I had the opportunity recently to watch the great 1965 film King Rat. I don’t think I’d seen it since I was a kid. I was extraordinarily impressed with it as a piece of filmmaking. The filmmakers never lost touch of the larger scope of the story’s context. Whenever it came down to a specific interaction or conversation, there was always a sense that we were focusing on some detail of the larger canvass. Having taught film studies in a former life, I could go on at some length on its cinematic merits, but for purposes here I also thought it was worth mentioning: it provides an intriguing illustration for those interested in matters of governance and organizational dynamics.
What the story is really about, more than any of the individual characters who populate the landscape, is the emergence of an alternate form of organization amid a highly regimented environment due to an environmental crisis. The crisis is the brutal conditions of the prisoner of war camp where the story takes place. A superficial glance might suggest that the plot centres on a criminal organization run in the camp by George Segal’s character. At the most superficial level, that’s true – but it really misses the point. This POW camp is one of extraordinary privation and suffering. When one thinks of the standard POW camp film, while there invariably will be the rebels and eccentrics, for the most part military discipline and respect for rank remains firmly in place.
In this film, the harshness of the situation causes such discipline and respect for rank to dramatically deteriorate. Out of this organizational dysfunction a mere corporal emerges as a leader within an alternate organization. This character possesses the qualities and skills to both survive under these harsh conditions and to take others along with him. In a section of the camp restricted to commissioned officers, the lowest ranking among them, we discover, has officers vastly his superior in rank, working for him in his organization.
It would be a mistake to see this as just another film about criminals and criminality. I think the fact that it’s set in the most regimented of possible environments, where everyone has a place in the hierarchy of rank, is important. While, among a society of relative equals, it might not be surprising that some would take advantage of others, in an organizational setting defined by rank, discipline and authority the point seems to be vividly illustrated. No matter how regimented and hierarchical an organization might be, given the appropriate crisis conditions, the opportunity for alternate forms of organization, governance and leadership will emerge. The only question is how they are best addressed.
It would be easy to dismiss the group centred around Segal’s character as merely self-serving opportunists; there’s no doubt that once the outside world restores conditions of conventional authority and hierarchy, the alternate organization and leadership quickly dissipates. The final moment of the film – indeed its last line of dialogue – seems to imply, however, that under those extraordinary conditions of crisis the tentacles of beneficial influence extending from that alternate organization may have served many more than might have been obvious when viewed at a glance of the surface.
In any event, it struck me that the film provided plenty to ponder for those interested in questions of governance and leadership under conditions requiring organizational self-renewal and self-revival.
April 3rd, 2010 at 7:44 am
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The filmmakers never lost touch of the larger scope of the story’s context. Whenever it came down to a specific […….
May 18th, 2010 at 10:18 pm
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The filmmakers never lost touch of the larger scope of the story’s context. Whenever it came down to a specific […….