The Catholicity of Columbo

                  A suave, sophisticated figure of high society has committed a crime; a most ingenious crime, ridding him of some pestering trouble that threatened to upset his cozy little world. The figure is wealthy, well-educated, and intelligent, and he’s confident that no one will even suspect him of the crime.

                  Then, little by little, his elaborately constructed scheme is pulled to ribbons by a chatty, disheveled, cigar-chomping, one-eyed Italian in a dirty raincoat. 

                  That is a summary of both the formula and essential appeal of Columbo: the long-running detective series starring the late Peter Falk as the ultimate unassuming detective. Columbo (no first name is ever given, though sharp-eyed viewers might spot it on his badge) is an expert at employing what is known as “obfuscating stupidity.” That is, he deliberately acts much dumber than he really is. Or rather, he doesn’t bother to bring his personality up to the level of his intellect. He acts pretty much like he looks; a blue-collar cop with little formal education and not much culture. But behind this he has a mind like a steel trap, and though he has only one eye, it’s a sharp one.

                  Columbo himself denies being especially intelligent; rather, he credits his success to two things. One is that he puts in the time to learn and understand the facts of the case, and to pay attention to every detail. In this he has a kind of philosophy; it’s the little details, the things you pass over, that you don’t think of that hang you. The murderers are usually done in by things they simply didn’t consider, or didn’t think worth noticing: the ink ribbon on a typewriter, the sound of a clock striking the half-hour, or even the way someone’s shoelaces are tied. Just as they didn’t think Columbo himself was worth noticing…until he makes himself impossible to ignore. Columbo works in stages; usually he’ll pick up on some small clue or inconsistency right away that points him to his target. Then the rest of the episode is working this one hole in the story bigger and bigger until the whole thing comes down on the murderer’s head.

                  The other thing? Even simpler: murder is his job. He’s an expert. The murderers are all amateurs, usually on their first or second attempt. Smart as they are, this is his game and they’re out of their league. But since Columbo gives off such a convincing air of befuddlement and unsophistication most don’t realize how out-classed they are until the last moment. In at least one episode Columbo confesses to the murderer that he suspected him the moment they met. When the man protests that this is impossible, Columbo explains: having been told that the man he had just eaten dinner with was poisoned, the murderer came right over to help the police. Any ordinary man would have rushed to the hospital to have himself examined. These are the things the murderers never even consider, but which Columbo sees through immediately.

Columbo’s investigative technique owes quite a lot to Chesterton’s Father Brown, who was one of the inspirations for the character (they also share a dumpy, unassuming appearance and both rely on their extensive professional experience as much as any innate intelligence). The technique involves slipping under the radar and getting into the perpetrator’s head to figure out what kind of person they are, and what sort of person in what frame of mind would do the kinds of things the facts indicate. Columbo focuses as much on the why as on the what and how. In some cases, even more. It’s always a question of why: why wouldn’t someone be relieved to hear he wasn’t the target of an assassination attempt? Why would someone angrily demand to see a subordinate in the morning and then genially brush him off in the afternoon? Why does a man suddenly break a long-standing habit just about the time another man disappears?

To answer these questions, Columbo ingratiates himself with his target by using his own unassuming nature to his advantage: flattering and complimenting the killer, inviting suggestions, often pretending to go along with their version of the events even as he silently collects the clues he’ll use to destroy them.

                  Though Columbo’s persona isn’t completely put on either; he really is a simple blue-collar cop. He likes football and the movies, can’t sing, is a good cook, and he plays a mean game of pool. He makes near-constant references to his never-seen wife and other family members, occasionally calling up the former to ask about dinner or what he should pick up on the way home from work. He drives a beaten-up old car (which Falk himself discovered and brought to the set as suitable for the character) and is sometimes accompanied by his shiftless basset hound, Dog. He served in the Army during Korea, and he estimates his income at $11,000 a year. The point of the series isn’t that a brilliant detective might act like a simple man; it’s that a simple man can also be a brilliant detective. 

