The Music of Vulnerability - Guest post by Joshua Shelov
Exploring meaningful conversation through dialogue in the movies
Josh Shelov came out of the blue into my life. He contacted me one summer, after he’d met my father while on a singing tour. We put a date in the diary, to meet on a Tuesday afternoon several months later in Manhattan. That day was September 11. Of that year. After a searing heart-to-heart that covered life and death, WWII, the film industry and careers, we parted. Josh reappeared in my life thirteen years later. It was via a Skype message. “Hey, Minter, I want to tell your story.” And we ended up working together to make the documentary, The Last Ring Home, which won several awards and continues to play nationally on PBS. As well as a bona fide film guy, with several motion pictures to his name, Josh is the kind of guy who (co)wrote, “There, I said it: Bob Dylan is overrated,” and pursues with one or other outlandish statement on pretty much every musical icon, including my oh-so-revered Grateful Dead (what? how dare he!). Josh doesn’t leave you neutral, yet you always feel in good hands! I encourage you to check out his work at Written Out Loud, which he founded and of which he is CEO, that helps kids “discover the truest version of themselves.” Oh, yes, he also won an Emmy for his work as a filmmaker. This piece below will surely not leave you neutral, either!
THE MUSIC OF VULNERABILITY
The three most difficult phrases for a human being to utter aloud are “I’m sorry,” “I love you,” and “Help.” They are difficult to say aloud for one reason: because they confess the speaker’s vulnerability.
Human beings are deeply hard-wired to hide their vulnerability. Back in the day, when our ancestors roamed the savannah, a member of species homo sapiens who was known to be vulnerable was not treated kindly by their fellow pack-members. To be known as vulnerable was to be known as potential hyena-food, and a gateway threat to the entire pack. Vulnerability = death.
Thus did our species evolve in such a manner that favored those best capable of keeping their vulnerability a secret. The natural selection of vulnerability-hiders went on for millions of years, solidifying and hardening into biological-psychological fact. Hiding our vulnerability is as fundamental to who we are as animals as our hairless bodies and upright gait.
From an evolutionary standpoint, homo sapiens today are not actually so far removed from our vulnerability-hiding ancestors. Which is why today, in spite of Brene Brown’s best efforts, human beings continue to hide our vulnerability with all of our strength and instinct.
And yet, a countervailing factor is at work.
Human beings benefit from confessing their vulnerabilities, too.
When we take the great risk of confessing our love for another human, the benefit provided can be the profoundest gift of all: a love affair; a mate; companionship against the ice of solitude; nights in front of the fire, Ubereats, Netflix, chilling; heirs to the family name, etc etc etc, all the great and profound results of love.
When we take the risk of confessing that we need help, more often than not, hyenas do NOT attack us. In fact, we often receive the help we confess that we need. Strengthened by that help, our likelihood of overcoming life’s obstacles grows.
And when we take the risk of apologizing, of confessing the vulnerability of our wrongdoing, even of our very character, this magical rite of passage actually improves our character: much as the heat of fire strengthens the power of steel. Through the courageous act of sincere apology, we gain humility, wisdom, and grace: traits that foreground us in our communities, and elevate us as role models in the eyes of our peers.
It is this direct collision between our ancient need to conceal our vulnerability and our more modern desire to confess it that creates the essential strength and beauty of movie dialogue.
Great objets d’art contain multitudes: many meanings, all of them truthful, in conflict with one another. Just like life. That is precisely when and why we love it.
Give us dialogue that has only one meaning, only one possible interpretation, and it bears no resemblance to our actual lives. It bores us. It’s kid stuff, and facile kid stuff at that.
Whereas, movie dialogue that is comfortable containing multiple meanings at once reflects back to us a sense of the full mystery of life itself.
Rick and Ilsa on the tarmac in Casablanca.
Harry having it out with Sally at the New Year’s Eve party.
Even - perhaps especially - our legendary movie tough guys, the Clint Eastwoods and Bruce Willises and John Waynes: their films (and all films) represent nothing but a wearing-down of our ability to guard our secret vulnerabilities.
