A Response to a Reconsideration of STARSHIP TROOPERS(Paul Verhoeven Movie based on Robert Heinlein Novel) by Trevor Lynch

https://www.counter-currents.com/2019/04/starship-troopers-2/

Of course Verhoven could not film a straightforward adaptation of a novel that glorifies war and denigrates democracy in favor of something that sounds like fascism. So he claimed his movie was satire. But that’s not how the fans see it. Like Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket, Starship Troopers contains over-the-top depictions of brutal military training and combat that actually function as recruiting propaganda.

But why couldn’t he make such a movie? Was STARSHIP TROOPERS really such a bold statement to come out of Hollywood? What about RAMBO and CONAN THE BARBARIAN? Stallone’s Vietnam revenge fantasy says elected politicians were just a bunch of wusses who didn’t allow brave gung ho US soldiers win the war(just like ‘liberal’ politicians stand in the way of ‘fascist’ cop Dirty Harry). And Rambo is one-man Wehrmacht who takes on all the Vietnamese commies and the Soviet war machine… and comes out on top. (Though John Milius’ RED DAWN is also anti-communist, the Americans in it play the reversed-role of humble partisan guerrillas, like the Minutemen in the American Revolutionary War, than ubermensch-like fascist warriors who are represented by the Soviet War Machine.)

And didn’t STAR WARS conclude with a grand Riefenstahlean finale? Furthermore, the rebels in the first movie are all-white and seem to constitute yet another empire not so easy to distinguish from the Vaderian Empire. It’s fascists vs fascists, or ‘Good Nazis’ vs ‘Bad Nazis’ as critic Ray Pride once remarked.

Incidentally, BLACK HAWK DOWN(directed by Ridley Scott) is far more gung-ho and bang-for-the-buck in its depiction of combat than anything in STARSHIP TROOPERS where silliness renders everything cartoonish. A few critics, especially the black Elvis Mitchell, complained of BLACK HAWK DOWN’s ‘racism’ of the retro-imperialist kind, but most ‘liberal’ critics were admiring. (For some reason, most ‘liberal’ critics don’t seem very offended with ZULU either. Perhaps because it was directed by a 'communist', and furthermore, maybe Jewish critics see the British soldiers as akin to Zionist defending Israel from Arabs.)

I didn’t see the BATMAN sequel with Michael Keaton & Danny De Vito, but some commentators hinted at possible cryto-antisemitism in the depiction of Penguin as a composite of what might now be called ‘Anti-Semitic Tropes’. Among the most un-PC movies were Tim Burton’s PLANET OF THE APES and Zach Snyder’s 300, but the latter seems to have gotten a pass as Neocon War Porn.

BLADE RUNNER also had quasi-fascist characters whose stature underwent transition from villainy to heroics. Roy Batty is like a blonde Aryan god-man who ultimately earns our respect and sympathy despite or partially because of his terrifying side.

Now, part of the reason why Jews and the so-called ‘left’ became okay with(and even enthused over)fascist imagery or ‘fascistery’ was:

(1) It was too profitable to ignore at the box office. Even when the bad guys are ‘fascist’ villains, they are regarded and idolized as uber-cool: Terminator and Darth Vader. Also, even the ‘anti-fascist’ heroes must act like ‘cool’ fascists to win: Ultra Violence. Why do kids play video-games? To feel like Mother Teresa? No, to feel badass like Robocop. Even when they are fighting Nazis in video-games, they are ‘playing nazi’. This goes for the cinema of Hayao Miyazaki too. Ideologically, he’s a peacenik(like Cameron and Lucas) but, like his Western counterparts, he waxes awesome about militarist and ‘fascist’ imagery even as he ultimately comes around to condemning it.

(2) Once Jews and globo-homo took over America’s elite institutions/industries, they were in charge of the War Machine with its myriad planet-blasting contraptions. Just like a child with a BB gun wants to shoot at something(or anything), those with lots of power can’t help wanting to bully or blow up some part of the world. Also, Jews are an ambitious people, and homos are a vain people. In order to fight more Wars for Israel and spread globo-homo as new messianic faith, militarism was back in vogue. And to make it work, Jews had to get goyim all excited about war and empire. So, even as Jews rhetorically rail against ‘nazis’ and ‘fascists’, they are the New Nazis with vision of 1000 Year Jewish World Reich. Jews are no longer starving partisans hiding in the woods from Big Bad Aryan Nazis. They are no longer ragtag Zionist guerrillas as Neo-Zealots struggling to found a new nation. They are the oligarcho-uber-commanders of the biggest war machine in the world, and so, they promote militarism to persuade goy suckers to fight for ‘glory’ in more Wars for Israel.

(3) Jews figured one of the most effective way to subvert and weaken white power is to promote a kind of Afro-jungle-fascism. In the Jewish promotion of black athletics, rapper thug antics, and black sexual mania, the current ‘idology’ is no longer about racial equality but the superiority of blacks as the savage-badass-god-race to which white women must put out sexually and to which white boys must cuck. Egalitarianism sounds nice and all, but it’s rather dull and boring, especially to Americans who love winners and champions, not the Average Joe or Median Man. Queen’s hit song wasn’t "We are Average" but "We are the Champions".
If whites were to regard blacks merely as equals, the negative impact on white pride would be limited. In order for whites to lose racial confidence(and power), they must see blacks as SUPERIOR to whites. So, just like Leni Riefenstahl featured Teutonic Aryans(and later Sudanese Nuba) as the most impressive races, Jews employ images of Black Superiority to turn whites into cowering submissive cucks. Of course, promotion of blacks as uber-race is never called ‘fascism’ or ‘racism’ but sold as ‘progress’ and ‘justice’, but the overwhelming impression of the current message is no longer "blacks are as good as you" but "blacks are better than you, white boy, so get on your knees and cuck."

Because Jews now control neo-Heinleinism, the ideas in STARSHIP TROOPERS may seem more appalling than appealing to those in the Alt or Dissident Right. After all, the men in STARSHIP TROOPERS are mental robots not unlike young US servicemen who stormed into Iraq with ‘Rock the Casbah’ ringing in their ears. They never ask questions. They never speak truth to power. They never wonder what it’s all about. Instead, they are cookie-cutter creatures who are easily manipulated by the Power and obediently do as told.
Now, in the movie of course, Earth faces a grave threat from invasive space bugs, so humanity is on high alert and desperately struggling to survive. But, the actual Power that rules over us is not above fanning hysteria and paranoia to fool us into ‘serving’ and ‘defending’ the Order against threats that are, more often than not, bogus or exaggerated. The Deep State and Big Media can turn anything into the New Space Bugs out to destroy us. Russia Collusion Hoax for instance and Putin as New Hitler. We saw how this worked in the lead up to the Iraq War. Back then, Hussein was the New Hitler or the New Space Bug. He had WMD! US had to fight a War on Terror! (Never mind the US did more to build up Alqaeda Jihadis[to use against Soviet Union] while Hussein's Iraq and Iran had been fighting them forever, the ONE thing the two hostile nations had in common.) Shock and Awe, baby! So many people, even the best of Americans, were fooled into supporting the War on the Space Bugs of the Middle East. Many men of HONOR served in the Iraq War. They fought bravely and served honorably. But the lesson of that war is that HONOR is never enough. Honor without understanding and the will to ask questions of the Power is useless. The Power can exploit honor to spread horror. After all, a soldier can serve HONORABLY in any war. Plenty of Germans believed in Der Fuhrer and served with courage and loyalty on the Eastern Front. But seen in the larger context, they were serving a mad regime hellbent on genocide and enslavement. Honor needs to be tempered by skepticism about power and individual conscience.
To the extent that Jews control the deep state & mass media and do NOT want us to ask tough questions, and instead, just trust the Narrative and serve and fight HONORABLY as obedient dogs, those in the Alt Right & Dissident Right must shelve the Honor Cult for the time being. They must ask WHAT is worthy of support, worthy of honor? Certainly not Wars for Israel. Certainly not Wars for globo-homo. Certainly not the new ‘cold war’ with Russia to appease insatiable Jewish rage. If honor is valuable(and it is), it must not be wasted on the wicked agendas of dishonorable tribal supremacists such as globo-homo Jews.

The men(and women) in STARSHIP TROOPERS are like so many clueless idiots in the US military. Sure, they are tough, brave, and capable. But their hearts and minds are so EASY to toy with. They are suckers who don’t ask questions; they’d rather out-source all thinking in blind faith to the ‘cognitive’ elites. Lest thinking lead to anxiety and emotional distress, they prefer being trained and ordered about as attack dogs. Take orders, fetch as told, and bite the ‘enemy’, the New Nazis or Space Bugs.

It’s likely Paul Verhoeven was being rather sly. He claimed to satirize fascism, but it’s more likely that he was spoofing the US war state. After all, the society-at-large in STARSHIP TROOPERS is pretty degenerate, trashy, and hedonistic, much like Modern America as a Giant Mall. It is saturated with dumb pop culture and insipid youth mania. Soldiers take to war and mayhem like it’s college football season. Female soldiers are little more than walking barbie dolls(to their G.I Joe male counterparts). Society is so trashy and degenerate that it’s hardly worth defending from space bugs. Military even has coed showers.

What sort of society is likely to be better governed: a society that reserves political power to an honorable minority proven to have the courage and responsibility to risk their lives for the common good—or a society that gives equal power to everyone, allowing the selfish, cowardly, and irresponsible majority to outvote their betters? The answer is obvious.

Sparta didn’t turn out so well in the end. Also, the ‘noble’ military caste in peace-time turns almost invariably corrupt and parasitic. Japan’s eventual fate under Tokugawa rule wasn’t pretty. And judging by American and European military men, I see little evidence of battle-hardened warriors as ideal elites. It appears many people enter the military mainly for stability and sense of order. They need be told what to do because they, as individuals, are sorely lacking in autonomy and independence to forge their own paths. They are afraid to be free. In the military, one’s place is decided by rank, not notable assertion of individual worth or ability. To move up the ranks, one must flatter and please the superiors(politicians as well as higher-ranked officers) than prove them wrong when they are. Most are careerists like Colin Powell who signed onto Iraq War because it was the thing to do at the moment. And then, consider all the military cucks who cravenly muted their opposition to open enlistment of ‘gays in the military’, women in combat, and even trannies. In the end, brains beat brawn. We think of military guys as tough, but they are tough in the way dogs are. They are incapable of agency and independent thought. They are incurious about what is really happening. They have all these guns, tanks, bombs, and planes at their disposal, but they are never the ones to decide the when and why of war. Instead, they wait around idly until commanded from above to invade a nation they never heard of and drop bombs to kill people about whom they know nothing. The German military failed to stand up to Adolf Hitler even as he spiraled into recklessness. And Japanese military men led the nation to ruin, from which it hasn’t politically and psychologically recovered. A nation run by the likes of John McCain would be a sorry one. And of course, military commanders rarely see real combat. They give orders and take all the credit while their minions do all the dying in gory combat. They use binoculars than rifles.

Democracy recognizes that leadership virtues can be found in all social classes, but it fails by politically empowering everyone indiscriminately, simply by virtue of being born.

