Odd Man Out (1947)
On the face of it, this seems a religious film. Yulch. It’s usually called a thriller, and Carol Reed is famous for The Third Man, but there is much here that is not thrilling. There are ideas though, and those interest me. James Mason is remarkably beautiful as a young man. He plays a revolutionary in the IRA recently returned from jail who — though weak and bleary—insists on leading a bank heist to raise IRA funds. (All this raises the spectre of Bobby Sands, the IRA hero who went on a hunger strike in 1981; of course this film was made long before.) The film is a picaresque account of Mason’s attempted escape from the police — for he kills a man and must run. But we are perhaps less on the edge of our seats re: Mason’s subsequent fate, than we are fascinated by those who he meets along the way, mainly the tattered, poor and drunken Irish working class. At the climax of the film, Mason wrenches himself to a standing position and quotes (1 Corinthians 13): “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things…” The ultimate biblical message here is that we are nothing without love. I can support this, especially since Kathleen Ryan — as a young woman who would do anything for Mason (he is indifferent to her until the end) dies with him. This is noble, but it interests me less than some of the people Mason meets on his journey — for instance, a pair of older women who nurse him, ignoring his violent acts and political views. These characters seem to embody love, and the wacky F. J. McCormack — an unhinged beggar who tries to make money off revealing Mason’s whereabouts (and who collects birds), suggests perhaps a less appealing aspect of humanity, without judgement. But it is Robert Newton’s Lokey, a painter who discovers Mason near the end — and is struck not only by Mason’s beauty but the exigency of making him the subject of a painting — who really interests me — especially Newton’s dialogue with his doctor friend Tober (Elwyn Brook Jones) as Jones props up what appears to be a dying James Mason for Newton’s work, and Newton says: “He’s near death. He sees it. There are wonderful thoughts in his eyes.” Jones wants to repair Mason’s body, but Newton is interested in his soul: “There’s more to be considered than his body that may be dying. His soul that might be still alive.” And: “ I understand what I see in him.” What is it?” “It’s the truth bout us all.” “Is that all?” “He’s doomed.” “So are we all.” Newton, the mad painter, is is a prototype for a compelling myth about artists in general. He is more interested in somehow replicating the soul of the man he is painting than he is in saving the man’s life. Artists have long been suspect for being more interested in aesthetics than human beings. Stories about Michelangelo suggest that he captured a young man, tied him up, and tortured him to death, in order to observe the agonized convulsions of a dying body for a painting of Christ. I’m not suggesting the rumour is true; what interests me is the truth behind the fantasy. Michelangelo’s bound slaves are blindingly beautiful depictions of suffering, ergo, we feel guilty for taking pleasure in them. It may have been this that started the rumour. But artists are eternally suspect. During these ‘extraordinary times,’ young artists are distancing themselves from the notion of 'artist as criminal '— an idea promoted by Oscar Wilde and Jean Genet. I have had little contact with young artists during this pandemic. But I get from my fleeting moments in zoom rooms is that they have accepted that their chosen profession simply pales when set beside the urgencies of a pandemic. And they are regretful— nay, racked with guilt — about even imagining that being an artist might possibly be part of the ‘new normal.’ Now, it seems, is the time for artists to throw in the towel: ‘I see the folly of my ways. Human suffering is all around us — particularly now — and I am not so superficial as to imagine any paltry art object is more significant than the tragic reality we live in. I would gladly throw away my paint brush, my dancing shoes, or my pen, if I could in any way help those suffering from COVID-19.’ The artist as criminal — which I have always hoped to be — or at least imagined I am — is now the ‘odd man out.’ Now I would never think of kidnapping a young man and torturing him in order to write about it (do you believe me?); but from the time I was 5 years old I appreciated the special appeal of each and every depiction of Saint Sebastian. It seems that if we value art at all, then in our newly moralistic, scientific, medicalised future, we are in grave danger of being assumed murderous Michelangelos. I, on the contrary, believe that though starving people need sustenance, as soon as they are fed, they definitely need something more substantial. And if they are dying, well they might prefer a poem; and that, after all, is what The Bible is. I say this partially because it appears that — very slowly (after all we live in Ontario, Canada, where all things happen with great care, and we try not to get visibly excited about anything) this COVID-19 lock down may be lifting — although we have been warned in no uncertain terms not to congratulate ourselves on a job well done, be happy about it, or imagine it might last — or that the suffering from COVID-19 might ever end. And we have also been told explicitly not to have joy, and certainly not to celebrate — and not to call what we will soon (hopefully!) be experiencing ‘freedom.’ That means that at some point I may stop writing this. And though it will matter to no one really, well —it matters very much to me. Robert Newton in Odd Man Out is frustrated because the dying James Mason who is his subject is removed from his gaze before he can finish his painting, and when Mason is gone he he looks at what he has created and realises it’s second rate. Then he sighs, picks up his bottle and takes a swig. That will be me tonite. What I can’t imagine is that I would have to give up this blog ever, as it is more important to me than life itself — because for a few hours a day it succeeds — however briefly — in saving me from what some might consider the inconsequential suffering that appears when I suddenly realize that life is simply ordinary. And in this it appears I am increasingly alone.
