In his
fourth thesis, Avelar criticizes Dorfman’s film version of Death and the Maiden. He states
that the film takes the presupposition of the sameness of confession and truth:
“The film is
dedicated to imagining a scene of truth, as nothing other than a scene of
confession.” Indeed, we are meant to
believe that Miranda’s final confession is the real truth and that all of his
alibis and excuses are merely lies meant to distract us. Paulina keeps pushing Miranda until he
confesses to what she wants to hear and what she believes is the truth. This parallels the Greek thought about
torture and slaves that we read in DuBois’ text – how the ancient Athenians
took the confession of slaves under torture as a truth that could not be false. Paulina puts Miranda through basanos she
creates to uncover the alethia she believes is within. Indeed, Paulina is so convinced of Miranda’s
guilt that when her husband, Gerardo, asks her what she will do if Miranda is
innocent and has nothing to confess, she replies “then we’re all fucked.” Paulina does not care whether or not Miranda’s
confession is the truth for him or not, she merely wants it to be the truth for
her. When he confesses, she is satisfied
that she has now uncovered the alethia that was there all along, waiting to be
found. Like DuBois describes, she is
confident that basanos always leads to the truth, which is revealed through the
confession of the one under torture.
I think Avelar is trying to say that Paulina's irrational character discredits the assumption that confession will always produce truth. Paulina's words "then we're all fucked" in the play stuck out to me as blatantly irrational. However, it is meant to reflect the very irrationally that occurs during the interrogation scene. The regime doesn't care about the true innocence of a prisoner; everyone is wrong in their eyes. This mentality is shown through Paulina's character and we see this through Paulina's almost stubborn way of interpreting evidence in favor of her "truth" (that Dr. Miranda is her rapist). Her way of interpreting evidence for her own benefit is what may be called a self-serving bias. No matter what Dr. Miranda says or does, Paulina will always interpret it as his way of covering up his guilt; this can be seen when Paulina accuses Dr. Miranda of having an alibi that so conveniently remembers where he was during the time of her torture. Indeed when Dr. Miranda confesses, somehow it is accepted as truth. Despite my feelings that he was innocent for most of the movie and play, when Dr. Miranda confessed himself, I believed he was guilty. In the end, the play actually does perpetuate the idea that confession=truth.
ReplyDeleteI think Nancy did a great job of analyzing the confession/truth relationship that Preston brought up, and I'd like to take a look at the relationship also brought up between torture and truth. The slave figure being a metaphor for Dr. Miranda might work for the book, but in the movie Dr. Miranda is represented too rationally to be thought of as a slave who is regarded as just a body that contains the truth. However, DuBois does argue that one may switch between being a free man and a slave, so it's possible to argue that this transition happens in the movie when Dr. Miranda gives his final confession. In addition, the idea behind the interrogation of the slaves - that the torture would lead to a true confession - is certainly relevant. Paulina believes that bringing Dr. Miranda to the point of almost inevitable death, possibly making him realize he is just a body that is imprisoning the confession, will cause him to release the buried truth, or aletheia.
ReplyDeleteThe idea of confession equaling truth is the biggest departure from the play that the movie commits. The play leaves the confession that Miranda makes as questionable. If one believes Paulina then his confession condemns him, and if one doesn't believe her, Miranda remains innocent. But in either case, the confession does not equate to truth. Regardless of whether or not Miranda is guilty, his confession is not the truth, it is either slightly altered, or it is entirely forced. This equating truth with confession that the movie does is problematic for a film that attempts to condemn torture. The play does a much better job showing that confession does not result in truth.
ReplyDeleteIt is always hard to understand what is true and what is not, especially in the case of confession where only the confessor know what happened. Similar concept can also be seen in Troubling Confessions where it discuss how they treat confession as validate only when it is a voluntary confession. This makes the usage of pressure and interrogation for confession as a process merely to create its own truth by forcing the captive to say what the interrogator wants to hear. Similar Paulina wants Miranda to say his confession, even if it seems like he doesn't have anything to say. She acts that she is sure of his guilt, a common tactic use in interrogation where the guilt is assumed even before proven.
ReplyDeleteI find the parallel drawn between Death and the Maiden and the Greek culture of torture to be very illuminating. Paulina had already made up her mind about the guilt of Miranda, so his confession was merely a formality. In her eyes, there was no debate over what the truth was, so it didn't even matter what he ended up spilling. Similarly, when the Greeks employed basanos to illicit a confession, it was merely a formality to formally sentence a criminal. The aletheia was solely what the interrogators wished it to be, which meant that there could be no other truth than that that was desired.
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ReplyDeleteWith regards to the critique Avelar emphasizes in how the film, Death and the Maiden, equates truth and confession to be one and the same, I find the parallel to the Dubois text to be very strong. I would say however that whereas the Greeks allowed for the confession of slaves under torture to be held as absolute truth, Paulina allows only the guilty confession of Dr. Miranda to be held as absolute truth. This fundamental difference is a contrast from Troubling Confessions where modern law treats confession as validate only when it is given voluntarily by the accused. At the same time, the presumption that the accused is inherently guilty is one not only held by Paulina against Miranda but one systematically adopted by the modern law enforcement agency in Troubling Confessions. If anything, the film can be an allusion to the shortcomings of the modern law enforcement agency and how they operate under the presumption that the accused is guilty and all tactics (belonging to a psychological manipulation nature) should be oriented towards extracting the alethia within the accused.
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