                  Meanwhile, his opponents are, almost to a man, wealthy, sophisticated, and well-educated society rollers. They’re the kinds of people who attend black-tie parties, run multi-million-dollar businesses, or have several books in print (Columbo often asks for an autograph). Once he tackled a foreign diplomat, and on another occasion, a Senator. Some were facing exposure for past crimes, others faced the prospect of losing their life’s work, still others wanted to get rid of a rival or an irritant or someone who stood in the way of their growing even richer. Whatever the reason, they all commit murder, and so bring Columbo upon themselves. And all their wealth, power, and influence doesn’t change anything. Indeed, in some of the best episodes the thing that gets the villains is the very cleverness of their schemes; in attempting to divert any suspicion from themselves, they in fact trap themselves. It is the sense of their own superiority and sophistication that finally destroys them. “You tried to contrive the perfect alibi,” Columbo tells one particularly unpleasant murderer with evident relish. “And it’s your perfect alibi that gonna hang you.”

Another interesting point is the contrast between the oft-chaotic and deviant family and sexual lives of the suspects and Columbo’s own cheerfully unseen domesticity. The detective often relates rueful or humorous anecdotes about his wife, but the idea of his being unfaithful or leaving her is as ridiculous as the ide of his committing a murder himself. We never once doubt that, for all we never see them, Columbo loves his wife and kids and is perfectly happy in his marriage. He also sometimes lists off anecdotes about his broad extended family; his nephews, nieces, brothers, sisters, in-laws, and so on, all of whom he appears to be on perfectly good terms with (he claims that advice from one of his nephews – a botanist – was key to cracking at least one case).

Meanwhile, the killers tend to have unhappy or immoral family habits: most are in the midst of non-marital or extra-marital affairs. Many also have strained or hateful relationships with their siblings or parents or in-laws (this state of affairs supplies many a victim and motive). In short, they live the stereotypical ‘glamorous’ lifestyle of the rich and powerful: no rules, no boundaries. And this is often the exact thing that leads them into murder.

Columbo himself never judges or admonishes them for this kind of behavior, usually acknowledging it with little more than a grimace and an averted eye. But the fact is that the easy-going, blue-collar domesticity we glimpse in Columbo’s anecdotes is really a good deal more attractive than the no-rules, no-boundaries lifestyle of his opponents. As a matter of fact, several of the murderers – most notably Johnny Cash’s Gospel singer – commit their crimes in order to achieve this kind of glamorous life, only to find that it isn’t as glamorous as they thought it would be.

                  Columbo is, really, a wonderfully Catholic character. I don’t just mean that Columbo himself is, presumably, a Catholic (being a thoroughbred Italian). I mean he is universal; he looks at everyone and everything as though it has value, and he can find goodness even in the murderers he hunts. In one episode he has a rather remarkable speech in which he admits (to a bunch of mystery fans) that he admires many of the people he pursues, because they’re often very smart, talented, and even nice people. He quickly clarifies that this doesn’t mean he approves what they do, only he sees that they are not just murderers, but people. He hates the sin, but he often loves the sinner.

                  Indeed, there are a number of episodes where he genuinely bonds with the killer. Among the most poignant are Donald Pleasance’s wine connoisseur, with whom he shares a taste for excellence, Patrick McGoohan’s dignified Army Colonel, who sees in Columbo a kindred spirit, and Theodore Bikel’s Mensa member, who finds in the end that the detective is the only person in his life he can really connect to. Other times, when faced with truly cold-blooded or overly-smug villains, Columbo is quite capable of expressing his disgust with them. “I respect your talents,” he tells one. “But I don’t like anything else about you.”

Columbo is a relatively rare fictional detective who remains firmly aware of his opponents’ humanity, even as he works to have them arrested. The episodes are almost as much character studies of the murderers as they are mysteries. We get to know them very well; their hopes, fears, desires, and generally the things that make them tick. In this it preaches another important Catholic message: that murderers are not inhuman monsters, but just ordinary people; people who, under normal circumstances, would be perfectly pleasant and even virtuous. Murder, we see, is not an identity, as though there were murderers and non-murderers; it’s just a sin like any other, a conscious choice that a man makes. A man doesn’t commit murder because he is a murderer; he’s a murderer because he chooses to commit murder. And a man commits murder for the same reason he commits any other sin: because it would be convenient for him and he thinks he can get away with it. Sometimes a man becomes a murderer because he is already an extremely proud or unpleasant person. Other times he’s as upright or even kind a person as you could hope to meet.

