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Reviews
Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989)
Ethics in Crimes and Misdemeanors
Crimes and Misdemeanors is a perfect caricature of different types of moral questions and situations that ordinary people could be faced with. With the plot allowing the audience to choose for themselves the morality of certain decisions, Woody Allen's script attempts to muddle the dichotomy of right and wrong. Arguably the most polarizing dilemma faced in the movie comes with Dr. Judah Rosenthal, who is forced to decide how he should handle an extra-marital affair gone wrong.
Before the movie takes place, Dr. Rosenthal had been having an affair with a mistress named Dolores, and after she threatened to expose his betrayal to his wife and family, Dr. Rosenthal decides to kill her. To justify his decision to kill Dolores, Dr. Rosenthal takes a very utilitarian stance on morality; he decided that the happiness of his family would be more important than the life of his mistress and therefore it would be justifiable to kill her. While many people would believe that this utilitarian stance would not justify true morality, the landscape of the movie is set for the audience to see the direct juxtaposition of utilitarian ethics and duty ethics.
This juxtaposition is shown through the adventures of Dr. Rosenthal as he tries to decide what course of action he should take while handling Dolores. The benefits of utilitarian beliefs are shown through Dr. Rosenthal's brother Jack, who is portrayed to be a the epitome of the harsh realities of real world; while in contrast, Dr. Rosenthals other brother, who is a rabbi, represent duty ethics and tries to direct Dr. Rosenthal to admit his affair. This sharp contrast is also shown through sub plots in the movie where various characters are forced to decide between the practicality of their decisions or whether their morality would lead them to the correct decision. Crimes and misdemeanors provides a great storyline that blurs the conceptions of morality while showing the ups and downs of the human experiences.
L'enfant sauvage (1970)
Victor and the state of nature
The Wild Child depicts a true story in which a young boy, who lived a significant portion of his life in the wilderness on the outskirts of French society, is brought from isolation into civilization. The importance of the Wild Child, as shown through Francois Truffant's movie, is in the anthropological implications of being able to study the nature of humans when they have no external forces to shape their behavior. This importance is accentuated through the works of philosophers Hobbes and Rousseau as the Wild Child could provide empirical evidence to support their theories on the state of nature.
The movie begins with the young wild child, eventually to be known as Victor, living independently in the woods where it was believed that he remained alone, void of any human interaction or upbringing. Eventually, after being found, Victor is brought into the hands of Dr. Itard, who being aware of the scientific importance of Victor, attempts to prove that he could teach Victor how to interact within society. Dr. Itard believed that if he was successful it would provide empirical evidence to support claims that social norms are favorable to all, and that customs are not innately born.
While to movie shows Dr. Itard using techniques that would seem immoral in contemporary times, Victor's ability to learn shows that there is some potential for growth, but his inability to grasp all of Dr. Itard's teachings leaves the Dr. with disappointment and inability to reach a conclusive hypothesis on the growth of human nature. As the movie reflects to Hobbes' and Rousseaus' claims on the state of nature, at the very end of the Wild Child, Victor is seen to run away from the doctor's care only to eventually return. This act of returning advances both theories of the state of nature since both philosophers believe that once you enter into an era of society that there is no return. However, just like the doctor's theories were inconclusive, the underlying principle for Victor's return does not prove either theory to be correct. Victor could have returned to the doctor's care either because he was hungry (Hobbesian proof) or because he desired care and cooperation (Rousseau proof).
Antigoni (1961)
Socratic argument through Antigone
Antigone, written by Sophocles, is a characteristic Greek tragedy where the city's king, Creon, is faced with a moral dilemma that eventually hastens his fall from grace. Set in antiquity, the movie's plot is designed to question presupposed ideas of justice and wisdom as they were seen through the ancient Greek perspective.
In the movie, the protagonist, Antigone, is faced with a moral dilemma after her king, Creon, orders that her brother should be left unburied (a terrible punishment in ancient Greek culture since it would prevent his passage through the river Styx). Eventually, Despite the king's decree, Antigone decided that her brother's death with-out burial was unjust and challenged Creon's authority to prevent his burial by performing the ritual herself. After the discovery of her crime, Creon sentences Antigone to death – an act that created a great deal of unpopularity in the kingdom and incited lines of questioning very similar to contemporary Socratic arguments.
Creon's decision to sentence Antigone to death and her brother to a hellish afterlife were seen as unjust and despotic by the people of Thebes and caused his wisdom/authority to be questioned. Since ancient Greeks believed that the Sovereign set the morality of their city state, the act of questioning alone represents Socratic argument. Sophocles sets up questioning, in a manner very similar to Socratic arguments made through Euthyphro and Apology, by using Creon's own son and oracle to test Creon's judgment in an attempt to show that just being a king does not make someone wise or knowledgeable of justice.
The morality of Antigone eventually surfaces after Creon's fall from grace. At the end of the movie, Creon finally sees the error of his ways but Sophocles uses his downfall to express how even king's judgment can be governed through hubris instead of actual wisdom.