12 MONKEYS ET DERAISON: PART 3
While the human race is destroyed by insanity, it is not Jeffrey.
It is Dr. Peters, a trusted member of the establishment, Leland Goines
co-worker. He destroys it as a sort of punishment for what he sees as
madness: ?The true cry of the insane is ?let?s go shopping,?? a direct
attack on the consumerism Jeffrey also loathes. He calls this insanity
?true? because the insanity of people like Jeffrey was not true; Jeffrey
understands society perfectly. His imprisonment was proof of that. In
bourgeois consumerism, the Mall is the new cathedral, complete with
steeple
and angels. And as in Foucault, psychiatry is the new religion: ?The
doctor
has the almost miraculous power to cure? (Foucault: MC, 274). When
Foucault
says ?the Novel constitutes the milieu of perversion, par excellence, of
all sensibility? (219), we are only a small step from Jeffrey saying
?There?s the TV. Kneel. Worship. Pray.? TV is the device that holds
society
together. It keeps us pacified, tells us what to buy, how to live. In an
interview, Terry Gilliam, the film?s director, said ?television is this
awful mirror that we all look into every day, but it distorts the
reflection and I hate it. however much you try to resist it, you begin to
believe the world really is that way.? So as a madman may invent
incredible
alternate realities, bourgeois consumerism has invented a uniform
alternate
reality, giving the world a collective delusion, and resulting in Dr.
Peters being correct.
Gilliam says that for the disturbing and surreal ideas in "12
Monkeys" he rushes ?back to Breughel, to Bosch, to Goya.? These same three
painters are crucial to Foucault?s conclusion (Foucault: MC, 280-285).
They
certainly did not discuss the works with each other, yet the works embody
what both of them try to tell us: ?Madness has become man?s possibility of
abolishing both man and the world... It is the ambiguity of chaos and
apocalypse: Goya?s Idiot who shrieks and twists his shoulder to escape
>from
the nothingness that imprisons him- is this the birth of the first man and
his first movement toward liberty, or the last convulsion of the last
dying
man??(281) ?What truth would they speak if we lend them an ear? A ?tragic?
truth, the truth of a ?split,? let us say, a tragic knowledge. This is the
sort of truth that would kill you- or drive you mad- of which Nietzche
spoke? (Caputo, 237).
"12 Monkeys" and Folie et Déraison are both about the failure of
progress. The sets for the film were, as Terry Gilliam put it, ?Old
disused
nuclear plants, factories, power stations: ?cathedrals of technological
progress.? I?ve always had a problem with the belief that technology was
going to solve all of our problems.? Foucault accuses ?physicians and
scientists? of concocting the ?modern concept of scientific psychology and
psychiatry... as a disguise for the doctors? moral domination of the mad
in
the name of bourgeois society? (Gutting, 95) and says madness is the
ultimate outcome of ?overcivilization,? a ?generalized defense reaction?
(Foucault: MMP, 102) to progress. Indeed, the doctors in "12 Monkeys" seem
to have no interest in healing or helping people, they merely preserve the
system. TV embodies progress, technology, and consumerism, and all of
these
have replaced religion as ?the opiate of the people.? Our communication
devices have only separated us; our entertainment has only made us bored;
our fast food has only made us impatient. ?Against the illusions of
science
and morals Foucault advocates a more originary tragic experience, an
experience of reason?s undoing and auto-deconstruction by unreason, which
is the ?truth? of the human condition? (Caputo, 243). With truth,
progress,
and religion gone, our modernity is based on nothing but a collective
delusion. Only the insane can hope to maintain sanity.
__________________________________________________________
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Caputo, John. ?On Not Knowing Who We Are.? *Foucault and
the Critique of Institutions.* J.Caputo and M.Yount,
ed. University Park, Pennsylvania: Penn State
University Press, 1993.
Foucault, Michel. *Madness and Civilization: A History of
Insanity in the Age of Reason.* R.Howard, trans. New
York: Pantheon Books, 1965.
Foucault, Michel. *Maladie mentale et psychologie.* A.Sheridan,
trans. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987
Gutting, Gary. *Michel Foucault?s Archaeology of Scientific
Reason.* Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.
Lakeman, Thomas. *12 Monkeys: Website.* J.Greer, producer.
Digital Planet, 1995.
http://www.mca.com/universal_pictures/12
Mohl, Lucy. *Film.com.* Phinney/Bischoff, designers. Seattle:
Film.com, 1996. http://www.film.com
Peoples, David and Janet. *12 Monkeys.* T.Gilliam, director.
Hollywood: Universal Pictures, 1995.
____________________________________________________
copyright(C) Kip Hinton, 1996. All Rights Reserved, All Wrongs Revered.
send responses to this list or to kip+@xxxxxxx
____________________________________________________
?Maybe it?s all in the madman?s mind.
-Director Terry Gilliam on "12 Monkeys"
"The ideas promulgated [in the 20th cen.] revolved
around excessive cgfsumption. In certain extremes,
those who resisted this ideal were considered mentally
deficient."
