Flawed Masterpieces: Martin, 2666 and the Humanity of Imperfection

What makes a flawed masterpiece resonate? To be human is to be flawed…are all masterpieces also flawed?

Quickly, a couple of disclaimers. Use of a term like masterpiece is, by its very nature, subjective. Art is subjective. What resonates with one viewer/reader/listener may not with another. So any discussion about masterpieces is going to be highly subjective. I won’t be attempting to make some big grand statement about masterpieces (I shudder to think of what that might look like. The horror! The horror!)

I mean, honestly—isn't every piece of art flawed in some level? An artist is human, and humans are flawed (oh lord are we ever flawed!) An artist in any given medium may chase perfection, but they will never achieve it. For a piece of art to be perfect it would have to transcend all definition and become something so alien we would likely not even recognize it. Perfection is an abstract idea (and again, subjective) whose definition no two people will ever agree on. I'm getting dangerously close to chasing my theoretic tail here—what I'm trying to say is, in terms of resonance, the deeply human flaws in a work I consider a masterpiece are a critical part of why the work speaks to me on a profound level.

Let me see if I can explain this by looking at two different works of art: one film and one book. I'm not going to be attempting any kind of critical analysis here; that ain't my field. Mostly I want to discuss these two works of art because a)both deeply moved me from my first encounter and continue to linger in my mind years later and b)they both leap to mind when I think about examples of flawed masterpieces.

Let's start with the film: Martin by George Romero. Romero will rightfully forever be known for changing horror filmmaking twice, once with Night of the Living Dead and again with Dawn of the Dead. Both of these groundbreaking movies are brilliant but Martin is my favorite Romero film. This striking 1977 vampire film may or may not contain a vampire. It is never stated if the titular character is, in fact, a supernatural creature. The film can be read either way and this ambiguity invites multiple levels of interpretation.

So far, so good--we are on familiar ground here. The first thing that separates this film from others of its ilk are the central performances. The deeply melancholic portrayal of Martin by John Amplas is some of the best acting I've seen in a horror film and it makes me sad his career never featured another starring role. There is a deep humanity in Amplas's interpretation of Martin and this humanity makes scenes where we'd normally paint him as a "villain" something deeper and more complex. We empathize with him, and when he eventually makes a human connection with a housewife who is as deeply lonely as he is, we care. Not because of brilliant writing or a masterfully constructed plotline, but because Amplas's vulnerable, tortured performance has opened the door to his raw heart. Their affair must end unhappily, and yet it still tears us apart. This bleak tale—a bleakness so common in the seventies, an era where happy endings in movies were in short supply—is also an achingly human story about loneliness and the futility of connection.

Why might one then consider this a flawed film? Setting aside aesthetics—if you are not comfortable with the grimy look and feel of movies shot on scrap film, then you are likely to struggle with Martin—what we have is a film made on the cheap in trying circumstances. It shows, and not always to the benefit of the film. Additionally, while John Amplas's performance is incredible, and Elayne Nadeau as Mrs. Santini brings pathos and loneliness to the fore in what could have been a stock role, the rest of the acting is largely nondescript, with Lincoln Maazel playing Tateh Cudah (Martin's uncle) far too broadly for my taste. His performance is at times is downright grating. The plotting is haphazard. Apparently the original cut was almost three hours and has long since been lost; a real tragedy as I wonder if the flow and tone would have been more consistent. Romero apparently wanted the film to be black and white and I have to say I don't think that would have worked at all. The film is much stronger with just Martin's fantasy/dream sequences in black and white. Lastly, the satire that sporadically pops up is in direct contrast to the downbeat mood of the film and I don't think it works that well...but then I don't generally care for comedy in my horror. Not that Martin is funny by any stretch of the imagination but there a handful of tonal shifts I find unintentionally jarring.

