Robert, I really like your quotation from Ranciere of "the legend of the creation of the code. " to explain the constant return of the American dream.
Steve Elworth.
Sent from my iPad
On Jan 9, 2013, at 5:35 PM, FILM-PHILOSOPHY automatic digest system <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> There are 6 messages totaling 778 lines in this issue.
>
> Topics in this special issue:
>
> 1. FILM-PHILOSOPHY Digest - 9 Jan 2013 - Special issue (#2013-7) (2)
> 2. American Dream (2)
> 3. FILM-PHILOSOPHY Digest - 7 Jan 2013 to 9 Jan 2013 - Special issue
> (#2013-5) (2)
>
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> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2013 15:40:10 -0500
> From: Steven Elworth <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: FILM-PHILOSOPHY Digest - 9 Jan 2013 - Special issue (#2013-7)
>
> I mentioned Malick because for me the concept of American dream is not
> based on reality but as an idea based by cultural production, It could be
> as simplistic as Reagan's Morning in America or as contradictory as the
> work of Whitman or Melville or the films of Ford or Malick or Bruce Baillie
> I hope that I am now clearer.
> Steve Elworth
>
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> --
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2013 15:41:40 -0500
> From: "Frank, Michael" <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: FILM-PHILOSOPHY Digest - 9 Jan 2013 - Special issue (#2013-7)
>
> fair enough - i'll buy that concept . . . . but i still don't see how it fits malick, especially in badlands
>
> m
>
> From: Film-Philosophy [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Steven Elworth
> Sent: Wednesday, January 09, 2013 3:40 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [FILM-PHILOSOPHY] FILM-PHILOSOPHY Digest - 9 Jan 2013 - Special issue (#2013-7)
>
>
> I mentioned Malick because for me the concept of American dream is not based on reality but as an idea based by cultural production, It could be as simplistic as Reagan's Morning in America or as contradictory as the work of Whitman or Melville or the films of Ford or Malick or Bruce Baillie I hope that I am now clearer.
> Steve Elworth
> -- To manage your subscription or unsubscribe from the Film-Philosophy list, please visit: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/film-philosophy.html -- Film-Philosophy Journal: http://www.film-philosophy.com/ Film-Philosophy Conference 2013 (Amsterdam 10-12 July): http://www.film-philosophy.com/conference/ --
>
> --
> To manage your subscription or unsubscribe from the Film-Philosophy list, please visit: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/film-philosophy.html
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> --
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2013 22:29:38 +0100
> From: "Henry M. Taylor" <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: American Dream
>
> I don't know whether this has been already mentioned, but Deleuze says something about the American dream in The Movement-Image, in the chapter on the large form of the action-image:
>
> ' … a community is healthy in so far as a kind of consensus reigns, a consensus which allows it do develop illusions about itself, about its motives, about its desires and its cupidity, about its values and its ideals: 'vital' illusions, realist illusions which are more true than pure truth. … One cannot, therefore, criticise the American dream for being only a dream: this is what it wants to be, drawing all its power from the fact that it is a dream.' (p. 148)
>
> Henry
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>> fair enough – i’ll buy that concept . . . . but i still don’t see how it fits malick, especially in badlands
>>
>> m
>>
>> From: Film-Philosophy [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Steven Elworth
>> Sent: Wednesday, January 09, 2013 3:40 PM
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Subject: Re: [FILM-PHILOSOPHY] FILM-PHILOSOPHY Digest - 9 Jan 2013 - Special issue (#2013-7)
>>
>>
>>
>> I mentioned Malick because for me the concept of American dream is not based on reality but as an idea based by cultural production, It could be as simplistic as Reagan's Morning in America or as contradictory as the work of Whitman or Melville or the films of Ford or Malick or Bruce Baillie I hope that I am now clearer.
>> Steve Elworth
>> -- To manage your subscription or unsubscribe from the Film-Philosophy list, please visit: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/film-philosophy.html -- Film-Philosophy Journal: http://www.film-philosophy.com/ Film-Philosophy Conference 2013 (Amsterdam 10-12 July): http://www.film-philosophy.com/conference/ --
>> -- To manage your subscription or unsubscribe from the Film-Philosophy list, please visit: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/film-philosophy.html -- Film-Philosophy Journal: http://www.film-philosophy.com/ Film-Philosophy Conference 2013 (Amsterdam 10-12 July): http://www.film-philosophy.com/conference/ --
>
>
> --
> To manage your subscription or unsubscribe from the Film-Philosophy list, please visit: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/film-philosophy.html
> --
> Film-Philosophy Journal: http://www.film-philosophy.com/
> Film-Philosophy Conference 2013 (Amsterdam 10-12 July): http://www.film-philosophy.com/conference/
> --
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2013 21:41:08 +0000
> From: robert burgoyne <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: American Dream
>
> I love the quote Henry cites. I've not been keeping up with this thread,
> so apologies if this has already been mentioned, but Ranciere also has some
> material on this apropos the "dominant fiction," the "image of social
> consensus" within which members of a society are asked to identify
> themselves. This is especially apparent in the American cinema, he writes,
> which is about "the legend of the formation of the code."