Thus, Columbo studiously avoids the problem that many other police dramas fall into of turning the murderers into gratuitous caricatures. They may be unpleasant, but the villains are never caricatures, nor do they ever feel like the writers had any particular axe to grind. Even the escaped Nazi has a degree of humanity to him. He replies to a reminder about his past with a weary “I was 21; I was merely a boy.” I don’t know about you, but I can’t remember the last time that any movie or TV show ever allowed a Nazi to actually make a plea for himself that, in other contexts, is often held to be a viable excuse.

That is the great thing about Columbo: it’s all about a working-class Joe taking down rich and powerful snobs, but it dares to extend its sympathy to the snobs. Here is a show that never loses sight of the common humanity of the rich and the poor, and even the criminal. No one, not even the most repulsive, is simply dismissed as beneath notice, just as no one, not even the wealthiest and most talented, is above the law.

And one more thing…

Another source of Columbo’s appeal is the sheer caliber of acting talent on display. One of the three distinguishing ‘marks’ of the show’s formula is to have the murderer of the week played by some of the most famous and talented actors of the time (the other two were the ‘reverse-mystery’ style and Falk himself). I already mentioned Donald Pleasance, Patrick McGoohan, and Johnny Cash, but other stars included Vera Miles, Dick van Dyke, Robert Culp, Ricardo Montalban, Jose Ferrer, Leonard Nimoy, and Joyce Van Patten. That’s just off the top of my head. The supporting casts also tend to be strong, and have featured the likes of Ida Lupino, Myrna Loy, Mako, and Vincent Price (who surprisingly enough does not play the murderer). It’s a parade of talent that, more often than not, is very well served by the writers and makes the show a joy to watch just for the sake of the acting talent.

Vivat Christus Rex! 

'Chuck' and the Christian Life

                  Last week I finally finished Chuck, the excellent spy-comedy series that ran from 2007 to 2012. While the show certainly has problematic elements (such as a total embrace of current sexual mores), it also has enough heart, thoughtfulness, and decency to make up for it.

                  The story: Chuck Bartowsky’s life is going nowhere fast. He’s very smart, but he was expelled from college after his best friend framed him for cheating and took his girlfriend, and now he’s working a dead-end job at the local ‘Buy More’ (basically Best Buy with a green rather than blue color pattern) and living with his loving, though concerned sister, Ellie, and her overachiever boyfriend, Devon (nicknamed ‘Captain Awesome’). His free time is mostly devoted to playing video games with his slacker friend, Morgan.

                  All that changes when, one night, he gets an email from his former best friend which, when opened, downloads the top-secret ‘Intersect’ computer – a complete database of all the intel from every government agency – into his brain. The CIA and NSA quickly dispatch their top agents – glamorous Sarah Walker and intimidating John Casey, respectively – to recover it. Finding that Chuck is more capable than he seems, the government decides, for now, to allow him to keep his life while serving as a mobile database for covert missions, with Sarah and Casey assigned as his ‘handlers.’ Sarah poses as his new girlfriend, Casey as a co-worker at the Buy More, and all are closely monitored by the no-nonsense General Beckman.

                  What makes the show so good, and stops it from being merely another spy-movie parody, is the care and honesty it brings to the relationships. A large part of the story is Chuck’s struggles to maintain his connection to his family and friends in the face of his new spy-life. This becomes increasingly difficult, as his undercover activities force him to repeatedly disappoint and lie to everyone he cares most about. As Chuck’s normally a very honest and nice guy, this puts a great strain on him and everyone else.

                  Moreover, Chuck’s “fake relationship” with Sarah also becomes more and more difficult to maintain, both because of his natural honesty and because he’s genuinely fallen for her. The delicate balancing act of pretending to be in a relationship with someone he desperately wants to be in a relationship with is depicted with great care and pathos.

                  This emotional honesty is mixed with a cheerfully cartoonish version of spy-craft; missions that require tuxedoes and dresses, vodka-martinis, secret lairs, glamorous assassins, massive thugs, and super-villains with gloriously silly weapons. The contrast between the down-to-earth, carefully written world of Chuck’s emotional life and the ‘everything-and-the-kitchen-sink’ approach to the spy life works surprisingly well. It emphasizes the alluring contrast between his dull, old life and his exciting new one, while at the same time making us understand his desire to get back to his old life. The spy world may be fun, but it’s his normal, boring life that really matters.

