Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles

The film’s title, “Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles,” (1975) is nothing but the name of the principal character, a widowed single mother of a teenage son, Sylvian, followed by her mailing address, complete with the zip-code 1080 and her apartment number 23. Her mundane daily life matches the generic title being her name and full address. To be sure, Dielman’s apartment is a ubiquitous fixture as the film’s setting, and the object of the lead character’s daily household chores, which she does so dispassionately and so often that the film can be reckoned as a statement on the utter meaninglessness than can come to inhabit a solitary person’s life when it excludes interpersonal intimacy and even God.

Even though meaningless and boredom can easily be felt in watching the film for 3 hours and 21 minutes, and seen on the screen as Jeanne Dielman goes from task to task, the film hints of going beyond the banality of the mundane when Sylvian admits to his mother that he no longer believes in God, and when he did, as a kid, he thought the sexual act of penetration must be so hurtful to a woman that the act evinces God’s wrath. He adds that he does not understand why a woman would have sexual intercourse with a man whom she doesn’t love. Jeanne replies, “You don’t know what its like to be a woman.” Indeed, kept secret from her son, she regularly prostituted herself in the apartment during the afternoons for extra cash. The dialogue here relates an angry and then an absent deity to sex without love. Given the potential of the medium of film to elucidate theological and ethical thought, the filmmaker could have had the film elaborate on the dialogue as it relates sexual ethics and theology.

Moreover, even though the lack of meaning in watching Dielman cook, clean, and go on errands can be felt by viewers, the instinctual urge for meaning, as described by the scholar, Victor Frankl, in Man’s Search for Meaning, could be discussed in dialogue, and related explicitly to theological questions, such as why a benevolent and omnibenevolent deity would create a species that could wallow in meaningless. Is not a person’s life to have purpose? To be sure, the lack thereof can be inferred in Sylvian and his mother, Jeanne. Furthermore, if God is love, as Paul and Augustine explicitly state in their respective writings, then doesn’t it follow that emotional intimacy is part of the human condition? Of course, both a sense of meaning in life and purpose can, with free will, be denied oneself, without thereby implying any wrath of God or blight.

The scant dialogue between Jeanne and Slyvian when they are in the apartment at in the evenings plays into the lack of intimacy and meaning in their mother-son relation, and the same is likely so in their respective relationships with other people. There is not even a television set in the apartment even though the film takes place in 1974. They do have a radio, but it is not on much. Even in the rigid way in which Sylvian sits on the sofa-bed in the living room after dinner, it is clear that the apartment is not much of a home.

Therefore, it would admittedly be out of sync to have the two have a sustained dialogue on ethics and religion. It is almost as if both characters were robots. In fact, after Jeanne is uncharacteristically lively, including with facial expressions, as she has an intense orgasm with a man who pays her for sex, she quickly returns to her automaton condition of expressionless action and even staid, cold inaction. It is from that condition, rather than out of passion, that she nonchalantly stabs the man with scissors and calmly walks away and sits motionless and expressionless at her dining-room table. The viewers are left to figure out why she murders the man, and the film ends before Sylvian returns so even that “payoff” is denied the film’s viewers, who are thus left without a sense of meaning. Perhaps in returning to her mundane, meaningless, and godless daily life, Jeanne Dielman essentially commits suicide in that she would undoubtedly be in prison for a long time. That she sometimes sits in a chair motionless and expressionless in the film would fit with being in a prison cell and connotes death.  

Not even functionalism can save Jeanne Dielman from her plight of inner emptiness. Is this the denouement of insular secularism? If the need for meaning is engrained in our very makeup, does the refusal or inability to meet that need end in self-destructiveness? This is not to say that a person must believe in a deity to escape the black hole of meaninglessness, for humanists can surely find meaning that does not have a transcendent referent. Even so, the message of the film may be that meaningfulness, as well as emotional intimacy, is not to be found in a life of functionalism as a series of work-tasks and even in identifying oneself by one’s job title, whether that be a plumber or a house-maker. This is not a story of oppression, as Jeanne tells Sylvian that she had wanted to be a single mother. Nor was anyone, or society, forcing her to be a prostitute; it was not like she could not enjoy the sex with men whom she didn’t love. Yet she seems somehow trapped, internally, in a meaningless and loveless life.

