I just want to chime in since gamergirl7 brought up an aspect of the sequence that others haven't really explored. Cutshaw and Kane were going to be raped and likely murdered. Kane was prepared to suffer anything himself, but snapped when the vulnerable Cutshaw was being sexually abused. It was that moment when he could no longer contain the aspect of himself he most wanted to control as he saw it as his personal madness.
It's very difficult to explain just how disturbing the sequence is without talking about the entire film in detail, it is disturbing and has a weird element to it that elevates it to psychological horror. The way the whole scene is shot and edited is startling and scary. Imagine finding yourself in a situation like that as it slowly dawns on you it will only get worse and there is no way out.
It isn't going for gore or anything simplistic, it is an integral part of the story. It wants us to be conflicted about our feelings. It wants the viewer to really see Kane explode, but when he does it shows the results in such a way we sort of regret wanting that cathartic release by showing the brutal and repulsive suffering. Watch the last overhead shot (in widescreen of course) where the camera is looking down on Kane and Cutshaw after the slaughter. It sort of says to the viewer "is this what you wanted"?
This is not a cartoonish brawl, it is an ugly, disturbing statement and is vital to the plot that it be so.
One thing that needs to be pointed out is that the film is in many ways surreal, it isn't supposed to be accurate or believable in any way. It's an exploration of faith and how we all are faced with our own personal madness. It's about how we deal with our own lives that matter, it says that trying to be better is superior to simply giving up.
It's actually rather odd that I value this film so much since I am not religious in the slightest. The movie as I see it is about faith, not religion and actually has sequences that point that out. It denigrates blindly following doctrine and promotes critical thinking and science. That is actually the source of the title "The Ninth Configuration".
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MorbidKittyProductions
19 years ago
ConorKiley-
THank you for that honest point - i couldn't have put it better :))
by the end of the film i saw it as SUCH a beautiful film - i cried at the end too!! lol
Scott Wilson was such a great actor in this as well as Stacy Keach, when it comes to making me cry :(
"I'm a Buddhist - In case of accident, call a Lama" (The Ninth Configuration)
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conor_kiley
19 years ago
I have to agree about the teary part, I first saw this film on a vid from the local library around 88 and was just stunned at the end that I started to get kind of weepy. It's amazing how the film seems to be so unfocused for so long but somehow manages to pull everything together for a final third act that is both hideously tragic, sad and depressing but also amazingly uplifting.
Scott Wilson and Stacey Keach were brilliant, not a false note in either performance. When Keach delivers that monologue with hellish mounting fury as he demands Groper be more compassionate (while wearing a nazi uniform!) he sums up everything about the character. It would have been so easy for the wrong actor to turn that scene into a farce. It reminded me a bit of Peter O'Toole's moment of transformation in The Ruling Class. If you get a chance seek that film out it has some striking similarities to The Ninth Configuration but is more a cynical indictment. Don't read any spoilers about it though. All you need to know is that it's about an asylum inmate convinced he is Jesus who inherits a powerful position of authority.
Scott Wilsons monologue about the Panther and the Lamb... a joke delivered so perfectly as to not only drain it of any humor but to make it a tragic insight to his psyche and human nature. It's easy to imagine this told as a straight joke and actually be quite funny, but how Wilson tells it makes it more like an idictment on all humanity and the universe and even the notion that order of any kind exists aside from malevolence.
I have to dig out my dvd, I need to watch this movie again.
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