During a recent weekend’s film viewing, the difference between a film that enslaves culture to ideology and politics, and films that embrace the freedom art offers to explore the reality underlying ideology, was cast in stark contrast

Ridley Scott’s 1977 The Duellists was first up in my viewing schedule. It stars Keith Carradine and Harvey Keitel as two soldiers in Napoleon’s cavalry whose personal rivalry results in a series of duels over the span of some 15 years. The duels are set against Strasbourg in 1800, Lubeck in 1806, Russia in 1812 and finally Tours in 1814. Gabriel Féraud (Harvey Keitel), in defense of his honor, demands satisfaction from Armand d’Hubert (Keith Carradine) in the form of single combat with rapiers, sabers and finally pistols.

Through d’Hubert and Féraud, Scott explores the role of honor in a man’s life. In d’Hubert, the consummate gentleman, we see how honor can provide meaning and structure in an otherwise capricious and violent world. In Féraud, the aristocratic bully and snob, we see honor twisted and manipulated to maintain a personal grudge, keeping him locked in a worldview that cannot allow for change and compromise.

The Duellists explores how two very different men are bound together by honor. Babette’s Feast, meanwhile, explores how service and gratitude bind three women to each other and to those around them.

Babette’s Feast is set in a small Danish coastal town in the late 1800s, and focuses on Martina and Philippa, two sisters devoted to their faith, their father – the town minister, and the community. A devotion that is so deep they deny themselves the allure of love and fame.

Martina is courted by Lorenz, a young soldier, who spends days sitting next to her in silence during prayer meetings. He confesses his love for her, in a manner of speaking, but she turns him away remaining by her father’s side. Lorenz refuses to love anyone else and devotes his life to military service.

Singer, Achille Papin, who happens to be resting in the village following a strenuous schedule, discovers Philippa. Philippa agrees to voice lessons from Achille, and during the course of his coaching he too falls in love. Achille tells Philippa that one day she shall perform for all of France. He tells her, “You have enough talent to distract the rich and to comfort the poor.” Philippa, however, ends the lessons and turns her back on fame, breaking Achille’s heart. Martina spurning Lorenz and Philippa turning away Achille reinforces their devotion to the people in their church and community.

The sister’s sense of service and devotion to others inspires them to take in Babette, who is sent to the sisters by Achille in order to help her escape persecution during the French Revolution. Babette agrees to be Martina’s and Philippa’ servant, without taking pay, and is soon making the meals for the town’s shut-ins in addition to the two sisters.

Babette brightens the pious lives and austere diets as best she can with the meager provisions obtained from the town’s lone grocer and local fishermen. When she comes into some money, she decides to show her gratitude to the sister’s, their prayer group, and Lorenz who is now a general in the King’s army. Service and gratitude come to a rousing climax as Babette prepares a proper French meal and the screen is blessed with one of the most sumptuous and dramatic presentations of food on film.

The Duellists and Babette’s Feast show how the arts can explore with great depth and intelligence human truths. In the former, we see honor both building one life and destroying another. In the latter, we see that “an artist is never poor” when her art is presented in service and gratitude to others.

Joe Wright’s The Soloist stands in stark contrast to these two films and shows what a disaster results when culture is made to serve politics.

The Soloist is based on a true story about Steve Lopez (Robert Downey, Jr.) discovering Nathanial Ayers (Jamie Foxx), a homeless man who once studied cello at the Julliard School but who now lives under a freeway as a result of untreated schizophrenia. It is little more than a 105-minute public service announcement on behalf of the homeless.

The Soloist focuses on Lopez, a reporter searching for one good story in order to save his job during layoffs at the LA Times. (See the connection? Yes, it’s absurdly obvious.) While pondering his future in a park, he hears Ayers playing a violin. In a short conversation filled with Ayers’ disjointed, schizophrenic ramblings, Lopez is able to make out Ayers’ name and “Julliard School.” Lopez follows up and discovers that a once promising student of the cello now lives under a freeway, playing a two-string violin.

The film follows the same basic Hollywood-meets-homeless storyline, where the guy who seems to have everything struggles to help the downtrodden. The Soloist is less about Ayers than it is Lopez. The movie’s message is if we befriend the homeless, and maybe dropped $50 Million of taxpayer’s money on programs now and again, the guilt felt over the homeless will be lessened.

The problem with this self-righteous scenario is that the homeless who desperately need treatment, whether for drug addiction, alcoholism or mental disorders would never get it. Just as Ayers, in the film, never receives the treatment he so desperately needs in order to live a life not shattered by voices bubbling into his consciousness.

In a scene that should make any rational person scratch his head, Los Angeles Mayor Antonia Villaraigaso appears on Skid Row, surrounded by security and media, to announce, in the midst of homeless drug addicts, alcoholics, psychotics and thugs, $50M worth of government beneficence. This is presented with Lopez prominent in the background as if he is actually doing something for what ails these poor souls. Like the rest of the film, it is surreal in its naïveté.

There is a moment in The Soloist when the film could have taken a turn and gotten beneath the ideology driving the picture. Steve is demanding that the Lamp Community, a place for mentally ill homeless in Los Angeles, get Ayers treatment. Lamp’s staff says, simply, “No, not if Ayers doesn’t want it.” This turns the film’s message of friendship (and government aid) on its head.

If a friend suffered from an illness and you knew a treatment, if not a cure, was available, and yet you not only fail to obtain said treatment you shrug your shoulders and move on as if nothing had happened, then what does that say about your friendship? That is exactly what happens when Lopez fails in his one effort toward getting Ayers real treatment. The film effectively shrugs its shoulders and moves on. The movie closes with Lopez in voice-over, extolling the healing power of friendship.

The Soloist is the product of journalists, storytellers, and filmmakers who have enslaved their talents to their ideology. By so doing, they have enslaved their artistic cultural expression to their politics, for ideology and politics are two sides of the same coin.

Filmmakers and journalists have long offered their work up on the political altar. Is it any wonder that politicians and bureaucrats now put those offerings to use to push a particular agenda?

–Daniel Crandall