Barbie

In The Wizard of Oz (1939), Glenda, the Good Witch of the North, tells Dorothy at the end of the film that it had been within her power to go home to Auntie Em’s farm in Kansas at any time, simply by clicking the heels of her ruby shoes thrice together. At the end of Barbie (2023), Ruth, who created the Barbie and Ken dolls, tells the traditional Barbie that she can become human herself simply by choosing to feel, and thus to live. The Witch and Ruth occupy similar roles, as do Dorothy and Barbie. But whereas Dorothy is trying to get back to the home she had known and now appreciates from faraway Oz, Barbie is trying to get to what she was made for—something qualitatively different than not being alive. Barbie’s plight is existential, and she discovers that the root of her identity transcends the feminist agenda. As home transcends ideology, what a person is made for transcends even home. Put another way, home is ultimately in being who one really is, hence being transcends location.

Many people who see Barbie undoubtedly fixate on the battle of the sexes between the Barbies and Ken, but I submit that as ideologically titillating as that ideological fix is, the tension between the humans and the dolls is more fundamental. The CEO of Mattel is motivated to close the opening that Barbie had opened between the land of the dolls and the “real” world. Indeed, Barbie does not view herself as real precisely because she cannot feel and is thus not alive. Being something that people pay for is to be of less reality than is someone who is alive and can feel, and thus be happy. To be—i.e., to exist—as what she was made for is not a simple matter with an easy answer for the traditional Barbie, unlike the other dolls. It is only after she has won the battle of the sexes in Barbieland that she goes beyond her gender identity as a woman to focus on discovering her more fundamental identity. It is only at that point that the film becomes sentimental.

In a kind, motherly tone that resembles that of Glenda, the Good Witch of the North, Ruth reveals to Barbie that it is no surprise that the doll is not sure whether she had been made to be a doll or human because Ruth made her open-ended, unlike the other dolls. We too are open-ended, though not with the extent of open-ended freedom of an uncircumscribed horizon that Sartre supposes in his existentialism. Even for an atheist, a person’s upbringing and the culture in which a person is raised detract from complete openness and thus freedom in one’s choices. One’s biology too constrains freedom; aging teaches us this vital lesson. To Barbie, biology is definitely salient in her decision to become human; once she has willed herself to become human and is in Los Angeles, she heads to a gynecologist, for, unlike human women, female dolls do not have vaginas.  Being human rather than a doll involves more than having feeling.

In “being made for” something, it is natural to think in terms of the purpose for which a person was created. Theists believe that a Creator instills in everyone a purpose. In the film, Ruth, a human being, created Barbie and left the doll’s purpose open-ended because Ruth “put some of” her own daughter in that Barbie. Having a purpose, however, can also be viewed as a human construction used to give an ex post facto meaning to what a person (or doll) has discovered to be one’s essence. Hence Sartre claimed that existence precedes essence.

I submit that a person’s biological, psychological, and spiritual makeup gets at what a person “is made for.” Einstein’s brain was “made for” physics—meaning that his brain was particularly well-suited to thinking (e.g. thought experiments) in that field. In coming up with his theories of relativity, he may have said to himself, I was made to do this. “Purpose” could be thought about later, for the aptitude of his mind in particular for physics above all other fields is the key here.

Being a writer was among the last things I thought I was made for, given that the neurological mechanism that fuses both eyes on the same object has never been operative in my brain. Even being a scholar has seemed like something I was not made for. Even if a love for words, ideas, and reasoning reveals what I was made for—in terms of happiness even more than ability—I have wondered whether I have never seen the passion I was made for; such a passion, such as a person says to oneself, I can’t believe someone is paying me to do this, presumably does not suffer from any biological impediments, and so excellence as well as happiness cohere. If only a Glenda or Ruth would say to me that the answer has been right in front of me all along and all I need to do is recognize it—to see it.  In the process in which my brain will die, perhaps I’ll hallucinate a benevolent figure comforting me that I had indeed been made for thinking and writing after all and that my handicap actually made them so. For now, I must admit to wondering if there isn’t something else, something more intrinsic to me, hence the thing I was “made for.” But I am guilty here of reducing essence to function—of thinking about whether there is something I am better at than writing and research because of how I am biologically, psychologically, and spiritually constituted, or “made.”

