"The Edge," produced in 1997 from an original screenplay by David
Mamet,
dramatizes core Objectivist values more powerfully than any Hollywood
production in years. Dismissed by many critics as, at best, "a
thinking
man's action picture" when it was initially released, the film is
actually a
riveting adventure/drama with a profound and consistent philosophical
message.
This message wasn't readily apparent to most filmgoers on first
viewing,
perhaps understandably so. On the surface, The Edge is a classic
survival-in-the-wilderness tale pitting two men against nature and,
eventually, against each other. The action is thrilling, the location
photography breathtaking, and the acting superb.
Just below the surface, however, lies a passionate argument that man's
rationality is his greatest strength...and that a commitment to
sustaining
human life is his greatest value. "Most people lost in the wilderness
die of
shame," asserts protagonist Charles Morse (brilliantly played by
Anthony
Hopkins). "They keep asking themselves 'what did I do wrong, how did I
get
here,' and so on. They fail to do the one thing that would keep them
alive:
thinking."
Mamet and director Lee Tamahouri don't hit you over the head with this
message, certainly not in typical Mamet dialog (he's famous for
colloquial,
profane, stylized language and lots of it). Instead, the core meaning
is
conveyed more subtly through story/plot structure, images/visual
symbolism,
and other specifically filmic (as opposed to theatrical) devices. The
results elevate what could have been a didactic, "teacher-y" or
heavy-message
film into one that's involving, moving and profound.
Here's a quick plot summary, followed by some notes of things to look
for
when viewing (or reviewing) the film...it certainly rewards subsequent
viewings.
PLOT SUMMARY
Charles Morse is a brilliant but bookish billionaire who accompanies
his
fashion-model wife Mickey (Elle McPherson) and a team of photographers
to
Alaska on a photo shoot. Head photographer Bob Green (wonderful
performance
by Alec Baldwin) flirts with Mickey rather a lot, a fact which doesn't
escape
Charles's notice...
Bob decides impulsively to fly 80 miles beyond the main lodge to a
remote
cabin, in hopes of tracking down an Indian to use in the photo shoot.
Charles accompanies Bob and his assistant on this quest. While their
small
plane is hopping off to a secondary destination in search of the same
Indian,
Charles suddenly asks Bob: "How are you planning to kill me?" This
startling question seemingly comes from nowhere, but it marks a key
change in
Charles: for the first time, he is confronting the possible Bob-Mickey
affair head-on, and also confronting its most extreme possible
implications.
Before Bob can answer, their plane collides in midair with a flock of
geese,
sending the plane into a terrible crash on a lake. The pilot dies and
the
shattered plane sinks, leaving the three passengers -- Charles, Bob,
and his
assistant -- to struggle to the surface, swim to shore and confront the
need
to survive in the wild...and to hike back to a spot where they're more
likely
to be found.
During this long, difficult trek, the three men encounter every
possible
obstacle: cold weather; forbidding terrain; disorientation; injury;
shock;
hunger...and a massive, man-killing Kodiak Bear. Bob had been the
expedition's leader but once the plane goes down, Charles takes charge
of
their survival with calm, step by step logic: build a fire, improvise
a
compass, take a sighting, map a route to safer ground, etc. He's the
one who
improvises the bridge (a fallen tree across a brook) that allows them
to
escape the bear after their first encounter.
But they're not so lucky the next time. In a horrific scene, the bear
kills
Bob's assistant. Later it begins stalking Charles and Bob. They evade
it
for a while, but eventually it becomes clear -- to Charles, at least --
that
they must kill or be killed. They have arrived at "the edge" of life
and
death, and are balacing precariously with only their wits to save them.
Charles decides to kill the bear. Building on Indian lore he's read or
heard
about, he plots how to do it. Most important, though, he has to
convince
Bob that it can be done and get him psychologically prepared to make
the
attempt. The consequences that flow from this are twofold: first,
they kill
the bear (in a tremendously exciting sequence). Second, Bob decides to
use
his newfound knowledge and self-confidence on Charles. It is as if
Charles
has talked Bob into killing him "for my wife...for the money" and then
shown
him how.
The third act deals with Bob and Charles on "the edge" of rivalry and
friendship, mutual alliance and murderous hostility. Bob has learned
some
from Charles, but not enough -- he still has what Ayn Rand would call a
"looter" mentality. And, like such people, he doesn't really do enough
thinking to defend his own interests, even when he has a clear
advantage over
the man who created the wealth he seeks to steal. I won't give away
how
Charles deals with this final challenge, but let's just say he's
logical as
always and that afterwards, he remains steadfast in his values of
commitment
to defend human life no matter what. As the movie ends, Charles has
indeed
been reborn as a self-reliant man who finally knows his own worth and
appreciates what he is capable of doing to defend his life and his
values.
COMMENTS:
It's no coincidence that the tale begins on Charles's birthday, since
he is
psychologically reborn during the course of the story. He presents
himself
as lacking imagination, but that's just part of his self-denigrating
style.
As he himself will discovery, the truth is that Charles is a realist
who is
willing to recognize reality rather than indulge in wishful thinking.
