for everyone:
Hey all, I sent a post to the list earlier today that was a combination
of two emails...i cut'n'pasted onto my hotmail and didn't proofread...
Hence, the jumbled thoughts...apologies for the sloppy typing,
[I am embarrassed about the almost unreadable post]
but never for the ideas.
Film is a language without definition; film lacks definition. Maybe we
direct it towards a desired one, I dunno. But quit with the postmodern
tag. Unless you are willing to define what the postmodern is.
Bataille, Burroughs, Deleuze...what's postmodern about them?
Can you name a postmodern filmmaker? What makes him or her postmodern?
There is not one on the market, I am sure of that. In this situation, being
called "postmodern" by koehler et al is simply ad hominen emotional argument
AND it's pejorative to say the least. It's a title ready made to corral the
troops against a particular voice(s). However, the corralled troops
typically have no grasp on what the language means, and the argument turns
into a one-sided bitch session.
Now, we are talking about film. Spielberg came up: Should we call him a
director? I think this might be a good question. I call filmmakers like
Spielberg re-producers. What does he direct? What organ does he aim
at?--The mind, the gut or the mouth, the anus? Are his films the real shit?
Why does Spielberg have to rely upon over-used, sentimental images for
consumption and easily recognized and digested edits, instead of making a
new film? He hasn't made a new movie in decades. He's worse than Capra.
He goes nowhere.
Let's make an alphabet from Spielberg's films using specific sequences to
show a typical Spielberg sentence, to show a favorite angle, to show a
musical flourish--timbre, rhythm--show his sense of timing. We could do the
same with Hitchcock another popular director. But, then, we'd recognize
that Hitchcock discovered himself in the world, in different genres, and
made different films. Spielberg makes the world his own and finds his
audience there in it. Hence, he must make the same film for his stale
society.
I am saying don't try to apply the Spielberg alphabet to every director. It
is an arbitrary alphabet, therefore vocabulary, therefore language.
We can ask: Why at the end of *Saving Private Ryan* is there the one Star
of David in the sea of white crosses at the cemetery? Why does the camera
speed by it without stopping to reflect on it there? Do we know how we are
supposed to react to that? Certainly! It has been prefigured...it is a
loaded question in the first place!...Because it is a Spielberg point that
the audience is not invited to criticize. Spielberg makes no room for the
criticism. So people can get in on THE DISCUSSION about Jews and their
involvement in the war...and then the audience will remember *Schindler's
List* and etc. and that discussion...The popular crowd says: Why...you don't
like those films? Then you must be an anti-semite! You must be
unpatriotic!
We can ask other time-wasters and page turners: How come people continue to
watch his films? What is it about that Stevie Spielberg? We can publish
nonsense, no-brainer articles about film historiography that merely
reinforce conservative state histories that in turn reinforce produced
historical fact and moral value. But why? And why the need to criticize
those who refuse to "talk" this way?
[This is not to say that some of these questions aren't wonderful places to
begin...but 'to begin' not 'to conclude'.]
The combination of FILM and PHILOSOPHY assumes someone might ask these
questions and THEN challenge the possible answers FOR THE LOVE OF
CONVERSATION if nothing else. There is no code of conduct! Please...
We can ask real question(s) of Spielberg, though, prodictive questions,
beginnings, ones that are not intended. Just for example, then, ok: How
come the only women in *Saving Private Ryan* are ridiculous caricatures of a
specific kind of mother: the mother who cares for her boys, the mother who
washes dishes and tends to the home, the mother who faints, the mother who
cries, the young girl who is learning to slap like a mother because a
woman's slap means something mysterious, etc? How come the women is
Spielberg's films are hysterical? How come women need to be represented
this way? And without too much effort, we can recognize that from Teri Garr
in *close encounters* to the little girl in red in *schindler's list* that
Spielberg films don't use real women, they use strict stereotypes of what
women should be or how women are typically accepted to be.
We could ask these questions of Steven Spielberg, Reproduction Machine...but
some of us like to also discover what it means to desire these things. I
don't understand the complete disregard for discussions concerning the body.
Spielberg does make films after all. Has anyone made a film out there or
written a book or produced a painting? Those who have certainly know that
our creative work is certainly tied to the machines we call our bodies.
Production of any sort is visceral, real on some level, and embodied. If
you'd rather not talk Deleuze, then we can talk Liebniz, Heidegger,
Holderlin or Merleau-Ponty maybe? How about Nietzsche? But I am sure you
can tie german romanticism and phenomenology to the horrors of
postmodern...as if there were never a modern...as if we have been anything
but.
oh la! I am sorry, Robert, it seems you and I always argue out here. For
me, this seems like something worth disagreeing about, though. I know that
we have very different political views, but I like to think about what
everybody says. And necessarily, I question. But I want everyone to know
it's not just a knee-jerk towards koehler, 'kay! [smiles]
Respectfully,
gary norris
ps: I am preparing to lecture a class of freshman on narrative in *Groundhog
Day*...I would be happy to receive any mail off- or on-list concerning
articles or ideas that freshman might find interesting...thanks
_________________________________________________________________
MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos:
http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx
|
