat in the theater at the age of eight and recognized immediately who we were really talking about here. Where Christ had walked as one of us, was one of us, Superman was meant to lead human beings to find the good within themselves. But Christ leads us to seek within ourselves Himself, though we cannot find Him without His action, not ours. I had a feeling that both Jesus - and Superman - had been taken in an unexpected direction. It was my first, and not my last exposure, to the Christ figure outside of church.

In Gerard Jones' "Men of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters and the Birth of the Comic Book." the author states how Superman, indeed most of the iconic comic characters of the thirties and forties, were the brainchildren of Jewish boys and men. Superman's co-creator, Jerry Siegel, lost his father in a murder. So the picture of a man invulnerable to bullets was more than fantasy for him. And the evolving story of Superman's complicated identity - his being the inheritor of a vast, ancient civilization, a traveler representing a disappeared way of life, indestructible, a man of tomorrow who carries within his blood the remnants of the past - all of that sounds very Jewish. And also, very much like Christ.

Synder's "Man of Steel" carries on this part of the Superman mythos, and in a much better way than Bryan Singer's "Superman Returns." The movie is, for the first hour-and-a-half, very clever and very visually breathtaking. The Kryptonian sequences and the evoking of its culture are wonderful, and the device of Clark's emerging consciousness of his past and his destiny are told well in a manner much like Christopher Nolan's "Batman Begins." (Nolan conceived the story along with David Goyer and produced the movie.) The movie suffers from an, at times, overly serious tone, and lacks the sense of easy humor and "aw shucks" entertainment that made the Donner film so enjoyable. The ability to destroy an entire city in CGI, or depict epic fistfights between superpowered beings, has become so obligatory in summer movies that the last thirty minutes play in a loud blur and lack a certain satisfaction. Knowing it took 12 years to build Freedom Tower after the 9/11 attacks, I silently calculated how many centuries it would have taken for the city of Metropolis to rebuild itself after General Zod's attack before Clark comes looking for a job at the Daily Planet.

But Snyder's Superman doesn't stray far from the Metropolis Gospel. Once again, Jor-El (Russell Crowe) entrusts his son to earth as his planet dies. And he has safely recorded enough of himself so that his son, at the proper time, will discover his identity and his mission. When Kal-El (Henry Cavill) does stumble on the truth, he must deal with the conflicting sense of mission - honoring the Kryptonian father who sent him, and the human father (Kevin Costner) who knows that the moment humanity discovers Clark Kent, both it and he will change.

When General Zod (Michael Shannon) emerges from his exile and wandering the universe, he demands Earth turn over Kal-El to him. This presents the Kryptonian son of Kansas with a problem - does he reveal himself at last, to face whatever happens from that moment forward? Once this is done, he can never drift back into anonymity. This isn't a small problem. After all, we learn that Clark lost his earthly father as Jonathan died trying to prevent him from revealing himself.

So Clark, in needing to talk to someone, goes to a church. He consults a young priest, revealing himself as the object of the planet's concern. Is it the right time to do this? The priest tells him simply that he will have to have faith to move forward. In case the point is lost, the camera reveals, right over Clark's shoulder, the stained-glass portrait of the Son of Man.

And so, at last, we see Superman revealed, in cape and suit, surrendering to the U.S. Army in order to preserve the human race. This is Christ's sacrifice, though without a crucifixion once Superman steps onto Zod's spacecraft. When Superman calmly informs the military and scientific observers that their drugs and weapons cannot harm him, how can we not be reminded of Christ's words to Pilate before the Cross: "You would have no power over me if it had not been given you from above."

It is only in sacrificing himself that Superman discovers his destiny, as we expect him to. And that too is a Christian motif, since how else can we identify with the Savior unless we are willing to sacrifice who we are, and for those who do not know Him?

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The NSA Scandal and Francis Ford Coppola's "The Conversation"

News recently revealed that the National Security Agency may be listening to our cellphones, viewing our text messages and compiling information from our social media sites reminded me of one of the best movies of the 1970s, Francis Ford Coppola's "The Conversation." Made between the first two Godfather pictures, it captures the paranoia of seventies-era cinema but still has lasting resonance in the age of the Internet.

The movie opens at 1 p.m. on Dec. 2, 1973, which happens to be the birthday of the movie's main character, Harry Caul (Gene Hackman). Caul, of course, sounds like "call," but the word caul can mean a membrane, a tight-fitting cap, or a spider's web. All of these apply to Harry, for he is a wire-tapper, a professional eavesdropper. As the movie reveals, he is by turns moody, tense, quiet, suspicious, private and restless.

As the film begins, our first image is of Union Square in San Francisco, where a lunch-time crowd is gathered. There are street musicians, mimes, and people who work in the various office buildings around the block who have gathered to eat their lunches and enjoy the atmosphere. We hear music, but we also hear electronic sounds and the effect is disquieting as the camera slow focuses down into the action. In a moment, our eyes are drawn to a mime (Robert Shields), who then begins to "shadow" Harry Caul. We understand, as an audience, that we are looking at these things at a great distance.

Our next image appears threatening - a man in a high-place sitting behind what looks like a rifle, aiming down, looking through the sights. It turns out this is a "shot-gun microphone," looking for the face of a subject to isolate. Soon, the camera begins following a young couple, played by Frederic Forrest and Cindy Williams. They are walking in the square, talking, chatting pleasantly perhaps, but we don't know anything about them. Soon, it becomes apparent that the two are the subject of Harry's interest.

"The Conversation" was written in the mid-1960s, but had the artistic luck of appearing on the American scene simultaneously with the Watergate Scandal, when operatives of President Richard Nixon attempted to bug the Democratic National Committee's office. Later, it was revealed that Nixon had bugged the Oval Office, and the tapes of conversations there ultimately proved his downfall. Coppola was inspired by Michaelangelo Antonioni's "Blow-Up," and he used several techniques to tell his story of the day-to-day work of eavesdropping.

One is repetition. Over the course of the movie, we hear and see the conversation between Forrest and Williams several times, but occasionally words are obscured. As Harry uses his technology to bring out the words of the conversation, we begin to wonder what the association between this man and woman is. Who are they? Why has Harry been hired to listen? Why do they seem on edge, and who are they afraid of? As Harry's assistant Stan (John Cazale) says, it's just human curiosity to wonder. And by hearing the conversation many times, we begin not only to have the same questions, but to give each word new meanings and new possibilities.

Coppola's other technique is more subtle. At several moments in the picture, the camera becomes part of the act of surveillance. When Harry enters his apartment, the camera remains flat and dead, and Harry even walks out of frame while talking on the phone. The camera then moves mechanically over and we see him sitting on the sofa. At the film's beginning, the camera very slowly comes in, moving down into the square to look for a subject. This is Coppola mimicking the action of security cameras, which occasionally catch action and sometimes don't. It also underlines a recurring theme in the movie - even those paid to watch us are themselves watched.

Harry leads a very controlled life. He has a girlfriend (Terri Garr), though he keeps her in an apartment and won't even answer her most basic questions about his life, leading her to cut him off. She is surprised to learn it is his birthday, and when he gets into bed with her, he is fully-clothed, including his transparent raincoat. His assistant Stan becomes so frustrated he leaves to work for another bugger. And Harry is adamant that he does not care about the subjects of the contracts he fulfills, or the clients who hire him. There are hints at his humanity - Harry sits alone in his apartment, playing his saxophone to jazz records at night. He goes to confession, and seems troubled when he or someone else "takes the Lord's name in vain." Why? Because there is both comfort and fear in the idea that God is watching your every move.

We begin to learn that Harry has been asked to bug this couple's conversation by the nameless Director of a corporation (Robert Duvall), and his assistant (Harrison Ford) attempts to get the tapes Harry made. But Harry insists he hand over the tapes personally, beginning the film's heightening of tension. The assistant's manner inspires Harry to go back over the conversation and isolate one portion of it. Suddenly he becomes curious about this moment.

It should be noted that most of the conversations we engage in during our lives aren't even worth remembering, let alone recording. One of the reasons millions of Americans are outraged at the idea that their own government may be spying on them is that many of us want desperately to believe in our own importance. The notion of the NSA bugging our phones, watching our Facebook statuses, looking at our tweets, trolling our Instagram pictures, invests us with an importance, and those who resist are suddenly transformed into Sons of Liberty. Otherwise, who else would care about the pictures we snap of our lunches? But there is also the paradox of the age of social media - that we are growing more alone even as we share our lives with our closest friends and people we have never personally met.

Harry Caul evokes this in his loneliness, because in the middle of unlocking the secrets of this one conversation we see him suddenly connect with people he has never met. This couple is afraid of a man. They care about each other. They plan on meeting at a certain hotel on a certain date and time in a specific room. They feel for each other. The turning point of the film comes when Harry, after several attempts to isolate the words, hears Forrest say to Williams on the recording, "He'd kill us if he had the chance." Now Harry is afraid to turn the tapes over, afraid of what the information will inspire in someone else.

Why? Because we later find out that Harry feels responsible for the deaths of three people based on one of his previous bugging jobs. One of the reasons Harry works on the West Coast, we come to understand, is that he bugged a conversation back East so well that someone in organized crime suspected another of informing, which inspired an act of retribution. Harry's manner when this is revealed shows that it haunts him, even as he gratefully and modestly shrinks from a colleague's designation as "the best there is." In a dream, we hear him admit, "I'm not afraid of death. I am afraid of murder." Not his own, but another person's.

The movie leaves several impressions. It is the nature of bugging that we don't know the whole picture. We make suppositions based on what we hear and see. Because of this, we begin to construct a rough plot in our heads about the principals in this story. We think Cindy Williams is Robert Duvall's wife or lover. We think she is having an affair with Frederic Forrest's character, whom we discover at least lurking in the hallways of the nameless corporation. We think that Harry has developed some kind of romantic attachment to Cindy Williams through the tapes and photographs. These questions are never fully answered for us. But like Harry, we think at this moment in the movie that the fear the two feel because of Robert Duvall is genuine and justified.

But when Harry has his one encounter with Robert Duvall, he walks in to discover Duvall and Harrison Ford listening to the tapes. "You want it to be true!" the Director shouts. "No, I don't. I just want you to know what you need to know." Harry asks the question, "What will you do to her?" He receives no answer.

The second half of "The Conversation" is interesting in that for a movie on the surface about eavesdropping, there is very little dialogue for the audience to seize on. In a film about the science of listening, we instead are treated to visuals, and we realize that our assumptions about the couple, their conversation and what has been going on have been just as wrong as Harry's. In listening at a distance, it becomes easier to misconstrue what someone means, or just specifically how someone means it. Which brings in the other reason for public outrage at the idea of widespread surveillance - the possibility that our lives could be upended by a mistake. A joke, a misconstrued phrase, the lack of a shared past, and strangers may see us revealed as something we aren't, or worse, as what we truly are but cannot admit to ourselves. As Coppola himself observed, "The sins a man performs are not the same as the ones he thinks he has performed."

"The Conversation" functions as a thriller and a character study, and Hackman's controlled and sympathetic performance makes it stick in our minds. He did the job so well that he was asked to reprise the performance, more or less, for Tony Scott's 1998 action thriller "Enemy of the State," starring Will Smith. But that movie dealt with surveillance in the modern age, when computers have replaced human beings listening and watching. Automated systems, we think, listen without prejudice, or perhaps, only the prejudices we give them. "The Conversation" at least gives us the possibility that we haven't lost our humanity if we can still care about the people we are shadowing. It also reminds us of how mistaken we can be, at a great distance.

Set Your Fields on Fire

The award-winning novel by William Thornton

Available now

Read the first chapter here

Some of the coverage of "Set Your Fields on Fire"

 You can order "Set Your Fields on Fire"for $14.99 through Amazon here.

It's also available on Kindle at $3.99 through Amazon here.
Read an interview I did with AL.com on the book here.   
Here's my appearance on the Charisma Network's CPOP Podcast. 
Here's an interview I did with The Anniston Star on the book. 
Shattered Magazine wrote a story about the book here. 
The Alabama Baptist wrote about the book here.
This piece appeared in the Marietta (Ga.) Daily Journal.
Here's the write-up from The Birmingham Times.
Read a story for Village Living here.
This story appeared in The Trussville Tribune and this video.

Here's my appearance on East Alabama Today.
Story and video from WBRC Fox6 here. 
Here's the write-up in The Gadsden Times on the book.
Read a piece I wrote for WestBow Press about writing the book here.
A piece about some inspiring works for me.

This is another interview with the fleegan book blog here. 

Read a piece I did for WestBow Press about writing the book here.
Read another interview with the fleegan book blog here.