As The Force Awakens
nears, with all its promise and possibility of awesomeness, I’m continuing my
ongoing celebration of Star Wars. I’d
like to explore the concept of “the mask” as manifest in the first installment
of the Star Wars saga (A New Hope, 1977). I’m treading familiar ground here, I suppose,
though maybe I’ll find some new geography beneath my musing feet. Let’s begin with the most obvious and iconic
example of a mask in the film: Darth Vader.
Vader’s mask is obviously meant to be intimidating, and is famously
modeled after Japanese samurai helmets.
Later we will learn that Vader is “more machine than man” and that this
“mask” actually sustains his life. In A New Hope, though, Vader is a kind of
hieroglyphic, a mystery that is difficult to unravel. In some ways the mask marks him as a solider
– for it is the military stormtroopers and TIE pilots that share such a hidden
identity. The officers of the Empire are not masked – cruel, of course, but
ordinary enough in appearance. Yet Vader
moves among these military officials as a sign and symbol of things ancient and
mystical – the Jedi and the Dark Side.
His mask puts him in the world of mythology, the deeper realm anchoring
the film’s dreamlike power.
Yet, if we keep an open definition of the concept, there are
other masks in Star Wars. What of C-3PO? Of course he is a robot, not a human with a
mask, but in some sense this droid is nothing
but a mask. Working in the realm of
etiquette and protocol, he is the false face that serves as any face, the
symbol-talker.
He is almost the opposite
of the trickster archetype, a placid blank face of subordination, the
every-face of universal translation. In
some ways, he is the inversion of Vader – a golden face set against the dark
one, a being of technology who masquerades as human and therefore becomes
human. Vader, in some ways, is a human
masquerading as a robot who thereby becomes a robot – a slave to the Emperor,
programmed into a network of fear and hatred from which he cannot escape.
Then there are the stormtroopers. Their casual chatter in Star Wars proves that they are human, but their armor clearly marks
them as a blank entity – beings not supposed to show emotion, or mercy. The fact that they are effectively wearing
masks – not just protective helmets – is reinforced when Luke arrives to rescue
Leia. She jokes about him being “short
for a stormtrooper.” He responds with
“Oh, the uniform.” A uniform is a mask
for the body, concerned less about protection than with making a statement of
power or authority.
By contrast, Chewbacca has no uniform – not even
clothes! Though the actor Peter Mayhew
wore a mask, Chewie is perhaps the least masked character in the movie – and
it’s easy to underestimate how essential he is to the mythic power of the
film.
Essentially naked, powerful yet
Other, Chewbacca is the alien that is a friend, a strength that is married to
gentleness. His seemingly
incomprehensible roar contains a hidden language – linking the animal to the
fundamentally human. Chewbacca is the
natural being, the one who cannot
wear a mask, the pure creature living in the truth of his furry animalistic
body – the stubborn ape-like ancestor beneath all human dignity.
Even the Death Star might be a kind of mask. Its apparently blank and planet-like shape
contains a secret bureaucracy and a terrible technology. “That’s no moon,” says Obi-Wan, seeing behind
the façade of its spherical shape. It is
a Cyclops mask, the single “eye” invoking the narrow, singular vision of authoritarian
thinking – like Sauron’s flaming eye in The
Lord of the Rings. Just before the
Death Star explodes we catch a quick glimpse of Grand Moff Tarkin. Perhaps this is so that we can savor the
defeat of this villain. Yet maybe the
Death Star is Tarkin’s vast and terrible mask, the technological incarnation of
his ambition, a giant spook to frighten the galaxy into submission. The solemn-faced Tarkin could be any of
countless historical human militarists or dictators, eager not just to murder,
but to terrify with their masks of power.
When Luke destroys the Death Star, the Empire itself is
unmasked. All that remains is for Darth
Vader to step forward as the final mask of the enemy. The agonized humanity that lurks behind that mask will only be revealed,
however, in the films that follow.
And in the Star Wars
that lies ahead? Why, of course, there
is another mask. There had to be one.
Images:
Samurai in Armor by Felice Beato: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samurai#/media/File:Samurai.jpg
"Mask of Agamemnon": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mask#/media/File:MaskOfAgamemnon.jpg
Chewbacca:
Death Star:
