Testament
It’s pretty unusual for me to go more than a few weeks without watching an episode or two from the original run of The Twilight Zone. Last week I watched one of the earlier episodes, The Purple Testament. The story follows a company of American soldiers in the Philippines during the Second World War. Squads of soldiers regularly venture out from their encampment and engage in combat with the Japanese army. The story centers on a young lieutenant who begins to notice a strange sort of light in the faces of some of his men ahead of these excursions. He quickly realizes that these oddly illuminated men are invariably the men who will be killed in action that day.
Distraught, the lieutenant tries to bring this awful new ability to the attention of his superiors. Leadership worries for his mental health and has him hospitalized for observation. In the hospital, the lieutenant again sees the same light on the faces of the patients on death's door. No one believes him.
Deemed fit for duty, the lieutenant is sent back to his unit. While shaving in the morning he glances at the mirror and sees that dreaded light on his own face.
The realization of his impending death sets in. Almost immediately after seeing this omen, he is called to make a trip across the island to another encampment. Just before leaving, he and his driver are warned of landmines laid across the road along the way. The lieutenant looks at the face of his driver only to see that same awful light. He steadies himself and rides off to his certain doom.
Narrator and writer Rod Serling closes the story with a brief quote from which the episode takes its name:
“He has come to open the purple testament of bleeding war.”
-William Shakespeare, “Richard II”
As I was thinking about this story, I happened to read the following article from the excellent Neoliberal Feudalism:
A few of the films in that article brought to mind similar themes from The Purple Testament. Specifically, the recognition of impending disaster and how we respond.
Margin Call
Margin Call takes place on Wall Street over the course of one night in 2008. It follows a financial analyst at an investment firm who discovers something troubling while auditing the firm’s holdings. Analyst Peter Sullivan, played by Zachary Quinto, reviews current trends and determines that not only his own firm, but the entire global market is about to be rocked by the bursting of the subprime mortgage and derivative bubble.
It’s well after hours, but Sullivan calls in his manager, who then alerts his own superiors. The night quickly becomes a mad dash to assemble the top brass of the firm and determine how to address the situation before the rest of the world becomes aware of the impending calamity.
Jeremy Irons plays John Tuld, the CEO of the firm. Tuld is helicoptered in during the pre-dawn hours to assess the situation and decide on a course of action.
What follows is an eerie boardroom scene in which Peter Sullivan explains the scale of the disaster to Tuld.
Sullivan: Well, sir, if those assets decrease by just 25%, and remain on our books, that loss would be greater than the current market capitalization of this entire company.
Tuld: So, what you're telling me is that the music is about to stop, and we're going to be left holding the biggest bag of odorous excrement ever assembled in the history of...capitalism.
Sullivan: Sir, I'm not sure that I would put it that way but let me clarify. Using your analogy, what this model shows is the music, so to speak -- just slowing. If the music were to stop, as you put it, then this model wouldn't be even close to that scenario. It would be considerably worse.
Tuld: Let me tell you something, Mr. Sullivan. Do you care to know why I'm in this chair with you all? I mean, why I earn the big bucks?
Sullivan: Yes.
Tuld: I'm here for one reason and one reason alone. I'm here to guess what the music might do a week, a month, a year from now. That's it. Nothing more. And standing here tonight, I'm afraid that I don't hear a thing. Just...silence.
Tuld makes his decision. The firm must dump everything. Every toxic asset is to be sold off at the beginning of the next trading day. The market will notice quickly, so there will be no time to haggle. Just get rid of it.
Tuld faces resistance to his decision. His executives explain that while they may be able to rid themselves of these assets, by selling products that he knows to be worthless, his actions will also rid the firm of any goodwill, reputation, or integrity in the process.
Tuld: Sam, I don't think you seem to understand what your boy here has just said. If I made you, how would you do this?
Rogers: Well, you call the traders in for their normal 6:30[am] meeting and you be honest with them -- because they're going to know it's the end either way. So, you're going to have to throw 'em a bone, and a pretty big one. And then you've got to come out of the gates storming. No swaps. No nothing. Forty percent done by 10:15. By 11:00 all your trades have to be gone, because by lunchtime word's going to be out. And by 2:00 you're going to be selling at 65 cents on the dollar, if you're lucky. And then the Feds are going to be in here, up your ass, trying to slow you down.
Tuld: Ramesh?
Ramesh Shah: They can slow you down. But they can't stop you. It's yours to sell.
Rogers: Yeah, but John, even if we manage to pull that off -- and that's saying something -- the real question is, who are we selling this to?
Tuld: Same people we've been selling it to for the last two years, and whoever else will buy it.
Rogers: But, John, if you do this, you will kill the market for years. It's over. And you're selling something that you know has no value.
Tuld: We are selling to willing buyers at the current fair market price -- so that we may survive.
Rogers: You will never sell anything to any of those people ever again.
Tuld: I understand.
Rogers: Do you?
Tuld: Do you? This is it! I'm telling you! This is it!
