Hidden Truth/Hidden Truth.iso/data/xfiles/x-files3/bruckman.rvw

Text File | 1996-09-21 | 12KB | 213 lines

                       Reluctant Oracle

                       by Sarah Stegall

                copyright 1995 by Sarah Stegall


  "How can I see the future if it didn't already exist?"  --
                        Clyde Bruckman

     How, indeed.  The whole concept of fortune-telling is
grounded in the assumption of a mechanistic, Newtonian
universe, a theory still bearing the forge marks of the
medieval determinism that invented it.  The basic premise is
borrowed from St. Augustine's famous analogy of time as a
winding road, so bent and so contorted that only God, from his
lofty perspective, can see what lies ahead of us--only God,
his chosen prophets, and assorted tea-leaf readers.  This
picture is a pretty conceit, and it has passed into the
Western cultural world view so thoroughly we rarely
acknowledge it, much less question it.  We use metaphors for
time like, "further on up the road", and "what is to be".  But
time is not space, and to think of it as merely analogous to
distance can be seriously misleading.  Most importantly, the
classical deterministic concept of time and "the future"
absolutely undermines the notion of free will.  If Clyde
Bruckman or any other visionary can accurately foretell the
future, then it is immutable, and the concept of free will
vanishes.  We cannot "choose" to do that which is already set
in concrete; it distorts the meaning of the word to insist
that we do.  On the other hand, if we have true existential
freedom, there can be no future set in concrete (for a prophet
to discover) because we have not yet made the choices that
will create it.
     In the face of modern probability and chaos theories, it
is harder and harder to sustain the Newtonian idea of the
universe as a great clock, wound by unseen but loving Hands,
in which our lives have place, purpose, and meaning.  Enter
the fortune teller.  How comforting it is, to be able to sit
down with someone certain of the future, who can confidently
speak of what is "meant" to be while remaining vague about the
content of that meaning, a person whose very trade presupposes
the existence of an ordered universe.  The moral repercussions
of being able to speak with absolute conviction about the
future fade away in the warm glow of comfort emanating from
the Stupendous Yappi or a Madame Zelma.  The future becomes a
television show which we passively observe, and we have about
as much impact upon it as viewers do on TV today.  But we
still watch it.  Few of us are immune to the lure of a peek at
a meaningful future--I myself do not believe in a "future"
lying somewhere "out there", yet I own over two dozen Tarot
decks.  Humans are a mass of contradictions.
     Darin Morgan, the writer for Friday's "Clyde Bruckman's
Final Repose", manipulates this schizoid confusion like a
master puppeteer.  We are fascinated by Clyde Bruckman's
erratic and almost whimsical gift, in which the composition of
a pie ("coconut cream...no, banana cream!") is given equal
weight with Fox Mulder's murder.  This is the same kind of
value-free association of ideas we experience in dreams; the
unconscious, having no moral reins, values dessert and murder
at the same level.  The use of this kind of telling detail
elevates the story of the hapless psychic Clyde Bruckman into
the realm of art, where we see our human foibles cast back
upon us with some new insight.  The pathos and naivete of this
essentially innocent (in the sense of "unworldly") man
contrasts starkly with the bloody visions that haunt him.  His
life is so burdened with this useless and capricious gift that
a nightmare about his own death is actually comforting to him.
     Superbly embodied by veteran character actor Peter Boyle,
Clyde Bruckman is surely one of the more tragic and courageous
figures to cross the X-Files screen in a long time.  Even Fox
Mulder, who says he envies Bruckman's gift, does not have the
courage to face the knowledge of his own death.  Bruckman
himself fears and loathes his power. Unable to tame his own
wild talent, he gives in to despair, denying all hope of
change.  Of course, by retreating to this passivity, he
guarantees that his visions will come true.  He fails, for
example, to warn Mrs. Lowe (Doris Rands) of her impending
fate, fails to warn Detective Havez (Dwight McFee, in an
historic fourth X-Files appearance) of his imminent murder.
Left in ignorance, of course, these individuals cannot make
the choices that might avert their ends, and events fall out
as Bruckman foresaw.  This moral cowardice in an otherwise
appealing character was unsettling, but entirely believable,
and served to delineate Bruckman even more clearly as a
living, breathing, flawed human being.
     The setting for this morality play is simple:  Mulder and
Scully are called in to consult with St. Paul cops who are
trying to find a serial killer preying on fortune tellers.
Gruesome as the murders are, even more grotesque is the
performance of "The Stupendous Yappi" (Jaap Broeker), a TV-
prophet fakir of such obvious shallowness that he makes last
season's "Dr. Blockhead" look like a pillar of rectitude.
When a body is discovered by Clyde Bruckman, a reluctant
oracle, Mulder is delighted to find an actual, genuine psychic
involved in the case.  His eager-beaver questioning ("Pinch
me!"), in which he treats Bruckman like a lab rat to be poked
and prodded for answers, reveals the insatiable curiosity
behind Mulder's "obsession" with the supernatural.  Clearly an
expert in various forms of divination, from anthropomancy to
tea-leaf reading, Mulder is overjoyed to find a real psychic
on whom to test his theories.  Scully, who does not believe in
psychic ability, is free to treat Bruckman as a real human
being, and the relationship between them moves from strained
tolerance to a warm understanding.  Perhaps unconsciously,
Bruckman reacts to this treatment by telling Scully (who
