A TOUCH OF EVIL: CINEMATIC PERSPECTIVES

Shai Biderman

In a memorable scene from the TV sitcom Seinfeld, Jerry and his ex-girlfriend Elaine (Julia
Louis-Dreyfus) are sitting in their favorite booth in the neighborhood coffee shop,
discussing the moral stature of Jerry’s neighbor and nemesis, the bulky postman who
answers to the name “Newman”. Jerry expresses an emphatic distaste and comic hatred
of Newman’s actions – and very existence. Elaine, on the other hand, tries to give
Newman the benefit of the doubt. Is it possible that Newman is not as demonic as Jerry
believes him to be? She asks. “Perhaps there’s more to Newman than meets the eye” she
wonders. Jerry’s response, however, leaves no room for ambivalence: “No, there’s less”,
he confidently retorts, “I’ve looked into his eyes. He’s pure evil.”1

Another figure awarded this dubious honor of being evil incarnate is that of Mr.
Burns from the animated series The Simpsons – the sinister mogul and owner of the
nuclear plant where Homer is employed. Harry Shearer, who has been modeling Mr.
Burns’ voice for nearly three decades, has recently confessed that it is one of his favorite
characters. This is not because of the character’s dramatic quality or Shearer’s own
(im)moral tendencies. This liking – which is expressed, among other things, in the quality
of vocal acting Shearer is required to invest in lending his voice to animate Homer’s boss
– is simply because Mr. Burns is a quintessential and rare embodiment of pure evil. “A
lot of evil people make the mistake of diluting it”, added Shearer, and ended with a
heartfelt plea the likes of his favorite character: “Never adulterate your evil”.2

I couldn’t disagree more. I believe that cinema’s unique strength and aptitude lie
precisely in its ability to “adulterate” evil. Pure evil, as personified by Newman and Mr.
Burns is nothing but a cliché, a comic caricature, one which as such, clearly marks these
characters as the exception that proves the rule, to use another cliché. As a rule, both the
large and small screen prove their mettle precisely when they represent evil that is far
from immaculate. On the contrary, theirs is a complex evil, at times disorienting,
multidimensional, equivocal and ambiguous. Once it becomes “cinematic”, the nefarious
becomes more multifarious and loses some of its cutting edge. It challenges the ethical
infrastructure whose outgrowth it is, instead of representing and explaining it.

The reason for that is inherent to the medium’s essential aesthetic quality. While
the discussion of evil is mainly an ethical one, once it is projected onto the screen, its
ethical sphere becomes intertwined with in another philosophical sphere, the aesthetic.
In other words, the moral aspect of evil, our ability to justify or not justify it, identify and
judge it – its entire ethical implications – are fundamentally enmeshed in an aesthetical
challenge posed to the moviegoers, requiring their attention and response. Cinema’s
nature as a medium defined by the dynamic relations between the viewer and the moving
image’s visual space enables – or perhaps even requires – this convoluted combination of
ethical judgment and aesthetical strategies in a way that sheds new light on the concept
of evil.

In this chapter, I trace the ways cinema approaches evil. I will marshal support for
the claim that by virtue of its unique mechanisms and subject to its range of aesthetic
potentials, cinema offers a new reading of the concept by binding together its ethical
contexts with the viewer’s aesthetical experience. As argued below, what this necessarily
produces is a concept of evil that is utterly adulterated. The cinematic experience will
invoke evil at its most complex manifestation and thereby demand a uniquely intense
attention by the viewer, a critical reflection on the position of the concept, the experience
and the appraisal of evil in the viewer’s ethical space. To support this claim, I will start
with a fundamental presentation of the concept of evil as a non- or pre-filmic ethical
question. I will then present the range of cinematic capabilities in the spirit of the current
approach to cinema as a platform of philosophical ideation, rather than merely a tool for
reconstructing and illustrated readymade philosophical arguments. A preliminary
formulation of the concept of evil, and its juxtaposition with this productive platform will
then enable me to examine several cinematic images of evil, to offer a brief analysis of the
devices and techniques used to constitute them, and finally, offer a tentative typology of
the cinematic statements made possible thereby.