The film has the feeling of a nightmare. Manhattan feels somehow desolate and quiet. The characters meet and speak in massive skyscrapers that are completely empty. There’s a constant sense of underlying dread that permeates throughout. We get the sense that the world will end when the sun rises.
Against much pushback, Tuld ultimately commands the obedience of the assembled executives and the plan to dump all assets is hashed out. Those tasked with carrying out the plan resign themselves to their awful work and press forward. We all know how this one ended.
Miracle Mile
1988’s Miracle Mile pulls off one of the greatest hard-left turns I’ve ever seen in a film. The movie starts off as a run-of-the-mill romantic comedy. Anthony Edwards plays touring musician Harry Washello. Harry is killing time ahead of a Los Angeles gig by visiting the La Brea Tar Pits. At the museum attached to the site, Harry meets a young woman named Julie and the two hit it off. They spend the day together and agree to meet again after her shift at a local diner.
A power outage at his hotel causes Harry to oversleep, and he misses his meetup. He goes down to the diner and tries calling Julie from a pay phone outside. He gets the machine. As he’s walking away, the pay phone rings. Harry answers it and we swerve into a completely different movie.
Harry answers the phone and is connected to a frantic young man claiming to work for the military at a missile silo in North Dakota. He has mistakenly called the pay phone instead of his father, who he was trying to warn of impending nuclear war. Harry is incredulous but shaken by how real the call felt. He heads back into the diner.
The diner's late-night patrons come from all walks of life, including garbage men, prostitutes, and a corporate executive. Harry begins to tell the other customers about the call he just received and is at first dismissed as a crazy person or drug addict that is out of his mind. The corporate executive takes note of one of the terms Harry reports to have been told during the call and is alarmed. She calls an apparently high-ranking connection and verifies that this is no joke, missiles will be inbound shortly.
The occupants and staff of the diner begin to panic. They quickly gather whatever supplies they can and load a truck to get out of town ahead of the panic and destruction headed their way. The executive lines up a flight out of LAX and a helicopter shuttle from the roof of a nearby office building.
Harry can’t shake the connection he made with Julie and decides he has to find her and bring her along with him. He leaves the group, and the executive warns him that the helicopter will depart the rooftop at dawn with or without them.
Harry spends the next hour enduring an insane series of events trying to reach the apartment of the girl. The lengthy sequence plays out in real time as every obstacle and setback imaginable gets in the way of Harry and Julie making it to that helicopter.
It doesn't take long for word to get out to the public and Los Angeles quickly becomes a riotous madhouse.
After fighting their way through bedlam, Harry and Julie finally manage to make it to the rooftop at the last moment. Their helicopter ascends over the chaotic streets towards safety.
They are too late.
The missiles arrive. The blast destroys the helicopter's electronics, and they stagger out of the sky, landing in the same tar pits where they met each other only a few hours ago. All is lost. They knew what was coming. They understood the doom on the horizon and fought against it with everything they had. The bomb dropped anyway.
Apocalypto
Apocalypto may be one of the most riveting and intense films ever made. It follows the trials of a small Central American tribe during the era of the Mayan Empire as they come into conflict with a larger and more war-like civilization.
Jaguar Paw, son of the tribe's leader, awakens to movement in the trees just outside of the village.
Suspecting an attack, he takes his pregnant wife and child to a nearby pit made of stone and lowers them to the bottom, hoping to ensure their safety.
With his family hidden, Jaguar Paw joins his fellow tribesmen in attempting to repel the invaders. The tribesmen fight bravely but are overwhelmed. The invaders bind the men and march them out of the village. They endure a days-long death march back to the home city of the invaders. As the procession enters the outskirts of the city, a little girl with what looks like smallpox delivers a premonition of their doom.
As they are marched through the city, they see both vile excess and extreme poverty in the bizarre and exotic capitol. They are led to the top of a pyramid temple and a priest or shaman begins sacrificing the captives and beheading them one at a time.
Miraculously, as Jaguar Paw is about to be offered to the gods as sacrifice, an eclipse begins. The shaman takes it as a sign that the gods' bloodlust has been sated. Jaguar Paw's life is spared at the last moment.
Jaguar Paw and his fellow surviving prisoners are taken away from the temple to an open lot backing up to the jungle. The prisoners are unbound and given a chance at freedom. If the captives can make it past the arrows, spears and clubs of the invaders, they will be free. Jaguar Paw thinks on his feet, and even though he is injured by a spear, he manages to kill the last invader between him and freedom. He sprints into the jungle.
Unfortunately for Jaguar Paw, the man he killed was the son of the raiding party’s leader. The leader sees what has happened and he and his men give chase.
The remainder of the movie is an extended and incredible chase sequence through the jungle. While initially playing the part of a wounded prey animal, Jaguar Paw finds himself gaining the upper hand as he draws nearer to his home and further from his fear of death. He uses his knowledge of the land and skill as a hunter to outsmart and outlast his opponents.
Eventually, Jaguar Paw makes it back to his wife and child in time to save them from the pit that is now rapidly filling with water from torrential rainfall.
The raiding party has dwindled to two men, but they finally catch up to Jaguar Paw on the beach. Exhausted, Jaguar Paw drops to his knees in despair.