That may not be the main problem with democracy. If US politics had indeed empowered everyone, the nation would be in much better shape. Rather, democracy invariably turns into rule by plutocracy and oligarchy. Even when the elites pander to the masses, it is less to serve the people than to serve themselves. They dole out bread-and-circuses to placate the masses so that they themselves can buy time to attain even more profits and privileges. Notice how most Americans are too distracted with junk culture and idiot dogma(pushed by elites) to have much sense of what is going on. 50% of Americans don’t vote. And when politicians renege on their promises, people fail to rise up and just turn to more junk on TV.
If majority demands had shaped policy, the US would be better off. But against populist wishes, the US has been driven by oligarchic donors and their whore politicians with the backing of corrupt activist courts. Politicians mostly ignore the people and just do as donors tell them. US is a moneytocracy before it’s a democracy.

From a technical point of view, Starship Troopers is a brilliant achievement. I recently rewatched it on Blu-ray on a large-screen OLED TV, and I found the special effects to be stunningly realistic. The arachnids are genuinely terrifying.

No way. The special effects in STARSHIP TROOPERS are on the level of STAR TREK TV shows. Despite the considerable budget, everything looks cheap and plastic. We see Earthlings in toylike spaceships doing battle with giant beetles that shoot lasers from their butts. It’s like a movie made with STAR WARS action-figures and cereal boxes from which they came. At best, one might say the aesthetics was intentionally goofy and cartoonish to make the whole thing look like a straight-faced spoof, more SPACEBALLS than STAR WARS. Verhoeven’s clumsy treatment lacks the aesthetic flair of the anime GUNBUSTER that is visually arresting and strikingly realized. Compositions are crisper and the editing sharper.

How was it even possible that such an appealing anti-liberal movie was ever made?

Why? Maybe because Jews became the commanders of the US as Lone Superpower and wanted goy suckers to be like dimwit Rico to go fight the Arab-Arachnids? Jews are loving ‘fascism’ now. Jews bought Disney which then bought STAR WARS, and all that nihilo-fascist-imagery(taken from Riefenstahl, fascist spectacles, classic myths, samurai legends, etc) is being used to promote globo-homo-shlomo-Afro fascism.

Whatever the explanation, Starship Troopers is an anti-liberal classic which has done far more to promote than to undermine Heinlein’s vision of military meritocracy.

No, the movie takes fascistic ideas & images and associates them with multi-culti globo-homo US as the lone superpower, the New Hope. It’s like what happens in James Cameron’s TERMINATOR Part 2. Via reprogramming & appropriation, the once techno-fascist robot is turned into a pro-human-fascist-robot and acts as traitor against his own machine kind. Any side can use generic ‘fascism’, which is more about idolatry than a strict set of ideology applicable only to distinct groups. Though communists were ideologically anti-fascist, one could argue their militarism, the cult of great leader, and collectivism were almost indistinguishable from certain key features of National Socialism(and the more militarist wing of Zionism).
‘Fascism’ doesn’t necessarily favor one side over the other, one nation over another, one people over another. ‘Fascist’ Japan fought White America, i.e. ‘fascism’ could be used by yellows. Fascism has many faces, and perhaps its most vulgar form is the blind worship of power for power’s sake. So, whoever has the most power commands the respect and servility of vulgar fascist passion. It’s like the mass psychology of sports. When whites were champions, white boys and girls idolized white athletes as ‘gods’ and ‘heroes’. When blacks defeated whites and took over sports, white boys and girls began to idolize black athletes. If fascism in its crudest form is about worship of naked power, then whoever has the most power or most trophies becomes the focus of pop fascist passion. When Germany conquered France, French women idolized German soldiers as alpha warriors. Vulgar Fascism favors WHOMEVER has the most power(by any means necessary). After all, the prestige of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy rested on their ability to win. Once they lost the war, they lost all respect as well. In contrast, some ideologies are more about right and wrong(despite who has the most power) than about might-is-right. A Christian or Marxist will value his creed regardless of victory or defeat as the best means to understand and judge the world. Now, more elevated forms of fascism weren’t merely about might-is-right, but the hubristic fatal fascism of Mussolini and Hitler seared into popular psyche the impression that fascism was nothing more than a ruthless game of power. As in sports, the winner takes all, the loser stands small. As German-and-Italian Fascism lost WWII, it had to lose everything in accordance to its own terms of zero-sum gamesmanship. Ironically, the current US politics, aka ‘liberal democracy’, is largely predicated on vulgar fascism. There is so much cucking to Jews, blacks, and homos because they are seen as top winners in fields that matter most to most Americans: Money, Entertainment, High-Tech, Gambling, Sports, Sexuality, Celebrity, and Narcissism.

By the time STARSHIP TROOPERS was made, the US was pretty much in the hands of Jews. Why should Jews fear ‘fascism’ when THEY got the power? While Jews hate specific forms of fascism such as National Socialism, they love generic vulgar crypto-fascism where hapless minions and careerist cucks pledge their allegiance to the ultimate power. Hillary even pledged to go to war with Russia in the skies over Syria at the behest of super-powerful Jews. As blacks won in brawn and Jews won in brains, vulgar fascism in the US turned into a ritual of whites slobbering over blacks as the badass race and worshiping Jews as the super-rich, genius, and brilliant race. (And later homos as the ‘creative race’.)

STARSHIP TROOPERS is Star-Shit Poopers. Far superior movie along similar lines is ZULU, from which STARSHIP TROOPERS copped some scenes, and ENDER’S GAME, which was almost certainly inspired by Heinlein’s novel(not least because it too has Earthlings at war with space bugs). Instead of just blow-em-up movie, ENDER'S GAME has fun with game theory and ultimately expresses some measure of empathy for the Other Side. As for Heinlein, the Cold War seems to have warped his worldview in some extreme way. In retrospect, his starry-eyed support for Reagan’s SDI defense system and animus toward Arthur C. Clarke for proposing a more peaceful solution with the Soviets now come across as worse than foolish: Clueless.

The military is a meritocracy.

Is it? Military isn’t about the best minds or strongest bodies. It’s about average Joes — the median of society — trained to kill. One may argue a soldier gains in rank for courage under fire or some inspired/extraordinary act in battle, but most promotions are about seniority and hanging around for more stripes. And top officers are more the product of elite academy than performance in war or leadership ability. And those favored for top positions tend to be ones identified as most reliably servile & obedient, especially in our Jewish-controlled order where any white goy with independent or ‘maverick’ streak is weeded out as a threat to the Jewish World Order. To embed white military culture with servility to PC, Jewish Power pushes stuff like homomania via the Pentagon. When big tough white generals must bend over to homos to keep their positions, they are totally owned by Jews.

In the distant past when men battled it out with swords and shields, there was more an element of individual meritocracy. But then, if the toughest men are expended in the battlefield, it will be bad for the gene pool in the long run. Romans got wimpier and wimpier after losing so many tough men over generations. Meanwhile, the wusses who stayed behind survived and had more children with the ladies.

Personally, TWILIGHT OF THE COCKROACHES and GUNBUSTER(despite the insufferable lead character crybaby Noriko) are among the more interesting variations on Pop Fascist themes.
In TWILIGHT, Germany and Japan(cockroaches) are stacked against US and Russia(humans post-cold-war).
In GUNBUSTER, Japan re-fights the Pacific War but this time in space... and it has the ‘nuke’ in the form of the blackhole machine.



Two reviews of the movie:

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1997-11-07-9711070293-story.html

http://www.jonathanrosenbaum.net/1997/11/multinational-pest-control/

Despite the explicit multiracialism of Heinlein’s novel, Verhoven massively Aryanizes his cast and setting. Heinlein’s Johnny Rico is a Pilipino who lives in Buenos Aires.

A James-Michener-ish touch? Race-mixing as basis of imperial expansion. Philippines was the ‘good’ Asian nation, the obedient dog of the US. Race-mixed via European Imperialism too. Making Rico a Filipino was less about being ‘progressive’ than using Diversity as tool of New Imperialism. ‘Good’ Asians vs ‘Bad’ Asians(the Red Chinese and North Vietnam). I hear Rico is ultimately supposed to be black. Like Tiger Woods?

Verhoeven’s attitude is simple: “Hollywood is trashy and Americans are dumb, and so, you morons deserve my dumbed-down versions of Philip K. Dick[TOTAL RECALL] and Robert Heinlein.” His movies are less satire than insult to Americans(and an Americanized world). Yet, he is still serving and propagating that very Americanism he holds in contempt because most people enjoy the willfully ‘idiocratic’ elements of his movies as popcorn entertainment(just like kids watching Godzilla movies hardly fret about them as allegory about atomic power).

But more importantly, STARSHIP TROOPERS is less satire than a work of appropriation. Jewish Hollywood in effect appropriated ‘kewl’ fascist themes & imagery or ‘fascistery’ to put them at the service of the Zionist-Supremacist US empire, aka get dumb young Americans all excited to fight Wars for Israel, hate the ‘Muzzies’, and maybe to hate & even fight Russia IF it cuts loose from the Jewish hegemonic orbit.

With Jews buying up Disney(whose founder was once charged with ‘antisemitism’ by some) and STAR WARS, they finalized their means of appropriation. Notice how the New STAR WARS is a kind of ‘antifascist’ fascism. The white male empire is the evil ‘fascist’ power that must be destroyed, BUT the rebels(the good guys) are also in ‘kewl’ fascist gear, playing imperial politics, relying on the Force, and blowing things up in blitzkrieg fashion.

It’s like Jews and guns. Jews want to take guns away from white goyim, but Jews love gun-ownership in Israel where their tribesmen constitute the solid majority of gun-owning citizens. Gun or Fascistery, Jews love it when they have control of it.

In the 1940s and 50s, American war movies were more-or-less in humanist mode. It was as if Omar Bradley made them. War is presented as unfortunate but a necessary evil at times. But since the 1980s, esp with the super-stardom of Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarznegger, violence-as-spectacle was placed at the center. It was as if their movies were directed by a Pop version of Patton who loved war for war’s sake. Compare the first ROCKY with Part III. First one is a humanist story about a palooka gaining self-respect. Part III is about Rocky as master of the world(and in IV, he single-handedly or double-fistedly wins the Cold War). RAMBO, a huge hit, re-fought the Vietnam War as cartoon fantasy.

Appropriating fascism for globo-homo-shlomo empire is what the US is about. And even ‘literally hitler’ Trump turned out to be puppet-fuhrer for Israel than leader of White America.



