Buddhism and Film

[This post has been expanded as of 6.3.2007.]

Regular readers of this blog may have noticed that its author has a keen interest in films and film studies. I've always been interested in movies, ever since I was a little boy. I'm very affected by them. I learn from them. In rare cases, my Buddhist practice is deepened because of them. You might even say that I came to Buddhism through films. Works like Orson Welles' The Magnificent Ambersons, Akira Kurosawa's Ikiru, Woody Allen's Crimes and Misdemeanors, Albert Brooks' Defending Your Life, and Harold Ramis' Groundhog Day compelled me into repeated viewings. They caused me to ask questions that stayed with me. They offered insights that haunted me. They provided images that inspired me.

These days, I see fewer films than when I was growing up, but am still interested in them. I suppose it would even be fair to say that one of my "research interests" is the presence of Buddhist themes in popular world cinema. By this, I don't necessarily mean that I am only interested in movies about Buddhism or Buddhists, such as Yong-Kyun Bae's Dharmaga Tongjoguro Kan Kkadalgun, Bernardo Bertolucci's Little Buddha, Martin Scorsese's Kundun, Khyentse Norbu Rinpoche's Phörpa, Doris Dörrie's Erleuchtung Garantiert, Kim Ki-Duk's Bom Yeoreum Gaeul Gyeoul Geurigo Bom, or Marc Rosenbush's upcoming Zen Noir. I am interested in these films, but not these films alone.

I am also quite interested in movies that are not explictely concerned with Buddhism or Buddhists, and yet seem to me to convey something of Buddhist wisdom. This could, of course, be completely unintentional on the part of the filmmakers. Indeed, as John Lyden has written:

The study of film from a religious studies vantage point has produced a broad consensus. Films include religious symbolism, consciously or unconsciously, and films may project a world-view which functions much like a religion in our culture [emphasis added].

I can certainly think of a number of films that include symbolism relevant to Buddhists, as well as ones that present an ostensibly Buddhist world-view. Indeed, I think Buddhist ideas have been exceedingly well articulated in popular world cinema, consciously or unconsciously.

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Let's consider the example of the noble truth of dukkha. In the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta, the sutta in which we find the Buddha "setting into motion the wheel of Dhamma," dukkha is described in the following way:

The Noble Truth of Suffering (dukkha), monks, is this: Birth is suffering, aging is suffering, sickness is suffering, death is suffering, association with the unpleasant is suffering, dissociation from the pleasant is suffering, not to receive what one desires is suffering — in brief the five aggregates subject to grasping are suffering.

To understand why birth, agin, sickness, and death are dukkha, I think we do well to understand the meaning word: dukkha literally means "bad axle-hole," like on wagon wheel. This in mind, we could say that birth, age, sickness, and death create instability for living beings, just as a "bad axle-hole" prevents the wagon ride from being a smooth one. Birth, age, sickness, and death are dukkha because they are realities that portend, as my friend Judith Simmer-Brown says, "a bumpy ride."

Similarly, "the three associations"--association with the upleasant, disassociation from the pleasant, and not getting what we want--point to other realities that suggest an off-kilter journey through life. In our association with the unpleasant, we often feel cornered by undesirable, uncontrollable circumstances. In our disassociation from the pleasant, we may feel like we can't have what we want and we're stuck with what we don't want. In not getting what we want, we might feel like happiness is completely out of our reach. (In one brilliant teaching, the Vidyadhara, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, suggested a fourth association: getting what we do want. He asked his students to consider how often getting what they wanted didn't fulfill their their fantasies quite the way they had fantasized.)

The roots of all of this, "in short," are "the five aggregates subject to grasping," the five skandhas. Form, feeling, perception, mental formation, and consciousness, the five constituent parts of our momentary experience, perpetuate dukkha when we mistakenly cling to them as a solid "self."