-Screenwriter David Peoples on "12 Monkeys"
While the human race is destroyed by insanity, it is not Jeffrey.
It is Dr. Peters, a trusted member of the establishment, Leland Goines
co-worker. He destroys it as a sort of punishment for what he sees as
madness: ?The true cry of the insane is ?let?s go shopping,?? a direct
attack on the consumerism Jeffrey also loathes. He calls this insanity
?true? because the insanity of people like Jeffrey was not true; Jeffrey
understands society perfectly. His imprisonment was proof of that. In
bourgeois consumerism, the Mall is the new cathedral, complete with
steeple
and angels. And as in Foucault, psychiatry is the new religion: ?The
doctor
has the almost miraculous power to cure? (Foucault: MC, 274). When
Foucault
says ?the Novel constitutes the milieu of perversion, par excellence, of
all sensibility? (219), we are only a small step from Jeffrey saying
?There?s the TV. Kneel. Worship. Pray.? TV is the device that holds
society
together. It keeps us pacified, tells us what to buy, how to live. In an
interview, Terry Gilliam, the film?s director, said ?television is this
awful mirror that we all look into every day, but it distorts the
reflection and I hate it. however much you try to resist it, you begin to
believe the world really is that way.? So as a madman may invent
incredible
alternate realities, bourgeois consumerism has invented a uniform
alternate
reality, giving the world a collective delusion, and resulting in Dr.
Peters being correct.
Gilliam says that for the disturbing and surreal ideas in "12
Monkeys" he rushes ?back to Breughel, to Bosch, to Goya.? These same three
painters are crucial to Foucault?s conclusion (Foucault: MC, 280-285).
They
certainly did not discuss the works with each other, yet the works embody
what both of them try to tell us: ?Madness has become man?s possibility of
abolishing both man and the world... It is the ambiguity of chaos and
apocalypse: Goya?s Idiot who shrieks and twists his shoulder to escape
>from
the nothingness that imprisons him- is this the birth of the first man and
his first movement toward liberty, or the last convulsion of the last
dying
man??(281) ?What truth would they speak if we lend them an ear? A ?tragic?
truth, the truth of a ?split,? let us say, a tragic knowledge. This is the
sort of truth that would kill you- or drive you mad- of which Nietzche
spoke? (Caputo, 237).
"12 Monkeys" and Folie et Déraison are both about the failure of
progress. The sets for the film were, as Terry Gilliam put it, ?Old
disused
nuclear plants, factories, power stations: ?cathedrals of technological
progress.? I?ve always had a problem with the belief that technology was
going to solve all of our problems.? Foucault accuses ?physicians and
scientists? of concocting the ?modern concept of scientific psychology and
psychiatry... as a disguise for the doctors? moral domination of the mad
in
the name of bourgeois society? (Gutting, 95) and says madness is the
ultimate outcome of ?overcivilization,? a ?generalized defense reaction?
(Foucault: MMP, 102) to progress. Indeed, the doctors in "12 Monkeys" seem
to have no interest in healing or helping people, they merely preserve the
system. TV embodies progress, technology, and consumerism, and all of
these
have replaced religion as ?the opiate of the people.? Our communication
devices have only separated us; our entertainment has only made us bored;
our fast food has only made us impatient. ?Against the illusions of
science
and morals Foucault advocates a more originary tragic experience, an
experience of reason?s undoing and auto-deconstruction by unreason, which
is the ?truth? of the human condition? (Caputo, 243). With truth,
progress,
and religion gone, our modernity is based on nothing but a collective
delusion. Only the insane can hope to maintain sanity.
__________________________________________________________
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Caputo, John. ?On Not Knowing Who We Are.? *Foucault and
the Critique of Institutions.* J.Caputo and M.Yount,
ed. University Park, Pennsylvania: Penn State
University Press, 1993.
Foucault, Michel. *Madness and Civilization: A History of
Insanity in the Age of Reason.* R.Howard, trans. New
York: Pantheon Books, 1965.
Foucault, Michel. *Maladie mentale et psychologie.* A.Sheridan,
trans. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987
Gutting, Gary. *Michel Foucault?s Archaeology of Scientific
Reason.* Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.
Lakeman, Thomas. *12 Monkeys: Website.* J.Greer, producer.
Digital Planet, 1995.
http://www.mca.com/universal_pictures/12
Mohl, Lucy. *Film.com.* Phinney/Bischoff, designers. Seattle:
Film.com, 1996. http://www.film.com
Peoples, David and Janet. *12 Monkeys.* T.Gilliam, director.
Hollywood: Universal Pictures, 1995.
____________________________________________________
copyright(C) Kip Hinton, 1996. All Rights Reserved, All Wrongs Revered.
send responses to this list or to kip+@xxxxxxx
____________________________________________________
?Maybe it?s all in the madman?s mind.
-Director Terry Gilliam on "12 Monkeys"
"The ideas promulgated [in the 20th cen.] revolved
around excessive cgfsumption. In certain extremes,
those who resisted this ideal were considered mentally
deficient."
-Screenwriter David Peoples on "12 Monkeys"