>
> Robert
>
> On Wed, Jan 9, 2013 at 9:29 PM, Henry M. Taylor <[log in to unmask]>wrote:
>
>> I don't know whether this has been already mentioned, but Deleuze says
>> something about the American dream in The Movement-Image, in the chapter on
>> the large form of the action-image:
>>
>> ' … a community is healthy in so far as a kind of consensus reigns, a
>> consensus which allows it do develop illusions about itself, about its
>> motives, about its desires and its cupidity, about its values and its
>> ideals: 'vital' illusions, realist illusions which are more true than pure
>> truth. … One cannot, therefore, criticise the American dream for being only
>> a dream: this is what it wants to be, drawing all its power from the fact
>> that it is a dream.' (p. 148)
>>
>> Henry
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> fair enough – i’ll buy that concept . . . . but i still don’t see how it
>> fits malick, especially in *badlands*****
>>
>> m****
>>
>> *From:* Film-Philosophy [mailto:[log in to unmask]] *On
>> Behalf Of *Steven Elworth
>> *Sent:* Wednesday, January 09, 2013 3:40 PM
>> *To:* [log in to unmask]
>> *Subject:* Re: [FILM-PHILOSOPHY] FILM-PHILOSOPHY Digest - 9 Jan 2013 -
>> Special issue (#2013-7)****
>> ** **
>>
>> ** **
>> I mentioned Malick because for me the concept of American dream is not
>> based on reality but as an idea based by cultural production, It could be
>> as simplistic as Reagan's Morning in America or as contradictory as the
>> work of Whitman or Melville or the films of Ford or Malick or Bruce Baillie
>> I hope that I am now clearer.****
>> Steve Elworth****
>> -- To manage your subscription or unsubscribe from the Film-Philosophy
>> list, please visit: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/film-philosophy.html-- Film-Philosophy Journal:
>> http://www.film-philosophy.com/ Film-Philosophy Conference 2013
>> (Amsterdam 10-12 July): http://www.film-philosophy.com/conference/ --****
>> -- To manage your subscription or unsubscribe from the Film-Philosophy
>> list, please visit: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/film-philosophy.html --
>> Film-Philosophy Journal: http://www.film-philosophy.com/ Film-Philosophy
>> Conference 2013 (Amsterdam 10-12 July):
>> http://www.film-philosophy.com/conference/ --
>>
>>
>> -- To manage your subscription or unsubscribe from the Film-Philosophy
>> list, please visit: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/film-philosophy.html-- Film-Philosophy Journal: http://www.film-philosophy.com/
>> Film-Philosophy <http://www.film-philosophy.com/Film-Philosophy>Conference 2013 (Amsterdam 10-12 July):
>> http://www.film-philosophy.com/conference/ --
>
> --
> To manage your subscription or unsubscribe from the Film-Philosophy list, please visit: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/film-philosophy.html
> --
> Film-Philosophy Journal: http://www.film-philosophy.com/
> Film-Philosophy Conference 2013 (Amsterdam 10-12 July): http://www.film-philosophy.com/conference/
> --
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2013 22:03:15 +0000
> From: Alan Fair <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: FILM-PHILOSOPHY Digest - 7 Jan 2013 to 9 Jan 2013 - Special issue (#2013-5)
>
> Hello all,
> I'm sorry I have come to the debate about the American Dream late, i think
> I've looked at most of the posts and I would like to add a few thoughts as
> a non American (is that a category?). First someone states that the
> desire/dream to get rich is not a new one...I wonder, maybe it is. The idea
> that one might get rich, especially get rich quick is, I think, quite a new
> phenomenon, in fact there are many ways in which this dream is seen as a
> bad or a stupid thing. I anticipate that some of you might say that the
> critics of the desire are often motivated by the desire to put off others
> while enabling themselves. Anyway,,,,,two films that I see as offering us
> pointed critiques of the A.D. are 'Five Easy Pieces' a film that
> articulates a sense of aspiration that in many ways is at odds with the so
> called success of the "gettin rich" and posits instead dreams of happiness
> and freedom but of which in the case of this film are specifically
> gendered. The other, a more contemporary candidate and for my money one of
> the great movies of this century so far is 'Take Shelter' a film that
> renders this piece of ideology as quite literally a dream, or rather a
> nightmare.The allegorical construction of this film cannot have failed to
> move an audience who has fallen foul of this hopeless tendency in
> contemporary U.S. culture. The storm is coming and bourgeois ideology has
> managed to render it as a natural phenomenon. Consequently, just as the