Barbie decides what she really is. She has transcended functionality by convincing the other female dolls that their innate functions do not reduce to serving Ken dolls. Once she has solved that problem, she finds that she is still in a quandary—still unsettled—for what she was made for goes beyond functions. Beyond even discovering what your passion is lies discovering who you are. Barbie and The Wizard of Oz converge in the mantra that a person is never at home until one is comfortable in one’s own skin. Interestingly, the camera immediately goes to a close-up of Barbie’s now-perspiring skin on her upper chest to show that she has decided to become human. That she had lost the ability to float down to her car and that she had become flat-footed indicate that being a doll was no longer working out for her—meaning that she was really made to become human. Her freedom was circumscribed in that she really couldn’t return to being a doll (whereas Dorothy could return back to the farm in The Wizard of Oz). To be fully alive, and thus happy, is what each of us were “made for,” whether by God or that of the natural sciences. This may turn out to be a false-dichotomy.

To be fully alive is to relish feeling as an end in itself. Rather than keeping up with the Jones, being fully alive is to be at home in one’s own skin. This is more fundamental, and thus more important than discovering the skills at which one excels and one’s proper role in society. Barbie as a movie goes beyond its surrounding marketing campaign and even the salience of the ideology of feminism, for at the end, the film “arrives” at the human condition itself and only does the film come alive in terms of sentiments.

There is no wizard to tell Barbie, as he tells the Tin Man, who wants a heart, “You don’t know how lucky you are not to have one. Hearts will never be practical until they can be made unbreakable,” though I don’t think this warning would change Barbie’s mind. Had I been a contributing screenwriter of Barbie,  Ruth would also quote the Wizard’s next line to the Tin Man: “And remember, my sentimental friend, that a heart is not judged by how much you love, but by how much you are loved by others.” Essentially, the message would be that Barbie already has a heart, and that to become human all she has to do is realize that she had indeed been loved. Gloria, the human mother who, with her daughter, accompanies Barbie back to Barbieland, shows love in trying to relieve Barbie’s unhappiness, for Barbie has lost her ease as a doll and "Barbieland" to the Kens. Because Barbie is crying at the time, her existential angst running deeper than her shock in seeing the other Barbies serving the Kens, we can infer that she has feelings, and is thus "real" and human even though she doesn't realize the extent of her transition by then. Even the other Barbies and the original Ken display a slight, or muted, sentimentality when they are waving goodbye to Barbie as she walks off with Ruth, never to return to Barbieland. Therefore, Barbie’s heart can be inferred from not only from the fact that she is crying when Gloria tries to cheer her up with a feminist speech and how kind Barbie is to the other Barbies and even to the original Ken during and after the battle over Barbieland, but also how much she has been loved (by humans) and thanked by the dolls.

Pardoxically, Barbie has no freedom in so far as she transitions in Barbieland; her freedom comes once Ruth has revealed that Barbie need only to will to be human. So there is evidence of teleology in the transition, for Barbie has no control over no longer being able to float and reverse becoming flatfooted, and of freewill in choosing whether to make the transition definitive by being and living with humans or resist it by remaining in Barbieland, albeit in a compromised condition. Theists can point to Ruth and the transition that takes place in Barbieland, and humanists can point to the power that Barbie herself has merely from a realization. Only after Dorothy realizes that she could have left Oz at any time can she leave Oz. Similarly, only after Barbie realizes that she has only to will herself to be human can she leave Barbieland for good.

