2001, Rod Munday, and UNDERinterpretation
Leonard F. Wheat
himself today to be a member of the No Nothing Party. I refer to that
feisty group of AMK malcontents who rejoice in adamantly proclaiming
themselves opposed to knowledge, thinking, and insight and who
actually boast of being against interpretation (even interpretation
of, of all things, Kubrick films!). The No Nothings oppose thinking
because it "ruins the viewing experience" (not to mention causing
headaches in their tender heads). How much more fun it is for them to
jeer than to engage in intelligent discussion and argumentation.
Munday previously offered himself as a sort of expert on what
is or isn't allowable in the realm of interpretation, so I think it
will be useful to see what sort of example he sets. In the
"Overinterpretation" thread, which he launched, he encouraged people
to go to another website and read his "explanation of the movie."
Titled "Thoughts on 2001," this "explanation" is essentially an
interpretation, for "explanation" and "interpretation" mean
essentially the same thing in the context of movie critiques. Right
away we detect a little hypocrisy: the man who condemns interpretation
isn't against it when the interpretation is his own. He opposes only
those interpretations which expose the shallowness of his own
interpretation.
And shallow it is. As we read Munday's "thoughts," we find
that they add up to little more than a summary of the movie, augmented
by occasional comments on this and that. Nothing insightful. Anyone
who has seen the movie (presumably everyone who reads his article)
isn't going to find much they didn't already know. They will, of
course, learn what a proper level of interpretation is. It turns out
that a proper level is almost no interpretation at all plus a generous
amount of bad interpretation.
Munday's interpretation, we are told, will "concentrate on
what is on the screen." I find it strange that Munday would bother to
say that. He has repeatedly denied that 2001 has any story other than
the surface story. If you deny the presence of either allegory or
intentional symbolism (definitive meanings intended by Kubrick) of any
other sort, what else besides the screen is there to "concentrate" on?
If "concentrate on what is on the screen" alludes to deeper
meanings, Munday only suspects their existence. But I don't think he
even suspects. He quotes Kubrick's reference to "the [1]
philosophical and [2] allegorical meaning of the film." Here Kubrick
is giving us a bold hint that 2001 contains philosophical and
allegorical meanings. But the hint flies right over Munday's head.
Regarding philosophical meaning, 2001 contains Kubrick's subtle
endorsement of Nietzsche's philosophy of atheism, as presented in THUS
SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA. Professor Carl Friedman has pointed out "how
fundamental is the philosophical atheism of Nietzsche to this
masterpiece [2001] by perhaps the greatest of cinematic atheists
[Kubrick]." But in Munday's interpretation, the philosophy isn't
found.
And neither is the allegory. Not the Zarathustra allegory,
not the Odysseus allegory, and not the Clarkeian man-machine symbiosis
allegory. Professor H. James Birx has written in his introduction to
THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA that 2001 "is clearly a visual representation
of Nietzsche's philosophy of overcoming" (i.e., overcoming man's
bondage to God). Birx notes 2001's story of Nietzscheian evolution
"from the apes through human beings to the star-child," whom he
recognizes as the symbol for Nietzsche's overman. Munday, however,
swims through his article's introduction without even noticing 2001's
ape-man-futureman evolution theme. Much less does he recognize that
this theme parallels that of ZARATHUSTRA.
THE DAWN OF MAN
Munday's interpretation is laid out as a part-by-part
"explanation" (a misnomer) of 2001's four parts, including the
untitled Trip to the Moon. He begins with part 1, "The Dawn of Man."
Munday doesn't know it, or at least he doesn't acknowledge it, but
this part depicts ape's evolution into man. Ape-into-man evolution
has three salient aspects: (1) ape's acquisition of intelligence,
imparted to ape by an alien machine, (2) ape's use of that
intelligence to invent the first tool (fictionally the first), and (3)
Kubrick's using tool use as his symbol of humanity.
The Munday interpretation does tell us that Moonwatcher
"becomes enlightened in the use of tools" ? that's point 2 above ? but
he completely misses points 1 and 3. Ape's acquisition of
intelligence is a crucial step in evolution, but Munday's
"explanation" contains no mention of the word "intelligence."
Although we now know otherwise, tool use was long believed to be a
definitive characteristic of man. Kubrick therefore uses tool use to
symbolize the transformation of ape into man. But Munday, though he
mentions tool use, misses the real point: tool use symbolizes the
emergence of man. This is interpretation?
THE TRIP TO THE MOON
The lead sentence in Munday's interpretation of the Trip to
the Moon begins: "The bone weapon becomes a space ship orbiting the
earth." Right off the bat Munday misses another point. The point is
that a PRIMITIVE weapon becomes a MODERN weapon, an orbiting nuclear
bomb (not "a space ship"). That's an important distinction, because
this transformation is one of a series of steps by which a bone is
transformed into a bony God, the spaceship Discovery. Discovery,
along with Hal, symbolizes the Nietzscheian God who is made by man in
his own image.
Ironically, three sentences later Munday does notice "the
vertebrae of the Discovery vessel." But this is just a passing
observation to which Munday attaches no significance. He fails to
notice Discovery's many other anthropomorphisms (the head, the mouths,
the tongues, the sunglasses, the neck, the sacrum, and the three pairs
of excretory orifices, one for each mouth). Much less does he see any
connection between the bone that started it all and the bony God who
ultimately emerges. And neither does he see the parody of the Bible's
assertion that woman was made from a bone (Adam's rib).
"Explaining" the Blue Danube sequence, Munday again fails to
recognize and interpret what is going on. I refer to the sexual
symbolism embodied in the mating dance, the phallic space shuttle's
subsequent penetration of the vaginal space station, and the climactic
utterance of the word "Squirt" (ejaculation) inside the space station.
Roger Ebert grasped the symbolism (part of it). Carolyn Geduld did
too (again, part of it). But you won't learn about 2001's sexual
symbolism in Munday's interpretation. Oh, sure, Munday does mention
the "voyeuristic pleasures of the technology on display," but this is
empty metaphor that misses what is really going on at the symbolic
level. Munday also says "the EFFECT is one of seduction," but we then
learn that it isn't the space station who is being seduced. It is the
moviegoer, who is being seduced into accepting "an almost grasped,
utopian future."
Pretty soon Munday depicts Heywood Floyd as "delivering a
tough peremptory speech" at Clavius. Were Munday and I watching the
same movie? The speech I saw, and heard, was flaccid and apologetic.
It substituted empty jargon for substance. It could well have been
intended as a spoof of bureaucratese.
Munday closes his interpretation of part 2 by quoting the moon
bus conversation of Halvorsen, Floyd, and Michaels. Floyd (referring
in disbelief to the monolith): "Deliberately buried." Michaels:
"Well, how about a little coffee?" Brace yourselves. Here comes
Munday's interpretation: "Thus we can see that the cost of human
"progress," by repressing brutality, is a loss of humanity." To begin
with, how did "brutality" get into the act, and where do we see it
suppressed. (Oh, I get it, the orbiting nuclear bombs. They haven't
exploded yet, so they're being repressed. Why didn't you say so, Rod,
so dolts like me could understand?) The real clinker, though, is the
"loss of humanity" bit. Michaels offers Floyd some coffee and,
presto, our resident magician-interpreter converts this gracious act
into a loss of humanity. Pardon me for suggesting that more
enlightened film interpretations have been written.
Meanwhile, Munday misses all of the allegorical goings-on, the
most interesting of which is Helen's seduction by Paris.
JUPITER MISSION: 18 MONTHS LATER
In part 3, Munday's interpretation continues to flounder. But
not entirely. In one place Munday finally does get things right.
Describing Hal's malicious behavior, he writes: "The usual reason
given for this is that he suffers a "mental breakdown" although I
would argue that there is no direct evidence for this in the film."
For a change, Munday is right. Nothing in the film suggests that Hal
had a mental breakdown. That's an idea that Clarke proposed and that
Kubrick rejected; it is found only in Clarke's novel and in the
non-Kubrick sequel, 2010. In Kubrick's movie, Hal simply makes a
mistake. This mistake was part of the process of making Hal-Discovery
a humanoid: "To err is human." As a humanoid, Hal-Discovery can
symbolize both (a) the God man creates IN HIS OWN IMAGE in the
Zarathustra allegory and (b) the MAN-machine symbiot in the symbiosis
allegory.
This one insight (Hal's not having a breakdown) is, however,
the only insight in Munday's interpretation of part 3. Munday misses
even the most obvious symbolism. The very most obvious symbolism is
Hal's role as a symbol for the one-eyed cyclops from Homer's THE
ODYSSEY, one of three hidden stories being told allegorically in 2001.
True, Munday does mention Hal's "Cyclops eye," but he means only that
Hal has ONE eye, like the cyclops; he completely misses Hal's status
as an allegorical symbol of the cyclops. In fact, rather than
comparing Hal himself to the cyclops, Munday compares Hal's "glowing
eye" to the glowing eye of the leopard from part 1.
And Munday totally overlooks the fight between Odysseus and
the cyclops. Odysseus wins by JABBING a huge stake into the cyclops'
eye, then TWISTING the stake. Dave Bowman wins by JABBING a brain
shutoff key (stake symbol) into Hal's brain modules, then TWISTING it.
I wouldn't expect Munday to catch most, or even very much, of the
symbolism in 2001, but missing the cyclops symbolism is a bit too
much. Munday is giving us an interpretation that fails to interpret.
Immediately before Odysseus has his run-in with the cyclops,
he visits the land of the Lotus-eaters. Some of the most obvious
symbolism in 2001 depicts this episode. Odysseus' visit to Lotus
Land has three salient features: (1) It involves a SURVEY TEAM sent
inland to explore. (2) The team consists of THREE MEN. (3) The team
becomes DISABLED when the men eat lotus. How did Munday manage to
miss the 2001 symbolism that depicts the lotus episode: (1) The three
hibernating astronauts are explicitly referred to as "the SURVEY
TEAM." (2) Bowman's (Odysseus') survey team consists of THREE MEN.
(3) The team is DISABLED, in hibernation.
Munday is totally oblivious to this symbolism. Here is some
of the most easily interpreted symbolism in the movie, but he can't
handle it. All he can do is misspell the names of two of the three
hibernators.
The next two episodes that follow the cyclops episode in THE
ODYSSEY are a troublesome visit with AEolus, King of the Winds, and a
rock attack by the Laestrygonians. I'll skip the AEolus symbolism,
because it is much to subtle for Munday to grasp even with an
explanation. (Hint: The symbolism involves the AE-35 unit, which
causes trouble, and some associations between the number 35 and the
Hawker Hurricane, built by the predecessor company of Hawker Siddelely
Aircraft, which designed 2001's pod interiors and instrument layouts.)
In the rock attack symbolism, those mean old Laestrygonians
stand on cliffs high above Odysseus's anchored ships. The bad guys
hurl down huge rocks, sinking all the ships except Odysseus' flagship.
Odysseus barely escapes the hail of rocks. In 2001, right after the
AE-35 unit comes up for discussion, we see an exterior shot of
Discovery. Suddenly two meteoroids roar past the ship in towards the
camera. We are witnessing Odysseus' escape from the Laestrygonians.
But try to tell that to Munday. Not only did he miss it in his
"explanation" of part 3, he and the other members of the No Nothing
Party will vigorously deny that any symbolism was intended. They will
say that those of us who can recognize the symbolism are guilty of
"overinterpretation."
After missing all the meat of part 3 (and I do mean "all"),
Munday concludes by saying, "In the act of murdering of the machine
Bowman symbolically also murders his own mechanical nature." As a
preliminary quibble, Munday needs to look up the definition of the
word "murder." He also needs to reflect on whether hypocrisy is
involved when he claims, on the one hand, that Kubrick had no symbols
with definitive meanings (intended by Kubrick) and then claims that
Bowman's killing of Hal is symbolic.
The real problem, though, is that this interpretation is
contrary to what we see on the screen. Rather than "murdering" his
own mechanical nature, Bowman wins by developing and exploiting that
nature. He contrives a way to use mechanical features of both the pod
and the spaceship's airlock to rescue himself. Then he uses a simple
mechanical device, the brain shutoff key, to kill Hal. Nor does he
forsake mechanical assistance after that. He proceeds to fly the
remaining mechanical space pod in pursuit of the Jupiter monolith; he
uses a mechanical space suit in the process. Later, in the hotel
room, he uses a mechanical toilet and a mechanical sink (maybe even
the tub) for sanitary purposes, lives in a mechanically
temperature-controlled room, and uses eating utensils to eat food that
presumably was prepared with the assistance of mechanical devices
rather than magic. Munday's death-of-mechanics thesis is simply a
case of foolish prate.
JUPITER AND BEYOND THE INFINITE
Munday begins his interpretation of part 4 by repeating the
hokum about the horizontal monolith and the vertically aligned planet
and moons forming a cross at Jupiter. Clarke convincingly refutes
this interpretation in REPORT ON PLANET THREE AND OTHER SPECULATIONS:
"Several reviewers have seen a cross in some of the astronomical
scenes; this is purely a matter of camera composition. I might also
mention that we have recently discovered this was quite a shock that
there is a Buddhist sect that worships a large, black, rectangular
slab." In other words, the "cross" was unintentional.
In the same introductory paragraph, Munday presents what could
have been genuine insights, but he fails to follow through and misses
the import of what he sees. Munday refers to "the sperm-like pod" and
"the phallic Discovery." But he immediately abandons these ideas,
failing to grasp their significance. Discovery IS indeed
reconceptualized as a phallus at Jupiter, and the pod IS sperm
ejaculated from its tip. The pod travels up a cosmic fallopian tube,
the tunnel of lights. It then encounters a larger sphere, the aliens'
planet, which symbolizes the ovum, a sphere that is much larger than
the sperm. The sperm enters the egg. What follows is fetal
development inside the hotel room, which symbolizes the amnion, or
fetal sac. This is two-stage symbolism: Bowman's aging symbolizes
fetal development (maturation), and fetal development in turn
symbolizes evolution. The fetus matures into a baby, which is
symbolically born when the camera glides slowly into the black
monolith, which fills the screen and morphs into the starry black
universe. All this is missed by Munday.
Meanwhile, back at the "cross," Munday overlooks the real
significance of the vertically aligned planet and moons. Zarathustra
had promised to show the first generation of higher men the "stairs to
the overman." The planet and moons are Kubrick's stairs to the
overman; that's the whole point of bringing them into alignment.
Jupiter, at the bottom (LOWEST), symbolizes LOWER man; Jupiter's huge
size describes lower man's numerical superiority. The moons aligned
above Jupiter (HIGHER than Jupiter) are successive generations of
HIGHER man. When Bowman's gaze climbs the stairs to focus on a point
high above (OVER) the highest moon, he is looking at the
top-of-the-stairs position of OVERman.
On to the hotel room. Parroting what others have said about
the hotel room ("Louis XVI," "French high baroque," "Regency," "18th
Century"), Munday describes the room as displaying "the classical
opulence of Louis-seize, but with an underlit floor." I'm sorry, Mr.
Munday, but you'd better take another look. The room has no exit door
or windows, only the door to the bathroom. It has no lamps and no
carpet. The bathroom, which you wouldn't have found in Louis' time,
has an unconventional privy style toilet (water closet to you),
mounted on a bench. The floor is translucent glass. This description
fits neither the hotel rooms of Louis' day nor those of today.
Munday especially overlooks the room's most significant
feature: the absence of a door or windows. That feature, plus the
glass floor, is a real tipoff to symbolism. The hotel room symbolizes
the amnion, or fetal sac; it has no exits. The translucency of the
floor represents the translucency of the fetal sac. When the sperm
(pod) enters the egg (planet), fetal development begins. The sperm
merges with the egg and disappears: the pod disappears. Cell division
follows: one Bowman becomes two, repeatedly. The fetus matures:
Bowman ages. But Munday is incapable of seeing any of this, because
he is in denial. He denies that there can be any symbolism in 2001.
He is riding the "against interpretation" bandwagon. Like his fellow
members of the No Nothing Party, he thinks interpretation ruins the
viewing experience.
Pretty soon we learn that "Bowman stretches out his arm in a
parody of the "Birth of Adam" by Michaelangelo. Munday obviously
doesn't know what parody is; he doesn't understand that it involves
humor or ridicule. More important, he doesn't understand what is
really being symbolized. In the Odysseus allegory, Odysseus is
reaching for the Great Bow, which has been out of his hands for 20
years. In the Zarathustra allegory, Zarathustra is reaching for
power, from Nietzsche's concept of "the will to power."
In the next paragraph, Munday once again misses the point:
"the camera slowly tracks into the blackness of the monolith." The
point he misses is that the birth of a higher being (whatever comes
after man in the surface story, overman in the Zarathustra allegory)
is being symbolized. The star-child (overman in the allegory) is
moving out of the womb and into the universe.
Next: "The meaning of Bowman's transformation is not made
clear." But I'd say the meaning is perfectly clear. In the surface
story, Bowman has evolved into an advanced being, undefined in detail
but definitely as far above man as man is above the ape. Superior
intelligence is presumably (but not necessarily) the critical feature
of this new being. In the man-machine symbiosis allegory, man has
again evolved into an undefined advanced being. This is a "good"
outcome that serves as counterpoint to the "bad" outcome that would
have materialized if the newly evolved symbiotic man-machine race had
defeated man in the Battle in Outer Space. In the Zarathustra
allegory, higher man has evolved into overman, a mentally and morally
(but not physically) superior being. And in the Odysseus allegory,
Odysseus has regained the Great Bow and is in command of the
situation.
Munday, he who is against interpretation, then gives us a
religious interpretation of the film's ending, whereas that ending is
actually antireligious, atheistic. Munday sees the star-child as "a
holy infant, a wise child bathed in a halo like aura." This image
provides us with "the religous tone [found] at the end of 2001." Here
Munday is taking literally some symbolism that is meant to be taken
figuratively. The star-child has three symbolic features: child,
globe, and radiance. All three come from THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA. In
Nietzsche's "Three Metamorphoses" (camel, lion, and child, or lower
man, higher man, and overman), the child symbolizes overman, "a new
beginning." Overman is NOT LITERALLY a child; he is a FIGURATIVE
child. The child symbolizes a new beginning, a new race.
When overman arrives, the occasion will be "the great
noontime," and overman will be a FIGURATIVE sun radiating his
brilliance and morality on the earth. Overman is NOT LITERALLY a sun;
overman is a new race of men. The globe surrounding the star-child
represents Nietzsche's figurative noontime sun.
In Nietzsche's parable of the shepherd and the serpent, the
shepherd is transformed into a "light-surrounded" (radiant) being who
symbolizes overman. Overman's radiance is NOT LITERAL, it is
FIGURATIVE. Munday sees religious overtones in this "halo like aura,"
but the overtones are really antireligious. Man is replacing God as
the Supreme Being. God had to die before this could happen, because
only one being can be Supreme. When man killed God, lower man evolved
into higher man, who paved the way for overman. And with overman's
arrival, man becomes the Supreme Being. This is a victory for
atheism. Atheism's victory is the reason Professor Friedman, quoted
earlier, can declare "how fundamental is the philosophical atheism of
Nietzsche to this masterpiece."
Munday concludes with yet another mistake: "The final shot
reprises the film's opening." On the contrary, the final shot is the
culmination of the sun's climb from dawn to high noon, a climb that
uses Nietzsche's "stairs to the overman" that we saw at Jupiter. A
reprise would be another dawn. But instead the film ends with a
symbolic "great noontime," taken straight from the ending of THUS
SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA. Munday's interpretation has once more missed the
point.
Clay Waldrop
> Roderick Munday, previously suspected of being a Whig, revealed
> himself today to be a member of the No Nothing Party. I refer
> to that feisty group of AMK malcontents who rejoice in adamantly
> proclaiming themselves opposed to knowledge, thinking, and
> insight and who actually boast of being against interpretation
> (even interpretation of, of all things, Kubrick films!). The No
> Nothings oppose thinking because it "ruins the viewing experience"
> (not to mention causing headaches in their tender heads). How
> much more fun it is for them to jeer than to engage in intelligent
I think it's a manifestation of the "not invented here" syndrome
(as we in the computer business would label it), to wit: They
didn't think of "2001" as a triple allegory (which is quite
deliberately is) and they're jealous of anyone who would put forth
such a novel idea. Forgive them, for they no not what they do.
Clay
Padraig L Henry
This medieval arch-crank would merely be a trifling painful
embarrassment if it were not for his pathologically frenzied,
obsessively neurotic, and defensively paranoid attempts to reduce
Kubrick's film to the status of Bad Art, to a derivative,
deterministic, and plagiaristic work entailing wholesale literary
plunder according to a reactionary and elementary mathematical
formula, a passive fill-in-the-dots, join-up-the-lines high-school
puzzle. That such emotionally-glacial, aesthetically-barren, and
socially-repressed cranks still exist in the 21st Century in large
numbers says much about the state of contemporary - including American
- society and culture.
It is the Wheats of this world who are the real enemies of "knowledge,
thinking, and insight," whose dogmatic heads and permafrosted hearts
are so fetishistically alienated from reality as to be so utterly
incapable of comprehending the simplest of humanistic concepts, the
concept of poetic metaphor, and so preclude themselves from any
meaningful engagement with an artistic experience or sensibility ...
(BTW, his "knowledge" of Nietzsche's central ideas is truly
breathtaking in its astonishing ignorance).
Go peddle - or should that be "squirt?" - your twisted reasoning and
demented scribblings somewhere else, sonny-boy preacher. (I believe
that the Scientologists and Al-Quaida have a few openings ... though
Aronofsky needs someone matching your profile to play the
self-destructive protagonist in his sequel to PI).
Padraig
On 5 Jul 2002 15:52:27 -0700, lenw...@earthlink.net (Leonard F.
Thornhill
completely overwashed and overmanned by his condescendingly juvenile,
foolish, ad hominem attitudes in declaring how "correct" he is and how
"wrong" are any contrary posters at AMK with whom he disagrees.
Smart, educated people, as Mr. Wheat professes to be, usually learn to
adjust to a mature world, eventually, and grow up.
But, Mr. Wheat has substituted other things for maturity. Mr. Wheat,
very simply, does not play well with others. Every "know-it-all" post
he commits only proves that point. So, if ("if") Mr. Wheat has some
interesting points to make, his childish, self-righteous tone hides
any validity he insists on, while revealing, even putting onto
center-stage, these very attributes that separate the adults from the
children on AMK.
Thornhill
Mike Jackson
cthor...@worldnet.att.net 07/06/2002 12:11 PM went on about :
Oh, you're much too kind. Leonard is as crazy as a fruit bat listening him
ramble on and on and on about HAL...
Besides anyone with two brain cells knows that in "2001" HAL is a nod to the
Tin Man from the "Wizard of Oz"
"I'd be tender
I'd be gentle
And awful sentimental
Regarding love and art"
"That's a nice drawing Dave. I think you've improved quite a bit."
"I'd be friends with the sparrows
And the boy who shoots the arrows
If I only had a heart"
The boy who shoots the arrows? Bow-Man! Elementary!
http://www.niehs.nih.gov/kids/lyrics/cowardly.htm
It's easy to solve any riddle for any individdle when you have a brain!
-----------------
Mike Jackson
Mental Pictures Photography & Graphic Design
(228) 696-2702 Phone/ Fax
(228) 918-4596 Cellular
FAKE_ID
@news.iol.ie:
> though
> Aronofsky needs someone matching your profile to play the
> self-destructive protagonist in his sequel to PI
Sequel to Pi? Yum, that's tasty inviting much belly-rubbing. Where'd you
hear that? I went to IMDB to check on this but amongst his forthcoming
projects I only saw the Batman prequel listed there. Is that the movie
you're talking about?
I think that's an even more knee-level indecent proposal: what if the
upcoming movie will be BOTH the Batman prequel AND the sequel to Pi
rolled into one? I've had my moments of doubt but now I'm blindly
satisfied that Batman and Mathman may have always been one and the same
character separated by a curtain/cape! If you watch both movies
simultaneously, and make sure that the screen curtains are short and soft
enough, one movie exists within the other, Gotham is math-og backwards
("og" means "opposite Gotham" or "Opiated Gauss" or "obese geese" or
"Oscar Goldman" or "Ophelia's Gown" or "Othello's Gay" or "Orgasmic
Godfather").
Pi is the ratio of a circle's circumference
(Sir Cum-Friends: based on the popular show Friends, about a debauched
and sadistic English Knight (whose "eyes are like angels but his heart is
cold") forcing everyone on the show Friends to have sex with him and then
with each other in his castle circled by a moat. The friends all die, but
not before they have their limbs dismembered one by one to the song
Smooth Operator by Sade, a song loosely based on the bloody and yet
detached calculations for Pi by the Marquis de Sade, as evidenced by
lyrics such as:
He's laughing with another girl
And playing with another heart.
Placing high stakes, making hearts ache.)
to its diameter.
The Bat signal is a circular Pi in the sky. The Batman emblem/crest and
the symbol for Pi are quite similar (the movie posters are almost
copulating with each other. Holy mirror-fuck, Batman!). The elusive bat
trapped inside a circle is suggestive of the inexact nature that has made
Pi and the mathematicians who strove to set it free famous for centuries.
Like Batman Pi is also a movie about bodily orifices, specifically the
ratio between the widening circumference of pain experienced by the
vagina, mouth, anus, nostril etc, and correspondly increasing diameter of
pleasure that throbs in the penis, clitoris, tongue, finger, etc.
Also consider:
diameter = Diane meet her
Which is a TV show based on the character "Diane" on Twin Peaks, the
disembodied Diane who is the muse inside Agent Cooper's microcassette
recorder whom we never get to meet. Hence Pi is the ratio between the two
tv shows "Diane, Meet Her" and "Sir Cum-Friends".
regards
fake
Clay Waldrop
Peter Tonguette
>This medieval arch-crank would merely be a trifling painful
>embarrassment if it were not for his pathologically frenzied,
>obsessively neurotic, and defensively paranoid attempts to reduce
>Kubrick's film to the status of Bad Art, to a derivative,
>deterministic, and plagiaristic work entailing wholesale literary
>plunder according to a reactionary and elementary mathematical
>formula, a passive fill-in-the-dots, join-up-the-lines high-school
>puzzle. That such emotionally-glacial, aesthetically-barren, and
>socially-repressed cranks still exist in the 21st Century in large
>numbers says much about the state of contemporary - including American
>- society and culture.
>
>It is the Wheats of this world who are the real enemies of "knowledge,
>thinking, and insight," whose dogmatic heads and permafrosted hearts
>are so fetishistically alienated from reality as to be so utterly
>incapable of comprehending the simplest of humanistic concepts, the
>concept of poetic metaphor, and so preclude themselves from any
>meaningful engagement with an artistic experience or sensibility ...
Amen to that. I'd suggest Wheat have a read of Susan Sontag's essay "Against
Interpretation" - already mentioned and ignored by him in another thread -
sometime.
A selection:
"In most modern instances, interpretation amounts to the philistine refusal to
leave the work of art alone. Real art has the capacity to make us nervous. By
reducing the work of art to its content and then interpreting that, one tames
the world of art. Interpretation makes art manageable, comformable."
It's a key essay - and Sontag one of our great essayists - and has obvious
relevance to this debate.
Peter
blue bus
Leonard F. Wheat <lenw...@earthlink.net> wrote:
<snip>
Forgive me if this has been covered (I admit I've skipped a bit). What do
symbolic references to the lotus eaters, the trojan horse, actually do to
expand the horizons of the film? The point by point allusion and word-play
otherwise seem a bit self-indulgent.
--
/---------------\
blue bus
Leonard F. Wheat <lenw...@earthlink.net> wrote:
<snip>
Sorry if this has been covered (I admit I've skipped a bit), but what do
symbolic references to the lotus eaters, the trojan horse, actually do to
expand the horizons of the film? The idea of point by point allusion and
word-play seems a bit self-indulgent on the makers' part.
--
/---------------\
blue bus
--
/---------------\
PT Caffey
It's really quite simple. Gather together your "squirt," "bush-baby"
and "Trojans" and arrange them thusly:
(Squirt + bush) - Trojan = baby. Happy Birthday, Star-Child!
Now, see the film, if you like, but it truly isn't necessary.
PT Caffey
Mike Jackson
ptca...@yahoo.com 07/06/2002 9:24 PM went on about :
Damnit Caffey, give a guy a little warning next time!
Now I gotta drain all the coffee I just spit up outta this keyboard...
Bullwinkle
"I don't think Leonard can hack it anymore. I think Leonard's a Section Eight."
