A Magic Show of Signs:
Deconstructing The Left Hand of God
The Left Hand of God (Edward Dmytryk, 1955) is a model example of the difference between story and plot, but also of the way the Hollywood cinema works through the star system and an economy of narration. Here, from Wikipedia, is the main story:Deconstructing The Left Hand of God
Jim Carmody (Humphrey Bogart) is an American pilot in World War II. After crashing his plane in China, he was rescued by a local warlord, General Yang (Lee J. Cobb), and became his trusted adviser. However, after one of the general's soldiers kills a priest, Father O'Shea, Jim decides to desert.
Carmody masquerades as the dead priest and manages to escape to a remote mountain village. There he meets missionaries Beryl (Agnes Moorehead) and David Sigman (E.G. Marshall). Still posing as the priest, he falls in love with attractive mission nurse Anne Scott (Gene Tierney). Scott feels ashamed because she is also attracted to him. Carmody writes to the bishop, confessing that he is an impostor.
Then General Yang arrives, insisting that Carmody rejoin his army or else he will burn down the village. Carmody proposes a game of dice, wagering years of service against his freedom and the safety of the villagers.
But since the story is plotted through a flashback halfway through the film, and due to the star system and generic conventions, the plot accrues a richness the story lacks. In fact, the story itself is quite dull.
But Humphrey Bogart, who plays Jim Carmody, was one of the most iconic stars in Hollywood history. Perhaps only John Wayne equaled his star status.
Bogart began playing petty gangsters (The Roaring Twenties [1939], etc.) until his big break when he was cast in leading roles in The Maltese Falcon (1941) and especially his romantic lead in Casablanca (1942), recently voted the favorite movie of all time. Even President Barack Obama mentioned it among his favorite movies in a recent interview.
After Casablanca, Bogart's star persona as the cynical, tough romantic lead with a good heart became part of his other film texts. Stars may be gossip to the average fan, but they are recycled "texts" to film directors and film viewers. That is, the star has narrative meanings, based on previous roles, publicity, promotion.
Since actor and star are blended in the Hollywood cinema, unlike with stage characterizations, a character in a film is not easily separated from the star who plays it. That's why when viewers retell a film they use the star's name, not the character's. We don't do this when we discuss a play. We don't say, "Olivier speaks to a skull," but "Hamlet speaks to a skull."
In theatre, the actor disappears in the character, but in films the character disappears in the star. We don't say "John Smith and Jane Smith" when discussing Mr. and Mrs. Smith, but "Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt."
The character is the star. The star is the sum of her films, publicity, critical reviews, and promotion (film advertising, interviews, public appearances, fanzines, etc.). What viewers ("fans") know about a star feeds into what they know about the character, apart from new narrative cues (the character's job, marital status, etc.).
This allows for narrative economy. We don't have to learn about Michael Armstrong in Torn Curtain (Alfred Hitchcock, 1966): we already know him (he's Paul Newman). Certainly Torn Curtain adds something new (for example, Newman is a physicist and kills a man); but, within the star system, it will not alter the star image, but enrich it.
The star system was especially strong during the so-called classical cinema, roughly from 1930 to 1960, when studio control of star, promotion, and publicity was rigid. The films the star was cast in were decided by the studio. For example a leading romantic star, Cary Grant, wanted to star in The Phantom of the Opera. The studio nixed the idea. The star, under contract, had no say in the matter.
Understandably. A poor choice of roles would ruin the star's image and weaken his market value for the studio.
At a deeper level, because of the economy of Hollywood narration, whereby characters are developed through star images, it would weaken the narrative economy of the star's future films. Audiences would no longer "know" who Cary Grant was. Each film would have to tediously narrate a character, as in a novel, before the viewer knew him.
With a star image, the viewer already knew John Wayne, Joan Crawford, or Humphrey Bogart, the way they feel they know Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie (for example, they adopted multiracial children). At the simplest level, this meant the star could never behave outside the moral code.