> dream of boom itself was rendered real by the aesthetic/ideological
> machinations of the political class, so the bust is equally rendered as one
> that is 'Natural'. The thing is that when we are actually dreaming the
> illogical, strangeness is not apparent to our unconscious it is only when
> we awake that we are struck by the strange juxtapositions and lack of
> narrative. Nowadays the dream and the contrary reality are becoming
> blurred, strangeness has become the reality of consumer politics, think
> 'Grand Theft Auto', think Spielberg's 'Lincoln'
> peace
> alan
>
> --
> To manage your subscription or unsubscribe from the Film-Philosophy list, please visit: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/film-philosophy.html
> --
> Film-Philosophy Journal: http://www.film-philosophy.com/
> Film-Philosophy Conference 2013 (Amsterdam 10-12 July): http://www.film-philosophy.com/conference/
> --
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2013 16:35:06 -0600
> From: Lawrence Howe <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: FILM-PHILOSOPHY Digest - 7 Jan 2013 to 9 Jan 2013 - Special issue (#2013-5)
>
> This is an interesting discussion, but I think it's important to locate the term "American Dream" historically. The phrase was coined by James Truslow Adams in his _The Epic of America_ (1931). And with the Depression taking hold, the point of the phrase was not about getting rich, let alone getting rich quick, but having a sense of domestic security. The notion itself can be traced to much earlier times in American cultural history with similar emphasis on stability earned through one's hard work, enabled by a putatively horizontal society and open access to land through homesteading--see Crevecoeur or Franklin, for examples.
>
> I'm not suggesting that the idea is static, and that by the 1970s it no doubt had accreted new meanings. But too often the term seems to be offered as if there is firm consensus of what it means. For some it means extravagant wealth, for others it means being one's own boss, for others it means--or used to--home ownership, still for others it means freedom, whatever that might be. _Easy Rider_ , which just barely predates the 70s, works through some of the conflicts. Wyatt, aka Captain America (Peter Fonda), and Billy seem to think that the American Dream will be theirs after the big score, allowing them to a life of leisurely retirement in Florida. Despite the glamorization of wanderlust in a film that inspired the genre of the music video, the poignant irony of the film comes when Wyatt admits they "blew it," because they have no sense of belonging. In numerous episodes on their journey, Wyatt has stopped to approve of the lives that people have carved out for themselves, whether an adobe ranch in New Mexico or a hippie commune in Texas. These people have attained what he comes to see as the American Dream. And his and Billy's efforts to avoid rootedness are the folly, turning nightmarish after the death of George and their subsequent execution in a redneck version of a drive-by.
>
> For all of its counter-culture veneer, and the bitter condemnation of intolerance in the climax, the film's primary ethos, as Wyatt expresses it, re-asserts the American dream as a conservative desire that seems rather in tune with Adams's coinage.
>
> --LH
>
> Larry Howe
> Professor of English
> Chair, Department of Literature and Languages
> Roosevelt University
> ________________________________________
> From: Film-Philosophy [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Alan Fair [[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Wednesday, January 09, 2013 4:03 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [FILM-PHILOSOPHY] FILM-PHILOSOPHY Digest - 7 Jan 2013 to 9 Jan 2013 - Special issue (#2013-5)
>
> Hello all,
> I'm sorry I have come to the debate about the American Dream late, i think I've looked at most of the posts and I would like to add a few thoughts as a non American (is that a category?). First someone states that the desire/dream to get rich is not a new one...I wonder, maybe it is. The idea that one might get rich, especially get rich quick is, I think, quite a new phenomenon, in fact there are many ways in which this dream is seen as a bad or a stupid thing. I anticipate that some of you might say that the critics of the desire are often motivated by the desire to put off others while enabling themselves. Anyway,,,,,two films that I see as offering us pointed critiques of the A.D. are 'Five Easy Pieces' a film that articulates a sense of aspiration that in many ways is at odds with the so called success of the "gettin rich" and posits instead dreams of happiness and freedom but of
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