Art's in an ethical pickle: Film and Morality

The soul is a terrible reality. It can be bought, and sold, and bartered away. It can be poisoned, or made perfect. There is a soul in each one of us. I know it.
- The Picture of Dorian Gray

In Crimes and Misdemeanors (Woody Allen, 1989), a doctor meets a filmmaker at a party and tells him the story of a man who is cheating on his wife. The mistress begins to demand that he leave his wife for her, or she will tell his wife of the affair. He feels he is left with no choice but to have her killed. At first, he is riddled with guilt, suffering terrible nightmares. Convinced his crime will be revealed, he is on the verge of confessing all to the police. Then, one day he wakes up and the guilt is gone. He is never investigated by the police. Rather than being lead to ruin, he suddenly prospers.

In Philosophy Goes to the Movies, Chris Falzon writes that at the core of Allen's film is a question of morality: “why should we be moral in the first place? Why should we do the right thing if we can do the wrong thing and get away with it?” (Falzon, 2002, p83) He continues, noting that:

"We are all familiar with those moments when we find ourselves wanting to do something even though we know we shouldn't, or not wanting to do something even though we feel that we ought. The tension here is sometimes characterised as being one between self-interest and morality, between acting purely to satisfy my own interests regardless of others, and doing the right thing. In such cases it might be thought that the moral considerations are the ones that ought to win out, and that in a morally good person they will (Falzon, 2002, 84)."

This subject, the tension between acting out of self-interest or acting in a moral way, has been central to art for some time now. Falzon makes mention of several films that have been concerned with characters who have a moral transformation, moving from acting out of self-interest to acting morally, films such as Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942), Schindler's List (Steven Spielberg, 1993) and On The Waterfront (Elia Kazan, 1954).

Falzon makes note of films such as Wall Street (Oliver Stone, 1987), which explore the idea of acting out of self-interest. In Wall Street, Gordon Gekko argues that “Greed is Good”, and that greed drives all human activity. Falzon sees the parallel between Gekko and the writings of Plato in his book Republic. In Republic, Plato recounts the tale of the Ring of Gyges. Essentially, it is the story of a man who can do whatever he likes, as he will never be caught. Plato is suggesting that the only reason we act morally is because we fear being caught. If we remove this possibility we have no reason to act morally. Plato is arguing that we all act out of self-interest, there is no 'moral' compass.

Falzon asks, “is it true that the only reason people adhere to ethical standards is because of fear of being caught and punished if they do not? Or can we give a better answer to the question of why we should be moral? One response might be that even if we can avoid external punishment, we will suffer at our own hands for evil deeds, through guilt or remorse (Falzon, 2002, p87).”
Can conscience really point us in the right direction? In Crimes and Misdemeanors, the doctor's conscience isn't as powerful as he thought it would be; when he sees he will go unpunished for his deeds, his conscience reveals to him that he is able to live with his crime. He can become rational in his thinking about the immoral act.

This leads us to thinking about something more powerful than simply our conscience, or our ability to act rationally and to think critically about the ways in which our actions will affect not only our own life, but other people's lives. Theologians will argue that God is the guide that directs us to be moral. This is the idea that there is a higher purpose and that the truth of the world is revealed to a higher being such as God. In having this knowledge God develops rules in which we can live by, and acting morally means living in accordance to these rules and hence the higher purpose. What does this mean? What are the benefits of acting in accordance with these rules? The benefit is that by living with these rules we will one day have revealed to us the truh of the meaning of life. But only when we move on from this world and into the next. There is a part of us that will live on in the next life, and this is what we need to take care of by living in accordance with the commands of God.

This is the soul. This is the thing dear to us, that moves on from this world to the next. But how can we be sure of the soul's existence? Surely if some people can act immorally without consequence, this is proof that there is no soul or even a God. The filmmaker in Crimes and Misdemeanors finds the doctor's story terrifying, because it is proof that God doesn't exist. There is no moral guide, no afterlife, no soul to nourish in preparation for the next life.
But what happens if the soul is real? What if it is not only real, but you can see the affects your actions have on the soul? If you could separate your soul from your self, would you take care to ensure the soul remained pure? Or would you let it deteriorate, knowing that it bear the burden of your immoral acts?

This is the question posed by Oscar Wilde in The Picture of Dorian Gray. If you could remain unaffected by your actions, letting the physical (and in this case visible) manifestation of your soul carry the weight instead, would you do whatever you liked?

In The Picture of Dorian Gray, a young man makes a wish that the portrait of himself would age and bear the burden of his actions while he remains as young and beautiful as he is in the portrait. For that, he claims that he would give his soul. His wish is granted and the portrait essentially becomes his soul.

What Dorian initially sees as being his ticket to freedom, this separation of his soul from his self, becomes his prison. He becomes terrified that someone should see it, and in effect see his soul. And while some refuse to believe the stories whispered about him because he looks so young and innocent, he can never really hide from them. There are some who shun him, and he loses friends and potential lovers along the way. He eventually commits murder to conceal the true nature of his soul. And yet the worst of this is seemingly the idea that not only does he really feel any remorse for his actions, but that his closest friends agree with his actions and share a similar disdain for acting morally. It is the words of the man who will become his closest companion that provoke him to making the wish that he comes to regret.