Bullwinkle
Leonard F. Wheat
> Padraig L Henry wrote:
>
> >This medieval arch-crank would merely be a trifling painful
> >embarrassment if it were not for his pathologically frenzied,
> >obsessively neurotic, and defensively paranoid attempts to reduce
> >Kubrick's film to the status of Bad Art, to a derivative,
> >deterministic, and plagiaristic work entailing wholesale literary
This ranting is just the sort of thing I had in mind when I
referred to the No Nothings' opposition to knowledge, thinking, and
insight and when I wrote, "How much more fun it is for them to jeer
than to engage in intelligent discussion and argumentation." The P.
Tonguettes and P. Henrys of this world are incapable of intelligent
discussion, so they sit back and jeer.
Even when they make feeble attempts to argue, the inability
to provide coherence is immediately apparent. P. Henry thus writes
(causing P. Tonguette to clap), that I am trying "to reduce [2001] to
the status of Bad Art." But anyone who reads my analysis of 2001 will
see that I am doing the opposite. They will also find that I have
described 2001 as "the grandest motion picture ever filmed." People
who find it necessary to base their "arguments" on made-up "facts" are
not only dishonest, they are incapable of developing arguments whose
premises can withstand scrutiny.
Henry next proceeds to suggest (again causing Tonguette to
clap) that, if 2001 is the allegory I say it is, then 2001 is a
"plagiaristic work." By this he means that, because some allegories
symbolize other works (these become the hidden stories), allegory is
plagiarism. His point, merely implied but nonetheless clear, is that
if 2001 is an allegory with THE ODYSSEY (or ZARATHUSTRA) as its hidden
story, then 2001 is plagiarism. The further implication is that,
since Kubrick would never embrace plagiarism, 2001 could not possibly
be an allegory.
This pathetic argument collapses under the weight of Henry's
incredible ignorance of the meanings of both plagiarism and allegory.
Henry's "all allegory is plagiarism" thesis is so ludicrous as to
identify Henry as an ignoramus.
> Amen to that. I'd suggest Wheat have a read of Susan Sontag's essay "Against
> Interpretation" - already mentioned and ignored by him in another thread -
> sometime.
The Sontag quote that I ignored (because it deserves to be
ignored) is: "To interpret is to impoverish . . . the world."
Although I suspect that Sontag never intended to apply this quotation
to all forms of interpretation, let's assume for the moment that she
did. In that case, she is a guru I would never kneel before. Such an
opinion can only be described as pathetic.
Sontag, it would seem, would deny the physics professor the
write to interpret e = mc2 (pretend that 2 is an exponent) and a host
of other formulas for his students. The astronomer would be denied
the right to interpret the oscillation of a star as evidence of an
orbiting planet. Students of English Literature would be denied
assistance in understanding John Bunyan's "The Pilgrim's Progress" or
Harper Lee's "To Kill A Mockingbird." Students of classical music
would be denied interpretations of program music. Homicide detectives
and crime lab technicians could not interpret evidence or perfomr DNA
tests. Weathermen could not interpret weather systems.
> A selection [from Sontag]:
>
> "In most modern instances, interpretation amounts to the philistine refusal to
> leave the work of art alone. Real art has the capacity to make us nervous. By
> reducing the work of art to its content and then interpreting that, one tames
> the world of art. Interpretation makes art manageable, comformable."
>
> It's a key essay - and Sontag one of our great essayists - and has obvious
> relevance to this debate.
I said above that I suspect Sontag never intended the
original quotation (supplied by Munday) to apply to all forms of
interpretation. Tonguette now provides evidence that not only Munday
but he (Tonguette) himself have sloppily quoted Sontag out of context.
It looks as though they have tried to create the appearance of
blanket condemnation of interpretation whereas Sontag was referring
only to paintings and (perhaps) certain other forms of fine
art (collages, sculptures, ceramic works, etc.). If that's all she
meant, I'd be inclined to agree with her. Although I have rarely seen
painting interpretations, I've seen just enough to see how silly they
can be.
But even here Sontag says her opinion applies only "in most
modern instances." Note the double qualifier. "Most" allows for
exceptions, exceptions that Tonguette is totally ignorant of. And
"modern" seems to suggest that either older art or older
interpretations are exempt from Sontag's dictum.
But forget Sontag's qualifiers, if you will. Assume she was
condemning all art criticism, meaning art in the sense of fine art.
Art and allegory are two different things. So are art and film.
Here, I am sure, Tonguette will be tempted to exploit ambiguity in the
word "art." He will claim 2001 is art. And it is, in a sense. But
not in the same sense as a painting.
What is the difference? I shouldn't need to explain,
because there are many obvious differences that any layman can see.
The most important difference is the presence in 2001 of many
objectively identifiable symbols. The eye of the cyclops is one
example. My original post on this thread has many other examples.
You don't find such objective features in paintings. Interpretations
become highly impressionistic and subjective. I really don't expect
Tonguette to recognize the difference, but I'm sure that less biased
readers will.
Dave C
"Leonard F. Wheat" <lenw...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:b5f71a25.02070...@posting.google.com.......
> What is the difference? I shouldn't need to explain,
> because there are many obvious differences that any layman can see.
> The most important difference is the presence in 2001 of many
> objectively identifiable symbols. The eye of the cyclops is one
> example. My original post on this thread has many other examples.
> You don't find such objective features in paintings. Interpretations
> become highly impressionistic and subjective. I really don't expect
> Tonguette to recognize the difference, but I'm sure that less biased
> readers will.
"You don't find such objective features in paintings." - what nonsense!
Kubrick follows very firmly in the mainstream tradition of western painted
art, which has a 400-odd year history of usage of "objectively identifiable
symbols". For example, look at the works of the "pre-Rafaelite" William
Holman Hunt
see: <http://www.williamholmanhunt.com/explorer/syn1.htm>
and
<http://www.williamholmanhunt.com/explorer/awake.html>
which show two of his paintings with discussion of their symbolism,
including comments from the artist himself.
Dave C
Dave C
"Dave C" <d.corcor...@virgin.net> wrote in message
news:%iWV8.2414$Q12....@newsfep1-win.server.ntli.net...
That's pre-raPHaelite, of course!
Dave C
gh
Mike Jackson <men...@digiscape.com> wrote:
> Besides anyone with two brain cells knows that in "2001" HAL is a nod to the
> Tin Man from the "Wizard of Oz"
>
> "I'd be tender
> I'd be gentle
> And awful sentimental
> Regarding love and art"
>
> "That's a nice drawing Dave. I think you've improved quite a bit."
You've hit the nail on the head there with your "Tin Man Theory of
2001," Mike. It's so obvious that "HAL" is a three-fifths reference to
"Haley" as in "Jack Haley," the actor who played the Tin Man. That "HAL
= IBM" crap was just a ruse thrown out to confuse the unsophisticated
masses. "TMA-1" is also a three-sixths partial anagram of "Tin Man."
But, also note that if one uses the less orthodox spelling, "Tin-man,"
then "TMA-1" is actually a four-sixths partial anagram. Anyone who
doesn't acknowledge this connection must be blind. Those of us with
higher intellects understand the key to this film's meaning. Also, note
that the Tin Man wields an axe and was played by an actor named Jack,
thus establishing the Tin Man as a symbol in "The Shining." Obviously,
the Tin Man motif was a pet obsession with Kubrick.
G
Peter Tonguette
> Sontag, it would seem, would deny the physics professor the
>write to interpret e = mc2 (pretend that 2 is an exponent) and a host
>of other formulas for his students. The astronomer would be denied
>the right to interpret the oscillation of a star as evidence of an
>orbiting planet. Students of English Literature would be denied
>assistance in understanding John Bunyan's "The Pilgrim's Progress" or
>Harper Lee's "To Kill A Mockingbird." Students of classical music
>would be denied interpretations of program music. Homicide detectives
>and crime lab technicians could not interpret evidence or perfomr DNA
>tests. Weathermen could not interpret weather systems.
This kind of willful misunderstanding verges on the ridiculous. Sontag is
talking about art (of all stripes), not science. This post is notable,
however, in that I think it's the first time that viewers of Kubrick's films
have been compared to weathermen interpreting weather systems.
>I said above that I suspect Sontag never intended the
>original quotation (supplied by Munday) to apply to all forms of
>interpretation. Tonguette now provides evidence that not only Munday
>but he (Tonguette) himself have sloppily quoted Sontag out of context.
> It looks as though they have tried to create the appearance of
>blanket condemnation of interpretation whereas Sontag was referring
>only to paintings and (perhaps) certain other forms of fine
>art (collages, sculptures, ceramic works, etc.). If that's all she
>meant, I'd be inclined to agree with her. Although I have rarely seen
>painting interpretations, I've seen just enough to see how silly they
>can be.
Have you read Sontag's essay? She doesn't just discuss painting or fine art,
but literature and film - in fact, she discusses at some length the works of
Bergman and Kafka. Her essay can be found in her collection of the same title
("Against Interpretation and Other Essays") and is also easily found online, so
I refer you to it.
Peter
PT Caffey
You chaps are on to something. What is a TIN MAN but a variant of CLOCKWORK ORANGE?
And the monolith is the OIL CAN, of course.
PT Caffey
Leonard F. Wheat
> Leonard F. Wheat wrote:
I am reinserting here the paragraph that Peter Tonguette
snipped. His snipping seems to have been designed to hide both (1)
the blanket coverage of the Sontag quotation being discussed and (2)
my stated suspicion that Sontag was being quoted out of context. Here
is the snipped paragraph:
The Sontag quote that I ignored (because it deserves to be
ignored) is: "To interpret is to impoverish . . . the world." Although
I suspect that Sontag never intended to apply this quotation to all
forms of interpretation, let's assume for the moment that she did. In
that case, she is a guru I would never kneel before. Such an opinion
can only be described as pathetic.
> > Sontag, it would seem, would deny the physics professor the
> >write to interpret e = mc2 (pretend that 2 is an exponent) and a host
> >of other formulas for his students. The astronomer would be denied
> >the right to interpret the oscillation of a star as evidence of an
> >orbiting planet. Students of English Literature would be denied
> >assistance in understanding John Bunyan's "The Pilgrim's Progress" or
> >Harper Lee's "To Kill A Mockingbird." Students of classical music
> >would be denied interpretations of program music. Homicide detectives
> >and crime lab technicians could not interpret evidence or perform DNA
> >tests. Weathermen could not interpret weather systems.
>
> This kind of willful misunderstanding verges on the ridiculous. Sontag is
> talking about art (of all stripes), not science.
Now that my missing paragraph has been reinserted above, we
can all see that the "willful misunderstanding," better described as
willful MISREPRESENTATION, is yours. You misrepresent two things.
First, you misrepresent the fact that the quotation that you
originally introduced does NOT apply only to art. You pulled it out
of context and quoted it in such a way as to create the appearance
that Sontag was condemning ALL forms of interpretation: "To interpret
is to impoverish . . . the world." This quotation, which YOU chose
to bring up, does not say, "To interpret ART is to impoverish . . ."
I was going by what you presented.
Second, I specifically said, "I suspect that Sontag never
intended to apply this quotation to all forms of interpretation."
And now, when my suspicion turns out to be correct, you accuse me of
misrepresenting the quotation as applying to things beyond art.
> >I said above that I suspect Sontag never intended the
> >original quotation (supplied by Munday) to apply to all forms of
> >interpretation. Tonguette now provides evidence that not only Munday
> >but he (Tonguette) himself have sloppily quoted Sontag out of context.
> > It looks as though they have tried to create the appearance of
> >blanket condemnation of interpretation whereas Sontag was referring
> >only to paintings and (perhaps) certain other forms of fine
> >art (collages, sculptures, ceramic works, etc.). If that's all she
> >meant, I'd be inclined to agree with her. Although I have rarely seen
> >painting interpretations, I've seen just enough to see how silly they
> >can be.
>
> Have you read Sontag's essay? She doesn't just discuss painting or fine art,
> but literature and film - in fact, she discusses at some length the works of
> Bergman and Kafka.
Part of my alleged "willful misunderstanding" was the
following two sentences: "Students of English Literature would be
denied assistance in understanding John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's
Progress or Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird. Students of classical
music would be denied interpretations of program music." You called
these two sentences (along with others) "willful misunderstanding."
You thus indicated that the Sontag quotation did not apply to
literature and music (music is one of the fine arts). Now you are
contradicting yourself. You are now claiming that literature and
music ARE covered by the quotation. You're really going to have to
make up your mind, Peter.
Meanwhile, I happen to think that interpretation of
literature, music, and film are all legitimate enterprises. If you
have been seduced by Sontag into thinking otherwise, then you have
also been seduced into not thinking at all. Why do you think it is
right for a professor of physics to interpret e = mc2 for his students
but wrong for a professor of English literature to interpret Pilrgim's
Progress? And what's wrong with allowing a professor of music to
interpret program music? Why is knowledge so dangerous?
Here's another question. You and your guru (Suzy) are both
adamantly opposed to film interpretation. (Anyhow you are opposed to
it this week. Last week you had a different guru, Kubrick, and were
urging everyone to come up with his or her own interpretation of
2001.) Since film interpretation is verboten, shouldn't we tar and
feather Rod Munday for web publishing his article "explaining" (i.e.,
interpreting) 2001? Munday says that, by killing Hal, "Bowman
symbolically also murders his own mechanical nature." My God! Munday
is even finding and interpreting symbols! And later, interpreting the
film's ending, Munday sees religious themes. The star-child is "a
holy infant, a wise child bathed in a halo like aura," and this image
provides "the religious tone [found] at the end of 2001." Seriously,
Peter, I know you're not Rod's father, but I really think you should
have a long father-and-son style conversation with the lad. He's
beginning to go astray.
And when you're done talking with him, perhaps you should
have a talk with the chap in the mirror. In his last post he
interpreted something Susan Sontag wrote. She wrote, "To interpret is
to impoverish . . . the world." As you can see, that quotation is
unqualified; it isn't limited to certain types of interpretation. But
the chap in the mirror is saying it applies only to art and literature
and film. That's interpretation. Maybe he could use some tar too.
Now a confession. I'm not really shocked by Peter
Tonguette's latest act of interpretation. Sure, it's hypocrisy, given
that he professes to believe that literary and film interpretation
impoverishes. But take a look at the interpreting he was doing a
couple of weeks ago. He quoted Kubrick from the Playboy interview:
"You're free to speculate as you wish about the philosophical and
allegorical meaning of the film . . . but I don't want to spell out a
verbal road map for 2001 that every viewer will feel obligated to
pursue or else fear he's missed the point." Peter interpreted that
quotation and some others that were similar, such as "I intended the
film to be an intensely subjective experience." Peter said that these
quotations mean that (a) Kubrick has no "definitive" interpretation of
his own and (b) among the many "good" or reasonable interpretations
(this excludes the bad ones) none is superior or correct, not even
Kubrick's, if he even has one.
Now I just can't see how Peter comes up with this
interpretation, but that's not the issue. Let's assume Peter's
interpretation is correct. My question is: given Sontag's strict
instructions not to interpret, what right does Peter have to go around
interpreting things that Kubrick said about 2001?
Peter Tonguette
>> This kind of willful misunderstanding verges on the ridiculous. Sontag
>is
>> talking about art (of all stripes), not science.
>
> Now that my missing paragraph has been reinserted above, we
>can all see that the "willful misunderstanding," better described as
>willful MISREPRESENTATION, is yours. You misrepresent two things.
>First, you misrepresent the fact that the quotation that you
>originally introduced does NOT apply only to art. You pulled it out
>of context and quoted it in such a way as to create the appearance
>that Sontag was condemning ALL forms of interpretation: "To interpret
>is to impoverish . . . the world." This quotation, which YOU chose
>to bring up, does not say, "To interpret ART is to impoverish . . ."
>I was going by what you presented.
Well, I did not introduce that quote into the discussion - I merely referenced
it. What I find willful is the very fact that you do jump on it and run with
it like this - even while you plainly acknowledge that the comment on
interpretation very likely does not apply to everything under the sun, but
merely art, when read in context. Neither I, nor Susan Sontag if you read her
essay, am claiming that interpretation is never valid.
In other words, this is a straw-man argument and I'll move on to the next
point.
> Second, I specifically said, "I suspect that Sontag never
>intended to apply this quotation to all forms of interpretation."
>And now, when my suspicion turns out to be correct, you accuse me of
>misrepresenting the quotation as applying to things beyond art.
>
>> Have you read Sontag's essay? She doesn't just discuss painting or fine
>art,
>> but literature and film - in fact, she discusses at some length the works
>of
>> Bergman and Kafka.
>
> Part of my alleged "willful misunderstanding" was the
>following two sentences: "Students of English Literature would be
>denied assistance in understanding John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's
>Progress or Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird. Students of classical
>music would be denied interpretations of program music." You called
>these two sentences (along with others) "willful misunderstanding."
My error here. I was referring to your comments suggesting meteorology and
science were analogous to art.
>You thus indicated that the Sontag quotation did not apply to
>literature and music (music is one of the fine arts). Now you are
>contradicting yourself. You are now claiming that literature and
>music ARE covered by the quotation. You're really going to have to
>make up your mind, Peter.
>
> Meanwhile, I happen to think that interpretation of
>literature, music, and film are all legitimate enterprises. If you
>have been seduced by Sontag into thinking otherwise, then you have
>also been seduced into not thinking at all. Why do you think it is
>right for a professor of physics to interpret e = mc2 for his students
>but wrong for a professor of English literature to interpret Pilrgim's
>Progress? And what's wrong with allowing a professor of music to
>interpret program music? Why is knowledge so dangerous?
This just points to our essential, fundamental disagreement. You don't "know"
a work of art as you "know" particle physics or evolutionary biology. It just
isn't a factual realm.
> Here's another question. You and your guru (Suzy)
Rather sexist remark, don't you think, Leonard?
>are both
>adamantly opposed to film interpretation. (Anyhow you are opposed to
>it this week. Last week you had a different guru, Kubrick, and were
>urging everyone to come up with his or her own interpretation of
>2001.)
Again I ask: have you read Sontag's essay? She is arguing for both a
re-emphasis on the sensory elements of experiencing art (as opposed to the
"x=x" intellectualizing you are so fond of propogating), which is completely
consistent with my views on how Kubrick intended his film to be experienced.
She is also arguing for criticism which describes what a work of art >is< as
opposed to what it "means." Really, Stanley Kubrick was a whole, >whole< lot
closer to Howard Hawks or Orson Welles than Peter Greenaway and you don't have
to hunt for symbols to get the themes in his films. But I should restrain
myself before being sucked deeper into the void...
Peter
PT Caffey
<snip>
> > Amen to that. I'd suggest Wheat have a read of Susan Sontag's essay "Against
> > Interpretation" - already mentioned and ignored by him in another thread -
> > sometime.
>
> The Sontag quote that I ignored (because it deserves to be
> ignored) is: "To interpret is to impoverish . . . the world."
> Although I suspect that Sontag never intended to apply this quotation
> to all forms of interpretation, let's assume for the moment that she
> did. In that case, she is a guru I would never kneel before. Such an
> opinion can only be described as pathetic.
>
> Sontag, it would seem, would deny the physics professor the
> write to interpret e = mc2 (pretend that 2 is an exponent) and a host
> of other formulas for his students. The astronomer would be denied
> the right to interpret the oscillation of a star as evidence of an
> orbiting planet. Students of English Literature would be denied
> assistance in understanding John Bunyan's "The Pilgrim's Progress" or
> Harper Lee's "To Kill A Mockingbird." Students of classical music
> would be denied interpretations of program music. Homicide detectives
> and crime lab technicians could not interpret evidence or perfomr DNA
> tests. Weathermen could not interpret weather systems.
>
SONTAG: Of course, I don't mean interpretation in the broadest sense,
the sense in which Nietzsche (rightly) says, "There are no facts, only
interpretations." By interpretation, I mean here a conscious act of
the mind which illustrates a certain code, certain "rules" of
interpretation.
Directed to art, interpretation means plucking a set of elements (the
X, the Y, the Z, and so forth) from the whole work. The task of
interpretation is virtually one of translation. The interpreter says,
Look, don't you see that X is really--or, really means--A? That Y is
really B? That Z is really C?
>
> I said above that I suspect Sontag never intended the
> original quotation (supplied by Munday) to apply to all forms of
> interpretation. Tonguette now provides evidence that not only Munday
> but he (Tonguette) himself have sloppily quoted Sontag out of context.
> It looks as though they have tried to create the appearance of
> blanket condemnation of interpretation whereas Sontag was referring
> only to paintings and (perhaps) certain other forms of fine
> art (collages, sculptures, ceramic works, etc.). If that's all she
> meant, I'd be inclined to agree with her. Although I have rarely seen
> painting interpretations, I've seen just enough to see how silly they
> can be.
SONTAG: This philistinism of interpretation is more rife in
literature than in any other art. For decades now, literary critics
have understood it to be their task to translate the elements of the
poem or play or novel or story into something else... Proust, Joyce,
Faulkner, Rilke, Lawrence, Gide . . . one could go on citing author
after author; the list is endless of those around whom thick
encrustations of interpretation have taken hold. But it should be
noted that interpretation is not simply the compliment that mediocrity
pays to genius. It is, indeed, the modern way of understanding
something, and is applied to works of every quality. Thus, in the
notes that Elia Kazan published on his production of A Streetcar Named
Desire, it becomes clear that, in order to direct the play, Kazan had
to discover that Stanley Kowalski represented culture, while Blanche
Du Bois was Western civilization, poetry, delicate apparel, dim
lighting, refined feelings, and all, though a little the worse for
wear to be sure. Tennessee Williams' forceful psychological melodrama
now became intelligible: it was about something, about the decline of
western civilization. Apparently, were it to go on being a play about
a handsome brute named Stanley Kowalski and a faded mangy belle named
Blanch Du Bois, it would not be manageable.
It doesn't matter whether artists intend, or don't intend, for their
works to be interpreted. Perhaps Tennessee Williams thinks Streetcar
is about what Kazan thinks it to be about. It may be that Cocteau in
The Blood of a Poet and in Orpheus wanted the elaborate readings which
have been given these films, in terms of Freudian symbolism and social
critique. But the merit of these works certainly lies elsewhere than
in their "meanings." Indeed, it is precisely to the extent that
Williams' plays and Cocteau's films do suggest these portentous
meanings that they are defective, false, contrived, lacking in
conviction.
>
> But even here Sontag says her opinion applies only "in most
> modern instances." Note the double qualifier. "Most" allows for
> exceptions, exceptions that Tonguette is totally ignorant of. And
> "modern" seems to suggest that either older art or older
> interpretations are exempt from Sontag's dictum.
>
SONTAG: From interviews, it appears that Resnais and Robbe-Grillet
consciously designed Last Year at Marienbad to accommodate a
multiplicity of equally plausible interpretations. But the temptation
to interpret Marienbad should be resisted. What matters in Marienbad
is the pure, untranslatable, sensuous immediacy of some of its images,
and its rigorous if narrow solutions to certain problems of cinematic
form.
Again, Ingmar Bergman may have meant the tank rumbling down the empty
night street in The Silence as a phallic symbol. But if he did, it was
a foolish thought. ("Never trust the teller, trust the tale," said
Lawrence.) Taken as a brute object, as an immediate sensory equivalent
for the mysterious abrupt armored happenings going on inside the
hotel, that sequence with the tank is the most striking moment in the
film. Those who reach for a Freudian interpretation of the tank are
only expressing their lack of response to what is there on the screen.
It is always the case that interpretation of this type indicates a
dissatisfaction (conscious or unconscious) with the work, a wish to
replace it by something else.
Interpretation, based on the highly dubious theory that a work of art
is composed of items of content, violates art. It makes art into an
article for use, for arrangement into a mental scheme of categories.
> But forget Sontag's qualifiers, if you will. Assume she was
> condemning all art criticism, meaning art in the sense of fine art.
> Art and allegory are two different things. So are art and film.
> Here, I am sure, Tonguette will be tempted to exploit ambiguity in the
> word "art." He will claim 2001 is art. And it is, in a sense. But
> not in the same sense as a painting.
>
> What is the difference? I shouldn't need to explain,
> because there are many obvious differences that any layman can see.
> The most important difference is the presence in 2001 of many
> objectively identifiable symbols. The eye of the cyclops is one
> example. My original post on this thread has many other examples.
> You don't find such objective features in paintings. Interpretations
> become highly impressionistic and subjective. I really don't expect
> Tonguette to recognize the difference, but I'm sure that less biased
> readers will.
SONTAG: Ideally, it is possible to elude the interpreters in another
way, by making works of art whose surface is so unified and clean,
whose momentum is so rapid, whose address is so direct that the work
can be . . . just what it is. Is this possible now? It does happen in
films, I believe. This is why cinema is the most alive, the most
exciting, the most important of all art forms right now. Perhaps the
way one tells how alive a particular art form is, is by the latitude
it gives for making mistakes in it, and still being good. For example,
a few of the films of Bergman--though crammed with lame messages about
the modern spirit, thereby inviting interpretations--still triumph
over the pretentious intentions of their director. In Winter Light and
The Silence, the beauty and visual sophistication of the images
subvert before our eyes the callow pseudo intellectuality of the story
and some of the dialogue. (The most remarkable instance of this sort
of discrepancy is the work of D.W. Griffith.) In good films, there is
always a directness that entirely frees us from the itch to interpret.
Many old Hollywood films, like those of Cukor, Walsh, Hawks, and
countless other directors, have this liberating anti-symbolic quality,
no less than the best work of the new European directors, like
Truffaut's Shoot the Piano Player and Jules and Jim, Godard's
Breathless and Vivre Sa Vie, Antonioni's L'Avventura, and Olmi's The
Fiances...
Interpretation takes the sensory experience of the work of art for
granted, and proceeds from there. This cannot be taken for granted...
What is important now is to recover our senses. We must learn to see
more, to hear more, to feel more.
http://www.cis.vt.edu/modernworld/d/sontag.html
PT Caffey
Rod Munday
My 2001 essay stands or falls on its own merits and I am not going to
be drawn into a defense of it here. Except to say that I didn't give
out the URL from any sense of hubris, since I never argued that 2001
meant nothing, a link to my own interpretation seemed appropriate. I
do not consider my interpretation of the film as being definitive of
course - unlike you, oh humble one.
Rod
lenw...@earthlink.net (Leonard F. Wheat) wrote in message news:<b5f71a25.02070...@posting.google.com>...
Leonard F. Wheat
> Leonard F. Wheat wrote:
>
> >> This kind of willful misunderstanding verges on the ridiculous. Sontag
> >> is talking about art (of all stripes), not science.
> >
> > Now that my missing paragraph has been reinserted above, we
> >can all see that the "willful misunderstanding," better described as
> >willful MISREPRESENTATION, is yours. You misrepresent two things.
> >First, you misrepresent the fact that the quotation that you
> >originally introduced does NOT apply only to art. You pulled it out
> >of context and quoted it in such a way as to create the appearance
> >that Sontag was condemning ALL forms of interpretation: "To interpret
> >is to impoverish . . . the world." This quotation, which YOU chose
> >to bring up, does not say, "To interpret ART is to impoverish . . ."
> >I was going by what you presented.
>
> Well, I did not introduce that quote into the discussion - I merely referenced
> it.
Oh, so you "merely referenced it." Now you're trying to
emulate the gentleman who calls himself "Wordsmith": you're smithing
your words. When you "reference" something (in this case words quoted
earlier by Munday [or was it you?]), Peter, you are in effect
introducing it into the discussion. Why are now trying to absolve
yourself of responsibility?
What I find willful is the very fact that you do jump on it and run
with
> it like this - even while you plainly acknowledge that the comment on
> interpretation very likely does not apply to everything under the sun, but
> merely art, when read in context.
When you introduce a quotation in support of your position,
I am entitled to "jump on it." That's the way argumentation goes,
Peter. If your quotations can't take the heat, keep them out of the
kitchen.
When you introduce a quotation OUT OF CONTEXT and WITHOUT
NECESSARY QUALIFICATIONS that limit its meaning, the responsibility
for its being applied to the wrong thing is yours. You forced me to
cover both possibilities, namely, that it did and did not apply only
to art, so I did. If you knew (as you did) that Sontag's words were
misleading if not "read in context," it was your obligation, not mine,
to provide the necessary context or reservations. Your quotation,
your responsibility.
> Neither I, nor Susan Sontag if you read her
> essay, am claiming that interpretation is never valid.
But you ARE claiming that FILM interpretation is never
valid. And if you intend that this claim be subject to exceptions,
you have neither named the exceptional films nor provided the criteria
by which others can identify them. So for all practical purposes you
are asserting that Sontag says 2001 is beyond interpretation. Why
don't you let her speak for herself?
