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"Have I Got a Monster for You!": Some Thoughts on the Golem, The X-Files and the Jewish Horror Movie
Folklore, Oct, 2000 by Mikel J. Koven
In Kaddish, we hear over and over again about words. Tony Oliver, Derrick Banks and Clinton McGuire read anti-Semitic pamphlets. The simple words "Only Through Blood Can the Jewish Scourge Be Cleansed" causes them to take action, as they shoot Isaac Luria, an unarmed man, repeatedly at close range. We hear "they were just words," "magic words," and "angry words." Here we see that words are not so innocent. The Sefir Yetzirah is "just a book." Yet the expert from the Judaica Archives explains that the Golem is brought to life by "the power of the word" as documented in the book. He explains "letters have the power to create, but also to kill." Words have become "monsters" that can only be destroyed by the creator. He explains that erasing one letter can change the entire meaning of the word (Goldstein).
One "X-Phile" in particular posted a review of the episode to the newsgroup in which the connection between the monster that Ariel creates and the monsters that Brunjes creates is made explicit:
I am struck at his point by the boy's blank, muddy face--he IS a golem, as soulless as the man of mud Ariel had formed in the dirt of her husband's grave. Brunjes' words of hate give Derek the external animus that he lacks within himself. So many hate crimes are perpetuated by young people who have no moral compass, no driving force within themselves. Nihilistic and devoid of any sense of purpose, they are empty vessels waiting to be filled. Evil finds them all too easily. Howard Gordon fashions this parallel between the mystical golem and the all-too-human monster with the proper amount of subtlety (Graves).
Kim Manners's direction at this point in the episode makes the connection quite clear: Derek has just returned from the Jewish cemetery, where he and Clinton have been exhuming Isaac's grave to see whether or not their earlier victim was indeed dead. While there, Isaac-Golem kills Clinton, and an obviously terrified Derek confronts Brunjes. Manners films the exchange through a basic shot-reverse-shot pattern, but the lighting on the two figures creates a more subtle textual interpretation: Brunjes is in shadow, and Derek's mud-spattered face is in close-up. Diegetically, at this point, the identity of the creator of Isaac-Golem has not been revealed; so, keeping Brunjes in shadow (therefore visually mysterious) perpetuates the mystery. However, it also visually confirms what "X-Philes" like Paula Graves (above) believe: that Brunjes is as guilty of creating soulless monsters that kill through the power of words as Ariel is.
Yet, "Kaddish," like the golem stories themselves, remains a culturally specific legend. It is one thing to situate a Jewish "X-File" within a Hasidic community for local colour and leave it at that. But these thematic concerns with the power of words are also part of Ashkenazi thought:
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