EVIL, CINEMA AND PHILOSOPHY

Every discussion of the relation between cinema and philosophical consideration of the
concept of evil must begin with a clarification of the term. In the conventionally textual
world of philosophy, evil has two complementary common senses, identifiable as natural
evil and moral evil. The former refers to sheer violation of the perception of nature as
balanced and harmonic. Mythical and historical natural disasters such as the Biblical
Flood, the volcanic eruption in Pompeii and hurricane Catrina serve as perfect examples
of natural evil as they (1) completely disrupt the accepted order of things, causing
massive damage and human suffering; and (2) are natural in the sense that they are not
the result of deliberate, agentic acts by rational human beings. Moral evil, on the other
hand, is directly related to human thoughts and most importantly actions. In this type of
evil, what is violated is the space of ethical judgement defined around the conceptual axis
of the idea of goodness, of human beings as moral agents who are proactive in
maintaining a normative order.

The core of the philosophical discussion of the concept of evil lies in-between those
two seemingly disparate definitions. The most interesting test cases occur in the possible
no-man’s land that lies in-between. For example, when discussing the catastrophic
damages of global warming, the manifestation of evil would be naturalized if the disaster
in question is couched in exclusively a-moral, factual terms – ecological, biological, or
climatic. In such a discussion, human agency is completely taken out of the equation, at
least in the sense that humans are not counted among the factors responsible for the
catastrophe, whether by commission or by omission. Any such causal or contextual
analysis of the event will identify human beings strictly as victims, never as perpetrators.
Once the discussion takes a turn and becomes meta-ethical, theological or theodicean, it
enters into the definition of evil as moral violation. In other words, once the discussion
no longer focuses on the cause of the event, but rather on its reason and justification, we
find ourselves squarely within the moral arena. If the flood, for example, is presented as
a divine punishment for human sins, then we have natural evil which also bears the
hallmarks of moral evil. To put it differently, once the response to the event exceeds the
boundaries of trying to explain it, and becomes an attempt to justify it, it becomes an
instance of moral evil, which as such is subject to moral judgment, requires moral
justification, and is generally included within the framework of ethical discussion.

As assumed above, cinema often engages with evil, presents and represents both
its types, and highlighting their ambivalence. As Kwame A. Appiah put it, “films call into
question ethical theories” (2008: 38, 167). However, before discussing this cinematic
engagement, if not preoccupation with evil, we must first examine the unique nature of
the cinematic approach to philosophical questions in general, and ethical in particular.
This examination relies on two far-from-trivial assumptions: that cinematic discussion of
a philosophical question is possible and that bears unique characteristics and has unique
and distinct value.

It is commonly argued that the tensions pervading film’s connection with

philosophy are obvious and immediate, so much so that it might well be asked – as many
have (Livingston 2006; Smith 2006; Russell 2006, 2008a, 2008b) – whether it is at all
possible to cinematically engage with philosophical arguments. After all, at least at first
blush, film is experience and entertainment unfolding in sight and sound, concerned with
particular stories and emotional engagements, while philosophy is reasoning and
contemplation unfolding in language, concerned with abstract problems and universal
principles. While film employs “action and appearance”, philosophy demands
“reflection and debate” (Perkins 1972: 69.) Philosophy engages in “sitting and thinking”,
whereas film embraces “going and seeing” (Emmet 1968: 12.) Thus, it seems prima facie
unlikely that any significant connection obtains between film and philosophy.