For example, Hitchcock wanted Cary Grant to be a spousal killer in Suspicion (1941) but the studio vetoed the idea. So Hitchcock changed the ending of the film.
That's why subtext is central in Hollywood films. Because the text is usually a battlefield between commercial and artistic aims, forcing the text underground, as subtext. One might almost call the story a pretext. One of the main compromises is over the star.
Whether this is conscious on the part of directors or studio is another issue. Is the use of a saxophone in musical arrangements conscious? Composers just know a saxophone (as in the bus variations in Torn Curtain or in film noir) sounds sleazy, evoking the jazz underworld, kinky sex, Berlin cabaret music, etc.
So some directors claim casting is ninety percent of direction. Put the right star in the right part and the film narrates itself. Torn Curtain, for example, doesn't work as well as it should because the stars don't bring star images that enrich or enhance its meanings.
Stars, however, can be cast against type. The performance looks good because it's unexpected.
Shirley Jones, usually cast in innocent roles (Oklahoma! [1955], Carousel [1956], and April Love [1957], was cast against type in Elmer Gantry [1960], where she played a prostitute and won an Oscar. In one scene she rolled up her skirt to put money under her garter. Julie Andrews, famous for playing innocent roles in Mary Poppins (1964) and The Sound of Music (1965) was cast against type, though not successfully, in Torn Curtain.
The chief interest of The Left Hand of God is the image of the tough guy, Humphrey Bogart, as a priest, Father Peter O'Shea. Of course in terms of story he's not a priest. But in terms of plot (the narrated story), he is. This is the main reason the movie involves the viewer.
Apart from star image, the character of a priest jars with the presence of a gun, a familiar image in the film. Guns and priests don't go together.
So the gun motif presents a narrative puzzle to be solved: why does the priest carry a gun? This drives the narrative forward, posing a question that must be answered.
"Dissonance" in cognitive psychology means the conflict of two opposed values: a person wants to be healthy but smokes. This is apparent in the scene when Bogart karate chops the Chinese gang member. (Notice, I use the name of the star, not the character, for reasons given above.)
The narrative is complicated by the film's love interest, when the nurse, Anne (Gene Tierney) falls in love with the priest. (Tierney herself, associated with romantic roles, is cast against type as a bland missionary.) We know this is unlikely to happen in real life. But it's even less likely to happen in a Hollywood movie! That's because censorship codes in the classical Hollywood cinema were strict: evil was punished, good rewarded, clergy respected, and homosexuals did not exist, even if the character in the source material (such as a Tennessee Williams play) was a homosexual.
So the narration of The Left Hand of God teases the viewer, creating puzzles on two levels: How can tough-guy Bogart be a priest? How can a typical love angle involve a priest?
As a story (in chronological order) Bogart's role as a priest, like Anne's romantic interest in him, is uninteresting. But the star system, and the conversion of story as plot, enhance our experience of the film, taking it beyond the dull summary presented above.
Yet star and genre go together, the way we expect to see John Wayne in Westerns or Cary Grant in romantic comedies and Fred Astaire in musicals. Bogart was usually cast in gangster or romances. But The Left Hand of God falls into a different genre, an historical drama (China during the civil wars of the late 1940s). The viewer wonders how Bogart can fit into such a genre, with its different setting (the Chinese landscape) and still "be" Bogart: that is, behave as viewers expect (and want) him to behave.
However, apart from fulfilling type or going against type, the star system can develop the star's image by adding to it. For example, John Wayne was cast as heroic cowboys in the early part of his career but later played tormented cowboys in films such as Red River, The Searchers, Rio Bravo, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, and El Dorado.
In the same way, though a priest cast against type in the early part of the film, Bogart never loses his tough-guy stance, even when we think he's a priest. For example, when an angered Dr. David Sigman (E. G. Marshall) warns him not to depend too much on his collar (the clergy's symbol) for protection, Bogart responds (untypically for a priest, but typically for Bogart), "Would you like me to take it off?" This is the Bogart audiences know and likely cheered.
