Weekend

The famous shot of the traffic jam: for almost ten minutes, the camera tracks alongside the road, showing all sorts of odd activities, dead bodies, and diversions. While concieved as a political tract, Godard's artistic skill makes the movie much more. The extensive digressions on Marxist philosophy (which, along with many other aspects in the film, acts as an assault on a primarily bourgeois audience) need not be taken seriously to understand the film. Indeed, Godard practically makes it impossible to pay attention to it anyway. Even the characters involved seem distracted.

So how do we, in a post-Marxist era, deal with a work like this? Hilarious, rueful tragedy is presented with a very cold eye, as the entire human race seems to descend into barbarism and incoherence. Every man for himself. They distract themselves with petty sexual amusements and other pointless diversions while conflict and death is all around. Even the tropes of classic cinema have broken down. The road film goes nowhere, and a pointless shootout is taken to tedious lengths. The audience must wonder, "what is the point of this movie?" as indeed the characters themselves do. At the conclusion, when "the End" pops up, and then it is momentarily followed by "of cinema," Godard's plan becomes, well, not clear, but easier to guess at. Much like his masterpiece Contempt, Weekend is perhaps a farewell to Western civilization, and to the movies themselves.

Christopher Hitchens on the new Sidney Blumenthal book. Even if you're not interested, check out the first few paragraphs, which are very interesting in a general sort of way.

Lancelot of the Lake

I am always surprised at how much I enjoy Robert Bresson's films. He is usually lumped in with the grand old masters of slow narrative (Tarkovsky, Mizoguchi, Antonioni), but his visual composition isn't even as flashy as that. His is the point and shoot style of directing, and his actors could just as well be puppets that talk. On the surface, there is really nothing to draw my attention or admiration.

Yet I find every second of his films compelling. This one, probably my least favorite of the few I have seen by him, is an utter masterpiece nonetheless. Never before (with the possible exception of Bergman) have I experience such a foreboding atmosphere of despair in a film. The actions of the characters seem perfunctory as the film grinds them down with their fate in the story, as there is nothing they can do. It takes place at the end of King Arthur's reign (itself a beautiful portrait of despair in all its forms). Lancelot and Guinivere's transgressions have brought ruin on the kingdom, and it is clear that God has abandoned them. Arthur himself is pointedly absent from the film. The final scenes are of an intense and haunting beauty, as the horses ridden into battle against Mordred return, one by one, riderless. The last shot shows Lancelot alone and dying. He carries himself to the pile of bodies not too far away, so that he may die near his brothers of the Round Table.

An amusing article in the WSJ.

In post-modern fashion we should ask ourselves who benefits from peddling theory? What power is being served? Why, it's obviously the professors who peddle it. In my po-mo book, the author argues towards the end that Postmodernism is a seizing of power by academics over the authors they study. The professor (critic) retains power through "deconstructing" the art he encounters, and thereby controlling it. But to what extent is "deconstruction" a construction? And more specifically, to what extent is it a construction designed to justify the existence of an English department?

To sit through a pedagogy class (as I have) is to experience what I call the "eternal justification." The justification of reading literature, that is. The truth is that art no more needs a justification than life does, and I can assure you that no justification exists for life or art in any case. I often think of writing a book someday, and calling it "The Non-uses of Literature."

Chungking Express

I'm usually at a loss to write about romantic comedies, but not because I don't find them worthwhile. This one, in particular, is immensely charming. The director, Wong Kar Wai, is a master of style (see In The Mood For Love for an example) and this film is no exception. While it lacks some of the more ostentatious moves of other films (running the film upside down in Happy Together, for example) it's still beautiful to look at.

When a waitress falls in love with a police officer, and obtains a key to his apartment, she takes it upon herself to redecorate in secret. He takes these changes in stride, simply assuming that his apartment is moving on from his ex-girlfriend, something he has been unable to do. Eventually, she gives him a boarding pass, but the destination has been smudged. He's willing to go wherever it takes him.

What is the use of philosophy?

