vol. I: Destruction vs. Obsession

Art is the essence of humanity, and humanity is the essence of art. The whole point of art is to portray the human experience, to help others emote and see themselves in work. However, what happens when the artist becomes so dedicated to his or her craft that it consumes them, taking away the humanity inside and removing the ability to properly feel? This is nothing short of a loss of one’s grip on reality, and it is the result of crossing/blurring the fine line between passion for one’s art and the destruction that an obsession for perfection can leave in its wake. 

Here, we will explore three key films that dive into this idea of obsession and losing oneself in the desire to become “great.”

Black Swan is a 2010 psychological thriller directed by Darren Aronofsky starring Natalie Portman as Nina, a young ballet dancer whose passion and drive for dance rules every facet of her life. When she receives the new role of prima ballerina in “Swan Lake,” Nina’s dark side begins to emerge as the fascination with totally embodying the role consumes her. It’s a prime example of how too much dedication to one thing can destroy a life.

Portman’s character epitomizes the ballerina stereotype. She’s very regimented in training, routine, diet, etc. She also lives with her overbearing stage mother, another stereotype in the world of ballet and the performing arts. Because of her regimented nature, it’s hard for Nina to let go and play both the black and white swan in the ballet. Nina is constantly compared to Lily, played by Mila Kunis.

Lily is imprecise - she doesn’t care about being perfect. Throughout the film, Lily serves as Nina’s parallel, representing everything Nina struggles to be. Even their physicality and appearance are extremely contrasting. Nina is always dressed in pastels with a tight bun, whereas Lily is clothed in black, her dark hair constantly in disarray. Lily’s movements are frenetic as she smiles, while Nina is stoic and unmoving. These dichotomies mesh into one being in the course of the film, leading into the significance of the next scene I’ll discuss.

The things that we love most are often the ones that easily destroy us. At this point in the scene, Lily’s representation melds with Nina’s actual self, and she no longer serves a purpose. It represents that Nina has finally welcomed the “Black Swan” part of herself in a desperate attempt to be perfect. The mirror is shattered, demonstrating that Nina is in the middle of an identity crisis -- she no longer feels like the woman that is displayed by the glass. She sees it as Lily, her competitor, but it’s really her embracing her darkness through an act of ‘sacrifice’ in order to accurately portray the Black Swan. If murder, metaphorical or not, is what it takes to get what she wants, so be it. 

“I felt it.” Nina is such a perfectionist and has such a desire to please and impress that the best way she can embody the role of the Swan is to die. The act of perfection and destruction become perfectly melded into one. Does relevance only come with pain? We work all of our lives to perfect one goal, but is all of the fame and success that supposedly accompanies it worth sacrificing happiness? We will see.

Whiplash is a 2014 drama directed by Damien Chazzelle starring Miles Teller and J.K. Simmons. Teller plays Andrew Neiman, a young music student desperate to rise to the top and impress his maniacal instructor Terence Fletcher, played by Simmons. The film follows Andrew and Fletcher’s tumultuous relationship, where the desire to succeed becomes more of an obstruction of sanity. 

This scene is the major turning point indicator of Neiman’s career. It demonstrates his first big encounter with Fletcher and marks his desire to do anything in order to succeed. The blood aimlessly spattering the drum set is enough to prove this. Why do we see pain as the marker of utmost dedication? Why do we feel that in order to be relevant, we must go through mental and physical suffering? Not only does Andrew show this, but Nina in Black Swan goes through the same thing. She’s only going to be perfect if she’s in pain. For example, her bloody feet and the metaphorical stabbing.

Once again, in the anatomy of the “tortured and obsessive artist,” fame and success trump dignity and morality. What we put on a pedestal isn’t always worth it in the end. The arts are supposed to be about letting go and transcending physical feeling -- in other words, they’re supposed to be a path to enlightenment and release, an escape from the banal facets of reality. However, there’s a fine line between that and loss of freedom instead. The more an obsession grows and the stronger fixation with perfection becomes, the more we end up losing ourselves. It happens to Nina in her metaphorical death and metamorphosis, and it happens to Andrew in this car crash scene where he should have died. When he escapes the mounds of crushed glass, he’s a changed person. More cynical, and covered in blood instead of it just covering his hands like it did in the prior scene. Similar to Nina’s identity crisis/death scene, this accident symbolizes that Andrew’s desire to impress and prove himself to Fletcher has consumed his being. The performance is no longer about enjoying or expressing himself: it’s about being perfect and proving others wrong.

I think about this scene frequently. Honestly, I thought about using it as one of my senior quotes but decided that it was too cynical for my reality; however, I do think that it encapsulates the idea of Whiplash. Fletcher tells Andrew that it’s worse to be known as a mediocre player than as a nobody. You’re either immaculate, or you may as well stop trying. Forget the middle ground. That’s precisely what Andrew does throughout the course of the film. He rejects any notion of a life of balance (he breaks up with his girlfriend, ignores his family, his health, his dignity) in order to try and be “one of the greats.” We live in fear in order to prove ourselves to people who might not even have our best interests at heart. Artists entangle themselves in relationships created through power plays and intimidation because they’d rather endure that than die as a nobody. 

Both Black Swan and Whiplash examine the formative journeys of young artists that become absorbed by their pursuit of perfection. Not only do they both exemplify what happens when you cut yourself off from life, but it also leaves viewers questioning whether it’s pain and violence that creates art and great artists and artistic insight, or if it’s genuine unbridled passion. Is the destruction of morals and interpersonal relationships worth being loved by people we barely know? 