                  Which brings me to the ostensible point of this piece: the themes of Chuck:

1.     Keep Things in Perspective:

                 

             

    

             One of the main sources of humor on the show is, as noted, the contrast between Chuck’s normal life at the Buy More and his more exciting life as a spy. But the really funny thing is that Chuck’s co-workers at the Buy More don’t treat it as normal. Indeed, they take the Buy More at least as seriously as Chuck takes international security. Almost every episode the Buy More crew are engaged in some insane scheme, some inner-store power struggle, or some ‘mission’ to boost their business, which they latch onto with Marine-like dedication.

Meanwhile, Chuck, Sarah, and Casey are off, say, trying to recover a biological-weapon before it can be sold to the World’s Greatest Terrorist™.

                  The point here is an amusing satire of the things we think important – office politics, bottom-line initiatives, group dynamics, and so on – and that really don’t matter at all in the grand scheme of things. So what if the Buy More doesn’t out-perform its hated rival, the Large Mart? Who really cares who gets the assistant manager position? Is acquiring the latest new computer before it hits the shelves really that big a deal? And is it worth being cruel, selfish, or dishonest?

                  Well, no it isn’t. Not in a world where crazy corporate executives plot to take over the CIA via internet. But, in another way, it kind of is important. It’s their lives. It may not be as important as saving the world, but saving the world is done precisely for the sake of people like this. The world is kept safe for Democracy because Democracy means ordinary people like the Buy More crew, or Ellie and Awesome, being able to live their ordinary lives. In a way, you could say that Chuck, Sarah, and Casey recover that bio weapon because it would have prevented such ‘unimportant’ things as the struggles of the Buy More.

                  There must be ‘big’ things: governments, armies, nations, and spies, and they are grand and glorious and good in their own ways. But there must also be ‘small’ things: homes, families, friendships, co-workers, and Buy Mores, and it is for their sake that the ‘big’ things exist at all. A small family around their Thanksgiving table, or a retail storefront prepping for Black Friday are the ends; the CIA, NSA, and so on are the means. If they don’t promote and protect such moments, all the spy-craft, underground lairs, glamorous parties, and firefights are simply a waste of time. This dynamic is a universal part of the human experience, and it is well to keep in mind.

                  On a related note:

2.     Don’t Despise the Ordinary:

                  Chuck’s life is your standard boring, underachieving lifestyle. And yet, throughout the first few seasons, he keeps trying to get back to it, or if not exactly to what he had before, at least to some kind of ordinary life. It is, as noted above, what really matters to him, because that is where his friends and family are. In one episode Chuck finds that his relationship with Morgan is fraying due to his spy-life. When Sarah fails to see the big deal, since Morgan is a slacker and an idiot, Chuck responds with a story illustrating how Morgan has been there for Chuck whenever he needed him the most. It was the simple, ordinary things, like inviting him over to play video games all night after his mom disappeared, which made a difference. Those were the important things, more important than high-profile meetings and international incidents.  

                  The contrast is interesting: the spy-world is glamorous and exciting, but it’s shallow. You can’t have real relationships, only quick flings to burn off energy. You simply don’t hang around anyone or anything long enough to really build memories or friendships. Meanwhile the ordinary world may be boring, but it’s deep. There are real, tangible emotions and relationships here. Morgan and Chuck care about each other in a way that spies, even friendly spies, don’t or can’t. More than once there are scenes where Sarah finds herself standing awkwardly to one side while Chuck mingles freely with his family and friends, looking on wistfully at a world she has never known.

                  Chuck wants to get back to his ordinary life because he knows that’s where his roots are. That’s where the things that make him really happy are to be found. That’s where real opportunity is. He enjoys the spy-life, but he knows that there’s no future there for him.