We should pay for our crimes, shouldn't we?
Oh, I don't know. I think knowing that you've committed a crime is suffering enough. And if you don't suffer, maybe it wasn't a crime after all.
- The Player

Falzon writes that when the idea of morality is explored in art, particularly in Hollywood films, those who act immorally are either punished, or the film suggests that the idea that there are no consequences for such actions is abhorrent. Perhaps one film that provides no comment on the morality versus self-interest is The Player (Robert Altman, 1992), in which a man who commits murder still gets his happy ending. This ending is performing not only this function, that of providing a critique of morality, but also subverting the moral judgments inherent in the conflict and resolution in the Hollywood narrative.

For what The Player really questions are the myths, platitudes and ideas that Hollywood expounds to the people through its writers. Writers provide the foundation for the film's structure. Griffin Mill, the writers' executive, finds the question of eliminating the writer from the creative process an interesting one, especially as he does this literally in the murder of David Kahane. He finds that he can continue to write the Hollywood story as a business product while espousing the importance of film as art. He identifies the “certain elements that we need to market a film successfully: suspense, laughter, violence, hope, heart, nudity, sex, happy endings. Mainly happy endings.”

The strength of Altman's film is that it questions the moral codes embedded in the Hollywood narrative and subverts them completely whilst operating entirely within the narrative structure being critiqued. But what lies at the heart of this film, for me personally, is the way in which film writes our moral code for us (literally in the days of The Hays Code). Hollywood has long been the place for questions of not only what it means to act morally, but how to live a moral life, or the good life. The ways in which we punish greed, crime, adultery, have always played a central role in Hollywood narratives, but not only that; film constantly provides myths that allow us to remain happy with our position in our life.

For some, this is an extremely depressing idea. For example, in "The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception", Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno argue that film blinds society to this idea through the entertainment industry, in effect forcing individuals to accept society as they present it, through the standardisation of form and content:

"The entertainment manufacturers know that their products will be consumed with alertness even when the customer is distraught, for each of them is a model of the huge economic machinery which has always sustained the masses, whether at work or at leisure—which is akin to work. From every sound film and every broadcast program the social effect can be inferred which is exclusive to none but is shared by all alike. The culture industry as a whole has molded men as a type unfailingly reproduced in every product. All the agents of this process, from the producer to the women’s clubs, take good care that the simple reproduction of this mental state is not nuanced or extended in any way (Horkheimer and Adorno, year, p4)."

If the standardisation of Hollywood film can lay claim to this power of exerting control over individuals not by force but through the reinforcement of certain ideas prevalent within culture, otherwise known as hegemony (well, if I've defined it well enough, that is), then certainly it has the power to reinforce moral judgements or ideas that allow individuals to be satisfied with their place in society.

How many times have you heard someone say, if I had his money, I could do things my way? But little they know, that it's so hard to find one rich man in ten with a satisfied mind
- Satisfied Mind

It's not only Hollywood film that reinforces these myths and ideas. All art seems to reflect certain ideas we come to hold that seem to allow us to become accustomed to our situation. As Johnny Cash suggests, money brings unhappiness. Crimes and Misdemeanors suggests that if we accept the idea that people only act morally out of a fear of getting caught, then we accept that there is no God. Are we willing to pay such a price for our moral freedom? The Picture of Dorian Gray asks us to realise that we all have a soul, and to see our soul as something tangible, and then to question how we would behave if we could see what effect our actions have on our soul.

More than that, they ask us to accept certain platitudes or 'home truths' – the reason we are horrified at the behaviour of these characters is because we have received messages from art and society; the man who pursues wealth will be ultimately unhappy. Beauty is fading, and those who privilege it above intellect and compassion are doomed. Criminals should be punished for their crime, and if they aren't punished by the law they should be punished by their own conscience.

But what happens when art shows us that this may not be the case? What if a man pursues wealth at all costs, only to find that he's pretty happy. What if he commits terrible acts in order to gain everything he desires and founds that it was worth it?

That's the idea I'm currently working on. I guess it's a little derivative in that these moral questions are a big part of the idea, but I want to really examine these concepts that we invent in order to reconcile ourselves to our situation and ask what it means if we can see that they are merely fabricated? A lot of people in the 'real world' know that they're not. Well, we suspect. But is this a case of art catching up to the spectator? For after all, Oscar Wilde tells us that “it is the spectator, and not life, that art truly mirrors.” Interesting, innit?

What are your thoughts? Are there films you feel perfectly articulate these ideas? Any I've missed out (and before you start, I know I've forgotten No Country For Old Men)? Do you think sometimes that art moves slower than society in the use and discarding of ideas?
Better yet, how about films in which characters who act morally are portrayed as dangerous? I'm thinking Travis Bickle, but please tell me more!

References
Books
Adorno, T and Horkheimer, M 1973, The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception, Dialectic of Enlightenment, pp120-167.
Falzon, C 2002, Philosophy Goes To The Movies, USA and Canada, Routledge.

Plato, Republic.
Wilde, O 1890, The Picture of Dorian Gray.

Films
Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942)
Crimes and Misdemeanors (Woody Allen, 1989)
On The Waterfront (Elia Kazan, 1954)
The Player (Robert Altman, 1992)
Schindler's List (Steven Spielberg, 1993)
Wall Street (Oliver Stone, 1987)

Apologies for the incredibly inconsistent referencing.