Alison…point by point:
1) “If you're questioning the culture industry, why do you seem to accept its judgments and assertions as pure fact? How much are the anthology rights for The Waste Land again?”
My view of The Waste Land is my personal estimation. I think Pound is overestimated, which is something the culture industry would not agree with.
2) “I thought a jump cut (which IS a film technique) was an editing technique that cuts out bits of action so the flow judders unnervingly, as in Godard or the final scene of Taxi Driver. You could perhaps shift it to poetry, but it's not going to be accurate, because the medium of words does other things with its linearity”
At last, you are seeing my point. I just responded to Robin on some of this. Yes, jump-cuts can’t be related to poetry, at least not poetry written before modernism.
3) “Bob seems to be suggesting a jump cut is sudden incongruous juxtaposition and shift of scene, which is, for example, amply present in A Season in Hell”
So do most of those who have been arguing with me here. That’s why I made a fuss about getting the correct definitions sorted out, so we could have an accurate frame of reference.
Original Message:
I wasn't claiming it was trivial - in fact I said the sociology around
poetry has its own interest - but I was saying that had little to do
with the poetry itself. Although I agree that such things interfere
with the perception of it, as is amply demonstrated by what you're
saying here. If you're questioning the culture industry, why do you
seem to accept its judgments and assertions as pure fact? How much are
the anthology rights for The Waste Land again?
I was talking about Rimbaud, not Shakespeare, although it might be
worth wondering why WS adapts so well to film. Many techniques claimed
by film well predate it. I thought a jump cut (which IS a film
technique) was an editing technique that cuts out bits of action so
the flow judders unnervingly, as in Godard or the final scene of Taxi
Driver. You could perhaps shift it to poetry, but it's not going to be
accurate, because the medium of words does other things with its
linearity - the naturalism of film can represent a flow of action, say
a man walking, in a way that's not possible in language. Bob seems to
be suggesting a jump cut is sudden incongruous juxtaposition and shift
of scene, which is, for example, amply present in A Season in Hell -
I loved the desert, burnt orchards, tired old shops, warm drinks. I
dragged myself through stinking alleys, and with my eyes closed I
offered myself to the sun, the god of fire.
"General, if on your ruined ramparts one cannon still remains, shell
us with clods of dried-up earth. Shatter the mirrors of expensive
shops! And the drawing rooms! Make the city swallow its dust. Turn
gargoyles to rust. Stuff boudoirs with rubies' fiery powder..."
Oh! the little fly drunk at the urinal of a country inn, in love with
rotting weeds, a ray of light dissolves him!
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