Moreover, within philosophy there is a deep-seated tradition of distrust toward

the visual image. This tradition can be traced back to Plato: in the Republic, as well as in
other dialogues, he establishes the power of art as a double-edged sword. On the one
hand, it attracts the imagination and inspires the soul with its poetic license and
passionate sensibilities; on the other, its presumed indifference to truth, reality, and
absolute values turns its freedom into a devastating instrument of false perceptions.
Hence, art is appreciated but blamed for corrupting young minds. The poets are quoted
and adored – and banished from the Republican “city in speech.” Film, the
technologically superior offspring of the ancient arts, only intensifies this predicament by
having conquered the minds of the many (hoi polloi) just the way Plato had foreseen,
filling their heads with false images and leaving no room or desire for true wisdom.

This discrediting of the very possibility of a cogent cinematic argument is

persuasively countered by Martha Nussbaum and Cora Diamond. In their respective
works on the philosophical potential of literature, Nussbaum acknowledges the
philosophical value of some literary pieces, which, by employing language “more
complex, more allusive, more attentive to particulars” than that of standard, formal
philosophical argumentation are able to more richly express “views of the world and how
one should live in it” (Nussbaum 1990: 3). Similarly, Diamond identifies the philosophical
power of literary texts with their narrative flow rather than their generality, claiming that
it lies not so much in the presence of a deductive argument but in that they are “an
exercise of moral imagination” that enables people “to see the situation differently”
(Diamond 1991: 310).

If we extend this description to the cinematic realm, we could say that the power
of filmic articulation likes less in its ability to independently phrase philosophical
arguments, but rather in performing existing ones. The very performance provides added
expressive value, as it is able to provide an experiential effect which, by definition, lacks
in the textual argument. In the context of the current discussion, it’s one thing to claim
that one is evil – it’s another thing to see and experience his evil existence firsthand. The
very ability to “see the situation differently” – with an emphasis on actually “seeing” it –
constitutes for Diamond (ibid) an exercise of moral imagination which contributes to the
applicability and feasibility of abstract moral theories.

This assumption regarding the unique impact of cinematic performance is

embodied in the conception of cinema. All theoretical attempts to explain the cinematic
phenomenon share the basic assumption that the cinematic apparatus can best be
explained by way of the spectatorial experience, namely, by the unique ways it interacts
with its viewers (Plantinga & Smith 1999; Smith 2003; Carroll 2003; Plantinga 2009). This
interaction can first be explored as the attunement of the cinematic apparatus to our
cognitive patterns and capacities. Operating as receptors of images in motion we absorb
the image, understand its dramatic role, conceptualize its meaning, comprehend the
narrative it aims to construct, and interpret its significance within the overall framework.
Similarly, we are bound to examine our interaction with films through the emotional
prism. The viewing experience deeply involves our active emotional participation: we
shed a tear in a romantic movie; we laugh at comedies; we cling to our seats in horror
movies; and we are outraged by evil.

To conclude, the power of cinema – in its interface with philosophical problems,

including that of evil – lies in its ability to create a visual presentation as a perceivable
and interpretable phenomenon designed out of the spectatorial experience. Stephen
Mullhall considers this understanding to be productive of a new type of relation between
film and philosophy, that which redefines the latter as tolerant of aesthetically framed
arguments and the former as a medium singularly equipped to engage with such
arguments. He calls the films that meet this definition “philosophical exercises”, and film
in general “philosophy in action” (2008:2). Following Mulhall, Simon Critchley remarks
that “to read from cinematic language to some philosophical meta-language is both to
miss what is specific to the medium of film and usually to engage in some sort of cod-
philosophy deliberately designed to intimidate the uninitiated.” (Critchley 2005: 139).
Following Critchley, Daniel Frampton adds that such an approach “simply ignores
cinematics and concentrates on stories and character motivations.” (Frampton 2006: 9).

