The Family That Shoots and Kills People at Random From Inside Its Barricaded New York City Apartment as Society Crumbles Around Them, Stays Together: "Little Murders" [Alan Arkin, 1971, USA]

Jules Feiffer's stated inspiration for writing the extremely dark and absurdist comedy Little Murders (initially as a play and then as a motion picture screenplay) is fascinatng for illuminating this work's core themes. Feiffer claims he was driven to create Little Murders after the assassination of President Kennedy: "Which was odd," saith Feiffer, "because I wasn't a big fan of his; he was the first actor in the White House. And then when Oswald was shot, I thought there is a madness going on. And because of my politics, I saw that madness in Vietnam, too. So the motive of the play was the breakdown of all forms of authority -- religion, family, the police. Urban violence was always the metaphor in my mind for something more serious in the country."

As so often occurs when artists explicate their work (see also: Hitchcock, Alfred), the asides are often more interesting than the Big Ideas. Feiffer's antipathy toward Kennedy as "the first actor in the White House" hints at a larger antipathy toward the convergence of artistic representation and the Real: a man whose primary talent lies in the realm of performance and make-believe should never hold a governmental position -- and certainly not that of Leader of the Free World -- through which he must assume responsibility for bettering and protecting the real lives of real people. Kennedy's inability as a representational performer to meet his Real responsibilities (in Cuba and Vietnam, not to mention the United States of America) was eventually avenged or "corrected" when the Real met him in the form of a sniper's bullet on November 22, 1963.

It's not a coincidence, then, that the protagonist of Little Murders is an artist who comes face to face with the Real through a shocking and senseless assassination. Alfred Chamberlain (Elliot Gould) is a photographer and "devout apathist" who staves off the Real by mediating the world through his camera lens. Indeed, Alfred specializes in photographing piles of excrement -- he can encounter and take in the Real in all its ugly rawness, but only via aestheticization. Alfred's dependence upon artistic mediation for processing reality is mirrored by his emotional numbness -- especially when dealing with life's more unpleasant aspects, as when people repeatedly beat him in public -- and he possesses no strong passion for anything beyond his photography (and sleeping). When Alfred meets cute with Patsy Newquist (Marcia Rodd) the viewer at first expects this woman to break him out of his vicarious existence by encouraging a confrontation with and acceptance of the Real, but Patsy is quickly shown to also keep the Real at bay, albeit through methods diametrically opposed to the ones Alfred employs toward achieving the same goal. Whereas Alfred mediates the Real through art, Patsy mediates the Real through social conventions, and in the first section of the film she cajoles or attempts to cajole Alfred into various activities (sports, sex) and rituals (dining at home with her parents [Vincent Gardenia and Elizabeth Wilson], who in a manner even more hysterical, anxious, and materialistic than that of Patsy believe that individuals must conform to social conventions) with the aim of integrating him into the body politic. Patsy's obsession with adhering to societal norms is mirrored by her emotional falsity -- she counteracts the discomforts and indignities of life by pretending she feels good about them, a form of repression that accords well with her professional work as an interior decorator.

Alfred eventually, though reluctantly, agrees to marry Patsy, but as a compromise he insists that a minister of the "First Existential Church," Rev. Dupas (Donald Sutherland), conduct the ceremony. Dupas's speech to the couple and the wedding attendees is exceedingly lengthy, but because it so directly and hilariously challenges Patsy's reliance on social conventions and rituals to absorb the Real it's worth quoting (almost) in full (or you can just watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgwjHBUW9MY):

You all know why we’re here. There’s often so much sham about this business of marriage. Everyone accepts it: ritual. That’s why I was so heartened when Alfred asked me to perform this ceremony. He has certain beliefs, which I assume you all know; he is an atheist, which is perfectly all right, really it is. I happen not to be, but inasmuch as this ceremony connotes an abandonment of ritual in the search for truth, I agreed to perform it.

First, let me state to you, Alfred, and to you, Patricia, that of the two hundred marriages that I have performed, all but seven have failed. So the odds are not good. We don’t like to admit it, especially at the wedding ceremony, but it’s in the back of all our minds, isn’t it: how long will it last? We all think that, don’t we? We don’t like to bring it out in the open, but we all think that. Well I say, why not bring it out in the open. Why does one decide to marry? Social pressure? Boredom? Loneliness? Sexual appeasement? Love? I won’t put any of these reasons down -- each in its own way is adequate, each is all right.

Last year I married a musician who wanted to get married in order to stop masturbating. Please, don’t be startled, I’m NOT putting him down. That marriage did not work. But the man TRIED. He is now separated, still masturbating, but HE IS AT PEACE with himself because he tried society’s way. So you see, it was not a mistake, it turned out alright.

Now, just last month I married a novelist to a painter. Everyone at the wedding ceremony was under the influence of a hallucinogenic drug. The drug quickened our physical responses, slowed our mental responses, and the whole ceremony took two days to perform. Never have the words had such meaning. Now THAT marriage should last.

Still, if it does not, well, that’ll be all right, for don’t you see, any step that one takes is useful, is positive, has to be positive because it’s a part of life, even the negation of the previously taken step is positive, that too is a part of life. And in this light, and only in this light, should marriage be viewed: as a small, single step. If it works, fine! If it fails, fine; look elsewhere for satisfaction. To more marriages, fine, as many as one wants, fine. To homosexuality? Fine! To drug addiction? I will not put it down, each of these is an answer for somebody. For Alfred, today’s answer is Patricia. For Patricia, today’s answer is Alfred. I will not put them down for that.

So what I implore you both, Patricia, and Alfred, to dwell on, while I ask you these questions required by the state of New York to “legally bind you” -- sinister phrase, that -- is that not only are the legal questions I ask you meaningless, but so too are the inner questions that you ask yourselves meaningless. Failing one’s partner does not matter. Sexual disappointment does not matter. Nothing can hurt, if you do not see it as being hurtful. Nothing can destroy, if you do not see it as destructive. It is all part of life, part of what we are.

So now: Alfred. Do you take Patricia to be your lawfully wedded wife, to love -- whatever that means -- to honor, to keep her in sickness and health, in prosperity and adversity -- what nonsense! -- forsaking all others -- what a shocking invasion of privacy! Rephrase that to more sensibly say, if you choose to have affairs, then you won’t feel guilty about them . . . as long as you both shall live, or as long as you’re not tired of one another?

Ever fearful of the Real, the wedding attendees react to Dupas's speech with outrage, and the ceremony descends into violence and chaos. As a result, Patsy demands that Alfred plumb the roots of his emotional isolation and numbness by reconnecting with his estranged parents to discover how their treatment made him the detached shell of a man he is today. Alfred does so and realizes that his parents are eerily similar to him -- they possess no emotional life and no ability to process the Real except through artistic, philosophical, and psychological conceptualization.

Alfred returns to Patsy at a loss -- he doesn't know how he can make the marriage work and feels that her desire to convert him into a normal member of society is like attempting to draw blood from a stone. After a long conversation, however, Patsy finally convinces Alfred to change his ways. The dialogue between the characters at this point of the film is extremely significant:

Patsy: And what's your first feeling?

Alfred: It's sort of distant.

Patsy: Don't be ashamed of it.

Alfred: It's worship.

Patsy: Of god?

Alfred: Of you.

Patsy: You're doing fine. My lover. My hero!

Just at the moment when Alfred is about to abandon his ability to buffer the Real through representational mediation, and just as he's about to abandon this artistic inclination for Patsy's socially-approved possessiveness and conformity, the Real bursts through: a sniper from a nearby apartment assassinates Patsy. Horrifically confronted by the Real, Alfred returns to his previous numbness and his previous state of processing the world through art. Soon after Patsy's death (as well as a spate of subsequent assassinations or attempted assassinations that occur all around him) Alfred photographs Central Park (starting with a large pile of horse manure), and with the film's first point-of-view shots the viewer sees the world through Alfred's camera. Another, less daring film would end here -- perhaps not a happy ending, but a safe ending in which the protagonist returns to the comfortable limits of representation. Not Little Murders, however. After the Central Park sequence the film cuts abruptly to a scene in which Alfred returns to the shuttered apartment of his in-laws with a sniper rifle, with which they all randomly and gleefully pick off people outside. If you can't beat the Real through murder, then join the Real through murder -- this is what Alfred and his in-laws choose in lieu of the ersatz security of artistic mediation (for Alfred) and social conformity (the in-laws), and in making this choice together they are bonded by blood.

(Note: all of the film's murders -- not only of Patsy, and not only of the Newquists' long-deceased eldest son, but also of three hundred and forty-five New York City residents over the past half-year, as statistically cited by the institution-revering Lieutenant Practice [Alan Arkin] -- are said to be unsolved. This makes murder in the world of Little Murders all the more poignantly representative of the horrifying nature of the Real, since the Realness of death and of the killing of human beings by their own kind cannot be understood through the distinct motives of the murderer, cannot be explained by the various forces and influences of culture and society, and cannot be mitigated in profoundness and intensity by any other sort of ideological or theoretical interpretation.)