A quiet stranger came into town one day . . .
Every now and then in practice, we see a patient who captures our attention with a dramatic childhood memory within the first few visits; then, defenses set in and the treatment settles into a focus upon the external details of day to day life until something triggers the return of the repressed memory. Billy Bob Thornton’s film, Sling Blade, is like such a patient.
Like the patient, uncertain whether to reveal or defend, Sling Blade keeps us uncertain about its purpose. We are never quite sure what kind of film we are watching. It begins in the unbearably quiet, slow motion world of the day room of a back ward of a mental hospital, leaving us wondering momentarily if we will be viewing a slowly developing psychological tale of mental illness. We soon learn that one of the patients, Carl, is to be released into a world that he has not seen since he was on the edge of pubescence. There are hints of something darker. Carl was hospitalized after committing a particularly gruesome murder. Two girls who have come to interview him for their school paper worry about his potential for violence. We are still not sure if we are watching a serious drama of rehabilitation or an additional sequel to Halloween or Friday the Thirteenth. It is at this point that the film captures our attention with with a gripping fantasy/screen memory in which we recognize elements of “soul murder”, incestuous wishes, the primal scene, and matricide.
In the film, Carl tells his story to the schoolgirl in a gravelly voice, punctuated with little grunts. “I reckon what you is wanting to know is what I’m a’doin’ in here. I reckon I’m in here cause I killed somebody. But I reckon what you is wantin’ to know is how come he killed somebody, so I’ll start at the front and tell you.” He lived his life in a shed outside his parents’ house, separated from the rest of the family, treated cruelly by other children when he did come out. His living conditions were basic and primitive. His father worked at the mill for a cruel employer with a son, Jesse Dixon, who was “more cruel than his Daddy was. He used to make quite a bit of sport of me when I was down there at the school house, used to take advantage of little girls there in the neighborhood.”
He commences to tell the story of the murder. “They used to say that my mother was a very pretty woman . . . I was settin’ out there in the shed one evening not doin’ too much a’nothin, just kind’a starin’ at the wall. Waitin’ on my mother come out give me my bible lesson. Well I heared a commotion up there in the house, so I run up on the screened in porch to see what was goin’ on. I looked in the winder’ there and I seen my mother layin’ on the floor without any clothes on. I seen Jesse Dixon layin’ on top’a her. He was havin’ his way with her. Well I just seen red. I picked up a Keiser blade that was sittin’ there by the screen door. Some folks call it a sling blade. I call it a Keiser blade. It’s got a long wood handle, kind’a like a ax handle, with a long blade on it shaped kind’er like a bananer, sharp on one edge and dull on th’other. It’s what the highway boys use to cut down weeds and what not. Well I went in there in the house, kind’a hit Jesse Dixon upside the head with it, knocked him off my mother. I reckon that didn’t quite satisfy me, so I hit him again with it in the neck with the sharp edge and just plum near cut his head off. My mother she jumped up and started hollerin’ ‘What’d you kill Jesse fer? What’d you kill Jesse fer?’ Come to find out I don’t reckon my mother minded what Jesse was doin’ to her. I reckon that made me madder’n what Jesse’d made me, so I taken the Keiser blade, some folks call it a sling blade, I call it a Keiser blade, and I hit my mother upside the head with it. Killed’er. Some folks is asked me, ‘If you had it to do over again would you do it the same way. I reckon I would. “
We cannot help being moved by Carl’s tale of deprivation and abuse, primal scene, revenge, and matricide. The story is quite disturbing, especially told in this simple, graphic, but undramatic style. We are moved first by his tale of abuse and isolation, with only slight hints of kindness—his mother coming out to read the bible to him. The word “cruel” comes up more than once, describing Jesse Dixon and his father, but clearly also applying to Carl’s treatment by his parents. We are disturbed and angered by both the child abuse and the story of the powerful bullies, Jesse Dixon and his father. There is a hint of sexuality when Carl says that his mother was considered a very pretty woman.
