The Lesser Evil

The Lesser Evil (1912) - Well, this is an action-thriller, a cut-to-the-chase jump-cut race against time that goes back to Rescued by Rover (1905), at least, and that Griffith had somewhat crudely attempted with his first outing, Adventures of Dollie (1908). But this is quite a bit more elaborate than these early outings, with lots of realistic action, over a hundred shots, and a simmering sexuality, too boot.

The sexual threat is important here - it is at the heart of the film, as it will be at the heart of The Birth of a Nation. I think that it is important to note that here, as well as in the great controversial later epic, Griffith shows an essentially puritanical view of sexuality that equates it with violence. Here, Blanche Sweet (who never seems that innocent to me for some reason), has been captured by a rough gang of sailors and has been hijacked aboard their ship.

This is, admittedly, pretty stern stuff. Blanche is locked up in a cabin as the ship sets sail, after having been bound and gagged and brought on board. There is nothing ffor her to do except to wait helplessly for the inevitable gang rape that is going to come once they are out to sea. Quite shocking in its sado-masochistic frankness, the mind cannot help but reel at the vision of all these vicious, hungry male animals ravishing sweet Blanche, the helpless solo blonde maiden. It is a disturbing image, and depending on one’s fringe of fantasy susceptibility, a powerfully erotic one.

I cannot pretend to delve into D.W. Griffith’s sexual psyche here - suppositions are all we have to go on - that is, in addition to the aggressive male action and the passive helplessness of the female. One can be sure, however, that the film must have stimulated in both its male and female audiences, various ranges of arousal, as well as repulsion.

In the puritan’s mind, however, sex is always the great threat. It is ultimately the repression of the sexual urges that lend such fantasies their intense power. The resolution, therefore, is to kill them off - to defuse them so that they won’t be troubling the conscious mind any more. And that is precisely what happens in this film - as it will in many thousands of films to come. The id running amok is precisely the thing which must be snuffed out, put back into its box, and be re-directed into the wholesome context of marriage.

Of course I am not making an argument for rape here, but it is worth pointing out that under the guise of Victorian propriety, this is virtually the only subconscious outlet for (particularly female) sexual fantasy. To be ravished - especially at sea, tossed upon the rough-galed forces of fate - may be a nightmare, but it is also the only kind of erotic action in which a female could cultivate without concomitant feelings of guilt. Similarly, in the male, the viewer could imagine the vicarious actions of the crew, whilst mentally disassociating himself from them them, due to their lower-class status and brutish demeanor.

It would be wonderful to have a commentary on this film by Freud, who probably could have easily seen it had he been so inclined. It would be fascinating to have his opinion upon such plainly disguised erotic fantasies being (literally) projected out into the popular consciousness.

But returning to the film, as I said before, the raging id must be stopped. Here, it is turned back by the very mechanic of the abduction itself - the head smuggler himself, played by the burly, mustachioed Alfred Paget. Once aboard ship, this brute among brutes realizes the enormity of the transgression about to take place, and even he is moved to stop the lusty boatmen from having their way with Blanche.

We do not see any sense of epiphany in Paget that reveals to him that this deed is wrong and must be stopped. He simply, suddenly, has a change of heart and stands before the young girls' cabin, holding off the approaching, menacing crew with a gun - even shooting one, presumably to death.

Back in the cabin with Blanche, Paget realizes he has but one bullet left. He manages to convince Blanche to let him shoot her in the head rather than have to suffer the fate of the mass violation. Weepily, Blanche agrees. And here we have it, the "lesser evil" of the film’s title. In the puritan mind, it is better to die and be saved the disgrace and horror of unbridled lust. Today, we would be - to my mind quite rightly - more concerned about the victim’s ultimate survival against any other consideration.

One could argue that Blanche might very well face death anyway, after her rapists are through with her - but we will always side with the possibility of life. At any rate, this is not really the question here. This is not a realistic episode of life - it is a fantasy in a popular motion picture. And within this fantasy, the conflicts must be cleanly worked out on the screen to relieve the psychic situation. Death must henceforth come before dishonor, and the frenzied sado-masochistic fantasies of both the characters and the audience must be put cleanly back in the box if we are all to regain our sense of self control.

Of course, the now-conventional rescue of the heroine by benevolent males - in this case, Blanche’s fisherman boyfriend (Edwin August) and the policemen on a speedboat - manages to avoid the horrific climax by arriving to save the day.

Here, the rescue is anti-climactic (literally), however. The compensatory violent antidote to the emotional orgasmic substitute - Blanche getting her brains blown out by the now-benevolent, but still sexual Paget - is neatly avoided.

What is remarkable about The Lesser Evil, however, is Griffith’s tacit acknowledgment that this is indeed the case. As the would-be rapist smugglers are being subdued by the police, Blanche watches with private pleasure as Paget escapes unseen from the back of the ship, slipping into the sea.

Back ashore, we watch Paget emerge triumphantly from the roaring water, a free man, reveling in glory as in a fabulous rebirth. This is one of the most astonishing shots in all of Griffith’s works, and it conjures up a mighty plethora of possible interpretations. This victorious emergence from the sea and the avoidance of capture feels, and is, highly ambiguous. We can posit that Paget is a new man after having had a change of heart and saving Blanche from her terrible fate. That would probably be Griffith’s explanation of it. There is, however, a lingering sense that a powerful life force that transcends good and evil is precisely what survives.

Griffith reinforces this last interpretation with the shots of a delighted Blanche, silently watching Paget’s escape with great, excited delight, back aboard the ship. Even her sweet fisherman boyfriend, her rescuer, gets slighted and goes unnoticed as Blanche stares back anxiously to the shore.

Somewhere out there, the film seems to suggest, lies Blanche’s true desire - the discovery of an erotic power in life that thrills even as it threatens. One can sense the tingles in her body after her powerful scrape with brutal sexuality and violent death.

The question becomes, is this a conscious decision by the "author" of the film? Or is this the quintessential puritan letting his inner, repressed desires be unwittingly put on display?

It is impossible to know for sure, but this will certainly not be the last time such sexual ambiguities will spill out onto the screen. Like dreams, that is where they will cluster and accumulate, ever reflective of our deepest individual, as well as collective psyches.