"Did You think to kill me?"

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Movie Worksheet "V for Vendetta"

1.  Plot Summary (3-4 Sentences)

The movie begins with Eve going to go on a date with someone. She is stopped by "fingermen", gestapo type secret police, who attempt to rape her, but she is saved by V, who kills the fingermen, and then makes his famously quotable introduction consisting of V related words. He leads her to a rooftop to watch his destruction of the Old Bailey. Later, V takes over the National TV station, broadcasting a promise that he will blow up parliament in a year on the fifth of November. Eve helps V escape, but is knocked out. V then takes Eve to his layer, where he says that she must stay for a whole year. Some time passes and Eve asks if she can be of help to V. He has Eve pretend to be a young girl sent to a corrupt bishop for "pleasure" purposes, and to assist in killing the bishop. Eve escapes V during this ordeal and flees to one of her bosses, Gordon Deitrich. Deitrich takes Eve in, where we find out he is gay, and keeps copies of "contraband" material, such as the Koran. The police raid and seemingly capture Deitrich and Eve. Eve is then subjected to torture in a cell, in appears to be an attempt to find the whereabouts of V. This whole thing turns out to be a ruse set up by V to make Eve stronger. After she thinks she is going to be killed, she finds out that she was in V's lair the whole time. She then leaves V and attempts to make sense of the outside world. In the meantime detective Finch is on V's trail, and begins piecing together V's story. He finds out that V has been killing all the people in charge at Larkhill detention camp. He finds out too late that the coroner was the head doctor of the facility; she is killed by V before he gets to her. V then convinces Mr. Creedy, the head fingerman, to capture and bring the head of the party, Chancellor Sutler to him, in exchange for his own life. Mr. Creedy does this, thinking it will allow him to assume power for himself. Mr. Creedy kills Sutler himself, then attempts to kill V. V gets shot badly, but kills Creedy and all of his men. He then finds Eve, and dies in her arms. During this time, all the people gather in front of the parliament buildings, waiting to see what will happen. Eve puts V's body on a train lined with explosives that V had built, and sends it off to blow up the parliament buildings.

2.  How does this movie adapt, comment on, or relate to what we read in class?

The movie seems to be a very condensed version of the text. Most of the main ideas are there, they simply narrowed down the cast a lot, removing some of the less major characters, and shortened the timeline. There are two main differences in overall concept though. The main one is the ending. In the movie, V seems to plead to the people and gives them a choice. The people march on Parliament in V masks, and seem to want the change. This is different from the novel, where the change is forced upon the people. They don't seem to directly want it, and opposed to an organized protest, they seem to assume the role of a vicious unorganized mob. The second difference is the relationship between Eve and V. The movie makes V a bit more sympathetic at the end, having him die in Eve's arms; they seem to have a lovers embrace. In the novel, V shows more sympathy in the beginning toward Eve, and less so at the end. Their love was not as played up in the Novel.

3.  Does this movie change your interpretation of the text?  Why?  Why not?

The movie provides a kind of alternate universe from the text. The movie has a lot of the same ideas, and I would say, the main idea of the evils of fascist government remain the same between the two. The movie just goes about it a slightly different way. The text informs the movie, but the movie does not inform the text. The text goes into a lot more depth with certain ideas, that are really necessary to get a full appreciation for the ideas of V. A lot of these ideas, while they exist in the movie, get cut short, an unfortunate side effect of the medium.  

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Blog

May I vicariously visit a captivating virtue embodied by V's visage. (Sorry, I couldn't resist...) V is a precarious character, who has many traits that amount to a very complex character; a character that walks a grey area between traditional storybook good and evil roles. Even through to the end of the story, you aren't sure whether he is a hero or anti-hero. There is a particular trait of V that I would like to discuss that goes beyond the question of V's morality, and that is his 'immortality'. V is an idealist. Whether you agree with his ideas or not, you have to applaud his ferocious loyalty to them. V as a man struggles with ideas throughout the story. During his destruction of the statue of Justice in fact, he romanticizes about the symbol of Justice cheating on him, representing his believed loss of value and faith in Justice as it exists in his world. V's entire world centers on symbols; ideals that represent lofty ideas. V believes his ideas will make him immortal, and he turns out to be right.


V makes this famous quote after he is shot by Mr. Finch in the Graphic Novel (Mr. Creedy in the movie), "There, did you to kill me? There's no flesh or blood within this cloak to kill. There's only an idea. Ideas are bullet-proof"(Moore 236). The person behind the mask is mortal, and is fully aware of this fact. V is banking on the fact, that even though he physically dies, the idea's that he fought so thoroughly for will survive him, through the peoples memories of his actions, and more importantly through eve, whom he implicitly named as his heir. Eve dutifully fulfills her role, dawning the Guy Fawkes mask herself. The transfer of power and responsibility from old V to Eve V, essentially turns V into a symbol, a Job, something that exists beyond the confines of human mortality. This is a very powerful concept, one that is not new.


There are several comic book superheros that have made use of this concept, probably the oldest and most famous is The Phantom. The Phantom is actually a family tradition, not a single man. The Phantom does not have any super powers. He uses only strength, agility, and gadgets (and he preceded Batman by four years). What makes The Phantom interesting that the role is passed down from generation to generation, but since the Phantom's identity is a closely guarded secret, to his enemies he appears to be immortal. Indeed some of the Phantoms famous nicknames are "The Ghost Who Walks" and "The Man Who Cannot Die". The idea of the Phantom as a symbol for "fighting evil" far outlives any one of the men who have worn the mask. Other comic book heroes have used the idea as well, and in fact the plot of the 1998 Mask of Zorro movie starring Antonio Banderas and Anthony Hopkins was entirely centered on this idea. 


V was building on this time honored tradition of transcending into symbolism. V starts out as an icon, but his goal is to become a symbol. I would like to bring up Scott McCloud's discussion about the difference between a symbol and an icon. According to McCloud, an icon is a representation of an idea, person, place, or thing, etc... It is assigned a general meaning by the reader. McCloud then specifies that symbols are a specific class of idea that represent "concepts, ideas, and philosophies". He is referring to large philosophical ideas that have icons that are so recognizable that they are inseparable from the idea they have come to represent. A standard icon can change it's meaning through time, or by the references set up by the author, a symbol cannot easily have it's meaning changed. V starts out as an iconic terrorist, but his goal is to become a symbol that represents Anarchy and arguably Freedom. At the beginning of the story we see V, first committing a heroic act by saving eve, and then as a terrorist when he blows up Big Ben and the houses of parliament. These two events, make V an icon, representing to conflicting ideals. Heroism and Terrorism. V doesn't in fact transcend into a symbol until he dies. It is Eve picking up the mask that makes V a symbol. V had to die for this to happen, and Eve had to take up his legacy. By being "resurrected", V is no longer simply a heroic terrorist. Eve realizes this when she imagines all the people that might be beneath the mask after he has died. When she realizes that V was an icon for all the people she loved in life, and then that his actions had far more power as something larger than any one individual, she effectively created V the symbol. In Eve's mind V will always be the stern parent and loved one in the background for society, just as he was for her, and V will always exist as long as someone wears the mask.