In the film, Bogart plays his star role, but with new tensions, or variations. He's "Bogart" with a twist. John Wayne is still Wayne in his later films, but a little different. Julie Andrews was still the good girl in Torn Curtain (her point of view when she thinks Newman is defecting is an important part of the film's narrative strategy, as intercutting on her shows), but she was also in bed, naked, with her lover in the opening scene and followed him "behind the Iron Curtain."
But there's another factor in the Hollywood cinema that enriches The Left Hand of God. This is also part of cinema's narrative economy, related to the economy of the star system and genre. It's film's dual status as image and sign. That is, every image in a film is both itself and a sign.
"A movie is difficult to explain because it's easy to understand," as one scholar put it. But because it's easy to understand, meanings are easy to encode. An image in a movie exists on one level as "real" (a train is just a train) but also as a sign of something else (for instance, a phallic symbol in North by Northwest). The cinema is a magic show of signs that disappear as signs, the way literature cannot do.
For example, the rain at the end of Hemingway's novel, A Farewell to Arms can be felt as a symbol. But the word "rain" is already a symbol, a verbal substitute for the real thing. But in film, the real thing and the idea seem the same. Rain looks like real rain even as it's a sign pointing to something else: perhaps cleansing, weeping, or an atomic rain.
In The Left Hand of God a priest crosses a bridge and falls into the water with his mule. The scene is easy to understand, or see. So its meanings are hard to explain.
Yet in the image of Bogart swimming across a river after the bridge has collapsed, the film establishes its theme of ambiguity. The real bridge does not fulfill its purpose. In the same way real priests do not fulfill their purpose: they get killed. Note the strong image of the dead priest (Father O'Shea) with his rosary dangling from his corpse.
The fake priest fulfills the purpose of a priest better than the real priests. Even Father Cornelius (one of the priests who replaces Carmody) says, riding a mule, "I'm a little too old for transportation like this."
Hence the title's reference to the left hand of God. God's purposes are sometimes realized in dubious ways, not always the "right" way (God's right hand).
For example, Carmody, though not a priest, brings religious peace to the community, a point made clear when John, the Chinese assistant, asks him to lift the heavy weight off the sinful parish.
Carmody does things other priests don't. He goes to the yellow house of prostitution, the way Jesus ate with tax collectors. When Carmody blesses a Chinese man, he asks a blessing in return. In church he doesn't kneel but stands; he doesn't pray but speaks his mind to God, though he says he has no God!
It's John, the orthodox believer, who sleeps while Carmody "prays." The parallel with the story of Jesus' disciples is apparent: "When he came back, he again found them sleeping, because their eyes were heavy" (Matthew 26:43).
In the pulpit, though Carmody preaches a sermon based on an (orthodox) English-language text, midway he speaks in Chinese, as the Spirit moves him. Reaction shots show the pleased parishioners, including John.
Though Carmody preaches peace, he uses violence to protect the community, the way Jesus used a whip to chase out the money lenders (John 2:15). He uses worldly means to effect spiritual ends.
We know the world does not reflect the hopeful message of the Gospels. A mother dies in childbirth while Carmody tells the story of the birth of Jesus, even after the woman's baby has died.
So dressed in a priest's cassock, Carmody rolls dice to save the community. He works by worldly means to insure spiritual values (the mission). He wins the salvation of the community through luck, not God. At the same time we are to believe that God worked through the fake priest.
The scene of the rolling of the dice is a good example of the dual play of cinematic signs. The scene itself is dull and weakened by a Caucasian actor, Lee J. Cobb, playing the Chinese warlord, General Mieh Yang. Yet the scene is enriched by the mise-en-scene: both actors mirror each other as they kneel to roll dice. That is, they are the same, but one (Yang) rolls for a slave (Carmody) and the other (Carmody) rolls to keep the people free. Only when Carmody gets down on the same level as Yang can he win. In the same way, only as Man could Jesus beat the Devil.
