The Book of Eli

The Book of Eli is a new film set for release in 2010. It follows Denzel Washington, as Eli, a man possessing the book that will save society and humanity. The film will show Eli as he tries to keep his precious book.

What is so interesting about this film is that it reminds me of all the survivor guides that people try to throw out – how to run computer programs, speak a different language, or sew. It tries to confound all the knowledge we need to know in a single book form. Although this may sound laughable, putting all knowledge on a subject in a condensed edited form when information is always constantly growing; it is a great reflection of the values of our culture. Putting knowledge into written form is greatly respected; we don’t respect the cultures who don’t have written creation stories or poems. We love the intelligence involved in putting words -- sounds organized to create meaning, together with images which capture sound, it is a further delving of the mind, and is supposedly therefore more respected.

This is not to say that reading, writing, and arithmetic are not important, indeed they are. But there is more; the perspectives on any subject are endless. If I were to get a classroom filled with 13 people and myself included then draw a stick figure on the chalkboard I would get 13 perspectives in addition my own. Also, if the world has completely collapsed, as the trailer suggests it does, one book alone will not be sufficient, we might need books on how to garden, how to pull teeth for when they become infected, and we might as well through out a little philosophy, why shouldn’t a little Sartre and Plato be thrown into the mix as well. But when one man is trying to save the world and he’s carrying a gun all day, all those books might be a little bit to carry.