                  Both Casey and Sarah, steeped in the glamorous, shallow life of the spy, are at first contemptuous of Chuck’s ordinary life. But as they spend more time around him, they come to appreciate it and understand his longing for it, and even to come to desire it themselves. Which brings us to:

3.     The Allure of Goodness:

                  There’s a lovely dynamic in the show: as time goes on, Chuck grows from a terrified, awkward bumbler to a genuinely skilled and intelligent spy. At the same time, Sarah and (especially) Casey start off as cold, cynical killing machines, but the more time they spend with Chuck the more his own honesty and kindness rub off on them. They grow into warmer, friendlier, and more caring people. And they slowly turn from literally wanting to kill each other into honest-to-goodness friends.

                  Sarah and Casey are both long-term spies. They’ve never been around anyone or in any place long enough to build any real relationships. But now, effectively stuck in Burbank, surrounded by Chuck’s family and friends, and forced to work with the same people week after week, they begin to build them.

                  The two spies, who are trained to suppress their emotions, to follow all orders, and to be remorseless and detached from other people, begin, perhaps for the first time, to experience real goodness on a regular basis, and find that they like it. They come to appreciate Chuck’s honesty and gentleness and, what’s more, to desire to emulate it themselves. They find, slowly, that they want to be able to trust people, to be honest and open, and to care about others. And by degrees, they do. They put down roots, they build friendships, they learn to trust and to be honest with one another.

                  In the process, they find that they’re happier than they ever thought they would be. Indeed, in contrasting their characters at the start of the show with the ones they have at the end, you wonder whether they’ve ever been happy at all before they started to emulate Chuck. Sarah becomes warm, smiling, and good-humored; not taking herself so seriously and acting much more relaxed around others. Casey finds himself forging friendships and familial bonds, becoming protective and caring of other people, and developing a surprisingly perceptive ear for emotions, which he uses to give his friends relationship advice.

                  What it is, as noted above, is that the spies, seeing the depths and joy in the ‘ordinary’ world, recognize the goodness in them and feel a natural attraction to it. They want to experience it for themselves, and finding that they can’t as they now are, they change so as to be able to. Goodness, especially deep, rich goodness like that, is intensely alluring. Maybe not at first, while the shallower goods of excitement and physical pleasure still beckon, but the more you’re exposed to it, the more irresistible it becomes.

                  And, as they become better people, Sarah and Casey also become better spies. Learning to trust and care for each other, they develop into a much more formidable force than they would have been otherwise. It allows them to read situations better by noting each other’s behavior, to push themselves further than they would ordinarily be able to, and even, when it comes down to it, to tear down conspiracies and unknown enemies, because they know going in who is on their side and who isn’t.

                   

4.     The Importance of Family

                 

 

                  Finally, perhaps the key theme in Chuck is family. Chuck’s sister, Ellie, is the most important person in his life, his emotional rock, and maintaining his relationship with her is his first priority. Meanwhile, major story arcs revolve around Chuck’s hunt for his long lost parents and the consequences – emotional and otherwise – of this search.

                  The broad dynamic of the show’s characterization has Chuck’s immediate circle coalescing into an odd but effective extended family. Distrustful characters learn to open up, dislike turns into affection and care, couples get married and start families. His extended family is what keeps Chuck stable and, more importantly, morally centered. It is the foundation of his life.

                  The interesting thing is that none of the lead characters had particularly stable family lives. Chuck and Ellie’s mother and father vanished without a trace while they were children, forcing her to raise him. Sarah’s father is a con man and her mother is…complicated. Casey, meanwhile, turns out to have considerable family related baggage of his own.

                  But the characters manage, despite everything, to forge out real, happy family units despite their unpromising backgrounds. This mirrors, in a sense, the way Chuck turns out, despite his completely unpromising start, to grow into a surprisingly competent spy. From out of the wreckage of their lives, the characters struggle, through love, loyalty, and friendship to forge something better for themselves.

                  What this ‘better’ thing turns out to be is family. Family – a real, solid, loving, normal family – is the Holy Grail of the series; the thing that everyone ultimately ends up longing for. Though, as noted, the show takes unchaste behavior such as living together before marriage for granted, it also portrays marriage and family as the goal of any serious relationship. Towards the end it even skewers things like pre-nuptial agreements and easy divorce, and dares to suggest that a successful, professional woman would really prefer to stay at home with her new baby instead.