With such an understanding of dukkha, it seems to me that various aspects of this noble truth are captured in a huge range of motion pictures--Erich von Stroheim's Greed, Josef von Sternberg's The Last Command, Edgar G. Ulmer's Detour, Billy Wilder's Sunset Blvd., Nicholas Ray’s Rebel Without a Cause, Ingmar Bergman’s Smultronstället, Michelangelo Antonioni’s Il Deserto Rosso, Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solyaris, Ridley Scott's Blade Runner, Kurosawa’s Ran, Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures, Pedro Almodóvar’s Todo Sobre Mi Madre, Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia, Sofia Coppola’s The Virgin Suicides, Ethan and Joel Coen’s The Man Who Wasn’t There, Steven Spielberg’s A.I.: Artificial Intelligence, and Alexander Payne’s About Schmidt all come to mind.

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It also seems to me that certain types of movies are fertile ground for variations on particular themes. I think an excellent case could be made for the Buddhist notion of karma as a perennially popular theme in the American crime genre—from Mervyn LeRoy's early classic Little Caesar to wunderkind Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill: Vol. 1.

Karma can be defined as (1) cetana—intention, motivation, “volition” (according to Rewatta Dhamma), or “directionality” (according to Herbert V. Guenther)—and (2) cetana-krta—the act that follows from the intention. As Santikaro Bhikkhu so expertly puts it, the "message" of karma in the Buddhist tradition is as follows:

...our actions have consequences (vipāka); we choose our actions due to motivation (cetana); the character of the motivation determines the character of the results or consequences; we are responsible for our actions and their consequences; [and] our choices subjectively determine our world.

We should be careful not to misunderstand karma as fatalistic. Karma is fatalistic only in the sense that "bad karma" will continue until we bring a more mindful awareness into our lives, cutting through the passion, aggression, and ignorance that perpetuates the cycle of suffering and bad karma. As the Buddha says in the Upajjhatthana Sutta:

[When those] who conduct themselves in a bad way [in body, speech, and mind]...reflect on [the] fact [that they are the owers of their actions, heir to their actions, born of their actions, related through their actions, and have their actions as their arbitrator], that bad conduct in body, speech, and mind will either be entirely abandoned or grow weaker...

Because American crime films generally feature characters with intentions that result in actions with negative consequences for themselves and the other characters, most of them tend to get me thinking about karma. My most favorite example, though, is Michael Curtiz's masterfully acted, impressively stylized melodrama Angels with Dirty Faces.

[SPOILERS AHEAD!] Angels with Dirty Faces tells the story of Rocky Sullivan (played by James Cagney) and Jerry Connelly (Pat O'Brien), teenage friends who grow up into very different adult roles after running afoul of the law in their youth. Rocky is institutionalized and becomes a career criminal, while Jerry makes good and becomes a Catholic priest who ministers to wayward boys. The friendship is tested when Rocky takes some of Jerry's flock under his wing. Alarmed to see the boys sinking deeper into juvenile deliquency because of Rocky's example, Jerry launches a citywide crack-down on crime. Upon discovering that two of his fellow hoods (Humphrey Bogart and George Bancroft) plan to murder the troublesome Jerry, Rocky kills them and a bloody police chase ensues. When the smoke clears, Rocky is sentenced to death. Jerry realizes that Rocky's inevitably defiant demise will cement his effect on the boys, and he implores him to feign a coward's death for their sakes. Rocky refuses at first, but just as he is brought to the electric chair, he starts to sob and beg for his life. Disenchanted with their former hero, the boys follow Jerry back to the church.

Obviously, Angels with Dirty Faces' story and the workings of its moral universe are rife with implications for those of us inclined to put our faith in the law of karma. What's most interesting to me, though, is the ending. In his walk to the gallows, Rocky has time to reflect on his karma, and his intention and actions change. It is a perfect cinematic metaphor for the Buddha's teaching in the Ambalatthika-rāhulovāda Sutta:

Whenever you want to perform [an act of body, speech, or mind], you should reflect on it: 'This [act] I want to perform — would it lead to self-affliction, to the affliction of others, or to both? Is it an unskillful [act], with painful consequences, painful results?' If, on reflection, you know that it would lead to self-affliction, to the affliction of others, or to both; it would be an unskillful [act] with painful consequences, painful results, then any [act] of that sort is absolutely unfit for you to do. But if on reflection you know that it would not cause affliction... it would be a skillful [action] with happy consequences, happy results, then any [act] of that sort is fit for you to do.

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I don't know for sure, but I think it's reasonable to assume that Curtiz and the other filmmakers behind Angels with Dirty Faces weren't thinking about Buddhism when they put their movie together. Nonetheless, there's a lot there to consider from a Buddhist perspective. As I search for Buddhist themes in popular world cinema, though, it is certainly much more exciting for me when the filmmakers obviously know a thing or two about Buddhism, if for no other reason than because I feel more inclined to go a little deeper with my analysis (read: "geek out").

Three good examples of this sort of thing are the films in Andy and Larry Wachowski’s Matrix trilogy. Part science fiction, part film noir, part martial arts ballet, part super-hero comic, part art house, and part grind house, with humor and romance to spare, the series also winkingly acknowledges Kant, the Bible, feminism, Alice in Wonderland, Philip K. Dick, the Upanishads, Baudrillard, Greek mythology, Descartes, William Gibson, and, yes, Buddhism (among many other things) in its carefully textured philosophical ambitions.

When I first saw the first film in the series, 1999's The Matrix, I had the same reaction as James L. Ford, who finds the parallels between the science fiction of the film and the insights of the Yogācāra school of Mahāyāna Buddhism especially striking. Going a good bit further with Ford’s thesis, I find that the movie functions very well as a cinematic parable for the Yogācāra’s trisvabhāva, or "three-nature theory" of how reality is perceived.

In his important article “The Trisvabhāva Doctrine in India & China: A Study of Three Exegetical Models,” Alan Sponberg argues that the three-nature theory of reality has been most popularly understood in Western scholarship as it was generally presented in the Yogācāra tradition of East Asia: as a progressive model for delineating our cognitive experience. This understanding of trisvabhāva teaches that we have first a "superficial" understanding of reality "at which, in our delusion, we cling to our 'self' and to 'things' as truly existing." This is the parikalpita, or "imaginary" nature of conceptualization. Once we realize the inherently "imaginary" quality of the parikalpita, we are at the second level of understanding, the paratantra. In the paratantra, we see that "these 'things-in-themselves' are actually reifications of phenomenal experience." Upon going deeper and seeing the "[mistake of] 'self' and 'things'"--having realized śūnyatā (emptiness) completely-- we are at the ultimate level of our understanding of reality, the parinispanna. The parinispanna is the perfected or absolute nature, in which that which is ultimately “real” is completely apparent. [1]

But, as Sponberg points out, the classical Indian tradition of the Yogācāra understands trisvabhāva somewhat differently. It understand it not as a progressive model, but as an “axial” model. In this model, the paratantra is quite literally “pivotal.” "The primary of aspect of existence [in this model] is the Dependent characteristic or nature [paratantra]," Sponberg writes.

...It is the manifold of all causally conditioned and conceptually mediated experience...[In the paratantra, either] one reifies that dependent phenomenal experience, clinging to it as corresponding or referring to a realm of predeterminate facts or objects [parikalpita]...[or] one realizes that, because they are causally conditioned, the events of this phenomenal experience are inextricably interrelated and thus cannot refer to any realm of predeteminate or essential facts; thereby coming to see the Dependent phenomenality of existence in its Consummate characteristic or nature [parinispanna]. [2]

In other words, as the early Indian Yogācārins understood it, it is in and through the paratantra, the other-dependent nature, that the absolute nature (the parinispanna) becomes apparent, or the imaginary nature (the parikalpita) is misunderstood as "reality."

The Matrix offers a similar take on perception. In the film, we meet a depressed software engineer named Neo (Keanu Reeves) who discovers that his “reality” is nothing more than an elaborate, computer-programmed hoax piped directly into his brain and everyone else’s by seemingly malevolent machines of artificial intelligence.

With an understanding of the trisvabhāva as axial, we can see how the Matrix itself is quite similar to the paratantra. The experience of those plugged in, who believe that the illusory Matrix is “real,” could be viewed as the parikalpita, while the parinispanna is symbolized in the wisdom that comes with taking “the red pill”—the knowledge that the Matrix is not “real." In the film's universe, a person's understanding or misunderstanding of reality clearly pivots on how they understand Matrix.

