The Hunger Games
What do you get when you cross the TV show “Survivor” with the Roman Colosseum, “The Lottery,” dystopian sci-fi, Lord of the Flies, “The Most Dangerous Game,” and “The Wizard of Oz,” and then pitch it to the audience for the Twilight Saga? Why, the movie “The Hunger Games,” of course.
Which I went to see last night. I’d been assigned the novels (count ’em, three) for my book group, and they’d held my interest long enough for me to read them, albeit quickly. The first in the trilogy is the best, and that’s the one this movie depicts.
The books have become astonishingly popular, and although they’re not great works of art, they’re pretty well done. When I’d absorbed just a few pages of the first one I realized it was destined to become a blockbuster movie, and had almost certainly been written with that exact purpose in mind, so cinematic were its plot and characters. The film has to simplify some of the more complex thoughts in a book not known for complexity in the first place, but that’s nearly always the way of movies.
Although there are some things wrong with the film, one of them is certainly not lead actress Jennifer Lawrence, who is perfection itself in the role of heroine Katniss Everdeen. “Spunky” doesn’t even begin to describe her; this girl is fierce. Katniss isn’t a big talker, but Lawrence doesn’t need many words to convey a lot more than is in the script.
I was worried that the movie would be a visual bloodbath, because the book certainly describes killing after killing after killing, and there would be no way for the film to avoid this major plot device. But when the first deaths came I immediately realized the distractingly jerky camerawork was meant to obscure the violence rather than reveal it, the better to earn its PG-13 rating. I experienced this as a relief, because I don’t like graphic violence, but it had the curious effect of muting the thrust of the story, which relies in good measure for its intensity on the extremity and viciousness of the deaths. These kids seemed like they were just playing, and the outcome was never in doubt.
District 12, the impoverished coal-mining area where Katniss and her family live, looked for all the world like Walker Evans photos of the Depression come to life, including even the style of the clothing. The design of the Capitol where the Games and the pageantry for their opening ceremonies are held drew on several evocative sources, including Rome and Nazi Germany, with a bit of Oz’s Emerald City thrown in. The Capitol’s residents, on the other hand, were straight out of a Fellini movie. I was expecting something similarly over-the-top for the Games themselves, but somehow that part seemed more like a low-budget made-for-TV afternoon special for teens, filmed in a local state park.
So, what about the politics? Is a dystopia of the left or the right being depicted? Well, I don’t think the Hunger Games’ political philosophy was well-thought-out enough to answer that question, although you could claim that it lauds a vaguely libertarian ideal. And the fact that the heroine is a hunter indicates it’s not entirely an anti-right screed. The film’s villains are part of the central government. On the other hand, the plot emphasizes the evil of class differences. But mostly it depicts a dystopia of the mean, since its comic book perpetrators seem to relish doing evil for its own sake.
The strongest element of the book was its treatment of the ethical dilemmas that Katniss and the others in the Game face: in a situation that seems to call for inhumanity in order to survive, what compromises can a moral person make and stay moral, and which are worse than death? Now, that’s a good question, and the book—with its more leisurely pace—has time to explore it in greater depth than the movie ever does.
Oh Gawd…. now I suppose I’ll have to see it after all.
If I don’t like it you owe me ten bucks for the ticket, $25.00 for the popcorn.
I have a friend who is a fundamentalist Christian. He and I differ in our religious views, but are friends in spite of that. He and his family (wife and four children) read the trilogy and saw the movie. For them it is a depiction of the struggle between good and evil. And the ongoing personal struggle to do the moral thing. In their view a religious/spiritual message. I haven’t read the books yet, but, even though I don’t care for dystopian fiction, I’ll probably read the first book of the series.
Katniss! Katniss? Amazonian Deity? Tlönic, meaning ‘I kick ass’?
vanderleun: the couple in front of me paid exactly $25 for two tickets, a bag of popcorn, and a coke. It was the kind of theater where the refreshment guy also sold the movie tickets.
Movie theaters that are really cheap, or that add some value like dinner/drinks/3dImax are the only ones we’ll go to now. Otherwise, we’ll wait for dvd as the experience is comparable and much cheaper.
neo,
Interestingly, there is a blog post out from 1996 but which was linked to on Apr. 8th that directly addresses your point about morality and survival:
in a very finely-wrought thought experiment about an American journalist accompanying enemy troops. Available at the link below:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1996/02/why-americans-hate-the-media/5060/
holmes: I go to movie theaters rarely, only when there’s a film that cries out to be seen on a big screen. “Hunger Games” is one of those films. And I never buy food there, which is the biggest expense.