In the introduction to Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction, Edward Craig answers that question with the following:

There is far too much philosophy, composed under far too wide a range of conditions, for there to be a general answer to that question. But it can certainly be said that a great deal of philosophy has been intended as (understanding the words very broadly) a means to salvation.

Nietzsche noted that Hamlet's problem wasn't that he "thinks too much" but that he thinks too well. This would seem to suggest that Hamlet is too smart to strive for salvation, yet this seems an incomplete picture of the play, for why does he suffer so much prior to Act 5? Has he not attained complete nihilism yet? Maybe it's not as black and white as Nietzsche suggests, and Hamlet's problem prior to Act 5 is the classic problem of philosophy. That is, he wants to know if we can think ourselves out of the problem that life poses.

In Straw Dogs, John Gray argues for a view of the world where man is not central, where "man is the measure" of nothing. He denies free will, the self, progress, the consolation of action, morality, and any other illusion we have devised as a species to make life bearable. Nietzsche wrote that life is based on an (Kantian) error, and makes it possible, and Camus asked whether it was possible to live with what he knew and nothing more. Can we live without illusions? Gray writes,

Contemplation is not the willed stillnesss of the mystics but a willing surrender to never-returning moments...Other animals do not need a purpose in life. A contradiction to itself, the human animal cannot do without one. Can we not think of the aim of life as being simply to see?

Of course he leaves it as a question, and I get the sense that he knows no more than anyone how to achieve this elusive goal. To embrace the transience of our lives, of the pain and joy, requires a faculty that perhaps we do not have.

The Piano Teacher

Another movie that is tough to figure out. It's not really difficult to understand what it's about, sexual deviance is never really that complicated, but I wonder what our stance is supposed to be towards the main character. Is she a monster? Probably not, and though one might be tempted to find the main fault with the domineering mother, I think perhaps that would be missing the larger point.

"I really loved you," says one character to another. Much of the dialogue is conducted in monologue, with one character sitting in stony silence, non-responsive. And so the question becomes how does one define love when it comes from another, unknowable person? Where is the evidence? In control? Jealousy? Obsessiveness? When we need it so badly, are we willing to mistake the evidence for the real thing? "I'll do what you tell me," she says, and it seems clear that this is enough for her. The tragedy is that the real thing destroys the illusion, and he asks her, during the disturbing climax, "Is this what you imagined?"

Warning: this movie is NOT for the squeamish.

Adaptation

What can you say about a movie that does nothing but talk about itself? After seeing it a second time, I began to notice just how careful it is, how every moment ties into another. What someone says in one scene finds dramatic fulfillment in another. Echoes travel back and forth across the narrative. One character speaks of the poor final act of a movie he admires, and the protagonist is told that a good ending will solve everything. But the ending we are left with is impossible to interpret with the tools the movie gives us. Should we take it seriously (at least emotionally seriously)? Or would that just make us suckers? Is that the joke? I don't think the movie itself contains the answers to these questions, and it is ultimately up to each viewer. This is either a stroke of genius or a complete cop-out, and I think the movie wants us to remain in that uncertain position.

Finally, someone gets the point. These words capture my feelings almost exactly:

As a movie, "The Matrix Reloaded" has some serious flaws: Many sequences drag, the pacing is jangled and there are far too many dreadlocks. But I have no problems with the pretentious, concept-heavy dialogue. Some reviewers imply that this metaphysical kitsch detracts from the fun; for some of us, it is the fun.

After I see it a second time I will try to write a proper review.

More on Postmodernism

Still reading my book, but I have a few thoughts. Butler states that one of the primary beliefs of postmodernists is that "everything is political." This is to say that all forms of discourse (language or otherwise) inherently contain concepts that reflect the dominant power that shapes the discourse. Look, for example, at "scientific" beliefs in the 19th century that knew for an empirical fact that blacks were inferior to whites. This is only the most obvious example.

I have always had a problem with the idea that "everything is political," but not because I believe in some sort of higher rationalism or ultimate truth, but because I think it presupposes some erroneous things about the way we think. If I could amend that concept, I would change it to "everything has political implications."

