The Most Dangerous Game

I was so thrilled the other day when I found a movie called The Most Dangerous Game on the Prelinger Archives. I was thrilled because it was based on a short story that had captivated me many years ago when I had first read it. You could say that it was love at first read. I think that I had read it for the first time in eigth grade. In any case, I was thrilled, watched it eagerly and with great anticipation, and I think that it was a very good movie. In this piece I am going to lay out my feelings about the short story, the movie of the same name, and lay out a few comparisons and contrasts between the two.



It is difficult now for me to recall what it was about the short story that first caused me to fall in love. I do not recall if it was the obvious erudition of Richard Connell, or the attempt that General Zaroff undertakes to seduce Rainsford into hunting while wrapping himself in a cloak of being civilized and refined, or if it was simply a kind of desire to fall for the logical conclusion that hunting only made sense as a sport if one had an animal which could reason. While it is true that I am not a hunter, and not one to believe in killing animals except for food,much less condone murder, I am able to understand that a sport should be something that is challenging, that causes one to utilize every skill and virtue that they posess in order to be successful. A sport, like any human endeavor that is worth doing should push one beyond the limits of one's abilities, it must cause one to utilize every single morself of determination, it must take you to the furthest part of despair and beyond the limits of perseverance; then and only then is it worth telling the story of one's success. Like Zaroff, I cannot help but understand that if I were a hunter, I would have no challenge in taking any animal. I would even go so far as to say that I would, like Zaroff, utilize the most simple implements to increase the sport so to speak. I can see myself constructing wooden spears, a stone knife, a blowgun, and other such highly primitive short range weapons to interact directly with the prey. Even then however I know that there would be no fairness in the contest. My patience, my knowledge of anatomy, my perseverance, in short everything that makes me human would give me too much advantage over any prey. It is for this reason that I find myself agreeing with General Zaroff's conclusion of the need of an animal that  can "reason" in order for hunting to be interesting. Feeling these kinds of thoughts within oneself is at once chilling and unsettling, but at the same time an incredible byproduct of reading such an incredible short story. It is impossible for any thinking person not to understand and agree that General Zaroff has a point with his argument to Rainsford.



These thoughts, these chilling and terrible thoughts which are inspired by this story are also kind of allowed to exist in this island world that Zaroff inhabits. Zaroff lives in an island where there are no laws but his own, no morality but his own, no restrictions on his activity, and no protection for anyone who might come onto those lonely dangerous shores. While reading the story, we are permitted to inhabit this world without imperiling ourselves, we are able to look upon the terrible plight into which Rainsford is placed and are absorbed into this rich world with a cultured literate character attempting to seduce us with the idea that hunting humans is not only reasonable, but right and something naturally to be done. Richard Connell has created a world where an idea can be taken to its logical conclusion without it being rejected outright by our minds. In other words, one cannot imagine this kind of activity  happening in the world that we inhabit in our daily lives without there being resistance from authorities and vigilantes. But on an otherwise uninhabited island, anything goes. Psychologically we can distance ourselves from the grisly dark reality of what we are reading and agreeing to internally, we can imagine that our thoughts too are restricted to that fictional island that Zaroff has. We can choose to imagine ourselves as Zaroff or as Rainsford, or as both depending on the situation.



That being said, both the short story and movie do not indicate any training given to those individuals who Zaroff hunts. In other words, those people who Zaroff hunts come as they are from whatever background and become the unwitting victims in his game - one of the words which so aptly has two meanings here that coincide beautifully. What one could imagine is that if Zaroff were fully to follow his desires for a perfect prey, it is not sufficient that it be a person who can reason,  it must be a person who is also a hunter. Only a hunter can present the challenge, knowing the strategies of a hunter, and thereby attempt with great cunning to foil such techniques. In some sense Richard Connell got to the heart of the matter by going straight to this scenario by having Zaroff face off with Rainsford - an accomplished hunter who wrote books on hunting. However, I think intellectually speaking that had Zaroff instituted a training system for those shipwrecked individuals to train them in the techniques of hunting, evasion, and the psychology of hunting, he would have created a game that would truly be worth playing - provided that one shared his desires and interests in the hunt.



Probably the biggest proof of Zaroff's love of hunting - hunting - comes coincidentally in my favorite part of the story. It is the part of the story when on the first night Richard Connell tells masterfully how carefully Zaroff treaded along.

"Something was coming through the bush, coming  slowly, carefully, coming by the same winding way Rainsford had come. ...It was General Zaroff. He made his way along with his eyes fixed in utmost concentration on the ground before him. ... The general's eyes had left the ground and were traveling inch by inch up the tree." 

Richard Connell conveys to us that in spite of all the "intricate loops" and the fact that he had doubled on his trail repeatedly, Rainsford had still not managed to hide himself against Zaroff's tracking ability. Connell tells us that Rainsford even thought, "Even so zealous a hunter as General Zaroff could not trace him there..." It is at this moment, after Rainsford realized that General Zaroff had tracked him so thouroughly and well, that Rainsford realized that, "The General was saving him for another day's sport!" It is in this moment that we can  truly see how thouroughly Zaroff savors the hunt, how much he loves it.