THE (CINEMATIC) AESTHETIZATION OF EVIL

Now that we have concluded that cinema is uniquely capable of performing

philosophical argument, how is this applicable to the problem of evil? In applying this
argument, we will also be informed by our previous conclusion, according to which film
facilitates a more nuanced and ambivalent - aesthetic perspective on the ethical
implications of evil. Combining these two conclusions places cinema at the interactive
center of a sociocultural discussion of evil.3

Any attempt at a typology of filmic fascination with evil would necessarily refer
to familiar genres where evil plays a distinct constitutive role. In horror films, the monster
is a necessary narrative and thematic axis for aesthetically engaging with the ethics of
human evil (Scott 2007). It is often a grotesque, fearsome and disgusting figure
constructed to represent an extreme and unidimensional violation of ethics (Carroll 1990;
Freeland 2000). Frankenstein’s monster, Dracula, and Freddy Krueger; real-life mass
murderers and psychopaths (from Charlie Manson to Aileen Wuornos); and abnormal
creatures (zombies, vampires, etc.) are all clear examples of such representation.

The disaster film genre similarly constructs an unequivocal representation of

natural evil. Films such as Earthquake (1974), Armageddon (1998) and The Day after
Tomorrow (2004) use the aesthetical and performative uniqueness of cinema to present
evil as a colossal catastrophe which requires extreme forms of human coping. Sometimes
it is nature itself that is evil, while in other cases, in some overlap with the horror genre,
it is aliens or other non-humans which personify unadulterated natural evil.

This “Burnsian” representation of evil fails to capitalize on film’s potential to

express its ambivalent aspects. Many scholars believe that this failure lies in the way the
genre conventions shape the evil character (Wells 2000; Cherry 2009). Narrative
construction of such characters can take into account two aspects of evil embodied in
them. The first is the proposal that being an evil person consists in being guilty of the
gravest offenses, which perhaps fails to correctly explicate one sense of “evil”, or “evil
person” (Haybron 1999:1). At the same time, the evil character is identified as such not
only based on its actions, but also and perhaps mostly based on its intentions, thoughts
and inherent psychological traits (Haybron 1999; McGinn 1997). In other words, a
character which narratively embodies evil is an approximation of “the Hitlers, Stalins and
Dahmers of the world (Haybron 1991:1), or what Western viewers would intuitively
consider an aberration from the normative fabric of human morals. To reiterate, it is the
character’s character which is central to this construction, with its deeds playing a
supportive role: “Had Hitler been rendered impotent to carry out his genocidal projects,
he would still have been Hitler, and just as twisted a soul as we know him to have been.
In short, his character would still have been evil” (Ibid).

Conversely, if we examine “monsters” whose cinematic design was less influenced

by the aforementioned genres, and more by the philosophical potential inherent in film,
we will discover a broader and more complex range of representations of evil. Some
examples include Hans Beckert, the tormented pedophile from Fritz Lang’s M (1931); the
similarly child-faced Norman Bates from Psycho (Hitchcock 1960); Dr. Strangelove from
Stanley Kubrick’s eponymous 1964 classic; and the murderous but eloquent Hannibal
Lecter from The Silence of the Lambs (Demme 1991). These all-too-human evil characters
are a far cry from the horror genre creatures, not only in terms of their dubious generic
categorization, but mainly in terms of their highly ambivalent representation to the
viewers. We are abhorred by Lang’s pedophile, but soften when we gaze at his childlike
visage (or are at least driven to show some compassion to him, having understood his
psychological compulsion). We may not subscribe to Dr. Strangelove pseudo-Nazi
ideology, but cannot fail to admire Peter Sellers’ scathing humor. We are horrified, if not
physically sickened by Hannibal the cannibal, but applaud Anthony Hopkins for
portraying him, and find it difficult not to empathize with his quest for freedom.

