What a great review. Thank you for it. I consider John Carpenter a fantastic director, capturing the essence of things, including evil. Having seen everyone of his movies, some more than once, I think it is fair to say that most have a "Carpenteresque" ending. On some level, you know the ending before the ending because you know it will leave things hanging. Perhaps the classic examples of this are his next movies after this The Fog and The Thing.
A provocatively articulate piece that offers much food for thought. Many thanks.
My reservation would be that just as Halloween doesn't really pause to address the nature of evil, in your eagerness to praise the movie I'm not sure you do, either. The result is that you let Carpenter and his ilk (and clever as he is) get away murder, both literally and artistically. Subsequently, all that we, the audience, are bequeathed, as Michael Myers escapes and the movie's end credits roll, is a sense of bleak hopelessness, a moral blackness which, in our powerlessness to overturn it, discourages us from a belief in goodness, itself essential to our aspirations.
Conversely, I believe that all high art has a duty not just to present evil but to examine its causes. You might counter that evil has no cause. I would passionately demur.
Indeed, I doubt very much that evil is a primum mobile without cause. I suspect it can be traced back to some sort of fusion of vengeful anger with prolonged, unconscious humiliation (or some such). This seems to be the case when one looks at the personal history of serial killers.
This being the case, it seems to me to be highly reprehensible merely to celebrate the dynamic of murder and killing and profit from it financially and reputationally.
I don't doubt the cinematic skill involved in creating the atmosphere of Halloween - it scared the bejabbers off me when I saw it alone when it came out in '78 😂 -.... but emotional effect is not enough. A work of art must ultimately fight on the side of the angels, metaphorically speaking. It must build not destroy culture. Yes, by all means depict evil - but show us its counterpart in ultimate ascendance! Indeed, name me one real piece of high culture that doesn't do this and I'll buy you a metaphorical beer!
Audiences get ‘a good lecturing’ whether the moviemaker intends it or not. Surely you’re aware that there’s no such thing as ‘value-free’ art, whether of the low or high brow variety! What moviemakers leave out says as much about them as what they include.
Of course, pedantic moralising is laughable, but we need not go to the other extreme. In this context the old 19th century fin-de-siecle ‘art for art’s sake’ mantra worked well as an antidote to the more vulgarly didactic outpourings of Victorian art. But that doesn’t mean that it wasn’t also a somewhat misleading, disingenuous rule.
By your standard, any movie that achieves its desired end, in Halloween’s case, to terrify, is by definition a ‘good’ work of art. I don’t deny Carpenter’s expertise (as that kind of filmmaker), but the fact remains that to wish exclusively to produce terror in people - however ingeniously- is not a worthy aim. Conversely, take Macbeth, in its way a kind of horror play containing child murder, etc: Shakespeare plumbs the depths of the serial murderer’s mind, lays it bare to our view, then reveals its inevitable demise. Evil is revealed - not in order titillate base emotions in the audience but to inspire them to eschew it in their own lives. All art, low, medium or high should take the existence of moral phenomena into conscious consideration. Indeed, that any supposed work of art on any level carelessly ignores such a need reveals its source in decadence. That you should regard this concern of art (ie., its normative effect) as ‘clumsy’ is odd indeed.
What a great review. Thank you for it. I consider John Carpenter a fantastic director, capturing the essence of things, including evil. Having seen everyone of his movies, some more than once, I think it is fair to say that most have a "Carpenteresque" ending. On some level, you know the ending before the ending because you know it will leave things hanging. Perhaps the classic examples of this are his next movies after this The Fog and The Thing.
A provocatively articulate piece that offers much food for thought. Many thanks.
My reservation would be that just as Halloween doesn't really pause to address the nature of evil, in your eagerness to praise the movie I'm not sure you do, either. The result is that you let Carpenter and his ilk (and clever as he is) get away murder, both literally and artistically. Subsequently, all that we, the audience, are bequeathed, as Michael Myers escapes and the movie's end credits roll, is a sense of bleak hopelessness, a moral blackness which, in our powerlessness to overturn it, discourages us from a belief in goodness, itself essential to our aspirations.
Conversely, I believe that all high art has a duty not just to present evil but to examine its causes. You might counter that evil has no cause. I would passionately demur.
Indeed, I doubt very much that evil is a primum mobile without cause. I suspect it can be traced back to some sort of fusion of vengeful anger with prolonged, unconscious humiliation (or some such). This seems to be the case when one looks at the personal history of serial killers.
This being the case, it seems to me to be highly reprehensible merely to celebrate the dynamic of murder and killing and profit from it financially and reputationally.
I don't doubt the cinematic skill involved in creating the atmosphere of Halloween - it scared the bejabbers off me when I saw it alone when it came out in '78 😂 -.... but emotional effect is not enough. A work of art must ultimately fight on the side of the angels, metaphorically speaking. It must build not destroy culture. Yes, by all means depict evil - but show us its counterpart in ultimate ascendance! Indeed, name me one real piece of high culture that doesn't do this and I'll buy you a metaphorical beer!
Audiences get ‘a good lecturing’ whether the moviemaker intends it or not. Surely you’re aware that there’s no such thing as ‘value-free’ art, whether of the low or high brow variety! What moviemakers leave out says as much about them as what they include.
Of course, pedantic moralising is laughable, but we need not go to the other extreme. In this context the old 19th century fin-de-siecle ‘art for art’s sake’ mantra worked well as an antidote to the more vulgarly didactic outpourings of Victorian art. But that doesn’t mean that it wasn’t also a somewhat misleading, disingenuous rule.
By your standard, any movie that achieves its desired end, in Halloween’s case, to terrify, is by definition a ‘good’ work of art. I don’t deny Carpenter’s expertise (as that kind of filmmaker), but the fact remains that to wish exclusively to produce terror in people - however ingeniously- is not a worthy aim. Conversely, take Macbeth, in its way a kind of horror play containing child murder, etc: Shakespeare plumbs the depths of the serial murderer’s mind, lays it bare to our view, then reveals its inevitable demise. Evil is revealed - not in order titillate base emotions in the audience but to inspire them to eschew it in their own lives. All art, low, medium or high should take the existence of moral phenomena into conscious consideration. Indeed, that any supposed work of art on any level carelessly ignores such a need reveals its source in decadence. That you should regard this concern of art (ie., its normative effect) as ‘clumsy’ is odd indeed.
Interesting take.It is a good movie.
I'm not a fan of slasher movies and passed on "Halloween" when it came out in '78. Now, however, your impassioned review has me intrigued...