appears unafraid of death since "Dod Kalm") that she will not
die, and then turns around and keeps the pesky Agent Mulder up
all night by telling him horror stories.
     Throughout "Clyde Bruckman" the tension between Mulder,
pressing for more information, and Bruckman, reluctant to
exercise a talent which has never made any difference in
people's lives anyway, drives the show through deeper and
deeper layers of angst and dread.  Mulder, clearly in the free-
will camp, demands information which will let him act.
Bruckman, convinced all action is unavailing because the
future has already been written, sees the engagement of his
powers only as a painful exercise in futility.  Both men's
points of view are borne out, as the incidents foretold by
Bruckman come to pass--but with a different twist.  Bruckman
accurately foretells Mulder's assault in the kitchen--which
permits Mulder to defend himself effectively.  In the end, we
see why fortune-telling was frowned upon by the medieval
church--to presume that you know everything that is going to
happen because you have caught a mere glimpse of it is
arrogance, an abrogation of the function of deity.
     This interesting exploration of the implications of
prophecy is set like a jewel in a setting of gallows humor and
wild in-jokes.  As he did in his earlier effort, "Humbug",
Morgan keeps us reeling between ghastly images of disembodied
eyes and rotting corpses, and subtle gags that both comment
upon earlier themes and enlarge upon them.  When Mulder takes
Bruckman to the scene of a murder where the stagy "Stupendous
Yappi" has performed for the police, Bruckman echoes Yappi's
vague statements almost word for word, but in a manner that
turns them in upon themselves.  The irony of a clairvoyant
selling insurance is underwritten (ahem) by his involuntary
prophesying of his clients' deaths.
     Morgan plays diabolically clever jokes on us.  Scully
plays poker with a clairvoyant--not a bright idea--who holds
the infamous "Aces and Eights" Dead Man's Hand that Wild Bill
Hickok was holding when he died.  But Morgan, typically, goes
Wild Bill one better--Bruckman is holding a full house (3 aces
instead of a pair) whereas Hickok was only holding a measly
two pair.  The in-joke is doubled in value and we get twice
the kick out of it.  At the end of the episode, we see a clip
from a Laurel and Hardy film, with excellent special effects
that make the duo look like skeletons.  We are reminded
simultaneously of the skeleton that Clyde Bruckman dreamed of,
and for those movie fanatics among us, of the "real" Clyde
Bruckman, the scriptwriter who worked for Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd,
and Laurel and Hardy, who committed suicide.  This level of
subtlety is almost fiendish.
     Director David Nutter (genuflection) rings in with some
truly wonderful moments:  the wordless instant of horrified
recognition between the killer and Clyde Bruckman, the
infinitely gentle look of pity on Scully's face as she sits
beside Bruckman's body, the stark terror in Mulder's face as
his throat is cut in the fantasy sequence.  The pacing of the
opening sequences--almost cartoonish in their garish light and
sprightly movement--contrast very energetically with the
brooding, somber displays of Bruckman's despair and
resignation.  Scully standing like an avenging Valkyrie in the
service elevator, shooting down the killer without blinking an
eye, drew outright applause from me.  The scene in the forest
where the team is hunting a body, which ends with Scully,
Mulder and Bruckman dwarfed by the huge trees and thick ferns,
lent balance to the scenes where we are so intently focused on
a grimace, a blink, a smile.
     Morgan resists the temptation to make the nameless killer
of this episode more important than he is.  In a whodunit like
this, for example, there is no point in looking for a motive.
The motives of psychotic killers are beyond our comprehension
anyway, and to have elaborate psychological profiles of them
may well be a waste of time. Bruckman explains the killer to
himself at the end:  "Don't you get it?  You do the things you
do because you're a homicidal maniac!"  While this is like
explaining that someone is fat because they are obese, it is
still true.  There is no point in seeking a deeper motive than
disconnected psychosis.  Likewise, the casting of pop-eyed Stu
Charno (husband of former X-Files writer Sara Charno) in the
role of the ineffectual little nebbish who commits these
horrendous crimes is a stroke of genius.  He looks like the
very last person in the world to be eviscerating people to
read his future.
     It's the wit that maintains the equilibrium in this
otherwise terminally pessimistic episode.  Bruckman's sly
tease to Mulder, wherein he hints that Mulder will die of
autoerotic asphyxiation, made me laugh until I cried.
Mulder's quote from "Chantilly Lace" alone--"you know what I
like" stole the scene.  The joke of having Scully park *on*
the body they are looking for, the slyness of having the
frustrated Clyde Bruckman identifying Mulder's own Knicks' T-
shirt from "Beyond" (and then having Mulder deny it!), and
the sheer silliness of The Stupendous Yappi's scene-stealing
eyebrows are examples of black humor at its finest.
     I cannot close without adding that the relationship
between Mulder and Scully *has* definitely changed in this
episode, and for the better.  The teasing is back--you would
have to kill Mulder to stop him from teasing--and the teamwork
is back, even better.  Scully and Mulder back one another to
the hilt. Mulder drops his gun, naturally, but finally Scully
does not.  And Morgan's skill is echoed by Duchovny and
Anderson, who manage to show us Mulder's skeptical side and
Scully's nascent "believer" side without distorting either
character.  It is tough to do that, and they did it very, very
well.
     There are hits, and there are misses, and then there are
hits.  This one is destined for immortality.  I award it five
sunflower seeds out of five.