The Good Shepherd

The title The Good Shepherd (2006) according to Mahnola Dargis of the New York Times is a Biblical allusion: "The title refers to the Bible passage in which Jesus says: "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep." It clearly refers ironically to the main character Edward Wilson (Matt Damon). In his role as an intelligence agent he seeks to protect his nation and its people. A shepherd protects sheep, of course, and sheep are often not aware of the enemies that threaten them. But the use of sheep as a metaphor has other meanings as well—sheep as dim-witted, unaware, following the herd, following the shepherd that guides them.

A fundamental question in the film is Wilson's passivity, emotionlessness, detachment. Is it adequately justified? Is it credible? As the film goes on he seems to layer on one layer of protection after another, increasingly isolating himself emotionally from conventional human attachments. Is this a price he willingly pays—the forfeiture of his marriage, for instance—or is it an effect of the kind of work he does? By the end of the film, having plotted to bring about (or at least acquiesced to) the murder of his own son's fiancé, are we to see this as a sign of decay, or as a necessary gesture? I think the film wants us to see Wilson and the other men as believing the act is necessary, but as not endorsing it. It is an horrific act, in fact, a sign of how deeply mangled and wounded Wilson's basic moral values have become.

Many of the early members of the espionage service come from privileged families. The skull and crossbones society which Wilson joins during his college days at Yale emphasizes secrecy, the importance of not divulging information about the group even to family members. Its members come from the most wealthy, privileged families. This atmosphere of privilege and secrecy carries over into the agency. Not only do its operatives protect the American sheep from the dangers of the world, but they also feel socially superior, privileged, empowered to act on the behalf of the sheep and for the sake of their welfare because they are members of the upper class. Does the film suggest that this is the origin of some basic characteristics of the agency?

An interesting motif is deafness. Wilson falls in love with a young deaf woman early in his career. Their relationship ends when he is confronted by the brother of a girl with whom he had a fling at a party. The girl is pregnant, and the brother expects Wilson to do the right thing. Wilson doesn't actually love the pregnant woman, but a sense of duty, a willingness to go along with the plan that he marry her (she obviously chooses him as a husband, or allows herself to be chosen for him by her older brother and parents), and undoubtedly also the fact that he will damage his career if he abandons the girl, persuade him. Later in the film, Wilson has a fling with a woman who says she is hearing impaired, but when he discovers she is probably a foreign agent, he arranges to have her killed. Wilson refuses to talk to his wife about his work. With deaf women he does not have to communicate. Ironically, when he has a brief reunion with the deaf woman he abandoned for his unhappy marriage, it is discovered by detectives hired by his wife, and this leads to the final dissolution of his marriage.

A fellow agent refers to Wilson as the "heart and soul" of the agency. The irony is considerable, since at this point whatever soul or heart Wilson might once have had has been burned and corroded away.

Late in the film, Richard Hayes, one of Wilson's colleagues in the CIA, invites him to take over one of the branches of the agency. He tells Wilson: "I remember a senator once asked me. When we talk about CIA why we never use the word the in front of it. And I asked him, do you put the word the in front of God?" This statement expresses the extreme hubris typical of many of the operatives in the CIA. They are above and beyond all other considerations, including the U. S. Constitution and the most basic laws of human rights and human dignity.

The film is long and slow, but enjoyable. It is well directed by Robert DeNiro, who has a small role as one of the founders of the CIA.

Throughout The Good Shepherd a pervasive use of religious music in the liturgical style. suggests the mute and sober devotion of men such as Wilson to the Agency—a devotion that is monastic in intensity and that in its final effects walls the most obsessed of the agents away from the world.