>Precisely--whatever the being becomes, its being remains for us, and so a
>philosophical-phenomenological approach to film that attempts "to see what
>is unique, what is newly revealed of the world, rather than to just ask
>that the film reflects our beliefs or makes us secure in the knowledge that
>we are people of taste" is an agenda that I too support.
>JMC
Honestly, I sympathize with your point of view. I just worry about the
trend to de-legitimatize voice through an appeal to limited appropriate
response. Saying, "we must find something new," is impossible at times.
Students may not be able to vocalize this sense, but they "get it" never the
less.
By calling into discourse a response-from-belief, we can problematize not
only the response itself but the location from where it came: its initial
perception. I don't see anything wrong with it as a starting point.
The concern, "we are people of taste," is anal and should not drive our
ANALyses. But equally shortsighted, IMO, is the drive to see in every event
some Thing new. If this is an attempt at inclusion, it is patronizing at
best. If we are to take history seriously, then there are times to ask
"What is new, if anything?"
I don't want to get into logic here, but I am problematizing unique
experience *in a capitalist market* (Hollywood/Independent film): "For
every sensation we have/for everything we see, there [is/isn't] a unique and
identical event." A characteristic of capitalistic mass production is that,
obsolescence aside, the same product can be marketed in an infinite number
of ways. The value of a product remains the same, its meaning remains
unchanged, its contents coherent and concrete. It is the appearance that
changes, its spectacle. I will always argue that there are films that have
nothing new or unique to offer, films that are "worthless." In fact these
films refuse to participate in the new due to attachment/reliance upon
nostalgia and to dependence on audience response/marketing research. For
example, James Cameron throws a fit when someone bashes _Titanic_, not
because of the quality of the film, but because no one was supposed to
attack it in the first place. That response wasn't in the film's
design/plan.
Critics/Scholars play important roles not only for the tradition of
scholarship but for the trends in the market. When scholars began writing
about slasher films, Clover and Co, the films began enjoying a rennaissance.
It doesn't do us any good to deny that they helped sell product. Like we
needed a "new" special edition of _I spit on Your Grave_ or _Last House on
the Left_.
I find something new each time I watch an old film. But that is not
connected with new experience. That new-ness is connected with my personal
search for something to write about that appears new. I don't see why we
have to write our market-ability into the theory...it really is nothing more
than an excuse.
Also, I think we can safely assume that the phenomenological approach to
film has many more wothwhile approaches (and is therefore safe) than to
discover the unique-ness of each viewing experience. The visible and the
invisible, the logic of seeing, the cultivation of Film, the psyhology of
the gaze...you're leaving quite a bit out of a wonderful approach to film
studies...esp since the phenomenological does, in fact, deal with beliefs in
the form of attention to perception.
Pretty secure, even when writing like I'm told,
Gary Norris
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