The description of the murders has classic primal scene elements. Carl is sitting in his shed, waiting for his mother, when he hears a commotion. He peers in and sees his mother lying naked with Jesse on top. In a subtle way, we have been made to feel Carl’s need for his mother and his being denied her attention by this unwanted commotion. Like the “Wolfman”, Freud’s (1918) patient whose dream of wolves led to the first reconstruction of the primal scene, Carl is awakened by the noise of intercourse and drawn to view the scene. Like the infant Wolfman, he appears to be an innocent, but as the story goes on, we are not sure how innocent he is. We get an ambiguous sense that he does and doesn’t know what is happening. His rage at his mother is because he realizes that she doesn’t mind what Jesse is doing to her, she is a collaborator. We both do and don’t understand why he kills her. Is he jealous, enraged over his own deprivation and denial of her attention and affection, enraged at her disregard for the values of the bible that appear to be their primary bind, upset at her faithlessness to his father or himself, enraged as a defense and expression of his own lust, or all of the above? What we have clearly are the themes of primal scene with its attendant teasing sexuality, the rage of the outsider, and the fantasy of revenge against the powerful, cruel man and the faithless woman.
Carl explains that he has been in the institution since, learning how to read the bible, sleeping in a good bed. The girl, who has been told not to ask any questions, takes a risk and asks Carl if he thinks he will ever kill again. He thinks for a moment and says, “I don’t reckon I got no reason to kill nobody.” With that simple statement, the fantasy and the powerful affects it engenders are pushed aside, effectively buried, as we go on with the tale of Carl’s rehabilitation.
That tale is set in motion when Carl refuses to shake hands with the schoolgirl as she is leaving, then tells the warden, “I reckon I got to get used to looking at perty people.” We finally see the opening title as Carl makes his first foray out into the world. He befriends a young boy, Frank, and we are comfortably placed in a story of an isolated mildly retarded former mental patient learning about the world and love through his relationship with a young boy who must find his own way into the world. At first, Carl wants to go back to the institution, but the warden sets him up with a job fixing engines and he is invited to live with Frank and his mother. As we might expect in such a film, the adults’ distrust of Carl is contrasted with the boy’s unquestioning acceptance of him. Frank shows Carl his “secret place”.
But even here, there are hints of the underlying trauma and violent fantasy. Frank’s father has died, and the boy misses him and the security he provided. His father had killed himself with a shotgun because he didn’t have the money to care for his family. Frank is worried about his mother’s boyfriend, Doyle, who is violent. He says his Daddy would kill Doyle if he was still alive. His mother’s other friend, Vaughan, is gay and unable to stand up to Doyle. The film defends against those images, giving us hope that Carl and Frank will help heal one another. Carl is protective of Frank’s childhood, refusing to tell him how his own mother had died, instead saying that “You need to think about good thoughts while you’s still a boy.”
We do see Carl adjusting to his new life and family—fixing engines on his job, meeting a retarded woman who brings him flowers, talking with Frank’s mother, Linda, while she makes him biscuits late at night, playing football with Frank and his friends, and finally receiving baptism in the river.
But despite the surface comfort of this “gentle” tale of a retarded and mentally ill man finding a family and of a boy finding a male friend to help guide him, the film’s buried tensions will not abate. Doyle’s bullying abuse of Frank, his mother, Carl, Vaughan, and everyone else begins to take center stage. We see Doyle bullying first Linda and Frank, then a group of his own friends. He goes into a drunken rage, violently throws them out of Linda’s house, and threatens to kill Linda if she ever leaves him. Only Linda and Frank stand up to him, Linda ordering him to leave and Frank throwing things at him after Doyle pushes his mother. Carl sits impassively through this display.
In the film’s background, we are repeatedly reminded of paternal abuse and sons’ murderous hatred of their fathers. Frank tells Carl he wants to kill Doyle. Vaughan tells Carl that his own father was very abusive and that he had prayed nightly for his father’s death, but finally decided to stop wasting his energy hating him. Carl seems unmoved, perhaps uncomprehending at times, but his hatred of his own father begins to come into focus.
He tells Frank that when he was about six or eight years old, his parents had a premature baby. His father brought the baby to him wrapped in a bloody towel and told him to throw it away. The baby brother was alive, but Carl, not knowing how to care for a baby, decided to put it into a shoebox and bury it more properly. As so often happens, we come to see that the traumatic memory that started the film is one of a series.
