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If a picture is worth a thousand words, then writer/director/producer Tony Kaye's black-and-white, 15-years-in-the-making documentary on the abortion debate could be worth hundreds of thousands of words.
The groundbreaking film was recently shown here on campus as part of the MJC Civic Engagement Project’s Fall Film and Lecture Series. Its title, Lake of Fire, is derived from the biblical description of hell in the Book of Revelation. If you find such a title to be more appropriate for a horror flick than for a documentary about abortion, you would not be far off.
It distinctly feels like a horror film. The opening credits feature eerie liturgical music and candles, evoking a very spooky and somber mood. And its many horrifying visuals, including footage of actual abortions being performed, work to reinforce its tenebrific character.
A documentary film with a running time of 152 minutes might ordinarily feel too cumbersome for a wide audience, but that’s not the case here. The film’s drama is so gripping that you hardly notice how much time goes by. The visuals are eye-catching. The interviewees are fascinating.
Because Kaye’s objective was to be fair and balanced in his presentation of both sides, there is no narrator to guide you. Kaye simply lets the interviews and graphic visuals speak for themselves. He maintains this balance by showing both horrific abortions and horrific scenes of crimes against abortion providers. Without any commentary telling you how to feel, you come away sensing the contradiction inherent in the views of the violent, extremist pro-lifers. After all, how can one be pro-life while advocating the murder of those who you disagree with?
All of the text in the film, including the title, is first shown upside down before being flipped right side up. Without saying anything, Kaye is urging the viewer to be willing to at least consider the other side of the debate and understand why someone might take that side.
Kaye's mission to present both sides is also very likely the reason he chose for the film to be completely black-and-white. Much of the footage was filmed years apart, but because everything is black-and-white, 15 years of footage is seamlessly edited in a way that makes it feel like it was filmed all at once.
Kaye has mostly succeeded in being objective. But the film does have two major flaws.
The first is that it pits intellectual academics like Noam Chomsky, Peter Singer and Alan Dershowitz against mostly radical pro-lifers. With the exception of Norma McCorvey, the now pro-life "Roe" of Roe v. Wade, and Nat Hentoff, a pro-life atheist, the pro-life side is left without a solid intellectual defense. If Kaye wanted to show the very best arguments from both sides, he should have interviewed someone like Francis Beckwith or Princeton Professor Robert P. George. Both Beckwith and George have written books with very lucid and compelling defenses of the pro-life position.
Also, for a film that deals with a topic that is (among other things) a women’s issue, pro-life women are terribly underrepresented. If Kaye is trying to be completely objective, why not interview leaders of organizations such as Feminists for Life of America? Leaving the film, I was left with the distinct impression that the pro-life camp is mostly made up of white men. But that doesn't square with reality. The pro-life movement is diverse and includes many notable women.
Often left out of all discussions of the abortion debate is the fact that the early feminists in the mid-1800s were unremittingly anti-abortion. Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Dorothy Day were all pro-life.
Despite these flaws, Kaye’s film manages to be the most objective look at the abortion debate to date. It is a compelling film that treats the abortion issue with the seriousness that it deserves.
Kaye’s goal was not to end the debate, so much as it was to begin the debate in an honest, civil, and serious way. The discussion following the film displayed evidence that Kaye has fulfilled his mission. There was no shouting. None of the inflammatory rhetoric that often accompanies this issue was manifested. I truly felt as I left Forum 110 that the future of this debate is already heading in the right direction.
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