[sphinx]

I don't think I've been to a movie in 15 years other than to take the kids, but since I have a teenage daughter, naturally we have seen Hunger Games and Catching Fire. (Pretty soon, I imagine, dad will be the LAST person she would go to a movie with, but she's not dating or driving yet, so I still have a few movie nights left ....).

Anyhow, it's a minor point, but as an old fan of historical costume epics, the bloodier the better, I was interested in how the Hunger Games folks would get a new twist on what is, essentially, a gladiator flick. I think they succeed remarkably well.

The mental state of the gladiators is of interest. All of them, the reluctant participants as well as the professionals, seem to accept the reality of the arena without question. It is an utterly pagan attitude, all the more effective for being underplayed. Of course most would rather not be there, but they are very matter of fact about their fates. And some of them, the careers, are preening professionals eager to fight, even though death is the overwhelmingly likely outcome.

When last in Rome, our guide at the Coliseum said off-handedly that only about five percent of the professional gladiators survived the arena. That's not unlike the odds in HG/CF. And the rewards for those who survived, won their freedom, and went into the bodyguard business could be substantial. Many of the survivors, in fact, volunteered to go back into the arena as free men. The mental state is interesting.

[LS]

Yes, exactly-—except with Hunger Games there is a catch in that, more like Spartacus, there is a larger plot afoot among the gladiators to overthrow the (Obama) regime.

[LS]

By the way, gladiators---like every one else (as make clear in the Showtime bloody version of "Spartacus") had a certain pride in their work. I think this is an element of human nature that is almost impossible to repress. Even if your "job" is performing for the masters by killing people, there is a tiny element in you that wants to show YOU that you can do something well. No one likes to deliberately fail.

This, of course, is the message in "Bridge on the River Kwai," where the tension is between resisting the Japanese on the one hand and on the other showing them that "they ain't no British" when it comes to work or engineering. And what David Lean seems to have missed is that in fact there MAY HAVE BEEN a greater morale victory in actually building the bridge than in resisting the Japanese. Jesus said as much ("Overcome evil with good.") Now, I'm no Gandhi, but there may be instances where you gain a greater victory by either building something HE cannot build (the bridge) or destroying something HE cannot build ("The Fountainhead"). These are all deep metaphysical questions that I sure don't have answers to, but heck, I know enough to ask questions.