Gregg,
Yes, you are correct that an orthodox reading of Deleuze indicates
becoming-animal is part of a positive ontology. Thanks for having caught my pun.
In any case, I follow Badiou, et al in giving Deleuze an ominous turn.
This is to say that ontologies, if anything, must correspond to ZF-C rules
that define sets. Simply put, this is to say that all animals, and all animal
traits, must be placed equally within; and extremely negative outcomes are
equally possible.
Monsters are hybrids. This is to say that they're either animals endowed
with extraordinary powers who go around acting like people, or people with
animal qualities that confer special advantage in a dog-eat-dog world
of original sin...etc...A Cartesian-bound philosopher would put these guys
outside of the box.
Yet a Spinozan who declares his doubt as to what the body can do (p256/7)
might easily assume aspects of animality that would make him/her a ruthless
killer. Lady Macbeth knew this; and so did Henry 5th. These, in essence, are our
prototypical monsters.
Modern-day Hollywood simply makes "monsters" by molarizing. For example,
Godzilla is really a person (well, he is in a godzilla suit!) who takes on the
molar id of a pre-historic beast in order to destroy Tokyo just like the
Americans did in order to express his power. Hence, again, fascism,
Deleuze's virtue is to suggest that our employ of animalities rests within
planes of immanence. In all of its infinite possibilities this, I believe, is to
be taken quite seriously.
BH
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, August 20, 2008 9:32
PM
Subject: Re: Horror question
Hi Bill,
I hate to disagree with your thesis, but you
are stretching Deleuze's
concept of becoming-animal in ways that I think do
not do justice to his
intentions. Deleuze's philosophy is often called a
philosophy of immanence
because of his concern with the possibilities of
becomings as they relate to
life or the body, rather than predetermined
subjects and transcendent values
(Sotirin, 2005: 101) The concept of
becoming was developed by Deleuze and
Guattari in order to help envision
the definition of a world presented anew,
and as such it is a foundational
concept in their work. Deleuze's initial
understanding of the concept is
drawn from Friedrich Nietzsche, with Deleuze
understanding 'becoming as the
continual production (or 'return') of
difference immanent within the
constitution of events, whether physical or
otherwise. Becoming is the pure
movement evident in changes between
particular events, whether physical or
otherwise (Stagoll, 2005: 21). This
suggests that becoming is not an
evolution in the sense of a descent or
progression (Deleuze & Guattari,
1987: 238), but rather represents 'the
moment of arrest in the roll of the
dice, is always open to, and traversed
by, becomings that are more than
simple transformations of an existing
real.' (Conley, 2001: 21)
For
Deleuze, becoming has a number of manifestations each
representing
different aspects and elements of becoming. For Deleuze, the
initial phase
in becoming can be understood as a becoming-woman. The
expression
'becoming-woman' was first put forth in A Thousand Plateaus, the
second
volume to the Anti-Oedipus subtitled 'Capitalism and
Schizophrenia.'
(Conley, 2001: 20) Deleuze's emphasis on becoming-woman
does not privilege
Man, instead it critiques man's representation as the
'molar' paradigm of
identity and subjectivity, opposed to molecular
subjectivity. Deleuze
opposes the notion of molecular to that of the 'molar
which he considers
transcendent, as opposed to the immanent of the
molecular.' (Flieger, 2001:
41)
Deleuze and Guattari's notion of
becoming-woman emerged from the
same post-1968 context as Hélčne Cixous's
Newly Born Woman. Deleuze's
becoming-woman shares with Cixous's
concept a commonality which undoes the
self-identical subject, thereby
opening the self to metamorphoses and
becomings (Conley, 2001: 22). Much as
Cixous had posited, Deleuze suggests
two sexes representing the psychic
consequences of these differences.
However, he suggests that these
differences cannot be reduced to those that
were identified by Freud
(Conley, 2001: 25). Both philosophers also suggest
that bodies are
neither natural nor essential, nor are they determined,
rather they are
marked and as such are 'situated' within a context (Conley,
2001:
27).
As we mentioned above, becoming-woman does not have to do with
being
a woman or being like a woman. Instead, Deleuze suggests that the
concept of
becoming-woman is a key threshold for a line of flight that
passes through
and beyond the binary distinctions that govern the
teleological
understanding of life. Becoming-woman is the first threshold
because it must
become molecular and function as a deterritorialization of
the dominant
molar form (Sotirin, 2005: 102-3). Therefore, it is the
very nature of a
becoming to be molecular rather than molar, that of an
infinite number of
elements that remain connected rhizomatically without
entering into a
regular, fixed pattern of organization (Bogue, 2003: 34).
In order to
deterritorialize the molar with its majoritarian emphasis, one
must first
deterritorialize oneself, and becoming-woman offers the first
shift, one
which destabilizes the conventions of the molar (Flieger, 2001:
46). This
allows one to turn away from one's present condition and in the
case of
Blue, results in Julie's beginning to turn away from the event and
become
instead 'an ongoing actualization of virtualities.' (Conley, 2001:
35)
A second form of becoming involves becomings-animal which is
neither
a dream nor a fantasy, but a real perfectly real. 'Becoming
animal does not
consist in playing animal or imitating animal, and the
human being does not
really become an animal .what is real is the becoming
itself.' (Deleuze &
Guattari, 1987: 238) Instead, the element of
becoming-animal implies the
adoption of characteristics that represent
aspects of the animal, insect or
bird. Thus one adopts an aspect of
'bee-ness', or 'bird-ness'. 'You do not
become a barking molar dog, but by
barking, if it is done with enough
feeling, with enough necessity and
composition, you emit a molecular dog.'