This fracturing, this problematization of generic evil to open up space for filmic
complexity is perhaps best exemplified by a third genre, which challenges the very
concept of genres as well as the unambiguousness of generic representations of evil – the
Film Noir. From the early 1940s to the late 50s, Film Noir has tended to be exceptionally
ambivalent in its treatment of evil.4 For the private eye who stars in most of the genre’s
films, ethical frustration is his middle name. He tries to do the good thing but is destined
to fail. His counterpart, the femme fatale, also fails to attain the holy grail of absolute evil,
as she is typically portrayed as the victim of an impossible reality, no less than as the
villain who threatens the coherence of that reality. The aesthetics to which Film Noir owes
its name and made it actually more deserving of being called a cinematic style rather than
genre is just as Janus-faced as its ethical message. Somber shadows, Venetian blinds
(which pierce the frame and challenge its integrity), the omniscient narrator who voices
over the frustrating combination of hope and fatalism characterize the instrumental and
aesthetic range of this style. Widely considered to be heralded by The Maltese Falcon
(Huston 1941), it is therefore not without reason that the Film Noir period is considered
to have been brought to a close with Orson Welles’ Touch of Evil (1958). This masterpiece,
whose very name contests the pureness of evil, confronts Mexican narcotics agent Mike
Vargas (Chalrton Heston) with corrupt police officer Hank Qainlan (Welles). On the face
of it, this is a classical confrontation between good and evil, between hero and villain,
between law and crime. But in keeping with the genre – and what viewers have always
intuitively realized, notwithstanding Shearer’s quest for sheerness – they each have a
touch of evil, and the confrontation between them is therefore destined to lead to failure.

In addition to being emblematic of Film Noir representation of evil, A Touch of Evil

is also iconic of Welles’ cinematic vision. In two earlier films, whose celebrity is perhaps
only surpassed by their theoretical importance, Welles portrays evil in a manner which
reinforces our understanding of cinema as the optimal arena for exposing its ethical
complexity. I am referring, of course to Citizen Kane (1941) and The Third Man (1949).5 The
Third Man depicts a conflict between two American friends in postwar Vienna. Hollis
Martins (Joseph Cotton) is a pulp fiction writer who is invited to Vienna by an old friend,
Harry Lime (Orson Welles), to help him with a business venture. Martins arrives in
Vienna only to find his friend dead and himself stricken by disturbing rumors about his
friend’s moral character. While investigating his friend’s death, Martins unveils Lime’s
true character: a notorious criminal who, prior to his alleged demise, was a black
marketeer whose specialties included selling diluted penicillin tubes to children’s
hospitals. Having faked his death to avoid capture, Lime approaches Martins and offers
him partnership. After a tormented soul-search, the disillusioned Martins gives Lime up
to the authorities. Lime dies in the gutters of Vienna as befits his moral character.

According to some analyses of the film it can (and should) be viewed as making
an important ethical-philosophical contribution. According to Thomas Wartenberg
(2007:98), for instance, “The Third Man supplements our ethical theorizing in a way that
philosophers’ normal examples… cannot, for such examples are designed to elicit specific
intuitions and thus need to simplify the complexity of our moral lives” (italics added), thereby
achieving a “cinematic equivalent of [moral] skepticism” (99), as it performs the
unavoidable outcome of the clash between the quest for simplification in ethical theory
and the irreducible complexity of life.

This complexity is highlighted by the confrontation between the character played

by Welles – which is similar in its moral fragility to Kane’s – and Martins, who is
portrayed by Joseph Cotten. In Citizen Kane as well, Cotten portrays the protagonist’s
friend (where he is called Jedediah, or Hebrew for “friend of God”), in a way that binds
the two films together into a single cinematic statement against the unadulterated
presentation of evil. This double reflection, which chronologically parallels the beginning
and end of the most catastrophic decade in the history of the modern world is crystallized
by the master auteur into a cinematic statement that is as clear as it is challenging and
unsettling.

A brief comment on the filmic technique applied by Welles to produce this

complex representation of evil reveals some of the medium’s potential philosophical
power. These unique cinematic attributes can be reduced to the level of camera
movements and angles. The camera speaks louder than words in the altercation between
Martins and Lime on top of Vienna’s Ferris wheel. The scene is shot is a way which
emphasizes an “atmosphere of pervasive uncertainty” which is achieved using the
aesthetical device of “a slightly tilted camera” (Wartenberg 2007:99) to articulate the
scene’s main point of view (POV). The tilted POV questions Lime’s own as it undermines
his attempt to downplay his crimes by arguing for the insignificance of mankind.
Martins’ ethical POV of Lime (which is, of course, also the viewer’s) is just as tilted and
disharmonious. As Wartenberg puts it, “By having us look at its world slightly askance”
through the lenses of a tilted camera, “the film not only registers its central character’s
distrust, but also it distances us from the conversations it so depicts, keeping us a little
off balance and dubious about the veracity of some of the characters” (ibid).

