I Want To Play A Game

When I came into my living room on Wednesday evening and asked my roommates if they would like to watch Saw with me, they gave me pretty shocked looks. First, most of my personal movie collection consists of Disney classics and book adaptions-- I am far from a fan of horror movies. They were surprised to find out that I had watched all seven films in the Saw franchise multiple times. My explanation was easy: "These are some of the smartest films to come out in the past ten years." Approaching this film with these philosophy texts in hand has only confirmed my opinion. 

By definition, yeah, Saw and the six films that followed this first installation are horror films. There are typical scary movie tropes throughout the film-- use of ominous music, darkness, and of course a multitude of incredibly gory scenes. However, in presentation and in plot are a psychological game. 

We start with two men locked in a dilapidated bathroom, each chained to pipes on opposite sides of the room. It appears that there is a third man dead in the middle of the room. (Fun fact/spoiler alert: this "corpse" is actually the very much alive John Kramer, the real Jigsaw killer. The actor Tobin Bell insisted that the director didn't use a dummy for these scenes; he actually laid on that floor while they filmed the scenes in which the "body" is visible.) Through the conversations between these men as they try to work out the game they are playing, the audience is taken through a series of flashbacks that give the history of the Jigsaw killer. 

So, let's talk about the motives of the Jigsaw killer and how it plays into Hume and Frankfurt's concepts of human will and determinism. In his essay, Frankfurt outlines the different levels of "will" into what he calls first order desires (animalistic impulses), second order desires, and second order volitions. Frankfurt argues that it is these second order volitions that distinguish humans from other living beings. He uses the example of two drug addicts to describe the difference between wanton humans and humans who have a conflict between their impulses and their wills. Interestingly enough, it seems to be this transformation from a wanton human that Jigsaw desires; we see this through Amanda, Jigsaw’s only victim to have survived at this point and ultimately his accomplice. Amanda was a drug addict, but after her experience escaping from the reverse bear trap, it appears that she appreciate’s life differently. In other words, she begins to exercise her human capability to exert her will over her impulses. 

Of course, over the course of this first film, Amanda is the only survivor we know about. This brings us to a discussion of Jigsaw’s methods-- do they actually allow for a person to exert his or her will, or do they require a release from what Frankfurt calls our second order volitions in order to act on our impulse to survive? I am prone to think it is this second option, more nuanced than the idea that these tests are simply meant to test one’s will to live. The players are chosen often because they have fallen prey to some obsession or vice-- they are allowing their first-order desires to overcome their uniquely human ability to will themselves otherwise. What Jigsaw does through his games is to force these people to overcome their second order desire not to cause themselves bodily injury or to cause harm to others in order to maintain their first order will to survive. In most cases, the players are unsuccessful; in fact, while it seems that Amanda has made a true transformation, later films in the franchise will feature her being tested again and again (she ultimately fails as Jigsaw’s apprentice because she insists on creating games that are “unwinnable”). 

We can also think of will in the Saw films using Hume’s discussion in which he distinguishes between human will and determinism. It might be argued that Jigsaw is “playing god” by manufacturing these live or die games for the purpose of teaching wayward people a lesson; in other words, the dire necessity of the situation negates the players exertion of his or her free will. In his essay, Hume argues that the human will and liberty are not in conflict with one another. If you will yourself pick up a book, and you are physically capable of picking up that book, then you are at liberty to pick up that book. If it is necessary for you to pick up that book (if your life depended on it, as in the Jigsaw games), then you still are able to will your self to pick up that book, thus at liberty to do so. In fact, therefore, Jigsaw has not by imposing necessity removed the liberty of the person to act. 

Though we were only assigned the first of the Saw franchise, the series of actions that take course as the characters develop over all seven of the films pose even more interesting questions. (If only we all had time to watch fourteen hours of “torture porn” a week, eh?)