Boredom, in Adam Phillips' book "On Kissing, Tickling and Being Bored" is
described as an accomplishment at a certain stage in the child's
development. Boredom arises, he says, when the child no longer relies
entirely on the mother (a proxy ego) to provide satisfying preoccupations
but, as yet, cannot consistently provide satisfying preoccupations of its
own. The result, a kind of waiting around for something interesting to
appear, is boredom. It can take various forms. One, which sounds like
nostalgia, takes the form of a constant, bullying insistence by the child on
the mother to entertain the child. Another sees the child resist all
attempts by others to 'cure' its boredom, turning everything down as not
what they are waiting for.
This seems like a good place to begin to think about boredom and film
because it brings up a question over whether the film is to considered as a
kind of mother, a proxy ego, meant to provide satisfying preoccupations for
the child/cinema-goer, or whether the film is meant to be a potential 'cure'
for boredom that is turned down because it is not what the cinema-goer is
'waiting for'.
Dave
http://www.dave.beech.clara.net/
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