Modern Society Reflected in Screenwriting: Actions Speak Louder Than Words

In what could be taken as a rendering of modern society, David Howard (p. 82) characterizes the “heart of dramatic writing” as thinking of “the actions of the characters and how they should be seen by the audience.” Howard is referring specifically to storytelling by screenwriters. Whereas the novel genre is particularly well-suited to exploring the interior lives of characters (e.g., their thoughts and feelings) via the expository word and the stage privileges dialogue due to the limits on action (and place), film is a visual medium, and thus uniquely able, or free, to capture actions and vistas. Hence, Charles Deemer (p. 64) advises aspiring screenwriters: “Always look for ways to tell your story visually without words.” It is as though he were stuck in the “silent” era, before the “talkies.” That films having soundtracks were referred to as talkies, at least initially, suggests that dialogue was (and is) no small matter in the film genre of storytelling. In fact, some stars who were quite notable during the “silent” era found the transition to “talkies” rather daunting, if not impossible, given the importance of voice, which pertains specifically to dialogue.

Accordingly, Howard’s (p. 82) dictum that the “action stays with us more effectively than if any of these characters had simply spoken dialogue expressing their hatred, passion, or change” can be subjected to a dose of healthy critique. Behind the action-hypertrophy evinced by Howard may be the fact that the mobility of the camera gives it a rather unique benefit in storytelling, at least relative to the confines of a stage. Furthermore, the modern proclivity toward action (and function) could simply mean that Howard is reflecting modern (Western) society. The hegemony of empirical science and the value put on vocation are what I have in mind here. If I am correct, then we, being moderns, would naturally tend to overlook the overemphasis on action in film because of what we ourselves value. This essay is thus to say to the fish: Hey, look at the water!

According to Howard (p. 83), the “weakest scenes [in film] are ones in which dialogue is expected to carry all of the dramatic weight by itself.” Even worse is including dialogue that has no other purpose than to inform the audience of “facts of which they must be made aware” (i.e., exposition). Even so, Howard (p. 87) acknowledges that a “good line, a well-turned phrase delivered in just the right way by an actor, can have a very powerful impact on the audience.” In fact, dialogue is where a screenwriter “can express his inner poetry to greatest advantage.” Howard (p. 87) then retreats back onto safer ground by declaring: “Talk is a small part of what we do as human beings, and it should be a small part of how we expect to tell our stories to the audience.” Subjecting “talk” to do rather than mean, however, is already to relegate the spoken (or written) word. Indeed, “what we do as human beings” expresses a functionalist value that is clearly salient in modern society. At a party, someone being introduced says, “I am a lawyer” rather than “I do lawyering.” A crasher at the same party says, “I am a writer,” rather than “I write for a living—well, ok, I fantasize at least about money coming with writing.” Philosophically speaking (L.A. collectively yawns here), we moderns are wont to reduce ontology to functionalism. The slippage “works” monetarily, unless one happens to be a philosopher, occupier, or rascal like Euthyphro, who thought he know more than he did before he sat down with Socrates (hint).

Particularly where the dramatic conflict is internal—within the protagonist—the spoken word may have an advantage over action. “Externalizing the internal is a perennial problem for the screen story-teller—how do we know what somebody really feels or thinks? Usually this is solved by putting characters into action so that what they do tells us what they feel and think, regardless of what they might say” (Howard, p. 273). To be sure, what people say can belie what is going on beneath the surface. However, between the distinct realm of external action and the internal life of a character, there is Cartesian (i.e., mind-body) distance. Dialogue can be interpreted as a bridge of sorts, being external yet more revealing of—closer to—what is going on inside.

For centuries, novels and the theatre, as well as traditional oral storytelling, have highlighted the written and spoken word as a key to revealing characters (and thus story) and unlocking the human imagination. In philosophy of mind, it is argued that we cannot even be aware of something as something (i.e., as an entity) without having a word for it. In the words of Sellars on Wittgenstein (another collective yawn out in L.A.), there is no pre-classificatory awareness. This claim seems to me to be pretty radical—that we can’t even be aware of a car unless we have a word for it (i.e., “car” or “automobile”). My point here is merely that language may be very important to the human mind, and more specifically in how we humans experience ourselves and the external world. This may explain why for millennia humans have emphasized words in storytelling; the craft has not been (though it perhaps could have been) doing actions with perhaps just an occasional word or two (e.g., pantomime). The importance of inter-titles to the storytelling in silent films (i.e., the strain to read them in time) and the rush to invent and then produce “talkies” point to the salience of words in storytelling. The actions here speak louder than Howard’s (and your?) words. Ah, you say, “Got you there! Actions speak louder than words!” Check-mate? Should I admit defeat? “Holy scrabble, Batman!” (Robin’s character is impeccably “shown” in his “Holy” lines from his tone alone, through dialogue).