If STARSHIP TROOPERS is satire, it is smiley-faced satire or satire-for-dummies. A satire so goofy and obvious that it becomes a spoof of satire itself. Satire that nibbles and kisses than bites and cuts is useless. Irony is the tool of satire, but when the purported satire itself becomes the object of irony by an audience that isn’t so much laughing at the stupidity of militarism(as in DR. STRANGELOVE) as winking at the gentle mockery as yet another layer of joke, the result is declawed satire that is utterly useless: A cat whose scratches are turned into mere pats. People watching STARSHIP TROOPERS are less likely to see it as a satire of war than a satire of satire of war. The ridicule of militarism is ridiculed, and we know a double negative is a positive. The recruitment ad in the movie doesn't so much ridicule military propaganda as 'leftist' mockery of such propaganda. The overall message is, "Lighten up, anti-war progressives. We are hip to the propaganda and manipulation. We aren't fooled, and the real reason we support war is because USA is cool, the land of the right to party."
The effect of STARSHIP TROOPERS is rather like TEAM AMERICA(by the SouthPark guys), which is more like a satire of anti-war satire. The final message is we must be for Team America, warts and all, because Matt Damon sucks. Satire doesn't really work if it's fuzzy-wuzzy and has us laughing more in the spirit of those being satirized than in the spirit of those who despair. As funny as IDIOCRACY is, it fails as satire because, when push comes to shove, we are entertained than distressed by the Dumb Future World. It's so goofy and over-the-top that we care more for laughs than the point. In the age of vulgar irony, people just wink-wink at the whole thing. Satire has been dumbed down to the point where people don’t know what it’s really about.



What may be most dangerous about STARSHIP is that its Neocon War Porn propagandizing slips through the purported ‘satire’. This way, Jewish Hollywood plays it both ways. It promotes globo-homo militarism while telling people to just lighten up cuz it’s all meant as ‘parody’. But, the laughter that it elicits is not of ironic mockery of militarism but of hipster aloofness that says ‘fascism’ is ‘kewl’ too…. as long it’s on the side of globo-homo empire.

* * * * * * * * * *

Dr. Stranglovitz or How Hollywood stopped worrying and learned to love Fascism.

When DIRTY HARRY was released(along with STRAW DOGS and DEATH WISH), there was intense debate about movies with potential fascist messages or nihilistic view of power.

https://s-usih.org/2014/05/fascinating-fascism-the-other-f-word-in-seventies-cultural-criticism/

But after STAR WARS and so many action spectacles, ‘fascistery’ or ‘fascisterics’ just became part of the cultural landscape: So commonplace that no one much noticed anymore. Now, there was always an element of fascistery in superhero comic books, but they were considered lowbrow kiddie fare and didn't much affect cinema until the BATMAN and SPIDERMAN movies. Prior to them(and many others that were soon to follow), SUPERMAN was the only superhero franchise that made any real impact on mainstream cinema.

Same happened with the rise of harlotry. Up to mid-80s, the feminists had sufficient clout to press upon the issue of overt sexualization and exploitation the female image. But the double whammy of madonna and her scribe Camille Paglia changed the paradigm of feminism whereupon being a slut wasn't exploitation but empowerment. Now, harlotry is so much a part of the culture that people don't even notice(or remember how feminists used to rail against it).

In the early 1970s, DIRTY HARRY, STRAW DOGS, and DEATH WISH triggered heated debates about movie violence, law and order, and fascism. But when JUDGE DREDD, a far more 'fascist' movie about law and order, was released in the 90s, no one batted an eye. Fascistery had just become part of movie culture. (And the influence of nihilistic anime, blood-soaked Hong Kong action cinema that raised the ante on senseless violence[influencing Quentin Tarantino], and ever more violent video games also fueled the cultural shift.) Today's progs are not about opposing fascistery but about appropriating it for their side.

Susan Sontag proved wrong about Leni Riefenstahl's long-term influence when she wrote the article "Fascinating Fascism" though her views seemed plausible at the time. The 70s were a time of personalism, naturalism, and experimentalism in American cinema. It seemed then that those trends would define future film-making. But, in fact, most such movies never hit it off with the mass audience.

http://marcuse.faculty.history.ucsb.edu/classes/33d/33dTexts/SontagFascinFascism75.htm

Triumph of the Will and Olympia are undoubtedly superb films (they may be the two greatest documentaries ever made), but they are not really important in the history of cinema as an art form. Nobody making films today alludes to Riefenstahl, while many filmmakers (including myself) regard Dziga Vertov as an inexhaustible provocation and source of ideas about film language.

Most people were waiting for someone like Steven Spielberg and George Lucas to come along, and when they did, they really changed everything. Both were more about grand spectacle and owed more to Riefenstahl than to Dziga Vertov, the appeal of whose works were limited to intellectuals, scholars, and experimentalists. The avant garde or personal side of Lucas that made THX 1138 & AMERICAN GRAFFITI gave way to the showman who came up with STAR WARS and INDIANA JONES movies. Sontag wrote off Riefenstahl as future cinematic influence, but the inspiration lived on and grew ever bigger via Hollywood's new love with fascistery(though masked with anti-fascist message) though most people are loathe to admit this(just like the seminal influence of D.W. Griffith has increasingly been muted due to the ‘impolitics’ of THE BIRTH OF A NATION). Just like Cecil B. DeMille movies' main appeal was pagan idolatry and grandeur — what would 10 COMMANDMENTS be without all that awesome Egyptian stuff? — but marketed as morality tale for good Christians, so many of recent movies are excesses in fascistery packaged as lessons in ‘anti-nazism’.

And yet, there was CLOVERFIELD, a nifty movie that managed to blend fascisterics with spirit of experimentalism. It sure did an effective job of making the audience believe as if giant space bugs as Jihadi-monsters were really laying New York to waste. Suddenly, even deracinated hipster kids harden into tough survivors and turn warrior, redeemer, or romantic. In essence, it’s a dumb movie idea but so powerfully and cleverly(even brilliantly) conceived as film-making. It’s a movie that’s impossible to take ‘seriously’ unless seen with one’s own eyes. It became in instant if minor classic.
It’s all the more effective for opening naturally and persuasively as amateur home-video footage. Because the movie tosses us into the spontaneity of daily life, the sudden horror has an extra impact of verity. It seems to intrude into reality than confined to fantasy space of genre storytelling. It is genuinely shocking and ‘believable’. It’s like Star-hipster Troopers. There’s even some food for thought about nature of memory, data, and the world. Just like the video we are seeing was accidentally recorded over an existing footage of a romantic couple in happier times, the world is being ‘erased’ by space monsters for no rhyme or reason. There’s a sense of absurdity, fragility, and futility in everything, from the intimate to the historic.

The Destruction of Notre Dame Cathedral. Does It Really Matter? European Civilization is like a Beautiful but Dead Sea Shell.

Does it really matter? Notre Dame and most Churches in the West are empty shells. No matter beautiful conch or abalone shells are, they are dead without the living flesh inside. We may collect them on the beach as pretty objects, but they are dead as organisms. European Churches are dead shells. The soul is gone from them. France has ‘gay marriage’. So do most European nations. ‘Gay’ Flags are stuck inside churches as victory banners of Globo-Homo as Queertianity.
And the body is dying. London is over 50% of non-British whites. By some estimates, more than 50% of all new births in Paris are Africans or Muslims. Europe is dead in soul and withering/dying in body. There is no pride, no reverence, no sense of roots, no sense of continuity. And Jews have taken over the shells like hermit crabs and re-coded the National DNA. Jewish globalists say Vikings were black. Jewish Globalists say Britain was always a Nation of Immigrants. France as white nation? That was just fiction. Ancient Greece was white? Medieval Culture was European? European was white? No way. They were always about blacks, Arabs, and Jews… so say the Jewish Globalists and their cuck-agents, white and yellow.

Mass tourism degrades nations. In the past, only the privileged traveled. Nations were not inundated with millions and millions of foreigners who always mob national sites and treasures. There were seekers, but they were sincerely interested in visiting the places of their fascination or obsession. An art lover had reasons to visit Paris with its galleries. A Catholic wanted to visit Notre Dame or Vatican for spiritual reasons. Their sojourns had meaning. It wasn’t just for amusement. Now, drunken British blokes romp around different parts of the world to just party. And masses of tourists come to McEurope to just sight-see and have a Good Time. They have no real interest in the culture and history. It’s just something to do because others do it and brag about it. Just some place to visit on a honeymoon or budget group tour.

Muslims go to Mecca, but it’s not tourism. It is a pilgrimage. It’s the Hajj. It has meaning and purpose. Islam is a living faith and culture. And Muslims are still alive in body despite wars and famines resulting from Wars for Israel. They are alive in soul.
Apart from the West, the other part of the world that is dead in body and soul is East Asia that is most adept at imitating not only the best but the worst tendencies of the West. East Asia is better at making plastic products than organic souls. The way Japan is going, it will be replaced by robots, cartoon characters, Filipinos, Nepalese, and Africans. And Singapore will eventually be majority Hindu and Muslim(without infusion of New Chinese from the Mainland, which is also plummeting fast in population, especially among those with higher IQ).

European Churches stand empty. Almost no one shows up for services. This is true in Britain, France, Spain, and London. Ireland now worships globo-homomania and Afro-mania more than the Catholic Faith. It prefers black culture over Irish roots and history. It’s all very tragic and sad. The luck of the Irish is now about having some homo Hindu as leader. It is even prouder that they democratically voted for ‘gay marriage’ that implies a homo’s anus is just as much a sex organ as a woman’s vagina.

When people look back on the fall of the modern world, they will wonder how and why it happened. And the reasons will be(not in any particular order):

1. Feminism that destroyed jobs and respect for men.

2. Low birthrates due to feminism, hedonism, individualism, materialism, and other factors.

3. Cult of Diversity and Mass-Immigration-invasion.

4. Jewish take-over of elite institutions and re-coding of National Formula into minority-elite-supremacism and favoring the Other over the Our.

5. The siren song and dong of the Negro that spread Jungle Fever among white women and cuckery among white men. People who welcome Negroes in large numbers will turn their cities into Detroits. When the women lose respect for the men of the race, that race is doomed to enslavement and servility.

6. Youth Culture that infantilized the population to the point where even educated people get tattoos and piercings. And green or purple hair.

7. Dominance of finance that distorted and warped real economies and industries.

8. The New Elitism whereby elites of every nation despised their own folk and formed a global Elysium Club of privilege and decadence.

9. Globo-Homo degeneracy that degraded truth, morality, decency, and sanity.

10. The Cult of Novelty that made people obsess over the new thrill over a culture of continuity and memory.

White Folks and Their Fascinating/Exasperating Submission to Negro as Id and Superego

https://www.simplypsychology.org/psyche.html

What is the id?
The id is the primitive and instinctive component of personality. It consists of all the inherited (i.e., biological) components of personality present at birth, including the sex (life) instinct – Eros (which contains the libido), and the aggressive (death) instinct - Thanatos. The id is the impulsive (and unconscious) part of our psyche which responds directly and immediately to the instincts. The personality of the newborn child is all id and only later does it develop an ego and super-ego.

The superego's function is to control the id's impulses, especially those which society forbids, such as sex and aggression. It also has the function of persuading the ego to turn to moralistic goals rather than simply realistic ones and to strive for perfection.
The superego consists of two systems: The conscience and the ideal self. The conscience can punish the ego through causing feelings of guilt.

Why are white psyche and white ‘physiche’(the psychology of physicality) so chained to and slavish before the Negro?

Part of the problem is blacks have come to represent both the Id and the Superego(or SuperNegro) among white folks.