Even the real Catholic priest, Father Cornelius, can't understand that Carmody would risk five years of his life to save the mission. Yet presumably Father Cornelius believes that Jesus died for his sins and wants him to sacrifice for others too!
There is point in having Bogart attired in his priestly cassock, commented upon by Yang: "You shouldn't roll dice in those clothes." But though a disguise, the viewer still sees a priest. What we see on the screen is real, though a fiction in the narrative! Carmody's cassock, in other words, cannot but signify spiritual values.
But what is spiritual? As Anne says to Carmody, "You couldn't have done what you did today and not be Father O'Shea"! John, to explain Carmody's miracle, says, "The Holy Spirit is everywhere."
This is not news. In the book of Genesis (the Joseph story) God's purpose is realized through worldly means (Joseph's enterprise), though credit is given to God!
The film shows that God's will can only be effected, in our ambiguous world, by worldly means: shooting dice, and by a man who questions God's existence. Yet the film expects us to believe that God's hand (if only his left hand) is at work in Carmody's win. It does this by making Bogart's roll as low as possible (3's) so it would seem improbable he could win, until the Yang rolls 2's.
There are other meanings at work in the film. We know that Bogart swims across the river in the first scene of the film after he and his mule plunge from the collapsed bridge. Thereafter he lives as a priest.
Thus the water suggests a baptism: a symbolic crossing from the slavery of sin (St. Paul's phrase) to the freedom that serves God. The image of the mule, which Carmody rides at two key moments in the film (as he tries to cross the bridge and when he rides to the protestant cleric to confess his fraud) links him with Jesus as a symbol of peace (a horse represents war). Only at the end of the film, after he has brought peace to the mission, does Carmody ride a horse, previously linked with his service to Yang.
After Father O'Shea's death, Carmody, a lapsed (not practicing) Catholic, is disgusted a man of God was killed by a gangster who served only his lower appetites. In becoming the dead priest, Carmody insures the priest's resurrection (rebirth), completing his journey (the priest was about to cross the bridge before he was killed).
A higher (theological) symbolism is here. Just as Christ, in Christian belief, was God who became man to redeem men before returning to his Godhead, so Carmody, a disguised priest, becomes man (offers himself as a soldier to Yang) in order to redeem the mission. Having done this, he departs an honored priest, though he's not one.
Ironically, at the moment when he's most exposed as a fraud, the faithful bow down to him, as he surrenders himself to Yang's men. Like Jesus, to fulfill a higher purpose, Carmody is passively obedient.
Yet we know Carmody's religious status is a fiction, agreed upon by the real priests. Even after Father Cornelius arrives, Carmody blesses a woman's child.
Does the film deconstruct faith? As Anne says of Carmody, "They put their faith in him, just like I did. And he didn't fail them." Carmody himself says about rolling dice against Yang: "I had an odd feeling I wasn't going to lose."
By a roll of the dice, a community is saved. Here Carmody, in an explicit reference to the Gospels, reverses the throwing of dice for Jesus' robe.
The man who saves the community, though not a priest, acts with a degree of sacrifice we expect of priests. Like Jesus, he offers himself as a slave in order to free people to worship God. This is the role Jesus plays in Christian belief.
So Anne rejects Carmody as a romantic object even after she learns he's a fake! Because in fact he functions as a priest in her eyes and the eyes of the community. Like a good actor, in order to play the part he had to be the part.
Hence Carmody's quotation from 1 Peter (2:11-19) in his sermon is no accident. It applies to Carmody himself, whose assumed name, after all, is Peter:
In playing the part of a holy person, Carmody has become one, whether he believes in God or not.I urge you to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God. Submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every authority instituted among men: whether to the king or to governors. Live as free men but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as servants of God. Show proper respect to everyone: Love the brotherhood of believers, fear God, honour the king.
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