Here's something else you need to explain. You say Songat
doesn't claim "that interpretation is never valid." In that case, she
thinks some interpretations are valid. Has she seen 2001? Has she
read my interpretation? You imply that she has done both and has
found my interpretation invalid. Why else would you offer her
quotation as evidence that she would oppose interpretation of 2001?
Again, why don't you let Sontag speak for herself?
> > Meanwhile, I happen to think that interpretation of
> >literature, music, and film are all legitimate enterprises. If you
> >have been seduced by Sontag into thinking otherwise, then you have
> >also been seduced into not thinking at all. Why do you think it is
> >right for a professor of physics to interpret e = mc2 for his students
> >but wrong for a professor of English literature to interpret Pilrgim's
> >Progress? And what's wrong with allowing a professor of music to
> >interpret program music? Why is knowledge so dangerous?
>
> This just points to our essential, fundamental disagreement. You don't "know"
> a work of art as you "know" particle physics or evolutionary biology. It just
> isn't a factual realm.
You seem to suggest that, because physics and English
literature use different procedures for arriving at knowledge of
different subject matter, physics (along with the other natural
sciences) has a monopoly on "factual" knowledge. Perhaps you should
sit down with someone who has taught and understands Pilgrim's
Progress and learn a bit more about what is factually known about
Bunyan's famous allegory, its symbols, and their referents.
On another thread I used the example of George Orwell's
ANIMAL FARM, another allegory. I pointed out that the farm is Russia,
the farmer who is overthrown by the animals is the Czar, the animals'
revolution is the 1917 Russian revolution, and the pigs are the
Communists. The pigs, you may recall, are the ones who later change
the animals' slogan "All animals are created equal" to "All animals
are created equal, but some [the pigs] are more equal than others." I
would assert that the interpretations I have put in the preceding two
sentences are so solidly based that they qualify as belonging to your
"factual realm." But you argue that ANIMAL FARM'S being "a work of
art" (literature) puts it in the class of things that are beyond
"factual" understanding. ANIMAL FARM, you claim, can't and shouldn't
be interpreted.
Once again, Peter, you're being silly. George Orwell obviously
wanted his fable to be interpreted, and he provided the means
(analogies) of interpretation. You may think it can't and shouldn't
be interpreted (because films and literature can't and shouldn't be
interpreted), but that merely illustrates how mesmerized by Sontag you
are.
> Again I ask: have you read Sontag's essay? She is arguing for both a
> re-emphasis on the sensory elements of experiencing art . . .
What Sontag is arguing FOR isn't the issue and is
irrelevant. We are debating what she is AGAINST. You quoted her as
saying she is against interpretation. And you interpreted her
statement as meaning that films can't and shouldn't be interpreted.
Her "against" quotation, as interpreted and applied by you, is the
issue.
Leonard F. Wheat
> lenw...@earthlink.net (Leonard F. Wheat) wrote in message news:<b5f71a25.02070...@posting.google.com>...
> SONTAG: Of course, I don't mean interpretation in the broadest sense,
> the sense in which Nietzsche (rightly) says, "There are no facts, only
> interpretations."
Here, right off the bat, your argument (that Sontag opposes
all interpretation in art, film, and literature) self-destructs. She
acknowledges that SOME interpretation (quite possibly, even
probabably, that dealing with allegory) is valid.
> By interpretation, I mean here a conscious act of
> the mind which illustrates a certain code, certain "rules" of
> interpretation.
My interpretation follows no "rules" of the sort Sontag
seems to have in mind. Interpreting allegory is a matter of grasping
the overall context (the hidden story being told by the metaphorical
surface story), recognizing analogies, testing these analogies for
proper contextual relationships, and recognizing various other hints
that don't involve analogy (hints like the opening "Thus Spake
Zarathustra" music from 2001).
> Directed to art, interpretation means plucking a set of elements (the
> X, the Y, the Z, and so forth) from the whole work. The task of
> interpretation is virtually one of translation. The interpreter says,
> Look, don't you see that X is really--or, really means--A? That Y is
> really B? That Z is really C?
Here Sontag is writing abstractly. The intended application
of her words to specific works or categories is thus open to question.
You seem to think she intends to apply those words to allegory (among
other things). If so, she is for all practical purposes denying the
existence of allegory. Without symbols and interpretation, there can
be no allegory. Question: Do you really believe that Sontag denies
either the existence of allegory or the possibility that allegories
can be interpreted? Be careful how you answer. Your answer may make
her look like a fool.
> > I said above that I suspect Sontag never intended the
> > original quotation (supplied by Munday) to apply to all forms of
> > interpretation.
You see things in Sontag's words that I don't see. You see
her saying "ALL interpretation is bad." I see her saying "SOME
interpretation is bad."
Would you argue that because some cooking is bad, all cooking is bad?
Do you think Sontag would endorse such an argument? Show me where she
uses the word "all."
I notice that Sontag disparages interpretations that find
Freudian symbolism in every corner. No disagreement there. Under the
heading "What About Freud and Jung," I devote almost six pages to
criticizing Carolyn Geduld (author of FILMGUIDE TO 2001) for her
foolish Freudian interpretations of 2001. If Freudian readings are
particularly likely to be invalid, does that mean that ALL
interpretations are invalid?
> SONTAG: From interviews, it appears that Resnais and Robbe-Grillet
> consciously designed Last Year at Marienbad to accommodate a
> multiplicity of equally plausible interpretations. But the temptation
> to interpret Marienbad should be resisted. What matters in Marienbad
> is the pure, untranslatable, sensuous immediacy of some of its images,
> and its rigorous if narrow solutions to certain problems of cinematic
> form.
>
> Again, Ingmar Bergman may have meant the tank rumbling down the empty
> night street in The Silence as a phallic symbol. But if he did, it was
> a foolish thought. ("Never trust the teller, trust the tale," said
> Lawrence.) Taken as a brute object, as an immediate sensory equivalent
> for the mysterious abrupt armored happenings going on inside the
> hotel, that sequence with the tank is the most striking moment in the
> film. Those who reach for a Freudian interpretation of the tank are
> only expressing their lack of response to what is there on the screen.
All you have shown in this quotation is that Sontag's
definition of art includes film. You still haven't quoted that line
where she says ALL film interpretation is invalid.
JSpringer0953
Oh, so you "merely referenced it." Now you're trying to
>emulate the gentleman who calls himself "Wordsmith": you're smithing
>your words.
Hey, now. There no need to drag poor Wordsmith into this.
Springersmith :)
Wordsmith
> > Leonard F. Wheat wrote:
> >
> > >> This kind of willful misunderstanding verges on the ridiculous. Sontag
> > >> is talking about art (of all stripes), not science.
> > >
> > > Now that my missing paragraph has been reinserted above, we
> > >can all see that the "willful misunderstanding," better described as
> > >willful MISREPRESENTATION, is yours. You misrepresent two things.
> > >First, you misrepresent the fact that the quotation that you
> > >originally introduced does NOT apply only to art. You pulled it out
> > >of context and quoted it in such a way as to create the appearance
> > >that Sontag was condemning ALL forms of interpretation: "To interpret
> > >is to impoverish . . . the world." This quotation, which YOU chose
> > >to bring up, does not say, "To interpret ART is to impoverish . . ."
> > >I was going by what you presented.
> >
> > Well, I did not introduce that quote into the discussion - I merely referenced
> > it.
>
> Oh, so you "merely referenced it." Now you're trying to
> emulate the gentleman who calls himself "Wordsmith": you're smithing
> your words. When you "reference" something (in this case words quoted
> earlier by Munday [or was it you?]), Peter, you are in effect
> introducing it into the discussion. Why are now trying to absolve
> yourself of responsibility?
Hi, Leo. Using and mentioning are two different things. The sentence
"Elephants are four-legged animals" uses the word "elephant". On the
other hand, the sentence "'Elephant' is a word containing eight letters"
merely mentions the word "elephant". There is a difference. Apply this
to your debate with Peter, and you'll see how off the beam you are.
Wordsmith :)
PT Caffey
> ptca...@yahoo.com (PT Caffey) wrote in message news:<84498e9.02070...@posting.google.com>...
> > lenw...@earthlink.net (Leonard F. Wheat) wrote in message news:<b5f71a25.02070...@posting.google.com>...
>
>
> > SONTAG: Of course, I don't mean interpretation in the broadest sense,
> > the sense in which Nietzsche (rightly) says, "There are no facts, only
> > interpretations."
>
> Here, right off the bat, your argument (that Sontag opposes
> all interpretation in art, film, and literature) self-destructs. She
> acknowledges that SOME interpretation (quite possibly, even
> probabably, that dealing with allegory) is valid.
>
continually endeavoring to prop up. Let him rest. No one here at AMK
has argued that Susan Sontag opposes "interpretation in the broadest
sense." She has not forsaken human language (for its arrogant
assertion of symbolism!) in favor of something more sensual, say, for
instance, grunting. That's not her argument; that's not my argument;
that's nobody's argument.
You seem to believe that Sontag "quite possibly, even probably" agrees
with you that interpretation dealing with allegory is valid. No,
you're wrong; she doesn't exempt allegory.
Regarding allegorical exegesis, Sontag plainly doesn't think much of
it. If you'd bothered to read her essay (I provided the link), you
could have gathered this firsthand.
SONTAG: Once upon a time (say, for Dante), it must have been a
revolutionary and creative move to design works of art so that they
might be experienced on several levels. Now it is not. It reinforces
the principle of redundancy that is the principal affliction of modern
life.
> > By interpretation, I mean here a conscious act of
> > the mind which illustrates a certain code, certain "rules" of
> > interpretation.
>
> My interpretation follows no "rules" of the sort Sontag
> seems to have in mind. Interpreting allegory is a matter of grasping
> the overall context (the hidden story being told by the metaphorical
> surface story), recognizing analogies, testing these analogies for
> proper contextual relationships, and recognizing various other hints
> that don't involve analogy (hints like the opening "Thus Spake
> Zarathustra" music from 2001).
>
First you deny the use of interpretative "rules," then you delineate
your own system of them. Your allegorical "code" is the most
restrictive straightjacket around. That's exactly what Sontag has in
mind.
> > Directed to art, interpretation means plucking a set of elements (the
> > X, the Y, the Z, and so forth) from the whole work. The task of
> > interpretation is virtually one of translation. The interpreter says,
> > Look, don't you see that X is really--or, really means--A? That Y is
> > really B? That Z is really C?
>
> Here Sontag is writing abstractly. The intended application
> of her words to specific works or categories is thus open to question.
She means you, Leonard.
> You seem to think she intends to apply those words to allegory (among
> other things). If so, she is for all practical purposes denying the
> existence of allegory. Without symbols and interpretation, there can
> be no allegory. Question: Do you really believe that Sontag denies
> either the existence of allegory or the possibility that allegories
> can be interpreted? Be careful how you answer. Your answer may make
> her look like a fool.
>
Of course, Sontag isn't denying the "existence" of allegory, or of
allegorical interpretation. She is repudiating its cultural
significance.
> > > I said above that I suspect Sontag never intended the
> > > original quotation (supplied by Munday) to apply to all forms of
> > > interpretation.
>
> > SONTAG: This philistinism of interpretation is more rife in
> > literature than in any other art… <snip>
>> …But the merit of these works certainly lies elsewhere than
> > in their "meanings." Indeed, it is precisely to the extent that
> > Williams' plays and Cocteau's films do suggest these portentous
> > meanings that they are defective, false, contrived, lacking in
> > conviction.
>
> You see things in Sontag's words that I don't see. You see
> her saying "ALL interpretation is bad." I see her saying "SOME
> interpretation is bad."
No. I see her saying a certain KIND of interpretation, one
content-obsessed and ordered by rules, is, as you put it, bad.
> Would you argue that because some cooking is bad, all cooking is bad?
> Do you think Sontag would endorse such an argument? Show me where she
> uses the word "all."
>
Once more, from the top, with feeling: Sontag isn't against ALL
interpretation. As she says in her essay:
SONTAG: What kind of criticism, of commentary on the arts, is
desirable today? For I am not saying that works of art are ineffable,
that they cannot be described or paraphrased. They can be. The
question is how? What would criticism look like that would serve the
work of art, not usurp its place?
What is needed, first, is more attention to form in art. If excessive
stress on content provokes the arrogance of interpretation, more
extended and more thorough descriptions of form would silence.
Yes, Sontag's definition of art includes film, and her definition of
art-destroying interpretation includes the kind that you, Mr. Wheat,
relentlessly employ. She doesn't do this by arguing that ALL
criticism is invalid; she does it by describing the specific KIND (and
the most common) she reviles. True, from her perch in 1963, she
doesn't identify you by name. But give the world time.
PT Caffey
Bryce Utting
> Mr. Wheat may ("may") have some interesting points, but they are
> completely overwashed and overmanned by his condescendingly juvenile,
> foolish, ad hominem attitudes in declaring how "correct" he is and how
> "wrong" are any contrary posters at AMK with whom he disagrees.
rule of thumb I've had in beta for a long long time which others are
free to try out if they like: whenever anyone's rhetoric is so thin
that phrases like "some interesting points" or "some interesting
ideas" need to be invoked, then never mind any babies in the
bathwater, just toss the whole lot out the window.
Len's an exemplary example of this sort of thing.
butting
Tobasco
Leonard F. Wheat <
Weathermen could not interpret weather systems.
>
Ahem. As a 25 year practicing Operational Meteorologist I can assure you
that we do not 'interpret' natural phenomena in a study of a given weather
system. Such thinking is akin to "mistaking the pointing finger for the
moon that it points to" (Rinzai). In meteorology we analyze DATA and
IMAGERY that has been collected pertinent to the subject system. A
rudimentary appreciation of Chaos/Complexity theory would reveal that one
can >never< obtain enough data to forecast/prog a given system with absolute
certainty even on a short (24 hour) timeline. We deal in probabilities.
Even in predicting the effect of said weather systems on physical
structures, be they geologic or man made, we are dealing with probability
criteria: In all cases, accounting for noise and bias in the observation
set.
IOW the forecast of a given system's behavior must acknowledge the
falsifiablity principle ------- a principle which this assertion of 2001:ASO
as limited to allegory sadly ignores.
David C.
Padraig L Henry
<but...@ihug.co.nz> wrote:
>Thornhill <cthor...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>> Mr. Wheat may ("may") have some interesting points, but they are
>> completely overwashed and overmanned by his condescendingly juvenile,
>> foolish, ad hominem attitudes in declaring how "correct" he is and how
>> "wrong" are any contrary posters at AMK with whom he disagrees.
He remains blindly oblivious to the mayhem that his own little poodle
has unleashed on him simply by tottering across the airport tarmac ...
(no LFW 9000 series Abacus has ever been in error).
>
>rule of thumb I've had in beta for a long long time which others are
>free to try out if they like: whenever anyone's rhetoric is so thin
>that phrases like "some interesting points" or "some interesting
>ideas" need to be invoked, then never mind any babies in the
>bathwater, just toss the whole lot out the window.
>
>Len's an exemplary example of this sort of thing.
Even Glenna was a model of reasonableness by comparison, Homeric
narrative trajectories aside.
Padraig
Douglas Bailey
> Bryce Utting <but...@ihug.co.nz> wrote:
> > Len's an exemplary example of this sort of thing.
>
> Even Glenna was a model of reasonableness by comparison, Homeric
> narrative trajectories aside.
Hmmm. GLENNA = A LEN NG, or "a Len newsgroup." Obviously an allegorical
usage.
doug
--
---------------douglas bailey (trys...@world.std.com)---------------
this week dragged past me so slowly; the days fell on their knees...
--david bowie
altgodkub
> revolutionary and creative move to design works of art so that they
> might be experienced on several levels. Now it is not. It reinforces
> the principle of redundancy that is the principal affliction of modern
> life.
> PT Caffey
Thanks PT. I now know once and for all that Sontag is a loon. If
artists today created works one one-hundredth as extraordinary as the
Divine Comedy, we'd all be beside ourselves with ecstasy.
My bad. I thought the ability to experience art on several levels was
a good thing.
Leonard F. Wheat
> lenw...@earthlink.net (Leonard F. Wheat) wrote in message news:<b5f71a25.02070...@posting.google.com>...
> > ptca...@yahoo.com (PT Caffey) wrote in message news:<84498e9.02070...@posting.google.com>...
> > > lenw...@earthlink.net (Leonard F. Wheat) wrote in message news:<b5f71a25.02070...@posting.google.com>...
> >
> >
> > > SONTAG: Of course, I don't mean interpretation in the broadest sense,
> > > the sense in which Nietzsche (rightly) says, "There are no facts, only
> > > interpretations."
> >
> > Here, right off the bat, your argument (that Sontag opposes
> > all interpretation in art, film, and literature) self-destructs. She
> > acknowledges that SOME interpretation (quite possibly, even
> > probabably, that dealing with allegory) is valid.
> >
> Mr. Wheat, you are confusing me with that insipid straw man you are
> continually endeavoring to prop up. Let him rest. No one here at AMK
> has argued that Susan Sontag opposes "interpretation in the broadest
> sense."
On the contrary, Peter Tonguette argued that when he first
brought up her original quotation: "To interpret is to impoverish . .
. the world." That quotation offers no reservations, no
qualifications. Tonguette provided neither context that limited its
meaning nor restrictive words of his own. I was nevertheless
suspicious, so I dealt separately with (1) its face-value meaning,
namely, that ALL interpretation is bad, and (2) a hypothetical
qualified interpretation holding that Sontag was referring only to
art.
You haven't been paying attention. Tonguette subsequently
clarified his point. We are now discussing a Sontag position that
refers only to "art," including literature and film.
You are also confused about your "straw man." The specific
Sontag quotation under discussion at the moment is "I don't mean
interpretation in the broadest sense." You just got done saying that
is what she meant in her original quotation. If you agree with Peter
and me that Sontag was not condemning all forms of interpretation, why
do you call her "I don't mean" statement a straw man (false issue)?
> You seem to believe that Sontag "quite possibly, even probably" agrees
> with you that interpretation dealing with allegory is valid. No,
> you're wrong; she doesn't exempt allegory.
You need to clarify your position, and hers. Is she saying
(1) that there is no such thing as allegory and that the so-called
allegory in literature and film exists only in the imaginations of
interpreters? If so (and I doubt this is so), she is a complete
ignoramus.
Or is she saying, as seems more likely (especially in view
of quotations that you offer below) that (2) allegory exists but she
doesn't like it, because it's no longer an original idea. If that's
all she means, she's not denying that allegory exists and CAN be
interpreted. All she's saying (and this is really clear from her
previously quoted opinion about Ingmar Bergman and his tank) is that
she DOESN'T LIKE symbolism. She believes that any film (and
presumably any book) should be able to get by on its surface story.
She also believes that the symbolic messages she has encountered are
insipid or foolish or stupid. Those opinions are far different from
what Tonguette originally claimed she was saying: that interpretation
is impossible.
> Regarding allegorical exegesis, Sontag plainly doesn't think much of
> it. If you'd bothered to read her essay (I provided the link), you
> could have gathered this firsthand.
Exactly. Sontag doesn't think much of allegory, and
therefore she doesn't think much of works that explain it either.
It's not that exegesis is impossible; it's just that it illuminates
manure (or whatever metaphor she might use if ladylike language is her
preference). By implication, she think's Orwell's ANIMAL FARM is a
piece of trash. She's not saying that the farm doesn't symbolize
Russia or that this fact can't be revealed by interpretation. Neither
is she saying that the pigs aren't the Communists. She's just saying
that she doesn't like the hidden story.
So what are you left with? You started out with a woman
who, according to Tonguette, was supporting his thesis that
interpretation is impossible. But now we find that Tonguette was
wrong. Sontag is really saying that symbolic meanings are stupid or
boring or whatever negative adjective you care to use. She's
certainly entitled to her opinion, but her opinion turns out to be
irrelevant. We're not debating whether Kubrick's hidden stories are
insipid or stupid or boring.
Sontag thinks Homer's THE ODYSSEY, or at least an
allegorical depiction of it, is insipid and boring. I don't. Sontag
thinks Nietzsche's THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA, or at least an allegorical
depiction of it, is insipid and boring. I don't. But that's all
beside the point. We're not debating whether THE ODYSSEY or
ZARATHUSTRA or ANIMAL FARM is boring or stupid.
> SONTAG: Once upon a time (say, for Dante), it must have been a
> revolutionary and creative move to design works of art so that they
> might be experienced on several levels. Now it is not. It reinforces
> the principle of redundancy that is the principal affliction of modern
> life.
Although I don't agree with Sontag, I see no need to argue
the point. If she thinks that any form of art or literature (say,
poetry or, more narrowly, iambic pentamenter) that's been around for
two or five hundred years is passe or "redundant" and should be put to
rest, she has a strange opinion and one with which I disagree, but so
what? Painting landscapes is such an old idea: no more landscapes.
Fine. That's simply not an issue here.
But you do see where this is leading you, don't you? You
are saying, by implication above and more specifically below, that
allegory is worthless. You agree with Sontag, and she thinks allegory
stinks. Therefore, even if she hasn't seen or specifically commented
on 2001, it stinks. Because she says so. Fine. That's her opinion.
And, by implication, yours: you think 2001 stinks. I happen to think,
though, that 2001 is the best movie ever made, in large measure
because of its highly imaginative, magnificently conceived allegories,
and especially because it accomplishes the unprecedented feat of
interweaving three allegories in one surface story.
> > > By interpretation, I mean here a conscious act of
> > > the mind which illustrates a certain code, certain "rules" of
> > > interpretation.
> > My interpretation follows no "rules" of the sort Sontag
> > seems to have in mind. Interpreting allegory is a matter of grasping
> > the overall context (the hidden story being told by the metaphorical
> > surface story), recognizing analogies, testing these analogies for
> > proper contextual relationships, and recognizing various other hints
> > that don't involve analogy (hints like the opening "Thus Spake
> > Zarathustra" music from 2001).
> >
> First you deny the use of interpretative "rules," then you delineate
> your own system of them.
Where did I deny the use of interpretive rules? Reread what
I say above: "My interpretation follows no "rules" OF THE SORT SONTAG
SEEMS TO HAVE IN MIND." And, by the way, what difference does it make
what rules or procedures are or are not used to arrive at an
interpretation? If I think the name Bowman is based on Odysseus's
being a bowman (archer), master of the Great Bow, does the validity of
that interpretation rest on whether it is based on my following some
rule prescribed by Susan Sontag?
> Your allegorical "code" is the most
> restrictive straightjacket around. That's exactly what Sontag has in
> mind.
What is this "code" you refer to? Are you denying that most
symbolism is based on analogy? Good grief!
> > > Directed to art, interpretation means plucking a set of elements (the
> > > X, the Y, the Z, and so forth) from the whole work. The task of
> > > interpretation is virtually one of translation. The interpreter says,
> > > Look, don't you see that X is really--or, really means--A? That Y is
> > > really B? That Z is really C?
> >
> > Here Sontag is writing abstractly. The intended application
> > of her words to specific works or categories is thus open to question.
> > You seem to think she intends to apply those words to allegory (among
> > other things). If so, she is for all practical purposes denying the
> > existence of allegory. Without symbols and interpretation, there can
> > be no allegory. Question: Do you really believe that Sontag denies
> > either the existence of allegory or the possibility that allegories
> > can be interpreted? Be careful how you answer. Your answer may make
> > her look like a fool.
> >
> Of course, Sontag isn't denying the "existence" of allegory, or of
> allegorical interpretation. She is repudiating its cultural
> significance.
We covered this above. Hear ye! Hear ye! Hear ye! Let it
be proclaimed that Susan Sontag and P. T. Caffey don't think allegory
is culturally significant (whatever that might mean). Ergo, they
don't think 2001 is culturally significant. I guess that means they
don't like 2001. Or maybe it means that they love the surface story
and the special effects (or perhaps just one of those two) but they
despise the allegory.
Once again, Mr. Caffey, I must remind you of the issue. We
are not debating whether 2001 is culturally significant. We are
debating whether 2001 can be interpreted. Keep your eye on the ball.
> >> SONTAG:
> >> …But the merit of these works certainly lies elsewhere than
> > > in their "meanings." Indeed, it is precisely to the extent that
> > > Williams' plays and Cocteau's films do suggest these portentous
> > > meanings that they are defective, false, contrived, lacking in
> > > conviction.
> > You see things in Sontag's words that I don't see. You see
> > her saying "ALL interpretation is bad." I see her saying "SOME
> > interpretation is bad."
>
> No. I see her saying a certain KIND of interpretation, one
> content-obsessed and ordered by rules, is, as you put it, bad.
It's both interesting and somewhat amusing to see you
setting yourself up as Sontag's spokesman. You know exactly what she
would or wouldn't condemn in the realm of interpretation. What she
condemns is "content-obsessed" interpretation. I'm glad you're here
to tell us what is or isn't "content-obsessed," because that's a tough
criterion to apply. After all, all interpretation deals with the
content of what is being interpreted. So I guess the key word is
"obsessed." Let it be understood by all present that, according to
P.T. Caffey, "obsessed" interpretation is anything P.T. Caffey says
Sontag doesn't like. And she doesn't like anything that is
"obsessed." By which she means she doesn't like it. Because it is
"obsessed." Because she doesn't like it.
But no matter. Once again you're not keeping your eye on
the ball. We're not debating whether it's a bad idea to interpret
2001, or even whether any such interpretation should focus on the
content of 2001. We are debating whether 2001 CAN be interpreted.
Rod Munday says it's impossible (except in three places where he
offers his own interpretations, e.g., the "cross" at Jupiter). He
says that any interpretation of 2001 (beyond his own) is
"overinterpretation." That's the issue.
Now it's official. The official spokesman for Susan Sontag
advises us that my interpretation of 2001 is "art-destroying," hence
bad. I'd have to say, though, that the issue isn't whether I have
somehow "destroyed" whatever is good in 2001. The issue is whether my
interpretations are correct.
Look again at that last quotation from Sontag, the one about
"the tank rumbling down the empty night street." She isn't saying
that the tank isn't a symbol or that it is beyond interpretation
(although in that particular example the tank might well be beyond
interpretation). She is saying that IF the tank is a symbol, the
symbolism is ipso facto "foolish." By the same token, she thinks that
the idea of using pigs to symbolize the Communists in ANIMAL FARM is
"foolish." All symbolism is "foolish"; all films must be judged only
by their surface stories, not by any hidden meanings or (God forbid!)
hidden stories.
So what are you left with, Mr. Caffey? You're left with an
opinionated essayist who despises symbolism. Can't you grasp the
point that we are NOT debating whether symbolism is a lousy idea. We
are not debating whether Kubrick had a lousy idea when he decided to
make an allegorical film. We are not debating whether Kubrick has a
lousy idea when he decided to use (1) a "survey team" that was (2)
incapacitated (in hibernation) and (3) consisted of three men to
symbolize THE ODYSSEY's lotus land (1) survey team that (2) consisted
of three men and (3) became incapacitated by lotus. (I happen to
think this was a marvelous idea, but that's not the issue).
We are debating whether Kubrick's symbols are there and can
be interpreted. And where this issue is concerned, it doesn't make an
iota of difference whether or not Sontag thinks all symbolism is
"foolish."
> She doesn't do this by arguing that ALL
> criticism is invalid; she does it by describing the specific KIND (and
> the most common) she reviles. True, from her perch in 1963, she
> doesn't identify you by name. But give the world time.
If you say she had me in mind (or would have, if my
interpretation of Kubrick had been available) when describing what
"she reviles," I'm sure we can take your word for it. If I read you
correctly, your point runs as follows: (1) my interpretation of 2001
is invalid, i.e., incorrect, because (2) it is the kind of
interpretation Sontag "reviles," and (3) she reviles it because she
reviles symbolism in movies (among other places) and (4) she sees
guilt by association in any criticism or interpretation that brings
that reviled symbolism to light. Her reasoning is a bit strange but,
again, she's entitled to her opinion. It's just that her opinion
isn't relevant to this debate.
David Kirkpatrick
SONTAG: From Section 3:
Interpretation in our own time, however, [is] even more complex. For the
contemporary zeal for the project of interpretation is often prompted
not by piety toward the troublesome text (which may conceal an
aggression), but by an open aggressiveness, an overt contempt for
appearances. The old style of interpretation was insistent, but
respectful; it erected another meaning on top of the literal one. The
modern style of interpretation excavates, and as it excavates, destroys;
it digs "behind" the text, to find a sub-text which is the true one.
....
Thus, interpretation is not (as most people assume) an absolute value, a
gesture of mind situated in some timeless realm of capabilities.
