I have not spent any of my recent time working with my fieldnotes, just looking for some gainful employment. I must confess, however, that I have been on several occasions since my return to the temples, and not without some blasphemous intentions.
Before I list my sins, shove some Žižek in your head; it's been bouncing around the blogs I read:
Having given myself a few days to readjust to the imperial mise-en-scène, I decided to pop in on a few friends at the local cinema. They suggested that I watch Zack and Miri Make a Porno, and I did... not for Kevin Smith's sake, but to shock myself back into local hipster culture. It was somewhat amusing but had Smith's telltale falsely honest relationships and characters smothered throughout. I left with the usual feeling: that I had been entertained, but betrayed and manipulated. People might say that the film should just be enjoyed; I say then you will walk away with unquestioned assumptions and a little duller for it. People might say that the relationships and characters in the film aren't meant to be honest, that they are exaggerated to the point of absurdity; I say that you have become too dull and must avoid popular culture for several months. In the meantime read Cassavetes on Cassavetes. Some might even say that the relationships and characters are honest... I don't know what I should say to you then; it is too late. I sound like a real jerk, don't I? I suppose it's just my anger at myself for watching bad film. And my militant training at the brutal, merciless hands of The Prince of Kings.
Then I went to a Carroll Community College production of Lord of the Flies: a terrible adaptation by Nigel Williams, who managed to siphon out any frightening savagery from the novel, leaving us with a silly "boys will be boys" play. The sound design included nu-metal, and the soundtrack from Requiem for a Dream. They projected an image of a paratrooper on the moon, but it was difficult to see precisely what it was, so that someone who never read the novel might not have known what was going on. I thought Dan Schwemmer was excellent as Roger, and 15-year-old Allie Stern really impressed me as Jack. The interaction between the two of them was the star of the show for me, effected with adroit subtlety. I'm not much for theatre, simply because I haven't seen anything other than the "classics" put on by all high school drama classes, but I am interested in seeing what else these thespians have in their repertoire.
Next I made it down with some pals to the Charles for the Swedish Let the Right One In. If no one has told you what it's about, then by all means watch it without learning any more. Yes, it's a genre film, but it manages to transcend the conventions while sticking to them, without being cliché in the slightest. Above all it manages to get at the heart of its subject, and for a few brief scenes awes you with the truly supernatural.
Later I accompanied another troupe to the Charles to check out Charlie Kaufman's directorial debut Synecdoche, New York. Clever and fun, and for me personally relatable, like many of the movies he wrote, but nothing transgressive or transcendental. Playing on his favorite theme, the film is a series of iterations of itself. At the viewing I attended, this even extended into the theatre through the fourth wall: during the final long drawn-out death sequence, the audience slowly began to die as well; id est, they got bored and two-by-two exited the room.
Finally, at the AFI Silver, I watched Bergman's masterful Fanny and Alexander with two of the faithful. This was the five hour, ten minute version, two parts sold as two separate performances. Along with the subtitles, that should have been enough to keep the heretics out of the temple, but there was someone behind us for the first half eating what must have been a three-course meal. I'm certain he also didn't perform the proper ritual bathing and flogging before and after the show.
Before I list my sins, shove some Žižek in your head; it's been bouncing around the blogs I read:
It is unlikely that the financial meltdown of 2008 will function as a blessing in disguise, the awakening from a dream, the sobering reminder that we live in the reality of global capitalism. It all depends on how it will be symbolised, on what ideological interpretation or story will impose itself and determine the general perception of the crisis. When the normal run of things is traumatically interrupted, the field is open for a ‘discursive’ ideological competition. In Germany in the late 1920s, Hitler won the competition to determine which narrative would explain the reasons for the crisis of the Weimar Republic and the way out of it; in France in 1940 Maréchal Pétain’s narrative won in the contest to find the reasons for the French defeat. Consequently, to put it in old-fashioned Marxist terms, the main task of the ruling ideology in the present crisis is to impose a narrative that will not put the blame for the meltdown on the global capitalist system as such, but on its deviations – lax regulation, the corruption of big financial institutions etc.
Having given myself a few days to readjust to the imperial mise-en-scène, I decided to pop in on a few friends at the local cinema. They suggested that I watch Zack and Miri Make a Porno, and I did... not for Kevin Smith's sake, but to shock myself back into local hipster culture. It was somewhat amusing but had Smith's telltale falsely honest relationships and characters smothered throughout. I left with the usual feeling: that I had been entertained, but betrayed and manipulated. People might say that the film should just be enjoyed; I say then you will walk away with unquestioned assumptions and a little duller for it. People might say that the relationships and characters in the film aren't meant to be honest, that they are exaggerated to the point of absurdity; I say that you have become too dull and must avoid popular culture for several months. In the meantime read Cassavetes on Cassavetes. Some might even say that the relationships and characters are honest... I don't know what I should say to you then; it is too late. I sound like a real jerk, don't I? I suppose it's just my anger at myself for watching bad film. And my militant training at the brutal, merciless hands of The Prince of Kings.
Then I went to a Carroll Community College production of Lord of the Flies: a terrible adaptation by Nigel Williams, who managed to siphon out any frightening savagery from the novel, leaving us with a silly "boys will be boys" play. The sound design included nu-metal, and the soundtrack from Requiem for a Dream. They projected an image of a paratrooper on the moon, but it was difficult to see precisely what it was, so that someone who never read the novel might not have known what was going on. I thought Dan Schwemmer was excellent as Roger, and 15-year-old Allie Stern really impressed me as Jack. The interaction between the two of them was the star of the show for me, effected with adroit subtlety. I'm not much for theatre, simply because I haven't seen anything other than the "classics" put on by all high school drama classes, but I am interested in seeing what else these thespians have in their repertoire.
Next I made it down with some pals to the Charles for the Swedish Let the Right One In. If no one has told you what it's about, then by all means watch it without learning any more. Yes, it's a genre film, but it manages to transcend the conventions while sticking to them, without being cliché in the slightest. Above all it manages to get at the heart of its subject, and for a few brief scenes awes you with the truly supernatural.
Later I accompanied another troupe to the Charles to check out Charlie Kaufman's directorial debut Synecdoche, New York. Clever and fun, and for me personally relatable, like many of the movies he wrote, but nothing transgressive or transcendental. Playing on his favorite theme, the film is a series of iterations of itself. At the viewing I attended, this even extended into the theatre through the fourth wall: during the final long drawn-out death sequence, the audience slowly began to die as well; id est, they got bored and two-by-two exited the room.
Finally, at the AFI Silver, I watched Bergman's masterful Fanny and Alexander with two of the faithful. This was the five hour, ten minute version, two parts sold as two separate performances. Along with the subtitles, that should have been enough to keep the heretics out of the temple, but there was someone behind us for the first half eating what must have been a three-course meal. I'm certain he also didn't perform the proper ritual bathing and flogging before and after the show.
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1 comment:
yeah, you do sound like a real jerk.
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