1. Blacks as Id.

Because blacks are wild, expressive, colorful, and ‘vibrant’/violent, many white folks(and other non-black folks, be they Asian, Muslim, Mexican, or Hindu) look to blacks to express what is repressed, restrained, or relatively lackluster(or 'lame') within themselves. So, a ‘bland’ and ‘generic’ proggy white girl may listen to Tina Turner, Beyonce, or Rihanna and feel her own inhibited sexuality & angst expressed through the less inhibited Negress’ shamelessly lascivious performance. It's like Jungle Therapy. Because the ‘white bread’ girl hasn't the sheer intensity of vocality, personality, and temperament to express her own sensual desires and natural drives so aggressively and nakedly, she identifies with the propulsive Negress as shaman-medium for her overly tamed and civilized whims and limbs. Because it comes naturally for the Negress to act wilder and nastier, she serves as a kind of Negro-electro-amplifier for the emotions of the white woman that simply cannot charge up to that level of hyper-funky-dynamism.

Among white males, there is a vicarious Negro-for-a-Day thrill in watching black athletes dominate the field because black male-athletic prowess leaves the white kind in the dust. Blacks can run faster, jump higher, dodge better, punch harder, and etc. So, a white guy, brown feller, and yellow boy may look to the Negro as the most potent purveyor of the Global Male Id. In any local high school, the top athlete serves as the idol of manhood in the community. In the global community, the victorious Negro has become the idol of manhood for all the world. As white manhood and especially Asian manhood have been degraded by comparison, white men are increasingly moving into cuck mode and Asian men are moving into pussy-boy mode. When whites in lived their own world and favored local heroes, white people could have white heroes. Consider a movie like CHARIOTS OF FIRE. And when Japan was closed off to the world, it has its local native heroes as top samurai swordsmen and sumo champions. But in global open competition, local/national heroes are easily blown away. It's like all dogs will lose to greyhounds in sprinting, and all dogs will lose to pitbulls in fighting.
Though all males have the masculine Id or male animal drive, it is manifested most loudly and aggressively among blacks, as when Muhammad Ali KO'ed Sonny Liston and howled he’s the ‘greatest’. In the 70s, the soccer world looked to Pele as the greatest idol of the game. Even in nations with no standing in world soccer, young boys grew up looking to Pele as some kind of sports god.

So, there could be a kind of global Id Addiction to or Id Worship of the Negro. Especially because the electronic-globo-world culture is so sports-pop-music-sex-porn-obsessed, many non-black women look to and imitate black women as the model of the most bodacious purveyor of the Id. Consider the success of Beyonce, Rihanna, and Nikki Minaj of the twerking-big-butt-school. So many white girls want to be like them.

And among non-black males, their less robust and rambunctious manhood channels the more aggressive, domineering, and violent Id of the Negro who can howl the loudest as rapper, who can sack the quarterback hardest as defensive lineman, and who can hump the most women as mandingo-man.

The Negro-as-Id phenomenon is surely manifested in the 'cuckolding' community where white men invite black men to hump their wives or girlfriends. Thus, white men partake of the bigger and stronger Id of the Negro who be humping da white ho wid gusto. Negro guy becomes the fantasy-extension of the white guy's Id. The white guy plays both biological slave to the Negro(as biological master) and fantasy Negro(as he identifies with the Negro doing his woman[who is sure to leave him sooner than later as no woman can for long respect a cucker]). As sexuality is about domination, people may find pleasure as either master or slave or as both. This is why so many white and Jewish homos go for black men, though white homos also, at times, bugger black men who usually bugger them, which makes the ‘sexual’ dynamics more complicated. The interesting aspect of homo porn(if one has the stomach for it) is that the ‘politics’ of sexuality is far more confused and ambiguous, and this may explain why homo artists/thinkers like Pier Paolo Pasolini, Yukio Mishima, and Michel Foucault made for interesting theorists of power. Though there is the female dominatrix(and recent feminist encouragement to ‘peg’ the men), the male-female sexual dynamics is far simpler, with men as dominant master and female as submissive slave. In contrast, the homo who is buggered as the ‘bitch’ can turn around the bugger the buggerer and make him the 'bitch'. In some ways, the inclusion of the Afro-homo in the Western homo community made things both simpler and complicated. Simpler in the sense that the Negro homo, being more muscled and bigger donged, was more easily recognized as the dominant partner while the white homo was relegated to the ‘bitch’ role. Even so, whereas a white woman cannot screw a Negro man, a white homo can still screw an Afro homo. So, among interracial homos, even the ‘bitch’ slave can bugger the dominant master who can play the ‘bitch’. Though Andrew Sullivan and Milo Yiannopolous are hardly important thinkers, their interracial homo-eroticism may have made them a bit keener about the various shades of power politics. The sexual ambiguity of Camille Paglia certainly accounts for her dual perspective on sexuality, watching through both male and female gaze.

Anyway, given the hedonistic Id addiction to blackness among white folks in US and EU(and among Japanese who are into Jungle Fever and among Chinese who worship black NBA players), the West may be helpless in its sensual-slavery to the Negro and too blind to wake up, come to its senses, and realize that Negromania is fatal to civilization. There is a reason why Odysseus ordered his men to tie him to the pull of the ship. Under the mesmerizing power of the Sirens’ song, he was willing to abandon everything and steer toward the femmes fatales even though he knew it meant sure death.

Emanuel Macron under the Id Power of the 'Groids'. The leader of France, the second power of EU, welcomes Negroes as Sensual Liberators and promotes Jungle Fever and ACOWW or Afro-Colonization of White Wombs.

Emanuel Macron, the Wonder Boy of Globalism, cheers as the Afro-French Soccer team wins the World Cup. As athletes are demigods of current culture, white Frenchmen now worship Negroes as the superior god-race. Macron plans to bring 150 million black Africans to France to impregnate all white wombs while white men are reduced to cucky-wuck status.

2. Blacks as Superego.

Because America dominates the world with media-academia-news-entertainment, its particular brand of Guilt Cult, Iconography, and Redemption Narrative defines global morality. What America feels guilty about, the rest of the world is also made to feel guilty about: The Imperialism of Guilt. What American reveres or worships, the rest of the world is made to revere or worship. After all, American stories, passions, and hangups are beamed to all corners of the world. So, if white Americans feel pangs of guilt about a handful of dead blacks, that matters more than 100,000s or even millions of dead victims in other parts of the world. To an extent, White Guilt is a form of White Power. Even though it burdens whites with the paralysis of guilt, it also burdens the rest of the world with particular white passions for redemption and atonement(even though the world had no part in white ‘historical crimes’). If whites feel sorry about Topic A, the rest of the world is made to feel sorry as well. This is why Negroes especially have gained so much from White Guilt. As US is a global super-soft-power as well as super-hard-power, its narratives and iconography are never just its own but beamed to all people around the globe. If whites feel guilty about Negroes as a sacred people, then the whole world must share in the guilt... or else be derided as ‘racist’. Since whites feel guilt about Jews, the rest of the world better share in the guilt... or else they are Anti-Semites. (This is most comical when it comes to Palestinians, clearly an oppressed people under Jews. But never mind what Jews did to Palestinians. Since whites feel guilty about Jews over what happened in Europe in the Shoah, the rest of the world better share in the guilt... even if the people, such as Palestinians, had nothing to do with Shoah and, if anything, were wiped off the map by Zionist imperialists). Especially because Jews dominate media and academia, they've promoted White Guilt vis-a-vis blacks as one of the great sins(next to the Holocaust) in order to paralyze white power and make it subservient by way of moral blackmail.

As a result, the deification of MLK and Mandela became central(and even mandatory) to global morality. Under such barrage, one might think no people other than blacks-under-white-rule(and Jews of course under goy Christian rule) suffered so horribly, overcame tragedy so nobly, and deserve all of our sympathy in all their transcendent splendorousness — never mind all the black brutality against blacks and Arab enslavement of blacks.
In truth, black Americans throughout the 20th century were generally better off and safer & securer compared to countless peoples around the world. Of course, the US was discriminatory toward blacks, but black-American experience in the 20th century could hardly be compared with true horrors in other parts of the world. Consider the death tolls of Armenians, Poles, Russians, Ukrainians, Chinese, Algerians, East Timorese, Cambodians, Kurds, and etc. And recently in Syria and all because Jewish-supremacists must get things their way.

But because the Jew-run US narrative dominates the world, MLK became a world figure and the 'plight' of black Americans(though piddling compared to true horrors suffered by other peoples in the 20th century) was hyped as one of great 'global' tragedies. And never mind all the dead Iraqi, Syrian, and Palestinian children as the result of Wars for Israel. Just wax tragic about Emmitt Till for the umpteenth time. (To be sure, it also owed to the Cold War in which the Soviet Union and its agents exaggerated the race problem in the US to make Capitalist America seem like an especially evil place.)

And even though blacks in South Africa had it much better than blacks in black-run African nations, Apartheid was made out by the Jew-run and cuck-managed Western Media to be one of the most evil things in history. (Never mind that the South African largess never would have been created under black rule.) If whites feel bad about something, it must be truly bad because white emotions count for more in a media-world that emphasizes whiteness to the hilt as both agency and scapegoat. If whites are glowing over something, it must be especially glow-worthy. If whites are crowing about something, it must be especially crow-worthy. (In contrast, most Americans and much of the world still know little or nothing about Nakba and the Occupation of the West Bank. After all, Jews control the Western Media as main source of world news.) Anyway, because of the cult of Negro Nobility and sanctimony around MLK and Mandela — when Negroes playact as 'noble' and uplifting, they come across as more eloquent & inspirational than most races because of their booming voices or Morgan-Freeman-like folksiness — , white people have come to look to Negro as the gatekeeper of higher morality, the holders of the key to heaven. For many whites, the Magic Negro might as well be god hisself. Indeed, for most whites in both US and EU, it is more blasphemous to badmouth MLK or Mandela(or even Morgan Freeman and of course holy homos) than God or Jesus.

The Negro celebrated as Id and worshiped as Superego.
So, there you go. We have a paradoxical situation where whites look to Negroes as both revelers of the Ultimate Id and torchbearers of the Ultimate Superego. Negro revered as both savage beast and spiritual icon.

Such deranged White Delusions are now at the center of globalist morality and culture.

Of course, white elites don't suffer physically(not yet anyway) from the consequences of this delusion because they have money, privilege, and safe spaces. People like Emanuel Macron, Theresa May, Hillary Clinton, and Joe Biden have it made no matter what happens. They rub shoulders only with fancy Negroes like Obama who know how to push the buttons and milk White Psychology. They reside in their own Elysium world. Elite scum integrate with the creme-de la-creme of Diversity while the native hoi polloi must deal with the sewage of Diversity. It’s so easy to rant against ‘racism’ if your kind need only integrate with fancy Negroes while poor whites must integrate with the likes of Mike Tyson.

In the long run, the spread of blacks and black influence in the culture-at-large will be the fatal undoing of the West. But whites are too blind to understand this because of their addiction to Negro Id and Negro Superego. On the animal level, they cower as beta-dogs before the masterful Negro as alpha-wolf. On the spiritual level, they kneel in atonement as guilty whites before the Magic Negro as black jesus. Because of this racial-sexual-spiritual complex, it is very difficult for whites to think skeptically and rationally on the matter. Both animal emotions and spiritual passions override criticality, evidence, sense, and logic.

