Mirror Imagery in Law and Order: Criminal Intent
Sometimes a television show benefits from deeper scrutiny, even critical analysis. The police drama, Law and Order: Criminal Intent (LOCI) is one example, developing its own themes and motifs, embodied and dramatized in each episode. One enduring motif is The Mirror and the thematic imagery surrounding it as manifest in three distinct settings:
1) The Interrogation Room and the Two Way Mirror
2) Camera work and its use of reflection
3) Characters as Reflectors, especially Goren.
INTERROGATION ROOM AND TWO WAY MIRROR
The Two Way Mirror is in the brain centre of the Interrogation Room in Police Plaza, the heart or nerve centre of all operations. It’s a real place but it’s also a psychological construct where the Ego interrogates its Self until it collapses or changes. Sometimes we look through it (Blink), sometimes we see reflections on it (See Me), and sometimes through it we see the view behind us, the observer (Prisoner/Shibboleth). In this way it’s like the mirrors painted in Illusionist Art like Van Eyck where they reveal multiple viewpoints for the same scene. Sometimes the mirror is smashed (Jones), sometimes subjects are aware of it (Magnificat/See me), mostly not.
The Mirror represents the means of discovering Truth; maybe for police agents to observe the truth from another room as the suspects reveal themselves, or maybe for a subject to confront their own true Self as they contemplate their reflection in the mirror in a moment of self-realisation (Geoff in See Me). The Mirror enables reflected truth or enlightenment. It allows evil or error to recognise itself, the horror, and in this recognition to change or transform.
Often when suspects enter the interrogation room their relationship with the mirror is determined by their psychological state. “ Does it worry you, smart guy like you?” Goren says to Widlock in Magnificat, indicating the mirror. Widlock is unaffected. He sees the mirror but it means nothing to him because he lacks consciousness. Likewise Boorman in Zoonotic can only use the mirror to check his appearance, his vanity. Those on the verge of a major mental breakthrough will be able to look through the mirror (Ken in Blink). Alternatively a character may be denied access to it (the detective in My Good Name).
This room with this mirror is also the place of Truth for Goren.When Wallace acts as a mirror for Goren, revealing to him aspects of himself he could not see alone, we see Goren confronting his own illusions and it is to this innermost place or room that he retreats to reflect into the two way mirror, (A Person of Interest). He sees in the glass darkly as his understanding of the implications of his relationship with his father come to light and enter his consciousness. Eames, his partner who represents his common sense, is with him in this dark moment to save him from breakdown or disintegration.
The Two Way mirror is especially interesting in Shibboleth. Goren tells Keith “You need to see something” and allows him to look through the mirror. Keith sees the truth about his father. Goren then begins to probe Keith’s psyche. As he moves closer to Keith and his illusions we see Goren as a shimmery reflection in the Mirror…he appears to be a ghostly figure speaking into Keith’s ear, the inner interrogator of Keith’s mind, searching out the Truth to reach enlightenment and release, or as Goren actually says “to cast you (the father) out of his head, out of his head.” We see this same pattern with Jenny in Prisoner, even down to the pivotal repetition of “Words into action, words into action”, spoken like a mantra by Goren.
So overall this room and its mirror are real locations inside Police plaza, but they are also places of the Mind.Goren is a criminal interrogator but he can also become an aspect of a person’s psychic development.
THE CAMERA WORK AND USE OF REFLECTION
The camera work on LOCI is quite distinctive. Often it focuses on a reflection rather than the character itself, and it constantly juxtaposes The Real with reflective images, as in Blink when we see the reflection of Goren moving in before we see his real laser-light finger touch the suspect into submission. Likewise Goren can be unseen in the interrogation room until the camera reveals him lurking in the mirror, or through the mirror appearing in the background, (Pilgrim/Prisoner). These shimmery reflections and incongruous glimpses envelop and inform the Real in an unusual way.
Camera techniques often reinforce the theme of Reflection. Sometimes characters in reflection frame the foreground while the action continues in the background (Goren and Connie in Sound Bodies/Eddie in Act of Contrition). This forces us to look in two places at the same time and disconcerts our viewpoint.
The camera is also used to show us the Reflective Goren- we get a lot of very eerie, still and silent introspective shots of Goren in reflection, Sergio Leone close-ups that arrest audience attention because they contrast with the surrounding action. In these moments we are shown his innermost being at work, his quest for Truth and Understanding, his mental searching and heartfelt compassion. When his heart and mind coincide in reflection we see the human condition at its best, (Want/Bright Boy). These introspective moments are given a high status in LOCI. So the camera constantly records the inner soul event and the outer action of a scene concurrently.
CHARACTERS AS REFLECTORS
This mostly applies to Goren who acts as a mirror, reflecting people’s speech or mannerisms, mimicking people as he observes them. Sometimes the purpose is to create empathy in order to extract information, as with the male shoe salesman in Antithesis. Sometimes it’s to disturb the ordinary Ego consciousness of a suspect, to edge round their defensive barriers to reach a truth or a moment of self-realisation (Beth in Consumed). In some ways we are just seeing Goren at play, like a child in a game of Let’s Pretend (see with Blunt in Art).
Mimicry or reflecting is of course what actors do, and postural echoing is a devise deliberately used by psychiatrists to put patients at ease, so Goren is acquainted with these techniques. We reflect others in synchronised movements when we form connections, show friendship, consciously or not and human connection is shown as vital to personal fulfilment in LOCI. The most damaged and evil characters are always those who fail to connect and become dehumanised, isolated (Tagman in Want/Widlock in Magnificat/the rapist in Homo Humini Lupis).
The two characters who act as reflectors for Goren are Wallace and Eames.They often dress alike, both in white at the end of Antithesis, both in black at the end of Person of Interest. Both touch him intimately, one by challenging his stability, the other by regulating his excesses – see how Eames moves in front to protect him from Wallace in Antithesis…because Love and Hate are strong emotions that may cloud his judgement and capacity for Truth, and like all good knights he must remain pure of heart, his mental armour shiny and polished in his quest to uncover Truth. This “purity of heart” is what matters. In Faith Goren tells Christine, “Whatever you did you did to defend your faith. Your heart was pure.”
CONCLUSION
The mirror is an ancient artifact, rich in symbolic meaning, deeply rooted in human consciousness and the traditions of our Imagination. In Snow White the jealous Queen sees her physical reflection in it, but she also enquires of its deeper knowledge, its capacity for Truth, and the mirror cannot lie;
The Truth I must speak and so I do vow
That the child Snow White is more lovely than thou.
As a reflective object the Mirror reveals the Truth, not always as we see it: it stands as a gateway to deeper levels of human consciousness. Those incapable of recognising such levels use it only to check their appearance. Others walk through it into that deeper surreal world and experience transformation like Alice Through the Looking Glass. Those who lack the human condition cannot be reflected in it like Dracula, Reflection being that ability that sets Mankind apart, the absence of which denotes danger, distortion or disorder. LOCI continues in this tradition with its dramatization of Reflection.
To speculate is to reflect. The Mirror of the Mind, that speculative capacity of the Imagination is the means by which we obtain Insight, Understanding and Truth (speculate/speculum=latin, specere, to look). It is also the means by which we create Art. The art of LOCI is to co-exist on different levels, to explore the motif of the Mirror and Reflection meaningfully whilst adhering to the familiar format of a Cop Show.
