After watching The Happening several times the penny dropped that the "dialectic method" the teacher Elliot has his pupils chanting [as they head off for their own suicide] is EXACTLY what he did in The Village, ie he followed the four step method, per:
1. Identify the Variables
2. Design the Experiment
3. Careful Observation and Measurement
4. Interpretation of Experimental Data
So if we look at these individually
1. Identify the Variables
The variable under the "microscope" here is the question of just how much control can Hal exert over J Doe [eg as Hitler did over German J Doe] by the use of FEAR. Remember this movie was AFTER Rumsfeld HAL had DONE 9/11 experiment [and it had WORKED] so this whole experiment was a bit tongue in cheek to say "look I am going to do a 'bathtub' version of the same thing to see if 9/11 was in fact dead easy, as LONG as people did not think".
That is to say he was asking question if "fortunate for governments" [in Hitler's Mantra of "It is most fortunate for governments that the people do not think"] can also morph to "fortunate for directors" in a movie.
2. Design the Experiment
Here is the really amazing bit, and you need to watch the Special Features for Night to explain this to you. He dispensed with his egotistic "Brando style" actors such as Willis/Jackson and used only those who were prepared to go into a Boot Camp for the duration of the filming.
That is they had to live/work 24/7 IN the Village without any "creature comforts" [npi] from outside, and this was designed to have a twofold effect [and DID]. Firstly the "actors" were so much a part of the place by the time the filming started, they were totally at ease and NOT acting at all - just being people. Secondly he was setting up his experiment [unbeknown to them], not in fact based on fear but simply on people NEEDING to work together for a common purpose.
3. Careful Observation and Measurement
He had the movie - what better way to observe and measure
4. Interpretation of Experimental Data
He was RIGHT - nothing more to say, ie just as for 9/11 J Doe just went along with the whole deal and questioned nothing.
He does however leave a Michael Moore type "concern" that someone might "rock the boat" and THINK via Kevin, ie he does his cameo as the Security Manager of Walker Co to mimic the [feminist dominated] school system where he tries to do a "friendly" indoctrination of teacher to pupil dumbing down to not THINK and a McCarthy style don't TALK thrown in there, but Kevin portrays that one in a million defiance that HAL has been afraid of even before McCarthyism.
Note the 9/11 reference to people actually questioning a government bribe about "air-routes" [eg Michael Moore explaining the 9/11 modus operandi] having caused "problems", and that Kevin should simply stick his head in his IPad and stop thinking.
Wednesday, January 2, 2013
Tuesday, January 1, 2013
Summary
The Village might be described as a tongue in cheek version of Fahrenheit 9/11, showing the politics of HAL's use of TERROR to control the population of America [and those that follow "like a conga-line of suckholes" as Mark Latham put it for Australia].
That is to say Fahrenheit 9/11 was essentially a documentary, simply giving the evidence to show how totally simple it was for HAL to allow 9/11 to happen and then use "Unknown Unknowns" to give the excuse to start another Vietnam genocide, but this time in Iraq, AS LONG AS J Doe was determined to question nothing, which of course was the case, as for Vietnam, as for Korea, meaning HAL won that fraudbusting attempt.
The Village poses a scenario of a village representing the population of America with a perimeter fence being the American border to "the Towns", those being the "outside world". So The Village attempted a "come in through the bathroom window" approach to see if satire [maybe called parody in America] could wake up J Doe from his slumber, and although it too failed, it does provide some great cleverness from M Knight in rendering the movie.
Of course to get any bums on seats at all to pay for the production he also had to make it a stand alone "mini BlockBuster" [a Yippee] by way of a "horror movie" so in my view he really pulled off the near impossible here, exactly as FF Coppola explains regarding Apocalypse Now.
In other words, M Knight bloke had to make a horror movie that worked WITHOUT J Doe actually NEEDING to understand the so called "twist" ending, in order that the very few "people that think" could appreciate his movie as a serious attempt to get the other 99.99999% to also think.
Fat chance but I for one appreciated the movie [as well as Fahrenheit 9/11], and of course it goes without saying that the message of the movie is exactly the same as numerous others, ie that American HAL has simply copied Hitler HAL in his award winning mantra "It is most fortunate for governments that the people do not think".
That is to say Fahrenheit 9/11 was essentially a documentary, simply giving the evidence to show how totally simple it was for HAL to allow 9/11 to happen and then use "Unknown Unknowns" to give the excuse to start another Vietnam genocide, but this time in Iraq, AS LONG AS J Doe was determined to question nothing, which of course was the case, as for Vietnam, as for Korea, meaning HAL won that fraudbusting attempt.
The Village poses a scenario of a village representing the population of America with a perimeter fence being the American border to "the Towns", those being the "outside world". So The Village attempted a "come in through the bathroom window" approach to see if satire [maybe called parody in America] could wake up J Doe from his slumber, and although it too failed, it does provide some great cleverness from M Knight in rendering the movie.
Of course to get any bums on seats at all to pay for the production he also had to make it a stand alone "mini BlockBuster" [a Yippee] by way of a "horror movie" so in my view he really pulled off the near impossible here, exactly as FF Coppola explains regarding Apocalypse Now.
In other words, M Knight bloke had to make a horror movie that worked WITHOUT J Doe actually NEEDING to understand the so called "twist" ending, in order that the very few "people that think" could appreciate his movie as a serious attempt to get the other 99.99999% to also think.
Fat chance but I for one appreciated the movie [as well as Fahrenheit 9/11], and of course it goes without saying that the message of the movie is exactly the same as numerous others, ie that American HAL has simply copied Hitler HAL in his award winning mantra "It is most fortunate for governments that the people do not think".
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