For example, if I believe that "Asians tend to be shorter than Whites" then a postmodernist would immediately claim that this "truth" (but there are no disinterested "truths" in po-mo) simply reinforces the dominant discourse (whites are better). Fair enough, but I want to argue that this "truth" only becomes political if I act on it. If I simply believe that Asians are shorter, but never do anything as a result of that belief, then how can it be political? Perhaps the flaw in po-mo is that it supposes that language is political when in reality only actions are. But here is the million dollar question: can I believe something without acting on it?

Ok, here is another point of view from Salon:

I've lost all sympathy for the flocks of chicken-robots who will gather around this franchise trying to peck holes in it, complaining about this or that problematic stunt scene or red-herring character. They are the agents of the Matrix; ignore them. Finally I understand that the Matrix movies are striving for a massively contradictory epic about love and hope, a grand and maybe impossible vision of living in a world of technology and escaping it at the same time, of being truly alive in a dead or dying society. They kick major ass, and they show us a future worth fighting for.

Alright, now I want to see the movie.

The Matrix: Reloaded

David Edelstein pans it, but also confirms my suspicions that he is a great critic. He also manages to state what was so compelling about the first one, and why repeat viewings seem to lessen the impact:

The original was, above all, an ontological mystery: How could Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) hang suspended in midair? Why did Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) know what Neo, then Thomas Anderson, was up to every second? Why did Anderson's life feel like a dream? The answers came gradually, mind-bendingly, mind-blowingly: an astute mix of everything trendy in postmodern sci-fi (Philip K. Dick and his paranoid visions of the world-as-simulation) and philosophy (Jean Baudrillard's view of the real obscured by materialism and technology), and everything up-to-the-minute in special effects and action. Most important, once Neo took the red pill, unplugged himself, and entered the virtual dojo, each fight developed his sense of who he was and what, within the Matrix, he was capable of doing; each action scene marked an ontological/metaphysical leap forward.

The suspense is gone once Neo finds his powers. I haven't seen Reloaded yet, but it appears from reviews I have read that it suffers from middle movie syndrome. The Two Towers, for example, is even less of a movie then the first Lord of the Rings, but that story isn't as dependent on special effects and pseudo-philosophy. Unlike The Matrix, it didn't have to surprise us, it just needed to move us (which it did-at least it moved me). It seems clear that Reloaded has failed to do the surprise thing in part 2, but it's still possible that part 3 has something else in store.

About 1/3 of the way through my postmodernism book, and I find it pretty fascinating. I am not having much difficulty with it at all, and I am wondering if the relative simplicity of the central arguments are a factor in the high popularity of this stance among idiots. Nevertheless, I agree so far with my intrepid guide, Christopher Butler, that while it certainly fails as a totalizing philosophy, it offers important correctives for how we sometimes see the world.

Po-mo gets the most flack for its attacks on science. Here, as an example, is Butler's account of a post-modern critique of science textbooks:

For example, there is a much referred to article by the anthropologist Emily Martin on "The Egg and the Sperm", which argues that "the picture of egg and sperm draw in popular as well as scientific accounts of reproductive biology relies on stereotypes central to our cultural definitions of male and female". "The stereotypes imply not only that female biological processes are less worthy than their male counterparts but also that women are less worthy than men". In such literature, it is asserted, we have a "passive", "coy damsel" female egg, versus the "active","macho" male sperm . . . Patriarchal scientists are supposed by their postmodernist critics to have inevitably, given their subjective and politically contaminated presuppositions, got the science of the relationship wrong.

Butler actually goes on to state that the science was indeed wrong, that the egg in effect "grabs" the sperm. But that isn't the point. The real question is whether the science was actually hampered by the political motivations of the scientists. This seems a tough argument to make since the patriarchal scientists changed their mind.

I think, in the end, where po-mo falls apart is specifically in its criticisms of science, as opposed to literature or history. Of course science is often seen through political or social lenses. But science, when done right, should only be the systematic examination of experience. This method suggests that all humans see causation in the same way. But that is obviously not true: If a tribe in Africa (po-mo alert: white superiority) believed that their rain dance caused the rain, who are we to argue?

