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Monster’s Ball In the Bedroom

Rose Pacatte, FSP
March 28, 2002 

"It truly takes a human being to see a human being." Lawrence Musgrove

I finally had time to go see both these Oscar-nominated films this week – on the same day. Take my advice, and don’t do what I did. The emotional weight is almost too much to bear.

One thing seeing these movies in tandem did offer me, though, was a chance to see how alike they are. Surprised? The techniques used to tell the stories are incredibly similar, beginning with the emotional, human landscape.

Both films follow a literary structure. Monster’s Ball is like DNA, with the strands of the story constantly intertwining around the solid line of racism and the impossibilities of lives without meaning. Each one is involved in the life of the other and it’s not until the end that even they realize the extent. In the Bedroom follows a classic parallel structure, with parallels within parallels, like bookends, that would make English teachers proud. It starts in the bedroom of a lobster trap and ends in the bedroom of the larger trap of lust and, in the words of the poet Blake, envy. Externally, it starts at dusk and ends at dawn. In the hearts of the Fowler’s however, where there was light, now there is only darkness. Foul is fair and fair is foul.

At the end of Monster’s Ball, when Leticia Musgrove discovers that Hank was involved in her husband’s execution, I thought she was losing it and that she was going to kill Hank in revenge and despair. All the signals were there: her seeming rage, and her hand tucked inside her robe as if she might have a weapon (even when they were sitting on the back stoop and Hank gives her the plastic spoon to eat the chocolate ice cream), and the still, hard look on her face. But then, both her hands appear and Hank utters a few, so very few, words of hope. I could only think that Leticia’s fit in the bedroom was because she realized the utter irony of their lives. She of all the characters is capable of depth of thought and seeing beyond all limits to the inevitability and possibilities of human interaction, thus her intelligence shines. She accepts that irony, because the alternative is simply unacceptable to her.

In the Bedroom has mistakenly been tagged a tale of revenge. It’s not. It is a story of unrequited adultery and the storyteller’s ability to tell this tale through the metaphor of the lobster’s trap is brilliant. I wonder if the Maine accent has not gotten in the way of grasping the distinction between revenge and lust as the plot, not unlike Billy Bob’s accent and soft tone when he explains to his son the meaning of a "monster’s ball." Both titles of the films shape their story’s meaning in ways that again, would get an A from an English teacher.

When Dr. Fowler explains the reason for the ‘bedroom’ part of a lobster trap and what happens when three lobsters get in their together, and one a female (or two females and one male) seems innocuous enough at first. But already, the presence on the boat of father, son and the child of a woman, Natalie Strout, not yet divorced signals a lack of balance.

After Richard Strout murders their son, Frank, Ruth Fowler accuses Dr. Fowler of negligence regarding him because in reality he, Matt, is the one who lusts after Natalie and is living his son’s romance vicariously. Dr. Fowler denies it. Later, when Dr. Fowler goes to retrieve his son’s traps after his murder, a lobster bites his finger. It bleeds and he puts a band aide on it. When the Fowler goes to Strout’s apartment before murdering him, he sees a picture of Natalie and Strout in happier days and gazes at it. Afterwards, at home in bed with his wife, he mentions seeing the picture and Natalie. Ruth asks, "Why?" and Dr. Fowler says he does not know.

As Ruth goes to make him breakfast, as if everything is now right, Fowler gazes at his finger and takes the bandage off to see the lobster’s wound more clearly. Clearly, there are more than two persons in that bedroom, and all is not right with the world. In fact, like the bedroom of a lobster trap, the inmates keep changing, father, mother, son, wife, the other woman and her husband and sons, all vying for attention and dominance. Though there is only implied sexual activity in this film, it is not for lack of wanting. Perhaps it could be said about this classically structured tale, it would not be in good taste to show what goes on in the bedroom. This is a film about emotional vision and though we have seen nothing we understand everything. A Gospel verse that comes to mind is Matthew 5:28 though the commandments work well enough, too.

Other similarities between the films are the use of props as symbols, and other elements that move the stories along:

Crossing water, by boat or bridge
Curtains
Cigarettes
Beer/liquor
Sex: explicit or implicit
Fathers and sons
Mothers and sons
Family
Male and female
Friends: to have them or not
Loneliness
Violent death, living death
"Legal" retribution (capital punishment; lack of interest by prosecutor’s in Frank’s murder)
"Illegal" retribution (Strout’s murder; Frank’s murder)
Killing: execution, suicide, vehicular homicide
Victims
Human suffering and coping
Withholding love: Dr. Fowler from his wife, the Strout’s relationship, Hank’s father with his wife, son and grandson; Hank and Sonny
Crimes against nature
Women who are blamed; the female characters the actresses embody;
Forgiveness/lack of forgiveness
Transformation
Red
Traps/prisons of the mind and the body
Man’s world
Shoes/slippers
Journeys
Food and restaurants
Candy and ice cream (for media educators: lots of product placement)
Pictures/portraits/drawings
Cars/vehicles, roads
Mirrors and windows, seeing and not-seeing
Venetian blinds, bars on windows, even inside windows, symbols of imprisonment; Hank’s father incarcerated in a nursing home as punishment
Grave markers, death, Catholic symbols and clergy
Symbols of what it means to be an American, especially the flag; corrections officers and military veterans
Blacks and white and just whites: explicit and implicit racism (Is Camden, ME "that" white? If so, even this is interesting…)

The biggest difference between the films, to me, is that Monster’s Ball offered hope. The main characters, though raw, flawed and socially in another place than the Fowler’s, learned and grew as persons, were willing to forgive and could see a future. The film balanced at the end, though just barely. At first it seemed like a less than perfect portrait but turned out to be a rare masterpiece reflecting the harsh grittiness of life. In the Bedroom, offered the satisfaction of high art, in style and form, from real flowers to the flowered patterns in the curtains, and framed on the walls. But like the imbibing bridge-master, the characters only moved in tortured, laborious, dark circles in their aesthetically pleasing New England town, the ending as unbalanced – and dark - as the beginning.

I think Carl Jung would have had a field day with these two films. I sure did.

Monster’s Ball is raw and real and though it made me uncomfortable and shocked me, I cared about the characters.

In the Bedroom is so heavy I couldn’t wait for it to end.

Hank’s father (Peter Boyle) in Monster’s Ball needed oxygen to breathe and I needed it to get through In the Bedroom. Yet, I can understand why critics and filmgoers are impressed by both these movies.

The acting in both films is optimum, as is the writing and direction.

If you are a student of human nature and cinema, these movies are worth the price of a ticket and more, but remember that I warned you. Neither is easy-going. This is filmmaking at its best because the films explore what it means to be human as well as the challenges of the journey and the consequences of our desires and choices.

"It truly takes a human being to see a human being." Lawrence Musgrove

Some questions for a conversation about these films that came to my mind:

Who is a "free" person in either of these films? Why?

What is the nature of human freedom and dignity? How do these films deal with this issue?

What are the metaphors used and how well do they work to create meaning?

What do the symbols and music in the film mean? How do they create the "reality" of the worlds in these movies?

Did you like either of the films? Why or why not?

What, if any, social message did the films convey?

What drives the stories? The "larger" world or the more intimate world of the characters? Or both? Why?

Was the personal and social morality presented different in the world of In the Bedroom from Monster’s Ball? How so?

Are there any spiritual dimensions to either of these films? Why or why not?