In film, a character’s spoken word can be more revealing of his or her internal state than can even a riveting action. The relative closeness of tone and expression of voice and face, respectively, plus the mental choice of diction, to one’s emotional state can be betrayed, but this does not bring external action any closer to the internals. In other words, even if people can act, still the voice and face are inherently closer, and this explains the innate edge that dialogue has over action, generally speaking, in “solving” the problem of “externalizing the internal.” Besides, action too can be faked, even as words are genuine; action does not always speak louder than words. In fact, even the effort to fake what one says can be shown in the faking itself, and thus the speaking can be artfully revealing. So it would appear that Batman has managed to escape a sordid, tilted lair once again! “Pow! Wham!” Take that—words overlaid on (insufficient?) action—you ninja-action hegemons who rule the modern world! Upended by a philosopher no less!

Lines written and delivered well by an actor can be very powerful, period, as well as in revealing a character’s inner dynamic or state. In spite of my academic training that is rooted in tomes and treatises (with some film studies and acting courses thrown in for good measure), distinctive lines from movies are more likely to come to my mind when I am “out and about.” Besides the obvious social benefit in this proclivity (quoting from Nietzsche on morality is not the best way to get invited to a party), lines with meaning spoken in a distinctive tone and backed up by good characterization stay with me much more vividly than do lines that I read—even if the latter are substantively richer inherently. It is the gestalt of the various senses—which coincides with the integrative feature of consciousness itself as well as the inherent closeness that is possible between speech and the internal—that film is able to infuse in les spectateurs via characterization. Beyond the potential for stunning visual vistas and huge visceral explosions, this scorched-like infusing is a unique (and prime) advantage of cinema.

Consider, for example, the following line: “A baby should have seen it!” (Gen. Hill in Gettysburg). The line by the wounded Confederate general reveals his character as well as the reason for Lee’s defeat at Gettysburg far better than any action could. Consider too: “Will you die for him?” (The priest in The Seventh Seal). The repetition of this line by the priest infuses the theme of the entire film inside the viewer while evoking the character’s violent internals. How many times has “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn” (Rhett Butler in Gone with the Wind) been repeated, while Scarlett’s gaze of the vista of wounded soldiers has faded with time. “Go sell crazy somewhere else” (Melvin in As Good as It Gets), more than throwing the little dog down the laundry shoot, reveals Melvin’s attitude toward people. In another role and film, Nicholson flawlessly delivered a whopper, “You can’t handle the truth,” which went on to eclipse the entire film (I can’t even remember the title—A Few Good Men?).

The value of the spoken word in film is perhaps proved best simply by recalling the classic gem, The Wizard of Oz. Who does not recognize: “I’ll get you my pretty, and your little dog too!” Who can forget: “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!” The staying power of this line demonstrates how film dialogue can take on a life of its own in being used as a place-holder in popular discourse. Interestingly, the sound mixer or editor must have erred because the Wizard is saying the line while still walking the curtain back—away from the visible microphone he had been using to project the loud Wizard voice in the large hall! Dorothy and the others (and us!) should not have been able to hear the imperative through the Wizard's PA system. It may be that the oversight was the result of relegating dialogue in favor of action, even if unconsciously. Yet it is the line (rather than the image of the large green head) that survived into another century.

Less popular a line but certainly no less revealing of the Wizard’s character is the Wizard's line that is notable for the distinctive and unmistakable kind tone of Morgan's delivery: To the Tin Man, the Wizard says “Remember my sentimental friend, a heart is not judged by how much you love, but by how much you are loved by others.” The fraud, it turns out, is not such a bad guy after all, and the sentiment itself points to or suggests the same exists in the Tin Man’s character. Interestingly, the Wizard later selects the Scarecrow to replace him, to be assisted by the Tin Man and the Lion. Is reason over love one of the messages of the film? 