But I want to argue that science is different because it applies rigorous examination to causation. Correlation is often not enough for scientists, and in any case I doubt correlation exists between the rain dances and actual rain. The tribe simply believes that there is causation. Are scientists any different? Hume would say no (all causation is actually habit and custom), Kant would probably say yes. The question here is obvious: how do we prove that our method (science) of finding causation is superior to the natives' method? I don't think it would be difficult to prove that the scientists would have more success at predicting rain than the natives (though not perfect), and by that standard, it can proven that science is superior to rain dances, though it's important to recognize that this superiority is tenuous at best. Science is better because it works better. Is there a way out of this better than simple pragmatism?

It is also worth noting, by observing the content of the quote up there, that postmodernists are incredibly blind to their own political stances. (Butler routinely notes the irony of their Freudian and Marxist worldview in contrast to their extreme relativism.) Po-mo itself is a political position. I would love for someone to do a postmodern critique of post-modernism!

Buffy The Vampire Slayer - Season 3

Every episode contains essentially two plots: the "real life" plot, dealing with, more often than not, the trials and tribulations of being a teenager in America, and the vampire plot, dealing with, obviously, monsters and demons and such. What makes the show great is not that it simply shows that teenage problems = monsters (though that aspect is undeniably part of what makes it great.) The greatness derives from the show's refusal to simply allow the monster plots to "stand in" or symbolize the "real life" plot. By allowing both aspects of the show to have equal emphasis, and by not ever allowing one to stand in for the other (the best episodes achieve a perfect fusion - to the extent that there is only one plot) both aspects are allowed to feed into one another, which ultimately enriches both (the silly monster plot is given meaning and emotion, while the "real life" plot achieves a kind of sublime mundanity through the fantastical extremes of the situation). In one episode about recrimination (and digging up the past to throw in someone's face) zombies attack Buffy's house, which, in this below average episode, is the only moment where the two plots converge.

Update: This is interesting, to say the least. (pdf file)

I know I have said that Paul Wolfowitz is the man behind the plan with regard to this administration. But who is behind Wolfowitz? Why, it's a lowly philosopher! Leo Strauss.

Is Christopher Logue a genius or a madman?

After Tim first brought my attention to this article, I went out and bought the book. It is really quite amazing. Rewriting the Iliad in this form merely emphasizes the incredible importance of that text as the best pre-Socratic artifact we have. The glimpses it gives into a world devoid of modern malaise suggests the possibility of "no salvation as salvation" that is written about below. Perhaps more importantly, it's a damn good story.

John Gray on Nihilism

In this short chapter, entitled "Homer's Vultures", John Gray manages to say the first new thing I have heard in a while. I am going to reprint it here in full, and hopefully once I finish the entire book, I will do a post on what I think about it.

Nietzsche's Superman sees mankind falling into an abyss in which nothing has meaning. By a supreme act of will, he delivers man from nihilism. Zarathustra succeeds Jesus as the redeemer of the world.

Nihilism is the idea that human life must be redeemed from meaninglessness. Until Christianity came on the scene, there were no nihilists. In The Iliad, Homer sang of the gods provoking men to war so they could enjoy the spectacle of ruin:

...Athene and the lord of the silver bow, Apollo
assuming the likeness of birds, of vultures, settled
aloft the great oak tree of their father, Zeus of the aegis,
taking their ease and watching these men whoe ranks, dense-settled,
shuddering into a bristle of spears, of shields and of helmets.
As when the shudder of the west wind suddenly rising
scatters across the water, and the water darkens beneath it,
so darkening were settled the ranks of Achaians and Trojans
in the plain.

Where is nihilism here? Homer's vultures do not redeem human life. There is nothing in it that needs redemption.

Earlier in the chapter, Gray quotes Cioran:

The certitude that there is no salvation is a form of salvation, in fact it is salvation. Starting from here, one might organise our own life as well as construct a philosophy of history: the insoluble as solution, as the only way out.

These are difficult sentiments to really get your mind around, but I really think they are on to something.