Neo ultimately develops a deep understanding of and relationship to the Matrix, which allows him a Superman-like agency in and over the system. This particular plot twist makes a comparison of the Matrix to the paratantra all the more provocative: Neo's understanding still pivots on the Matrix, but it has swung from the parikalpita to the parinispanna. The move from "reification" to "realization" is beautifully rendered on film by the Wachowski Brothers: when Neo finally awakens to the truth, he no longer sees his enemies as tangible figures, but as lines of green code.

In this film, and right on through The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions, what the classical Indian Yogācārins might refer to as the paratantra is key to one's rightly or wrongly perceiving what is "real."

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Of course, considering the presence of Buddhist themes in a film gets a little tricky when the filmmakers seem to have a separate, specific agenda.

One of my favorite films to consider from a Buddhist point of view is Lindsay Anderson's O Lucky Man! An epic, surreal, allegorical pseudo-musical that chronicles the misadventures of ambitious young coffee salesman Mick Travis (Malcolm McDowell), I find that the whole thing very well empitomizes the concept of tathāgata-garbha ("Buddha-nature"). As I watch the protagonist stuggle to find the thing that will make him happy, only to find happiness more and elusive, I am reminded of the words of Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche:

Because we don't recognize our essential nature [our Buddha-nature]--we don't realize that although appearances arise unceasingly, nothing is really there--we invest with solidity and reality the seeming truth of self, other, and actions between self and others. This intellectual obscuration gives rise to attachment and aversion, followed by actions and reactions that create karma, solidify into habit, and perpetuate the cycles of suffering. [2]

This is a lesson that Mick seems to have learned by the film's euphoric end.

Anderson is on the record saying of O Lucky Man! that "people must make their own judgments of the experience, and their own interpretations," and yet a few things seem clear when interpreting it. [3] Here's what McDowell said in during the U.S. premiere of an uncut version of the film in 2002:

Obviously this is a very political film. Lindsy was a social commentator and a very political person. I once said to him, "Look, Lins, you're not conservative, you're not labor, you're certainly not liberal. What are you?" He said, "I'm an anarchist! I want to pull it all down!" I don't know if he was joking or not. [But in] the film, he really takes a swipe at everything. He goes for the lot.

The assessment that it is "a very political film...[that] goes for the lot" is certainly in keeping with the artistic milieu from which Anderson emerged as a filmmaker. Film historian Duncan Petrie writes:

The dawning of the 1960s coincided with a period of invigoration in the British cinema after what many regarded as the inherent complacency of the previous decade. The British "New Wave", with its focus on contemporary working-class experience, grew out of "Free Cinema", a movement of oppositional film-makers and critics like Lindsy Anderson, Karel Reisz, and Tony Richardson, committed to shaking up the moribund British film culture. These filmmakers had produced influential documentaries in the late 1950s, such as Momma Don't Allow (Richardson, 1956), Every Day except Christmas (Anderson, 1957), and We Are the Lambeth Boys (Reisz, 1959), on subjects such as the emerging youth culture and more traditional aspects of working class life. [4]

With all of this in mind, and despite some bits of dialogue in which Buddhism is explictly discussed, I'm left wondering to what extent a Buddhist interpretation of O Lucky Man! is appropriate.

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That seems like enough for right now. I would love to hear from any readers, though. Please share your thoughts in the comments.

WORKS CITED:

1. Alan Sponberg, “The Trisvabhāva Doctrine in India and China: A Study of Three Exegetical Models" in Ryukoku Daisaku Bukkyo Bunka Kenkyujokiyo XXI (1983): 101.
   
2. Ibid., 99-100.
   
3. Reginald A. Ray, In the Presence of Masters: Wisdom from 30 Tibetan Buddhist Teachers (Boston: Shambhala Publications, 2005), 119.
   
4. Lindsay Anderson and David Sherwin with songs by Alan Price, O Lucky Man! (New York: Grove Press, 1973), 8.
   
5. Duncan Petrie, "British Cinema: The Search for Identity" in The Oxford History of World Cinema, ed. Geoffrey Nowell-Smith, 604 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996).