Movie dialogue is essentially a dramatization of this wearing-down: nothing more.
We as audience members love to bear witness to this wearing-down process. When it’s done well, we’re hopelessly engaged in both sides of the conflict. First, we empathize with and love the hero’s desire to hide his vulnerability. This is often demonstrated as “toughness”: John McClane cracking wise in the first half of Die Hard; Clint Eastwood blowing away the initial rounds of second-rate villains.
But as the movie draws towards its climax, we love it - in fact, we NEED it - when our hero summons the strength to confess weakness: to put their life and love “on the line.” To say, in essence, this confession could kill me. But a life spent NOT taking this risk would be a fate worse than death.
In fact, the movie is not complete without the hero’s final willing exposure of vulnerability. John McClane must break down in tears on the walkie-talkie, soles of his feet coated in blood and broken glass, as he confesses to his wife, through the proxy of the big-hearted cop on the ground - that he is deeply sorry for mistreating her back in the day, and that he would give anything to have her back.
Rick’s final confession of love for Ilsa on the tarmac in Casablanca is paired beautifully with his selfless act of “giving her away” - of sacrificing his love to the war effort he has decided must trump his own domestic bliss. (Perhaps this decision wasn't HER first choice, but that’s for another essay.)
And in one of the most beloved examples of movie dialogue ever written, the courtroom finale of A FEW GOOD MEN, written by Aaron Sorkin, we receive a double dose of confessed vulnerability. In fact, as I sit here thinking about it, it may be a triple dose.
Confession number one: our hero, Tom Cruise’s Daniel Kaffee, must confess his vulnerability of publicly losing a case - of making his best effort and coming up short. The risk he takes by pushing his interrogation to the limit of his talent exposes his vulnerability of not measuring up to his legendary father: a vulnerability he has heretofore protected by settling his cases out of court.
Confession number two: on the witness stand sits the glowering and legendary Col. Nathan R. Jessup, played unforgettably by Jack Nicholson, who must confess that he is a liar. A terrible crime has been committed, one that Jessup himself placed in motion through a direct order. He now sits on the witness stand, accused (accurately) of telling an elaborate lie to cover up a fatal accident. Jessup’s ultimate confession of his lie represents vulnerability-confession number two.
But there is a third, and even deeper vulnerability that is conveyed and confessed through this scene. It’s the one that sticks with us after the movie ends, as we return to our lives, with the movie’s meaning stuck to our ribs. This third vulnerability is perhaps the deepest and most complex truth of all. It can only be revealed through the exposure of the other two.
The dance begins.
KAFFEE
Colonel, at the time of this meeting,
you gave Lt. Kendrick an order,
is that right?
JESSEP
I told Kendrick to tell his men that
Santiago wasn't to be touched.
For the uninitiated, here’s a quick refresher. The “Santiago” Jessep refers to was the young Marine serving under him at Guantanamo Bay. Santiago was a mediocre soldier and ill-fitted for “GitMo”, and wrote letter after letter requesting to be transferred off the base. Upon hearing about the letters, Jessep ordered his underling, the sadistic Lieutenant Kendrick (played spectacularly by a burning Kiefer Sutherland) to haze and frighten Santiago into changing his cowardly ways. But the hazing took a tragic turn, as the two soldiers assigned by Kendrick to carry out the attack accidentally killed Santiago in the act. Now, as Kaffee and his legal team close in on the truth, Jessep has built a seemingly bulletproof lie to cover up the incident.
Kaffee and Jessup play out the beginning of the scene in a thrust-and-parry pas de deux. Kaffee probes, Jessup deflects. This builds beautifully to a midpoint demi-climax, when Kaffee seems to have Jessup cornered.
KAFFEE
Your honor, these are the telephone
records from GITMO for August 6th.
And these are 14 letters that Santiago
wrote in nine months requesting, in
fact begging, for a transfer.
(turning to JESSEP)
Upon hearing the news that he was
finally getting his transfer, Santiago
was so excited, that do you know how
many people he called? Zero. Nobody.