(Deleuze & Guattari, 1987: 275)
As with becoming-woman, one becomes-animal
only molecularly (Deleuze &
Guattari, 1987: 275).
A third form of becoming involves a becoming-music.
Deleuze suggests
that all musical invention proceeds via such a
becoming-other, 'since music
is the deterritorialization of the refrain and
deterritorialization is
itself fundamentally a process of becoming.'
(Bogue, 2003: 34) Because of
this music can be understood also as a form of
becoming, and it is
'inseparable' from three specific forms of becoming, a
becoming-woman, a
becoming-animal (Bogue, 2003: 34).
Deleuze encourages
us to consider just exactly what the art of music
deals with;
what
content is indissociable from sound expression? He suggests this is
a
difficult question to answer and yet he suggests that it is still
something:
'a child dies, a child plays, a woman is born, a woman dies, a
bird arrives
a bird flies off. We wish to say that these are not accidental
themes in
music (even if it is possible to multiply examples), much less
imitative
exercises; they are something essential.' (Deleuze &
Guattari, 1987: 299)
The question can be raised, why is music so often
concerned with death?
'Well on one level Deleuze is aware of the danger
inherent in any line that
escapes, in any line of flight or creative
deterritorialization: the danger
of veering towards destruction, toward
abolition.' (Buchanan, 2004:184) In
essence the becoming-music suggests a
deterritorialization of not only the
refrain, but of life itself. By
becoming music we become deterritorialized,
molecularized, we interact with
other milieus, whether they be animal,
cosmos, or a circle of property
personal enough to keep us safe from an
event. We lose not only our
conception of music as a thing, but by
destabilizing the very essence of
the molar in music, music is reduced to
something open to the cosmos,
something which destabilizes our expectations
and reorients ourselves
towards becoming-something else, something
previously
unrealized.
However, because becoming is part of positive ontology
your
association of it with the monstrous is contrary to Deleuze's
intentions as
I understand them. If anything, I think we might think of the
horror genre's
monster as a 'becoming-anomalous', as Anna Powell suggests
in her recent
monograph "Deleuze and the Horror Film."
Gregg
Redner
University of Western
Ontario
________________________________________
From:
Film-Philosophy Salon [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of
bill harris
Sent: Wednesday, August 20, 2008 9:40 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject:
Re: Horror question
I'm not amazed that Amerikan Horror films have
found an audience elsewhere.
Monsters are all about what the
becoming-animal can do; and what has
recently been done to other human
beings on the western side of Asia:
Auschwitz, The Gulag, Dresden,
whatever. They likewise present a picture to
Europeans what Americans are
all about, as smart non-Americans everywhere
nominally connect the
commodity dot. Abu-Gharib and Exorcist are ostensibly
made in the
USA.
I also confess to liking the rather extended metaphor of the
exploiters of
human labor being nothing but Freddies with chainsaws.
However, the truth is
simply that Hollywood has always tried to turn the
working class against
itself. My faves, by the way, are all those westerns
where the lone,
reformed gunman saves an entire town of peaceful (liberal?)
burgers from the
bad guys.
Therefore, the more plausible narrative
would be that frightfilm functions
to creates fear among the exploited of
each other. The horror genre drips
fascism from every
pore.
Comparing philosophies of Jodoworsky v. Godard reminds me of the
story of
the woman who went into a bar and bet any man that she could pee
higher up
the wall than he. When a taker went outside, unzipped, and left a
mark some
two feet up, she exclaimed, "No hands!!"
In any case,
taste aside, Jodo's work is rather expressive, to say the
least. Yet when
asked what philosophy his films might contain, the f-word is
his normal
reply. Kindly then, explain what profundities we might be
missing.
On the other hand, Godard is at least much clearer by intent. Godard
par
Godard is literally a text that tries to answer the major question,
"What is
cinema?" His work is to find what possible avenues film might
take.
If philosophical cinema ("European" in Peck's word) is one of
questions,
then is it possible for film to question itself within the
context of its
own creation? Modernism, regrettably, remains basically out
of touch for the
filmic--with many exceptions, of course, such as Jado's
compatriot Ruiz and
Godard.
BH
----- Original Message -----
From: Hans Heydebreck
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Tuesday, August 19, 2008 8:27 PM
Subject: Re: Horror
question
> I'm
> left with the feeling that ... there is such
a thing as the
> horror film.
>
> Henry
Iīm amazed
that horror films are held in such a low esteem here.
Of course, locating
something thatīs inside films (monsters) has advantages
over questioning an
unreliable, anonymous audience.
But, in my opinion, genuine horror
films are more than anything else
themedriven. They deal with threats posed
to identity and life (in general
and in a more narrow sense, life as the
opposite of death, the value of
life), in particular life in the modern age
and the human condition (what
sets us apart from animals or
machines).
Needless to say, that makes the genre hard to separate from
other genres,
especially science fiction dystopias or
psychothrillers.
Itīs strange that many previous posts seem to miss the
idea of most horror
films: they are at the same time graphic and abstract.
Yes, we see someone
playing with his chainsaw, but itīs more about an
abstract concept (a
degenerated form of capitalism) than anything
else.
I believe, horror films very often rely upon fantastic creatures,
because it
allows them to operate with figures that arenīt to be mistaken
as a
realistic character, but as a single idea or a single trait.
If
I remember correctly, Robin Wood wrote that a monster threatens the
status
quo, Iīd say a monster questions the status quo, which deservedly
sounds
more philosophical.
"Itīs paint!" "No, itīs holy blood!"
... From
Santa Sangre, a horror film that is IMHO more philosophical than
Godard
could ever be.
*
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