This conceptual question is one that we will continue to explore in the 2008 film Synecdoche, New York starring Philip Seymour Hoffman as theater director Caden Cotard. After a failed marriage and what can only be described as a midlife crisis, Caden leaves his suburban New York neighborhood and heads to NYC where he gathers actors to put on a play that mocks their daily lives. 

Theatre is the beginning of thought, the truth not yet spoken. Here is the beginning of Caden’s plan, his idea. His life has been destroyed by his wife and daughter leaving him, so he wants to create a new life and world. Instead of facing his issues, he’s turning to art for detached portrayal and examination.

What’s the point of doing anything meaningful with your time on Earth if it’s going to inevitably end? Why try if you’re just a ticking time bomb, counting down the days? To feel. Art is created as a means of release. It’s supposed to be a therapeutic experience in which we can lose ourselves, connect with others, and learn something new about ourselves within the creative process. We aren’t drawn to the necessities in life, but to entertainment. An artist’s job is to convey the human experience in its realest form, to let people know they aren’t alone. While this reflection must contain suffering to accurately represent life, the creator should not attempt to suffer on purpose to get the job done. This is Caden’s problem.

As I said a few minutes ago, art’s job is to convey the brutal truth. We laugh at phrases and agree with things because we see ourselves in them. However, in the film, the actors have not had an audience throughout the 17-year duration of the play. It leaves the question, is Caden simply doing this for himself? Is he so utterly destroyed from his past that the only way for him to confront his demons is to watch others act it out? That seems to be the case. While he wants to make the most of his time before death, what exactly is the point of living if we have to generate our feelings? Caden becomes so obsessed with reenacting his life to see where he went wrong that it drives him insane. Ironically, it’s his passion and his passion project that leads to his demise. 

Everything is inconsequential, and we’re all the same deep down. However, it’s scarier to die as a nobody, or so we think, so it’s safer to make your life meaningful for yourself. Like Nina and Andrew, Caden lives in fear and suffering because his desire to leave a mark on the world is greater than his emotional being or his dignity. 

So, going back to the key question posed earlier, is it pain and violence that creates art and great artists, or is it genuine, unbridled passion?  Is the destruction of morals worth being loved by people we barely know? 

Passion for the medium seems to be what draws them all in, but the methods that are used to “become one of the greats” grant them lots of pain and strife, but they do end up using that pain as a motivator to further their careers. It’s not necessarily healthy, but that’s a common theme among anyone who’s greatly fixated on his or her craft. 

On the outside looking in, it’s safe to say that no, it doesn’t seem worth the pain and abuse these artists put themselves through in the end. Nina dies, Andrew’s relationship with music is destroyed, and Caden dies. It’s not even clarified whether or not their actions will live on in admiration and remembrance. In Caden’s case, his world already has enough suffering, and his art just adds to it. The dedication and passion they have for their respective practices just consumes and destroys. “Too much of a good thing” exists. When an artist or performer loses his or her humanity, they’ve lost their ability to genuinely create. Cutting off human connections and relationships to improve the craft is ironic because it demolishes what they need to draw off of in order to be “great” and remembered.

So, we’ve discussed how the idea of destruction and obsession relates to the arts and obsessive artists, so now we’re going to examine it through the lens of the “common man.” That starts with the idea behind Fight Club

Fight Club is a 1999 film directed by David Fincher starring Edward Norton and Brad Pitt. Norton, an unnamed man with depression, meets a strange man named Tyler Durden, played by Pitt. The two men form an underground fight club that helps people escape their quotidian, mundane lives. From there, chaos ensues and the gap between reality and hallucinations grows. 

This scene depicts the beginning of the fight club and the clear rules. It’s evident that destruction is the key part of the club -- the whole idea is to release any anger from their basic, typical jobs and to feel something. The pain is what wakes them up inside. It becomes an addiction, coming back again and again in order to get stronger. The idea of secret destruction creates a festering obsession. 

“I felt like destroying something beautiful.” Norton’s character takes his anger out on those around him, and that desire for destruction clearly takes hold. It’s unstoppable. The obsessive nature that the art of destruction cultivates creates a complete dissociation from reality, no matter how it’s done, be it through music, dance, acting, or, in this case, fighting. Norton’s character isn’t looking to become one of the greats like Nina, Caden, or Andrew -- he just wants to be something other than his 9-5 office job, and the hobby he creates for himself makes him obsess over that fact. He wants to destroy anything beautiful; beauty is the antithesis of destruction. 

With destruction comes the art of just letting go. In order to feel comfortable destroying the life or things around you, you can’t really overthink it or care. Your instincts need to kick in. While it’s questionable whether or not the car crash is real or if it’s just a metaphor, it emphasizes that we should all just live authentically and impulsively. We shouldn’t worry or obsess over what’s going to be minute in the long run. We need to destroy any notions of perfection, which greatly contrasts from the prior films where they became obsessed because their desire for perfection destroyed them. 

Fight Club obviously isn’t about an obsessed artist, but it’s still about an ordinary man that becomes consumed with his desire to not live a mundane life. The double life that the fight club provides destroys his grip on reality because the two don’t properly blend. He’s either cutting himself off from his day life or ignoring the people from his night life that understand his struggles. 

As humans, we always want what we don’t have. The forbidden or seemingly unattainable fruit that we have to work for is always going to seem more desirable than what’s in front of us at the given moment. We’re trained to see success as a compilation of impossible situations that are only impressive if we lose sleep over them or slave away -- only if we put our blood, sweat, and tears into a project is it then deemed by others as ‘meaningful’ and ‘intricate.’ While hard work is important, the end goal isn’t always feasible or healthy -- we can’t always have it. Sometimes, balance is more important.