Clark's answer to Sarah's question about Sartre is really very weak and
extremely subjective. Better to see philosophy as a matter of
position-taking within a field, as Bourdieu teaches, in which case all
philosophy has political implications even when the politics isn't
explicit. (And the same is true of cinema itself, of course.)
It is, of course, the political implications of the positions taken by
members of this list which is what got up Jon Jost's nose, and I suspect
there are other subscribers to the list who, like myself, sympathise
with his gist.
In other words, what is betrayed by the obsession with mainstream
Hollywood cinema and its scholastic dissection, in which, sad to say,
there is rarely any sense of critique involved, is a paradoxical and
disturbing confirmation of Hollywood's own hegemonic purposes. Meanwhile
there is a world out there where there is a different kind of cinema
altogether. As Stuart Jeffries puts it, writing recently from Cannes in
The Guardian, 'Film-makers around the world ... are making movies not
only of substance but of social and political relevance, and Cannes is
providing a platform for them. But guess what? We won't get to see many
of them, so awash is our cinema with Hollywood "product"...' He adds
that 'A central theme of the festival has been a growing resentment of
the asphyxiating triumph of Hollywood values in globalised culture.'
As Jon asks 'What economic distortions ruined how many lives today?' Jon
may leave the list, but his awkward questions won't go away.
Michael Chanan
|