Not one call to his parents saying
he was coming home. Not one call to
a friend saying can you pick me up
at the airport. He was asleep in his
bed at midnight, and according to
you he was getting on a plane in six
hours, yet everything he owned was
hanging neatly in his closet and
folded neatly in his footlocker. You
were leaving for one day and you
packed a bag and made three phone
calls. Santiago was leaving for the
rest of his life. And he hadn't called
a soul and he hadn't packed a thing.
Can you explain that?
The courtroom stills. Jessup shifts in his seat. His lie has been seemingly exposed, to all assembled.
But then, with a beautifully downplayed response, Jessup swats back an Agassi-esque return winner.
KAFFEE
Do you have an answer?
JESSEP
Absolutely. My answer is I don't
have the first damn clue. Maybe he
was an early riser and he
liked to pack in the morning. And maybe
he didn't have any friends. I'm an
educated man, but I'm afraid I can't
speak intelligently about the travel
habits of William Santiago. What I
do know is that he was set to leave
the base at 0600. Now are these really
the questions I was called here to
answer? Phone calls and footlockers?
Please tell me you've got something
more, Lieutenant. Please tell me
there's an ace up your sleeve. These
two marines are on trial for their
lives. Please tell me their lawyer
hasn't pinned their hopes to a phone
bill.
Suddenly Kaffee is right back where he started from. No, worse: he’s taken his best shot at uncovering Jessup’s lie. And Jessup has defended it without so much as breaking a sweat.
This is where the movie makes its final turn, and reveals its third, and ultimately climactic, vulnerability.
This is when movie-watching is at its best, and most enjoyable. When we in the audience know that there is just enough gas in the tank to create one more run at the ramparts…but we haven’t the first clue as to what that strategy will be.
Aristotle refers to this delicious admixture as the combination of inevitability and surprise. The climactic moments of our greatest stories contain both inevitability and surprise, in equal measure. We know that a great ending is coming: one that will feel like the only possible way the story should end. We can just feel it. But we’ll be damned if we can predict what that ending is going to be.
This third and final confessed vulnerability is a toughie. It is essentially the confession that war, and not peace, is the truest and most essential nature of man. Jessup’s deepest-seated belief is in the necessity of war: this is the law of nature by which, according to Jessup, all of man must be ruled. This is no idle belief: it goes back to our ancestors on the savannah. This third vulnerability is in fact not Jessup’s, but humanity’s. Absent war, in spite of war’s inevitable collateral damage (such as the life of Private Santiago), all of humanity will be snuffed out. The ultimate law of nature is kill or be killed. The cost of that law - the death of innocents - is regrettable, but inevitable, and it is a cost that cannot be shirked.
Kaffee’s stance, on the other side of the coin, is what we think of as the “liberal” stance: the belief that war represents man’s failure to find resolution through peaceful means.
Jessup believes the opposite: that peace is merely prologue. According to Jessup’s code and worldview, any and all periods of sustained peace are merely temporary resting places, as the stage is set for the theater of war.
Kaffee proves himself to be a master chess player. Internally, he decides on his ultimate tactic: his final run at the goal. He believes that Jessup’s confession of this third vulnerability can be his gateway to coercing a confession of the second. And all Kaffee needs is a confession of the second vulnerability in order to convict Jessup in a court of law. It is the second vulnerability that is on trial, after all: the crime of lying under oath to cover up a deadly crime. This third vulnerability may delve deeper into the nature of man - but it is not on trial here.
KAFFEE
Colonel, I have just one more question
before I call Airman O'Malley and
Airman Perez: If you gave an order
that Santiago wasn't to be touched,
and your orders are always followed,
then why would he be in danger, why
would it be necessary to transfer
him off the base?
JESSEP has no answer. Nothing. He sits there, and for the first time, seems to be lost.
JESSEP
Private Santiago was a sub-standard
marine. He was being transferred off
the base because --
KAFFEE
But that's not what you said. You
said he was being transferred because
he was in grave danger.
JESSEP
(pause)
Yes. That's correct, but --
KAFFEE
You said, "He was in danger". I said,
"Grave danger". You said --
JESSEP
Yes, I recall what --
KAFFEE
I can have the Court Reporter read
back your --
JESSEP
I know what I said. I don't need it
read back to me like I'm a damn --
KAFFEE
Then why the two orders?
(beat)
Colonel?
(beat)
Why did you --
JESSEP
Sometimes men take matters into their
own hands.
KAFFEE
No sir. You made it clear just a
moment ago that your men never take
matters into their own hands. Your
men follow orders or people die. So
Santiago shouldn't have been in any
danger at all, should he have, Colonel?
Everyone's sweating now. Everyone but KAFFEE.
JESSEP
You little bastard.
ROSS
Your Honor, I have to ask for a recess to --
KAFFEE
I'd like an answer to the question, Judge.
RANDOLPH
The Court'll wait for answer.
KAFFEE
If Kendrick told his men that Santiago
wasn't to be touched, then why did
he have to be transferred?
Jessep is looking at O'MALLEY and PEREZ.
KAFFEE
(continuing)
Colonel?
JESSEP says nothing.
KAFFEE
(continuing)
Kendrick ordered the code red, didn't
he? Because that's what you told
Kendrick to do.
ROSS
Object!
RANDOLPH
Counsel.
KAFFEE will plow through the objections of ROSS and the admonishments of RANDOLPH.
KAFFEE
And when it went bad, you cut these
guys loose.
ROSS
Your Honor --
RANDOLPH
That'll be all, counsel.
KAFFEE
You had Markinson sign a phony
transfer order --
ROSS
Judge --
KAFFEE
You doctored the log books.
ROSS
Damnit Kaffee!!
KAFFEE
I'll ask for the fourth time. You ordered --
JESSEP
You want answers?
KAFFEE
I think I'm entitled to them.
JESSEP
You want answers?!
KAFFEE
I want the truth.
JESSEP
You can't handle the truth!
And nobody moves.
JESSEP
(continuing)
Son, we live in a world that has
walls. And those walls have to be
guarded by men with guns. Who's gonna
do it? You? You, Lt. Weinberg? I
have a greater responsibility than
you can possibly fathom. You weep
for Santiago and you curse the
marines. You have that luxury. You
have the luxury of not knowing what
I know: That Santiago's death, while
tragic, probably saved lives. And my
existence, while grotesque and
incomprehensible to you, saves lives.
(beat)
You don't want the truth. Because
deep down, in places you don't talk
about at parties, you want me on
that wall. You need me there.
(boasting)
We use words like honor, code,
loyalty... we use these words as the
backbone to a life spent defending
something. You use 'em as a punchline.
(beat)
I have neither the time nor the
inclination to explain myself to a
man who rises and sleeps under the
blanket of the very freedom I provide,
then questions the manner in which I
provide it. I'd prefer you just said
thank you and went on your way.
Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a
weapon and stand a post. Either way,
I don't give a damn what you think
you're entitled to.
KAFFEE
(quietly)
Did you order the code red?
JESSEP
(beat)
I did the job you sent me to do.
KAFFEE
Did you order the code red?
JESSEP
You're goddamn right I did!
And with that - by driving Jessup to his confession of this third and final vulnerability - Kaffee has masterfully and simultaneously coerced the second confession. And one of the greatest sequences of film dialogue ever written and performed is concluded.
About the author - Joshua Shelov
JOSHUA SHELOV is founder and CEO of Written Out Loud, a storytelling company that transforms creative people of all ages into joyful writers and published authors.
He wrote the feature film GREEN STREET HOOLIGANS (2005), starring Elijah Wood, and co-wrote and directed THE BEST AND THE BRIGHTEST (2011), starring Neil Patrick Harris.
In addition to directing THE LAST RING HOME with his great friend Minter Dial, he has co-directed and produced three ESPN 30 for 30 documentaries: #bringbacksungwoo (2015), WE ARE (2016), and 24 STRONG (2017).
He is an adjunct professor in the Film Department of Yale University, where he created the seminar STORYTELLING FOR THE SCREEN.