Healthcare and Me Part 2

Following from Part 1. Regular readers will know that in the past year, I embarked on a genuinely life-altering journey.  I emigrated to the United States, got married, and now make my home in North Carolina.  I love this country – its culture, its people, its landscape (you need examples?  Let's start with big city music performances and small town farmers' markets, Martin Scorsese and Stephen Colbert, the Ojai Valley and the Eno River State Park.  Just as American as industrial wastelands, George Bush and Grand Theft Auto )  It is a privilege to have been accepted here; I want to honor my adopted home by giving something back.  Part of that includes the desire to do whatever I can contribute to the discussion about a universal healthcare provision, free at the point of the use, to anyone in the United States.

The first time I had to pay for healthcare at the point of use, ironically enough, was when I was applying for permission to emigrate here.  The US immigration authorities in London apparently don’t trust the UK National Health Service.  The medical exam I was required to take for immigration purposes could only be done by a private doctor, who charged almost $300 for a 20 minute consultation.  (It’s important to note that this included an HIV test; because at the time, the United States would not admit as an immigrant anyone who is HIV positive.  I presume this means that the ranks of ‘huddled masses, tired and poor’ still stands as the Statue of Liberty’s invitation, but just didn't include people with AIDs.)  Thankfully, the vaccinations the immigration authorities insisted I receive (the incidence of tuberculosis among white middle class professionals being particularly fast-rising, I suppose) could be given by my own doctor at home.  For free.

The fact that the US doesn’t provide a similar system of free healthcare to its own citizens is not just a tragedy for those who fall through the cracks.  It is not just a harbinger of inefficiency – given the vast costs in terms of labor and other expenses that accrue when a population is disincentivised to invest in preventive healthcare.  It is not just the biggest reason I feel a chill factor in my adopted home.

It is an issue that goes to the heart of the question of what kind of society we want to be, how we want to treat other people, and what kind of ethics we want to guide our lives.

And people who insist on calling such a free system ‘communism’, ‘socialism’, or ‘oppressive’ may either know nothing of communism, socialism and oppression, or might just be distorting the truth to satisfy a vision of individualism.  A harsh way to put this would be to ask if the current debates about healthcare are really just skirmishes about human greed and selfishness, rather than serious discussions about how to ensure that no one goes without.

The good news is that the free UK healthcare system even has room for greed and selfishness!  Or, at the very least, enlightened self interest.  I'll post why later this week.

The Hurt Locker

Let's get one thing straight: I have no idea what war is really like.  I've seen 'Saving Private Ryan' and 'The Thin Red Line', and I grew up in a place colonised by a long-running civil conflict, and I've been to Jerusalem and Bethlehem and all kinds of other places where people inhabit the false consciousness described by de Niro's Al Capone in 'The Untouchables' as 'you can get further with a kind word and a gun than just a kind word'.  But I have no idea what war is really like.  And I don't think it's too dogmatic to say that unless you've actually been in a war, that you are in the same position as I am.

That doesn't mean you can't form a substantial and meaningful opinion about war; just that the opinion needs to be tempered by humility.

With that in mind, some thoughts about 'The Hurt Locker', Kathryn Bigelow's deep focus minimalist action film, in which Jeremy Renner's bomb disposal technician wears a suit that makes him look like an alien, strides up to mortar shells, and hopes he's cutting the right wire, in Baghdad, in 2004.

It's easy to respond to the tension created by such scenes by saying that this is one of the most exciting films (in the sense of forcing you into your seat, afraid for what is going to happen to the characters), or one of the most expertly edited and shot (no matter what is happening, you know precisely where you are).  It's true that 'The Hurt Locker' sets the bar for thoughtful action cinema very high.

What's more valuable, however, is that it does three things that such movies rarely achieve.

It's not an anti-war movie; nor is it jingoistic or flag-waving.  It might be true to say that 'The Hurt Locker' has no politics.  It just attempts to portray what young US American men have been doing, and how Iraqi people have been responding, for the past six years.  It doesn't have to tell us that the decision to go to war was utterly wrong: glimpsing what truth is told about the men in this film makes it obvious.

It manages to almost completely avoid cliche - the young buck doesn't have a moment of breakdown or redemption; the race-against-time to save someone ends as it probably often does in real life; the characters talk to each other the way real people talk.

And in its attempt at saying something about the war in Iraq (which it does better than any of the previously released similarly-themed movies), it also illuminates questions of masculinity, the responsibilities of adulthood, relationships between men, and the yearning that each of us has to lead a meaningful life.  It takes the audience seriously enough not to invite us to a show of cathartic violence; but a relentless portrayal of hell on earth where there is no release until somebody decides to STOP.  A hell of our own making; and I think many of us who opposed the war could benefit from seeing a film that aims to take the experience of being a soldier more seriously than some of our rhetoric has done.

The final image of the film, which implies that there are some people for whom combat is an addiction (let's assume that includes the whole human race) evokes with the sharpest clarity two more challenges: to replace the myth that chaos can be turned into order through violence, someone needs to tell different stories about how change occurs; to offer a choice between brutality and cowardice, someone needs to offer a different vision of masculinity than the false choice between warrior or wimp.  Finally, 'The Hurt Locker' is an accusation: If all that 'peaceful' society offers is a vast choice of breakfast cereal, then it's no wonder so many of us still want to fight each other just to feel alive.

