that intellectual achievement is suspiciousnper se. Dr. Frankenstein no longernneeds a monster, having becomenhimself the sufficient vehicle of thenpublic’s resentments, loathings, andnfears.nThe bizarre ending of The Silencenof the Lambs, which seems to havenbeen the compromise result of a greatnmany conferences, is one in which,nafter a suitably balletic chase and fightnsequence, Jodie Foster blows away onenserial killer. But then, as she graduatesnfrom the FBI academy, she gets anphone call from the other, Hannibal —nwho is at large and about to pounce onnhis next victim (also a psychiatrist!). It’sna complicated business in which a)nthose damned intellectuals get off everyntime, don’t they?, but b) we’re kindnof pleased because, aside from his onendeplorable eccentricity, Hopkins isnsuch an amiable fellow, and c) his nextnvictim is a psychiatrist too, meaningnone of those cerebral types who arenobviously expendable. That this is thenmoral resolution, our conventionalnhappy ending, is somewhat unsettlingnfor what it suggests about the conventionsnand where they have taken us innthese last days of the millennium.nIn this connection, I think of Flatliners,nlast year’s slick little horror capricenin which a bunch of medicalnstudents experiment on one another,nmaking small tourist excursions intondeath’s Magic Kingdom. Eschatologynis an area of inquiry perhaps morensusceptible to vulgarization than anynother, and the Flatliners version isnmore or less predictable and moralistic.nThese youngsters are haunted by theirnmisdeeds and use their moments in thenGreat F/X Beyond to understand andntry to repair the wrongs they’ve committed—nupon others or even uponnthemselves. There are probably twonassumptions operating here, the firstnbeing that young doctors can’t possiblynknow enough to understand the moralnand spiritual implications of whatnthey’re doing. This is probably true,nand to some degree it then follows thatnall medical students are more or less innDr. Frankenstein’s position—operatingnout of their depth and trusting tontheir luck in an unreliably benevolentnand sometimes unforgiving universe.nThe charm of these youngsters —nKiefer Sutherland, Julia Roberts, andnsuch scrubbed and wholesome types —n48/CHRONICLESntherefore becomes slightly ominousnand scary.nThe second set of postulates of thatnfilm is rather less specific but perhapsnworth indicating — about the moralncalculus that governs the universe. Mynown guess is that all popular cultureninvolves outdated assumptions — stylistic,nepistemological, metaphysical,nand moral — from the high culture ofnthe previous generation. Popularnnovels are more or less revivificationsnof Galsworthy and Wells; ballets inncommercial musicals are Agnes denMille restorations; even the watercolorsnin motels are imitations of last-gaspnschool-of-Paris impressionism. Thenlate 19th century’s suspicion of sciencenand its corollary nostalgic assertions ofntheistic moralism have trickled furtherndown and survive in such works as this.nThe choice is whether to play fornlaughs — as Albert Brooks does in DefendingnYour Life — or to try for somethingnless intentionally funny. In eithernevent, the afterworld is some conflationnof Vergil and Dante with the morenaccessible fantasies of Robert LouisnStevenson, Mary Shelley, and BramnStoker. For the rubes and boobs, itnpasses as authentic, while the rest of usncan take it as camp.nAltogether different in its attitudesnabout life and death is Open Doors, annextremely intelligent, rather restrained,ndarkly brooding film about Siciliannjustice under the fascists in 1937.nThere is no need to devote time orneffort to establishing the corruption ofnthe moral and legal climate. Againstnthat dismal and distressing backgroundn— which isn’t merely intellectual butnwhich we confront in the arid Sicilianncountryside and the tacky extravagancenof Palermo’s architecture;—the fervornof an individual juror anjl, even moreninteresting, the fussiness of an individualnjudge break through the murk tonsearch out something that looks verynmuch like truth, or justice, or evennwisdom. The three brutal murdersnwith which the film commences arenexplained, revealed, illuminated to thenpoint where we can understand hownTommaso Scalia (Ennio Fantastichini)nis as much a victim as those he hasnkilled. And if the juror (Renato Garpentieri)nand judge (Renzo Giovampietro)ntry in their different ways andnfor their different reasons to save thenlife of Scalia, their efforts finally comennnto nothing, because Sicily is no placeneither for the naive idealism of the onenor the sophisticated punctilio of thenother. Or Europe, or the world, fornthat matter.nIt is a stately, stark but beautiful film,nand one of its minor achievements isnthe casual assumption it makes thatnvirtue is, inevitably, rare, the extravagantnand quixotic demonstration ofnindividual souls. The mob is nevernvirtuous, has no patience with the finendistinctions virtue often demands, andnis generally crude, vulgar, imprecise —nand therefore wrong. This is not anmessage large numbers of moviegoersnare likely to welcome with great enthusiasm,nbut then it isn’t one manynmoviemakers try to deliver. The choicenof time and place, though, suggests anbackground of utter moral chaos. Thenmotive for Scalia’s murders is revengen—but it takes Judge Sanna and us anwhile to figure out what the affront hadnbeen. At first we assume it is only thatnhe’d been fired from his bureaucraticnjob (he’d been stealing, but then so hadneveryone else). But while this mightnexplain the first two killings — of thenman who now sits at his old desk, andnof the chefde bureau who had been hisnsuperior — the third murder, of hisnwife, Rosa, is hard to account fornwithout delving further. And whatevernhis reasons may have been, the defendantnis unwilling to talk about them.nThe persistent inquiry on the part ofnthe judge seems, at first, almost silly —nwe’ve seen the murders, after all, witnessednthem in their blunt and dreadfulnbrutality. What possible differencencould it make about what was going onnin Scalia’s mind? But it does make anworid of difference, and there is a kindnof cleansing that we feel when thendecision is reached not to execute andeath sentence upon the condemnednman. The news is delivered to him innthe exercise yard of the prison wherenhe is confined and, in a short scene ofnpowerful understatement, Fantastichinintakes a crust of bread from the pocketnof his prison uniform and eats it. Lifenhas been affirmed and humanity hasnbeen asserted.nIn Sicily? In 1937? It can’t last, andnit doesn’t. But that outcome has to do,nI rather think, with the vision of thenlate Leonardo Sciascia, that extraordinarynwriter from whose novel this filmnwas adapted. Sciascia is both saddenedn