The discussion of Welles’ films reveals the true power of cinema in representing
evil. It is more than just a representation of characters, complex as they maybe, by
judiciously applying generic conventions, as masterful as it may be. It is a purely
cinematic representation of impurity, in the sense that evil is portrayed by means of
certain strategies, tropes and initiatives that constitute the very essence of cinema. To wit,
textual analysis of a work of fiction, which is just as relevant to literature and theater in a
way that makes the discussion of the uniqueness of cinema somewhat redundant (e.g.
Bataille 1973), is replaced by cinematic space as an aesthetic materiality, as a visual
composition of images in motion, acting on and acted upon by a diverse strategic toolbox
which differentiates cinematic language from any other form of expression. On this level
of analysis, the search for cinematic evil will focus less on character or narrative analysis,
but rather on camera movements, shot types, casting, editing and other characteristics
unique to this medium. This focus reveals another key attribute of this level. Since we do
not seek evil in cinematic narratives but rather in the cinematic per se, the cinematic
experience or phenomenon itself becomes an autonomous agent in the cultural-artistic
engagement with the problem of evil, independently “constitutive of the moral life”
(Waldron 2013:9). Or, as eloquently summed up by Catherine Wheatley: “The workings
of the ethical environment in which we live can be strangely invisible, so too can the
workings of cinema” (2009:3).

To lend further support for this claim, I will briefly discuss to additional films that
are emblematic of cinema’s role in redefining the representation of evil. The first opens
with a street-level establishing shot of the bristling and at the same time almost bucolic
urbanity of San Francisco. A tram crosses the frame to clear the way for a young fair lady
who crosses the street on her way to a pet store. The camera follows her with a pan shot,
but she stops in reaction to a young man’s catcall, turns around, smiles and gazes briefly
at the sky, where massive flocks of seagulls are crowding somewhat ominously, before
entering a pet store, disproportionately populated by birds. The young woman’s name is
Melanie Daniels and it appears that her order of a myna she had ordered – a bird known
for its ability to mimic humans – has not yet arrived, and even when does, Daniels will
have to teach it the requisite vocabulary. The storekeeper checks why the order has been
delayed while Daniels, in what is by now characteristic nonchalance, pretends to be the
saleswoman and pokes fun at a handsome young man who wants to buy lovebirds. It
turns out that the joke is on her because the buyer, Mitch Brenner, is fully aware of her
pretense and embarrasses her with ornithological questions. Daniels’ answers expose her
ignorance, and she then makes matters even worse by freeing one of the birds to for a
comical pursuit within the store’s narrow space. The scene ends when Brenner exposes
his identity and Daniels’ shame, and leaves the store in expectation for her appropriate
response.

This is of course the opening sequence of Hitchcock’s immortal The Birds (1963).
Its plot is about birds which attack the peaceful San Francisco suburb of Bodega Bay
without any apparent reason or warning. However, as we have learned from its visual
details and aesthetic meticulousness, the plot does not center on the avian offensive itself
but for its causes, or more precisely, the ominous and chaotic absence of any. The bucolic
calm of the opening scene, which seems to present the viewer with a peaceful, well-
organized social order, is an illusory facade that is gradually torn apart as the film
progresses. The “avian” aesthetics is used by Hitchcock to create a cinematic opposition
between the peace and calm of human society and its inexplicable violation. The attack
of the birds – a natural act of evil as defined above – is already launched in the opening
sequence by the recurring use of ornithological metaphors to define human society. For
example, Daniels, portrayed here by Tippi Hedren, is somewhat birdlike: a sharpened
face, a beaklike nose, pecking-like head movements, and so on. When she crosses the
street, she is catcalled by a passer-by, for him she is a “bird” or a “chick”. And when she
looks up at the seagulls, the tilted camera angle creates an impression which is at the
same time natural and threatening – the opposite of the so-called bird’s eye view would
naturally become the film’s dominant perspective. When she enters the store, she is
introduced to a cinematic space which is aesthetically governed by winged creatures. The
opposition of order and disorder continues with her act of impersonating, followed by
the conversation that goes into the emotional “humanness” of lovebirds and the need to
keep different kinds apart “in order to protect the species”, only to end in the comic chase
of the freed bird.

The Birds is a quintessential cinematic engagement with the concept of natural evil.
By using the avian motif – in the film’s name and on every layer of its plot – Hitchcock
excels in translating the aesthetical notion of the bird’s eye view into an ethical argument.
The bird’s eye view is more than just a camera angle or POV. It is embedded in the
dialogue, in the spatial design and casting, in a way that requires the viewer to visually
and perspectively deal with the inexplicability of the evil, indiscriminate and
disproportionate attack on human society, its children, tranquility and morality. This
engagement with evil, and at the same time human nature ant the nature of the moral
foundation which succeeds in naming evil but struggles to explain it is reminiscent of
Friedrich Nietzsche’s identification of the dilapidated foundations of human morality in
its preoccupation with evil as the schematic opposite of good. In On the Genealogy of
Morals, he writes:

That lambs are annoyed at the great predatory birds is not a strange thing, and it provides
no reason for holding anything against these large birds of prey.... And if the lambs say
among themselves "These predatory birds are evil—and whoever is least like a predatory
bird—and especially who is like its opposite, a lamb—shouldn't that animal be good?"
there is nothing to find fault with in this setting up of an ideal, except for the fact that the
birds of prey might look down with a little mockery and perhaps say to themselves "We
are not at all annoyed with these good lambs—we even love them. Nothing is tastier than
a tender lamb". (1992:480-81)

Are Nietzsche’s or Hitchcock’s birds the embodiment of evil, or rather of the

collapse of a false dichotomy? According to both, it is the preliminary classification of the
species – or race – which dictates the worldview and its attendant conclusions, including
an unadulterated conceptualization of natural evil. However, once the unnecessariness
of these working assumptions is revealed, the bird turns from a metaphor of evil to a
metaphor of failure of coming to grips or to terms with it. Thus, for both the philosopher’s
and the auteur’s perspective, this is why, at a later scene, when the townsmen assemble
in the local coffeehouse after yet another horrific and inexplicable attack, their attempts
at defining and explaining the phenomenon using scientific or religious-ethical tools
prove as solid as a house of cards. When the panicked Daniels joins the impromptu
assembly, an anxious mother hysterically lashes at her:

Why are they doing this? Why are they doing this? They said when you got here, the
whole thing started! Who are you? What are you? Where did you come from? I think
you're the cause of all this. I think you're evil! Evil!

