Apocalypse Know
Radbam February 2nd, 2010
We have to have more than textbooks, we need text-people.
–Abraham Joshua Heschel
The Hughes brothers’ latest shotgun-and-survivor epic offers more substance and provokes more reflection than the typical post-apocalyptic fare. It’s a refreshing departure from most end-of-world imaginings that cloak weak plot and stilted characters in costly software effects and superficial aphorisms of faith.
Though lifting the bleak atmosphere of gray and ash from Cormac McCarthy’s poignant descriptions (despite the underperformance of the film version of The Road), The Book of Eli invests an established archetype with edge and insight. And watching the narrative unfold through the conflict between the main characters, embodied by Denzel Washington and Gary Oldman, envisions an additional level of armageddon through acting.
Eli offers themes of faith in ways both familiar and innovative, a critical blend for success in this genre: The dichotomous tension of religion as bane and boon; the use and abuse of its power in fulfillment of mission; and the potency of faith in enabling humanity to continuously re-create itself.
Without shamelessly revealing the significant twist in the final act, the story illustrates well Heschel’s above quote. Though all sacred narrative begins as tales told often and well, later to be centralized and canonized to preserve integrity and promote authority, at its essence a text is merely a script, a skeletal structure upon which even the most ardent literalist hangs flesh and sinew of experience, worldview and matters of the moment. In essence, all text is us. We are the ur-text that is transmitted to the next generation, revealing what transcends us as clearly as our foibles and aspirations.
One final note of a minor theme with major implications. A dramatic moment occurs when Solara (played by Mila Kunis incongruously fresh from a spa day) recites a prayer learned from Eli. In a prior conversation, Eli laments how people now kill for what they once carelessly discarded. His prayer in a post-apocalyptic context does what prayers do best: heighten awareness of what is given and what is lost. In the neo-Hobbesian world of Eli, the words suggest imminent need. But in our era of comfort, excess and waste, similar words seek to instill appreciation for the taken for granted and perspective on the distinction between want and need.
A Technical PS: At the end (no spoiler here, not to worry), a copy of the King James Bible is placed next to an Artscroll Edition of the TaNaKH (the Hebrew Scriptures) on a shelf. The implication is that somehow the KJV is the last “real” bible and the TaNaKH is some exotic Semitic variant. Though lacking in the sonorous prose and interpretive license of the KJV, an English edition of the TaNaKH would provide essentially the same Old Testament. Granted, it would lack the New Testament, but the focus throughout the film is on the OT, with nary a reference to Jesus save for a cross on a leather bound edition. It’s a minor detail that only a rabbi would notice, but I’m available to directors for sourcing and continuity. I’m just saying…
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