Frank Miller and Heroic Sacrifice
Why I like Frank Miller’s work - In the following interview excerpt he explains the dominant theme of his work, and how it came about.
On the story of the 300 Spartans at Thermopylae:
“I always loved this story. It’s the best story I ever got my hands on. I was a little boy, seven years old, and I saw this clunky old movie from 20th Century Fox called The 300 Spartans. I was sitting next to my brother Steve, who was two years older than I was, so we were seven and nine and too cool to sit with our parents, so our parents were in the row behind us. Towards the end of this thing, I went, ‘Steve, are the good guys gonna lose?’ He said, ‘I don’t know, ask Dad!’ So I leaned back and said, ‘Dad, are the good guys gonna die?’ ‘I’m afraid so, son.’ I went and sat down and watched the end of the movie and the course of my creative life changed, because all of a sudden heroes weren’t guys getting medals at the end of Star Wars. They weren’t Harry Potter getting cheered by his goddamned classmates. They were people who did the right thing, and damn the consequences. Ever since then, heroic sacrifice has been a theme of my work.”
This recurring theme of anachronistic ‘heroic sacrifice’ really moves me, and feels quite wild and grounding. In a world where relatives must die to feed each other…humans die to feed the soil, salmon die to feed humans, mosquitos die to feed small birds, and they die to feed larger birds, and foxes, and bobcats, and round and round…
In this world, the idea that a hero can succeed by dying, without involving some kind of ideological martyrdom, but just as an act of real protection, sacrifice, or offering of the self to a larger related whole…this idea feels really powerful to me.
This idea takes the “Disney” out of wild, natural relationships, the artificial “lynx vs. rabbit” in the nature video, where the modern viewer roots for the prey. The prey won’t lie down for the predator, it must keep the predator at top form by trying its best to flee, but no-one gets out of this world alive…what better death than feeding life? Awash in the fugue of the doping endorphin rush that occurs as the rabbit lies dying in the jaws of the lynx, it hasn’t failed, it has made the world live for the first time, all over again.
March 22nd, 2007 at 7:34 pm
You’ve made a good point here, Willem. With all death comes renewel, sometimes it’s so hard to remember that living within the confines of this prison culture.
I really like the Miller quote. I won’t forget that one!
Curt
March 24th, 2007 at 5:15 pm
Heck yeah Crut!
You speak of the culture as a prison. Apt comparison. I think that perhaps the only way to end the prison in our psyche, the product and reflection of the cultural prison which so effectively keeps it’s victims moored to a dock of insecurity and deafens their ears and nerves to the pleasant waves caressing and calling on all sides with it’s motor propelled ignorance, is through this knowledge of death/renewal, ending/transformation, not as one thing leading to another but the EXACT same thing. This knowledge has the utmost importance. If we endeavor to unbuild the walls we must see them clearly in all their aspects and incarnations and not content ourselves with simply decorating them with posters and glitter but allowing them to die - for in the psychic community every component acts as a player, even the walls are characters. & Their death, a sacrifice, might bring sorrow, but not so much sorrow that we can not bear it. Let the walls end, walk to the grassy hill and enjoy a facefull of sunshine. End the slavery.
Here are two quotes that I like. Maybe you’ll find them useful.
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We artists are indestructible; even if in prison, or in a concentration camp, I would be almighty in my own world of art, even if I had to paint my pictures with my wet tongue on the dusty floor of my cell. - Pablo Picasso
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I have very carefully explained what I mean by revolt, but I shall use two different words to make it much clearer. To revolt within society in order to make it a little better, to bring about certain reforms, is like the revolt of prisoners to improve their life within the prison walls; and such revolt is no revolt at all, it is just mutiny. Do you see the difference? Revolt within society is like the mutiny of prisoners who want better food, better treatment within the prison; but revolt born of understanding is an individual breaking away from society, and that is creative revolution. - Jiddu Krishnamurti
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Oh, and, uh, Willa the Thrilla - Good post, as usual.