Yet you could argue that every one of these flaws contributes to the film's power by making it approachable. By making it human. The passion of the filmmakers bleeds through; this is a film made from a place of love. It is a downbeat film, perhaps even depressing, and it captures the grimness of late 70s working-class Pittsburgh in a way that a moneyed, theatrical film never could. It feels like a documentary. It conveys its moods—terror (the opening train sequence in particular, one the most genuinely disturbing scenes in Romero's ouerve), sadness, loneliness, fear and inevitability—as effectively as any horror movie I've watched. Profoundly moving. A masterpiece, flaws and all.

Now won't someone please get the rights and release it on Blu Ray? Even the DVD is out of print.

Another way a masterpiece may be considered flawed: it's not finished. In music this is not uncommon, as bands will often release demo versions of material or live versions that are considerably different in feel and execution than their studio counterparts. But how often do we hear of this in the world of writing? We assume that once a story or book has been published, it is in what the author would consider its final form. The exceptions to this are rare. One such exception is probably the most impactful work of fiction I've read in the last decade: Roberto Bolaño's 2666. There is a simple explanation as to why this book was published in an unfinished form: Bolaño died before it could be completed. No one saw the manuscript prior to his death. A month before his passing, Bolaño said there were still over a thousand pages to be revised. The paperback edition sitting on my shelf is just shy of 900 pages long, so we can't be sure what this means in terms of how much of the book he considered finished. We do know that the version available to us is not his complete intended vision. As a reader, I acknowledge this fact, and can also say it doesn't matter, because what he did leave us is a masterpiece, flaws and all.

There are five sections to the novel, and they are handily labeled as such: The Part about the Critics, The Part about Amalfitano, The Part about Fate, The Part about the Crimes and The Part about Archimboldi. Loosely connected, all are full of brilliant writing, but The Part about the Crimes hits like a punch in the gut, the most politically-charged and angry piece of fiction I’ve read in the last two decades. It accomplishes this without hectoring or lecturing, using plain everyday language that reads clinical and matter-of-fact. Upon reading it I was left despondent at how we fail those whose lives are on the margins (2666 covers, in a barely fictional sheen, the female homicides in Ciudad Juárez where an estimated 370 women and girls have been violently murdered or disappeared since 1993. I had never heard of these crimes prior to reading this book and was devastated to learn that they are real—and ongoing.) The writing in this section is terse and searingly personal, which prevents the horror and outrage from becoming numbing. It is art that has no time to play games.

For as harrowing as The Part about the Crimes is, it is but one part in a larger tapestry—the book is circular, the connections tenuous and incidental, one story spinning into the next. Yet as a reader I never felt lost. Is it a messy book? Yes, tremendously so. And yet the rawness of the unfinished story carries an emotional weight and power that I’m not sure would have been retained with further polishing and organization. For some, writing is about craft. For others, it is about the story. For the rare few, it is an absolute expression of their soul and the soul of the world they inhabit. 2666 is absolute expression, absolute storytelling and absolutely transcendent. The book lives, breathes and seethes with our daily struggle to exist and rise above our personal faults and the failures of our systems. Unlike other behemoth "literary" novels of the 21st century, 2666 isn't interested in playing clever games with the reader or showing off a deep knowledge of cultural ephemera. It cries for those who voices were violently silenced and holds up a mirror to the worst of humanity's tendencies--not just the violence, but how we treat those on the fringes of the society, those near and below the poverty line as lesser and ultimately disposable humans. The roughness around the edges make it a flawed masterpiece--and makes the story sing even louder.

The artist may chase perfection; whether they attain it and how it is defined is a subjective matter for each viewer/reader/listener. Flaws in even the greatest of masterworks go beyond making them more relatable; they help define the humanity of the piece through which more avenues for appreciation are opened. For this writer, these works bring forth a deeper experience which continues to enrich beyond initial contact. With a riot of colors they invite us into worlds both inner and outer that expand our perception. They inspire a flurry of emotions. They deepen my empathy. They cannot heal where I'm broken or correct my flaws, but they help me to understand them and inspire me to never stop learning and growing. Through them I feel the heart of the universe in its infinite complexity beating and hear its voices singing, my eyes open with wonder and awe.