As the men prepare to finally kill him, a strange sight captures all of their attention.
In an instant, ancient and sacred things become unimportant.
After immense struggle and determination, Jaguar Paw has managed to save his wife and child. Then the bomb drops anyway.
Jaguar Paw and his family retreat to the jungle as the two invaders go out to meet the Spaniards. Jaguar Paw and his family go off to seek a new beginning. The two warriors walk toward their doom. We know how this one ends.
Aguirre, Wrath of God
Following Apocalypto, I thought I’d watch something else in the same vein. Aguirre, Wrath of God fit the bill. This Werner Herzog film follows a group of conquistadors in the army of Francisco Pizarro after he has defeated the Inca. Tales of El Dorado, a mythical city of gold, entice the treasure-crazed Spaniards. Pizarro sends a detachment of his men down a tributary of the Amazon in search of the fabled city.
Things fall apart almost immediately. Accidents, infighting, betrayal, sickness, an unforgiving environment, and hostile natives quickly take a toll on the wellbeing and sanity of the party.
Chief amongst the outfit's agitators is Aguirre, played by Klaus Kinski. This thoroughly insane looking man is the expedition's second in command. He flouts the leader's authority, sowing dissent amongst the men. After it becomes clear that the leader of the expedition wisely intends to turn back, Aguirre stages a coup, installing a puppet leader that he can control.
As the large rafts they have built flow further into the jungle's interior, Aguirre slips further into madness. After a few days, he disposes of the puppet leader he has installed. Unseen natives snipe off members of the crew from the dense foliage of the riverbanks. Food supplies dwindle. Fever sets in.
The remaining men consider mutiny. Aguirre makes a deadly example of the leader of this faction and talks of mutiny cease. The expedition limps further along the river. The men know their fate is all but sealed. They follow Aguirre regardless, resigning themselves to their awful duty. Following a brutal attack from natives along the riverbank, Aguirre is now the last man standing.
Alone, the raft silently carries him further downstream. We know how this one ends.
Four Stories, Two Paths
All four of these films can tell us a lot about ourselves. Each story follows one of two arcs. In Miracle Mile and Apocalypto, we see men made aware of impending disaster and striking out in an attempt to save themselves and their loved ones. In Margin Call and Aguirre, Wrath of God, we also see men who are aware of an impending disaster, but instead of taking action, they resign themselves to their fate and follow a madman into oblivion.
In all four stories, the end was ultimately the same for the characters. How they met that end, and what they did in the time they had, makes a world of difference.
In Miracle Mile and Apocalypto, Harry and Jaguar Paw both valued life and their loved ones over everything. Whether fleeing through the jungle or scrambling through the streets of Los Angeles, they were motivated by love and duty to those they cared for. Both were ultimately doomed. The bomb still drops. In Harry’s case it's an actual bomb. For Jaguar Paw and the rest of Central America, it's the equally catastrophic arrival of the Spanish.
The difference is that while they were alive, Harry and Jaguar Paw spent every breath in their lungs holding onto and pursuing what mattered. They lived as fully as a human can and died knowing they had done everything that they could.
The stockbrokers and Aguirre’s crew could not say the same. They resigned themselves to the inevitable and chose not to resist. The investment firm executives in Margin Call knew their careers were dead before the opening bell. On the river, Aguirre's men were marked for death long before the natives even saw them.
In the grand scheme, elements of chance hold great sway over the trajectory of our lives. Occasionally, we are given the choice to meet life-defining struggles head on. Without a genuine sense of life and the will to live it well and fully, we run the risk of missing those opportunities. In missing such a chance, we miss everything. In choosing not to act, or to fight, the meaning and potential of our lives will be dictated to us by mere chance or according to the whims of others.
The bomb will drop on us all. While it may not take the form of an actual warhead, an army on the horizon, or a financial meltdown, it will inevitably come for us. We are all racing toward the end of our own worlds, however dramatic or mundane our personal circumstances may turn out to be.
Rather than resignation before the inevitable, the only rational course of action is to fight and strive for the things we value most. To make as much as we can of the seconds remaining on the clock.
Silence
Throughout their journey, Aguirre’s men make several forays into the jungle along the riverbanks. Each time they are assaulted by the unseen natives. A man who survives one of these attacks relays a curious thing to his compatriots back on the raft. He notices that even amongst all the life and commotion of the jungle, a terrible silence came over the forest just before they were set upon by the natives.
A terrible silence, followed by destruction.
We should all try to picture ourselves in a moment of such ominous silence and imagine what we might think of our lives in those seconds. Would we be at peace, knowing we had done all we could with the time we’ve been given? Or would we meet such a moment with the awful realization that our lives were a priceless gift, and that we have squandered that gift by passively accepting our circumstances and fate?
In that moment of terrible silence, we’ll know what was most important.
Why live for anything else?
Lovely post, Obsolete Man. I'll watch Aguirre, Wrath of God, Miracle Mile and the Twilight Zone episode The Purple Testament, they all sound very interesting - thank you for the recommendations!
"It came anyway" was chilling. All of these movies sound like a trip.