Pinning Aronofsky

Though golf (not too much these days) and economics (way too much these day) provide adequate material for this space, occasionally it will drift towards culture or shameless self promotion of my own meager literary exploits. Last weekend, with the obligatory, standard issue two cans of Budweiser 16 ounce tallboys, I went to see The Wrestler, the latest directorial effort of Darren Aronofsky. 

The film makes for old cultural news in bigger media markets where critics and viewers have lauded all of its artistic facets. This space will go against the grain of its own contrarian nature (something it does very rarely), but it will not go against the grain of public opinion and decry it as overrated or poor. Far from it. It was a well-conceived, well-executed bit of cinema. The thrash-trash glam rock songs provided some small solace and comic relief in an otherwise tense tragedy. 

The film is less about professional wrestling as sport-cum-entertainment than it is a character study of an anti-hero. Mickey Rourke's character chose and continues to choose to be the persona he constructed, for he is seemingly incapable to cope with either the tensions or banalities of human existence. Conflicted between Freudian extremes of the imperatives of the superego and the desires of the id, Rourke's character wills out to human failing. Within the traditional textbook definition of a tragic figure, the Ram possesses a great flaw: his commitment to what he has contrived.

To play the part, Rourke transformed his body. The only suspension of disbelief within the fictional world of the film is accepting that the man on screen once was the skinny imp in Rumble Fish, Angel Heart, and The Pope of Greenwich Village. Both the commitment of the character on screen as well as the actor off screen are remarkable. This begs the question: does having an incredible amount of commitment to a job or a cause mean that one will ultimately do it well?

Often, commitment is a necessary precursor to doing something well. Virtuosity combines talent and hard work. Yet, there are plenty of washouts in all fields who no matter how much individual effort they apply, they do it all for naught. Since society ascribes virtue to the hard work and sacrifice which comprise commitment, it has an ethical dilemma when honestly assessing the result of the process. Hence is the double bind of the means and ends being able to justify each other. 

Did Rourke act his part well or was the external transformation to fit the part the more extraordinary accomplishment? In certain aspects, the performance equalled or surpassed the physical transformation required for the part. Though the hulking presence dominates the eye, the subtleties of the performance and their thematic significance do eventually come to the fore. The Ram straddles the fence over going straight or perpetuating the farcical persona as a way of clinging to a familiar plane of his own space and time. His willingness to degrade and to mortify his own flesh come as easy decisions to him even at the expense of finding something outside himself.

French novelist Margeurite Duras wrote, "What is really frightening is the idea of a man eternally in his own presence." The character created by Rourke, Aronofsky and screenwriter Robert Siegel takes such horror and pain further. What is even more frightening is his pathological aplomb for selfishness. He fails to redeem himself in his personal realm of the unknown: a semblance of fatherhood to a grown, estranged daughter.  The Ram is content to remain isolated in the metier of spandex tights because the alternative means anonymity.

The film bespeaks the desolation and short life spans characteristic of American public lives as well as the increasing validity of choosing the life less ordinary and prevalence of the 'dig me' mentality. Yet, the Ram accepts and endures the consequences of his decisions instead of begging and praying for a dea ex machina to deliver him from himself. Despite the selfish tendencies, the character - a seemingly one-dimensional meathead - certainly has the breadth of consistency rather than the depths of complexity. He understands himself, who he is, and what the limitations are at the nexus of understanding and identity. He is aware without overt introspection. 

Paradoxically, Rourke has been able to do what the character he portrayed could not. The result reconciled with the process for Rourke, but the Ram merely kept beating his head against a wall where no amount of effort brought success. It seems counterintuitive to find the happy ending of redemption in reality instead of in the narrative.