My main point is that even relative to action, the spoken word in dialogue can convey the internality of characterization and deliver the dramatic punch of heightened conflict. Jack Nicholson’s “You can’t handle the truth!” is much closer to his internal state than even his subsequent action when he tries to go after the defense lawyer only to be physically restrained. While the audience’s anticipation of possible “real” conflict made literal in a fist fight is dramatically of value, I question Howard’s “solving” the problem of “exteriorizing the internal” by the default of “putting characters into action.” I am not dismissing this strategy; rather, I’m merely contending that what a character says can be a better solution because words combined with tone and facial expression can be more revealing of thoughts and feelings. Just because film has a strategic competitive advantage on the action front does not mean that action eclipses speech in being inherently indicative of what is going on inside a person. I sense an always implied in Howard’s dictum that points to an element of dogmatism in his broader thesis.

If I am correct, then neither dialogue nor action should be stepwise privileged in screenwriting. Exteriorizing the internal can privilege dialogue even as action can be allowed to (sometimes) speak louder than words. The distinctive freedom of the camera (and the visuals afforded by the screen) can still be leveraged while backing off a bit from the proclivities of modernity that at their worse produce an “action flick” highlighted by a bus or cruise ship out-of-control. In actuality, action as an end in itself (think of Kant’s categorical imperative) reflects values in a decadent modern society that treats substance and authenticity, including real connections between people, as an “oh, by the way” kind of afterthought even in storytelling. Should film be a projection of cultural decadence as if part of a race to the bottom, or is there a higher calling for filmmakers in understanding the medium itself. Filmmakers can challenge hegemonic societal values by understanding the craft itself from its own standpoint rather than simply as a reflection of modernity. Cinema is a modern invention, but it need not be unduly constrained by the values of modernity in how story and storytelling are understood and accomplished.

Sources:

David Howard and Edward Mabley, The Tools of Screenwriting: A Writer’s Guide to the Craft and Elements of a Screenplay. (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1993).

Charles Deemer, Screenwright: The Craft of Screenwriting (Xlibris, 1998).

Hugo

Martin Scorsese’s Hugo (2011) is an intriguing story based on vocational functionalism, which in turn is based on deism. In other words, the film essentially applies an early modern theological "argument from design" to a pillar of modern society: one’s profession. In this regard, the film is not just a kids’ movie. The visual "3D" feature is not where the real depth of the film is located. The story achieves its fullness beyond the visuals in having several levels around a core philosophy, which serves as the story's core meaning. For this reason, Hugo has the potential to become a classic. In this essay, I explore the philosophy that lies at the basis of the film's story. I begin with deism and tie it to functionalism.

Deism posits that God is akin to a “clock maker,” designing Creation, “winding it up,” and then "stepping back" to let it work without divine intervention. The salient divine attribute is that of designer. The world, in turn functions as designed. Because the design comes from God, malfunction due to a problem of design is theologically problematic. Indeed, not functioning as designed can be viewed as evil, or at least immoral. Furthermore, if perfect design ensues from a divine designer, bad fits in nature's design must be held to be problematic. For example, the bodies of a man and woman to fit together quite well sexually; the same cannot be said of two men, yet what if the two men are in love? Those who value love are not likely to view the physiological relative lack of natural fit as problematic, yet the fact that the male and female fit is better is difficult for them to ignore. Lest it be objected that the relative lack of fit is not from God, it is difficult to hold that God is omnipotent and still maintain that design-induced malfunction is not sourced in God.

In Hugo, the deism is not made explicit, so its theological problems are not dealt with directly. Rather, the theology is implied as Hugo observes the world could be one big machine. If so, it follows that even people might be machines. Because each machine contains just the number of parts needed, if the world is a machine, then—Hugo reasons—he must have a purpose even though he doesn’t know it because he has no parents to tell him what it is. In other words, Hugo faces existential angst because he does not know his function.

