How many times have we witnessed or even participated in heated discussions, in which the two sides started from diametrically opposed positions, representing systems whose reconciliation is impossible or very difficult? Discussions between them usually have topics related to religion or politics, but sometimes they can also belong to other fields. I confess that I have witnessed quite a few such discussions and that I happened to be involved in some of them. I mean, of course, argued discussions and not those sprinkled with insults and verbal violence, which are devoid of any value. Such a discussion is the core of the film ‘The Sunset Limited‘ (2011) produced by the HBO studios and directed by Tommy Lee Jones, one of only four films (so far) in which he was also on the other side of the camera, as a director . I wrote ‘also’ because Jones is also one of the protagonists of the dialogue that represents 99% of the film, together with another formidable actor, Samuel L. Jackson. The film brings to the screen a play by Cormac McCarthy, who also wrote the script and worked closely during the production with Tommy Lee Jones, being his personal friend. Filmed theater? movie for tv? Difficult to answer these questions and perhaps unnecessary, because watching ‘The Sunset Limited‘ is a special experience, one irrelevant to categorize.
The opening scene of the film is the only one that happens somewhere else than the room where the dialogue between the two men takes place. It is a scene without any visible human presence. We see an empty subway station. A train is approaching. That train is unlikely to be the real Sunset Limited, an Amtrak long-distance train that connects California to the Gulf of Mexico and, more recently, reaches Florida. The ominously approaching train may be a symbol for the event that awaits us all at the end of life. It is the pretext that triggers the interaction between the two men. Black saves White’s life by stopping him at the last moment from committing suicide on the train line. He brings him to his house, a noisy and rather shabby apartment in a neighborhood populated by poor people, drug users, maybe criminals. He does not want to let him go, because he is afraid that White will repeat the attempt, and then he begins a dialogue about life and faith. Black is an ex-convict who has found faith. Everything he does is based on The Book, perhaps the only book he has read in his life. He believes in Jesus and in the power to spiritually save those around. White, rightly or wrongly called The Professor, has read over 4000 books in his life, but he no longer believes in anything. He stays for a while to talk with Black, maybe out of politeness, maybe because he feels somewhat indebted to the one who had saved his life. It is not clear, however, that if he leaves alone, if he goes out the door of the apartment, he will not try to commit suicide again. That is if the dialogue with Black didn’t convince him that there was still a meaning in living.
The dialogue seems one of impossible or very difficult to reconcile opposites. The names are symbolic and we don’t even know if they are real, actually we learn them only in the closing credits. Black is African American, White is white. Black is poor, White has at least a thousand dollars in his pocket. Black is a devout Christian, White is an atheistic existentialist. And yet, when two people talk, chances are they’ll meet somewhere. Will this talk bring them closer? Will each of them’s faith or non-faith waver? Each of the viewers watching this film will, I think, come to their own conclusion, and it will depend on their own conceptions and their own value system. Filmmaking is simple. It relies on the excellent acting of the two actors, the power of the words spoken by each of them and the interaction between the two. Theatrical verbosity cannot be avoided. ‘The Sunset Limited’ is a filmed experience of life and philosophy, for which we must be prepared as viewers.