This dramatic device of saving Rainsford for another day's sport is absent from the movie version and is one of the main differences. In the movie version, Rainsford is only given till sunrise to evade Zaroff, as opposed to three days in the short story. Another difference is the fact that in the short story Rainsford is only trying to save his own life, but in the movie he is trying to save his own life and that of a female character named Eve. The restriction to one night in the movie version does not detract from the Director and Acting communicating the rush and thrill Zaroff is experiencing at the chase, and the care that Rainsford applies at evading Zaroff. The movie allows for us to feel how Zaroff is closing in on Rainsford. The movie allows for us to feel how Zaroff is right on the tail of Rainsford, of how agressive Zaroff is in finding Rainsford. I guess what I am trying to say is that the movie gives us a feeling of the rushing that Zaroff is doing, like the feeling that he is hot on the trail that Rainsford is leaving, and there is so much at stake. In the case of the movie, he stakes are increased because of the addition of the woman who Rainsford must try to protect from this Zaroff, our cool calculating madman.



The inclusion of the woman of course is interesting on multiple levels. On the one hand, there is undoubtedly the suggestion of a relationship based on power in the sense that Rainsford, and only Rainsford, can help Eve because he is a hunter just like Zaroff. We can further  see that Eve obviously brings sexual tension and attraction to the story, perhaps also to give a more romantic motivation to Rainsford than just saving his own life as in the short story. Furthermore, the movie also gives us an alternate motive which increases the stakes viz a viz Eve: Zaroff has told Rainsford that "Only after the blood has been quickened by the kill is a man capable of enjoying the full ecstacy of love. ... Once one has known that, one has known ecstacy." It is clear that there is no question of whether or not Eve has any decision or say so with regards to the outcome if Rainsford fails, and regarding her Zaroff has even said, "one does not kill a female animal." One imagines without doubt that Zaroff intends  to rape Eve should Rainsford fail. The only way, in my opinion, that this detracts from the short story Zaroff is that we are led to believe that Zaroff could be a rapist. I know that it might be silly, but I just think that the short story Zaroff does not hint that he could have a taste for rape, and indeed we must keep him true to his own statements in the story. However, the movie Zaroff, without explicitly saying that he will rape Eve should he succeed in hunting  Rainsford, leaves little doubt in my mind that he will do so. It is hard for me to imagine him, civilized and cultured as he portrays himself to be, and which he tries to make us believe as well, trying to win over Eve's heart, especially considering that he has just killed her brother. He sees humans as just an animal like any other, and hence it suggests to me that he will just simply mate with her as if he were a tiger mating with a female tiger. Rape does not exist to someone who believes that humans are like any other animal, rape only exists for humans, only humans communicate their feelings and desires with regard to mating choices explicitly. Or perhaps this only adds to the thrill of victory for the movie Zaroff, the idea of taking advantage of this "female animal" who he even describes positively as "even such a one as this..." discussing Eve to Rainsford. Additionally we have to remember that he has already killed Eve's brother, and that Eve is helpless to stop Zaroff without Rainsford. Or at least Eve is portrayed as a woman who is weak, who although smart is inadequately prepared to put up a resistance to Zaroff. I want to state emphatically here that I believe women exist who could defeat Zaroff, but I am stating my belief that Eve is portrayed in the way she is to add tension to the story. If Rainsford fails, he loses his own life, but also condemns Eve to Zaroff's pleasures.



The differences in the weaponry between the movie Zaroff and the short story Zaroff are not that significant. The Tartar War Bow used by the movie Zaroff, and the small caliber pistol "of the shortest range" used by the short story Zaroff are both weapons that are meant to limit their effectiveness. This is of course meant for us to get a real sense of Zaroff's taste for having to get close to his target. This leads to a question which I have always wanted to know the answer to: What is so special about hunting? Why do people hunt? Obviously I know that some people must hunt to survive, and I know that my ancestors once upon a time had to hunt, but in a day like today, what about it makes it appealing? Today, people go with a high powered rifle, and can shoot a deer from a very great distance, a feat which I think is too easy to be interesting. On the other hand, a passage from the short story, demonstrating Zaroff's tracking abilities, shows to me that this must be part of the thrill and challenge of the hunt.



Zaroff is also an example of a refined killer. Refined killers as fictional characters have always captured my attention. In real life, they are truly the most chilling and frightening criminals. By refined, I mean that they are intelligent, educated, articulate, and except for that flaw are otherwise fascinating people. That is what makes them so interesting. For example, people are interested in Hannibal Lecter from Silence of the Lambs because of the mystique around his intellect, because of his ability to use his psychological powers to aid law enforcement in solving ongoing crimes, and in spite of his incredible intellect he is capable of committing horrible murders and cannabalism. Like the short story and movie Zaroff, Hannibal knows about wine, Hannibal  knows about food, and is in all ways but one civilized. Unlike the movie Zaroff, we can see in Hannibal Lecter a criminal who will commit horrible murders and cannibalism, but not the rape of a woman. In Hannibal, we see Lecter treat Agent Starling very respectfully and very tenderly. We even witness Hannibal Lecter cut off his own hand when he is cornered by the FBI, and after which Starling has handcuffed herself to him, he could have cut off her hand so easily, but it is this consideration for her that elevates him in my view. I certainly confess that in a broader sense I am fascinated by brilliant antagonists, I think that they make fiction interesting and allow us to ask troubling questions in a way that is safe, in a manner that does not have real immediate consequences.