Combining society-as-machine with deism, Creation itself is one machine consisting of machines. In one scene, Hugo dreams that he himself consists of the internals of a clock, and furthermore, that everything is wheels. An implication is that God does not create extra parts (or extra machines). Put another way, God does not permit unnecessary machines to go on existing. The orphanage represents the place where such machines—the reprobate—go. As enforced by the train station’s inspector, kids without parents do not work, and therefore much be removed from society. To work again, Hugo says, is to do what one is supposed, or meant, to do, as per how one was designed (by God); it is to have a purpose, without which one faces nothing short of nihilism. Essentially, this is functionalism, the philosophy that one is what one does. In business schools and especially in the business world itself, people tend to assume that function explains what one is. Even in ordinary conversation, someone is wont to say something like, “I am a lawyer.” The implication is that the vocation identifies who one is. Alternatively, the sentence could read, “I do lawyering.” This sentence refers only to function, rather than ontology.

The film identifies having a function—working (as a machine works and in the sense of having a job)—not only with what one is supposed or meant to do, but also with having a home. This is ethically problematic, for it implies that people who do not work do not deserve having a home. This problem provides the basis of the film’s dramatic tension. According to Hugo’s understanding, an orphan without a home (i.e., parents) cannot know, and therefore perform, his function; he cannot work as designed. He is thus surfeit in society-as-machine, whose parts can only be necessary. Kids that don’t work (at recognized jobs) do not legitimately exist, from the vantage point of society so conceived. More abstractly, meaning is presumed to depend on function, or being able to work. Everything, including everyone, is supposed to work—meaning being meant to have a particular function. This is the deist ethic.

What of mentally or physically impaired people who cannot work as designed? Does vocational deism justify the Nazi killing of members of society deemed worthless because they are retarded? Should unemployment compensation be stopped because the unemployed are not working? Moreover, does human worth come from function or design? A person who has not found his or her functional raison d’etre might wonder if he or she deserves to exist. This is essentially what Hugo is about.

Hugo’s objects of desire all represent means he thinks will lead him to discover what he is “meant” or “designed” to do—how he was designed to function. He is driven to overcome all odds to work; he is a machine, as are we all, and he is driven to discover his purpose. His antagonist is ultimately nihilism, which can be defined here in terms of not having a purpose. Home represents the security of having evaded non-existence (or expulsion from society, as in going to the orphanage) by having found one’s necessary function and thus being able to work “as intended” and thus as one should. Deism provides the theological background here, as the design is presumed to be the basis of purpose. Ironically, Hugo’s function is to fix human machines that no longer function as designed. His function is sourced in the design of his heart in having compassion for others who have broken down. Interestingly, he didn't have to recognize his design or function in order for it to work throughout his journey. To function vocationally making use of one's design (e.g., as in Asa Butterfield being a natural actor), however, one must first recognize the natural ability in order to apply it in a job.

Hugo is an amazing story in covering several levels precisely because it goes from Deism (abstractly) to functionalism as vocation (tangible). In laboring (i.e., working), a person works like a machine works. For the viewer, the questions go from whether function proffers worth to whether our function from design is that which we use in our work. In the documentary on Woody Allen on PBS (2011), the comic points out that some people can draw really good pictures, such as of horses. Allen admits that he does not have that talent. He goes on to say that jokes, however, naturally come to him, even while he is taking a walk. It is simply how he sees the world; the jokes just come to him. He has an aptitude that is natural for him. The obvious implication is that each person naturally does some things better than other things. If a person has no idea of what comes naturally—perhaps because he or she is so close to it—that person could presumably benefit greatly by discovering it. There is indeed very little choice in one's "gifts." They are what given in one's design. If a person realizes and functions in line with one's natural excellences, one is on what Joseph Campbell called “the blissful path.” However, if worth is not derived only or primarily from function, then the blissful path does not depend on discovering one's natural talents; being transcends doing. In Hugo, this issue is front and center, with Deism serving as the foundation.

See related essay: "Oscars: Beyond Eye-Candy"