Revisiting the Film The Counselor
Thoughts on Ridley Scott’s Underrated Film and Cormac McCarthy’s Philosophical Gem.
For some time now, I have been fascinated by Ridley Scott’s 2013 film, The Counselor. The movie did not fare well at all with critics, although Danny Leigh, the host of BBC’s Film 2013 captured what I felt and why I have watched this movie three times already: “What this film really is, is a Cormac McCarthy audiobook with visuals by Ridley Scott.” Leigh also predicted that, in time, people will come to recognize The Counselor’s greatness: “Movie history is littered with films that we all sneered at and we all laughed at and we all thought terrible and the critics hated them and no one went to see them, and then 40 years later they fetch up on programs like this with everyone saying ‘what a masterpiece!’”
Yes, it is a brutal story about a greed-driven lawyer who signs a pact with the devil—a drug cartel, that is—all unfolding on a canvas of sweepingly glorious landscapes, the cool machinations of a lusty, intelligent sociopath, and a devoted love. It has violent scenes. It has the most unusual car sex scene I have ever seen in any film. It has moments that cause utter disgust. So why would anyone want to watch this movie three times? Besides its lyrical and wild beauty as primitive, predatory, and agile as the two cheetahs that pop in and out of sight throughout the film? Besides Daniel Pemberton’s soundtrack that seeps through desert and canyons to follow the hunted truck crossing the Mexican border into Texas, reminding you for an instant of Ennio Morricone’s Western tunes only to turn eerie, steely, and obsessive as everything unravels? Besides the eyes getting to feast on the gorgeousness of the five protagonists played by Michael Fassbender (the Counselor), Penélope Cruz (Laura), Cameron Diaz at her scariest ever (Malkina), Javier Bardem (Reiner), and Brad Pitt (Westray)? The answer at the top of all answers for me is clear: the screenplay.
I am not writing in defense of the cinematic value of The Counselor nor is this a review. This piece is about Cormac McCarthy’s text; those phrases in the screenplay that held me captive and awed at the crossroads of literature and philosophy. I felt inspired to share some of the words that riveted me and the thoughts they bred. To avoid spoilers, I will not give any context around these quotes, but only name the characters who say them.
“I think truth has no temperature.” (Malkina)
How much more Shakesperean can you get? This reminded me of “There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so” from Hamlet. Of course, situations can be, as we are all experiencing now, fundamentally bad, and no amount of thinking will change their essence. But in our own microcosms of reactions and interactions, the power of thought can put a different spin on how we feel and act as well as on the outcome of our actions and the effects we have on others. Facing truth without getting either too hot-headed or frozen in place by it allows the mind to stay objective. In objectivity, our peripheral vision is not clouded by emotions and we may discover previously-unnoticed ways of dealing with a situation.
“The truth is that anything you can say about a diamond is in the nature of a flaw. The perfect diamond would be composed simply of light…” (Diamond dealer)
Perfection—many of us seek it in what we do, how we design our lives, how we look. But it is also in the individuality of our flaws that we are unique. It is our flaws that, by contrast, make our qualities shine brighter, it is our flaws that push us to strive for improvement. If they weren’t there, and we would be perfect—whatever the definition of perfection is—maybe we would no longer do anything. And then what exactly constitutes a flaw? Some “flaws” can be assets if channeled in ideal directions. Think of someone extremely detail-oriented, picky, persistent, constantly critical, even compulsive—how annoying that can be in a relationship and yet how sublime the result when the tenacious and meticulous essence of those traits can sustain that person in the painstaking labor of creating an elaborate work of art.
“I suppose every diamond is cautionary… It’s not a small thing to wish for, however unattainable, to aspire to the stone’s endless destiny. Isn’t that the meaning of adornment? To enhance the beauty of the beloved is to acknowledge both her frailty and the nobility of that frailty. We announce to the darkness that we will not be diminished by the brevity of our lives. That we will not thereby be made less.” (Diamond dealer)
Oh, that eternal human drive towards immortality! Diamonds may enhance our looks, but we enrich the world by what we contribute. Be it a poem, a painting, an essay, a recording, a statue, a book, a symphony, a cathedral, a school, an opera, human beings have always defied mortality, and their creations transcend the limits of their physical existence. Humanity’s vastness of spirit will never be bound and defined by a count of years, no matter how fleeting. We may come close to the stone’s endless destiny through our works in the world.
“Actions create consequences which produce new worlds and they’re all different… The world in which you seek to undo the mistakes that you made is different from the world where the mistakes were made…” (Jefe)
A harsh and devastating moment in the film but one that speaks to how, within the larger global context, we create our own realities through our choices. And those realities keep changing, in subtle or obvious ways, through more choices, more actions, more thoughts. This goes back again to the idea of being able to deal with truth with “no temperature” and with the present as it is without getting trapped in “fixing” past choices, as only rarely can past choices be fixed. But they can always teach us.
“‘Caminante no hay camino / Se hace el camino al andar. (Traveler, there is no road / the road is made as you walk).’” (Jefe)
El Jefe quotes from a poem by Antonio Machado that begins with: “Caminante, son tus huellas / el camino y nada más; / caminante, no hay camino, / se hace camino al andar.” (Traveler, your footprints are / the road, and nothing else; / traveler, there is no road; / the road is made as you walk.)We are the builders of our own roads. We may encounter upheavals and obstacles yet the next step we take is always new, just like the next minute or the next hour is new. In time, we can look back at the road traveled—the path created by our unique footprints—and it may awe and surprise us.
“The hunter has grace, beauty, and purity of heart to be found nowhere else. You can make no distinction between what they are and what they do. I think he is not defined so much by what he has come to be as by all that he has escaped being…” (Malkina)
The last sentence quoted here did not make it into the film; I discovered it in the screenplay manuscript. This passage made me think of how often we define ourselves by what we do professionally, especially in the Western world. Even the question “What do you do?” is often answered with “I am.” “I am a teacher, an engineer, a doctor, a writer…” And I never hear anyone answer it with “I’m a friend, a lover, a daughter, a brother, a wife, a mother, a husband…” Or with a non-profession-related action: “I garden, journal, explore nature, philosophize with my mother, play chess with my father, invent funny stories to make my friends laugh, listen well” and so on… The reply to the “doing” question is almost always about a profession. Yet, especially in a time of massive unemployment rates, maybe this answer invites rethinking. It goes without saying that professions and jobs are vital to survival for most people. Nonetheless, it is worth taking the time to ask ourselves: what really is it that we do in which we can make no distinction between what we do and what we are? And that can have multiple answers. The other question that this brought up for me was: what have we avoided being because of the choices we’ve made? What we haven’t been is also a part of what we currently are. If we regret what we haven’t been, how can we fully embrace who we are now?
Top photo: Bigstock
