Casting Call 3.05.08: Issue 45 - Bartleby and Loki
Posted by Jason Chamberlain on 03.05.2008
This week in Casting Call, Jason Chamberlain wades into the View Askewniverse to take a look at a pair of angelic characters; Bartleby and Loki, from 'Dogma'!
Another week, another issue of Casting Call!
Presenting Bartleby and Loki (as played by Ben Affleck and Matt Damon) from the film ‘Dogma'.
Kevin Smith is one of those directors who seems to polarize the movie going audience. You won't find too many people who don't have a strong opinion about his films one way or the other. People either love him or hate him. You either think his movies are comic gold or crass, vulgar nonsense.
I, of course, fall into the former category! Which is why I'm devoting this column to two of his characters. Not his best known pair, the stoner duo of Jay and Silent Bob, but a pair of renegade angels who seek to return to heaven (or, if necessary, negate all existence).
Loki was once the angel of death, the bringer of God's wrath. His best friend Bartleby is a Gregorian, or watcher, who doesn't quite agree with the relentless slaughter required by Loki's job. And so the pair go out for a drink one night, and in their conversation Bartleby convinces Loki to quit. Loki does so in a rather rude manner, causing God to banish the both of them to Wisconsin for the entirety of human existence. And there they stay for thousands of years.
Until one day, when an anonymous tipster sends them a newspaper article that turns them on to an obscure dogmatic law in Catholicism known as Planary Indulgence, a clause that states that a person who passes through the arches of a church on its centennial is given a morally clean slate. If the two angels transubstantiate to human form and have their sins wiped clean, when they die they will enter heaven. Sounds simple, right?
Except, doing so would prove God wrong, and since God is infallible, that would unmake existence.
That's what we call fine print.
Throughout the film, the pair are portrayed as comic relief, reluctant heroes and finally villains. And any characters that have that kind of range are ripe for the Casting Call treatment!
Loki, once the angel of death, naturally has a violent streak to him. Though he's a pretty funny and jovial guy all things considered, he can be mean spirited (he plays mind games with members of the clergy for kicks) and when a ‘competitor' to God emerges in Mooby, the golden calf (a sort of Mickey Mouse/Ronald McDonald rip off) he gleefully sets out to ‘impress' God by giving them a taste of divine justice.
Bartleby, on the other hand, is not a violent angel, at least not at the beginning of the film. It was his compassion for mankind that got the ball rolling for the pairs banishment from heaven, and on Earth he enjoys spending time at airports to observe ‘mankind at its finest'. Though he clearly sees all of their wrongdoings (he is a watcher, after all) he seems to have a soft spot for human kind.
As the events of the film roll forward, however, the roles start to reverse.
Loki may be the angel of death, but he won't kill for no reason. When it becomes clear that re-entry into heaven would negate all existence, he is staunchly against it. He wants no part of a war on the word of God.
Bartleby, though, changes. Though he often displays a more reserved and cautious nature than Loki in the film, the Gregorian's eyes ‘open' when he meets the hero of the story, Bethany (the Last Scion, final descendant of Jesus Christ who is charged with stopping the angelic pair from completing their mission) and realizes she'll have to kill him and Loki. Centuries of repressed anger towards humankind (God's favourites) comes to the fore and he decides that unmaking existence might not be a bad idea after all.
The differing philosophies of the two friends are explored in a masterfully written and performed scene that takes place in a parking garage. The angels argue their cases; Bartleby is fed up with the way humankind has besmirched everything God has ever given them, and angry at God for his (her) ‘unfair' punishment of the pair. He is obsessed with going home and will let no one stand in his way. When Loki remarks that Bartleby is beginning to sound like Lucifer, the comparison is chilling. Bartleby is ready to go to war with God, and Loki goes from being best friend to unwilling accomplice.
As the film plays out, the pair of angels reach the fated church where Bartleby incites a slaughter of innocents. By this point in the story, he is aware that becoming human and entering the archway will negate existence and he is ready to do so. Loki cuts his wings off first and gets smashed, drunkingly confronting his former friend, who stabs him to death. A hail of gunfire from Jay removes Bartleby's wings, but God is able to stop the angel-turned-human from entering the church and, after consoling him, She destroys him with her immensely powerful voice.
When Bartleby looks again on his creator and begins to cry, it's a touching moment. Yes it's a comedy film filled with dick and fart jokes, but still, touching. Ben Affleck doesn't get enough credit; he can bring it when he wants to. In this scene, he portrays a character who truly felt he was wronged by the Almighty, and that belief drove him to do terrible things. But when standing directly in front of Her, all he can feel is sorry for the pain he has caused (and felt). And God seems sorry, too.
And honestly, the punishment God doled out for the pair of angels does seem rather harsh. Their fate is to sit outside the gates of heaven for all eternity, which seems quite excessive. That doesn't justify Bartleby's ultimate sins, of course, but he did have a point.
As he tells Loki, angels were created first, but humans were truly revered. Angels had lives of bowing, scraping and adoration. They had no choice but to acknowledge and heed the divine presence. Humans were given the freedom to ignore God, and many do, and that knowledge infuriates Bartleby, who lives in constant pain from being separated from his creator.
The pair are ultimately tragic characters. Manipulated by a greater evil (the demon Azrael- there are a lot of interesting characters in this film!), their simple and justified desire to go home becomes twisted into a mission of revenge against their creator. But as Bartleby's tears at the end make clear, there was still some humanity left in the renegade angels.
It'd be nice if, in the Askewniverse, the pair was allowed back into heaven after the film's story ended. That's all they really wanted, after all.
