"The Obsolete Man" & the Absolute Book
This entry was posted on Friday, May 11. 2007 and is filed under Posts by Mirtika.
A couple of days ago, I had the pleasure of catching one of my favorite TWILIGHT ZONE episodes: "The Obsolete Man." It stars the terrific Burgess Meredith (the Penguin of TV Batman fame, the trainer in ROCKY, and an actor with a long list of film credits). Meredith is probably best known TWILIGHT ZONE-wise for playing the bibliophile who ends up the last man alive, then his glasses get destroyed, so, when he finally has time enough to read, he can't read. Tragic, huh?
In "The Obsolete Man", as you may recall, he plays Romney Wordsworth (check that last name closely), a citizen of a future totalitarian dystopia where books are outlawed, God has been proven not to exist (so says the Chancellor), and possessing books is punishable by death. Wordsworth is secretly a librarian, and for this he is sentenced to die by a method of his choosing within 48 hours. (Here is, perhaps, a bit of a plot hole. A totalitarian state that controls life so minutely and ruthlessly, well, would they really let people die by their own selection of execution/death?) Romney says he wishes to have an assasin kill him in a way only he and the assasin are to know. The Chancellor, posturing magnanimously, agrees.
While watching it for the umpteenth time, I can say that I still enjoy how they set up this minimalist, creepy set. The way the Chancellor is on this high up thing like a pulpit (ironically) and the long tables, the vast doors and out of sight ceilings. The monumental scare in B&W really does take you mentally to images of Hitler's and Russian monumental structures. The emptiness, the lighting. It's nicely done, and so simple the minimal budget of that show could handle it.
Contrast that with the book-cluttered apartment of Romney Wordsworth, full of signs that a person lives there. Not antiseptic or shadowy. Wordsworth: A man who sees the value of words. A man who has, as part of his heroic personal worth, how he protects the wisdom and beauty of literature. This is his element—modest, but rich in knowledge and humanity and intellect and truth.
So, Wordsworth has asked the Chancellor to come by shortly before midnight—the time of his selected execution, which he has requested be broadcast. A camera is secured to the wall of his room. The Chancellor comes by and they talk. Broaccasting the executions, the Chancellor states, has a beneficial effect. He suggests that Wordsworth might want to grovel, that perhaps a high official will take pity. Wordsworth knows there will be no pity, no matter what. He's not nervous. We see a man who is courageous in the face of his impending death. The Chancellor goes to leave, but the door is locked. Wordsworth admits he locked it, and that his method of execution is a bomb—in the room, set to detonate at midnight. The Chancellor doesn't look so arrogant anymore. He's certain someone will let him out. Wordsworth, who knows the state doesn't value anyone, all are just another cog in the statist machine, doesn't believe anyone will break down the door.
Wordsworth opens a safe—something particular valuable that he's kept hidden, something illegal—and extracts a...Bible. He sits down and, as the last minutes til midnight tick off, he reads out loud from the Holy Word. His name takes on a deeper meaning now. It's not just words and knowledge he values. No, Wordsworth values THE WORD. He's a man of The Word. He's a believer in God—the God the state has made obsolete by claiming non-existent—and it's his faith that now comforts and empowers him.
The Chancellor, in contrast, is antsy and stressed. And when he's only got a few seconds left, he breaks down, begs to be let out, and pleads, "In the name of God."
When this is spoken, Wordsworth sets down his Bible, walks to the door with the key, and says, "
In "The Obsolete Man", as you may recall, he plays Romney Wordsworth (check that last name closely), a citizen of a future totalitarian dystopia where books are outlawed, God has been proven not to exist (so says the Chancellor), and possessing books is punishable by death. Wordsworth is secretly a librarian, and for this he is sentenced to die by a method of his choosing within 48 hours. (Here is, perhaps, a bit of a plot hole. A totalitarian state that controls life so minutely and ruthlessly, well, would they really let people die by their own selection of execution/death?) Romney says he wishes to have an assasin kill him in a way only he and the assasin are to know. The Chancellor, posturing magnanimously, agrees.
While watching it for the umpteenth time, I can say that I still enjoy how they set up this minimalist, creepy set. The way the Chancellor is on this high up thing like a pulpit (ironically) and the long tables, the vast doors and out of sight ceilings. The monumental scare in B&W really does take you mentally to images of Hitler's and Russian monumental structures. The emptiness, the lighting. It's nicely done, and so simple the minimal budget of that show could handle it.
Contrast that with the book-cluttered apartment of Romney Wordsworth, full of signs that a person lives there. Not antiseptic or shadowy. Wordsworth: A man who sees the value of words. A man who has, as part of his heroic personal worth, how he protects the wisdom and beauty of literature. This is his element—modest, but rich in knowledge and humanity and intellect and truth.
So, Wordsworth has asked the Chancellor to come by shortly before midnight—the time of his selected execution, which he has requested be broadcast. A camera is secured to the wall of his room. The Chancellor comes by and they talk. Broaccasting the executions, the Chancellor states, has a beneficial effect. He suggests that Wordsworth might want to grovel, that perhaps a high official will take pity. Wordsworth knows there will be no pity, no matter what. He's not nervous. We see a man who is courageous in the face of his impending death. The Chancellor goes to leave, but the door is locked. Wordsworth admits he locked it, and that his method of execution is a bomb—in the room, set to detonate at midnight. The Chancellor doesn't look so arrogant anymore. He's certain someone will let him out. Wordsworth, who knows the state doesn't value anyone, all are just another cog in the statist machine, doesn't believe anyone will break down the door.
