The problem Warren poses is no less evident, perhaps more so, in
anthropology - the native's perspective as against the analyst. One
rule of thumb, the creator and practicer of culture (the native) does
not have full (conscious) control of his creation. The creation, in
its emergence, will always exceed and perhaps escape the creator.
Regardless of the degree of control of the creator, the process is
one of emergence, so that the emerging whole gives significance to
its parts, their sequencing, and so forth. The creator, then, is not
the last word on his creation, regardless of how intentionally artful
she or he are. There is no literal truth in this respect that is
inherent in the film - first, because the native will never be
utterly and totally aware of his (cultural) creation, and second,
because the observer or analyst can never totally enter that creation
and see it from within itself. Thus the art or craft of seeing a
(culture and a ) film from multiple perspectives. Whether he knows
this consciously or not, Lynch has formed Lost Highway through a
moebius or moebius-like logic of organization, yet this logic of
organization is a dynamic of organization, not the organization
itself, nor its contents, nor the numerous techniques used to make it
work. Moebius will illuminate aspects of how Lost Highway and MD are
put together (and so, how these films can practice their own
realities) that other perspectives probably won't.
I continue to be curious about why so many of you continue to write
about 'reading film' when clearly you're 'seeing film'. Reading a
text and seeing a film seem like profoundly different practices. For
example, film can be formed to create a logic of gestalt, something
extremely difficult to do with a text. So too, it is very difficult
to compose a text moebiusly (easier through poetry), though film is a
much more amenable medium to this. Is 'reading a film' a hangover
from the impact of literary criticism on film studies?
Don
>A number of the thoughtful comments on the moebius strip and 'Lost
>Highway' point to a more general issue in interpreting a film - the
>status of the reading. Linguists distinguish 'God's truth' vs 'hocus
>pocus'. In God's truth, the structure exists in the film, and the
>analyst simply extracts it. The reading is therefore presented as
>literal,not metaphorical. In a hocus pocus reading, the analyst
>imposes a structure on the film, making it a metaphorical reading -
>or, in worst cases, a mere illustration of the theory.
>
>In my reading of 'Lost Highway' a few posts back, I assumed my
>reading of it in terms of the moebius strip to be literal - that is,
>it reveals something about the structure of the film itself.
>Herbert, Dan, and Nicky seem to disagree - perhaps because the film
>contains other structures across its entire surface? or because my
>ontological assumption that the structure exists in the film?
>
>Warren Buckland
>Editor, New Review of Film and Television Studies:
>http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/17400309.asp
>
>*
>*
>Film-Philosophy Email Discussion Salon.
>After hitting 'reply' please always delete the text of the message
>you are replying to.
>To leave, send the message: leave film-philosophy to: [log in to unmask]
>For help email: [log in to unmask], not the salon.
>**
*
*
Film-Philosophy Email Discussion Salon.
After hitting 'reply' please always delete the text of the message you are replying to.
To leave, send the message: leave film-philosophy to: [log in to unmask]
For help email: [log in to unmask], not the salon.
**
|