Blog Assignment #7

Metaphor In Film: Affliction

Affliction is the culmination of a truly brilliant film released in 1999. It stars Nick Nolte as a small-town cop who begins to fall apart as he puts together the pieces of what he believes is a string of murders taking place within the city. His mother dies, forcing Nolte to spend more time with his abusive, alcoholic father. The more time spent with his monstrous father (and the more subsequent events that occur in his city), Nolte becomes similar to his father whose temper, violence and love of drinking begins to take a toll on Nolte’s life. Nolte feels he’s become afflicted with his life (hence the title).

The scene begins with a violent outburst that Nolte brilliantly represented from a nasty toothache that he cannot seem to ignore. Getting worse and worse throughout the film, this climatic scene showcases the removal of the tooth with a pair of pliers and a bottle of scotch to a wash down the blood. This dramatic scene is designed to symbolize the internal pain and suffering Nolte experienced over the years. The pain and suffering that had been bottled up within him for years had finally been relieved. The neglected tooth represented a downward spiral in his life to the point of relief once it was removed. I feel the scene also represents how instant solutions, such as pulling the tooth with pliers instead of proper treatment, can be worthwhile at first, but could lead to more problems in the future. Though the scene ended the movie peacefully, Nolte's life was still stressful with or without the toothache.

It's an impressive scene because it leads to one of the most horrific self-mutilation acts within the movie, but Nolte determines that pulling the offending tooth is the only thing that helped him feel better. Unfortunately, he and his father are shown in the final shot watching a boxing match on TV, silently sharing a drink, which symbolizes a mirror image of one another. Nolte had become his father.

Warning: This scene is kind of graphic with a lot of swearing.