“The job is needed in order to earn a living on a piece of bread and butter”, “A good person is not a profession,” the parents repeated to many of those whose childhood fell on the 1990s. In part, the message is still relevant today: it seems good, but success does not shine for ordinary people. Is this really so – and does it really matter? Let’s take a look at two 2020 premieres: Clint Eastwood’s The Case of Richard Jewell and Todd Haynes’ Dark Waters.
1996, Atlanta (USA), Summer Olympics. During a holiday concert, security guard Richard Jewell, a rustic lout who dreams of becoming a “real cop”, finds a bag with a pipe bomb and saves the lives of hundreds of people. It would seem that here it is – a feat, a finest hour, only Jewell does not look too much like a hero, but he completely looks like the one who could lay this bomb himself.
A single white man who has not realized himself in life, lives with his mother, dreams of making himself known – not a person, but a walking illustration from a manual for a novice FBI agent. And if so, why not make the guard the prime suspect, especially in the absence of any others? And yesterday’s hero becomes the object of real persecution by the media – and hence the whole society.
Here it is time to think: what if all this did not exist? If Jewell were offered to “rewind” everything back, would he act differently? Hardly. He is the same good person, sometimes too simple-hearted, sometimes too principled and literally understanding the letter of the law, who simply cannot do otherwise.
A bloodthirsty, quick-to-reprise society consists of us – individuals, and each of us should think with our own heads more often
Nor could Robert Billot, the corporate lawyer who showed up at his office in 1998 with a West Virginia farmer who had lost a couple of hundred head of cattle—before and after death, the animals showed physical anomalies. In what happened, the man accused the chemical company DuPont and called on the lawyer to sort things out.
Did he have a choice? Definitely was. The fight with the giant of the industry looked like pure professional suicide: both the newly obtained position of a partner in the company and the financial well-being of the family were at stake. Nothing foreshadowed victory, all the more easy. And so it happened: the investigation and litigation took more than 20 years. Or rather, they haven’t finished yet.
Yes, both stories, and the security guard Jewell, and the lawyer Billot are real, but not only this makes the paintings of Clint Eastwood and Todd Haynes related, whose heroes are shown without too much pathos (to see this, just look at the photos of the actors). Both of them are about the confrontation between a person and a system. A choice that sometimes has to be made. The fact that, while remaining a good person, it is easy to incur the wrath of society. And it, society, does not like those who look and behave differently, and will not reflect for too long if it is prompted who can be accused of all sins.
Perhaps this is the main idea that should be taken out of watching two premieres: a bloodthirsty, quick to punish society consists of us – individuals, and each of us should think with our own heads more often. To doubt what they are trying to convince us too actively, and to believe in the innocence of others until proven otherwise.