If current trends continue, the White Race will be destroyed by the black fist, black dong, black booty, and the black holler as it gazes up at MLK and Mandela as god-angels at the gates of heaven. Also, even as blacks beat up and humiliate whites in schools and streets, whites will be too busy cheering for black athletes to realize that black physicality isn’t their dream team but their doom and gloom..

What is the current condition of the white race? Just imagine the white race as Milo with a Negro dong up his bung as he bitches that Democrats are the 'real racists' because MLK, the black moses and jesus rolled into one, was for the "content of one's character" and salvation of all of humanity through black magic.

Trevor Lynch's Review of FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD(1967) Ignites Richard Spencer vs Greg Johnson Pt II

https://www.counter-currents.com/2019/04/far-from-the-madding-crowd/

The review by Trevor Lynch(Greg Johnson?) is useful as social commentary, sexual politics, and moral judgement, but it mostly overlooks the most important facet of Art. The element of psychology. The best works of art are more about empathy(not to be confused with blind sympathy) and understanding. So, we can believe the characters are acting foolishly or even evil and recognize the ridiculousness of motivations and actions(and the foolishness or injustice of the community as a whole), but art delivers something more than a sermon, lecture, analysis, or diagnosis. Rather, it allows us to empathize and see/feel through the characters and identify with them on some level EVEN IF we disagree with them or loathe them. Oliver Stone has been an uneven director and brazen ideologue, but some of his films can be appreciated as art because his objective was to penetrate and understand. Stone, no fan of Tricky Dick, made a thoughtful political film with NIXON, something he utterly failed with the breathless propagandizing of JFK.

Lynch's Counter-Currents movie reviews too often read like right-wing versions of Proggy treatment of culture. If the 'left' hailed the New STAR WARS because it's Diverse and Multi-Culti(even though it is dreadful), Lynch praised JURASSIC WORLD because it is ostensibly a 'white' movie(even though it too is dreadful by any aesthetic or emotional standard). If progs too often reduce plays, novels, and movies into simple morality tales of heroes & villains and oppressors & victims, a similar ideological pall hangs over Lynch's review of MADDING CROWD. There is too much judgmentalism without any effort to understand the characters(even though I agree with much of Lynch's moral concerns and prescriptions). Now, I'm not opposed to judgement and personal disapproval in arts/culture criticism AS LONG AS there is an effort to understand the why of the characters and situations(and the artist's intentions). Take films like Martin Scorsese's MEAN STREETS and GOODFELLAS, and most of the characters range from childish to vile & disgusting. But it would be too easy to dismiss and condemn the characters for being a bunch of 'goombas'. They are great films because they place us in that cultural-historical milieu and show why people behave as they do in it.

Lynch's review is most lacking in the treatment of Sergeant Troy(Terence Stamp). One almost gets the sense that Lynch's diatribe against Troy is Greg Johnson vs Richard Spencer II by fictional proxy. Yes, Troy is a something of a cad(at times anyway), but he is also something more, and human psychology being what it is, it is totally understandable why Bathsheba is drawn to him(and why William Boldwood[Peter Finch] and Gabriel Oak[Alan Bates] are drawn to Bathsheba in what seems like fatal attractions). Before judgement, the critic should try to empathize and understand. Of course, this applies to works of art, not propaganda. Though I'm not keen on watching homo characters(esp in multi-culti situations), a work of art can make their lives interesting. MY BEAUTIFUL LAUNDRETTE is a genuine work of art. And C.R.A.Z.Y is one of the most deeply felt movies about the pangs of growing up and problems of family life. Such works deserve empathy on our part even if we may not care for homo characters or situations. On the other hand, a movie like PHILADELPHIA that features simple saints and devils doesn't deserve any such effort or respect on our part. It is stupid propaganda. FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD, like Terrence Malick's DAYS OF HEAVEN, is a work with characters of some depth and complexity. Reducing the story to a morality tale doesn't do it justice.

Granted, one of the problems is John Schlesinger pulled his punches in making the film. It doesn't have the auteurist stamp of DAYS OF HEAVEN or Roman Polanski's superb adaptation of TESS. Schlesinger did a very good job as professional and craftsman, but there isn't much of the director-as-author in the adaptation. Stanley Kubrick's BARRY LYNDON and Polanski's TESS are like universes unto themselves, the products of visionary power. We not only sense the keen eye but the keener intelligence, an invisible omnipotence that holds it all together. In contrast, FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD is all eyes, rather like Ang Lee's very professional version of SENSE AND SENSIBILITY. Impeccably done but mostly an exterior than interior work. We see a world than enter a universe.
TESS unfolds like a dream. We don't merely witness obsessions verging on madness in the characters but sense them as mood and texture in every square inch of the frame. A genius at his best, Polanski had the keenness to pore through the hearts and minds of characters(though often for perverted purposes) and to infuse the entire setting with unloosed spirits. In works of 'horror' like REPULSION and THE TENANT, he blatantly subverted the wall between subjectivity and objectivity, but even in more realistic films like CHINATOWN and TESS, the unease owes to the sense that 'exteriority' is inseparable from 'interiority'. At the ending of CHINATOWN, we don't merely notice that there is corruption in L.A. Rather, we sense it in the very air that people breathe. It is pervasive, everywhere, and inescapable. It's like being in a funeral where everyone breathes the fumes emanating from the dead. TESS is remarkable for being saturated with an air of poignancy. If romantic tragedy could be a perfume, Tess was it and filled the air.
Polanski knew how to get under the skin, which is why his version of MACBETH is one of the best Shakespeare adaptations. There are moments in the film when Macbeth's psychology becomes ours. We become hypnotized and spellbound by the same madness. And TESS has the power of mood and aura. It's like a house of hearts.
This element is missing from Schlesinger's MADDING CROWD, and part of the reason could have been the novel's intimidating stature as literary classic, one that dampened creative freedom by commanding faith and reverence. It's often been said that inferior novels make for better adaptations because film-makers feel free to do as they wish, whereas classics come with towering reputations that tend to overshadow film-makers' confidence.

Now, there are advantages to 'impersonal' professionalism or cinema-of-quality as well. Auteurism is a double-edged sword. In the hands of a master like Kubrick, Kurosawa, Welles, or Polanski, the source material can be transformed into something remarkable, at once true to the spirit of the source and inspired in ways beyond the scope of the original. Ridley Scott's version of BLADE RUNNER, in certain respects, goes beyond Philip K. Dick's novel. And Schlesinger, as auteur, did likewise with his adaptation of MIDNIGHT COWBOY, an excellent novel in its own right.
But, the downside of auteurism is, more often than not, untalented hacks think the mere application of their 'personal' eccentricities will enhance the material. Terry Gilliam is maybe the worst offender, but there are others. MASTERPIECE THEATER, like old Hollywood, has its strengths and limitations. Because it emphasized professionalism, it could be relied on for decent first-rate productions. Its rules hampered artistic personality but also suppressed self-indulgence. More often than not, freedom in cinema has meant freedom to be stupid than genius because stupidity is far more common than genius, which cannot be faked.

A young shepherd, Gabriel Oak (Alan Bates at his handsomest), proposes marriage to Bathsheba Everdene (Julie Christie at her loveliest)... They would make a handsome couple. Gabriel is clearly intelligent, hard-working, and responsible. He pleads his case well. But Bathsheba declines, because she does not “love” him, and to her mind, it is as simple as that. One has to wonder, though, what exactly she means by love, and why it features so prominently in her decision, since rural farm folk tend to be very pragmatic about such matches.

In describing Bates as 'at his handsomest' and Christie 'at her loveliest', Lynch answers his own question. Sure, on the socio-economic level, these are rural farming folks who need to be pragmatic in work and business, but beauty has its own logic. In a way, Gabriel Oak is just as deluded and dreamy as Bathsheba. If he's so pragmatic and responsible, or rooted in the real world, why doesn't he find some nice rural woman and settle down with her? Why does he stick around Bathsheba's manor even though she can be insulting and impetuous? Because he is madly in love with her even though he is careful and hard-nosed enough not to show it. In Bathsheba, he wasn't just looking for a good match, a good farm wife. Surely, he could have found one of those as he is reasonably handsome and capable. But his mind is set on Bathsheba and no one but her. Indeed, it seems even his dream of raising sheep and becoming rich was to win Bathsheba's heart. Outwardly, he is a hardworking and responsible character, but in some ways, his devotion to Bathsheba betrays a mad love that is no less mad than the passion of others in the story.
Also, there is a hierarchy to beauty. While Alan Bates is reasonably handsome, he isn't beautiful. In contrast, Bathsheba is. Just like University of Michigan, though good, isn't Yale or Princeton, the fact is Gabriel Oak isn't on Bathsheba's level.
There is also the element of class. Bathsheba, as inheritor, is a woman of property whereas Oak isn't. Later, we meet William Boldwood who is a man of property, but he's aged and less attractive. Thus, neither is a dream match for Bathsheba. She is a flower in bloom. Oak, like his name, is a tree, but one that nevertheless longs to protect the flower from rain and wind.

Anyway, it misses the point to be sour with Bathsheba because she doesn't make a sensible choice. Furthermore, if she had acted sensibly, there wouldn't be much of a conflict and story as means to tease out the tangled threads of the heart and mind.

Soon Bathsheba moves away, and Gabriel tries to put her out of his mind. But when Gabriel’s flock is killed in a ghastly accident, he is forced to up stakes and seek employment on another man’s farm.

The dog that ran off the leash and drove the sheep over the cliff anticipates Troy's impact on the lives of villagers, and yet can we really blame the dog? A dog's true nature is that of the wolf, a warrior-beast. One part of the dog wants to obey & serve the master, but another part of the dog wants to be its own master and run wild-and-free. It want to be a wolf again. It's understandable why Oak shoots the dog, but we can also understand why the dog acted as it did.
And this applies to Troy as well. In some ways, he is a disruptive figure, rather like Randall McMurphy in ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST and Paul Newman in COOL HAND LUKE. But in another way, we can see why Bathsheba and men in the village are drawn to him. In a society of so many dour rules and regulations, he represents charisma and independence. (Sadly, current UK has moved to the other extreme, made all the worse because its main Troys are now mostly black who lack even the tragic romanticism of Troy. Notice BBC features a Negro as Achilles, the killer of Hector before the gates of Troy.)

When Bathsheba fires the farm’s bailiff for thievery, she decides that she will manage the farm herself. She is, in short, one of those “headstrong, independent women” that every year advertisers and journalists tell us are brand new, not like the shrinking violets and clinging vines of last year... However, unlike today’s strong, independent woman stories, Far from the Madding Crowd is not a feminist morality play. Quite the opposite. Hardy shows that Bathsheba’s independence is actually a source of great suffering for herself and the people around her...

I didn't get the sense that she was supposed to be 'headstrong, independent woman'. If anything, her decision seemed practical at the moment as there wasn't anyone to replace the bailiff. Also, the fact that her uncle/aunt had hired and kept around such a crook for so long goes to show that maybe older people aren't necessarily wiser.

