Steinbeck in Dogville


Steinbeck and Dogville are two streams of energy intersecting this week.

My favorite of Steinbeck's writing is "The Pastures of Heaven." It was his first serious work, and in it he displayed his genius for seeing the larger pattern in the everyday example. What makes a great writer is that what happens to his characters is totally consistent. The surprise comes only from being somewhat identified with a point of view which hides the larger picture from itself. When the larger picture breaks through the resistance to objectivity , there is a reorientation of the viewpoint character to the reality of the society.

What makes Steinbeck so special is that he knows that partial point of view, but he sees down past it, into forces gaining enough probability of occurrence to make it to the event horizon.

I picked his book out of Linda's shelf to read on the airplane. I was flying back to San Francisco after a weekend in Palm Springs. We went to the Cochella Festival on Saturday, with Jasmine and her friend, Maddie. I was driving until seven a.m. to get home on Monday, then flying to the city Monday night.

There was something silently on my mind, and it was the best movie I've seen in a very long time, Dogville. Linda is often silent. She has a special skill of seeing the larger pattern in fractal relationship to it's smaller manifestation, which makes her good at putting together all the smaller tasks that culminate in the completion of a large and complex project.

So when we see a movie together, we tend to like things other people might not be so crazy about, such as Pi (the symbol). I remember standing outside afterward, and we were buzzed from the creativity of the project. Two girls approached a black man standing beside us. He was in his thirties, and had objective eyes and a sad mouth. They began asking him about the movie. He studied them briefly and said, "You wouldn't like it."

We liked Solaris, but were warned on the way in that it was terrible, and sat in a nearly empty theater.

I didn't think I was going to like Dogville, at first. Linda knew something about it. She said it is a style of filmmaking called (look at the manifesto and vow of chastity) "Dogme," and that it has strict rules, such as no edits, and one handheld camera. There is something in the style that is unexplainable. It gives glimpses through our habituation to film, and the ever more complex editing process, back to the simplicity of the stage, and the human expression of emotion.

It is our participation in the ritual of the stage that brings us back into focus, back to the submission of our imaginary and inflated importance to something which underlies it, and which is characterized by an unending stream of connected events. This is the same rule set for Dogma filmmaking. By fully participating in the playing out of one of the eternal patterns, we bring that one back to balance. It is the genius of evolution that we have discovered that the psyche will accept a conscious ritual portrayal of an event in place of the unconscious event itself.

The quality of the theater reflects the quality of the society, and its understanding that what it participates in, ritually, is important. It isn't morality, but rather the objectivity of the underlying patterns which heal people by bringing them back to balance. Morality seeks to impose laws on other people.

Understanding, on the other hand, is the recognition that there are eternal patterns which play out in human relationships, and being conscious of them in order to keep the population conscious of them. If they go unconscious the ritual connections break down, and events which could have been prevented in their unconscious manifestation begin to spread. It is a loss of civilization.

Good theater points this out, and it points out the consequences of the imposition of morality on a situation, which in its objective manifestation has no validity. The main character, Grace, has been in Dogville for two weeks when they learn she is wanted in connection with crimes committed during that time. She cannot possibly be guilty by any objective standard, and thus the wanted poster is meaningless.

Yet her status has changed. She has become vulnerable. There is the temptation to exercise power over another person because they are vulnerable, have lost status.

The play demonstrates how this justification process moves all the way around in a circle, just like the Bardo in the Tibetan Book of the Dead. First you go to heaven, then you go to hell, and if you don't see that it's all just the projections of your own intellect, you go around again.

I was thinking about this process, and specifically how Grace (the goddess) is treated. She is treated as if she doesn't really matter. But mostly, I was thinking that when Linda and I left the theater, we didn't have anything to say. It left us silent and reflective. She mentioned that arrogance was a key element in it, and it was. The arrogance was skillfully exposed in each person, hiding behind its counterpart.

But in some way the play could not be boiled down to something else. There was just one hand held camera and no edits. There was nothing to put back together from the splices. And that made me think about the recent news that television is causing Attention Deficit Disorder. I wondered if Mr. Rogers causes it, and I don't think so. Linda pointed out that it's all the edits and jumping from one thing to the next. It is deliberate confusion, and confusion is one of the most effective of hypnotic inductions. It breaks down the attention and allows the insertion of suggestion, such as buy this or buy that.

So rather than explain it, I turned to Steinbeck, and read again the story of the man whose fortune was all in his imagination. His neighbors thought he was rich because he talked about his investments all the time. But it was just on paper. He was imagining himself worth something. Meanwhile he had a beautiful child who grew into a beautiful, but stupid, girl. He worried about her constantly, checking with his wife every month to make sure her period had come. He was especially worried about one boy, and warned her about him, which aroused a sleepy interest. Through the events which transpired he was put in jail for threatening the boy, and a high bond was set because he was supposed to be rich. He had to admit he had no money.

Here is the aftermath, as his wife, Katherine, experiences it. She has been treated like a possession, the same as her daughter, the livestock, and everything else.

"As Katherine stood in the doorway, a feeling she had never experienced crept into her. She did a thing she had never contemplated in her life. A warm genius moved in her. Katherine sat down on the edge of the bed and with a sure hand, took Shark's head on on her lap. This was instinct, and the same sure, strong instinct set her hand to stroking Shark's forehead. His body seemed boneless with defeat.

"Shark's eyes did not move from the ceiling, but under the stroking, be began to talk brokenly. "I haven't any money," his monotonous voice said. "They took me in and asked for ten thousand dollar's bond. I had to tell the judge. They all heard. They all know -- I haven't any money. I never had any. Do you understand? That ledger was nothing but a lie. Every bit of it was lies. I made it all up ... Katherine stroked his head gently and the great genius continued to grow in her. She felt larger than the world. The whole world lay in her lap and she comforted it. Pity seem to make her huge in stature. Her soothing breasts yearned toward the woe of the world.

"I didn't mean to hurt anyone," Shark went on. "I wouldn't have shot Jimmie. They caught me before I could turn back. They thought I meant to kill him. And now everybody knows I haven't any money." He lay limply and stared upward.

"Suddenly the genius in Katherine became power and the power gushed in her body and flooded her. In a moment she knew what she was and what she could do. She was exultantly happy and very beautiful. "You've had no chance," she said softly. "All your life you've been out on this old farm and there's been no chance for you. How do you know you can't make money? I think you can. I know you can.

"She had known she could do this. As she sat there the knowledge of her power had been born into her, and she knew that all of her life was directed at this one moment. In this moment she was a goddess, a singer of destiny. It did not surprise her when his body gradually stiffened. She continued to stroke his forehead.

"We'll go out of here," she chanted. "We'll sell this ranch and go away from here. Then you'll get the chance you never had. You'll see. I know what you are. I believe in you.

"Shark's eyes lost their awful lifelessness. His body found strength to turn itself. He looked at Katherine and saw how beautiful she was in this moment, and, as he looked, her genius passed into him. Shark pressed his head tightly against her knees.

"She lowered her head and looked at him. She was frightened now that the power was leaving her. Suddenly Shark sat up on the bed. He had forgotten Katherine, but his eyes shone with the energy she had given him.

"I'll go soon," he cried. "I'll go just as soon as I can sell the ranch. Then I'll get in a few licks. I'll get my chance then.

"I'l show people what I am."


Posted: Tue - May 4, 2004 at 12:50 PM