Eight years later after this Hitchcockian attempt to go beyond good and evil,
Stanley Kubrick wears similar Nitzschean glasses to examine the question in Clockwork
Orange (1971). More than this cinematic examination engages with the concept of evil
itself, it is profoundly and consciously aware of the importance and uniqueness of the
filmic devices used for that purpose. The film’s hero is Alex, a young gang leader and
hooligan operating in a melancholic future where compassion, empathy and the very
structure of morality break down under the debilitating impact of aesthetics. Here, the
cinematic aesthetics masterminded by Kubrick plays a double role. On the one hand, it
makes evil patently visible (the mugging of a helpless old man, the break-in and rape, the
environmental neglect and the pseudo-bourgeois misogyny of life in a society shorn of
moral values). But on the other hand, it also captures the mesmerizing power of the
aesthetic sublime (the rape scene highlights the contradiction between the purity of
whiteness and the red which stands for passion and blood; the scene of the walk along
the pier and the bloody fight which ensues filmed with exquisite choreography to a
soundtrack by Beethoven, etc.). In other words, the same cinematic aesthetics poses – in
a manner which is consistent, materially present and decisive in terms of the viewing
experience – an anti-Greek contradiction between the “good” and “beautiful” by
repeatedly undermining the ethical with the aesthetical and creating a fragile fabric of
doubt, distress and duality as the viewer faces the disturbing images. Thus, for example,
the urban neglect – the “aesthetical” frame of reference for Alex’s “evil” – is presented
cinematically in a way that leaves a powerful impression on the viewer. This is also true,
of course, of the unforgettable use of Beethoven’s “divine” music which paints the entire
film in colors of spiritual elevation and at the same time frame’s Alex’s violence. Just like
the whistling in Edvard Grieg’s “In the Hall of the Mountain King” is the musical cue for
the pedophile’s violence in M, so do the frequent musical quotes of Beethoven serve as
an aesthetical envelope for the Alex’s violation of the ethical. Ethics and aesthetics are
continually counterpoised in a cinematic move designed to evoke the challenging and
unsettling ambivalence of evil.

Much like Hitchcock, Kubrick imbues his hero with the failed conceptualization
of evil. Like the former, he does so “cinematically”. Moreover, for Kubrick it is cinema
itself (and not just cinematic skill) that manifests this failure. This is manifested in the
very attempt to be cured from evil using the “Ludovico technique”. This experimental
aversion therapy, whose guinea pig Alex volunteers to be, is actually a cinematic
brainwash technique: the subject is tied to a straightjacket, his eyes are forced open and
his head is held in a vice as he is forced to view filmic depictions of unadulterated graphic
evil. This immediate and unavoidable encounter with evil – which is in fact no more than
an extension or parody of the experience of viewing Clockwork Orange or for that matter,
any other film screened in a dark theater which affords limited possibilities of physical
escape – is presented both diegetically and extra-diegetically as a futuristic form of forced
treatment designed to uproot evil by means of aesthetic coercion. So paradigmatic of the
Clockwork Orange’s cinematic move, the scene is in fact a cinematic description of cinema
itself. Moreover, it is at the same time a fascinating mirror image of the Plato’s famous
Allegory of the Cave. Alex’s treatment cannot but fail. In fact, however, it doesn’t, because
it could neither fail nor succeed in the first place. The treatment assumes the pre-
Nitzschean conceptual framework of dichotomous good and evil (“I want to be good”,
blubbers the experimental subject under duress), of the success or failure of therapy, and
of a clear conceptual privileging of good and beautiful over the bad and ugly. As we have
seen, however in all the films discussed above, this framework collapses by the very act
of cinematic engagement with it, and Alex’s statement at the end of the film – “I’m cured!”
– can be nothing but ironic.

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1 Seinfeld, J. The Big Salad, ep. 88, NBC, the second episode for the sixth season, first aired on September
29, 1994.
2 Round, S. (October 10, 2008). Interview: Harry Shearer. The Jewish Chronicle.

http://www.thejc.com/arts/arts-interviews/interview-harry-shearer. Retrieved on October 1, 2015.

3 For more on the Ethics and Aesthetics conjoined, see Levinson (1998), Gaut (2007), Downing & Saxton

(2010), Jones & Vice (2011), Shaw (2012), and Choi & Frey (2014).
4 For more on this genre’s trailblazing role in rethinking filmic ethics, see, Kaplan (1997), Conard (2006),

Palmer (2006), Flory (2008) and Pippin (2012).

5
Although the latter was directed by Carol Read, Wells’ dominant present in the lead role overshadows
the director and paints the film in typical Wellesian colors. See Wartenberg (2007; 2009; 2011). See also a
other recent interpretations of this film in Knight (2011), Driver (2011) and Shaw (2012).