I’ve just watched Godzilla: King of the Monsters – in three sessions over two days (is there any movie capable of fully holding my attention for two hours given everything else I’m thinking about?). I’m talking about the 2019 sequel, if you can call it that, not the 1956 American re-edit of the 1954 Japanese Gojira. For my money it’s the best Godzilla film I’ve seen (and I’ve only seen a half-dozen or so) since the Japanese original. While it’s bulked up considerably, not only is Godzilla larger, but there are three or four monsters featured prominently, it manages to capture some of the spirituality of the Japanese original. I’m thinking particularly of the scene where the Serizawa travels to Godzilla’s underwater lair so he can energize it by exploding a small nuclear bomb, killing himself in the process. In the original, of course, Serizawa set out to kill Godzilla, and succeeded. But the 2019 film captures some of the ritual quality of that scene.
But that’s not what this note is about. While watching the film I was struck that THIS is SOMETHING I’ve been thinking about from time to time. I’ve probably made a post or two about that something, but I don’t know how to find those posts because I’ve never given it at name. I’m going to call it world-spanning thoughts. What do I mean? To the extent that we can perceive and conceive the world, not only do we seek to understand it, but to exert (some kind of) control over it, the WHOLE extent. In particular, I’m thinking about this in the context of the control theory of William Powers, though I’m going to have to leave that out of this little note.
If you are an animal, your ability to conceive of the world is quite limited, limited to what you have immediate access to, more or less. When a thunder storm blows, you deal with it. When it’s over, it’s gone from your mind. Not so with humans. We can remember, and brood, and worry. And not only about thunder storms, but about volcanoes, about lions and bears and snakes. What about the sun, the moon, the stars? What are they, how do they affect us, and how can we influence them? And so we invent magic, myth, and religion, and populate the world with strange and powerful creatures that we can appease through ritual.
All this is pretty much standard. You’ve read it many times before, and so have I. And yet, there’s more to be said about it. Just what, I’m not sure, and I am sure Powers would help, but not now.
What I’m after is how all this becomes REAL. If it’s not real, in some deep sense, it doesn’t work. Films like Godzilla: King of the Monsters, are one of the imaginative vehicles through which world-spanning thoughts engage with reality. On the one had we’ve got these huge ancient monsters, called Titans in the film: Rodan, King Ghidora, Mothra, and Godzilla (there are a bunch more, but they’re not depicted). We’ve got high-tech science, computers and submarines, and the whole damn thing hangs on a twelve-year-old girl. Above all else, she’s what brings human scale to the whole venture.
Fiction is full of such world-spanning thoughts, the function of which is to bring human scale the very large (but also the very small). James Bond films do it in a different way, conspiracies plus Bond himself. Super-hero films do it as well. But what of realistic films, what is their scope? But what is realism? Where do we situate 2001: A Space Odyssey?
More later.
Hmm...World spanning thoughts, or desires, goals, objectives?
BTW, lots of Gojira/Godzilla posts.
ALSO, check out this post from 2015, Our Rage for Order and Coherence.
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