Once settled in his new surroundings, Carl walks over to his old home, inspecting the shed he had lived in. He finds his father alone in the house, sitting in his chair surrounded by liquor bottles, talking to himself in a confused, demented stupor. Carl tells him, “I’m your boy.” His father says, “I aint got no boy.” Carl tries to tell his father about himself, but is rebuffed. Finally, Carl confronts him with surprising clarity and insight. “You ought not done that to y’boy. I studied on killin’ you. I studied about it quite a bit. But I don’t reckon there aint no need for it if all you gonna do is sit there in that chair. You’ll be dead soon enough, and the world’ll be shut of you. You ought not killed my little brother. He ought’a had a chance to growed up. He would’a had fun sometime.” He leaves his father to his confusion and visits his brother’s grave. It is after that that he asks to be baptised, approaching Linda and Doyle in her bedroom in the middle of the night holding a hammer.
Despite this rising to the surface of traumatic memories and tensions, it is still easy for the viewer to be lulled by this tender family drama, with growing insight and depth of emotion, perhaps reassured by Carl’s containment of his murderous wishes towards his father. But the problem of Doyle is unresolved. In fact it escalates. After Carl’s baptism ceremony, Doyle tells Frank that he is moving in. He tells Frank that he, Frank, is the only problem between Doyle and Linda. He tells him that Carl cannot stay there any more. At one point, he starts to hit Frank, but Carl grabs his arm and tells him, “Don’t you never lay another hand on that boy, you understand me?”
This is the first time that Carl confronts Doyle. As he prepares to leave, he meets Linda and tells her, “You a good Mama to that boy. You care for him. You work hard to care for him. You light him up in his eyes. I’ve seen it. That boy wouldn’t know what to do without you . . . You been real good to me, too. It’s not everybody make biscuits in the middle of the night. You and that boy has given me a good feeling.” (Carl has re-found a mother.) He goes to Frank at his secret place. He tells Frank that just because he won’t be around it doesn’t mean he doesn’t care for him, that wherever he’ll be they’ll always be friends. He gives Frank his books. Then he tells Frank not to go home that night because Doyle would have it in for him. He tells him to go to Vaughan’s house with his mother. He reassures Frank that everything would be all right, and tells him that he loves him. As he walks off, Frank calls after him, “Carl,” but Carl keeps walking. Carl goes to Vaughan and tells him to bring Linda and Frank to his house that night. As he walks off, Vaughan also calls after him, “Carl.”
A change has come over Carl. He is suddenly not the innocent, retarded man that we have been watching. He is eloquent, decisive, and in control. Perhaps we are to believe that coming to terms with his hatred of his father and his little brother’s death have freed him of something. Perhaps we are led to feel that to some degree his retarded innocence has been a symptom of his need to suppress the violent fantasies and memories that were presented in the “opening session” of the film.
We accept the change, in part because the film has changed. The tension of Doyle’s abuse has reached a peak. It now frightens and enrages us. Doyle threatens the film’s happy ending. Carl will be separated from Linda and Frank. Frank will be bullied and abused by Doyle. Within the rules of the kind of film we think we are watching, there is no solution. We have no way of gratifying our murderous fantasies to rid ourselves of the abusive Doyle within this gentle, civilized movie about rehabilitation and mutual respect. Like the patient who attempts to defend against his traumatic memory and violent fantasies, we are faced with the dilemma that solving this problem violently threatens our values and self-image. In a patient, the solution to this problem would require a re-structuring, the creation of a new compromise formation. The film does something similar. It takes on a new structure, one borrowed from another film.
The film I have in mind is the western, Shane, suggested perhaps by Frank calling out Carl’s name as he walks away for the last time. (This is repeated by Vaughan.) Whether intended or not, it may quietly remind us of another boy who cried out after his friend—a friend who had saved his family—”Shane! Come back!” There have been other films modeled on the plot of Shane, but this is probably the most unusual. What they have in common is that a young boy (in Pale Rider it is an adolescent girl) befriends a stranger who rides into town mysteriously with a secret violent past. He is a killer who cannot live within the structure of the family, but he has come, ultimately, to save the family by taking on himself the violence that needs to be done. He is kind, but capable of killing the evil men who would threaten our security and our chance to live with love and happiness.