Does the story show that Bathsheba's independence is a source of great suffering? But, didn't things really go south when she abandoned her independence and married Troy, with whom she became tragically besotted? Now, one could argue that female independence is doomed because a woman will use it to eventually surrender her freedom to an alpha-male-type who tends to be vain, narcissistic, and irresponsible. So, maybe it's better to deny women independence and match them with responsible men than let them run free and choose, because what they'll end up doing is surrendering their freedom to some cad, jerk, or a**hole(like maybe loverboy Ricardo Spencerio)? Maybe Nina Koupriovna would have done better to marry some nice bookwormish lad than the cad Spencer, the man who would be 007 crossed with Darth Vader and Batman.

But here's the thing. Given Bathsheba's personal nature, I think things would have been doomed just the same even if she had married or been married off to some responsible kind of man. She's the kind of woman who has to 'sow her wild oates' before she finally comes to her senses.
Some people learn fast or obey orders. Others have to get burned before they finally realize that the normal, the real, and the limited have value. Consider the ending of GREAT EXPECTATIONS. The woman had to undergo rejection and humiliation before finally settling on a life with Pip(than with a pimp).
And then, there is the crazy little thing called love. In DOCTOR ZHIVAGO, the main character has a perfectly good wife, but the real love of his life is Lara, and nothing could be done about that. For some people, essentialism is enough. They heed the timeless advice of eternal truths or conventional wisdom. But other people come to grips with reality only by the way of exisentialist process of experience, actualization, and realization. While most people would do better to stick with the tried-and-true, the West moved beyond tradition because of its power of will to be different, independent, and break free of the mold. Had Bathsheba been a Chinese girl in traditional society, she would likely have done as told, just like most of the men. But she has an independent streak, and it is a double-edged sword, a force of good and bad. Also, even if she acts rather callously with her freedom, it is that very quality that makes her so enticing to men like Oak and Boldwood. She is exciting, like Catherine(Jeanne Moreau) in JULES AND JIM. Though not exactly a femme fatale like Lulu in THE BLUE ANGEL or the nymphet in LOLITA(though, to be sure, that obsession was more Humbert Humbert's own doing), she catches the eyes of men like Oak and Boldwood because of her carefree spirit. Precisely because British society was rigid, regimented, and orderly -- where everyone was supposed to know his or her part -- , someone like Bathsheba really sticks out and enchants those around her.

The basic message of Far from the Madding Crowd is that empowering a person who lacks wisdom and maturity is a bad thing. Indeed, empowering such people actually cuts them off from the sources of wisdom and maturity that they need. But it is not just an anti-feminist message, although in this case the primary victim is a woman. It is an anti-individualist message, for the whole thrust of individualism is to empower people to make their own decisions, regardless of wisdom and maturity.

I'm all for wisdom and maturity, but how does one come upon them? By the trials and errors of life(where errors are sometimes quite valuable and possessed of worth & meaning, just like some foods come with key nutrients along with the toxins; also to get the honey, one must first go through the bees). The thing is to learn from them.
At the end of the story, one might say Bathsheba and Oak are wiser and maturer precisely because they made 'mistakes' and lived through them. It's a story as old as history itself. Take Adam and Eve in Eden. In a way, one might say they didn't deserve the freedom that foolishly made them eat from the Forbidden Tree. But without freedom, they would have been robots, not humans. Also, by the tragedy of disobeying God's wisdom, they set off a complex and fascinating chain of events that made humanity so interesting.

The historical difference between the East and the West is that the former was more about the rule by the wise and mature(the elderly) and obedience by the social inferiors(usually the young). As a result, East Asia has been historically more stable than the West, but it has also been more static and stagnant. Wisdom and maturity are real strengths, but they are also ruses for power, corruption, lack of imagination, fear of change, and/or greed. Furthermore, while it's true that people may grow wiser with age, they may also grow colder and more cynical, resentful(in envy of youth), and bitter. Patriarchy has its advantages and is preferable to rule by young brutes, but it can also be stuffy and stultifying. And when an old dog can't learn new tricks, is it really wise? And even if there could be a perfectly nice society ruled by the wise and mature, would it be ideal for the young to just take advice from wise men instead of breaking out on their own and discovering for themselves what is good and bad? A parent may want his children to do as told and listen to good advice, but if a child always acts 'ideal', is he really living and becoming a man? Isn't defiance a part of what makes life meaningful? After all, a child has to learn from scrapes and bruises what pain and healing are all about. It seems helicopter parenting has done more harm than good to many kids who were, from cradle, told to follow advice than find out or think for themselves.

There is a reason why Germanic Saga needs someone like Siegfried and why Arthurian legend need someone like Perceval. While it's true that Siegfried and Perceval are inexperienced, naive, immature, and foolish at times, they also have spirit, will, and 'idealism' lacking among the established members of the Order whose roles are so set in stone that they themselves cannot bring about necessary change. Just like it took the Young Turks to create Modern Turkey from the corpse of the Ottoman Empire, there is something to be said about youth. Ancient Athens was full of youthful vigor and spirit. It made a lot of mistakes, some of them grave, but it was also a center of innovation and revolution. In contrast, Byzantine Civilization was all about timeless wisdom and truth as revealed by Christ, but it was iron rule by a corrupt elite that suppressed new ideas and thoughts lest they upset the harmonious order of orthodoxy.
And consider 'wisdom' and 'maturity' at play in the films JEAN DE FLORETTE and MANON OF THE SPRING. The old farmer uses all his guile to destroy the upstart young would-be-farmer from the city, just like the Sicilian patriarchs in THE GODFATHER PART II use their 'respected' positions to ruthlessly bump off rivals. Of course, one could argue that such men are not truly wise or mature despite their stations in the community, but too often in history, what passes for 'wisdom' and 'maturity' are tried-and-true means of power than truth or justice at any price. Look around at most aged politicians, academics, journalists, and etc., and we don't see much in the way of wisdom or maturity but merely the guise of such. Besides, people will disagree on what is wise and mature.

Also, true wisdom and maturity come with experience, and that's why Bathsheba's wisdom/maturity at the end has genuine value. She earned it through experience. She lived through her mistakes and failures. But the thing is they weren't merely mistakes and failures but motivated by real dreams and passions. Her wisdom at the end is a lived and attained wisdom. In contrast, had she not been free and merely listened to the advice of elders and did as told, she never would have felt that her wisdom is truly hers since she just received and obeyed without having experienced and learned. This is the problem with academics. So few of them really live and experience reality. Rather, they just receive the 'wisdom' of their elders in colleges. As teachers' pets, they don't need to think or try things out for themselves. They feel they know because they've been told. In contrast, many on the Dissident Right, for good or ill, decided to find out for themselves what is true or not based on their own observations and realizations than on the received 'wisdom' of PC from boomer elders.
Also, today's feminism is not about free and independent women. Rather, it's about all these girls raised by Big Sister and Big Media/Academia. In contrast, Bathsheba is a free spirit, at least for awhile, because she is free of patriarchy, the church, and yet non-existent feminist 'sisterhood'.

Another point of the story is that there is a power greater than wisdom and maturity. The mythic power of romantic love, which simply can't be dismissed as foolishness. And it's not just Bathsheba who comes under this spell in relation to Troy. It affects Gabriel Oak too. He's good at hiding his feelings, but he is madly smitten with Bathsheba. And Boldwood's assumed wisdom and maturity are instantly rendered useless against the charms of Bathsheba, even when she confesses her callous act and rejects his offer of marriage. So, what good is wisdom and maturity when even a hard-headed, responsible, experience, mature, and wise man like Boldwood falls head-over-heels over a tart like Bathsheba? Good or bad, love is what Richard Spencer likes to characterize certain things: "It is what it is." It's like Ace Rothstein just can't let go of Sharon Stone's character in CASINO even though, by all rational calculations, she was not a safe bet. It's likely think Scorsese quoted a scene from MADDING CROWD for CASINO: Bathsheba catches Boldwood's eye when she tosses wheat at bidders at the market, and Stone does the same with the chips at the craps table. For serious buttoned-down men for whom everything is business, it is refreshing to see a spirited woman with devil-may-care attitude.


Also, the element of mystery in love owes to the difference between attraction and obsession. Anyone can feel attracted to any man or woman because he or she happens to be good-looking. But why the obsession that, unlike mere attraction, lingers and clings? Why was Humbert so powerless before Lolita? Why couldn't Zhivago resist his love for Lara? Why did the German professor give up everything for the singer in THE BLUE ANGEL? In the Yukio Mishima short story PRIEST AND HIS LOVE, why did a wise elderly Buddhist priest lose his peace of mind after a glimpse of a woman? American pop scholars Beavis and Butthead might say it was 'boing', but obsession goes beyond 'boing'. It's about Boing and Time, Boing and Nothingness.

Love is strange, which is why Merlin warns against it in EXCALIBUR.

https://ianwinterton.co.uk/what-about-nicol-williamson-as-merlin-in-excalibur/

“I once stood exposed to the dragon’s breath so a man could lie one night with a woman. It took me nine moons to recover and all for this lunacy called love, this mad distemper that strikes down both beggar and king. Never again!”

And yet, without the madness of love, men wouldn't fight for glory. After all, the Trojan War was about Helen of Troy. And there would have been no Arthur if not for Uther's desire for Igraine. There's no new life without mating of men and women. Now, any man or any woman will do to create life, and in the animal world, chimps will hump just about any other chimp, even granny chimps in HAROLD AND MAUDE fashion. But humans developed an eye for beauty like a tooth for sweetness, and so, there is a fascination with romantic love that supposedly transcends mere heat of the moment.

Also, the fascination with the power of love has to do with its odd blend of fragility and tenacity. When a big lug with an ax towers over you, that is an obvious kind of power. Or if some guy is smart and has expertise in organizing men, that kind of power is also easily understood. In contrast, women are weaker than men. And beautiful men are not necessarily the most powerful. Beauty, in and of itself, is useless in the utilitarian sense, and yet it's precious like gold and enchants people in the same way. People fought with swords made of bronze and iron but for gold, which for most of human history, was pretty useless from a pragmatic point of view. Likewise, people struggle with hands and feet to win the pretty face.

In a way, we can dismiss this fixation with love & beauty as foolishness, and we may agree that maturity-and-wisdom means to look beyond romantic enticements. And yet, the power of beauty has its own 'logic'. No matter how much one may be resolved to say NO to beauty, there it is, and even the most mature and learned man whose attitude is 'been there, done that' may instantly go 'gaga' over beauty. Take the film LOVE AND DEATH IN LONG ISLAND which begins with a jaded English writer who feels he's seen and felt just about everything. He's inured to life as same-old same-old routines of boredom and seems impervious to any foolish passion, and yet, upon watching some pretty boy in a teen comedy, he is totally smitten. On the one hand, he is indeed being foolish and begins to act silly. And yet, there is a sense of excitement and vigor that had been missing in his life, and it could only have come from this fascination with the young actor.



Gabriel... consistently demonstrates manly self-discipline, conscientiousness, and technical mastery. He is, in truth, a natural leader—an alpha male... He’s a rock. He’s always there for her. And apparently there’s nothing the least bit loveable or sexy about it from her point of view.

Is he a natural leader? He seems more a natural doer. He is capable, and others rely upon him. But being a good manager isn't quite the same as being a leader who needs the power to inspire others. Gabriel is all hands and feet. He's a carpenter, not an architect. Also, if he's an alpha male, why is he like a loyal dog to a woman who shows no interest in him? He is a sturdy and capable fellow but emotionally as much beta as alpha. And of course there isn't much sexiness about being a 'rock'. Rocks don't rock but stay in place. It's the rolling stones that rock.

One spring day, Bathsheba finds an unused valentine... On a whim, Bathsheba writes “Marry Me” on it and sends it to Mr. Boldwood... A more mature woman would have admitted her mistake, apologized sincerely, and flatly refused him... But Boldwood too was at fault. He was too smitten to grasp Bathsheba’s immaturity and simply would not take no for an answer. Like Gabriel, he should have simply tried to put her out of his mind.

This shoulda-coulda perspective is too schoolmarmish for our understanding of the story. If we take the shoulda-coulda outlook in arts & culture, we can sit around griping endlessly about how foolish a whole bunch of characters acted in plays, novels, and movies. In some cases, the actions are just plain stupid and could have been avoided. But, MADDING CROWD is about individuals acting under a certain power, and the element of free will is only a small part of the whole equation. It's like when a fire is really raging, it has to burn through before people can start to plant and start anew. In the film UGETSU, one may say the potter 'made a mistake' to be seduced by the ghost-temptress, and yet the story makes us understand why the spell was irresistible. If we take a libertarian rationalist perspective, it sure was stupid for Scotty to fall head-over-heels in love with Madeline in VERTIGO, but the mythic power of love was such that he was sucked into the undertow. So, taking a rationalist and moralist approach to MADDING CROWD doesn't make us understand what is going on.
The problem is not that Boldwood is 'at fault'. He is under a spell, and it is just too powerful. Even if he decided to wake up one day and rationally will himself to forget about Bathsheba, her image and voice will haunt him all day and night. It's beyond his personal will.
Also, Oak did NOT put her out of his mind. Because he grew up tough and poor, he knows his place in the world. He knows he's no lover boy nor how to be one. He was compelled to be pragmatic all his life, and so he carries on with nose-to-grindstone. And yet, she has never left his mind. He sticks around not only for work but because he too is quietly smitten with her. The difference is that Boldwood, as a man of means and property, has a chance of winning her whereas Oak hasn't, at least until the very end when Bathsheba's been through so much that she needs a rock to hold onto. Anyway, it was easier for Oak to accept reality because he has slim chance of winning her, especially upon realizing that she's wealthier than he'd assumed at the beginning. In contrast, Boldwood is bound to suffer more because he feels he has the station and wealth to win her over. She seems within his grasp, which is why he can't let go.
Furthermore, Oak has youth and looks, which counts for something in a man. Even if Bathsheba won't have him, he has a kind of pride of strength and health. In contrast, Boldwood is a middle-aged man for whom Bathsheba is the last chance for real love and happiness. As a man of means, he could have married some nice woman long ago, but he devoted himself to work and property and assumed he'd be content with that. But in the encounter with Bathsheba, he realized how empty life was on his own, and it has to be her and her alone because she made him realize that emptiness of his. It's like a man who'd grown accustomed to undernourishment but then eyes a juicy steak that makes his mouth water so much that it has to be that steak and only that steak alone.

A mature and sensitive woman would never have trifled so callously with the old bachelor’s heart.

And yet he's grateful because he feels alive again. A mature and sensitive woman might have left him alone, but then, his entire life would have been the same old same old until he grew old and died without knowing any passion. But despite the agony and ultimately tragedy, Boldwood felt alive because of Bathsheba's high-spirited flirtation that seemed so fresh and flighty. She was like spring to a man who'd settled on never-ending winter. A bear out of hibernation is especially hungry. It's like what the woman brings to the spartan community in BABETTE'S FEAST. It disrupts the social order devoted to piety and virtue, but the folks are also grateful for flavors they'd never known.
Maturity and sensitivity are good generally but also repressive of spontaneity and inspiration. In our time, we need to stress maturity and wisdom as we live in the Age of Shameless Infantilism, but things were different in the world of MADDING CROWD. Back then, British society needed more freedom and individuality, not less. It's like warm tea is for winter, cold lemonade is for summer. We must be careful not to project current problems onto the past. Everything needs balance. It's like Robin Williams' loosening up the classroom in DEAD POETS SOCIETY makes sense in that preppy milieu, and Edward James Olmos was good to bring order & discipline to the rough barrio school in STAND AND DELIVER. Is something too hot, cool it down; if something is too cold, warm it up.

Bathsheba's valentine antic was silly and childish, but it was also unexpected. It had an element of spark. In a world where everything is routine and predictable, what Boldwood never expected came to be and ignited something in him. He received a love offer, and he was bedazzled. In SEPARATE PEACE by John Knowles, Finny certainly lacks 'maturity and sensitivity', but he's the life of the school because he takes chances and has lots of charm, which makes Gene envious and resentful.

Bathsheba might well have ended up marrying Boldwood were it not for the appearance of cavalry sergeant Francis Troy... Although his face entirely lacks beauty or character, the fact that he is tall, dashing, and wears a uniform makes him irresistible to women. Troy, however, is a cad, with a full suite of what the manosphere calls “Dark Triad” traits—narcissism, sociopathy, and manipulativeness—which women commonly mistake for healthy alpha male traits...

Terence Stamp lacks beauty? I suppose beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but Terence Stamp was considered one of the most beautiful men of his time. And he looks fabulous in MADDING CROWD. It's no wonder he was cast in Pasolini's TEOREMA as a god-like figure who comes to a bourgeois family and commit sexual-like acts, homo and straight, with each of the members. John Simon called it 'godomy'.



It seems Lynch sees too much of Richard Spencer in Troy(LOL), and this clouds his judgement about the character. Troy is something of a cad but not entirely, and he is not without certain depths and twisted integrity of his own.

Before Bathsheba came on the scene, Troy had seduced, impregnated, and then abandoned one of the farm girls, Fanny Robin. He actually agreed to marry her. But it was an impromptu affair, and when she went to the wrong church at the appointed time, his vanity was so inflamed that he broke the engagement.

That over-simplifies what really happened. One doesn't get the sense that Troy seduced a farm girl merely for self-amusement. Also, it probably didn't require much in the way of seduction because it's easy to fall for a handsome dashing soldier. And, he didn't abandon her but called off the wedding when she arrived late. This wasn't just a matter of simpering vanity. The fact is, despite Troy being a man without means, he was willing to do the right thing and marry below his station because he had genuine feelings for Fanny. Besides, as he didn't know about the pregnancy, he wasn't acting out of social compulsion. In his view, he was being gracious and going out of his way to do a favor to Fanny. All his men surely heard about the wedding, and he invited some of them to the ceremony. So, he did his part to do something for Fanny, but the simple-minded country girl totally humiliated him in front of his peers. It wasn't really her fault, but we can surely understand his fury. This was a matter of wounded pride, not mere vanity. And back then, a man's reputation relied much on pride and honor. So, it is understandable why he found Fanny's absence at the wedding to be utterly intolerable.

In one of the best scenes of the film, Boldwood tries to bribe Troy into marrying Fanny and leaving Bathsheba to him. Troy toys with Boldwood, then announces that he is too late, for he has married Bathsheba that very morning. Boldwood is crushed.

This is actually to Troy's credit. It shows that he is not just about money and cannot be bought. He does have a sense of pride and, if anything, despises Boldwood for being so weak and ultimately servile.

The honeymoon does not last long... He is immediately accepted as lord of the manor, but he has no knowledge of farming or interest in responsibility. In a scene that beautifully illustrates his character—or lack of it—he regales the adoring farmhands with bawdy military songs while drinking them under the table. Meanwhile, a storm brews up, and when Gabriel tries to get some of the farmhands away from the party to secure the hayricks from being blown away, he is rebuffed by Troy who does not want to lose his audience. It is classic narcissist behavior. So Gabriel and Bathsheba herself struggle in the storm, soaked to the bone, to save the farm from loss while Troy’s revelries continue.

Again, this is an over-simplification of what really happened. It was a festive moment with dancing, music, and food-and-drinks. Anxious of the looming storm, Oak rather feebly tries to convey the message to Troy who, at the moment, is in a middle of a dance with Bathsheba. Naturally, Troy doesn't want to be interrupted. If Oak really cared about recruiting some men to tie the hay down, he should have gone to Troy directly, but he uses a rather ineffective doddering intermediary. Too busy dancing, Troy never heard anything about the storm. So, it's not like he refused aid despite knowledge of the looming storm. He never got the message. Also, Oak could have made his case before the people in the barn AFTER THE DANCE, but he remains tight-lipped. Why didn't Oak himself walk up to Troy. Because he has his own sense of wounded pride. He is quietly sulking over the fact that the woman HE loves married Troy. So, he'd rather use a go-between. And if he really needed a few men to help him, he could pulled them away without permission from Troy who isn't paying much attention anyway.

Also, is it such a bad thing that, once in a long while, the men of the village have a pretty good time with song and drink with Troy who, instead of looking down on them as mere farmhands, treats them as fellow-revelers? The fact is Troy never heard of the storm, and it took some time before the men in the barn were totally drunk. But Oak never once runs back in to call for help.
In a way, he seems almost grateful to go it alone because hard work is his therapy, his way of coping with disappointments. Some people go for comfort-food. Oak goes for comfort-work. It's a way to get his mind off things.
But more importantly, it is his opportunity to demonstrate his true worth to Bathsheba. It is through work and hardship that he is able to bond with her, if only for a moment as she comes out to work alongside him. He can't be the white knight but can be the work-horse who proves his worth. And Bathsheba is impressed and grateful for what seems like selfless devotion on his part. While the sheep are prancing with the wolf in the barn, the loyal dog is weathering the storm to serve the master.

Bathsheba is willing to suffer quite a lot because she is “in love” with Troy.

Mythic love is the strongest and most potent kind of love. What is the appeal of Greek mythology? Why do mortals fall in love with gods and even make love with them? By human standards, gods seem vain, irresponsible, and self-indulgent, but that's because they are gods and live by their own rules. A vulgarized form of this is celebrity worship in our society, and it's often stupid. But we can understand why people feel this way. Children naturally identify with princes and princesses than with hardworking peasants or blacksmiths. In MONTY PYTHON'S HOLY GRAIL, the toiling peasants rail against the exploitative king and nobility, but we are always drawn more to gods, kings, knights, and heroes than with ordinary folks, no matter how decent they are.



Now, I'm all for humanism, but the mythic side of human psychology isn't going away anytime soon. In the end, humanism prevails because no man, however brilliant or handsome, is literally a god. They grow old and die. Look at Sean Connery now. Still, we can understand why Bathsheba fell in love with Troy for his 'vain' and 'irresponsible' godlike qualities. He acts like he's too good for ordinary work. Though not of noble lineage(as far as I could tell), he was of the warrior profession and comports like a man suited for adventure and glamour. In MILDRED PIERCE, why does the eponymous heroine toil to support a man of finesse and class? Because one can't really buy style. Some have it, some don't. Now, is Troy a contemptible figure like the guy in MILDRED PIERCE? Deeply flawed but no. There is a saving grace about Troy to which Lynch is willfully blind.

