Tortured Soul: Monster Movies, Tragedies, and Mystic River

Sometime in the past 30 years, monster movies were reduced to the filmgoing fare of their primary character types: clueless teenagers eager for instant hedonism. The cinematic equivalent of punk rock: simple, gratuitous, repetitive, and explicitly not high art, as if reveling in second-tier status. However, unlike punk rock, monster movies have had no Lester Bangs to restore the record or at the least, present the counterargument. At their root, these movies are the one of the oldest and most celebrated dramatic forms: tragedies. The ghouls and goblins of modern horror movies are not far removed from the witches and ghosts of Macbeth, nor is the grotesque violence distant from Gloucester's eye gouging in King Lear or the two deposed kings being dragged behind Tambaurlaine's chariot in the Christopher Marlowe play of the same name.

The reasons why Shakespeare and even Greek tragedy escape contemporary hand-wringing are many but first, the best genre pieces disguise the genre by surrounding it with other tropes. A recent example would be from 2008's I Am Legend. One of the strongest scenes involves Will Smith forced to venture into the darkness to rescue his dog from an abandoned Manhattan building. Once inside, the pitch black claustrophobic interior is only penetrated by a flashlight beam mounted to the butt of his gun. As he creeps around each corner of the building, the anticipation grows before he and the audience are caught off-guard by a horde of the infected and he has to race outside to sunlight in a gripping chase. Though the words are never spoken, this is a “haunted house” scene in a “zombie” picture. The scene works because of the stock genre trappings, but also because the rest of the film does not pull from the same bag of tricks.

Similarly, Taxi Driver is undoubtedly a film about urban, moral decay and Travis Bickle's descent into messianic madness but it also bears another reading. In the recent June issue of American Cinematographer, Michael Chapman, Scorsese's famous DP, recounts his labors in making Raging Bull and Taxi Driver. Other than discussion of particular shots and techniques, the most interesting excerpt is his interpretation of Taxi Driver's genre placement: “In one sense, you can think of Taxi Driver as a werewolf movie. . . Think about it: even his hair changes! And the red, the blood, is just right for a werewolf movie.” By night, in the depraved streets of New York City, Bickle, like The Beast in Cocteau's La Belle et la Bete, transforms into subhuman, supernatural personality that threatens and massacres for perceived love. It's romantic, even romantically gothic in the same sense as Frankenstein and Dracula. It's also terribly violent and tragic like monster movies.

But if Taxi Driver can be seen as a werewolf movie, then Mystic River is a vampire movie. Other than the monologue in the middle of the film from Tim Robbins's Danny Boyle and the corresponding diagetic placement of John Carpenter's Vampires, there are more identifying features. Rather than the stark red pictured throughout Scorsese's film, Eastwood opts for softer, colder blues that drain the brightness from already somber affair. Even when Jimmy Markum is sitting silhouetted against the light of the neighborhood gathering questioning his actions, the icy blue haze overwhelms any warmth the sunlight would provide. Moreover, while lacking the sensuality of recent entries like True Blood and Twilight that elevate vampires to sex starlets, Mystic River is truer to the grim realities of horrific monsters protrayed in Nosferatu. In portraying the tortured soul of an abused child turned “damaged goods” father, Tim Robbins even adopts an ambling, Max Schreck-like gait for many scenes. He says that when he emerged from the basement of his abuse, he doesn't know who came out of it, but it wasn't Dave because Dave's dead. Like Louis from Interview with the Vampire, he has lost his soul but refuses to become the parasitic feeder of his makers. Rather than turn against himself or against others, he kills another pederast from feeding on the young. Perhaps, he hopes that this will lead to a path of redemption, but again like vampires and like tragedies, the monsters in Mystic River are doomed to their fate.

The inescapable grasp of destiny highlights another reason for Shakespearean tragedies place in the artistic canon as beyond reproach: there are events beyond human control and agency. One of the hallmarks of a tragic hero is that, despite his admirable qualities, he will meet a gruesome end due to his own failures. The same should be said of Jimmy Markum in Mystic River. When alone with his daughter's corpse, he keenly proffers that he doesn't know how but he is ultimately responsible for her death. Unfortunately for the victims in the tragedy, the hero's self-awareness arrives too late to prevent the destruction. Again at the film's climax, Jimmy feels he has found his daughter's killer. In a brilliant crosscut, Eastwood intersplices scenes from Jimmy's forced attrition of Danny with the true killer's comeuppance. It is the film's Godlike way of mocking the proceedings at Jimmy's “trial” and his attempt to enact justice. Frequently, Eastwood chooses roving helicopter shots as another touch of the God POV that quietly looks on at the chaos created by the characters' own hands.

Some critics, including Ramin Bahrani (http://blogs.suntimes.com/scanners/2009/05/can_one_bad_shot_ruin_an_entir_1.html), have derided some shots and directorial decisions by Eastwood in Mystic River. Particularly, Bahrani noted the insertion of a cutaway to a bullet hole in the ceiling after a shot is fired in a climatic standoff. Additionally, Jim Emerson along with many have criticized the parade at the film's conclusion as a misstep. However, both choices are there to enhance the tragedy of the film's conclusion. The bullet hole shot has a matching scene during the procedural portion where Sean Devine and Whitey Powers are investigating the gun. They make a trip to the liquor store and meet its owner where he tells them his suspicions about Just Ray Harris being the robber. The entire scene appears unnecessary and could have been conveyed with an inserted throwaway line. However, the scene's purpose is not for its information but for its thematic emphasis of cyclical, tragic destruction. Just as Just Ray's gun stayed in the family once and was passed down as noted by Powers, the insert is an indication that sometime in the future another murder may occur with the same gun (perhaps by Michael Boyle even if he and his mother receive $500/month) that will be tracked back to that bullet.

For its part, the parade and the preceding Lady MacBeth speech from Annabeth Markum are Shakespearean staples of faulty attempts to restore order and justify the monster's demise. After the violence of Hamlet, King Lear, Othello, Macbeth, and others, there is always someone left behind to rebuild the kingdom. Sometimes there is a coronation, sometimes there is just a speech, but there is always a sad remembrance for the fallen with an eye toward making a better tomorrow. Typically, however, the restoration scenes ring desperately false to provoke the audience to question the validity of the play's new moral compass. Is the world a better place because of the violence that has transpired? Is New York City better for Bickle's rampage? Is the planet better for Dr. Robert Neville's Samsonite martyrdom? While the answer to Mystic River's riddle is much simpler, the cavalier indifference of both Markum and Devine at the film's conclusion to Dave's death is tragically common.