Carl takes his place amongst these mysterious heroes, gratifying our fantasy of having such a strong, kind man to carry out the violence needed to redress abuse. After arranging for Frank and Linda to be away from the house, he comes in and kills Doyle with a sharpened lawn mower blade, a weapon similar to the sling blade of the title, his original weapon of choice. The primal scene that opened the film has been resurrected, now augmented with the rage over the abuse of the little baby, Carl’s brother. In one sense, there is something poetic about the notion that Carl could not live in the world because the world had too much evil, but this is also the gratification of a fantasy for which we may feel unprepared, but have been meticulously prepared for by the mounting tension of the film.
There are some obvious differences between Sling Blade and Shane. Most importantly, the boy in Shane has a father who is strong and brave and quite willing to fight his own battle against the wild cowboys and their hired gun who are trying to drive him and the other settlers off the range. But he can’t fight that battle because he is a father and husband, needed by his family, and because he cannot stand for paternal morality, civilization and family while killing his enemies. Although strong and brave, he is not a trained gunfighter. Gunfighters, like Shane, who happens onto this embattled family much like Carl does, may want to be part of a family, but they must sacrifice that wish in order to protect the family that can’t have them. The boy in Shane is fascinated by the powerful, phallic gunfighter. In effect, Shane becomes an alternate father, one who can kill the enemy, act out the murderous fantasy, because he is expendable.
In Shane , the danger is clearly from outside the family. That is a film that straightforwardly presents the fantasy in its simplistic, least conflicted form. As in most cowboy pictures, the good people act out their aggression only when provoked, and all murderous intention comes from the outside, the bad guys. The viewer can enjoy the aggressive, even murderous fantasies with little conflict of conscience. The family in Shane is intact and loving. The father is a good man who resorts to violence only to protect his family. He cannot kill the bad guys because he is a father who must be distanced from murder.
Fathers are dealt with much more ambivalently in Sling Blade. The most positive father in the film, Frank’s father, has abandoned his family, having killed himself because of his failure to care for them. Carl’s father is openly cruel and uncaring, a murderer of his baby boy. Vaughan tells us that his father was abusive, that he had prayed nightly for his father’s death. Doyle, Frank’s would-be stepfather, is a violent, abusive alcoholic. Fathers in this film are at best weak and at worst dangerous. Murderous aggression towards father is barely contained and displaced. Carl, enraged by the primal scene, has killed a man who was having sex with his mother. He later tells his father that he had thought about killing him. Vaughan has prayed for his father’s death. Frank expresses the wish to kill Doyle and wishes that his father were alive to do just that.
In Shane, the negative aspects of father are displaced to the bad men. In Sling Blade, the danger has infiltrated the family, in a pattern that we know to be all too common. It is because it is inside the family that the law is held in abeyance. We are upset and confused at seeing the violence within the family, and upset at seeing murder in a contemporary, close to home setting, more real to us than the mythic setting of the cowboy picture. But ultimately, both films resolve our ambivalence over murderous aggression in the same manner, by displacing it to a loving but violent stranger.
Carl, like Shane, is a stranger with a violent past who enters the family for a short time. Like Shane, he embodies the violent potential of the father and towards the father. He satisfies Frank’s fantasy of a father who would return to kill Doyle (like Odysseus) and, in a brotherly role in which he is an extension of the boy, Frank’s fantasy of killing Doyle, himself.
The fantasy is that there is someone else who will do the killing and take the responsibility, leaving the family members intact, uncorrupted, and unafraid. In both films, the chosen agent of vengeance is a loner. Shane tells the boy, Joey, to tell his mother that everything is all right, that there are no more guns in the valley. His is one of the guns that must be removed. The punishment for accepting the necessary violence is banishment. In Sling Blade, Carl returns to the institution, but he is changed. Despite his banishment, he now has a family and has the pride of knowing that he did what he had to do to keep it safe. We, the viewers, can identify with Frank, rid of paternal violence, but innocent of the crime. We can also identify with Carl, who gratifies our fantasy of having the power to rid ourselves of our enemy and the nobility to do it at great personal sacrifice. Carl’s banishment from the family is what we expect as punishment for our violent fantasies, but through Carl we can experience that banishment without guilt or shame and can maintain a fundamental tie to the family.