                  In short, Chuck is far from what you’d call a ‘Christian’ show: religion is pretty much non-existent in the character’s lives, the worldview is pretty much wholly secular (at least it doesn’t, as far as I can remember, engage in the casual religion bashing so common these days). But it is steeped in what you might call the most Christian aspects of secular morality: family, friendships, the allure of love and honesty, and the dignity of ordinary life. Outside the sexual aspect (which, to be fair, does come in a good deal), the show is wholesome and uplifting; the violence is frequent, but cartoonish and almost always justified in context. Issues of honesty, fidelity, and responsibility are handled with care and thoughtfulness and the show typically comes down on the right side of all of them. It’s all around a great show. 

Vivat Christus Rex!

Gomer Pyle and Goodness

                Last night, while procrastinating when I should have been writing, I stumbled across the following clip.

                I don’t know about you, but I found that profoundly moving and inspiring in a way that is very rare today. I can’t really describe it any other way but goodness; the sheer, uncomplicated goodness of the clip simply radiates from it nearly every second. The simple plight of being too nervous to perform, the kind, unaffected advice offered by the guard, the beauty of the image of a Marine standing in reverence before one of the giants of his nation, reading and taking inspiration from the immortal words of Lincoln, and finally the raw power of the song itself, performed with every ounce of Jim Nabors’ considerable talent.

                This is goodness, the raw, naked kind that fills you, warms you, and lifts your heart. It shows not only great talent, but also great good-will, a fondness for its audience that wants to leave the viewer happy, feeling saturated by the sheer good being expressed. This is the True America compressed into a few short moments of film.

                I don’t know about you, but I would rather have that eight-minute clip than the entire run of The Sopranos or Family Guy or any other recent television show. Because, while the writers of these shows may be very talented indeed (I haven’t seen more than a few clips of them, which are all I want to see), they’re not using their talents to produce anything worth watching. Ambiguity, crassness, debauchery, evil, cruelty; that’s what you’re directing your skills to showing? Well, the writers of Gomer Pyle might not have had your talents, but they sure used such talents they had a hell of a lot better! It’s like the difference between Picasso, who used his great talent to cynically cater to the whims of the elite and make a fortune, but who confessed that he didn’t consider himself a real artist, and Bougereau, who simply sought to find and express beauty without caring whether it was ‘in fashion.’

                Most people prefer The Sopranos to Gomer Pyle, just like most people prefer Picasso to Bougereau. That’s their choice, but I think they’re wrong to do so. I think we are all too often dazzled by displays of talent into forgetting to ask “wait, what are they actually saying?” Sophistry, the use of cleverness and subtlety to obscure the truth, isn’t confined to oratory. In any art there are two facets: goodness and beauty. A good work that isn’t beautiful is simply a bad piece of art. A beautiful work that isn’t good is something detestable and dangerous. Great art is both. Simple trash, like you find in the average modern art gallery, is neither. Many things today are either good (expressing truth or virtue) without being beautiful (being unskilled and boring), or beautiful (being done with talent and inspiration) without being good (expressing evil ideas). The clip from Gomer Pyle is, in its modest way, both. That sets it head and shoulders above most of the stuff we see today.

                I didn’t mean to turn this into another piece complaining about the state of the modern world. It just goes to show how desperate I (and, I think most people) are for some simple goodness. We’re so glib, so cynical, so soft and jellified that we hardly know what to do when we run up against something solid and real and excellent. For me, I find it to be like a cold draft of water in a desert; it’s wonderful, but it also reminds me of the fact that I’m in a desert, and that even modern shows that I like usually don’t have this kind of raw goodness to them (about the only exception I can think of offhand are some parts of Avatar: The Last Airbender).

                I hate it. I hate the fact that this sort of thing has become so rare. I hate the fact that so many children are growing up without ever encountering it. I hate the cynical, sophistic mindset that says what we have now is an improvement because it’s ‘better written’ or ‘more true to life.’ It’s like the critic who claimed that an obscene, pedophilic photograph counted as ‘art’ because of its ‘lighting and composition’ (and no, I did not make that example up). In both cases it may even be true, but so what? It doesn’t change the fact that its ugly, crass, and devoid of virtue.

                I’m frankly sick of giving nasty bits of dreariness a pass because they’re well-made or clever. Give me something good, for pity’s sake, if you even know how!

Vive Christus Rex!