It was the horror and beauty of Mike's memories that really struck me in Emily Mann's Still Life. I'm quite aware that one of the most popular themes in war literature is the ideal empowerment (the status of a more powerful and superior individual) and the eventual hubris-paved road back to reality. Still, out of the many works on war that I've read, I would have to say that the simplicity of Mike's "digging" of the experience really spoke to me.
I too romanticize the notion of no rules, world in which no one could stop me from exploring all of the off-limits places that call my name from behind the tape that marks them off. Mike also revels in this newfound experience during the war when he becomes the deciding authority: "You were given all this power to work outside the law./ We all dug it." No safety boundaries and therefore no personal/ self restrictions...we trust ourselves to be what we respect. However, whenever situations arise in which a lack of boundaries is ephemerally erected, this is not the case. An obvious example is Mike's murder of five Vietnamese.
Upon reading both Mike's lament for his past actions and fondness for such empowerment I could not help but remember one of my favorite scenes from Apocalypse Now. In Marlon Brando's famous monologue as Colonel Kurtz he elegantly describes the horror and then admiration of the Viet Cong's strength. Beginning at 1:35 Brando begins his talk on this "will..perfect, genuine, complete, crystalline, pure" and his monologue fills the rest of the video's time.
I love the curious and tentative mix of both the pleasurable empowerment and knowledge of unwanted duty in that monologue, just like the 4th stanza of Still Life: "See, there was a point, definitely,/ when I was genuinely interested in trying to win the war./ It was my own area./ I wanted to do the best I could." I can't help but stop and let this mix of emotions, drives, and regrets fill me up and leave me with an indescribable sense of voyeuristic power.
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