Interpretation must itself be evaluated, within a historical view of
human consciousness. In some cultural contexts, interpretation is a
liberating act. It is a means of revising, of transvaluing, of escaping
the dead past. In other cultural contexts, it is reactionary,
impertinent, cowardly, stifling.
http://www.cis.vt.edu/modernworld/d/sontag.html
Sontag's position seems perfectly reasonable if you take the time to
read it in its entirety. It's not that long, really. Section 8 is only
one of the paragraphs that Leonard should read in its entirety.
All in all, hers is the voice of moderation. Now if you could give
examples of Sontag engaging in rush-to-judgment uninformed nuance-free
dogmatism, perhaps you could make a case for lunacy.
David
Padraig L Henry
Wheat) wrote:
>ptca...@yahoo.com (PT Caffey) wrote
>> lenw...@earthlink.net (Leonard F. Wheat) wrote
>> > ptca...@yahoo.com (PT Caffey) wrote i
>> > > lenw...@earthlink.net (Leonard F. Wheat) wrote
>> >
>> >
>> > > SONTAG: Of course, I don't mean interpretation in the broadest sense,
>> > > the sense in which Nietzsche (rightly) says, "There are no facts, only
>> > > interpretations."
>> >
>> > Here, right off the bat, your argument (that Sontag opposes
>> > all interpretation in art, film, and literature) self-destructs. She
>> > acknowledges that SOME interpretation (quite possibly, even
>> > probabably, that dealing with allegory) is valid.
>> >
>> Mr. Wheat, you are confusing me with that insipid straw man you are
>> continually endeavoring to prop up. Let him rest. No one here at AMK
>> has argued that Susan Sontag opposes "interpretation in the broadest
>> sense."
>
> On the contrary, Peter Tonguette argued that when he first
>brought up her original quotation: "To interpret is to impoverish . .
>. the world." That quotation offers no reservations, no
>qualifications. Tonguette provided neither context that limited its
>meaning nor restrictive words of his own.
Are you a nut case, or do you have to work on it?
First off, the notion that a contemporary "interpreter" of film - or
rather, >a< film, seeing as 2001 appears to be the only film that
you've ever bothered to have (mis)seen - (especially an American, but
maybe you're really a Trojan) would be >totally< ignorant of Sontag's
- among other art critics' - writings (largely concentrating, as it
does, on cultural - especially film and the plastic arts - criticism),
is overwhelmingly telling ... and given that Peter and PT Caffrey
invoked her quote in the context of a "discussion" of a film in a film
newsgroup, your petty attempt to abstract said quote into a blanket
condemnation of all rational - and irrational - inquiry and, uh,
anything, smacks of irretrievable, chronic desperation ...
>I was nevertheless
>suspicious, so I dealt separately with (1) its face-value meaning,
>namely, that ALL interpretation is bad, and (2) a hypothetical
>qualified interpretation holding that Sontag was referring only to
>art.
Well thanks for conceding your ignorance about Sontag; but, really,
there is no need for you to so openly articulate here your underlying
neurotic basis for such ignorance; like, because you have never
bothered to read up on the ideas of such cultural critics, you can
hereabouts pontificate and speculate about what they might actually be
arguing? Again, there is really no need for you to inform us further
about how your over-stretched brain "deals separately" with the
evidence presented before it, as your many recent posts provide
more-than-ample data-rich case studies in that regard.
>
> You haven't been paying attention. Tonguette subsequently
>clarified his point. We are now discussing a Sontag position that
>refers only to "art," including literature and film.
Eh, it is you who has only now come to that sudden realisation, though
if we were to judge by previous posts, it is clear that your own
medieval notion of "art" precludes any of the plastic arts like film
(2001 being, as you said, only art "in a sense". Did ya, like, just
smell yer way into its symbolism?).
>
> You are also confused about your "straw man."
Straw men are the only variety of opposition that you ever attempt to
argue with, which is why one can only effectively "engage" with you at
the level of parody; you specialise in confusing what people say with
what you'd wish they might have "correctly" said. Maybe, on one of
these oh-so-long summer days, you might take a good look at yourself
in one of Room 237's deeply revealing mirrors.
>The specific
>Sontag quotation under discussion at the moment is "I don't mean
>interpretation in the broadest sense." You just got done saying that
>is what she meant in her original quotation. If you agree with Peter
>and me that Sontag was not condemning all forms of interpretation, why
>do you call her "I don't mean" statement a straw man (false issue)?
Pardon me? You were the idiot mistakenly condemning Sontag for
appearing to condemn "all forms of interpretation", and you then
proceeded to construct yet another strawman from such erroneous
foundations, as is your normal form of solipsistic "self-interactive"
debate.
>
>> You seem to believe that Sontag "quite possibly, even probably" agrees
>> with you that interpretation dealing with allegory is valid. No,
>> you're wrong; she doesn't exempt allegory.
>
> You need to clarify your position, and hers. Is she saying
>(1) that there is no such thing as allegory and that the so-called
>allegory in literature and film exists only in the imaginations of
>interpreters? If so (and I doubt this is so), she is a complete
>ignoramus.
Gee, you're very liberal in your allocation of the derogatory
"ignoramus" stereotype. Well, I feel really privileged now, being
ignominiously committed to the same animal-farm pigsty as Sontag,
having recently been described by you in a similar fashion; but no,
I'm not an ignoramus, I'm an orangutang, actually: didn't ya viddy da
filim?
>
> Or is she saying, as seems more likely (especially in view
>of quotations that you offer below) that (2) allegory exists but she
>doesn't like it, because it's no longer an original idea. If that's
>all she means, she's not denying that allegory exists and CAN be
>interpreted. All she's saying (and this is really clear from her
>previously quoted opinion about Ingmar Bergman and his tank)
Fuck this; have you SEEN The Silence? Don't fuck now, ass-wipe, have
you ever S E E N this film? ("Murph, whats the story with that tank?
Doc Jay and EightBall are down and all I've got is some real shit
coming in from this Wheat numbnut"). Allegory was the fuckin' last
thing on Bergman's mind when he shot that scene, philistine ... Again,
you're missing the point; anything can be interpreted (haven't you
read your Nietzsche? And your Groucho Marx?), including allegory "and
whetever the fuck else!" Its the WHY of this, and WHAT it reveals
about the "interpreter" thats the real core of this increasingly
infuriating "debate."
> is that
>she DOESN'T LIKE symbolism.
Oh, so its merely a matter of personal taste, then, is it? Great! What
then does that do to the status of your anti-art one-man-show clinical
"symbolism"? Go hug a tree ...
>She believes that any film (and
>presumably any book) should be able to get by on its surface story.
>She also believes that the symbolic messages she has encountered are
>insipid or foolish or stupid.
No she doesn't; come back when you've studied her writings on said
topics, and after you've watched 2001 with your dogma firmly locked up
your anal orifice.
>Those opinions are far different from
>what Tonguette originally claimed she was saying: that interpretation
>is impossible.
No, she was arguing that interpretation such as yours is the enemy of
art, art appreciation, and art criticism.
>
>> Regarding allegorical exegesis, Sontag plainly doesn't think much of
>> it. If you'd bothered to read her essay (I provided the link), you
>> could have gathered this firsthand.
>
> Exactly. Sontag doesn't think much of allegory, and
>therefore she doesn't think much of works that explain it either.
>It's not that exegesis is impossible; it's just that it illuminates
>manure (or whatever metaphor she might use if ladylike language is her
>preference). By implication, she think's Orwell's ANIMAL FARM is a
>piece of trash. She's not saying that the farm doesn't symbolize
>Russia or that this fact can't be revealed by interpretation. Neither
>is she saying that the pigs aren't the Communists. She's just saying
>that she doesn't like the hidden story.
No, she's saying that the pigs are the "my interpretation is more
equal than anyone else's" flatulent pedants.
>
> So what are you left with? You started out with a woman
>who, according to Tonguette, was supporting his thesis that
>interpretation is impossible. But now we find that Tonguette was
>wrong. Sontag is really saying that symbolic meanings are stupid or
>boring or whatever negative adjective you care to use. She's
>certainly entitled to her opinion, but her opinion turns out to be
>irrelevant. We're not debating whether Kubrick's hidden stories are
>insipid or stupid or boring.
No, we're concluding that your crazed imaginings of step-by-step
hidden stories are insipid, stupid, boring, and [sigh], why am I even
writing this?
>
> Sontag thinks Homer's THE ODYSSEY, or at least an
>allegorical depiction of it, is insipid and boring. I don't. Sontag
>thinks Nietzsche's THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA, or at least an allegorical
>depiction of it, is insipid and boring. I don't. But that's all
>beside the point. We're not debating whether THE ODYSSEY or
>ZARATHUSTRA or ANIMAL FARM is boring or stupid.
Of course not, we're debating the extent to which your nut-and-bolts,
monkey-wrench allegorical mis-reading of 2001 is "boring or stupid."
>
>> SONTAG: Once upon a time (say, for Dante), it must have been a
>> revolutionary and creative move to design works of art so that they
>> might be experienced on several levels. Now it is not. It reinforces
>> the principle of redundancy that is the principal affliction of modern
>> life.
>
> Although I don't agree with Sontag, I see no need to argue
>the point. If she thinks that any form of art or literature (say,
>poetry or, more narrowly, iambic pentamenter) that's been around for
>two or five hundred years is passe or "redundant" and should be put to
>rest, she has a strange opinion and one with which I disagree, but so
>what? Painting landscapes is such an old idea: no more landscapes.
>Fine. That's simply not an issue here.
>
> But you do see where this is leading you, don't you? You
>are saying, by implication above and more specifically below, that
>allegory is worthless. You agree with Sontag, and she thinks allegory
>stinks. Therefore, even if she hasn't seen or specifically commented
>on 2001, it stinks. Because she says so. Fine. That's her opinion.
Actually, she has seen 2001, and written about it, but, of course,
pre-enlightened you has miraculous foreknowledge that it all just
"stinks." And its all just her opinion, anyway, right? Unlike the
opinion that irrradiates from your lofty - straightjacketed - and
numb-to-the-world pedestal.
>And, by implication, yours: you think 2001 stinks.
Aahh! Now we again see the LFW picture: anyone who might criticise
your interpretation of 2001 is, in fact, not criticising >your<
interpretation, but is criticising the film itself, and saying that it
is a stinking piece of crap. It is not Kubrick's >mere< film but Mr
Wheat's human-transcendent BOOK that is the source of all allegorical
2001-film knowledge, is the final word on the film, the latter now
being relegated to the status of a subsidiary footnote to Mr Wheat's
Nietzschean achievement. Thats a real unique Selling Point you got
there, Mr Len ...
>I happen to think,
>though, that 2001 is the best movie ever made, in large measure
>because of its highly imaginative, magnificently conceived allegories,
>and especially because it accomplishes the unprecedented feat of
>interweaving three allegories in one surface story.
Given that its clearly the >only< film you appear to know anything
about, it being described by you as "the best movie ever made" is
quite an understandable claim, but then you go and spoil everything
[drat!] by further claiming that it is only so because you can
comfortably squeeze it into your deluded, reactionary preconceptions
.. drat, drat, drat!
[rest of whatever it is, etc., taken to the cleaners]
No, We Are Interpreting ...
The Extent To Which You Are An Unmitigated, Unrepentant, Unprecedented
BARKING LOON ...
Padraig
... hope you've as good a libel lawyer as Kubrick had.
Rod Munday
> the ball. We're not debating whether it's a bad idea to interpret
> 2001, or even whether any such interpretation should focus on the
> content of 2001. We are debating whether 2001 CAN be interpreted.
> Rod Munday says it's impossible (except in three places where he
> offers his own interpretations, e.g., the "cross" at Jupiter). He
> says that any interpretation of 2001 (beyond his own) is
> "overinterpretation." That's the issue.
As I never said that 2001 cannot be interpreted, I do not think that
this can be the crux of the debate. For the record (again!) I believe
that while 2001 can be interpreted, no interpretation can claim to be
definitive. So I am in fact saying that there can be no DEFINITIVE
interpretation of 2001. If you omit the word definitive from the above
sentence, the meaning collapses. So please don't do this when
"quoting" me.
This literal-mindedness is becoming tiresome. You attack always from
the position of super-rationality. You persist in misquoting people,
and when they refuse to get into the super-rational box you create for
them, you cry foul. You don't even see that preserving the mystery of
2001 is the whole point. In art the most faithful definitions leave
their subject crucially undefined. They allude to the works power but
don't try to name or explain that power, or reduce it. "Meaning" in
this context becomes merely a colliery to revelation, an afterthought.
Mysticism however is an unpopular position for philosophers and
academics and critics, not least because it undermines their very
existence. I wonder if that's the reason your so dogmatic about
defending your 2001 thesis? If 2001 is a mystery that can be
explained, it follows that everything mysterious is potentially
explainable, and perhaps you won't have to sleep with the light on
anymore.
Personally I believe a work of art can only be appreciated as a
revelation. I think that wanting to know what 2001 means is a very
poor substitute for the experiencing it, preferably in a cinema with a
70mm print. You on the other hand wish to elevate the meaning over
the film itself, the subtext become the main text. Who cares if the
search party had three members, just like in the odyssey's lotus land.
What does that tell us about either 2001 or homer? This is not
analysis Leonard, it's banal crap.
I'm curious, if you believe that 2001 has be definitively interpreted
by yourself, why are you still interested in it? Surely, if it has
yielded all its meaning to your incisive analysis, it's time to turn
that laser mind of yours on to something else. Or is this jut self
promotion or some crusade you yours? I assume from you lack of input
into discussions of other Kubrick films that you believe he has only
made one allegorical film. Don't you find that strange? That a man
with such a genius for allegory should only try it the once. Have you
not tried to find the hidden stories in Barry Lyndon or the Shining?
The people want to know.
regards, Rod
PT Caffey
> > continually endeavoring to prop up. Let him rest. No one here at AMK
> > has argued that Susan Sontag opposes "interpretation in the broadest
> > sense."
>
> On the contrary, Peter Tonguette argued that when he first
> brought up her original quotation: "To interpret is to impoverish . .
> . the world." That quotation offers no reservations, no
> qualifications. Tonguette provided neither context that limited its
> meaning nor restrictive words of his own. I was nevertheless
> suspicious, so I dealt separately with (1) its face-value meaning,
> namely, that ALL interpretation is bad, and (2) a hypothetical
> qualified interpretation holding that Sontag was referring only to
> art.
>
> You haven't been paying attention. Tonguette subsequently
> clarified his point. We are now discussing a Sontag position that
> refers only to "art," including literature and film.
>
Wheat, but here your eyes and mind have faltered. In the current
discussion, I was the first to bring up Sontag’s quote, not
Peter Tonguette. You blamed Tonguette for not providing "context,"
but Sontag’s position hasn’t been a state secret for the
past forty years. In any case, I brought her quote up in the context
of framing MY point—that "uncorking encoded messages in Stanley
Kubrick's "2001: a Space Odyssey" (e.g., "Bowman and bow-man, get
it?") represents one of the most pedestrian and least interesting
approaches to a work of art one may undertake.
I did not deny that such interpretations are made, nor that
allegorical elements exist in 2001. As I said, "to give Leonard F.
Wheat his due (lest he go totally ballistic on us), I am not insisting
that Kubrick and Clarke were utterly ignorant of Homer. Of course,
they considered Odysseus and the heroic archetypes as outlined by
Joseph Campbell in his "The Hero with a Thousand Faces." But I believe
they were developing these concepts within the context of a
freewheeling, open and creative process and not as part of some
programmatic "X shall be Y" translation. That there exist echoes of
Homer, in 2001, is a given…"
The issue that interests me (and I’m sorry if this fails to fits
within the confines of THE DEBATE you’ve framed in your mind) is
whether such "decoding" adds or detracts to the experience of seeing
the film.
My exposure to your interpretations has led me to conclude that these
"insights" are either (1) preposterous, or (2) trite. You can debate
with others whether Kubrick "intended" them or not. If he did, I am
certain he did so as part of some dark joke to lure "interpreters"
such as yourself down alleys of pale fire. He was a big Nabokov fan,
after all.
> You are also confused about your "straw man." The specific
> Sontag quotation under discussion at the moment is "I don't mean
> interpretation in the broadest sense." You just got done saying that
> is what she meant in her original quotation. If you agree with Peter
> and me that Sontag was not condemning all forms of interpretation, why
> do you call her "I don't mean" statement a straw man (false issue)?
>
The "Straw Man," or perhaps I should call it your delusion by now, is
that this issue—all or not all--was ever in contention in the
first place. It wasn’t! No one, in the history of the word,
ever seriously believed Sontag’s subtext was "Against
Weathermen." But you dealt with it anyway, and got poor Tonguette to
"concede." Bravo!
> > You seem to believe that Sontag "quite possibly, even probably" agrees
> > with you that interpretation dealing with allegory is valid. No,
> > you're wrong; she doesn't exempt allegory.
>
> You need to clarify your position, and hers. Is she saying
> (1) that there is no such thing as allegory and that the so-called
> allegory in literature and film exists only in the imaginations of
> interpreters? If so (and I doubt this is so), she is a complete
> ignoramus.
>
Since this characterization is clearly wrong, and you "doubt" it, why
bring such idiocy up?
> Or is she saying, as seems more likely (especially in view
> of quotations that you offer below) that (2) allegory exists but she
> doesn't like it, because it's no longer an original idea. If that's
> all she means, she's not denying that allegory exists and CAN be
> interpreted. All she's saying (and this is really clear from her
> previously quoted opinion about Ingmar Bergman and his tank) is that
> she DOESN'T LIKE symbolism. She believes that any film (and
> presumably any book) should be able to get by on its surface story.
> She also believes that the symbolic messages she has encountered are
> insipid or foolish or stupid. Those opinions are far different from
> what Tonguette originally claimed she was saying: that interpretation
> is impossible.
>
MY point differs slightly. Not only are such interpretations as yours
possible, but all too possible.
> > Regarding allegorical exegesis, Sontag plainly doesn't think much of
> > it. If you'd bothered to read her essay (I provided the link), you
> > could have gathered this firsthand.
>
> Exactly. Sontag doesn't think much of allegory, and
> therefore she doesn't think much of works that explain it either.
> It's not that exegesis is impossible; it's just that it illuminates
> manure…<snip>
>
> So what are you left with? You started out with a woman
> who, according to Tonguette, was supporting his thesis that
> interpretation is impossible. But now we find that Tonguette was
> wrong. Sontag is really saying that symbolic meanings are stupid or
> boring or whatever negative adjective you care to use. She's
> certainly entitled to her opinion, but her opinion turns out to be
> irrelevant. We're not debating whether Kubrick's hidden stories are
> insipid or stupid or boring.
>
When I introduced the Sontag quote, I did so in the context of arguing
that symbolic "decoding" was the least of the film-going
experience—a narrow and sometimes exceedingly silly slice. So
whether your interpretations are insipid, stupid and boring is, for
me, a central question. Debate with Tonguette whatever you like.
<snip>
> …But you do see where this is leading you, don't you? You
> are saying, by implication above and more specifically below, that
> allegory is worthless. You agree with Sontag, and she thinks allegory
> stinks. Therefore, even if she hasn't seen or specifically commented
> on 2001, it stinks. Because she says so. Fine. That's her opinion.
> And, by implication, yours: you think 2001 stinks. I happen to think,
> though, that 2001 is the best movie ever made, in large measure
> because of its highly imaginative, magnificently conceived allegories,
> and especially because it accomplishes the unprecedented feat of
> interweaving three allegories in one surface story.
>
Interesting transitive logic you display here: If allegory stinks,
and 2001 is allegory, then 2001 stinks. Well, I believe if 2001 WERE
ONLY some trite allegory, it would stink, even on Jupiter where the
smells are pretty bad. We have Kubrick to thank for a landmark film
that conveys, as do few (if any) others, a visceral sense of mystery
and awe, and on a cosmic scale. But these are sensual and emotional
reactions that, for you, must pale in the face of the "unprecedented
feat" of a triple allegory.
Even if I bought into your interpretative masterwork wholesale, so
what? You think multiple allegories require genius to construct?
Gee, you must have missed "Star Wars." Was there a story Lucas did
not "retell"?
<snip>
> We covered this above. Hear ye! Hear ye! Hear ye! Let it
> be proclaimed that Susan Sontag and P. T. Caffey don't think allegory
> is culturally significant (whatever that might mean). Ergo, they
> don't think 2001 is culturally significant. I guess that means they
> don't like 2001. Or maybe it means that they love the surface story
> and the special effects (or perhaps just one of those two) but they
> despise the allegory.
>
So here’s the nub of it. For you, 2001 is trite allegory +
"surface story" + special effects. That’s it? That’s
all you see there? Now we see what Sontag meant by "impoverish."
<snip>
> Now it's official. The official spokesman for Susan Sontag…
I know Susan, but I’m not her official spokesman. Sorry about
the confusion.
> advises us that my interpretation of 2001 is "art-destroying," hence
> bad. I'd have to say, though, that the issue isn't whether I have
> somehow "destroyed" whatever is good in 2001. The issue is whether my
> interpretations are correct.
>
For you, Kubrick’s film is a juicy puzzle with a "correct"
solution. But what is your measure of "correct"? Kubrick’s
intentions? I’m not interested in his intentions. It
what’s on the screen that counts. From that evidence, argue
whatever you will. The question isn’t whether your
interpretations are correct. The issue is whether they are, in the
least respect, interesting or worthwhile. Despite your best efforts
to frame this discussion so as to exclude the question of your
interpretation’s value, in the end that’s all that really
matters.
Speaking for myself, I’d rather go to the movies.
PT Caffey
PT Caffey
symbolism:
> > Mr. Wheat, you are confusing me with that insipid straw man you are
> > continually endeavoring to prop up. Let him rest. No one here at AMK
> > has argued that Susan Sontag opposes "interpretation in the broadest
> > sense."
>
> On the contrary, Peter Tonguette argued that when he first
> brought up her original quotation: "To interpret is to impoverish . .
> . the world." That quotation offers no reservations, no
> qualifications. Tonguette provided neither context that limited its
> meaning nor restrictive words of his own. I was nevertheless
> suspicious, so I dealt separately with (1) its face-value meaning,
> namely, that ALL interpretation is bad, and (2) a hypothetical
> qualified interpretation holding that Sontag was referring only to
> art.
>
> You haven't been paying attention. Tonguette subsequently
> clarified his point. We are now discussing a Sontag position that
> refers only to "art," including literature and film.
>
True, my attention isn't as vested in this as yours is, Mr. Wheat, but
here your eyes and mind have faltered. In the current discussion, I
was the first to bring up Sontag's quote, not Peter Tonguette. You
blamed Tonguette for not providing "context," but Sontag's position
hasn't exactly been a state secret for the past forty years. In any
case, I brought her quote up in the context of framing MY point--that
"uncorking encoded messages in Stanley Kubrick's "2001: a Space
Odyssey" (e.g., "Bowman and bow-man, get it?") represents one of the
most pedestrian and least interesting approaches to a work of art one
may undertake.
I did not deny that such interpretations are made, nor that
allegorical elements exist in 2001. As I said, "to give Leonard F.
Wheat his due (lest he go totally ballistic on us), I am not insisting
that Kubrick and Clarke were utterly ignorant of Homer. Of course,
they considered Odysseus and the heroic archetypes as outlined by
Joseph Campbell in his "The Hero with a Thousand Faces." But I believe
they were developing these concepts within the context of a
freewheeling, open and creative process and not as part of some
programmatic "X shall be Y" translation. That there exist echoes of
Homer, in 2001, is a given..."
The issue that interests me (and I'm sorry if this fails to fits
within the confines of THE DEBATE you've framed in your mind) is
whether such "decoding" adds or detracts to the experience of seeing
the film.
My exposure to your interpretations has led me to conclude that these
"insights" are either (1) preposterous, or (2) trite. You can debate
with others whether Kubrick "intended" them or not. If he did, I am
certain he did so as part of some dark joke to lure "interpreters"
such as yourself down alleys of pale fire. He was a big Nabokov fan,
after all.
> You are also confused about your "straw man." The specific
> Sontag quotation under discussion at the moment is "I don't mean
> interpretation in the broadest sense." You just got done saying that
> is what she meant in her original quotation. If you agree with Peter
> and me that Sontag was not condemning all forms of interpretation, why
> do you call her "I don't mean" statement a straw man (false issue)?
>
The "Straw Man" issue, or perhaps I should call it your delusion by
now, is that this issue--all or not all--was ever in contention in the
first place! It wasn't! No one, in the history of the word, ever
seriously believed Sontag's subtext was "Against Weathermen." But
you dealt with it anyway, and got poor Tonguette to concede.
Progress!
> > You seem to believe that Sontag "quite possibly, even probably" agrees
> > with you that interpretation dealing with allegory is valid. No,
> > you're wrong; she doesn't exempt allegory.
>
> You need to clarify your position, and hers. Is she saying
> (1) that there is no such thing as allegory and that the so-called
> allegory in literature and film exists only in the imaginations of
> interpreters? If so (and I doubt this is so), she is a complete
> ignoramus.
>
Since this characterization is clearly wrong, and you "doubt" it, why
bring such idiocy up?
> Or is she saying, as seems more likely (especially in view
> of quotations that you offer below) that (2) allegory exists but she
> doesn't like it, because it's no longer an original idea. If that's
> all she means, she's not denying that allegory exists and CAN be
> interpreted. All she's saying (and this is really clear from her
> previously quoted opinion about Ingmar Bergman and his tank) is that
> she DOESN'T LIKE symbolism. She believes that any film (and
> presumably any book) should be able to get by on its surface story.
> She also believes that the symbolic messages she has encountered are
> insipid or foolish or stupid. Those opinions are far different from
> what Tonguette originally claimed she was saying: that interpretation
> is impossible.
>
MY point differs slightly. Not only are such interpretations as yours
possible, but all too possible.
> > Regarding allegorical exegesis, Sontag plainly doesn't think much of
> > it. If you'd bothered to read her essay (I provided the link), you
> > could have gathered this firsthand.
>
> Exactly. Sontag doesn't think much of allegory, and
> therefore she doesn't think much of works that explain it either.
> It's not that exegesis is impossible; it's just that it illuminates
> manure...<snip>
>
> So what are you left with? You started out with a woman
> who, according to Tonguette, was supporting his thesis that
> interpretation is impossible. But now we find that Tonguette was
> wrong. Sontag is really saying that symbolic meanings are stupid or
> boring or whatever negative adjective you care to use. She's
> certainly entitled to her opinion, but her opinion turns out to be
> irrelevant. We're not debating whether Kubrick's hidden stories are
> insipid or stupid or boring.
>
When I introduced the Sontag quote, I did so in the context of arguing
that symbolic "decoding" was the least of the film-going experience--a
narrow and sometimes exceedingly silly slice. So whether your
interpretations are insipid, stupid and boring is, for me, a central
question. Debate with Tonguette whatever you like.
<snip>
> ...But you do see where this is leading you, don't you? You
> are saying, by implication above and more specifically below, that
> allegory is worthless. You agree with Sontag, and she thinks allegory
> stinks. Therefore, even if she hasn't seen or specifically commented
> on 2001, it stinks. Because she says so. Fine. That's her opinion.
> And, by implication, yours: you think 2001 stinks. I happen to think,
> though, that 2001 is the best movie ever made, in large measure
> because of its highly imaginative, magnificently conceived allegories,
> and especially because it accomplishes the unprecedented feat of
> interweaving three allegories in one surface story.
>
Interesting transitive logic you display here: If allegory stinks,
and 2001 is allegory, then 2001 stinks. Well, I believe if 2001 WERE
ONLY some trite allegory, it would stink, even on Jupiter where the
smells are pretty bad. We have Kubrick to thank for a landmark film
that conveys, as do few (if any) others, a visceral sense of mystery
and awe, and on a cosmic scale. But these are sensual and emotional
reactions that, for you, must pale in the face of the "unprecedented
feat" of a triple allegory.
Even if I bought into your interpretative masterwork wholesale, so
what? You think multiple allegories require genius to construct?
Gee, you must have missed "Star Wars." Was there a story Lucas did
not "retell"?
<snip>
> We covered this above. Hear ye! Hear ye! Hear ye! Let it
> be proclaimed that Susan Sontag and P. T. Caffey don't think allegory
> is culturally significant (whatever that might mean). Ergo, they
> don't think 2001 is culturally significant. I guess that means they
> don't like 2001. Or maybe it means that they love the surface story
> and the special effects (or perhaps just one of those two) but they
> despise the allegory.
>
So here's the nub of it. For you, 2001 is allegory + "surface story"
+ special effects. That's it? That's all you see there? Now we see
what Sontag meant by "impoverish."
<snip>
> Now it's official. The official spokesman for Susan Sontag...