Interviewing Coppola

Over at The Film Talk, my genial co-host and I have posted a fascinating conversation with Francis Ford Coppola - who, at the age of 70, with 'Tetro' considers himself to have entered what he calls the 'second phase' of his career.  To have a first phase; or a second phase, or indeed any phase to a career might be enough for me - but talking to Coppola this morning ended up being more than a conversation about publicising his new film (although you really should do yourself a favour and go see it: it's gorgeous, moving and thoughtful), turning into a dialogue about the film-making process itself, Coppola's vision for what cinema can be, and what you or I should do if we want to make movies.

The real pleasure of the interview was rooted in a sense that Coppola is humble enough to see himself still as being a student of the art he's working in.  This guy may have made 'The Conversation' and 'The Godfather' and 'Apocalypse Now' and 'One from the Heart', but he knows he's still got a lot to learn; and is learning it while seeking to live a full life, at a time when many of us might be wanting to take it easy.  He wants to tell stories that have some depth - 'Tetro' is about family secrets and the process of growing up (like all of his films - in which men usually give something up for the sake of what they assume to be their family's best interests - think of Michael Corleone's integrity in 'The Godfather', Martin Sheen's morality in 'Apocalypse Now', Dracula's centuries-old self-protection, Gene Hackman's sanity in 'The Conversation').   I'm grateful he took the time to talk to us; and you can listen to the show here.

A Race Waiting to Be Born

'In an infinite and eternal universe, the point is, anything is possible'

- Stanley Kubrick

'2001: A Space Odyssey' is one of those films that leaves me wondering if there's any point.  To watching, I mean.  Well, to watching other films, really; because '2001' is such a rich cinematic and theological experience you can't imagine anything else coming close to its visual richness, aural shock, and emotional heft.

I spent this afternoon watching the Blu-Ray (the best advertisment for Hi-Def I've yet seen) with the sound LOUD; and found myself enveloped by a familiar experience that managed also to feel strange, as if I'd never actually seen it before.

Apes.  Monolith.  Bones.  Violence as a way of life.  Exploration.  Mutual suspicion among human beings.  Love between family members and friends.  Monolith.  Noise.  More exploration.  Bad computer.  Violence as a way of life.  Very bad computer.  Shut down.  More exploration.  Invitation.  Journey.  Shattered Glass.  Re-birth.  Everything.

When David Bowman (I think we can assume his name is supposed to evoke both primal humanity and the repentant warrior known in the Bible as 'friend of God')  allows himself to be transported into his race's future, he is dying in much the same way as a caterpillar dies.  It's inevitable.  It's inevitable.  It's inevitable.  He knows it.  But some Thing tells him it's going to be ok.  Now, I'm the first to admit that applying the work 'ok' to the re-birth of the human race that climaxes '2001' is, at the very least, an understatement (of the kind that Professor Floyd is faced with early in the movie when one of his colleagues expresses the hope that his speech - about the threatened imminent destruction of the human race - could have been a 'morale booster').  But I'm so overwhelmed by the experience of seeing the film again that it seems impossible to know what the right word would be.  Evolution?  Revolution?  Redemption?

These words are too small; or their meaning has been lost through over-use.  Same with the kind of superlatives that we like to use to describe movies we like a lot ('the greatest').  But my purpose in writing is not to encourage you to agree with me; or to be impressed with the fact that I can come up with nice words (or disappointed in my failure to do so).  I want you to watch the film  Or maybe I want to feel that my love for it is somehow connected to it; as if such a thing were possible, given that I wasn't even born when it was made.  I'm running out of ways to say what I want to.  So I'll stop.  Instead of wasting your time with a defense of what I feel, let me risk just reducing it to one statement:

I think that, in dealing with the most profound questions of our existence, '2001: A Space Odyssey' is the most optimistic film ever made.

You are, of course, free to make what you want of that statement.  But I'm so excited by what I've just seen, for the tenth or twentieth time, that I really had to tell someone.  Hope you have a great weekend.

Disappearance/Re-appearance

My friend Jamie Moffett is currently editing his new documentary about the legacy of the El Salvadoran civil war; it looks like his film is going to be a genuine work of discovery, rather than one of this non-fiction movies where everything seems decided in advance.  Philadelphia's City Paper printed a story today about one of the unexpected and tragic stories the film-makers want to bring to our attention: the murder of Gustavo Marcelo Rivera Moreno, a teacher and community activist, whose disapperance and horrific death are associated with the people's attempts at opposing the destruction of the land by mining operations. 'Return to El Salvador' asks why 700 Salvadorans leave their country every day; and aims to remind audiences why the fate of these people is intimately bound to the recent history of the United States and its people.  We'll be able to see the film in November.  For now, the hope is that US politicians will be willing to support an investigation into Rivera's death.  If you believe that we should take responsibility for the misdeeds of our predecessors, then it's clear that we owe the people of El Salvador something more than we've been prepared to grant before now.  But I imagine that most of us don't know much about this recent history; never mind what's happening in El Salvador today.  Disappearance doesn't just apply to the physical removal and killing of human beings; for we're very good at hiding from ourselves the truth about our own complicity in the suffering of others.

We've been very good at 'disappearing' the murky parts of our own history; but denying the fact of the role played by the Reagan administration and others in destabilising Central American nations will not get us any closer to preventing the disappearance of more people like Gustavo Marcelo Rivera Moreno; nor in honouring the people he was trying to help. Hopefully 'Return to El Salvador' will contribute to a renewed engagement with these questions; questions that should never go away until they are answered.

(If you want to read more, Walter Lafeber's 'Inevitable Revolutions' is a good way in to understanding how and some of the reasons why successive US administrations have kept Central America in a state of dependency; and Don Shriver's extraordinary 'Honest Patriots' cuts to the heart of how we should face our own country's past.)