PeaceBang

The Dying Gaul: A PeaceBang Review

February 24, 2008 on 6:44 pm | In TV/Movies/Theatre/Book Reviews |

Did anyone see “The Dying Gaul,” based on a Craig Lucas play by the same name and directed by the playwright? It was a 1995 production starring Patricia Clarkson, Peter Skarsgaard and Campbell Scott. Reviews and a precis are here.

This was a finely acted piece about a Hollywood producer who seduces a gay writer into selling his beautiful screenplay (also called “The Dying Gaul”) to the studio for a million dollars on one condition: that he change one of the lovers in the story to a woman. After the deed is done, the pair easily move into a sexual relationship, and soon after that into a triangular intrigue of manipulation, lies and a lot of internet chatting. There’s some New Age bathos, a touch of Lucas’ earlier screenplay “Longtime Companion,” and an obvious attempt to create something that at least touches the hem of the garment we call Greek Tragedy, but which, in my opinion, does not succeed. If you want to see a brilliant contemporary Greek tragedy, rent “House of Sand and Fog.”

Aside from a very badly directed and written, truncated ending (SweetieBang and I both far preferred the “alternate ending” provided by the DVD extras), the film is diverting enough, well-acted and brings up great, let’s-sit-up-and-talk-late-into-the-night-about-it moral issues. However, it seems that none of the movie reviews I’ve read even mentioned what was, for me, the salient point of the movie, which is that people who dabble in spiritual philosophies totally alone and apart from a religious community are playing with fire, and risk deluding themselves in terrible ways, twisting the message of their chosen path to suit their own ego needs and even to justify acts of evil. God knows that we who live in religious community are easily enough deluded together, but “The Dying Gaul” was, for me, a chilling reminder that calling oneself a disciple of any tradition while flying entirely under the radar of a disciplining and discerning community can be a dangerous path indeed. Especially in Hollywood, standing in for Sodom and Gomorrah in today’s popular consciousness.

See it and let me know what you think.