Since I have been twice accused of being a postmodernist in unrelated circumstances, I have took it upon myself to understand what that means. I picked up both Postmodernism: A Very Short Introduction and Poststructuralism: A Very Short Introduction.

I shall soon be able to out-Derrida and out-Foucault anyone, and my dazzling wit will amaze at many a cocktail party.

The real object of this post, however, is to recommend the books in this series for anyone who is interested in learning about philosophy. They are, for the most part, very readable. They assume a certain familiarity with philosophy, history, and literature, but this depends on the subject. The intro to Kant, for example, spends about 5 brain crunching pages on Hume before getting on to the main subject. It would probably be better to just read the Hume first.

The authors (mostly prestigious profs) tend to be good salemen for their subject, but they rarely, if ever, try to hide the problems. The intro to Nietzsche, for example, is as stirring a read as the real thing, and the man who wrote it, Michael Tanner, seems to have a sense of admiration and affection for his subject mixed with an appropriate skepticism. It's a book I would recommend for its own sake, not just as an introduction to a great thinker.

Here is what seems to be a complete list (they are always making new ones). I want the Intro to Chaos!

Thomas Pynchon on 1984

Wow. Maybe I am a little dizzy or something, but I just wrote this roughly five page paper in less than an hour. And I honestly think it is one of the best things I have ever written. It flows a little better than my writing usually does, which, if you simply read this site often, you will see is often stilted and artificial. I never want for ideas, but I often have a hard time writing with a style that isn't tortured. Well here is my paper, unfinished. I like it especially because I got in a few jokes, and the last line is excellent if I may say so. I think part of the reason this came easier for me is that I wasn't writing about any movies I have a strong attachment to, though I like them all. Even though Sandra Dee is so cute in Imitation of Life you want to strangle her!

Know Your Place

The most fundamental characteristic of the “American Eden”—or any Eden for that matter—is that it does not, and cannot, exist. Ontologically, utopia is non-existent (the very meaning of the word—“no place”—tells us this). Since the alternative is unbearable, cultures create the fiction of utopia, an illusion that sustains the viability and survival of civilization. In the American case, utopia is always a work in progress, and this common ideal is a fundamental characteristic of the nation. All civilizations identify the impediments to utopia as the Other (therefore death is the ultimate Other), and living in harmony with this Other is not sustainable, because it entails the death of the idea of utopia, an intolerable condition. Conflict with the Other, then, serves the extremely important purpose of deferring paradise to the future, and paradoxically providing hope.

The Other can be defined any number of ways, but in America the primary conflict, the great “original sin” of this country, is race. To some extent anyone non-white is an Other, but in The Searchers and Imitation of Life, different approaches, different ways of creating the illusion of utopia, are presented for both the role of, respectively, Indians and Blacks in the American paradise.

The Searchers is at the same time a critique of the American utopian ideal and a powerful representation of that ideal. The film encapsulates nothing less than the fall and subsequent restoration of paradise in the American west. Like all Westerns, The Searchers represents utopia through the domestic. The Edward’s homestead, out in the middle of nowhere, is like a tiny garden of Eden. When Ethan arrives he brings death with him, in the form of his own dark and conflicted past. He immediately produces conflict with Marty, who is 1/8 Indian. Even though the home is later destroyed by Indians (who are not seen), the true destruction of Eden begins with the arrival of Ethan, and it is no surprise that only he and Marty, he and the Other, survive, with the one other exception, Debbie, a captive of Indians.

The rest of the film deals with Ethan and Marty’s attempts to bring her back. Eventually Ethan does find her, and the happy ending of the film suggests utopia is restored. Ethan, knowing his place now, expels himself from Eden, because it cannot exist in his presence. Ethan knows intuitively what is the Other, and what is not, and he knows Debbie is the Other, and he knows Marty is too. His self-banishment is a result of his desire to allow the Jorgenson’s to create the illusion of utopia, something not possible for him. In many ways the utopian ending is a fabrication of the supposedly happy ending, and the film’s true subject (as it is really only Ethan’s film) is his own personal banishment from paradise, represented by the illusion of the happy Jorgenson home. In this way, The Searchers goes well beyond its genre to become a work of supreme art about man’s tragic destiny. The film even goes so far as to suggest the final heartbreaking truth that man is his own Other, and that not paradise is possible for him. Ethan knows his place is not in paradise.

