I have recently started watching Woody
Allen’s cinema seriously after restraining myself a lot because of his clumsy,
non-serious acting but I must confess that within a very short span of time I
have become a huge fan of the man and his movies. Woody Allen’s cinema is
really unique in the whole arena of world cinema because it has very fine
balance of both independent and commercial streams. There are several
trademarks of his cinema which makes it really a delight to watch. To list a
few, firstly almost all his movies are based in ultra urban and classy
metropolitans of the world. His characters are very modern and can also be
easily identified with. And also the plots of all his movies are very
contemporary based on the casual and routine encounters of moral issues in our
modern lives. His cinema is meant for every kind of audience. If his cinema
promises to be massy on one hand then it also promises to be intellectually and
critically superb on the other.
Recently I got an opportunity to watch
one of his very famous movies ‘Crimes and Misdemeanors’ made in 1989. I have
been deeply influenced by the plot and concept of the movie. Ophthalmologist Judah Rosenthal has had an
affair with Dolores for several years, and now she threatens to ruin his life
if he doesn't marry her. When his brother Jack suggests to have Dolores
murdered, Judah is faced with a big moral dilemma: destruction of his life or
murder. Meanwhile, documentary filmmaker Clifford Stern is trying to make a
film of a philosophy professor, but instead he's commissioned to make a
portrait of successful TV producer and brother-in-law Lester, who to Clifford
represents everything that he despises (imdb). The movie states the fact
that every time a moral decision is taken in life, consciously or
unconsciously, deliberately or in innocence and ignorance, some crime is committed
against an individual or the society.
Life as people say is a struggle. A
modern man struggles for survival and locating a niche for himself in this society.
But the struggle which we talk about is not a mono-chromatic and
mono-dimensional monolithic quest. This struggle takes place at various fronts.
The struggle is social, political, economic emotional and personal
simultaneously. But what we tend to forget in this complete rigmarole is that a
man who is struggling at so many fronts at the same time, also has to struggle for
something which is inclusive of and yet beyond all this. And that is the
eternal struggle of man himself. A modern man in the entire race for survival
and identity has forgotten his eternal struggle and even if tries to struggle
he fails miserably. But if the eternal struggle is so significant then why
doesn’t the man seem to strive for it and even if he strives then why does he
fail so often? The question is complicated but deserves to be answered.
A modern man has created so many codes
and structures in this world. But whatever structures have been created are
meant for social fulfillment rather than enriching a man eternally and
personally. The social purpose has always been given a higher priority as
compared to an inherently private purpose. And this is because man has always
been considered responsible to the community and society he is a part of. In a
way he is expected of owing all this to the community which serves him the
basics of existence. Not only that to be doubly assured, he is made morally
responsible for it. In this entire process the issue of eternal and private
struggle has been completely abandoned. And if it ever becomes relevant
sometimes, then the strength which is required for this struggle is not
adequate because it has been exploited for other purposes.
As human beings in this modern world
in our entire lives, we do encounter many moral questions. And whatever moral
choices and moral decisions we take are based upon the memory of our religion
and civilization. Howsoever we may try to refrain those decisions from these
two considerations, they do influence the entire decision making process
consciously or subconsciously. In my view this is also one of the basic reasons
of suffering of a modern human being. Morality is a sort of matrix in which the
human lives are glued firmly. And like any other structure which a modern man
has constructed in this world for his own comfort, morality is also a huge
structure which we have established for our own advantage. And we do manipulate
it according to the enormity and graveness of the situations we find ourselves.
The moral choices which are available to an individual are non-ecological and
irrational. Each and every time we are made to choose between the two and a
third alternative is never available at all. Forcibly, we make a choice which
doesn’t end the issue but complicates it many fold. In fact least consideration
is given to find alternatives to the existing ones. But in my view morality as
a structure is flawed not because of the framework itself but because of the
basic foundation on which the entire framework stands and that is the
foundation of religion and civilization. The question of morality should be
decided by the moment itself in which the quest for its answer has become so
relevant. Each moment of life howsoever difficult and intricate it may be,
carries the possibility also, the possibility of resolution and the possibility
of a fresh hope. Whatever is right or wrong, whatever is moral or immoral, the
moment should be the sole deciding factor. But that doesn’t appear to happen
very often.
A modern man follows religion as a
support system and as a reference point in life. Religion which we tend to
follow throughout our lives is more of a social phenomenon rather than being a
personal and private choice. Religion as a structure is a sort of authority
which dictates to us what is relevant but that relevance is again influenced by
what is appropriate for the society as a whole. Whatever fits in accordingly is
accepted and whatever doesn’t is labeled otherwise. Religion has become a
social commodity which everybody tends to consume as per their wishes and
requirements. Rather than being a material product, religion should be a
product of our conscience. It should be the voice of our soul. It should not be
directed by what epics and texts and priests have to say. Everybody must have
his own religion and that should be the religion of conscience and soul. Between
a man and a woman, if anything should exist, then it should be the code of love
rather than the code of morality as dictated by the religion. Between two human
beings irrespective of who they are, to whom they belong, if anything should
matter, then it should be the code of intimacy. What do our respective religions
have to do in all this? Why should morality exist between them as a wall? If a
man and woman relate to each other through the code of love and intimacy then
there would be no need of marriage and there would be no prostitution also. We
as a society have so far created only labels and have utterly failed in exploring
the depth of relationships between individuals. Not only this, but we have also
compartmentalized those labels into boxes of moral and immoral, sacred and
profane, legal and illegal. And then we call ourselves the most progressive and
advanced species in the universe. Heterosexuality, homosexuality, bisexuality,
transegenderism, lesbianism, prostitution, marriage, promiscuity are merely
labels and nothing beyond that. Nor do they translate into the extent of
intimacy between two individuals and neither do they predict and comment upon the
shelf life of a relationship between them. The only thing they do is to malign
the equation between two individuals. Religion which we follow has only divided
people into sects and classes. It has miserably failed in enriching the humanity
with attributes of love and respect for each other.
Whereas civilization is concerned it
was meant for organizing people into a progressive society, a society where
people should look after each other, and a society where everybody can
contribute in fulfilling each other emotionally and spiritually. It was never
meant to create fear. It was never meant to be the basis of every decision
making process of an individual. It was meant to strengthen the humanity, not
to weaken its very foundation. But the only thing it has achieved is making its
individuals weaker emotionally and functionally. It has segregated the world
into spiritually bankrupt societies which can offer nothing to the humanity
except the fears which have been fed into their roots from the very beginning.
Why are we afraid of each other? Why
can’t we love each other? Why have we created an atmosphere of paranoia where
every individual appears to be a criminal somewhere? Isn’t it a universal crime
which has been committed somewhere against the whole humanity? We have lost our
meditative powers in the whole struggle for survival somewhere. We need to
re-discover them and we need to re-organize ourselves into a better society
where people should rely on their own conscience and soul to decide for
themselves, what is moral and immoral, right and wrong, acceptable and not
acceptable.