What a party pooper I am.
Ah, cheap theaters. I used to visit one in Chicago called the Nortown that was a relic from the movies’ glorious past. It had Greco-Roman sculptures and huge Doric columns in the lobby and balcony seats. PLUS there were clouds on the ceiling that drifted across a starlit sky! In the 70’s it was a buck to get in, less if one was early enough.
It is a comment, on Hollywood and on the left and on PETA, that Jennifer Lawrence’s “Screw PETA” was refreshingly and boldly blasphemous.
Oh, yeah the good old days of the one dollar movie: the Yeadon in, of all places, Yeadon, PA.
Heck, I go all the way back to the 50s with the first releases of those black and white horror and monster films that are on TCM.
My one sister once described a Saturday matinee at the Benn on Woodland ave. in Philly as “World War Three with popcorn”.
“in a situation that seems to call for inhumanity in order to survive, what compromises can a moral person make and stay moral, and which are worse than death? Now, that’s a good question, and the book–with its more leisurely pace–has time to explore it in greater depth than the movie ever does.”
And that’s a theme that gets explored in the hit AMC series ‘the Walking Dead’ which I love, and am currently undergoing withdrawals from (until Oct, for Year 3).
What? Really? You don’t thing the political philosophy was well enough thought out to tell?
No kidding? Neo, you and I are living on different planets to be sure.
This was a movie about the effects of Keysian, draconian policies carried to the max. Or should I say Marxism to the max.
I have not seen “The Hunger Games”, nor do I intend to.
Yeah, it’s is very popular among young adults. It was originally published by Scholastic!
If only these kids knew the real dystopian future lurking around the corner.
I know of only one utopian vision that ended well on film, and that is “Things to Come” written by H.G. Wells, wherein a dictatorship of the most intelligent (progressives) saves the world.
Odd that another story by Wells shows such a dystopian future for man in “The Time Machine” wherein the Eloi are harvested by the Molochs. Perhaps the Time Machinist had zipped past the end of “Things to Come”, discovering that it doesn’t end so well when progressives are in charge.
By definition, mass hunger (games) isn’t the result of drought and famine. Instead it’s the result of government control of the flow of goods and services ( including food) by central planning and massive interventional regulations. Hunger always follows in the footsteps of central planning/government (socialism-communism) control rather than free markets.
Actually, the movie it most clearly resembles is, I’d argue, the 1975 version of Rollerball, with James Caan in the “Katness” role (I haven’t seen the more recent re-make, mind you), and Donald Sutherland in the John Houseman role.
In plot and even character-driven basis, it’s much the same heart. The Hunger Games is probably, if not certainly more “modern” in its professional/technical film making skills, but the reasons motivating both sides strike me as very similar.
I think the older film does a better job of painting its antagonists as less pointlessly venal — they do make the case for why they are in opposition to Caan’s protagonist, even though most would believe them wrong, but perhaps the books or a later movie will fill that in a bit more, I haven’t read the books at all.
It’s not a bad movie, albeit not overly complex in its storylines. As of this first movie, it certainly does not seem as well-done a children-to-young-adult story as the Harry Potter series. It does provide what I would say is a certain level of libertarian, anti-authoritarian streak that it’s amusing managed to get past the Hollywood liberals without getting mugged out of the story.
BTW, I’d note that the Harry Potter series also managed to slide a strong anti-authoritarian element into them, too.
I have to wonder how that’s going to affect the coming two generations, esp. with THG on its heels and the Presidency of The Great Big 0 as a model for the wonders of government.
Some years back, the late Poul Anderson posited a wealthy individual luring people to an island with promises of money, there to compete against each other. I figure “Survivor” owes his estate big money. Thing is, in the book, the folks organized and took him down. Didn’t fight each other.
Be interesting if the HG author takes the whole situation one step further. If these kids are so good, working together they’d be real bad asses.
Went to a victory banquet for my son’s HS football team after they took the conference. I sat with a bunch of the guys.
Not sure I should take this to confession; I started figuring out how long it would take to make a good rifle platoon of them. I used to get paid to do that. I figured six weeks of technique training. They had the rest; a degree of physical courage, the fightening group loyalty of young men, official and unofficial lines of authority, they were used to learning new things, physical strength, personal confidence. That was going on twenty years ago and I still feel vaguely guilty. Anyway, applying the same to the Hunger Games kids….