Charles's imagination is shown by the fact that he improvises and
invents
many items thru the course of the story: a compass, a squirrel trap, a
fishing line, a bridge (by knocking the dead tree across the stream),
even
gloves (by cutting thumb-holes in the sleeves of his black shirt and
pulling
the sleeves down over his hands). Obviously Charles got the idea for
the
compass and the bear trap devices from the book his secretary gave him.
But
the point is, he was willing to *use his mind.* Most of his dialog
with Bob
is about Charles's willingness to think vs. Bob's retreat into
infantilism.
("We can't think that they'll come back?" Bob whines after the first
search
copter bypasses them.)
An elaborate symbol scheme provides a marvelously enriched context for
Charles's rebirth. From the film's opening shot of jet tailfins, to
the
final sequence's opening dissolve on a carved eagle atop an Alaskan
totem
pole, there are constant references thruout the film to Charles losing
his
rich man's "mechanical wings" and growing real wings, which I take to
be a
metaphor for self-discovery. "Did I tell you that you're an angel?
Everything but the wings..." his wife says early on. Later, urging him
to
fly in the small plane with Bob and Steve, she urges him: "Why don't
you get
some air under your wings?" Fitting neatly into this symbol scheme is
the
fact that a flock of geese (wings in nature) are the agency of
Charles's
emergency (loss of mechanical wings) when a birdstrike causes his small
plane
to crash.
I counted at least 11 important verbal or visual references to wings in
the
film. Here again is something that went right past most critics on
first
viewing, but watch for it and you can't help but see it. Toward the
end,
there is a very deliberate dissolve from a closeup of Charles to a shot
of
the eagle totem which equates the two, signifying that Charles has
finally
grown his natural wings.
One compelling visual image that does *not* fit into this "wings"
scheme:
after the first escape from the bear, Charles clambers up to a high
peak and
overlooks a distant mountain range. He is seen in silhouette against
the
blue and purple peaks. In colors, composition, Charles's pose, the
relationship of the mass of the mountains to the size of his body,
etc., the
image is a precise visual echo, in reverse-mirror form, of a famous
19th
century romantic German painting called "The Wanderer Above the Mist"
(you
can find it on the cover of Paul Johnson's history book "The Birth of
the
Modern").
This shot is not highlighted with dramatic music nor held onscreen for
a long
time. Again, the film does not beat you over the head with its
message. But
this striking and beautiful image may be the movie's key visual
statement of
its subject. Like the German painting), this shot of Charles provides
an
arresting visual statement of the heroic theme: man conquers nature.
The image of "a man on a mountaintop" as a symbol of the heroic
conquest of
nature is, of course, well known to Rand admirers. The identical motif
both
opens and closes "The Fountainhead," with Roark portrayed as standing
confidently on a natural peak in the book's very first sentence, and
standing
on a man-made promontory in the final sentence.
While the story's metaphorical quest is a search for Charles's wings,
the
explicit quest is a search for an Indian (whose very name, Jack Hawk,
brings
up the wings symbolism yet again). Charles and Bob never do find Jack
Hawk,
but they do find the "Indian" within themselves -- the resourceful man
who is
able to live on the land, who is able to conquer nature...all of
nature, even
the evil that sometimes resides within human nature. The fact that
Charles
has found this within himself is nicely symbolized in Jack's presence
at the
dock when Charles returns to the lodge at the story's end.
Watch for some subtle foreshadowing which is later paid off in the
plot.
First, the birthday party "surprise" early in the film makes it appear
that
Charles is being attacked by a bear...but it turns out to be a bearskin
with
Bob behind it. Later, the plot repeats this very sequence on a much
larger
scale: in the wild, the bear appears to be the main threat but after
it's
gone, it becomes apparent that Bob is the greatest danger. (This is a
logical development: Charles is confronting the dangers of the wild.
As the
two men prove by killing the bear, mankind is the most dangerous thing
out
there!)
Another foreshadowing/payoff has to do with an elaborately carved canoe
paddle. This one actually results in two payoffs toward the end of the
film;
I'll let you discover them for yourself.
Charles's poignant last line, "They (Bob and his assistant) died saving
my
life," may upon first hearing seem flat wrong or a paradox at best.
But it
points the way to the ultimate meaning of the film -- the fact that
Charles
has found himself and learned the value of his own life by affirming
and
acting to defend the value of *all* of life. He is totally
uncompromising on
this point: he fought death in every form he encountered it. In
striving to
save Bob's life despite Bob's murder attempt, Charles won the greatest
possible victory.
By giving Charles an opportunity to try to save their lives, Bob and
his
assistant motivated Charles even more strongly to defend his own life
and, in
the process, gave him a better chance to learn his own life's true
value. In
this sense, they did indeed die in the process of (indirectly) saving
his
life.
(In this, I find an odd echo with Clarence, the would-be angel who
nearly
drowns to save George Bailey's life in "It's A Wonderful Life"? The
motif of
needing to get your own set of wings is common to both stories. It's
too
much of a stretch to suppose this echo is intentional, but it's
interesting
to think about...)
