praxical

A few disjunct thoughts on the movie and some of the comments here: The fine lines between what V advocated, what he did, what the masses understood, what the masses did, what Moore intended, what the W bros intended, and how we interpret all of these relationships are very interesting. I think all of this could withstand extended exegesis - but is that really the point of a movie? The fact that it flies by, and you can't stop and re-read a section, changes how a movie should be understood, IMO. Not fundamentally, but format does matter. **BIG SPOILERS** A couple of related thoughts kicking around my head: remember that Officer Finch predicted that V wanted chaos - that he'd set the stage, and someone stupid would do something stupid, and that would be the match to the powder keg. And we saw a little bit of that realized when the little girl got shot. But during the March of Masks, with all the military, not a single shot was fired. Also, everyone knew he was planning to blow up Parlaiment - the place would have been empty, and no one got hurt. And of course, blowing up a building was a symbolic act, the destruction of an idea, despite its physical nature. The entire gov't was destroyed, everything turned over (a real revolution) without a single shot fired or person hurt. I think that's a HUGE point. Compare that with the French student protests - people have gotten hurt already, and they're not even trying to overthrow the gov't. I think V had his fingers a lot closer to the people's pulse than the police, or many viewers, expected. He didn't want, nor aim for, chaos. Of course that leaves open the question of what he did want. I think it was beyond the scope of the film to really say. And I think it's ok that that's the case. Artistically, I think there's room for art smaller in scope than AS, and that it can be exceedingly worthwhile anyway. I still haven't 100% resolved in my mind the necessity of V's death. I've never been bothered, or unimpressed, when the hero wins and gets the girl . The outcome struck me at first as rather nihilistic. Why couldn't he have Evey? Why didn't he better protect himself? He obviously intended to die in the Victoria Station scene. Was that really his best estimate of his enemies' strength? Or did he actually not want to come back to Evey? Why? Argh. But, I think if you take the full context of the movie into account, it makes more sense than not. He'd made the deal with Creedy, knew he'd get Sutter one way or the other, and could pretty much count on Creedy coming armed to the teeth. I think his goals were larger than Evey, and that if he compromised them, to be with her, he'd surrender that "last inch" of himself - utterly unthinkable. His big point was: you can't kill an idea. Given that no one who heard that survives, perhaps it's a message for the audience, and ties the movie together. In the end, I think accomplishing his goals and getting the girl were, given the facts of the situation, mutually incompatible. And he chose the one more important to him. I just wish love had set him free. It seemed to have shackled him, emotionally, instead. Which makes me sad. Maybe that's Moore's cynicism coming through. But man, what a man V was.