Imitation of Life deals with the other great racial strife of this country; that conflict between whites and blacks. Again, it shows that paradise is only possible when the Other knows their place in society. Instead showing paradise as domestic bliss, it becomes fame and money, a more contemporary version. Lora and Annie, at the beginning of the film are both poor single mothers. When Lora begins to achieve fame and success, Annie, who is black, gets to come along for the ride. But Annie is a very gentle soul (the title oddly recalls Imitation of Christ), who knows her place. Almost immediately, even before Lora’s fame, she takes the role of her maid. Over time, and as Lora’s stature increases, the roles become more ingrained, and more permanent. Annie’s unwillingness to assert herself even allows her light skinned daughter a chance to escape from the role assigned to her at birth by her skin color, as she passes for white at school. There are two separate roles for Annie in the film. On the one hand, Lora is able to enter paradise because Annie knows her place, and assumes the role, not of an equal, but a servant. (Consider the happy and contented slaves of the antebellum south in Gone with the Wind.) On the other hand, her very existence as Other holds her daughter back, and dooms her to that same subservient role. When she dies (of heartbreak?), she allows her daughter to escape from her destiny. Much like Ethan, in both cases she has to banish herself from paradise to make the illusion possible for the other characters. She too knows her place is not in paradise.

The Last of the Mohicans, yet again, gives us an Other that knows his place. The end of the film, in particular, presents the idea that the illusion of paradise is only possible when the Other knows their place. The lead couple, Hawkeye and Cora, both white, represents the future of America, and Chingachgook, Hawkeye’s surrogate father, denies himself this future at the end of the film. [check notes for some quotes.] Chingachgook, just like Annie and Ethan, learns to know his place, and that place is as the white man’s inferior. As a member of a “disappearing race,” he must “heroically” accept his tragic fate to make the American paradise possible.

The Stalking Moon shows what happens when the Other does not know his place. Sam Varner takes Sarah, a former hostage of Indians, and her half Indian son to his home in New Mexico. Like an Edenic couple, they plan to start over again and create a domestic paradise. When the boy’s father, Salvaje, shows up to claim him, and therefore to implicitly claim a stake in the future paradise, he must be banished. Sam does not desire to hunt down Salvaje and simply exterminate him; he is content to let him live so long as he lives outside Eden. But when Salvaje arrives and forces the issue by making a claim on paradise, he has to be put in his “place” by Sam. Notably, the principal action of the film shows Sam defending their home from Salvaje playing the role of intruder. His mere presence in the house defiles it, and utopia is out of reach so long as he sticks around to harass them. Once Sam kills him paradise, or the illusion of paradise, is possible. The conflicted identity of the boy will presumably become the next Other which defines the Same.

The Matrix uses science-fiction in order to make more abstract and philosophical statements about the role of the Other. The metaphysical context of the film conveniently side-steps any issues about possible utopias by suggesting that reality is the illusion instead. Utopia, you see, is only as far away as a state of mind. Neo, as the savior who will break all bonds, threatens the existing order and promises salvation. What is the role of the Other in such a scenario? While the Agents of the film, as the prime actors on behalf of the matrix itself, must be completely destroyed, and any and all humans still stuck in the matrix are potential threats and therefore Others that can be disposed of, what place does the Other have besides being dead? In order to “know the place” of the Other in The Matrix, one must see the matrix itself as the Other. That is, one must see reality itself as the Other. The matrix, as the reality of those trapped inside it, is forced to (or is beginning to be forced to in the first episode of this trilogy) know its place as an instrument of the people inside. The Matrix, then, knows that utopia is impossible in reality, yet it imagines that reality is amenable to human will. The place of the Other, the place of reality (defined as that which impedes utopia) is to disappear, and reveals itself to be illusion instead. Like the Others discussed previously, there is no place for reality in paradise.


And here is an extra picture of Sandra Dee being extra cute: