[Marxism] The Method

["Gary MacLennan" <gary.maclennan1@xxxxxxxxx>]

The other day I took time off to watch Marcello Pinyero's *The Method*(2005).
The film's plot dealt with six applicants for a CEO position.  They were
herded into a room along with a mole and then subjected to a range of tests
designed to eliminate them one by one. These tests are supposed to make up
the Gronhold Method – hence the film's title.

This was the world of dog eat dog a kind of *Survivor* for CEOs without any
pretense about tribes or camaraderie.  Here from the very beginning it was
very clear that there could be only One. The film was brilliantly acted,
directed and edited to offset the fact that it was confined to a room and
some restrooms.

At one stage there was noise off stage of a demonstration chant "The people
United will never be defeated". But there was no shot of the demonstration,
because "the street could not be seen from the executive suite".  Obviously
this was a symbolically significant restraint.  So this was a tale of petty
intrigues, jealousies and mean betrayals.  Predictably the winner proved to
be the biggest ass-hole.

But there was also a clear sense that he has lost something like his
immortal soul by serving Mammon, though admittedly there were no overt
religious references that I could detect. Still it is made clear that he has
won because he was prepared to do whatever it takes.   It is only when the
penultimate candidate walks out onto the street that we see the apocalyptic
post-demo landscape of trashed streets and burning cars. So the film seems
to say there is no hope in the boardroom.  I buy that.  But it also says
there is no hope in the street and that I refuse.

In formal terms I think the film invites comparison with Sydney Lumet's
classic *Twelve Angry Men* (1957).  There is the similar confinement to a
single room and a reliance on a kaleidoscope of intense emotional shifts and
personality clashes.  But there the similarities end.  Lumet's film is a
deeply optimistic piece about how reason and good will can triumph over
irrational hatred, cynicism and prejudice.  At the end all twelve leave the
room having stood up for decency and justice. But such a message is not
possible in 2005.  So we have a much darker film in The Method.

However I would like to register another comparison and again I think
another telling one.  The world of Pinyero's film is the world of
Orwell's *Nineteen
Eighty Four*.  There Orwell's preaches the message that betrayal  is
universal In an interview about his book on Orwell, Raymond Williams pointed
out just how offensive it is to say that everyone is a betrayer  and by
implication that solidarity is impossible.

 That then is the message I took away from *The Method*. It displayed  a
brilliant snap sohot of the vulgar brutality of corporate life. But it also
had no faith in the redemptive power of the solidarity of ordinary people.
Indeed in its portrayal of the scarred empty streets after the demo, it
seemed to display fear of and revulsion against the anger of the working
class.

An historic parallel here is the poet and intellectual  Mathew Arnold's
fearful response to the aftermath of the Hyde Park riots of 1866 or even
Cardinal Ratzinger's timid response to the radicalism of the university
students at Tubingen in 1968.  The future pope was horrified by the constant
invasions of his classes and he fled the university.

So then I detect a fear of the masses in *The Method*, and I have suggested
that this is the fear of the middle class intellectual who is increasingly
horrified by the realities of capitalism, but at the same time cannot see in
the working class an opening to an alternative and better world.
 regards

Gary
________________________________________________
YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
Send list submissions to: Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Set your options at: 
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40archives.econ.utah.edu