I wrote most of this a couple weeks ago but it needed finishing and coherency so it got put aside during the tumult of moving. Here goes again:
OK, so I just finished watching Spider-Man 2 again and I can better describe why that movie works so well and can then by contrast clarify my thoughts on the 3rd.
“Vindicated” by Dashboard Confessional is the first song that plays in the end credits and serves as the central theme of this movie. So lets look at how vindication functions narratively and why it is able to produce such a powerful emotional response in us as audience members.
In Spider-Man 2 Parker is burnt out. He cannot succeed at both his personal/academic/professional life and his superhero life, and basically ends up not succeeding in either as a result. But the beauty comes in the form of secrets and control of information (I think there’s something to be said for Deleuze’s control society in this, but I can’t articulate it in those terms yet:) We know that Parker really does care about his friends, but is unable to be there for them because he is saving people across the city; they do not. The city is taking him for granted because they believe he is either a villain or at least just-and-only a superhero with powers and abilities they cannot ever hope to achieve; we know he’s just a teenager struggling to survive in a rough world in very relatable ways to everyone out there he serves.
Because of these secrets, Parker is seen in a “false” light in both circumstances. And since we know the “truth”, we build pent up angst rooting for him for 2 hours, which is also why when the people on the train start rooting for him too we feel vindicated in our unfledging support of him since his constituents agree once they know what we know (“he’s just a kid,” one of them declares), and more importantly why we get an ultimate rush when MJ finds out as well and he is vindicated for all that happened with her earlier in the film.
But the series as a whole still follows the central moral principle of “With great power come great responsibility”. That’s why parker feels responsible for his uncle’s death. In the situation he was in no normal person should feel responsible since they were not the one who pulled the trigger and would have put themselves in great danger in order to stop the guy not even knowing in advance what was to happen. But parker is not a normal person; he has the “great power” spoken of in the moral theme. That’s why he has a heightened responsibility for such things. This is why after he fesses up to Aunt Mae that she can say she loves him, but not that it wasn’t his fault. She doesn’t know he’s Spider-man of course, but she’s the voice of morality in the movie and we need her to lay the stakes for us on the bigger scale.
And that’s just it, there are personal and larger-scale issues in conflict. When Harry finds out Parker is Spider-man, Parker has to say that “there are bigger things happening here than me and you”. Vindication with Harry has to carry over to the next film, however. Needlessly in some respects, due to a conveniently timed butler confession… (seemed a bit contrived to me, but I’ll deal). So the themes of Two remain unresolved for Three, but they couldn’t just do Two again. That’s why I think it is an important step in the series as a whole. We explored the emotion of vindication in Two, now Three looks at themes of hubris and forgiveness.
0 comments:
Post a Comment