I know Susan, but I'm not her official spokesman. Sorry about the
confusion.
> ...advises us that my interpretation of 2001 is "art-destroying," hence
> bad. I'd have to say, though, that the issue isn't whether I have
> somehow "destroyed" whatever is good in 2001. The issue is whether my
> interpretations are correct.
>
For you, Kubrick's film is a juicy puzzle with a "correct" solution.
But what is your measure of "correct"? Kubrick's intentions? I'm not
interested in his intentions. It what's on the screen that counts.
From that evidence, argue whatever you will. The question isn't
whether your interpretations are correct. The issue is whether they
are, in the least respect, interesting or worthwhile. Despite your
best efforts to frame this discussion so as to exclude the question of
your interpretation's value, in the end that's all that really
matters.
Speaking for myself, I'd rather go to the movies.
PT Caffey
Leonard F. Wheat
> altgodkub wrote:
>
> >>SONTAG: Once upon a time (say, for Dante), it must have been a
> >>revolutionary and creative move to design works of art so that they
> >>might be experienced on several levels. Now it is not. It reinforces
> >>the principle of redundancy that is the principal affliction of modern
> >>life.
> >>PT Caffey
> > Thanks PT. I now know once and for all that Sontag is a loon. If
> > artists today created works one one-hundredth as extraordinary as the
> > Divine Comedy, we'd all be beside ourselves with ecstasy.
> >
> > My bad. I thought the ability to experience art on several levels was
> > a good thing.
> SONTAG: From Section 3:
> Interpretation in our own time, however, [is] even more complex. For the
> contemporary zeal for the project of interpretation is often prompted
> not by piety toward the troublesome text (which may conceal an
> aggression), but by an open aggressiveness, an overt contempt for
> appearances.
By offering this new quotation from Sontag as a supposed
refutation of what altgodkub wrote, you show that you completely
missed the point of both what he wrote and what Sontag said in the
quotation he was commenting on. Sontag had said that allegory was
okay when it was new, because it was then "revolutionary and
creative." Specifically, Dante's DIVINE COMEDY, published in 1321 was
okay. Sontag would probably accept Bunyan's PILGRIM'S PROGRESS too;
it was completed in 1684. But at some indefinite time not long after
1684, allegory began to stink, because it was no longer a new idea.
Today, all allegory suffers from "redundancy" (i.e., it is
repetitious) and is an "affliction."
Altgodkub correctly identified this idea and the vacuous
reasoning behind it as the thoughts of a loon. The looniness is so
obvious that I shouldn't have to explain it to you. But explanation
is apparently necessary, because Sontag's opinion seems "perfectly
reasonable" to you.
Sontag rejects allegory because it is an art form that has
been with us too long. It follows that ANY art form that has been
around for a long time is "redundant" and an "affliction of modern
life." Any 20th century or 21st century landscape painting is thus
redundant, because artists have been painting landscapes for hundreds
of years. The same goes for still life paintings. The same goes for
iambic pentameter and various other meters used by poets. Novels with
happy endings, as well as those with tragic endings, are also
redundant: the underlying ideas aren't "revolutionary" or "creative."
The four-movement symphony and the three-movement concerto are
likewise redundant, because they've been around too long. Love songs,
and maybe songs in general, are again redundant. There is no good and
bad; they're all bad.
It would seem that one of the few art forms Sontag would
accept is pop-art such as Andy Warhol's painting of a can of
Campbell's tomato soup. Sontag simply doesn't realize that old forms
can be used creatively by new masters with new ideas. These ideas
mark her as a loon.
Now you come along and try to defend her by, of all things,
offering another Sontag quotation. Your argument amounts to saying,
"Sontag isn't a loon, because she (the loon) says she isn't." Not a
very convincing argument.
Even worse is the fact that you have completely missed the
point of both Sontag's original statement and altgodkub's reply. The
reason Sontag gave for her hating allegory was that the concept of
allegory is stale, unoriginal. This reason has nothing to do with the
alleged "fact" that interpretation was a relatively simple task in
Dante's time. But you simply can't comprehend the reason she gave.
(Small wonder: it really doesn't make sense.) So you present a
quotation that says contemporary interpretation is more complex and
aggressive. Even if this were true, it is a nonresponsive reply. The
new quote is completely irrelevant.
> The old style of interpretation was insistent, but
> respectful; it erected another meaning on top of the literal one. The
> modern style of interpretation excavates, and as it excavates, destroys;
> it digs "behind" the text, to find a sub-text which is the true one.
> ....
Whatever possessed you when you decided to quote such
nonsense. Besides being irrelevant, it constructs a foolish
metaphorical comparison. Sontag says "the old style" portrayed
allegory's hidden story as something ABOVE the surface story, which
was the foundation. The "modern style" puts the hidden story BELOW
the surface story and, in doing so, destroys the surface story. Such
hogwash! Her assignment of "above" and "below" is completely
arbitrary. Either metaphor (surface story above, surface story below)
could be used to describe allegory of any era and the interpretation
of that allegory. Sontag says that anyone who interprets ANIMAL FARM,
anyone who explains that the pigs are the Communists, thereby destroys
the visible text. She needs to have her head examined.
Your quotations, by the way, continue to be off topic. We
aren't debating whether modern allegory is good or bad. We aren't
debating whether interpreting allegory somehow "destroys" the work
being interpreted. We are debating whether allegorical symbols can be
discovered and interpreted. Sontag concedes that they can. She just
doesn't think interpretation is a good idea.
> Sontag's position seems perfectly reasonable if you take the time to
> read it in its entirety. It's not that long, really. Section 8 is only
> one of the paragraphs that Leonard should read in its entirety.
You and your friends have already quoted enough to show that
Sontag is an extremist and an unwise counselor. Her basic problem is
that she overgeneralizes. She makes sweeping conclusions on the basis
of anecdotal evidence. She focuses on the bad and ignores the good.
Her "logic" amounts to this:
Some interpretation is bad.
X is an interpretation.
Therefore, X is bad.
Somebody should explain to Sontag that, in a logical syllogism, the
major premise (line 1) must begin with "All."
> All in all, hers is the voice of moderation.
Somehow I get the feeling that you don't understand the
meaning of "moderation." A person who says that modern allegory is
"redundant" and "an affliction" on society is no moderate. ANIMAL
FARM is not redundant. And neither is 2001. Only a loon would call
them redundant.
Peter Tonguette
>I did not deny that such interpretations are made, nor that
>allegorical elements exist in 2001. As I said, "to give Leonard F.
>Wheat his due (lest he go totally ballistic on us), I am not insisting
>that Kubrick and Clarke were utterly ignorant of Homer. Of course,
>they considered Odysseus and the heroic archetypes as outlined by
>Joseph Campbell in his "The Hero with a Thousand Faces." But I believe
>they were developing these concepts within the context of a
>freewheeling, open and creative process and not as part of some
>programmatic "X shall be Y" translation. That there exist echoes of
>Homer, in 2001, is a given..."
That's exactly right and why Kubrick's creative process - which became more and
more on-the-fly through the years and was, by his own accounts, more a matter
of going for what felt right and was "interesting" than a matter of
intellectualizing (or mapping "The Odyssey" onto his films) - is so relevant.
>You started out with a woman
>> who, according to Tonguette, was supporting his thesis that
>> interpretation is impossible. But now we find that Tonguette was
>> wrong. Sontag is really saying that symbolic meanings are stupid or
>> boring or whatever negative adjective you care to use. She's
>> certainly entitled to her opinion, but her opinion turns out to be
>> irrelevant. We're not debating whether Kubrick's hidden stories are
>> insipid or stupid or boring.
>>
>When I introduced the Sontag quote, I did so in the context of arguing
>that symbolic "decoding" was the least of the film-going experience--a
>narrow and sometimes exceedingly silly slice. So whether your
>interpretations are insipid, stupid and boring is, for me, a central
>question. Debate with Tonguette whatever you like.
Actually, I don't recall having ever once said that interpretation is
impossible. But before Wheat digs up some incriminating quotes of mine to
prove otherwise, I think I know what he's getting at. I've maintained from day
one that the film is intended as a subjective experience that allows for a
variety of readings and the best readings - as I think Sontag would agree -
have something to do with what's actually being presented on screen. However,
because Wheat insists that everything he's decided are symbols can be
interpreted but one correct way, the interpretation I'm talking about isn't
>really< interpretation. Ergo: I'm saying interpretation is impossible.
You can see what I'm up against here.
Peter
Leonard F. Wheat
> lenw...@earthlink.net (Leonard F. Wheat) wrote in message
> >
> > But no matter. Once again you're not keeping your eye on
> > the ball. We're not debating whether it's a bad idea to interpret
> > 2001, or even whether any such interpretation should focus on the
> > content of 2001. We are debating whether 2001 CAN be interpreted.
> > Rod Munday says it's impossible (except in three places where he
> > offers his own interpretations, e.g., the "cross" at Jupiter). He
> > says that any interpretation of 2001 (beyond his own) is
> > "overinterpretation." That's the issue.
>
> As I never said that 2001 cannot be interpreted, I do not think that
> this can be the crux of the debate. For the record (again!) I believe
> that while 2001 can be interpreted, no interpretation can claim to be
> definitive. So I am in fact saying that there can be no DEFINITIVE
> interpretation of 2001. If you omit the word definitive from the above
> sentence, the meaning collapses. So please don't do this when
> "quoting" me.
You're playing with words again, Rod (your old semiotics
kick, I guess). When I say that you say 2001 cannot be interpreted,
that means "cannot be interpreted CORRECTLY." You hold that there is
no one correct or definitive interpretation. You hold that Kubrick
never intended that his many symbols refer to anything in particular.
You hold that, although unreasonable or foolish interpretations can be
ruled out, there can be hundreds and probably thousands or reasonable
or "good" interpretations, none of which is specifically intended by
Kubrick. In my vernacular, that means you hold that there is no
CORRECT interpretation. In your eyes, all reasonable interpretations
are more or less equally correct. So Rod Munday is saying that a
Kubrick symbol has no "correct" or "definitive" interpretation that
was intended by Kubrick. Is that clear enough?
You have also said that trying to provide a "correct"
interpretation of 2001 is like claiming "we can know the mind of God."
By this you mean that, just as it is impossible to "know the mind of
God," so is it impossible to deduce the meanings of Kubrick's symbols.
By implication, it's impossible to deduce that the name Bowman
alludes to the fact that Odysseus was a bowman (archer), master of the
Great Bow.
You have proceeded from there to say that anyone (meaning
me) who dares of offer "correct" interpretations is guilty of
arrogance. Why is such interpretation arrogance? Because Rod Munday
has declared that 2001 is not subject to definitive interpretations
and that Kubrick had no such interpretations of his own. According to
Munday, we may not be able to know the mind of God, but Munday can
"correctly" know that no definitive interpretations exist. Pardon me
for saying so, but if Munday knows that he is claiming to "know the
mind of Kubrick." In my book, that's like claiming to know the mind
of God. That's genuine arrogance.
> You don't even see that preserving the mystery of
> 2001 is the whole point. In art the most faithful definitions leave
> their subject crucially undefined.
One man's sauce is another man's poison (or something like
that). You prefer that 2001's mysteries remain mysteries. You don't
want to know the answers because, somehow, they spoil the surface
story (for you, at least). But I know from contacts from readers, and
from the many queries I have seen at 2001 websites, that many readers
(a huge majority, I believe) are immensely interested in learning the
answers. Did you know that, at several 2001 websites, there are FAQ
lists, and that these lists reflect genuine desire to learn the
answers to 2001's mysteries? Did you know that one of these FAQ
websites is operated (or maybe co-operated) by a guy named Rod Munday,
who should know better than to say that most viewers want to "preserve
the mystery" of 2001? These viewers are like people who have read a
whodunit novel that failed to identify the killer. They want answers.
> If 2001 is a mystery that can be explained, it follows that everything > mysterious is potentially explainable, and perhaps you won't > have to sleep with the light on anymore.
Rod, Rod, will you never abandon these feeble attempts at
logic? You know logic isn't your forte. It may well be that, without
regard to whether anything has ever been explained, every thing and
every occurrence in the universe has an explanation. I in fact
believe that everything mysterious is POTENTIALLY explainable. But
that's not what you're saying. You're saying that the fact that A can
be explained proves that B, and C, and D . . . are potentially
explainable. The "potentially explainable" conclusion is correct, but
the logic by which it was reached is invalid. You seem to believe
that, if the police can solve one murder, they can solve all murders
(and we'll just sweep all the thousands of unsolved murders under the
rug and pretend they never happened).
Your real point, of course, was that, because everything
mysterious has not been explained, 2001 (something mysterious) can't
be explained. In other words, if you can't explain B, then A is
unexplainable. You call that logic?
> Who cares if the
> search party had three members, just like in the odyssey's lotus land.
> What does that tell us about either 2001 or homer? This is not
> analysis Leonard, it's banal crap.
You ask, "Who cares?" Lots of people care about questions
like this. That's why we have all these 2001 websites and the FAQ
lists. What do the answers tell us? Individually they are merely
interesting; they answer the questions that have baffled people. But
collectively, the answers tell us that 2001 is allegory.
> I assume from your lack of input
> into discussions of other Kubrick films that you believe he has only
> made one allegorical film. Don't you find that strange? That a man
> with such a genius for allegory should only try it the once.
Another feeble attempt at logic. I don't discuss other
Kubrick films in part because I've seen only two others. (I'm not a
Kubrick "fan"; I'm a 2001 fan.) One of those films is so far in the
past that I could discuss it intelligently only by consulting the Tim
Dirks summary. And no, I don't find it strange that Kubrick has made
only one allegorical film, because he made two. I'll identify the
other film and discuss it's allegories at the appropriate time and
place.
By the way (here I'm going to use some Munday logic), don't
you find it strange that a man with such genius for black comedy
should try it only once? Conclusion (Munday's): Dr. Strangelove was
not really a black comedy.
Leonard F. Wheat
> > On the contrary, Peter Tonguette argued that when he first
> > brought up her original quotation: "To interpret is to impoverish . .
> > . the world." That quotation offers no reservations, no
> > qualifications. Tonguette provided neither context that limited its
> > meaning nor restrictive words of his own.
> In the current
> discussion, I was the first to bring up Sontag’s quote, not
> Peter Tonguette. You blamed Tonguette for not providing "context,"
> but Sontag’s position hasn’t been a state secret for the
> past forty years.
I stand corrected. You, not Tonguette, introduced the
quotation. My point remains, however: "That quotation offers no
reservations, no qualifications." You are evidently a Sontag fan and,
for that reason, believe that everyone else should be too. Strange
reasoning, I must say. I'm sorry to inform you that I'm not a Sontag
fan and am woefully ignorant of her writings. You have no business
assuming that everyone knows her quotation can't be taken at face
value. If it gets misinterpreted because you took it out of context,
the responsibility for misinterpretation is yours. Besides, I didn't
misinterpret it. I immediately expressed suspicion that it had been
taken out of context and couldn't be taken at face value.
In any case, I brought her quote up in the context
> of framing MY point—that "uncorking encoded messages in Stanley
> Kubrick's "2001: a Space Odyssey" (e.g., "Bowman and bow-man, get
> it?") represents one of the most pedestrian and least interesting
> approaches to a work of art one may undertake.
Again, that's not the issue. The issue is whether 2001 has
"correct" interpretations that were intended by Kubrick.
> The issue that interests me (and I’m sorry if this fails to fits
> within the confines of THE DEBATE you’ve framed in your mind) is
> whether such "decoding" adds or detracts to the experience of seeing
> the film.
I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who types a dash and
finds to his horror that Google has translated it as ’. It also
does that with single quotes (used in America for quotations within
quotations and in Britain for the primary quotation). And sometimes
Google merely changes the dash to a question mark. But, to get back
on track, the issue is not whether interpretation detracts from the
viewing experience. For more on this topic, see my response to Rod
Munday's latest post.
> > But you do see where this is leading you, don't you? You
> > are saying, by implication above and more specifically below, that
> > allegory is worthless. You agree with Sontag, and she thinks allegory
> > stinks. Therefore, even if she hasn't seen or specifically commented
> > on 2001, it stinks. Because she says so. Fine. That's her opinion.
> > And, by implication, yours: you think 2001 stinks. I happen to think,
> > though, that 2001 is the best movie ever made, in large measure
> > because of its highly imaginative, magnificently conceived allegories,
> > and especially because it accomplishes the unprecedented feat of
> > interweaving three allegories in one surface story.
> >
> Interesting transitive logic you display here: If allegory stinks,
> and 2001 is allegory, then 2001 stinks.
That's not my logic. It' Sontag's. Or rather, it's
Sontag's as presented by you: you're the one who proclaims that Sontag
would bring 2001 under her condemnation-of-modern-allegory umbrella.
And since you endorse Sontag's ideas, the logic is also yours.
> Well, I believe if 2001 WERE
> ONLY some trite allegory, it would stink, even on Jupiter where the
> smells are pretty bad. We have Kubrick to thank for a landmark film
> that conveys, as do few (if any) others, a visceral sense of mystery
> and awe, and on a cosmic scale. But these are sensual and emotional
> reactions that, for you, must pale in the face of the "unprecedented
> feat" of a triple allegory.
I wonder by what strange reasoning you conclude that I don't
appreciate the nonallegorical aspects of 2001, including the "sense of
mystery and awe." I wrote (among other things): "If the plot seems to
develop too slowly, that is because Kubrick is giving us time to savor
the strangeness and wonder of space travel---and giving HIMSELF time
to weave in essential allegorical threads and symbols. . . . Casual
filmgoers should be able to understand at least the surface story.
But 2001's powerful---utterly absorbing---visual effects, intelligent
story line (rare in science fiction films), scientific realism (up to
a point), and sly humor are more than enough to compensate. Besides,
the challenge of smashing the ambiguity, wiggling through the
symbolism, and solving the puzzle is part of what makes watching---and
later contemplating---2001 such a satisfying experience."
I also said that I had put 2001 on my list of the three best
movies of all time even before I became aware of the existence of two
of the three allegories. (The two I originally missed are the
Odysseus and Zarathustra allegories.) "My [1968] appraisal was based
on . . . (c) those awesomely believable special effects, (d) the
uplifting space conquest theme, unfettered by the hackneyed
postapocalyptic nihilism the soils so much science fiction, and (d)
the sophisticated plot, free from the escapism and hamminess of so
much other science fiction."
Your notion that I think allegory is all there is to 2001
stands contradicted by what I wrote.
> Even if I bought into your interpretative masterwork wholesale, so
> what? You think multiple allegories require genius to construct?
> Gee, you must have missed "Star Wars." Was there a story Lucas did
> not "retell"?
Yes, I do think multiple allegory required a genius to
construct. Never in the history of literature or film had anyone
constructed even a double allegory, let alone a triple one. The idea
required genius, and carrying it out with such skill and imagination
required genius.
Although you can't see me, I just rolled my eyes upon
reading your assertion that Star Wars is an allegory, and a multiple
one at that. Are you really ignorant of the difference between cliche
and allegory?
Douglas Bailey
[to Leonard F Wheat]
> I'm curious, if you believe that 2001 has be definitively interpreted
> by yourself, why are you still interested in it? Surely, if it has
> yielded all its meaning to your incisive analysis, it's time to turn
> that laser mind of yours on to something else....Have you not tried
> to find the hidden stories in Barry Lyndon or the Shining? The people
> want to know.
Actually, I think he should concentrate on _Dr Strangelove_, and
specifically on the ultimate fate of the Slim Pickens character. After
all, anagrammatically,
LEONARD F WHEAT = LEFT ON WARHEAD
(It also = A WAN THREEFOLD, which may say something about LFW's
threefold-allegory theory.)
Perhaps we should consider the possibility that LFW himself is purely
allegorical.
doug
--
---------------douglas bailey (trys...@world.std.com)---------------
this week dragged past me so slowly; the days fell on their knees...
--david bowie
David Kirkpatrick
First of all, Sontag nowhere equates interpretation with allegory, which
by any account is an extreme and narrow form of "interpretation".
Secondly, I find it revealing that you impose a strictly linear concept
of history-as-progress on Sontag, confusing her perhaps with Herbert
Spencer or Milton Friedman.
I therefore repeat the quotation:
Sontag: In some cultural contexts, interpretation is a liberating act.
It is a means of revising, of transvaluing, of escaping the dead past.
In other cultural contexts, it is reactionary, impertinent, cowardly,
stifling.
There is an undeniable ebb and flow to "cultural" contexts (e.g. between
swings between the repressed and the licentious, or between the baroque
and classical sensibilities). Sometimes society seems like a fabric of
lies that calls for sweeping away by simpler truths. Other times it
seems plagued by nihilism, emptiness and meaninglessness, in which case
constructive storytelling seems to be a better anecdote than negative
attempts to debunk lies.
Thus the notion that Sontag believes that at some point in time
allegories switched from being good to evil is nothing more than your
straw man de jour.
It is only radicalized rationality, like one of those mad Star Trek
alien computers, that translates "redundant" and "an affliction" on
society into something that must be utterly irradicated. Esthetic or
humanistic discourse has a different frame of reference from
neo-conservative economic discourse. "Redundancy" can be annoying, also
funny; only years after Sontag's essay did it come to be a euphemism for
"fire their asses". "Affliction" is more associated with tragedy than
comedy in the cultural world, but a cultural moderate would not propose
a utopian plan for eliminating some aspect of human existence merely
because it is an affliction, since existence itself is something largely
to be suffered.
What makes Sontag's words moderate is not whether they are forceful or
mealy-mouthed but the fact that they counterbalance obsession with
ulterior content with an attention to immediate form. Socrates claim
that he knows nothing can be taken as an extreme statement, but the
moderate intent behind it is to encourage skeptical inquiry. Sontag's
remarks are essentially in the tradition of the oral and non-ideological
Socrates and are a defense of a more full-blooded, holistic or
humanistic approach to intellectual values against the more aggressively
utopian and more radical faith in pure reason (i.e. the bias of
literacy) that one finds in Plato. The writings of John Ralston Saul
map this dichotomy in great detail. Like McLuhan and arguably Kubrick,
who appears to be refreshingly non-ideological, Sontag is essentially
taking up the case of (the historical) Socrates against Plato (who used
Socrates as his own mouthpiece in his later writings). It is the gadfly
versus the godhead.
It is the radical who is devoted to one system (e.g. one
interpretation); the moderate prefers to play off one system against
another. Faith is radical; doubt is moderate. Or in the words of
Leonard Cohen: "There is a space between everything, that's how the
light gets in."
It is in that sense that I say Sontag is a "moderate". This isn't to
deny the originality of what she had to say when she said it, or how she
said it.
David
Leonard F. Wheat
> Actually, I don't recall having ever once said that interpretation is
> impossible.
What you have said is that interpretation IN THE NORMAL
SENSE OF THE WORD is impossible. By "in the normal sense of the word"
I refer to a single, correct interpretation. In 2001's case, that
means an interpretation intended by Kubrick. Your position has always
been that, although unreasonable and foolish interpretations can be
ruled out, there are many "best" or acceptable interpretations. One
is more or less as good as another; none is THE correct interpretation
intended by Kubrick. It is in this sense that you hold interpretation
to be impossible. In short, you embrace Munday's position.
You (unlike Munday) have allowed for rare exceptions. In
one post you (I think it was you) allowed that Hal really did
symbolize the cyclops. But even here you got tangled up in
contradictions. If "Hal is the cyclops" is correct in the sense of
being the definitive interpretation intended by Kubrick, how can all
the other "best" interpretations be just as good? You have never made
it clear whether you think KUBRICK intended Hal as the cyclops or
whether, alternatively, you just think that the cyclops idea is better
than any other you have run across.
If you really think "cyclops" is one of those rare definitive
(intended by Kubrick) interpretations, how did you arrive at that
conclusion? What criteria did you use to identify the definitive
nature of this interpretation? If the cyclops interpretation can be
definitive, aren't you conceding that Kubrick did have at least some
definitive interpretations?
On the other hand, if your cyclops interpretation remains
nondefinitive, just one interpretation among many "good" ones, how can
you say it is an exception to the rule? What rule is it an exception
to? And in what sense is it an exception to that rule? By denying
that the cyclops interpretation is definitive, aren't you going back
to the unqualified Munday position: that there are absolutely no
definitive interpretations of the symbols in 2001?
> I've maintained from day
> one that the film is intended as a subjective experience that allows for a
> variety of readings and the best readings - as I think Sontag would agree -
> have something to do with what's actually being presented on screen.
"Allows for a variety of readings" means that a single
"correct" interpretation is impossible. So I think I have summarized
your position fairly and correctly. But one thing puzzles me. How
could an interpretation NOT "have something to do with what's actually
being presented on the screen"? After all, a symbol isn't a symbol
unless we can see it, and we can't see it unless its on the screen.
So what was your point when you said the symbol had to be on the
screen?
(Qualification: In at least three places in 2001, the
symbols are audio rather than visual, so to be technically correct I
would have to say that "a symbol isn't a symbol unless we can see OR
HEAR it." An example of an audio symbol is the opening music from R.
Strauss's "Thus Spake Zarathustra," which symbolizes Nietzsche's book
THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA.)
David Kirkpatrick
>
> By the way (here I'm going to use some Munday logic), don't
> you find it strange that a man with such genius for black comedy
> should try it only once? Conclusion (Munday's): Dr. Strangelove was
> not really a black comedy.
>
As if that's the only Kubrick film with black comedy. You might want to
check out Lolita, A Clockwork Orange and Full Metal Jacket, for starters.
DK
Leonard F. Wheat
> Leonard F. Wheat
>
> Weathermen could not interpret weather systems.
> Ahem. As a 25 year practicing Operational Meteorologist I can assure you
> that we do not 'interpret' natural phenomena in a study of a given weather
> system.
First, let me apologize for using the colloquial term
"weatherman." That sounds like some SDS terrorist killing cops in
Chicago. I should have said meteorologist.
Second, let's put that quotation back in context, to wit:
"The Sontag quote that I ignored (because it deserves to be
ignored) is: "To interpret is to impoverish . . . the world."
Although I suspect that Sontag never intended to apply this quotation
to all forms of interpretation, let's assume for the moment that she
did. In that case, she is a guru I would never kneel before. Such an
opinion can only be described as pathetic.
"Sontag, it would seem, would deny the physics professor the
write to interpret e = mc2 (pretend that 2 is an exponent) and a host
of other formulas for his students. The astronomer would be denied
the right to interpret the oscillation of a star as evidence of an
orbiting planet. Students of English Literature would be denied
assistance in understanding John Bunyan's "The Pilgrim's Progress" or
Harper Lee's "To Kill A Mockingbird." Students of classical music
would be denied interpretations of program music. Homicide detectives
and crime lab technicians could not interpret evidence or perform DNA
tests. WEATHERMEN COULD NOT INTERPRET WEATHER SYSTEMS."
Third, sentence I have raised to all-caps simply expresses
one of many implications of Sontag's "To interpret is to impoverish,"
if that statement is taken at face value (which is something I said
that "I suspect that Sontag never intended").
Fourth, although we're now way off topic, I was referring to
the fact that among the data meteorologists use to predict local
weather are the movements of weather systems (high pressure areas, low
pressure areas, fronts, storm systems, etc.) across the continent and
(in the case of hurricanes and other tropical storms) across the
oceans. Meteorologists try to deduce (or calculate) where these
systems are headed, when they will arrive, if they will truly arrive
rather than bypass the area, and what their effect (in combination
with other effects) on the local weather will be.
Fifth, the quoted sentence is not inconsistent with "we deal
in probabilities." I'm sure you recognize that the context does not
call for a long, detailed description of the mechanics of weather
forecasting.
Sixth, the "weatherman" sentence does not use the words
"natural phenomena," although a weather system is of course a natural
phenomenon.
> Such thinking is akin to "mistaking the pointing finger for the
> moon that it points to" (Rinzai). In meteorology we analyze DATA and
> IMAGERY that has been collected pertinent to the subject system. A
> rudimentary appreciation of Chaos/Complexity theory would reveal that one
> can >never< obtain enough data to forecast/prog a given system with absolute
> certainty even on a short (24 hour) timeline. We deal in probabilities.
> Even in predicting the effect of said weather systems on physical
> structures, be they geologic or man made, we are dealing with probability
> criteria: In all cases, accounting for noise and bias in the observation
> set.
> IOW the forecast of a given system's behavior must acknowledge the
> falsifiablity principle ------- a principle which this assertion of 2001:ASO
> as limited to allegory sadly ignores.
The point of all the above escapes me. Are you affirming or
denying that, in the process of forecasting local weather,
meteorologists "interpret weather systems" moving across the country?
If you are simply saying that meteorologists do much more than that
(and they do) and that forecasts are subject to error (i.e., they deal
with probability rather than certainty), there is no issue. Nobody
said otherwise.
Peter Tonguette
> One
>is more or less as good as another; none is THE correct interpretation
>intended by Kubrick. It is in this sense that you hold interpretation
>to be impossible. In short, you embrace Munday's position.
Clarity at last. Yes, I hold there is no such thing as THE correct
interpretation of the film. I don't even see Kubrick's "intentions" as being
particularly relevant when it comes to the substance of the film, since all we
have to go on is >the film<; if it allows for a variety of readings - and it
does - so be it.
> You (unlike Munday) have allowed for rare exceptions. In
>one post you (I think it was you) allowed that Hal really did
>symbolize the cyclops. But even here you got tangled up in
>contradictions. If "Hal is the cyclops" is correct in the sense of
>being the definitive interpretation intended by Kubrick, how can all
>the other "best" interpretations be just as good? You have never made
>it clear whether you think KUBRICK intended Hal as the cyclops or
>whether, alternatively, you just think that the cyclops idea is better
>than any other you have run across.
Check your notes. I never allowed that HAL literally symbolizes the cyclops
from "The Odyssey." I think it's one interpretation, an interesting one, but
not the >final< word on HAL. And, you're correct, if I did hold such a
position (HAL=cyclops), it would be based on my judging it as being one of the
"best" interpretations.
>"Allows for a variety of readings" means that a single
>"correct" interpretation is impossible. So I think I have summarized
>your position fairly and correctly. But one thing puzzles me. How
>could an interpretation NOT "have something to do with what's actually
>being presented on the screen"? After all, a symbol isn't a symbol
>unless we can see it, and we can't see it unless its on the screen.
>So what was your point when you said the symbol had to be on the
>screen?
I was referring to the "the film is a total blank slate" thesis, which is an
extreme position that I don't think anyone has ever actually supported in these
discussions, but nonetheless is something I wanted to clarify as >not< being my
position, despite your insistence that my "numerous interpretations are
possible" position is, in essence, analogous with it.
Peter
Tobasco
Leonard F. Wheat wrote .
>
> The point of all the above escapes me. Are you affirming or
> denying that, in the process of forecasting local weather,
> meteorologists "interpret weather systems" moving across the country?
> If you are simply saying that meteorologists do much more than that
> (and they do) and that forecasts are subject to error (i.e., they deal
> with probability rather than certainty), there is no issue. Nobody
> said otherwise.
Leonard!!! You've <gasp> missed the allegory.
I do have a q for you. In the tri-allegory theory, are you asserting that
2001:ASO is simply a vehicle for the transmission of the referenced sources?
If so, do the tri-lines interact in producing anything like a synergistic
aesthetic system? Is there anything like a dramatic Gestalt to the film
that is not described by the tri-allegory theory? To be frank, much of what
I'm seeing in this theory is rudimentary recognition of specific elements
which may or may not correlate to the cited sources - a lot of force fitting
here. But even taking the observed elements as valid: Is Kubrick simply
welding and melding these three thematic lines into a filmic chimera?
blue bus
Leonard F. Wheat <lenw...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> If you really think "cyclops" is one of those rare definitive
> (intended by Kubrick) interpretations, how did you arrive at that
> conclusion? What criteria did you use to identify the definitive
> nature of this interpretation? If the cyclops interpretation can be
> definitive, aren't you conceding that Kubrick did have at least some
> definitive interpretations?
> On the other hand, if your cyclops interpretation remains
> nondefinitive, just one interpretation among many "good" ones, how can
> you say it is an exception to the rule? What rule is it an exception
> to? And in what sense is it an exception to that rule? By denying
> that the cyclops interpretation is definitive, aren't you going back
> to the unqualified Munday position: that there are absolutely no
> definitive interpretations of the symbols in 2001?
I think I've asked this before, but hey. There is the possibility that
Kubrick simply made HAL a sly, funny little reference to the cyclops. Like
have you seen 'O Brother Where Art Thou?' --? Is that an allegory? The
whole film plays along the lines of the Odyssey as the basis for a story
and for fun, there is no essential meaning I can see. It's not an allegory,
it's simply a re-telling; only it does exactly what you claim 2001 does,
only more obviously. If 2001 isn't simply doing the same -- have I missed
something, or what do these allegories actually mean?
What is the triple allegory for...?
Rod Munday
third absolutely free. Guarenteed to f... (Blow) your mind
lenw...@earthlink.net (Leonard F. Wheat) wrote in message news:<b5f71a25.02071...@posting.google.com>...
> r...@visual-memory.co.uk (Rod Munday) wrote in message
> > As I never said that 2001 cannot be interpreted, I do not think that
> > this can be the crux of the debate. For the record (again!) I believe
> > that while 2001 can be interpreted, no interpretation can claim to be
> > definitive. So I am in fact saying that there can be no DEFINITIVE
> > interpretation of 2001. If you omit the word definitive from the above
> > sentence, the meaning collapses. So please don't do this when
> > "quoting" me.
>
> You're playing with words again, Rod (your old semiotics
> kick, I guess).
Language games are all we have.
> When I say that you say 2001 cannot be interpreted,
> that means "cannot be interpreted CORRECTLY."
Well that would have been closer to the spirit of what I meant yes,
but it's not actually what you said and therefore not the quote I
responded to. IMO thinking about a definitive interpretation of a film
like 2001 is very pejorative.
> You hold that there is
> no one correct or definitive interpretation.
That is correct
> You hold that Kubrick
> never intended that his many symbols refer to anything in particular.
No that is not correct.
> You hold that, although unreasonable or foolish interpretations can be
> ruled out, there can be hundreds and probably thousands or reasonable
> or "good" interpretations, none of which is specifically intended by
> Kubrick.
I do not hold that unreasonable or foolish interpretations can be
ruled out because that implies that there is a correct interpretation.
Theories that you would call foolish no doubt have a validity in the
eyes of their authors and, as the film is intended by its author to be
viewed as a highly subjective experience, they are allowed.
> In my vernacular, that means you hold that there is no
> CORRECT interpretation. In your eyes, all reasonable interpretations
> are more or less equally correct.
There is no correct explanation although it does not follow that I
therefore would view all explanations to be equally correct.
Personally speaking, there are explanations that I value and those
that I do not. The critieria I apply to test the worth of an
explanation of 2001 is whether it elevates or reduce the film,
consequently I do not value your ramblings on the subject.
> So Rod Munday is saying that a
> Kubrick symbol has no "correct" or "definitive" interpretation that
> was intended by Kubrick. Is that clear enough?
Yes, if you're talking about Kubrick's intentions with regard to how
people respond to his film. He said as much himself.
But No, if your talking about his relationship to the ideas and images
contained in 2001. I'm sure he had certain things in mind, but
knowlege of what those things (definitively) were is denied us. We
can't very well go and interrogate him on this matter can we!
> You have also said that trying to provide a "correct"
> interpretation of 2001 is like claiming "we can know the mind of God."
> By this you mean that, just as it is impossible to "know the mind of
> God," so is it impossible to deduce the meanings of Kubrick's symbols.
> By implication, it's impossible to deduce that the name Bowman
> alludes to the fact that Odysseus was a bowman (archer), master of the
> Great Bow.
Firstly I'm glad even you concede that we can't know the mind of god!
I guess I was trying to be as non-reductive as possible to
counterbalance your excessive rationalism. The example of the sort of
deduction you can make proves that the exercise is trite.
> You have proceeded from there to say that anyone (meaning
> me) who dares of offer "correct" interpretations is guilty of
> arrogance.
Self-delusion might be more accurate.
> Why is such interpretation arrogance?
Why is it arrogance to say, my interpretation of an ultimately
subjective experience is the correct one? Why is it arrogance to claim
that this explanation is without doubt the one that Kubrick intended,
without any evidence to back up this claim apart from the explanation
itself? (reducto ad absurdum anyone?) Why is that arrogance??? I
dunno, you tell me.
> Because Rod Munday
> has declared that 2001 is not subject to definitive interpretations
> and that Kubrick had no such interpretations of his own.
I don't think I claimed this, I think you'll find it was Kubrick.
beside there is no such thing as a definitive explanation. It's an
oxymoron.
> According to
> Munday, we may not be able to know the mind of God, but Munday can
> "correctly" know that no definitive interpretations exist.
Of course I can. Interpretations by their very nature are not
definitive. If something is definite, surely it need no
interpretation? If you're standing in front of a tree you don't need
deductive reasoning to tell you there a tree there, just open your
eyes. Being disappointed that interpretations are not definitive is
like criticising an approximation for lack of accuracy. You are
barking up the wrong tree - or just barking.....
> Pardon me
> for saying so, but if Munday knows that he is claiming to "know the
> mind of Kubrick." In my book, that's like claiming to know the mind
> of God. That's genuine arrogance.
I can't claim to know Kubrick's mind, but I can cut an paste a Kubrick
quotation with the best of them!
> > You don't even see that preserving the mystery of
> > 2001 is the whole point. In art the most faithful definitions leave
> > their subject crucially undefined.
>
> One man's sauce is another man's poison (or something like
> that). You prefer that 2001's mysteries remain mysteries. You don't
> want to know the answers because, somehow, they spoil the surface
> story (for you, at least). But I know from contacts from readers, and
> from the many queries I have seen at 2001 websites, that many readers
> (a huge majority, I believe) are immensely interested in learning the
> answers. Did you know that, at several 2001 websites, there are FAQ
> lists, and that these lists reflect genuine desire to learn the
> answers to 2001's mysteries? Did you know that one of these FAQ
> websites is operated (or maybe co-operated) by a guy named Rod Munday,
> who should know better than to say that most viewers want to "preserve
> the mystery" of 2001? These viewers are like people who have read a
> whodunit novel that failed to identify the killer. They want answers.
And I suppose you just the man to provide them, oh humble orator.
> > If 2001 is a mystery that can be explained, it follows that everything > mysterious is potentially explainable, and perhaps you won't > have to sleep with the light on anymore.
>
> Rod, Rod, will you never abandon these feeble attempts at
> logic?
Actually I was being insulting.
>You know logic isn't your forte.
Don't patronise me. I know enough about logic to know that that
solipsism is logically irrefutable and that in a nutshell seems to be
the problem here.
>It may well be that, without
> regard to whether anything has ever been explained, every thing and
> every occurrence in the universe has an explanation. I in fact
> believe that everything mysterious is POTENTIALLY explainable.
That places you in a pre-Einsteinian universe then. Let's talk again,
after you have read up on twentieth century thought, a lot has
happened in the last hundred years since you picked up a philosophy
book. Perhaps you should "investigate" (allegorical hint there
especially for you)
But
> that's not what you're saying. You're saying that the fact that A can
> be explained proves that B, and C, and D . . . are potentially
> explainable.
What!!!!!?
<snip transmissions from the planet plimsoll>
> > Who cares if the
> > search party had three members, just like in the odyssey's lotus land.
> > What does that tell us about either 2001 or homer? This is not
> > analysis Leonard, it's banal crap.
>
> You ask, "Who cares?" Lots of people care about questions
> like this. That's why we have all these 2001 websites and the FAQ
> lists. What do the answers tell us? Individually they are merely
> interesting; they answer the questions that have baffled people. But
> collectively, the answers tell us that 2001 is allegory.
Collectively they tell us that you are a loon.
> > I assume from your lack of input
> > into discussions of other Kubrick films that you believe he has only
> > made one allegorical film. Don't you find that strange? That a man
> > with such a genius for allegory should only try it the once.
>
> Another feeble attempt at logic. I don't discuss other
> Kubrick films in part because I've seen only two others. (I'm not a
> Kubrick "fan"; I'm a 2001 fan.) One of those films is so far in the
> past that I could discuss it intelligently only by consulting the Tim
> Dirks summary. And no, I don't find it strange that Kubrick has made
> only one allegorical film, because he made two. I'll identify the
> other film and discuss it's allegories at the appropriate time and
> place.
gulp
> By the way (here I'm going to use some Munday logic), don't
> you find it strange that a man with such genius for black comedy
> should try it only once? Conclusion (Munday's): Dr. Strangelove was
> not really a black comedy.
There is black comedy in pretty much every Kubrick film, especially in
2001, or did you miss it?
regards, Rod
"you can't keep a dead mind down." - Samuel Beckett
Derek Jacombs
> funny; only years after Sontag's essay did it come to be a euphemism for
> "fire their asses".
It may have only crept into American usage years after Sontag's essay,
but I assure you that it has been used in that sense in Britain for
considerably longer.
Or in the words of
> Leonard Cohen: "There is a space between everything, that's how the
> light gets in."
Cohen's words are actually: "There is a crack in everything, that's
how the light gets in." Scans much better.
Fun discussion.
All the best,
Derek
Leonard F. Wheat
> Leonard F. Wheat wrote:
You missed the point, which was about Munday's faulty logic.
Before clarifying that point, though, I'll admit that I'm in no
position to forcefully defend the proposition that none of the three
above films are comedies. I haven't seen any of them; my knowledge of
them is strictly second hand; what I know about them comes from
reviews, summaries, and comments on this newsgroup. Nevertheless,
from what I've learned (or think I've learned) about them, none is a
comedy, black or otherwise. All have comedic elements, but that
doesn't make them comedies. Also, although the heroes (except Alex in
C.O.) meet their downfall, that's not "black" in the same sense as the
world blowing up.
But rather than getting bogged down in a controversial
example, I'll change the example. Munday thinks that if a director
does something once, he will necessarily do it again. He thinks that
if the director hasn't done it a second time, he can't have done it in
the first place. Specifically, if Kubrick hasn't made a second
allegory, he can't have made a first. If that's so, Kubrick should
have made another film about space travel. Did he? Or is there a
flaw in Munday's reasoning?
Derek Jacombs
> I don't discuss other
> Kubrick films in part because I've seen only two others. (I'm not a
> Kubrick "fan"; I'm a 2001 fan.) One of those films is so far in the
> past that I could discuss it intelligently only by consulting the Tim
> Dirks summary. And no, I don't find it strange that Kubrick has made
> only one allegorical film, because he made two. I'll identify the
> other film and discuss it's allegories at the appropriate time and
> place.
I don't believe it. We really have headed off into outer space here. I
don't know where to start. Let me get this straight:
a) You've only seen three Kubrick films, one of which impressed you so
much that you wrote a book about it, and you're not a Kubrick "fan"?
Did you find the other two so unmitigatingly aweful that it tipped the
balance away from 2001?
b) You wrote a book about 2001 and only bothered to wacth 2 of his
other films? Don't you think that his previous work might have been
informative in considering 2001? Weren't you CURIOUS???
c) You contend that 2 of Kubricks films are allegorical while only
having seen 3? I hope you got good advice (better than would be
obvious from the Dr Strangelove remark).
Well... I could go on but, bugger me, what are you wasting your time
here for, arguing when you could be watching any of 10 Kubrick movies
you've never seen.
Holy crap.
Derek
Leonard F. Wheat
Whoa there, son. You're making things up. Nobody said
Sontag "equates interpretation with allegory." Caffey quoted Sontag
as saying (I paraphrase) allegory stinks. Altgodkub observed that
that opinion qualified her as a loon. Caffey tried to refute the
"loon" evaluation with an irrelevant quotation, again from Sontag,
saying interpretation is more complex today than in Dante's time. I
then pointed out that altgodkub's evaluation had nothing to do with
interpretation (and neither did Sontag's evaluation of allegory). His
evaluation was based on Sontag's blanket condemnation of allegory.
Now you come along (without your glasses) and claim I said
that interpretation and allegory are the same thing. I said nothing
of the sort. I merely referred to what Sontag said.
> Secondly, I find it revealing that you impose a strictly linear concept
> of history-as-progress on Sontag, confusing her perhaps with Herbert
> Spencer or Milton Friedman.
I have no idea what you mean by "a strictly linear concept of
history-as-progress," but I do know I expressed no views of my own
about history or about progress. I merely related what Sontag said
about the role of history.
> I therefore repeat the quotation:
>
> Sontag: In some cultural contexts, interpretation is a liberating act.
> It is a means of revising, of transvaluing, of escaping the dead past.
> In other cultural contexts, it is reactionary, impertinent, cowardly,
> stifling.
>
> There is an undeniable ebb and flow to "cultural" contexts (e.g. between
> swings between the repressed and the licentious, or between the baroque
> and classical sensibilities). Sometimes society seems like a fabric of
> lies that calls for sweeping away by simpler truths. Other times it
> seems plagued by nihilism, emptiness and meaninglessness, in which case
> constructive storytelling seems to be a better anecdote than negative
> attempts to debunk lies.
>
> Thus the notion that Sontag believes that at some point in time
> allegories switched from being good to evil is nothing more than your
> straw man de jour.
David, you are SO confused. Can't you read? Can't you read
what she said in her original quotation, the one about Dante's
allegory being good but modern allegory being "redundant" and an
"affliction." Can't you read what she then said in the lines you just
quoted? Those lines don't even mention allegory. They're off topic.
But what she said in the first quotation is this:
> >>>>SONTAG: Once upon a time (say, for Dante), it must have been a
> >>>>revolutionary and creative move to design works of art so that they
> >>>>might be experienced on several levels. Now it is not. It reinforces
> >>>>the principle of redundancy that is the principal affliction of modern
> >>>>life.
Here Sontag is saying that allegory was "once" (in Dante's
time) good. But "NOW IT IS NOT." That means that "allegories
switched from being good to [being] evil." That's no straw man.
That's what your "authority" said. And that's what justifies
altgodkub's calling her a loon.
[snip]
> > You and your friends have already quoted enough to show that
> > Sontag is an extremist and an unwise counselor. Her basic problem is
> > that she overgeneralizes. She makes sweeping conclusions on the basis
> > of anecdotal evidence. She focuses on the bad and ignores the good.
> > Her "logic" amounts to this:
> >
> > Some interpretation is bad.
> > X is an interpretation.
> > Therefore, X is bad.
> >
> > Somebody should explain to Sontag that, in a logical syllogism, the
> > major premise (line 1) must begin with "All."
> >>All in all, hers is the voice of moderation.
> >
> > Somehow I get the feeling that you don't understand the
> > meaning of "moderation." A person who says that modern allegory is
> > "redundant" and "an affliction" on society is no moderate. ANIMAL
> > FARM is not redundant. And neither is 2001. Only a loon would call
> > them redundant.
>
> It is only radicalized rationality, like one of those mad Star Trek
> alien computers, that translates "redundant" and "an affliction" on
> society into something that must be utterly irradicated.
There you go again, making things up. Who attributed to
Sontag the view that allegory "must be utterly irradicated [sic]"?
What she said, and what I quoted her as saying, is that allegory is no
longer "revolutionary and creative" (i.e., good). Instead it is
"redundant" (repetitious, superfluous, something we have too much of)
and an "affliction" on our culture. In a word, it is bad.
> Esthetic or humanistic discourse has a different frame of reference from
> neo-conservative economic discourse. "Redundancy" can be annoying, also
> funny; only years after Sontag's essay did it come to be a euphemism for
> "fire their asses". "Affliction" is more associated with tragedy than
> comedy in the cultural world, but a cultural moderate would not propose
> a utopian plan for eliminating some aspect of human existence merely
> because it is an affliction, since existence itself is something largely
> to be suffered.
What's the point of this word play of yours, David? You
seem to be trying to deny that Sontag's epithets ("redundant" and
"affliction") are really expressions of distaste for allegory. You're
trying to soften their meanings so Sontag will sound less like a loon.
But your ploy is too obvious. It won't work. Anyone who thinks that
allegory is an obsolete or redundant art from that has become an
affliction on our culture is a loon.
> What makes Sontag's words moderate is not whether they are forceful or
> mealy-mouthed but the fact that they counterbalance obsession with
> ulterior content with an attention to immediate form. Socrates claim
> that he knows nothing can be taken as an extreme statement, but the
> moderate intent behind it is to encourage skeptical inquiry. Sontag's
> remarks are essentially in the tradition of the oral and non-ideological
> Socrates and are a defense of a more full-blooded, holistic or
> humanistic approach to intellectual values against the more aggressively
> utopian and more radical faith in pure reason (i.e. the bias of
> literacy) that one finds in Plato. The writings of John Ralston Saul
> map this dichotomy in great detail. Like McLuhan and arguably Kubrick,
> who appears to be refreshingly non-ideological, Sontag is essentially
> taking up the case of (the historical) Socrates against Plato (who used
> Socrates as his own mouthpiece in his later writings). It is the gadfly
> versus the godhead.
That pompous, pretentious, ostentatious paragraph you just
belched is one of the best examples of gobbledegook I've seen in a
long time. Now go look up that word.
Theodore Bernstein, in THE CAREFUL WRITER, offers some
remarks that describe your words. He refers to "the monumental
unintelligibility of some criticism" and to the refusal of some
writers to "accept the bridle of plain words." Such writing "leads
one to wrap a paucity of information in a plethora of words."
Philip Sondericker
at lenw...@earthlink.net wrote on 7/10/02 7:20 PM:
> David Kirkpatrick <dak...@rogers.com> wrote in message
> news:<3D2C795...@rogers.com>...
>> Leonard F. Wheat wrote:
>
>>> By the way (here I'm going to use some Munday logic), don't
>>> you find it strange that a man with such genius for black comedy
>>> should try it only once? Conclusion (Munday's): Dr. Strangelove was
>>> not really a black comedy.
>>
>> As if that's the only Kubrick film with black comedy. You might want to
>> check out Lolita, A Clockwork Orange and Full Metal Jacket, for starters.
>
> You missed the point, which was about Munday's faulty logic.
> Before clarifying that point, though, I'll admit that I'm in no
> position to forcefully defend the proposition that none of the three
> above films are comedies. I haven't seen any of them; my knowledge of
> them is strictly second hand; what I know about them comes from
> reviews, summaries, and comments on this newsgroup. Nevertheless,
> from what I've learned (or think I've learned) about them, none is a
> comedy, black or otherwise.
Opinions will vary, of course, but my own opinion is that each of the three
films cited above falls very much within the category of "black comedy". In
fact, just in terms of laughs, I'd rate all of them ahead of
"Strangelove"...but that's just opinion, you understand.
You know, now that I think about it, "The Shining" was also a hilarious
black comedy in its own right.
> All have comedic elements, but that
> doesn't make them comedies. Also, although the heroes (except Alex in
> C.O.) meet their downfall, that's not "black" in the same sense as the
> world blowing up.
It's debatable that the "heroes" (or anti-heroes, as the case may be) met
their downfalls in "Lolita" and FMJ, and Alex did not in ACO. In fact, I
would call the endings of FMJ and ACO highly ambiguous in terms of how the
main characters fared. Even in "Lolita", where the fate of Humbert is
spelled out pretty clearly in the epilogue, it's difficult to judge whether
or not he's "met his downfall". After all, didn't he accomplish more or less
everything he set out to do at the beginning of the story?
PT Caffey
> r...@visual-memory.co.uk wrote:
>
> Actually, I think he should concentrate on _Dr Strangelove_, and
> specifically on the ultimate fate of the Slim Pickens character. After
> all, anagrammatically,
>
> LEONARD F WHEAT = LEFT ON WARHEAD
>
> (It also = A WAN THREEFOLD, which may say something about LFW's
> threefold-allegory theory.)
>
> Perhaps we should consider the possibility that LFW himself is purely
> allegorical.
>
> doug
LOL!
PT Caffey
PT Caffey
> > In the current
> > discussion, I was the first to bring up Sontag's quote, not
> > Peter Tonguette. You blamed Tonguette for not providing "context,"
> > but Sontag's position hasn't been a state secret for the
> > past forty years.
>
> I stand corrected. You, not Tonguette, introduced the
> quotation. My point remains, however: "That quotation offers no
> reservations, no qualifications." You are evidently a Sontag fan and,
> for that reason, believe that everyone else should be too. Strange
> reasoning, I must say.
It's YOUR reasoning, not mine. For various reasons, I believe that
everyone should have a passing familiarity with the 20th century.
> I'm sorry to inform you that I'm not a Sontag
> fan and am woefully ignorant of her writings. You have no business
> assuming that everyone knows her quotation can't be taken at face
> value.
"You could look it up." --James Thurber, 1941
> If it gets misinterpreted because you took it out of context,
> the responsibility for misinterpretation is yours. Besides, I didn't
> misinterpret it.
I took Sontag's quotation from her essay, but I didn't sever it from
the world of ideas. One's education is also a form of "context."
Besides, you didn't misinterpret it.
> In any case, I brought her quote up in the context
> > of framing MY point that "uncorking encoded messages in Stanley
> > Kubrick's "2001: a Space Odyssey" (e.g., "Bowman and bow-man, get
> > it?") represents one of the most pedestrian and least interesting
> > approaches to a work of art one may undertake.
>
> Again, that's not the issue. The issue is whether 2001 has
> "correct" interpretations that were intended by Kubrick.
>
I understand that's not YOUR issue; but it's the point I wished to
make. You see, I've vaulted ahead of this zany disquisition on
interpretative "correctness."
"Sir, a work of art is not a crossword puzzle!"--Zero Mostel, 1962
> > The issue that interests me (and I'm sorry if this fails to fit
> > within the confines of THE DEBATE you've framed in your mind) is
> > whether such "decoding" adds to, or detracts from, the experience of seeing
> > the film.
>
> ...the issue is not whether interpretation detracts from the
> viewing experience. For more on this topic, see my response to Rod
> Munday's latest post.
>
No, I'm sorry. If you can't bother to provide the context for your
thesis here, I don't see how I could possibly look for it elsewhere.
> > Well, I believe if 2001 WERE
> > ONLY some trite allegory, it would stink, even on Jupiter where the
> > smells are pretty bad. We have Kubrick to thank for a landmark film
> > that conveys, as do few (if any) others, a visceral sense of mystery
> > and awe, and on a cosmic scale. But these are sensual and emotional
> > reactions that, for you, must pale in the face of the "unprecedented
> > feat" of a triple allegory.
>
> I wonder by what strange reasoning you conclude that I don't
> appreciate the nonallegorical aspects of 2001, including the "sense of
> mystery and awe." I wrote (among other things): "If the plot seems to
> develop too slowly, that is because Kubrick is giving us time to savor
> the strangeness and wonder of space travel---and giving HIMSELF time
> to weave in essential allegorical threads and symbols. . . . Casual
> filmgoers should be able to understand at least the surface story.
> But 2001's powerful---utterly absorbing---visual effects, intelligent
> story line (rare in science fiction films), scientific realism (up to
> a point), and sly humor are more than enough to compensate. Besides,
> the challenge of smashing the ambiguity, wiggling through the
> symbolism, and solving the puzzle is part of what makes watching---and
> later contemplating---2001 such a satisfying experience."
>
First of all, please pardon me if I admit that I'm woefully ignorant
of Wheat's writings. You are evidently a Wheat fan and, for that
reason, believe that everyone else should be too.
Secondly, I view this last paragraph of yours as tantamount to a
signed confession. Smash the ambiguity? Why would you want to do
such a spiteful thing as that? That's the best part.
I also said that I had put 2001 on my list of the three best
> movies of all time...
Dare I ask what the other two are?
>
> Your notion that I think allegory is all there is to 2001
> stands contradicted by what I wrote.
>
As I said earlier, I don't get out much.
> > Even if I bought into your interpretative masterwork wholesale, so
> > what? You think multiple allegories require genius to construct?
> > Gee, you must have missed "Star Wars." Was there a story Lucas did
> > not "retell"?
>
> Yes, I do think multiple allegory required a genius to
> construct. Never in the history of literature or film had anyone
> constructed even a double allegory, let alone a triple one. The idea
> required genius, and carrying it out with such skill and imagination
> required genius.
>
> Although you can't see me, I just rolled my eyes upon
> reading your assertion that Star Wars is an allegory, and a multiple
> one at that. Are you really ignorant of the difference between cliche
> and allegory?
Whether the film's several allegories are hackneyed,or not, doesn't
change one salient fact: They exist. And it's quite a feat. Consider
what Lucas has achieved. He's combined (1) a symbolic retelling of
the Hero's Journey, a distillation of the central thread of Western
heroic narrative; (2) a symbolic replay of "The Searchers," a key
American Western by John Ford about racial prejudice and
miscegenation, and a virtual urtext for the "movie brat" generation;
and (3) a symbolic reenactment of the Vietnam War, with "a
technologically advanced country taking on a smaller nation at the
heart of the concept." "[Star Wars] was written during the Vietnam
War and a lot of that deals with emotions and feelings I was going
through in that period," Lucas has said.
Whether you believe these allegories to be cliched or boring or stupid
isn't the issue. By all accounts, Lucas clearly intended them to be
there. It's the correct interpretation.
You believe that "multiple allegory require[s] a genius to construct."
"Star Wars" is a multiple allegory (a triple! maybe more!).
Therefore, you believe George Lucas is a genius.
Leonard F. Wheat is convinced that George Lucas is a genius. Hear Ye!
Hear Ye! Etc.
PT Caffey
David Kirkpatrick
Thanks for catching that! Didn't mean to abuse two Leonards at the same
time.
Ironically (or appropriately), my gaffe was an example of the very thing
I was preaching against -- obscuring the poetry while reading through it
to the interpretation.
David
David Kirkpatrick
My point was that since the word "allegory" does not appear in Sontag's
essay, you should not be using the words "Sontag had said that allegory
was okay when it was new, because it was then 'revolutionary and
creative'". More reasonably you might have written about she "implied"
about allegory. Anyway, to insert the word "allegory" in that
particular sentence is rather silly, since allegory was a traditional
technique of Mystery Plays well before Dante came along. There would
have been nothing revolutionary about introducing "allegory" by Dante,
except that the allegorical content was political, not religious.
The fact that political points were being made beneath the facade of an
otherworldly surface is probably what Sontag had in mind by
characterizing The Divine Comedy as revolutionary. But note that it is
the otherworldly or the fantastic which is used as a surface in Dante
and in Animal Farm and the real world that interpretation leads us to.
In the case of 2001, you start with a film which on the surface
confronts us with relatively immanent concerns of where technology is
leading us and what we might discover as a result of the space program
(at least it seemed immanent enough to Kubrick that he tried to get an
insurance policy against the discovery of ETs prior to the release of
the film). And where does the interpretation of its "real" or "deeper"
meaning lie? Why it's a retelling of the Odyssey. How dare Sontag call
that redundant or reactionary! Or it's a rehash of a book by a
nineteenth century philosopher who is so important today that you have
not bothered to view a fourth or fifth Kubrick film for supporting
evidence that Kubrick has a particular interest in this guy. (I
disregard the "third" allegory you occasionally refer to, since I don't
see how the Arthur C. Clarke content of the film is distinguishable
enough from the film surface to be called allegorical.)
In Dante and in Orwell the point of the allegory is satire. And the
satire in Orwell is as time-sensitive as that in Dante. It was a
subversive act by a left-leaning journalist who lost his enchantment
with the Soviet experiment. But most of the genius in Animal Farm is to
be found in the way it succeeds as specific allegory, but in the way it,
like 1984 or Brazil, succeeds as broad satire. "Some animals are more
equal than others" is all the more brilliant because it applies to
social situations beyond the historical target its allegorical laser
beam points at with greatest particularity.
2001 could very well be an excellent argument for Sontag's case for
focusing on form and the "erotics" of immediate and delayed impact
instead of obsessively searching for latent content. Certainly there is
a satirical message to be found at the surface of
banality-amid-wonder. Like Joyce's Ulysses, Kubrick's Odyssey becomes
something of an anticlimax or shaggy god story if we look to the
allegorical meaning as the treasure and everything as a hunt filled with
clues and obstacles.
A shaggy god story indeed. Because an interpretation can map every
parallel between the supeficial story and the allegorized story and
still leave it totally up in the air whether the author is agreeing with
or making fun of the underlying content.
I think it is important to keep in mind that for every good modern
allegory like Animal Farm, there are hundreds that are all the more
dreadful for the very reason that they are intended as allegory.
Quoted first, maybe, but not the first quotation. This appears in
section 9.
>>Sontag: In some cultural contexts, interpretation is a liberating act.
>>It is a means of revising, of transvaluing, of escaping the dead past.
>>In other cultural contexts, it is reactionary, impertinent, cowardly,
>>stifling.
... appears in section 3. Why is she using the present tense if the
value of interpretation (and by extension, allegory) is something that
has expired at some date around the Renaissance or Enlightenment? Note
that the claim that interpretation can be a liberating act is a fairly
general one. The claim that it was only once upon a time
"revolutionary" is not so extreme, taken in context. It's rather like
saying that the wheel was at one time revolutionary, but no more. Is it
liberating? At times yes, but it has a dark side that should be taken
to heart. Sontag is saying that there are artistic places that should
be walked through not escaped from via ATVs.
> Here Sontag is saying that allegory was "once" (in Dante's
> time) good. But "NOW IT IS NOT." That means that "allegories
> switched from being good to [being] evil." That's no straw man.
> That's what your "authority" said. And that's what justifies
> altgodkub's calling her a loon.
I guess Sontag is therefore a loon conditional on the word
"revolutionary" meaning good and "redundant" meaning evil. Would this
be based on your "interpretation" of what these words mean to Sontag?
An illustration of my original point. That a discourse which is
essentially a plea for moderation argued deftly and with nuance has been
misrepresented as extreme by the bludgeon of your method of translation.
>
>>Esthetic or humanistic discourse has a different frame of reference from
>>neo-conservative economic discourse. "Redundancy" can be annoying, also
>>funny; only years after Sontag's essay did it come to be a euphemism for
>>"fire their asses". "Affliction" is more associated with tragedy than
>>comedy in the cultural world, but a cultural moderate would not propose
>>a utopian plan for eliminating some aspect of human existence merely
>>because it is an affliction, since existence itself is something largely
>>to be suffered.
>>
>
> What's the point of this word play of yours, David? You
> seem to be trying to deny that Sontag's epithets ("redundant" and
> "affliction") are really expressions of distaste for allegory. You're
> trying to soften their meanings so Sontag will sound less like a loon.
> But your ploy is too obvious. It won't work. Anyone who thinks that
> allegory is an obsolete or redundant art from that has become an
> affliction on our culture is a loon.
"Obsolete" is another word that doesn't appear in Sontag's essay.
>>What makes Sontag's words moderate is not whether they are forceful or
>>mealy-mouthed but the fact that they counterbalance obsession with
>>ulterior content with an attention to immediate form. Socrates claim
>>that he knows nothing can be taken as an extreme statement, but the
>>moderate intent behind it is to encourage skeptical inquiry. Sontag's
>>remarks are essentially in the tradition of the oral and non-ideological
>>Socrates and are a defense of a more full-blooded, holistic or
>>humanistic approach to intellectual values against the more aggressively
>>utopian and more radical faith in pure reason (i.e. the bias of
>>literacy) that one finds in Plato. The writings of John Ralston Saul
>>map this dichotomy in great detail. Like McLuhan and arguably Kubrick,
>>who appears to be refreshingly non-ideological, Sontag is essentially
>>taking up the case of (the historical) Socrates against Plato (who used
>>Socrates as his own mouthpiece in his later writings). It is the gadfly
>>versus the godhead.
>>
>
> That pompous, pretentious, ostentatious paragraph you just
> belched is one of the best examples of gobbledegook I've seen in a
> long time. Now go look up that word.
I just did. Is that really your picture beside the word pompous?
> Theodore Bernstein, in THE CAREFUL WRITER, offers some
> remarks that describe your words. He refers to "the monumental
> unintelligibility of some criticism" and to the refusal of some
> writers to "accept the bridle of plain words." Such writing "leads
> one to wrap a paucity of information in a plethora of words."
I'm glad it wasn't me using the word "plethora".
Admittedly, to some people, "know thyself" refers to gobbledegook.
David
blue bus
Leonard F. Wheat <lenw...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> > >>>>SONTAG: Once upon a time (say, for Dante), it must have been a
> > >>>>revolutionary and creative move to design works of art so that they
> > >>>>might be experienced on several levels. Now it is not. It reinforces
> > >>>>the principle of redundancy that is the principal affliction of modern
> > >>>>life.
> Here Sontag is saying that allegory was "once" (in Dante's
> time) good. But "NOW IT IS NOT." That means that "allegories
> switched from being good to [being] evil." That's no straw man.
> That's what your "authority" said. And that's what justifies
> altgodkub's calling her a loon.
Just to clarify, I think Sontag makes it clear that it isn't only that
that sort of multi-layered content isn't revolutionary any more, but more
so that she doesn't think it's appropriate today. People's senses are being
dulled in general, and this sort of interpretation is a symptom of this.
altgodkub
> >>>>>>revolutionary and creative move to design works of art so that they
> >>>>>>might be experienced on several levels. Now it is not. It reinforces
> >>>>>>the principle of redundancy that is the principal affliction of modern
> >>>>>>life.
> >>>>>>
>
> >>>>>>PT Caffey
> >>>>>>
> >>
> >>
> >>>>>Thanks PT. I now know once and for all that Sontag is a loon. If
> >>>>>artists today created works one one-hundredth as extraordinary as the
> >>>>>Divine Comedy, we'd all be beside ourselves with ecstasy.
> >>>>>
> >>>>>My bad. I thought the ability to experience art on several levels was
> >>>>>a good thing.
> >>>>>
>
>
I must say David, you are a pretty darn good writer when you leave the
gobbledegook behind.
If your reading of Sontag's intentions are accurate, I stand corrected
and quite clearly jumped the gun in calling her a loon -- at least
concerning the quote in question. I thought she was saying allegory
was alright for Dante but not alright any longer.
But, don't you think that allegory made the Divine Comedy a richer
piece of work than if it had been solely a political tract? Don't you
think Animal Farm is better and more interesting for being a allegory
than if it had been more straight up satire? I do. And I feel that
allegory can be used as effectively today as ever.
I'm not sure why you included the words "keep in mind that for every
good modern allegory like Animal Farm, there are hundreds that are all
the more dreadful for the very reason that they are intended as
allegory." It is true and the same could be said for every good and
very old allegory like the Divine Comedy. But, are you trying to say
that if 2001 is an allegory then it falls into the list of dreadful
ones?
I'll say it. I am convinced that 2001 is allegorical. I feel this
makes it a film far more interesting than if it were not allegorical.
I know 2001 to be far more than merely an allegory -- it is both
cautionary and intriguingly psychological for starters. Much in the
same way you point out Animal Farm and Divine Comedy to be more than
merely allegories.
So, I ask. Why, other than the obvious ego contests, is everyone so
afraid of 2001 being an allegory? It doesn't make the film any less.
For me, it clearly makes it more.
Leonard F. Wheat
> lenw...@earthlink.net (Leonard F. Wheat) wrote in message news:<b5f71a25.02071...@posting.google.com>...
> > ptca...@yahoo.com (PT Caffey) wrote in message news:<84498e9.02070...@posting.google.com>...
When you first confused allegory with cliche (you claimed
that the film cliches in Star Wars constituted allegory), I merely
rolled my eyes and asked if you were aware of the difference between
cliche and allegory. (The difference is huge.) That should have
nudged you toward your dictionary, or better yet to the office of a
professor of English. You have instead chosen to charge ahead with
your eyes shut, foolishly snorting your silly connviction that a
cliche is an allegory.
I realize that explaining the difference to you is a waste of
time, because you're beyond educating. Others, however, may wish to
learn the difference---and what a difference it is. Like many words,
"cliche" has both narrow (original) and broad (metaphorical) meanings.
In its narrow meaning, a cliche is a phrase or expression that has
grown stale through overuse (e.g., "the greatest thing since sliced
bread"); the expression is trite, hackneyed, worn out.
By extension, "cliche" has come to be applied more generally
to trite ideas and situations, ideas and situations that are about as
far from being new or original or imaginative as you can get. In
film, one cliche is the chase. Another is the backwards ticking
digital clock (or forward ticking analog clock) that will set off the
bomb when the time ticks down to zero (or forward to twelve). A third
is the cowboy riding off into the sunset at the end of the movie.
There are dozens, probably hundreds, of film cliches.
A cliche has nothing to do with symbols. And its only
connection with analogy (the usual basis of symbols) is that one
cliched situation is analogous to another.
An allegory is something totally different. It is not an
expression or an idea. An allegory is A STORY. The story may take
the form of a novel, a short story, a poem, a play, or a motion
picture. An allegory is a metaphorical surface story that uses symbols
to tell a second story that is hidden (i.e., that can be seen only by
recognizing and interpreting the symbols). In allegory, one story
tells another. The definition of allegory that I like best comes from
Theodore Bernstein: He defines allegory as "a metaphorical narrative .
. . in which the surface story and characters are intended to be taken
as symbols pointing to an underlying, more significant meaning."
An example I have used elsewhere is George Orwell's ANIMAL
FARM. This book is an attack on the Communists who betrayed the
Russian revolution of 19l7. In it the farm symbolizes Russia, the
farmer (overthrown in an animal rebellion) is the czar, the rebellion
of the animals is the 1917 revolution, and the pigs are the
Communists. The pigs betray the revolution by changing the original
animal slogan from "All animals are created equal" to "All animals are
created equal, BUT SOME ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS." The "more equal"
animals are the pigs, who enjoy all the fruits of production while the
other animals do the work.
Unlike cliches, which are used again and again, allegories are
almost always original. Don't misunderstand: the allegory is not the
hidden story (THE ODYSSEY in the case of one of 2001's three
allegories), it is the metaphorical surface story that tells the
hidden story. The hidden story may have been told or produced many
times before as a surface story in its own right. But the allegorical
surface story that tells the hidden story is almost always (has there
ever been an exception?) new and original. What other allegory,
either before or after ANIMAL FARM, told the story of the Russian
revolution and it's betrayal by the Communist leaders? What other
allegory previously used symbols to tell THE ODYSSEY as a hidden
story?
Your assertion that Star Wars is an allegory, indeed a
"multiple allegory" that contains "several allegories," betrays
incredible ignorance. Star Wars, like most action movies, has many
movie cliches. But it is not an allegory. Much less is it a multiple
allegory. The cliches, by definition, have been used many times
before. If Star Wars were allegory, you would be seeing symbolized
situations for the first time.
Lucas, you say, is a "genius" in the same sense that Kubrick
is. How sad that you cannot recognize the structural difference
between 2001 and Star Wars---between cliche and allegory.
Leonard F. Wheat
> Don't miss out on Leonards triple allegory deals! Buy two get the
> third absolutely free. Guarenteed to f... (Blow) your mind
>
> lenw...@earthlink.net (Leonard F. Wheat) wrote in message
We're going around in circles and starting to repeat our
points. So I'll cut off the debate with a final comment on another
subject, grammar. You may be uneducable where interpretation is
concerned, but surely you can learn to show greater respect for the
Queen's English. Look at what you wrote below.
> The criteria I apply to test the worth of an
> explanation of 2001 is . . .
The criteria IS?
Would you write, "The mice IS?
Would you write, "The women IS?
Would you write, "The knives IS?
See if you can find the word "criteria" alphabetized in the
dictionary as a separate entry. I don't mean just the last three
syllables (te-ri-a), listed under another word as forming the plural
of the other word. I mean the full word "criteria," fully spelled out
and listed in alphabetical order as a separate word. Happy hunting!
Leonard F. Wheat
> Leonard F. Wheat wrote:
>
> > David Kirkpatrick <dak...@rogers.com> wrote in message news:<3D2C7773...@rogers.com>...
> >
> >>Leonard F. Wheat wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>>David Kirkpatrick <dak...@rogers.com> wrote in message news:<3D2B3DA8...@rogers.com>...
> >>>>altgodkub wrote:
> >>>>>>SONTAG: Once upon a time (say, for Dante), it must have been a
> >>>>>>revolutionary and creative move to design works of art so that they
> >>>>>>might be experienced on several levels. Now it is not. It reinforces
> >>>>>>the principle of redundancy that is the principal affliction of modern
> >>>>>>life.
> >>>>>>PT Caffey
> >>>>>Thanks PT. I now know once and for all that Sontag is a loon. If
> >>>>>artists today created works one one-hundredth as extraordinary as the
> >>>>>Divine Comedy, we'd all be beside ourselves with ecstasy.
> >>>>>
> >>>>>My bad. I thought the ability to experience art on several levels was
> >>>>>a good thing.
You're making things up again, David. Since Sontag's
original quotation did not specifically mention allegory, and since
you (or Caffey) later said the quotation applied only to "art," I
asked whether your earlier suggestion that it applied to allegory was
correct. You replied with the Dante quotation, which clearly implies
that modern allegory is an "affliction," something bad. That Dante
quotation was YOUR quotation, and what it implied was YOUR
implication. The quotation was your way of answering my question:
does Sontag intend that her criticism of art interpretation apply to
allegory. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, your intent in answering with
the quotation about Dante was to say "Yes, Sontag's criticism applies
to allegory."
You apparently thought, with good reason, that the reference
to Dante (widely known for his allegory, THE DIVINE COMEDY) was a
reference to allegory. So when you quoted Sontag as saying that Dante
was good but later writing of the same type (allegory) was an
"affliction," your clear intent was to show that Sontag was
criticizing allegory---even if the quotation didn't use the word
"allegory."
Now you come along and say that, "since the word ALLEGORY
does not appear in Sontag's essay," I should not paraphrase her as
saying that "allegory was okay when it was new, because it was then
revolutionary and creative." I paraphrased her not only accurately
but in accordance with your intent. You intended that the word
"Dante" be taken as an allusion to allegory when you presented the
quotation. Your point was that Sontag's criticism of interpretation
included interpretation of allegory. Why do you now deny making this
point? Why do you pretend it was I rather than you who translated
"Dante" as "allegory." Shame on you.
Padraig L Henry
Wheat) wrote:
> .... Besides,
>the challenge of smashing the ambiguity, wiggling through the
>symbolism, and solving the puzzle is part of what makes watching---and
>later contemplating---2001 such a satisfying experience."
"Well, Private Smashdown! We've finally found something that you can
actually do!"
"MARINE!!"
"Colonel."
"Marine, what is that button on your body armour?"
"A peace symbol, sir."
"Where did you get it?"
"I don't remember, sir."
"What is that you've got written on your helmet?"
"Born To Kill, sir."
"You write 'Born to Kill' on your helmet and you wear a peace button.
What is that supposed to be, some kind of sick joke?"
"No, sir."
"Well, what is it supposed to mean?"
"I don't know, sir."
"You don't know very much, do you? You'd better get your head and your
ass wired together or I will take a giant shit on you! Now answer the
question, or you'll be standing tall before the man."
"Well, sir, I suppose... I was trying to suggest something about the
duality of man."
"The what?"
"The duality of man ... the Jungian thing, sir."
[pause]
"Whose side are you on, son?"
"Our side, sir."
"Marine!"
"Yes, sir."
"Don't you love your country?"
"Yes, I do, sir."
"Then how about getting with the program? Why don't you jump on the
team and come on in for the big win?"
"Yes, sir."
"Son, all I've ever asked of my Marines is that they obey my orders as
they would the word of God. We are here to help the Vietnamese because
inside every gook there is an American trying to get out. It's a
hard-ball world, son. We've all got to keep our heads until
this peace craze blows over."
"Aye aye, sir."
Flush out your headgear, new guy. Ya think film-makers like Kubrick
waste celluloid just so grunts like you can smash their ambiguity?
Padraig
" ... better give your Book a girl's name, because its the only piece
of pussy you're going to get."
PT Caffey
> that the film cliches in Star Wars constituted allegory), I merely
> rolled my eyes and asked if you were aware of the difference between
> cliche and allegory. (The difference is huge.) That should have
> nudged you toward your dictionary, or better yet to the office of a
> professor of English. You have instead chosen to charge ahead with
> your eyes shut, foolishly snorting your silly connviction that a
> cliche is an allegory.
>
> I realize that explaining the difference to you is a waste of
> time, because you're beyond educating.
Leonard, like a clockwork orange you squirt out your by now familiar
poisons. First you conjure up some inane proposition; next, you claim
this position to be the one held by your interlocutor; finally, you
resort to some utterly mean-spirited ad hominem assault.
By now, you've called so many of the brightest, most interesting
people here at amk "stupid" your insult can only honor me. I'm
pleased to be in the club!
I suppose you must be proud of these rhetorical survival skills--so
much so, in fact, that you're now loath to give them up. They've
served their master well after all, during those long, tedious years
you wasted, toiling in that stinking pit of mediocrity and political
hackdom, the United States Department of Commerce. There you perched
in your squalid stall, Bartleby-like, compiling unread reports on
peanut exports to Paraguay (they're up!), while inside, at the core of
the Wheat reactor, a mind whirred with delicious insights into the
Cosmos. Who knew? Who even knew? He was so quiet.
But now you've reached the pit of your performance here at AMK. This
must rank as your most insipid and most banal post to date: Long
dictionary passages; meaningless, laughable distinctions (i.e., A
symbol can't be a cliche); a pointless summary of Animal Farm that
exceeds, in length, Animal Farm itself.
At one point, you even remark, "But the allegorical surface story that
tells the hidden story is almost always (has there ever been an
exception?) new and original." Almost always? "Almost always" is the
kind of mealymouthed qualification a true Wheatian logician would
pounce upon. I won't pounce because I am, unlike yourself, a
gentleman. But really. I'm embarrassed for you. You're singing
"Daisy," Leonard.
> Lucas, you say, is a "genius" in the same sense that Kubrick
> is. How sad that you cannot recognize the structural difference
> between 2001 and Star Wars---between cliche and allegory.
Now this is the old Leonard! Nowhere did I claim Lucas to be a genius
(far from it!), but I argued that your own goofball logic must lead
you inexorably to that inane result. By way of response, you simply
assert that I BELIEVE THAT! Not because it's true, but because... it
always worked at Commerce! I admire that. This is classic Wheat at
last! A Wheat for all seasons.
PT Caffey
PT Caffey
> that the film cliches in Star Wars constituted allegory), I merely
> rolled my eyes and asked if you were aware of the difference between
> cliche and allegory. (The difference is huge.) That should have
> nudged you toward your dictionary, or better yet to the office of a
> professor of English. You have instead chosen to charge ahead with
> your eyes shut, foolishly snorting your silly connviction that a
> cliche is an allegory.
>
> I realize that explaining the difference to you is a waste of
> time, because you're beyond educating.
Leonard, like a clockwork orange you squirt out your by now familiar
poisons. First you conjure up some inane proposition; next, you claim
this position to be the one held by your interlocutor; finally, you
resort to some utterly mean-spirited ad hominem assault.
By now, you've called so many of the brightest, most interesting
people here at amk "stupid" your insult can only honor me. I'm
pleased to be in the club!
I suppose you must be proud of these rhetorical survival skills--so
much so, in fact, that you're now loath to give them up. They've
served their master well after all, during those long, tedious years
you wasted, toiling in that stinking pit of mediocrity and political
hackdom, the United States Department of Commerce. There you perched
in your squalid stall, Bartleby-like, compiling unread reports on
peanut exports to Paraguay (they're up!), while inside, at the core of
the Wheat reactor, a mind whirred with delicious insights into the
Cosmos. Who knew? Who even knew? He was so quiet.
But now you've reached the pit of your performance here at AMK. This
must rank as your most insipid and most banal post to date: Long
dictionary passages; meaningless, laughable distinctions (i.e., A
symbol can't be a cliche); a pointless summary of Animal Farm that
exceeds, in length, Animal Farm itself.
At one point, you even remark, "But the allegorical surface story that
tells the hidden story is almost always (has there ever been an
exception?) new and original." Almost always? "Almost always" is the
kind of mealymouthed qualification a true Wheatian logician would
pounce upon. I won't pounce because I am, unlike yourself, a
gentleman. But really. I'm embarrassed for you. You're singing
"Daisy," Leonard.
> Lucas, you say, is a "genius" in the same sense that Kubrick
> is. How sad that you cannot recognize the structural difference
> between 2001 and Star Wars---between cliche and allegory.
Now this is the old Leonard! Nowhere did I claim Lucas to be a genius
PT Caffey
> that the film cliches in Star Wars constituted allegory), I merely
> rolled my eyes and asked if you were aware of the difference between
> cliche and allegory. (The difference is huge.) That should have
> nudged you toward your dictionary, or better yet to the office of a
> professor of English. You have instead chosen to charge ahead with
> your eyes shut, foolishly snorting your silly connviction that a
> cliche is an allegory.
>
> I realize that explaining the difference to you is a waste of
> time, because you're beyond educating.
Leonard, like a clockwork orange you squirt out your by now familiar
poisons. First you conjure up some inane proposition; next, you claim
this position to be the one held by your interlocutor; finally, you
resort to some utterly mean-spirited ad hominem assault.
By now, you've called so many of the brightest, most interesting
people here at amk "stupid" your insult can only honor me. I'm
pleased to be in the club!
I suppose you must be proud of these rhetorical survival skills--so
much so, in fact, that you're now loath to give them up. They've
served their master well after all, during those long, tedious years
you wasted, toiling in that stinking pit of mediocrity and political
hackdom, the United States Department of Commerce. There you perched
in your squalid stall, Bartleby-like, compiling unread reports on
peanut exports to Paraguay (they're up!), while inside, at the core of
the Wheat reactor, a mind whirred with delicious insights into the
Cosmos. Who knew? Who even knew? He was so quiet.
But now you've reached the pit of your performance here at AMK. This
must rank as your most insipid and most banal post to date: Long
dictionary passages; meaningless, laughable distinctions (i.e., A
symbol can't be a cliche); a pointless summary of Animal Farm that
exceeds, in length, Animal Farm itself.
At one point, you even remark, "But the allegorical surface story that
tells the hidden story is almost always (has there ever been an
exception?) new and original." Almost always? "Almost always" is the
kind of mealymouthed qualification a true Wheatian logician would
pounce upon. I won't pounce because I am, unlike yourself, a
gentleman. But really. I'm embarrassed for you. You're singing
"Daisy," Leonard.
> Lucas, you say, is a "genius" in the same sense that Kubrick
> is. How sad that you cannot recognize the structural difference
> between 2001 and Star Wars---between cliche and allegory.
Now this is the old Leonard! Nowhere did I claim Lucas to be a genius
David Kirkpatrick
Suggested reading: From Cliche to Archetype by Marshall McLuhan.
An allegory isn't less an allegory for being part of low culture rather
than high culture. Films like Reefer Madness or Plan 9 From Outer Space
are perfectly capable of being classified as allegories. Allegories can
be skillfully subtle or ineptly obtuse or blatant.
Furthermore, any novel symbol, metaphor or figure of speech can be
transformed into a cliche by repetition, overuse, familiarity. And
cliches can be rehabilitated into archetypes as they sink from
consciousness to unconsciousness (at least that is my interpretation of
McLuhan as a presently recall it). Often we throw a cliche onto the
garbage heap, but an artist retrieves it and finds a new use for it.
But more to the point, why should we bundle up the categories of
"allegory" and "non-cliche?" when it seems perfectly reasonable to
distinguish between allegories that are fresh or stale, insightful or
ham-fisted?
David
Matthew Ryder
him, the "surface" film is merely a palimpsest masking coded
references to three "underlying" texts. He offers detailed exegetical
concordances that map sequences in the film in a one-to-one
correspondence with these texts. He enumerates these references in
exhaustively prolix lists which he recycles with the fervour of a true
zealot.
He finds evidence of astonishing Nabokovian word-play in the names of
characters and places: each is a fiendishly clever acrostic or anagram
revealing mysterious linkages to specific passages from Nietzsche or
Homer. With only the tiniest nudge, the word "Tycho" may be
transformed into "Troy". Now, if this seems obvious to the point of
banality, consider Wheat's marvelous insight that "Heywood R. Floyd"
is really a telescoped variant of the phrase "Helen and Wooden Horse
Reflect Troy's Downfall". One can only gape in wonderment at the
alchemy as the motes of ignorance are cleansed from our eyes and the
hidden truths of the triple allegory unfold. This is an intellectual
adventure of the highest calibre!
Every filmic utterance, no matter how minor, has an underlying
external textual analogue. A stray reference by Clarke to wormholes in
his novel is enough to convince Wheat that Kubrick crafted the
stargate sequence as a means to illustrate the first stage in an
elaborate alegorical recreation of some 'evolutionary' ideas in Also
Sprach Zarathustra. Floyd's single use of the word 'squirt' clearly
symbolizes ejaculation. (Alas, the censors of the day were obviously
not adequately versed in Wheatian Triple-Allegory Theory or they
would've realised the depraved incestuous/paedophiliacal implications
of a scene in which a man brazenly engages in meta-linguistic
phone-sex with his infant daughter. I know *I'm* blushing!).
It takes a visionary like Wheat to catalogue the hundreds of
"deliberately buried" parallels between the film and the
Nietzsche/Homer/Clarke triumvirate. His ideas are to film theory what
numerology is to mathematics! What astrology is to astronomy! What
'the Bible Code' is to theology!
As with all radical thinkers, Wheat's genius is misunderstood (nay
feared) by his contemporaries. However, posterity will smile upon his
achievement. He deserves our humble gratitude, not our derision.
