Crazy is Just Crazy.
My favourite film professor, Peter Bauland, used to say that "sometimes crazy is just crazy" - don't try to look for the why, just accept it as it is.
When he was first explaining this, it was during a discussion on Polanski's Repulsion. A wonderfully twisted film about a sexually repressed young woman who loses her mind alone in her apartment. As film students, each of us was looking for clues that would explain why Carol had behaved the way she did. Each time we would find something we thought might be it, Professor Bauland would say we were forcing things to fit what we wanted to see. That there was no explanation. Sometimes crazy is just crazy.
For years I've repeated this phrase, and on some level I think I believe it. I've recently been thinking about it a lot. Polanski was a tortured artist. I respect those who believe that the art is not the man, and that you must separate one from the other. But really, is this ever possible? Where does art come from? Where do our ideas come from? We can not deny that what we think, what we create, has in some way been affected by our past experiences. So maybe in theory, Carol was just crazy, but in reality her craziness comes back to Polanski. There's a reason he made that film. We may not know Carol's background, but we do know Polanski's.
In The World According to Garp by John Irving the main character, Garp, is a writer. Garp has led, for lack of a better term, and unconventional life, and the characters he creates are unconventional characters. Garp repeats over and over again in the book that it is not important to know about an author to appreciate a story. He believes in separating art from the artist - that there is nothing to gain by knowing about a creator's personal history. Yet, his own stories are obvious reflections on his personal life. An author "writes what they know," right?
I thought about all of this while watching the show Dexter. Dexter has an urge to kill because of a horrible tragedy that happened in his young life. It is emphasised again and again that this specific event is what created the "monster" that is Dexter Morgan. I get that. I get that need to explain why. Because if Dexter is just crazy, if Dexter is emotionally vacant just because that's how he had always been, it would be harder to emphasise with him. We as an audience want to know that it's ok to feel for this murderer because, actually, he's a victim. In this case I think the show might be a lot more interesting, and would challenge it's audience a lot more if Dexter really was "just crazy," but then, maybe there's a reason I feel that way...
When he was first explaining this, it was during a discussion on Polanski's Repulsion. A wonderfully twisted film about a sexually repressed young woman who loses her mind alone in her apartment. As film students, each of us was looking for clues that would explain why Carol had behaved the way she did. Each time we would find something we thought might be it, Professor Bauland would say we were forcing things to fit what we wanted to see. That there was no explanation. Sometimes crazy is just crazy.
For years I've repeated this phrase, and on some level I think I believe it. I've recently been thinking about it a lot. Polanski was a tortured artist. I respect those who believe that the art is not the man, and that you must separate one from the other. But really, is this ever possible? Where does art come from? Where do our ideas come from? We can not deny that what we think, what we create, has in some way been affected by our past experiences. So maybe in theory, Carol was just crazy, but in reality her craziness comes back to Polanski. There's a reason he made that film. We may not know Carol's background, but we do know Polanski's.
In The World According to Garp by John Irving the main character, Garp, is a writer. Garp has led, for lack of a better term, and unconventional life, and the characters he creates are unconventional characters. Garp repeats over and over again in the book that it is not important to know about an author to appreciate a story. He believes in separating art from the artist - that there is nothing to gain by knowing about a creator's personal history. Yet, his own stories are obvious reflections on his personal life. An author "writes what they know," right?
I thought about all of this while watching the show Dexter. Dexter has an urge to kill because of a horrible tragedy that happened in his young life. It is emphasised again and again that this specific event is what created the "monster" that is Dexter Morgan. I get that. I get that need to explain why. Because if Dexter is just crazy, if Dexter is emotionally vacant just because that's how he had always been, it would be harder to emphasise with him. We as an audience want to know that it's ok to feel for this murderer because, actually, he's a victim. In this case I think the show might be a lot more interesting, and would challenge it's audience a lot more if Dexter really was "just crazy," but then, maybe there's a reason I feel that way...
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