Saturday, January 25, 2014

Did the movie address the issue of trauma as effectively as the book?

I think that the movie did a good job of addressing the
issue of Dave's trauma throughout his life.  Eastwood's use of flashback, shadows, as
well as different lighting techniques brought out the struggle that Dave endures with
his past.  In the end, Dave's inability to fully confront his past and find a way to
make peace with it is what causes him to kill that night.  While he did not kill
Celeste, the fact that he was shut off from so many others and could not relate to
anyone else because of what happened to him is what causes him to be seen as
suspicious.  This misunderstanding might have been inevitable, but the fact that Dave
cannot articulate it to others fully or even to himself is something that was brought
out in the film.  At the same time, I think that the film did a wonderful job of
bringing out Jimmy's trauma at dealing with the loss of his daughter.  In the end, both
Jimmy and Dave demonstrate an inability to fully address their own pain and suffering in
psychologically productive manners.  They both succumb to violence as a way of dealing
with their own pain.  The film brings this out nicely and offers a further note of
disquietude.  In the book, Celeste approaches Sean about the murder of Dave at Jimmy's
hands.  Sean promises to bring Jimmy to justice.  Yet, in the film, the pain of trauma
is evident as Celeste wanders in the crowd aimlessly.  Whereas some level of moral order
might be evident in the book's ending, the true nature of trauma as difficult to define,
yet whose presence is everywhere is brought out in the ending of the film, where Jimmy
and Sean's eyes meet with a smile across Jimmy's face, pointing at Sean.  While there
might be structure and order in their worlds, Celeste's is fragmented and without
recourse.  The film's ending seems to suggest that trauma never ends to a great extent. 
What plagued Dave now hovers over Celeste.  This might be one of the points of
divergence between book and film.

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