The Sunset Limited

Last night I watched a mesmerizing movie. Well, "movie" in quotation marks. It was originally written as a play by Cormac McCarthy. HBO presents it as a film starring Tommy Lee Jones and Samuel Jackson. They are the only two characters. The whole 90 minute film takes place in one room. It's titled The Sunset Limited.

The black guy (Jackson) has just saved the white guy (Jones) from committing suicide by jumping in front of a subway train. They are back at the black guy's apartment in a New York ghetto discussing why this attempted suicide took place. The whole film is a discussion/debate about the meaning of life, or lack thereof.

As you would expect from McCarthy, there is a foreboding, dark underlying theme. The black guy argues for the existence of God and happiness that comes from serving him. The white guy takes the other point of view, saying, "The shadow of the axe hangs over every joy."

I found it hard to accept Tommy Lee Jones in his part. Too much film history behind him for him to come off as a quiet, despairing person. His voice brings up too many other characters that seem out of place. There were some flashes of authenticity by his character in the later parts of the film. But I would gone with someone else in that part.

It's difficult for any two actors to pull off an hour and a half of straight dialogue and not become boring. I felt at points that it was too much. The moving around in the one room for dramatic effect seemed a little artificial to me at points. But the heart of the film is the dialogue around existential themes.

No doubt it's a good 'discussion movie.' Watch it with someone else, and you will be talking about it for awhile. Each side gets in some good punches. The conversation is honest and challenges the black-and-white view of life (by two characters who have no names and are just scripted as Black and White). As usual, McCarthy weighs in on the side of nihilism, but leaves an opening for the possibility of hope. The later part of the argument gives us White making a bold case for darkness. "There's only the hope of nothingness," he says. His starkly realistic pronouncements about history and every day emptiness seem to win the day. Black (the hopeful guy) even begins to doubt.

Black's big theme throughout the debate is that we are our brother's keeper. In other words, there is some categorical imperative in life that is instinctual and finds its roots in a divine reality. White doesn't understand Black's compassion for him and tries to find ulterior motives. (When you're cynical you can't believe in good motives.)
For some strange reason I 'enjoyed' The Road and No Country for Old Men. For me they were bracing looks at life from a non-sentimental point of view. Maybe some kinship with the parables of Jesus that pull the rug out from underneath you. But The Sunset Limited left me a little sad. Maybe it's because I've been having this same conversation with myself lately and I wanted a better argument for life.

But my provisional conclusion is this: The Black character counters the hopelessness of White with these words: "The light is all around you, but you don't see nothing but shadow. And you're causing it. It's you. You're the shadow." The White character has turned the gospel on its head. The prologue of John's gospel says that "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it." The White character's message is, "The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has overcome it."

This film sets up the choice that each of us has to make. Do we believe that the light overcomes the darkness, or vice versa? Is life being lived in the twilight or the pre-dawn? Whatever we believe about that question will color everything else. Some choose light; some choose darkness. Why one choice is made over the other is a mystery. Ultimately life is a gamble. We have to place our bets. Neither White nor Black can prove their side of the argument. They can bring forth evidence and use logic, but in the end there is no proof. Only a choice.

The movie's title, The Sunset Limited, cannot be an accident. Is it sunrise or sunset? Is the sunset limited? Or is it absolute? I write this blog on the day before Easter--the day the Church affirms that the sunset is limited. The Church celebrates the sunrise--the dawning of hope. The Church walks in the light, and denies that the darkness can ever overcome it. I guess that's why I'm still part of the Church despite all its blemishes and wrong turns. Indeed, part of the Church still walks in the shadows of racism and sexism and homophobia. But the part of  the Church that come out of the shadows is being true to its source.

The Sunset Limited was difficult to watch in one sitting. I felt drug down by its pessimism. But McCarthy makes you assert your faith if you have any. I'm glad I was challenged to discover once again my roots in a tradition of light and hope.

birdsong

i've been wondering...

do birds compose their music,

or is it all rote?

do they sing to one another,

or just for joy of it?

do they have a language of their own

with bird words?

and why do poets so often

write about birdsong,

especially the lark?

maybe its the way  their melodies

illuminate the dark.

The Woman in Black

The church service had already begun.

An attractive woman dressed in black

seated herself in the back pew.

As we walked out of church

someone said, Who was that woman?

No one knew.

She was gone.

So many people come and go

      in our lives.

So much blackness

     appears and disappears.

So much beauty sits in our midst,

    and we are unacquainted.