November 7, 2002


Dear Sir or Madam:


I have been thinking about the 'Interrogation Scene' as a staple of modern films and tv dramas. Usually 'shot' in a single sparsely-furnished room - often a very barren, undecorated and perhaps windowless room - with concrete block walls and little lighting, these scenes must be fairly cheap to produce.


Even the number of actors required is minimal, usually only two or three, but occasionally we may also see a gallery of voyeurs hiding behind a one-way glass mirror or watching the action on a hidden-camera closed-circuit video.


The longer these scenes are, the lower overall costs of any single production will be. A full-length script, set entirely in such circumstances, would be really cheap to produce. Is this why so many films and TV dramas have these scenes? And do you suppose that repeated exposure to such scenes of dominance and cruelty can be healthy for our psyche, either collectively or on an individual basis? Is there any reason other than economies of scale to include such scenes?


There was a stage play back in the 60s or 70s about an 'interrogation'. I think it required only two actors... two very good actors because it was a brutal and mind-bending revelation of just what these 'torture' chambers can really be like. There was none of that witty NYPD BLUE goodcop/badcop clever-dialogue stuff. It was a shocking testament to man's inhumanity to man.


Originally intended to make the world aware of the situation in South Africa, this play established a new 'scenario' for script writers. Many have since been inspired to write similar scenes and of course they will always try to top it for pain and shock value - I recall, for example, Dustin Hoffman suffering the worst kind of pain, deliberately inflicted tooth pain, under the ministrations of a sadistic neo-Nazi dentist in 'The Marathon Man'.


The infamous stage play that started all this, did shock the world into awareness of the apartheid problem. It featured cruelty beyond anything we had seen to that date and caused much troubled excitement. In a more subtle way, it spawned thousands of clones of itself, so that we are now almost constantly witnessing someone trying to beat someone else into submission with increasingly creative and bizarre physical and psychological abuses. Even Captain Jean-Luc Picard was reduced to naked blubbering by Cardassian interrogation techniques (perhaps too lovingly played by David Warner).


But do Producers ever stop to consider that a viewer's natural inclination is to 'identify' with characters and that this impulse is totally frustrated by such scenarios? How can these scenes satisfactorily entertain, inform or enlighten us except to arouse latent sado-masochistic tendencies. The viewer is in a 'no win' situation, forced to choose between 'being' the cruel sadistic interrogator or the hopelessly suffering victim. Is this really what we want for ourselves?


I wish I could remember the name of it - that play - but I have been blocking all that 60s theatrical angst about existential realism from my mind for decades. Y'see, I discovered that humour is a much better teacher than pain and a whole lot more fun t'boot. That's why I walked out of 'Clockwork Orange'; it was just too sad and horrible to watch someone being forced to listen to Beethoven!


So, barring any unexpected replies from you to counter my considerations, I will suggest that Producers loosen their purse strings in future productions and give us more Chase Scenes, Explosions, Train Wrecks and Shoot-Outs. I beg them to spare us the current overabundance of these 'cheap' Interrogation-and-Torture scenes before we all grow totally insensitive and begin to accept these situations as normal and standard operating procedure.



Hoping you will take these thoughts into consideration,

I remain your most loyal and least dutiful savant,

peace,


~jwf~

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~jwf~

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