Aside from a few differences, Esslin began where Artaud left off. This idea of existential anti-theatre, anti-plot, and anti-hero at this time launched off like never before and into new mediums as well. There are many connections between works of the Theatre of the Absurd, specifically Samuel Beckett’s Engdame, and a newly progressive post-modern extremity known as the Cinema of Cruelty, specifically David Cronenberg’s
Videodrome and David Lynch’s
Mulholland Drive.
“There is nothing real outside our perception of reality, is there?” asks Barry Convex in David Cronenberg’s
Videodrome (Cronenberg). This question is quite puzzling and brings forth a new analysis in the study of existentialism. Just as the quote pertains to the film, it presents light into Endgame, where reality exists solely in the room (Esslin 62). Not to mention, the audience or reader’s perception is focused only in the room and nowhere else.
Videodrome’s protagonist, Max Renn, portrayed by James Woods, constantly searches for a new medium that challenges and alienates an audience to the point of utter insanity (Cronenberg). Beckett’s piece of work, excluding the sexual extremity, serves as a contender for Max’s criteria search. Endgame is itself a piece of work that breaks standard narrative and form, but also challenges the reader to find meaning in a diatribic banter (Esslin 45). Both writers achieve an anti-progressive story by eliminating the factor of time. Just as Cronenberg eliminates time and places the audience in the present (Browning 17), Beckett does the same by emitting lines referring to a forgotten “yesterday” and an unknown comprehension of a coming tomorrow (Beckett 32).
Another connection linking Endgame to “Videodrome” is the constant stagnation, where the option of suicide is apparent. Philosopher and novelist Albert Camus says “belief in the absurdity of existence must then dictate his conduct” therefore “suicide is a solution to the absurd” (Camus 5). With all of the chaos consuming Max’s brain, at the end of the film, he sticks the gun to his head and the picture fades black with the sound
of a gunshot (Cronenberg). Endgame closes with a similar ending, where Hamm asks for Clov, but receives no answer, implying Clov’s consideration to leave (Beckett 84). Clov states that death presides outside, therefore by leaving, he kills himself (Esslin 63). In both situations, Cronenberg and Beckett prefer leaving the interpretation of the ending to the interpreter (Esslin 65). Camus also points out “the Absursd is not in man nor in the world, but in their presence together” (Camus 23). This means once man realizes the nothingness brought on by his existence in this world, he is then given the choice to end his life. Both Max and Clov feel the sense of nothingness brought on by their existence and therefore are “rewarded” with this option.
Both
Endgame and
Videodrome also present characters who feel physically claustrophobic in
their own means of surrounding. Max finds himself in a state of claustrophobic mania brought on by a newly surrounded world of conspiracy (Cronenberg). Cronenberg takes this idea to an extreme, where Max, instead of finding himself as a victim of oppression, is instead the very product being distributed by this conspiracy (Browning 11). In the sense of being stranded is more thought in terms of a large area of space, such as stranded on an island. Beckett however breaks the definition by stranding the two characters in a room and presenting the logic of the world, which exists solely in the room, slowly closing in on them to the point where Clov suggests this as a reason for exiting (Esslin 63).
Aside from Cronenberg, another individual whose works contain
similarities to Endgame is David Lynch. More so, Lynch’s
Mulholland Drive(2001) and Beckett’s
Endgame shift away from contemporary standards and bring forth an anti-narrative form of storytelling. Rather than a typical straight-forward story which appears in the films showing at the large-chain movie theaters, Beckett and Lynch prefer breaking a typical narrative up into tiny pieces (Holden). Those pieces are then flattened into one plane where the interpreter begins piecing the puzzle together just like in James Joyce’s
Finnegan’s Wake and T.S. Elliot’s
The Waste Land where the interpreter begins piecing the puzzle together (Barrett 50). This form of expression seems a bit like Cubism. The idea of Cubism springs from severing meaning and reattaching with an intended mindset (Barrett 49). This Cubistic approach is seen in directors as they cut and splice spools of film together for a finished reel, and writers as they scratch out and write in words in sentences for a finished paragraph. Keeping this in mind, the glue that binds Lynch and Beckett together is the rejection to a higher authority. Beckett retreats from Broadway just as Lynch isolates himself from Hollywood (McGowan 11).
Another connection between
Mulholland Drive and
Endgame is the deliberate alienation brought on by Lynch and Beckett. Many film and theatergoers typically go to the theater/re to engage in a world of escapism, and for entertainment. Beckett and Lynch also denounce this idea. This idea of alienation comes from playwright and theorist Bertolt Brecht’s “Alienation Effect” where: “The essential point of the epic theatre is perhaps that it pleases less to the feelings than the spectator’s reason. Instead of sharing an experience the spectator must come to grips with things” (qtd. in McGowan 5). This is obvious in
Mulholland Drive where within the film itself, Lynch has a character acknowledge the fact everything that had been seen to that point is fake (Lynch). Beckett does somewhat of the same idea with Clov’s acknowledgement to the audience when he refers to the audience as a “multitude… in transports… of joy” (Beckett 29). Here we have the actors responding to the audience and both mediums are on the same plane with the audience. All is metaphorically level and even.
Examining work also must require a breakdown of all elements through techniques. Lynch and Beckett have both used techniques in conveying
surrealism (Holden). Lynch achieves this dream-like world through “character, mise-en-scene, editing, and in structure” (McGowan 12). Beckett manages to show the human condition by giving the audience a structuralized group of babblings and imagery that intertwine (Esslin 25). Both authors use characterization to its fullness. In
Mulholldand Drive, there is an actress, a cowboy, a director, a hitman, and the mob (Lynch). In Endgame, there is a handicap man and two elders who live in trashcans. Right away, it is quite clear that it is absurd. This is taken further with dialogue. In
Mulholland Drive, one character says:
Hamm, who is the painter in his own story, actually recollects this memory and relates this into terms as the world outside fading from what could be corn, fading to ashes (Esslin 62). Both statements are examining the unconscious, and tie it to reality.
There has been a lot of time between the theories of Artaud and the emergence of Cronenberg and Lynch. These two writers/directors have kept the Theatre of Cruelty alive. Just as Artaud pushed for surrealism and the need for extremes, Beckett explored the solidarity of the Absurd, and Cronenberg and Lynch have experimented with transitioning the extreme to a new medium (McGowan 4). From what started out as the cruelty of the human mind presented on stage has become the cruelty of the connection with mind and body shown on the screen. Endgame, Videodrome, and Mulholland Drive are all woven into the same existential ideology that creates progression. Artaud said that change is necessary for theatre to progress (Esslin 383). Long after Cronenberg and Lynch have passed on, there will emerge more thinkers who take in the theories of Artaud, Esslin, Cronenberg and Lynch, and use this as a springboard to something even more surreal, absurd and extreme. If this body of ideology has progressed from the stage to film, who knows what it is capable of progressing to next?
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