In Medium Cool (1969),
John Cassellis, a cameraman, maintains a medium-cool level of emotion even in
the midst of the socio-political turmoil in Chicago during 1968 until he learns
that his station manager had been allowing the FBI access to the news footage.
The film can be interpreted as providing a justification for his lack of trust
in American law enforcement even as the need for law and order is made clear
from the ubiquity of the human instinctual urge of aggression. For the film
shows not only the extent of violence, but also its engrained nature in our
species. By implication, the viewer is left to conclude that that law
enforcement is necessary in a civilized society. Yet this can only be a necessary evil, for
the last few scenes of the film show just how likely discretion is to be abused.
The atrocious and one-sided police violence during the peaceful protests
outside of the Democratic National Convention make it clear that if given the
legal authority to use weapons, human beings may abuse such discretion if too
weak to restrain their own personal passions and, albeit less common, even
their psychological pathologies.
The full essay is at "Medium Cool."
