Vanity Fair's subversive 'V for Vendetta' piece (w/ poll)
Sun Jan 29, 2006 at 07:00:04 PM PDT
Political columnist Michael Wolff previews revolutionary science fiction thriller
V for Vendetta in the February issue of
Vanity Fair, hailing it as a return to "movies of cultural sabotage" in the spirit of
Dr. StrangeLove; movies that spark a reversal in popular thinking.
V for Vendetta is based upon the celebrated, literary graphic novel by Alan Moore and David Lloyd. The film, made by the Wachowski Bros and starring Natalie Portman and Hugo Weaving, opens
March 17.
Wolff sees V4V as a call for the reversal of the dominant War and Fear narrative, and a call for an opposing narrative, based upon democratic ideals of humanity and justice. By all accounts thus far, V for Vendetta is an important film not to be missed. It could be the harbinger of change; it could finally wake people up, and spark an intellectual evolution and political revolution.
Sadly the Vanity Fair piece is not available online, and it's soon to be replaced on the racks with the latest issue, so allow me to post some excerpts in the extended:
[Taken from "R for Revoultion" by Michael Wolff; Vanity Fair, Feb 2006. Edited for some Spoiler content]
`V for Vendetta,' by the Matrix-making Wachowski brothers .... marks the return of the movie as cultural sabotage -- remember `Dr. Strangelove,' `If....,' `A Clockwork Orange?' -- this time upending the narrative that the White House has used to justify the Iraq war. The stakes in Iraq, beyond winning or losing, democracy or its antithesis, and the new, Shiite -- as opposed to the old, Sunni -- hegemony, involve an estimation about Western political ecology. At what point -- what number dead -- does the Iraq quagmire become, the way Vietnam did, the main theme of popular culture?
It's all about reversals. "Every action will create an equal and opposing reaction," intones the quasi-superhero known as `V' in `V for Vendetta,' the spectacular and exhilarating upcoming movie by the Wachowski brothers, who wrote and directed the Matrix movies. Perhaps we really are on our way back -- movies as cultural sabotage.
Wolff explains the historical, mythological background of the story, adding to his thesis about reversals:
`V for Vendetta's' operating premise derives from the story of Guy Fawkes, the 17th-century Catholic revolutionary -- or, if you will, terrorist -- who, on November 5, 1605, contrived to blow up Parliament and to provoke the downfall of James I and the Protestant establishment. Fawkes, his plot thwarted, was hanged and entered into British history as a cautionary tale. November 5 is Guy Fawkes Day, celebrated with bonfires and meant to commemorate the strength of both Parliament and Protestantism. "Remember, remember the fifth of November, / the gunpowder treason and plot. / I know of no reason why the gunpowder treason / should ever be forgot," goes the English schoolboy ditty. But what has come to be celebrated (when November 5 is, in fact, remembered) is the opposite idea: Fawkes gets credit for bravado and cheekiness, for going up against impossible odds.
In the Wachowskis' movie, Fawkes is transformed, at some uncertain point in the near future, into a man in a Guy Fawkes mask -- a physically maimed and emotionally wounded aesthete with superhero qualities. He lives -- in a superhero's de rigueur fabulous, secret lair -- in a totalitarian world. A world in deep shit. A world needing to be saved. Indeed, highly art-directed superhero sets, with their shadowy cities and exaggerated villains and menacing architecture all turn out to be a great place to stage a political drama, perfectly made for all sorts of Orwellian-ness.
In Vendetta there's [an] "arch-conservative host" of the national news show, with his vast pill supply. There's John Hurt as the creepy chancellor "with his gleaming boots of polished leather and his garrison of goons." There's a Dr. Mengele subplot, plus any number of other sadists and predators -- sexual and otherwise. The comic-book world of the superhero is, finally, joined with its real-life equivalents. And, of course, you have a world teetering on the brink -- apocalypse being the animating anxiety of the superhero genre.
Apocalypse is, too, less than coincidentally, the fortifying principle of the Bush administration, fear of it -- "when, not if" -- being the leitmotif and political mantra since 9/11. It's the greatest of all rhetorical devices, and the simplest -- well suited to religion, politics, and comic books. Mass destruction is the super-narrative that belittles all the other, more equivocal ones. "The world is going to end unless we take control" versus "The world is, all things considered, with a bit of luck and finesse, most likely going to be O.K." Which story has more commercial appeal?
Wolff invokes the classic science fiction satire `Dr. Strangelove' and past subversive movies that changed popular thinking, and forced a change in the narrative:
The Cold War story line -- bomb shelters, the very idea of using nuclear weapons, the best and the brightest, Robert McNamara's brilliantined hair -- got turned upside down in the 1960s, became laughable, even. The apocalypse, or the specter of the apocalypse, was stolen back. In Kubrick's 1964 movie, `Dr. Strangelove' -- produced after a decade of massive nuclear buildup -- the petty and perverse and comical men in government are the agents of annihilation. Soon after, Vietnam turned into a literal apocalypse. Hey, hey, L.B.J., how many kids did you kill today? A real apocalypse was occurring because of the fear of a hypothetical apocalypse -- that became the story line. We were the bad guys. In 'The Battle of Algiers' (1965), the West is overthrown. Only a radical reaction would do. It's the towers of Parliament that are blown up in V for Vendetta. "Blowing up a building," says V, our superhero, "can change the world."
There's a lot more to the article, and I'll try to post additional below. V for Vendetta might just bring on a radical reaction from the masses, and turn the dominant narrative upside down:
People should not be afraid of their governments, governments should be afraid of their people.
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