Wordsworth opens a safe—something particular valuable that he's kept hidden, something illegal—and extracts a...Bible. He sits down and, as the last minutes til midnight tick off, he reads out loud from the Holy Word. His name takes on a deeper meaning now. It's not just words and knowledge he values. No, Wordsworth values THE WORD. He's a man of The Word. He's a believer in God—the God the state has made obsolete by claiming non-existent—and it's his faith that now comforts and empowers him.
The Chancellor, in contrast, is antsy and stressed. And when he's only got a few seconds left, he breaks down, begs to be let out, and pleads, "In the name of God."
When this is spoken, Wordsworth sets down his Bible, walks to the door with the key, and says, "
"Yes, Chancellor, in the name of God I will let you out."
The Chancellor barely escapes. He's halfway down the stairs when the room gets blown to bits.
At the end, we see the Chancellor striding into the judgement room where he'd condemned Wordsworth, and now he is the one called "Ob-so-lete!" He has used the name of God, banned by the state, and now he must die. He is attacked by the bureaucratic mob he once led. (An ending that may have symbolic worth, but I thought was just a bit over the top. His condemnation sufficed.)
Serling's final narration includes this: "Any state, any entity, any ideology that fails to recognize the dignity, the worth, the rights of man...that state is obsolete."
The rights of free speech, free press, and freedom of religion figured highly in this episode. And because the element of belief in God (even when powers-that-be consider it stupid or irrational or unjustified) and the fact that the protagonist is a believer who resorts to God's Word for his last moments, this puts this episode of TZ in the Christian SF category for me.
While we aren't as concerned about the Soviet/fascist style of totalitarianism that's highlighted in this episode, I think we're aware in the Church (and by this I mean the whole church, all members of the body, of all denominations) that the Bible is still forbidden in places, Christianity is still attacked in places. While the atheistic stranglehold in the USSR and China has loosened considerably, totalitarianism of other sorts will continue to rise, as we see in the news regularly.
Even in the industrial nations, the term Christian is reverting to its New Testament sort of mocking meaning. To be a true Christian—to really stand for the truths of the faith—will get you ridiculed. SF author Michael Moorcock has written, snidely, about how backward he found the religiosity of the U.S. to be. Sir Elton John wants religion banished. And, most chillingly, a new school of militant atheists want it banned, abolished, erased, gone. Imagine saying that about another significant group in the world. Most people in the world have some spiritual faith. The elites want it banished. Sorry, no God for you.
It's not a bad time to rewatch "The Obsolete Man." Because those of us who believe the Word is absolute and truth will endure, even when the powerful and influential want to destroy it, we are not out of the woods. We never will be until Kingdom Come. We can be labeled obsolete—and in some quarters are—because we cherish the worth of the Word that is the Bible and the Word that is the Logos, the Christ.
You might wanna Netflix this TZ episode if you haven't seen it.
The Chancellor barely escapes. He's halfway down the stairs when the room gets blown to bits.
At the end, we see the Chancellor striding into the judgement room where he'd condemned Wordsworth, and now he is the one called "Ob-so-lete!" He has used the name of God, banned by the state, and now he must die. He is attacked by the bureaucratic mob he once led. (An ending that may have symbolic worth, but I thought was just a bit over the top. His condemnation sufficed.)
Serling's final narration includes this: "Any state, any entity, any ideology that fails to recognize the dignity, the worth, the rights of man...that state is obsolete."
The rights of free speech, free press, and freedom of religion figured highly in this episode. And because the element of belief in God (even when powers-that-be consider it stupid or irrational or unjustified) and the fact that the protagonist is a believer who resorts to God's Word for his last moments, this puts this episode of TZ in the Christian SF category for me.
While we aren't as concerned about the Soviet/fascist style of totalitarianism that's highlighted in this episode, I think we're aware in the Church (and by this I mean the whole church, all members of the body, of all denominations) that the Bible is still forbidden in places, Christianity is still attacked in places. While the atheistic stranglehold in the USSR and China has loosened considerably, totalitarianism of other sorts will continue to rise, as we see in the news regularly.
Even in the industrial nations, the term Christian is reverting to its New Testament sort of mocking meaning. To be a true Christian—to really stand for the truths of the faith—will get you ridiculed. SF author Michael Moorcock has written, snidely, about how backward he found the religiosity of the U.S. to be. Sir Elton John wants religion banished. And, most chillingly, a new school of militant atheists want it banned, abolished, erased, gone. Imagine saying that about another significant group in the world. Most people in the world have some spiritual faith. The elites want it banished. Sorry, no God for you.
It's not a bad time to rewatch "The Obsolete Man." Because those of us who believe the Word is absolute and truth will endure, even when the powerful and influential want to destroy it, we are not out of the woods. We never will be until Kingdom Come. We can be labeled obsolete—and in some quarters are—because we cherish the worth of the Word that is the Bible and the Word that is the Logos, the Christ.
You might wanna Netflix this TZ episode if you haven't seen it.
Comments
Display comments as (Linear | Threaded)
| Page: 1 of 1 |
-
Friday, May 11. 2007
wayne thomas batson wrote:
You know, I am a HUGE fan of the Twilight Zone, but I don't think I've ever seen that one. Mannn...I wonder if there's a complete set of old episodes on DvD somewhere. I need to go shopping.
Reply to this -
Friday, May 11. 2007
Mir wrote:
The US amazon.com has the two-episode DVD that includes "The Obsolete Man" for 5.00 in the "used/new" section.
http://www.amazon.com/Twilight-Zone-Obsolete-Deaths-Revisited/dp/6302468566
Mir
Reply to this-
Friday, May 11. 2007
Anonymous wrote:
Oops, I mean that's the VHS. But yes, the DVDs are available.
Mir
Reply to this
-
Friday, May 11. 2007
Anonymous wrote:
| Page: 1 of 1 |