>>> George Pal Says:…
Actually, this might be of interest:
Origins of the names in The Hunger Games
Specifically:
Katniss
related to the Latin word sagittate, meaning shaped like an arrowhead.
(makes sense if you consider what she does. And saggitarius is “hunter”)
Others are listed there, too.
Webutante: let’s put it this way–
(1) I thought the justification for the hunger games part of it was not well thought out; it didn’t hang together for me in psychological terms.
(2) more importantly for your argument, I have empirical reasons for believing that the political and/or economic message was not well-developed and/or well thought out. The book appears to be more of a Rorschach test, in that people see in it what they imagine is the political and/or economic message. When I say I have “empirical reasons” I mean, very specifically, discussions I’ve witnessed among friends of mine about the book’s message. The political message those on the left seem to get from it (at least some of them) is (a) socialism would be a better system because there would be no haves and have-nots; and (b) a pacifist message.
>>> Be interesting if the HG author takes the whole situation one step further. If these kids are so good, working together they’d be real bad asses.
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Well, read no further if you’re interested in seeing the old Rollerball movie with no foreknowledge:
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The premise behind Rollerball and The Hunger Games is similar, society was on the verge of a total collapse, and certain people seized power for the good of all, and, in the beginning, it probably WAS a good thing… and, as a distraction, they created Rollerball (much like appears to be the reason for The Hunger Games). The problem is, Johnathan E (James Caan) has become so successful at playing the game that he challenges the idea at its heart, that “there’s no I in Team” to use a modern phrase. As a result of the popularity of his talented play (think Tim Tebow, perhaps), he is becoming an icon with power and a threat to those who currently hold the reins of power.
I can see elements of this in THG, with the basis already there for a revolution which Katniss winds up at the center of and the driving force behind, as she becomes more and more popular.
Warning to anyone thinking of seeing The Hunger Games – it is visually one of the most grating, irritating movies I’ve ever seen. Too many close ups, mostly very quick cuts, you can never just dwell on a single shot, hand held camera for most shots, action scenes shot in such a way that it is impossible to see what is going on, I actually found it painful to watch. The word is the director, Gary Ross, might be out for the sequel because quite a few people had the same problem with the movie I did.
I really enjoyed The Hunger Games. I thought it did a great job of showing the workings of a “planned” and totalitarian society.
There are many parallels in history of similar societies. A few years ago, my husband saw a performance of a touring group of North Korean children, whose gymnastic and dance routine were beyond belief (his words). This was at the time when North Koreans were eating pine needles and being sent as families to death camps. I believe those children were dancing for their lives and the lives of their families.
I’m sure you all saw the weeping performances of North Koreans upon the death of Kim Jong Il.
Right now I’m in the middle of the 3rd book in the trilogy. The first book made a lot of excellent points, though most reviewers missed them. I don’t know where the story is leading. But societies like North Korea and the Soviet Union will always await us if we let them. Obama is definitely of the President Snow ilk. He’s in the same class of people as Jim Jones, Bill Ayers, and Louis Farrakhan.
Nolaninrod,
Thanks for the link to that Atlantic piece. As it proceeds beyond the first section on ethics on the battlefield to the more general treatment of journalistic ethics, you realize how little things have changed in a decade and a half. Airtime and viewer counts are the prime motivators of those who love to point out our ethical faults to us. These people don’t have the moral foundation to begin talking about battlefield ethics.
expat. Wallace didn’t pull enough kids out of burning orphanages–he’d need a couple of thousand–to get his moral number up to neutral.
I absolutely agree with you that Jennifer Lawrence deserves all the praise she gets for this movie. What did you think of Josh Hutcherson as Peeta? I thought Peeta was more interesting than Gale as written (only talking about the movie, haven’t read the book) plus Hutcherson seems a better actor than Liam Hemsworth.
Peter: I thought all the acting was good, and so was Hutcherson. But Lawrence stood head and shoulders above the rest. She has a commanding presence and put a lot of subtle emotions into her face, not just her lines. The entire movie really rests on her shoulders, and she never faltered or disappointed. She showed remarkable intensity.
Today, I went to the beach front with my kids. I found a sea shell aand gave it too my 4 year old daughter and said “You can hear the ocean if you put this to your ear.” She put the shell to herr ear and screamed.
There was a hermit crab inside and it pinched her ear.
She never wants to go back! LoL I know this is completely off topic but I had to tell someone!
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