National Treasure (Hunting)

I spend a lot of time arguing online and thinking about how literature presents truth and why we only seem to believe that historically and scientifically accurate accounts are true, anything else is labelled and discarded intellectually as fiction. So please forgive me if i see this theme dominating the movie as well, you know the saying: to a man whose only tool is a hammer, all problems are nails.

I can easily separate all the reviews for this movie I've read into 1 of 2 categories: those who thought it unbelievable and those who enjoyed the movie as they were able to willingly suspend disbelief for a couple of hours. The critics when the movie was first release almost universally panned the movie as unreal, while the later reviews look to be split pretty evenly between the two groups. What's up?

The movie is good, compelling, engrossing, absorbing, a good way to spend 2 hours out of the afternoon heat. So i am part of the second group-those who were willing to be persuaded that it "could be real". It is this link between the artist and his audience, what is believable and persuadable to us that i find useful in the move after leaving the theatre. Is there this enormous wealth hidden under the graveyard just off Wall Street? Of course not, but how the author persuades us to believe that it just might be true is marvelous. He does so by realistically giving us enough facts that we find truthful that we jump over the connections to the next set and joyfully embrace the artist's vision, despite it's blatant foolishness. There is enough truth that we suspend disbelief for the important steps, for the awkward things that we would never embrace if presented by themselves. We find the package believable because we recognize the wrapping, in our eagerness to unwrap an adventure and a stimulating chase, we jump to normally unwarranted conclusions. The critics didn't want to do this, i didn't mind, why the difference in approaches?

For example, I watched "Sky Captain" this week. It's mixture of historical and mythical put the whole movie into the comic book genre, fun but unpersuasive. Now are the Masons the descendents of the Knights Templar? Possibly, there has been a rash of books proposing just that for 20 years, but they all are panned and dismissed by the critics. Perhaps the same critics that find this a believable and fun movie, despite the fact that it makes much more unbelievable claims then does _Holy Blood, Holy Grail_. But it does so by leading into the weaknesses of our cultural epistemology not by confronting it directly. This is the secret of such movie successes and the reason for the failure of the literature genre that HB,HG represents. People want to believe the bizarre, the Xfiles garbage, they only want it packaged in historical and scientific wrapping. For it is the wrapping, not the contents that interest most people. They really aren't interested in the science or underlying reasons, they only want the illusion to cover up their itching ears and wandering eyes. We desire to be deceived and seduced, we just don't want to let other people know it and cover it with the legitimatizer of the day-science. I am normally a rather skeptical person, now why was i persuaded to join the 2nd group and enjoy the movie?

Article Author: Richard Williams

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