But things come crashing down when a very pregnant Fanny Robin shows up at the farm asking for Troy’s help, then promptly dies in childbirth. When the coffin is brought to the farm for burial, Gabriel hides the fact that it also contains a baby... Troy then walks in, and... he seems to be filled with love and remorse for Fanny... He is simulating love and dejection merely to spite Bathsheba. Troy then goes to the ocean, undresses, and swims out to sea.

Lynch fails to mention that when Fanny showed up, Troy was kind and gentle with her, and he did try to get the money for her. Troy is not without a soul. He did have and still has genuine feelings for Fanny. Bathsheba misunderstood this by suspecting infidelity on his part. She thought he was asking for money for an affair. It was to do right by Fanny.

As for Troy's sudden rush of emotions about dead Fanny, something he hadn't felt before, it too has to do with the mythic dimensions of love. While alive, Fanny was just a pretty girl he'd been engaged to or a pitiable figure in need of charity, but as a dead woman(especially with his child) she becomes the stuff of myth. There's a blend of guilt, spirituality, and poetry in how Troy feels about Fanny as ghost. It's like Madeleine comes to mean much more to Scotty after she dies in VERTIGO. She goes from sad beauty to the stuff of myth. And in LA STRADA, the death of Gelsomina has a devastating effect on Zampano. She goes from human dog to an angel.

The notion that Troy was merely 'simulating' or faking emotions to spite Bathsheba doesn't do justice to what really happens in that scene. Troy may not be a deep character who carries life lessons wherever he goes, but he is consumed by the passion of the moment, and his pathos upon gazing at dead Fanny was not fake. In that moment at least, he discovered a kind of love he had never known or felt, and compared to this dark love of tragic poetry, Bathsheba looked like a flighty little bird, a nothing. He becomes, at least for awhile, as consumed in his love for mythic Fanny as Bathsheba is for mythic Troy(and as Boldwood is for mythic Bathsheba). In all three cases, the characters see more than there really is, but then love is always an illusion to some degree. To Boldwood, Bathsheba isn't just a pretty woman but a goddess whom he must serve if not possess. To Bathsheba, Troy isn't just a handsome feller but a god-man who lives by his own rules. It's as if he descended from Mt. Olympus. And to Troy, the image of dead Fanny and her child fills him with dark and deep vision of love and beauty he hadn't known but now knows and feels with such power(though not forever as he's not that kind of man).

Love is subjective and relative. It's like the circus scene when Troy in disguise stands before a horse trained to feign death. Some in the audience are laughing, some are amused, some are a bit sad, but one man is bawling in grief. Why? Something especially mushy about his character? Or did he know of a beloved horse that died?
Individuals and objects elicit different responses from us depending on our emotional nature, genetic makeups, life histories, and memories. Fanny, Troy, and Bathsheba belong to a circular trio whereas Oak and Boldwood are left out. What do Fanny, Troy, and Bathsheba have in common? All three were overcome with mad love and were objects of mad love. Bathsheba was the object of mad love by Boldwood and Oak(who hides it beneath his tough and hardened exterior). Troy was the object of mad love by Bathsheba(and perhaps Fanny). And Fanny, at least in death, becomes the object of mad love by Troy. In contrast, no one loved Boldwood and Oak madly.

As Christmas approaches, Boldwood... will be announcing his engagement. But then disaster strikes... Troy reappears. He has faked his death. But having heard of Bathsheba’s prospective engagement, he returns out to spite to assert his marital rights. Bathsheba is shocked and refuses to follow him. So Troy begins to manhandle her. Then we hear a shot. Troy falls dead on the stairs. Boldwood stands with a rifle.

I think saying that he 'faked' his death is too harsh. Based on what is shown, it seems he failed in his death. Drowning oneself at sea isn't easy. Also, what did Troy have to gain by faking his death? Having failed in his death, he hides in shame by traveling around with some hokey circus troupe doing pony tricks.
One thing for sure, he did swim far out to sea after taking his clothes off. If he really just wanted to fake his death, he wouldn't have gone nude at all or ran into the waves. He would have just left some clothes behind and ran off.

Then we witness one of the most wrenching tragic climaxes since Sophocles. Bathsheba breaks down in tears over her beloved Frank. Boldwood looks on, in utter horror, at the abyss of irrationality into which he has now flung his life. He will hang for this, for absolutely nothing. Two men are dead, one noble, the other absolutely base, all for a woman of genuine beauty and goodness who was empowered to make catastrophic decisions that destroyed two lives and brought misery to her own.

LOL. I'm telling you. Troy isn't as bad as Richard Spencer but then Richard Spencer isn't as bad as 'Richard Spencer', the delusional Faustian Batman. He just needs to grow up and put away childish things.

Irrationality, yes, but emotions are irrational. Why was Boldwood so obsessed with Bathsheba? Irrational. And yet, it is too simplistic to say that he will 'hang... for absolutely nothing'. He will hang for the profound truth of love. And if he were given a choice between a scenario where he never fell in love with Bathsheba & lived a quiet life all alone AND a scenario where he faces execution after having fallen in love with her and killed for her, he might still have chosen the latter because it brought him close to love and passion even if it leads to the gallows. Tragedy has its own beauty.
Also, ironically enough, it is his killing of Troy that reignites her mad passion for Troy, just like the death of Fanny made Troy love her more than he could have loved her alive. And in a way, it's fitting that both men's lives end in doom. Troy, the man for whom Bathsheba felt impossible love, and Boldwood, the man who felt impossible love for Bathsheba. Boldwood may hang, but for several years, he has truly lived life and plumbed the depths of human emotions from the high drama. When he killed Troy, did he think he was protecting Bathsheba from him? Did he kill out of jealousy? And yet, even though Bathsheba and Boldwood will never be together, they are united in the same emotions, that of the impossible love. Whatever happens, Troy was the great love of her life, and whatever happens, Bathsheba was the great and only love of Boldwood's life.

When, at the end of STRAW DOGS, Dustin Hoffman's character finally finishes off one of the invaders with a wolf trap, it turns out his wife is more horrified by the death(of her former lover and rapist) than relieved to see her husband triumphant. Irrational perhaps, but there is an underlying rationality to irrationality. If in evolutionary history, women gravitated toward and felt safer with stronger alpha males than weaker males, then women will be genetically programmed to favor alphas over betas. And if we evolved to appreciate beauty as an intoxicant, then it is natural and 'rational' that we would be smitten with it and work so hard to attain it in one form or another. Everything 'irrational' makes sense from another perspective. If beauty is precious and alluring, then people will be drawn to beauty like plants to sunlight. Just like the beautiful Rhine Maiden say NO to the ugly Nibelungen, the game of beauty is where the blessed few get to play gods, at least in the summer of youth.

Also, Boldwood isn't that noble, and Troy isn't that base. If Boldwood were so noble, he would care more about the betterment of the community than fixate so heavily on bliss with Bathsheba. And Troy, like the Burt Lancaster character in THE SWIMMER, is a romantic, a saving grace. He is sometimes a jerk, but he is more, if in surprise even to himself. But then, no one fully understands oneself, and things happen that release emotions that shockingly upend one's sense of self and worldview. There is a gentle kind of wisdom that one learns through study and discourse, but there is another kind of wisdom that can only be attained by trial by fire. It's like there's gentle conversion to a new faith based on sacred texts & rituals, and then, there's impassioned conversion like Paul's Damascus moment. A sense of being born again.

...instead of wasting away in Bathsheba’s friend zone, Gabriel decides to move to America. Only then does Bathsheba truly appreciate him. For she can only really love a man who is independent of her. She rushes to stop him. Gabriel says he will stay under one condition. Then, in a gesture that will pierce even the most cynical hearts, he repeats word for word his vision of married life that she had rejected at the beginning of the film. But this time she says yes. It was the right choice...
The movie ends with Gabriel and Bathsheba settling into married bliss. But then the eye of the camera strays over to Troy’s clock, focusing on the soldier in the tower, like a memento mori to remind us that the Troys of the world and the irrational romanticism they evoke will always threaten marriage and family life.

Did Oak really plan on moving to America or was it a ploy to bind Bathsheba closer to him? And does she suddenly feel love for Oak because of his plan to emigrate, a sign of independence from her? I think not. After all, upon being rebuffed at the beginning of the film, Oak demonstrated his independence by accepting her decision and carrying on. At one time, she banished him from the farm, and he just took up and left. Oak demonstrated, at least outwardly, time and time again that he can go on without her. But all that time, Bathsheba didn't feel any love for him.

In a way, Oak is just as irrational as Boldwood and Troy. If he really wanted a family, he should have found some nice farm girl and started a family. But he remained single because he only cared for one woman. Even when she married Troy and then was about to marry Boldwood, he hung around, unmarried. It was as if he was so smitten with her that he was waiting for second servings and leftovers in case some tragedy struck, and by some luck(or tragedy, but then, one man's misfortune is another man's fortune), chance killed two birds with one stone. Boldwood took out Troy, and the Law took him out. Oak was running third but the first-runner and second-runner tripped over one another, and Oak ended up 'finishing first'.
But then, the fact is Troy had her first, and Boldwood almost had her second. Oak got her by luck, and one wonders what he would have done if she'd married Boldwood and if Troy hadn't returned. Would he have waited around, growing older, in the hope that Boldwood will die and then finally Bathsheba will marry him? There is a slow-burning romanticism in that. The fact is Oak is himself a romantic though he hasn't the style and means to show it. So, he broods silently and takes out his frustrations through hard work. And in the end, he reaps his rewards, but the moral tale isn't just about the primacy of marriage and family. If it were, Oak would have settled down with some nice dependable farm girl than hang around for leftovers because he can't get Bathsheba out of his mind.

Also, in an odd way, Troy was the matchmaker of Bathsheba and Oak because she had to get it out of her system(via her mad burning love with Troy) to finally arrive at a more balanced and stable outlook on life. Her appreciation of Oak couldn't have been possible if not for her tumultuous life journey with Troy, the peaks and pits of her life. It's like it took Dorothy's adventure in the land of Oz for her to finally appreciate that there's no place like home.

The Anglo-Saxon character has been defined by love of risk & adventure and appreciation of security & order. Some on the Alt Right say Spencerism represents the 'imperialist' Anglo will to wander, conquer, and discover whereas 'nationalist' Johnsonism represents the Anglo wish to preserve, defend, and maintain. Both were crucial in the rise of Anglosphere, a spirit of adventure tempered by discipline and sobriety.
After all, the overly cautious are hardly conquerors. East Asian high civilization, conservative and cautious, remained locked within East Asia. In contrast, Europeans were willing to throw caution to the winds and go sailing across oceans just to see what's on the other side. There was an element of madness in all this, but without it, there would have been no triumph of the West. Granted, European adventure was premised on European order, much like church towers are buttressed by support systems, something too many people have forgotten about the West, especially British Civilization.

The tragedy of Troy is he didn't have enough battles to fight. Just like Oak is at his best immersed in work, Troy feels most alive and useful in the battlefield with a saber. Even on the farm, he prefers cockfights to the drudgery of labor, but then that is why Bathsheba married him. She wanted a god with a saber atop a horse, not another farm hand with a pitchfork.