Polemical Art

I saw the movie classic "The Adventures of Robin Hood" again on TV the other day. It's a perfect movie. Everything about it-- casting, acting, color, costumes, score, photography-- is wonderful. What gives the film its strength is its powerfully polemical voice. The spine of the movie is in the scenes of redress against cruelty and in the impassioned speeches Robin (Errol Flynn) makes against injustice. Robin gives up everything-- his lands and name-- to live like an "animal in the forest," in order to fight against oppression and corruption, and for the underdog. Robin Hood's attitude is rigid-- there's not a hint of a moment of compromise in him and his friends. In this case polemics works, beautifully, maybe because they're embedded in a production and storyline of such unparalled joy-- the excitement of having a cause.