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Collateral 25 September 04

Section: article

Categories: distraction / in-a-cinema

Title: Collateral

Directed by: Michael Mann

Starring: Tom Cruise, Jamie Foxx, Jada Pinkett Smith

Written by: Stuart Beatie

Year: 2004

Cinema: Turm Kino, Frankfurt


While I was waiting in line to buy a ticket I overheard a young couple, maybe late teens, trying to decide what film to see and looking at the window display of movies being shown. The young man saw one of the displays and said “look, The Exorcist” ...but the display was for the new film about Hitler’s final days in his bunker, called Der Untergang in German and The Downfall in English. They spoke English—she sounded American and he sounded like he was a German who had spent a lot of time with Americans.

The young woman said she didn’t think it was The Exorcist, but he insisted it was. They went back and forth five or six times about that, and she relented. So it was The Exorcist for them.

I am not intending to belittle them in anyway—I make enough mistakes myself. But taken as a whole the situation was interesting:

The first consideration of course is that they couldn’t read, which is very possible.

I checked the display after my movie and it had four posters announcing the film Der Untergang and eight color photos of scenes, many showing Bruno Ganz as Hitler, and a number of swastikas were visible… even if they couldn’t read they must have seen all of that. So either they didn’t notice these symbols of the Third Reich, or they didn’t recognize or understand them, which is also possible, obviously.

Each poster and each photo had the title of the film in German and and in the middle of the display a larger sign had the title in German and English. If they could read, but not German, then they would have seen that the titles were in German.

The young man was very convinced it was The Exorcist. It occurred to me that he was apprehending some sense of evil portrayed in the images which in the context of cinema he associated with The Exorcist. Of course they are both about evil, the one about the devil, who doesn’t exist, and the other about a very earthly evil who did.

I saw The Exorcist when it first came out and I was about his age. I wasn’t really religious anymore, but after a Catholic upbringing I was—as it turned out—still susceptible to powerful feelings of fear that this mythology (purposely) touches upon. In other words the film really scared me. I had about a 20 mile ride home on my motorcycle after seeing it, and I decided to take a short-cut over hilly, back-country roads. Then on the way over these country roads, five miles in either direction from any lighted main roads—I ran out of gas. The motorcycle sputtered to a stop and for some reason the headlight didn’t work except when I pushed the bike fast enough for the generator to make it glow a little, which was difficult to do and still look up in the dim light to see where I was going. It was a completely moonless night and I could see almost nothing. I was sure it was the hand of the devil at work and he clearly wanted me now, that was it. Five miles on hills is a long way pushing a cycle in the dark, especially knowing the devil was after me, with fleeting bushes and trees moving towards me from every direction. It can make you religious. But after I got home, sweaty and exhausted, the religiousness of course faded again.

Getting back to the young couple, it was also interesting how the young man insisted on his apprehension of the display’s meaning, and how the young woman finally gave in. She might have just submitted to “male right,” possibly an expression of his dominance in their relationship.

But what truly shocked me after thinking about it was their complete lack of investigatory spirit: they didn’t at all discuss why they did or didn’t think it was The Exorcist. They didn’t look more closely at the images and signs, they didn’t (she didn’t) think to ask someone else about it. That might support the view that they really couldn’t read: a lifetime of developing defenses to hide that, to come to terms with their environment without showing that they can’t read. [Added later: or maybe he couldn’t read and she was protecting him.]

I was once acquainted with a retired GI, almost 40 when I knew him, who couldn’t read at all. He had been a truck driver in the US military. I knew him when he worked at a video rental place which rented NTSC videos. He functioned with confidence in that environment. He knew my name, but whenever I rented a film he asked me to spell it. He came to trust me, and finally I asked him about that and he told me he couldn’t read, but could recognize the individual letters, so he could find the customers’ cards. He would then copy down the name of the film on the rental slip, letter by letter. If someone asked about a film, he could only find it on the shelves if he could recognize the image on the case. He told me a good bit of his life story, which was one of childhood neglect: his parents didn’t pay attention to him and never noticed that he hadn’t learned to read. He managed to graduate from high school. He was a very bright guy in fact. He spoke fluent German.

After one trip to his home in Texas he showed me photos of his family stay. He showed me photos of his father: his father was a Nazi fanatic, literally. He believed he was a Nazi. The photos showed his father decked out in his collected Nazi regalia in his study, which was a kind of shrine to the Third Reich. He showed the photos as if they were normal, just like the photos of his little nephews and nieces.

I asked him once how he managed to get his driver’s license—which was for heavy vehicles in the military—if he couldn’t read. He explained how: the theoretical test had been on some computer screen, and the first time he took it he failed. But while taking it, he noticed that there was a time delay in milliseconds in the response of the system depending on whether his answer proved to be wrong, or, by chance, right. It took a bit longer to process when the multiple choice answer, one of four, was wrong. So, as he told me, the second time he took the test he was quick enough with his fingers to use that window of time—if the answer was wrong—to try another button, quickly eliminating wrong answers and increasing his chances that the next try might be right until in fact it was. He passed the test. That opened my eyes to the plight of people brought up without being taught how to read, and the amazing strategies they can develop to function in the society that did that to them. Such a testament to the abilities of our minds and nervous systems.

Coming back again to the young couple: I also considered offering a comment on what the film was about to “help” them, but I just didn’t feel it was appropriate in that public situation. It might have embarrassed them or made them feel bad. So I didn’t say anything, which was the right choice.

  • Title: Collateral