-- Matt
"I'm trying to help you, Leonard. I'm really trying."
PT Caffey
>
Sorry about the multiple postings. Was having a bit of trouble with
the AE-35 Unit last evening.
PT Caffey
Wordsmith
My question is: does he want help? Kudos, Matt.
Wordsmith :)
Leonard F. Wheat
> > is. How sad that you cannot recognize the structural difference
> > between 2001 and Star Wars---between cliche and allegory.
>
> Now this is the old Leonard! Nowhere did I claim Lucas to be a genius
> (far from it!), but I argued that your own goofball logic must lead
> you inexorably to that inane result. By way of response, you simply
> assert that I BELIEVE THAT! Not because it's true, but because... it
> always worked at Commerce! I admire that. This is classic Wheat at
> last! A Wheat for all seasons.
> PT Caffey
You're editing your previous remarks, PT. You plainly said
that Star Wars was an allegory. You then added that it was a multiple
allegory. To support your view, you alluded to structural elements in
Star Wars that you considered allegorical. But these elements are
really cliches. You simply don't know the difference. You used these
"allegories" (really film cliches) to support your argument that Star
Wars, like 2001, was a "multiple allegory." Your point was that
Kubrick's multiple allegory is not unique and is, in fact, easily
achieved. Your further point was that I was seeing originality and
greatness in something, multiple allegory, that you view as rather
commonplace
Your claim that Lucas was a genius was, to be sure, intended
as sarcasm. As you say, you were really attributing that view to me.
Yet when I throw the attribution back at you, you take offense. If
you can put words in my mouth, can't I put those words right back
where they really came from? And do you deny claiming that Star Wars
is a multiple allegory? That part of your speech wasn't sarcasm. You
really believe it.
Face it, PT, you still don't know the difference between
cliche and allegory.
Leonard F. Wheat
> <snipped screed about the difference between cliche and allegory>
>
> Suggested reading: From Cliche to Archetype by Marshall McLuhan.
>
> An allegory isn't less an allegory for being part of low culture rather
> than high culture. Films like Reefer Madness or Plan 9 From Outer Space
> are perfectly capable of being classified as allegories. Allegories can
> be skillfully subtle or ineptly obtuse or blatant.
What's your point, David? If it's that Reefer Madness is an
allegory, I couldn't debate that if I wanted to. So I'll take your
word for it.
But I thoroughly agree that "allegories can be skillfully
subtle." That's a point I've been trying (unsuccessfully) to make.
Most people around here are demanding literalism (symbolism as obvious
as Bowman = bow-man) and refuse to recognize the subtleties in
Kubrick's symbolic analogies. For example, they don't see how one
fall could symbolize another, even when a concomitant development
provides the reinforcing symbolism of one death symbolizing another.
Neither can the see the analogy between something (the loud signal)
coming out of TMA-1 and something (Greek warriors) coming out of the
Trojan horse, and the concomitant analogy between the TMA-1 astronauts
staggering in pain and the dying Trojans staggering in pain. It is
the failure of 2001's symbolism to be "obtuse or blatant" that causes
90 percent of the people in the newsgroup to disbelieve that Kubrick's
symbolism exists.
> Furthermore, any novel symbol, metaphor or figure of speech can be
> transformed into a cliche by repetition, overuse, familiarity. And
> cliches can be rehabilitated into archetypes as they sink from
> consciousness to unconsciousness (at least that is my interpretation of
> McLuhan as a presently recall it). Often we throw a cliche onto the
> garbage heap, but an artist retrieves it and finds a new use for it.
What you say is true. Anything can, through repetition and
overuse, be transformed into a cliche.
>
> But more to the point, why should we bundle up the categories of
> "allegory" and "non-cliche?" when it seems perfectly reasonable to
> distinguish between allegories that are fresh or stale, insightful or
> ham-fisted?
What is this category you call "non-cliche"? Category of
what? Who wants to bundle allegory and non-cliche? Billions of
things in this world are not cliches. But only allegories are
allegories. To say that allegory differs from cliche (and differs
radically) is not to say that anything that isn't a cliche is an
allegory.
And what's this talk about distinguishing between fresh and
stale allegories? Not that I'm familiar with a whole lot of
allegories, but how many allegories have you ever run into that
weren't fresh and original? I've never seen or heard of even one. I
don't know of any stale allegories, although they remain theoretical
possibilities. Did somebody previously construct an allegory
depicting THE ODYSSEY or THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA? Mind you, we're not
talking about "allegorical tendency," or occasional allusion to these
works. We're talking about genuine, fully developed allegory---a
continuous steam of symbols referring to the work being allegorized.
Matthew Ryder
wrote:
Everyone needs an ally. Even the greatest guru needs a disciple to
help spread the faith. Wheat, like Ulysses of old, must journey many a
lonesome mile in his quest to correct the conservative annals of
'established' film theory. Like Zarathustra he is driven to preach:
"Behold! I am weary of my wisdom, like the bee that hath collected too
much honey; I need hands reaching out for it...For that end I must
descend to the depth: as thou dost at even, when, sinking behind the
sea, thou givest light to the lower regions, thou resplendent star!"
I am here to assist in proseltysing the urgent news contained in
Wheat's writing. At last, a definitive interpretation of 2001! A
lighthouse whose tripartite beacon guides us through the treacherous
waters of critical theory! A Holy Trinity of absolute references to
smash lurking ambiguity with the hammer of reason!
For years, viewers have clung to the fallacy that a symbol may elicit
multiple interpretations. To these deluded souls, the glowing red orb
that is HAL might, say,
* suggest the mathematical/Platonic perfection of the circle parodying
the machine's ultimate mental instability;
* suggest an omniscient eye ("I") monitoring all activities aboard
ship; omnipresent technology controlling and sapping the will of Man;
* recall the film's wheels-within-wheels visual and thematic concerns;
* serve as another example of the carefully edited intercutting of
rectilinear and oval geometries throughout the film, and indeed almost
all of Kubrick's oeuvre;
* represent, ironically, the "female" Principle (the circular form
having been associated with the stewardess earlier) in a
gender-neutral machine with a "male" voice, a theme Kubrick explores
further in other films;
* represent the confluence of the "organic" and the "mechanical";
* allow Kubrick to show us how the computer's perception deviates from
the human norm with some subjective fish-eye lens shots from HAL's
perspective (parodying its assertion that "no 9000 computer has ever
distorted information", the audience is shown that HAL's worldview is
fundamentally spherically warped...);
* etc!
Wheat cuts through all these murky and untenable notions and provides
us instead with a simple formula: HAL=Cyclops. That's so much easier
to understand! Why waste time with half-baked "philosophical" ideas or
the crazy notion that Kubrick's aesthetic motifs and thematic
obsessions in other film's might have some relevance?
Why heed Kubrick or Clarke in their published interviews when it's
clear their words are just evidence of a waggish sense of humour (the
playful scamps!)?
Take that first step of faith with me. You'll feel much calmer when
the noisy clutter of competing theories that bedevils your current
understanding has been eliminated. Think how well you'll sleep once
all that ambivalence and doubt has been vanquished!
Sure, many of Wheat's purported "linkages" may seem tenuous or bizarre
to your addled brain now. But just have FAITH and soon these
uncomfortable questions will vanish, mirage-like...
-- Matt
ps. If you just BELIEVE, you won't even even need to read the (frankly
tedious) source material! Because all the important narrative elements
are contained in the film, your need never again waste time with those
dusty tomes of Nietzsche (who went crazy anyway), Homer and Clarke.
Kubrick has fashioned the ultimate pedagogic tool! And in English too!
Rod Munday
Nit picking about grammar or spelling on usenet postings is the last
refuge of the scoundrel!
(Samuel Johnson's Internet cousin)
Thornhill
> Did somebody previously construct an allegory
> depicting THE ODYSSEY or THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA? Mind you, we're not
> talking about "allegorical tendency," or occasional allusion to these
> works. We're talking about genuine, fully developed allegory---a
> continuous steam of symbols referring to the work being allegorized.
At least two great 20th century works take Homer as THE great living
literary work of the Western World, as it rightfully is: James
Joyce's _Ulysses_, and Kubrick's "2001: ASO." But, as they are both
pointedly modernist works derived from the ancient world, they are
necessarily more fluid and expressive of their "foundation,"
producing, in part, a "stream of consciousness" -- to be
excruciatingly exacting -- that is both "continuous" and
"discontinuous." But, this sensibility is rather more than our
Leonard can allow into his "Unified (Wheat) Field Theory." Such
understanding would jeopardize his "architecture," not to mention his
"crop." Leonard confuses the living thing (ie, the work and our
response to it) with the porcelain, or metal, sarcophagus of
certainty.
John Keat's letter to his brothers regarding "negative capability" is
a very brief centerpiece to his notions about art, and which is really
required reading for a sort of comprehensive understanding, not only
of art, but of the world in general. It is a notion, not a theory,
but its impact is still felt after nearly 200 years.
Below are two links. The first is a good, brief summary of the
critical notions of Keats's recognition and how others, Joyce
particularly, have been influenced by it. The second is the entire
letter of 1817 to his brothers; not lengthy, but from which I've
excerpted the salient passage. I post this, not for Leonard, as he is
cozy and comfortable where he is, but for any others who may think
that his theories have authentic life beyond the Iron Maiden in which
they are enclosed:
http://www.ivow.net/vow/files/modules/keats.html
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Parthenon/4942/negcap.html
"...several things dove-tailed in my mind, and at once it struck me
what quality went to form a Man of Achievement, especially in
Literature, and which Shakespeare possessed so enormously - I mean
Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in
uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after
fact and reason-Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine
isolated verisimilitude caught from the Penetralium of mystery, from
being incapable of remaining content with half-knowledge. This pursued
through volumes would perhaps take us no further than this, that with
a great poet the sense of Beauty overcomes every other consideration,
or rather obliterates all consideration."
Leonard F. Wheat
> [snip]
[This is Wheat. I'm unsnipping to put things back in context.]
> >And what's this talk about distinguishing between fresh and
> >stale allegories? Not that I'm familiar with a whole lot of
> >allegories, but how many allegories have you ever run into that
> >weren't fresh and original? I've never seen or heard of even one. I
> >don't know of any stale allegories, although they remain theoretical
> >possibilities. Did somebody . . .
> > Did somebody previously construct an allegory
> > depicting THE ODYSSEY or THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA? Mind you, we're not
> > talking about "allegorical tendency," or occasional allusion to these
> > works. We're talking about genuine, fully developed allegory---a
> > continuous steam of symbols referring to the work being allegorized.
>
> At least two great 20th century works take Homer as THE great living
> literary work of the Western World, as it rightfully is: James
> Joyce's _Ulysses_, and Kubrick's "2001: ASO." But, as they are both
> pointedly modernist works derived from the ancient world, they are
> necessarily more fluid and expressive of their "foundation,"
> producing, in part, a "stream of consciousness" -- to be
> excruciatingly exacting -- that is both "continuous" and
> "discontinuous."
You are beating around the bush rather than answering the
question: Did somebody previously construct an allegory depicting THE
ODYSSEY? You seem to be implying, without having the courage to say,
that James Joyce's Ulysses is an allegory depicting Homer's THE
ODYSSEY. I haven't read Ulysses (the Latin name for Odysseus), but I
have read quite a bit about it, and I did see the movie. And I am
reasonably confident that it is not an allegory. Rather, it embodies
what is called allegorical tendency, or occasional allusion to the
antecedent work. Allegory, in contrast, involves (a) a continuous
stream of symbols referring to things and events in the subject being
allegorized and (b)a strong focus on the antecedent work. Does Joyce,
like Kubrick, systematically symbolize most of the events of THE
ODYSSEY?
Even if Ulysses were an allegory, that would not vitiate the
distinction I was making between cliche and allegory. A cliche is an
expression or idea that has grown stale through being repeated again
and again and again and again. One repetition does not make a cliche.
An allegory, by contrast, is almost always fresh and original. I
asked, "How many allegories have you run into that weren't fresh and
original?" Even if I were to concede your point (if it is your point:
you don't say it is) that Ulysses is an allegory, that would not give
allegory the defining characteristic of a cliche: constant repetition,
triteness. Being done twice does not make something trite.
Ulysses is famous for its stream-of-consciosness exposition.
It rambles all over the lot. Unlike allegory, which is systematic and
ordered, Ulysses is unsystematic and disordered. (That's not
criticism, that's description.)
>
> John Keat's letter to his brothers regarding "negative capability" is
> a very brief centerpiece to his notions about art, and which is really
> required reading for a sort of comprehensive understanding, not only
> of art, but of the world in general. It is a notion, not a theory,
> but its impact is still felt after nearly 200 years.
>
> Below are two links. The first is a good, brief summary of the
> critical notions of Keats's recognition and how others, Joyce
> particularly, have been influenced by it. The second is the entire
> letter of 1817 to his brothers; not lengthy, but from which I've
> excerpted the salient passage. I post this, not for Leonard, as he is
> cozy and comfortable where he is, but for any others who may think
> that his theories have authentic life beyond the Iron Maiden in which
> they are enclosed:
What's your point? You're going off on a tangent. This has
nothing to do with the distinction between cliche and allegory. This
does not justify your claim that movie cliches constitute allegory,
hence that a cliche-filled movie like Star Wars (your example) is an
allegory. Your assertion that Star Wars is an allegory is
indefensible.
What you're doing now is what is known in argumentation as
"shifting ground." You're trying to divert attention to a new issue,
pretending that it is the old one.
>
> http://www.ivow.net/vow/files/modules/keats.html
>
> http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Parthenon/4942/negcap.html
>
> "...several things dove-tailed in my mind, and at once it struck me
> what quality went to form a Man of Achievement, especially in
> Literature, and which Shakespeare possessed so enormously - I mean
> Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in
> uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after
> fact and reason-Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine
> isolated verisimilitude caught from the Penetralium of mystery, from
> being incapable of remaining content with half-knowledge. This pursued
> through volumes would perhaps take us no further than this, that with
> a great poet the sense of Beauty overcomes every other consideration,
> or rather obliterates all consideration."
What on earth is your point? What does any of this have to
do with whether allegories (contrasted with cliches) are generally
fresh and original?
Leonard F. Wheat
CORRECTION: I lost track of which subthread I was on. I was
wrong in saying it was you (Thornhill) who was confusing cliche with
allegory and who thought Star Wars was an allegory. That was Caffey.
And the person I was responding to when you began by quoting me was
Kirkpatrick. He referred to a distinction between fresh and stale
allegories. And I was questioning whether there is such a thing as a
stale allegory.
At this point you threw James Joyce's Ulysses into the stew. The
rest of my reply still applies. What you say about Ulysses and other
meandering topics in no way justifies the assertion that allegory is
sometimes stale (in the sense that a particular subject has been
allegorized repeatedly, not just twice).
PT Caffey
> > PT Caffey
>
> You're editing your previous remarks, PT. You plainly said
> that Star Wars was an allegory. You then added that it was a multiple
> allegory. To support your view, you alluded to structural elements in
> Star Wars that you considered allegorical. But these elements are
> really cliches.
I won't burden amk with an endless discussion about, of all things,
Star Wars, but, yes, it's an allegory. An allegory of pure genius?
No, but, for the purposes of this exchange, it doesn't have to be.
This isn't exactly news. Howard Suber, film historian at UCLA, used
to use "Compare and contrast the allegories in Star Wars" as a final
exam assignment twenty years ago.
Consider just one aspect. Orwell allegorizes the Russian Revolution
in Animal Farm. So Lucas allegories the Vietnam conflict in Star
Wars. He uses symbolic characters in an imaginary setting to tell
both a space opera, using the conventions of movie serials, as well as
a subtextual story--what he sees as American imperialism in Southeast
Asia. As Manohla Dargis explains, "It was Milius who transposed
Joseph Conrad's novel Heart of Darkness to Vietnam, with the idea that
his and Coppola's friend George Lucas would direct... Instead, Lucas
went on to make Star Wars, dubbed by Coppola's editor, Walter Murch,
as 'George's version of Apocalypse Now, rewritten in an otherworldly
context.'"
Lucas himself has said as much.
Lucas's use of symbolism to convey both a surface story and subtextual
one meets the test of allegory. As Leonard Wheat has argued, "There
are no rules for allegory beyond the requirement that one story
symbolize another."
> Your claim that Lucas was a genius was, to be sure, intended
> as sarcasm. As you say, you were really attributing that view to me.
As you say, I never claimed it.
> Yet when I throw the attribution back at you, you take offense.
I care far too little to take offense, Leonard. Usually, I just end
up feeling sorry for you. This is edging toward bear baiting, and
that's unseemly. Thornhill is right to introduce the high-mindedness
of Keats and his "negative capability." That gets us back on a much
more uplifting track.
> Face it, PT, you still don't know the difference between
> cliche and allegory.
Face it, Leonard, you enjoy the attention!
Best regards,
PT Caffey
Leonard F. Wheat
> > You're editing your previous remarks, PT. You plainly said
> > that Star Wars was an allegory. You then added that it was a multiple
> > allegory. To support your view, you alluded to structural elements in
> > Star Wars that you considered allegorical. But these elements are
> > really cliches.
>
> I won't burden amk with an endless discussion about, of all things,
> Star Wars, but, yes, it's an allegory. An allegory of pure genius?
> No, but, for the purposes of this exchange, it doesn't have to be.
You are still badly confused about the distinction between
cliche and allegory. Yes, Star Wars does have a saloon scene. No,
that isn't allegory. Saloon scenes are a cliche of western movies. A
film cliche is a situation that has become trite through numerous
repetitions in countless movies. An allegory is not a situation at
all. It is a story, a surface story that tells a hidden story. And
it is never trite (although it theoretically could become trite if
producers were to, say, produce dozens of films allegorizing THE
ODYSSEY).
> This isn't exactly news. Howard Suber, film historian at UCLA, used
> to use "Compare and contrast the allegories in Star Wars" as a final
> exam assignment twenty years ago.
If Howard Suber used the word "allegories" rather than
"cliches" (your memory could be weak on this point), he should have
known better. Consider what he's saying. He's saying there is not
just one allegory in Star Wars, there "allegories" (several or many).
If he really said this, he too is confusing allegories with film
cliches. He is obviously thinking of the many Star Wars CLICHES and
other literary and film SOURCES listed below. (I wouldn't be
surprised if the list below originated with Suber.) The following
list of Star Wars cliches and sources is quoted from Tim Dirks' Imdb
summary of Star Wars:
DIRKS: "The archetypal plot [of Star Wars] was influenced by a
varied anthology of sources and eclectic references:
* legendary Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon comic-book heroes and
films
* previous science fiction films (such as Forbidden Planet (1956)
and Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968))
* the saloon setting of westerns
* Joseph Campbell's book Hero with a Thousand Faces
* medieval knights (King Arthur and Camelot) [Camelot's story also
told of a young Prince, who with the help of a sorcerer/Merlin, a
Sword and 'the Force' saves a Queen and defeats the Black Knight with
the help of his Roundtable aides.]
* sorcerers' tales and stories about magic (Tolkien's Lord of the
Rings and Carlos Castaneda tales)
* warrior legends, myths, fairy tales
* Western good-guy vs. bad-guy stories
* elements of other classic films or tales (e.g., The Wizard of Oz
(1939), John Ford's The Searchers (1956), TV's Star Trek, Fritz Lang's
Metropolis (1926), Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will (1936), and
Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress (1958) and Yojimbo (1961))
* swashbucklers
* dogfight-filled WWII war films, such as 633 Squadron (1964)"
Some of the items listed above are literary or film sources.
Others are film cliches, which is not to deny that they are also
"sources." You will note that THE ODYSSEY is not even mentioned
specifically. It is merely buried within the general source "warrior
legends, myths, and fairy tales." None of these sources and cliches
that are reflected in Star Wars is an allegory.
> Consider just one aspect. Orwell allegorizes the Russian Revolution
> in Animal Farm. So Lucas allegories the Vietnam conflict in Star
> Wars. He uses symbolic characters in an imaginary setting to tell
> both a space opera, using the conventions of movie serials, as well as
> a subtextual story--what he sees as American imperialism in Southeast
> Asia.
It takes more than one symbol (in this case a surface story
allusion to the Russian Revolution or the Vietnam War) to make an
allegory. One symbol or allusion is just that, a symbol or allusion,
not an allegory. Moreover, there is no detail for the surface story
war in Star Wars that relates it analogically to the Vietnam War in
particular. If the story's war alludes to another war, it could be
any war, either a real war or a fictional conflict from an earlier
film.
Meanwhile, if you are going to defend the proposition that
Star Wars has lots of other symbols (you refer to "symbolic
characters") that symbolize Vietnam War people and events, you need to
defend that proposition with specifics. Otherwise it's just a
baseless claim from someone who lacks the courage of his convictions.
You have said Star Wars is an allegory "attacking American
imperialism in Southeast Asia." That tells us that the surface
story's heroes symbolize the Communists, whereas the Evil Empire and
it's henchmen represent the American side. On this basis you might
develop your Star-Wars-is-an-allegory hypothesis along the following
lines:
NORTH VIETNAMESE AND COMMUNIST SYMBOLS
Planets Tatooine and Alderaan = North and South Vietnam
The Rebels = South Vietnamese Guerillas
Obi-Wan Kenobi = Karl Marx (the mentor)
Luke Skywalker = Ho Chi Minh (the hero)
Princess Leia = Hanoi Jane (a.k.a. Jane Fonda)
Han Solo = Noam Chomsky, "Knight of the Double Standard"
R2D2 = North Vietnamese Army
C3PO = North Vietnamese Air Force (thoroughly incompetent)
Chewbacca = Gen. Nguven Vu Giap
Destruction of Planet Alderaan = Tet Offensive
Destruction of the Death Star = My Lai Massacre
The Force = MIG-21s
AMERICAN SYMBOLS
Evil Empire = United States
Evil Emperor = President Lyndon Johnson
Grand Moff Tarkin = Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara
Darth Vader = Gen. William Westmorland
Storm Troopers = GIs
Dark Side of the Force = B-52s
Don't misunderstand. I'm not saying these symbols are YOUR
reading of Star Wars, or even Lucas's for that matter. What I am
saying is that, if you're going to continue clinging to your silly
claim that Star Wars is an allegory about the Vietnam War, you need of
offer us a convincing list of symbols comparable to the hypothetical
ones above. Your evasive reference to "symbolic characters" in Star
Wars doesn't do the trick. Tell us: just which person (thing?) on the
Communist side do you think Obi-Wan Kenobi symbolizes?
As Manohla Dargis explains, "It was Milius who transposed
> Joseph Conrad's novel Heart of Darkness to Vietnam, with the idea that
> his and Coppola's friend George Lucas would direct... Instead, Lucas
> went on to make Star Wars, dubbed by Coppola's editor, Walter Murch,
> as 'George's version of Apocalypse Now, rewritten in an otherworldly
> context.'"
> Lucas himself has said as much.
If Lucas actually did say that Star Wars is an allegory,
that would simply show that, like you, he does not understand what
allegory is. He too would then be confusing allusion with allegory,
and cliche with allegory. Star Wars certainly has many cliches, but
you have yet to reveal even one allegory.
> Lucas's use of symbolism to convey both a surface story and subtextual
> one meets the test of allegory.
You have not demonstrated the presence in Star Wars of any
"subtextual [hidden] story." You have merely claimed that the movie's
war represents the Vietnam War. I'm willing to assume your claim is
correct. Correct or not, it doesn't demonstrate the presence of
allegory.
You also claim that Star Wars contains not just one but at
least several allegories. You say: "Whether the film's several
allegories are hackneyed,or not, doesn't change one salient fact: They
exist."
Your use of the word "hackneyed" (trite, overused, worn out)
removes all doubt that what you have in mind is cliches---cliches of
the sort Tim Dirks lists in his Star Wars article (above). Specific
allegories aren't hackneyed. You still don't know the difference
between cliche and allegory, or the difference between allusion and
allegory, or the difference between allegorical tendency (occasional
allusion to an antecedent work or idea) and allegory.
David Kirkpatrick
Much more systematically, although loosely by some standards. The
identity of Penelope is pretty obscure in 2001; Molly is the obvious
parallel. Similarly, Ulysses and Telemachus are more obviously
paralleled by Bloom and Stephen. There is full-bodied treatment of
Bloom's humanity that parallels the heroic exploits of Ulysses. Dave
Bowman, by comparison, is largely a cypher.
Whether what Ulysses does is aptly called allegory is something I would
question. Generally, the partially disguised content in a allegory is a
reference to the real world or to theological imagination taken to be
real by a religious audience, not another work of literature. I am not
a literature professor, but I believe the relationship between Joyce and
and Homer would be more aptly called "parody" than "allegory". And the
same would apply to Wheat analysis of 2001, at least as it involves The
Odyssey. Of course, both works are more than just parodies, just as
they would be more than allegories if they were allegories. Correct me
if I am wrong someone, but my understanding is that parody and allegory
equally involve analogy but parody is a text-to-text connection whereas
allegory is a text-to-idea connection. (Note that I use "parody" in the
broadest sense, as "comedy" is used in the broadest sense in "Divine
Comedy". No implication of mere farce is implied.)
Of course, Ulysses is full of parallel relationships with structures
other than Homer. For example, each chapter is connected with a time of
day, a bodily organ, an art or science, a style of rhetoric, and so on,
besides being a parallel to an episode in The Odyssey. If it is an
allegory then what it is an allegory of is not Homer's epic itself but
of something more like conditions of modern life or better yet the very
universality of the human condition that binds the ancient to the new.
In a similar way, Beethoven's Diabelli Variations form an extended
"parody" of the waltz theme but do not "allegorize" it; but they do
express an overall connectedness of content beyond disparities of style.
>
> Even if Ulysses were an allegory, that would not vitiate the
> distinction I was making between cliche and allegory. A cliche is an
> expression or idea that has grown stale through being repeated again
> and again and again and again. One repetition does not make a cliche.
> An allegory, by contrast, is almost always fresh and original. I
> asked, "How many allegories have you run into that weren't fresh and
> original?" Even if I were to concede your point (if it is your point:
> you don't say it is) that Ulysses is an allegory, that would not give
> allegory the defining characteristic of a cliche: constant repetition,
> triteness. Being done twice does not make something trite.
How's this for "shifting ground"? No one's making the argument you are
trying to refute. Cliche / original is one dimension, allegory /
non-allegory another. An allegory can be cliched or fresh. A
non-allegory can be cliched or fresh. Do we need a truth table signed
by Ludwig Wittgenstein before we can go on to bigger issues?
>
> Ulysses is famous for its stream-of-consciosness exposition.
> It rambles all over the lot. Unlike allegory, which is systematic and
> ordered, Ulysses is unsystematic and disordered. (That's not
> criticism, that's description.)
Well, I appreciate your modesty in merely describing the book you
haven't read rather than criticizing it, but Ulysses hardly unsystematic
or disordered. James Joyce is not Gertude Stein. You seem to confuse
stream-of-consciousness with stream-of-composition.
>>John Keat's letter to his brothers regarding "negative capability" is
>>a very brief centerpiece to his notions about art, and which is really
>>required reading for a sort of comprehensive understanding, not only
>>of art, but of the world in general. It is a notion, not a theory,
>>but its impact is still felt after nearly 200 years.
>>
>>Below are two links. The first is a good, brief summary of the
>>critical notions of Keats's recognition and how others, Joyce
>>particularly, have been influenced by it. The second is the entire
>>letter of 1817 to his brothers; not lengthy, but from which I've
>>excerpted the salient passage. I post this, not for Leonard, as he is
>>cozy and comfortable where he is, but for any others who may think
>>that his theories have authentic life beyond the Iron Maiden in which
>>they are enclosed:
>>
>
> What's your point? You're going off on a tangent. This has
> nothing to do with the distinction between cliche and allegory. This
> does not justify your claim that movie cliches constitute allegory,
> hence that a cliche-filled movie like Star Wars (your example) is an
> allegory. Your assertion that Star Wars is an allegory is
> indefensible.
I believe it was P.T. Caffey's point that Star Wars qualified as
allegory. An innocuous premise that, to my mind. Whether it is true or
not has a lot more to do with George Lucas's intentions than whether he
employs various cliches to achieve those intentions. Where the grey
area begins is where conscious intention crosses over into unconscious
imagination. But in the case of Lucas, we have someone who delves into
his collective unconscious not by the traditional pre-Jungian methods
but via the Joseph Campbell express.
>
> What you're doing now is what is known in argumentation as
> "shifting ground." You're trying to divert attention to a new issue,
> pretending that it is the old one.
This is what is known as the earthquake calling the tremor "broke".
>
>>http://www.ivow.net/vow/files/modules/keats.html
>>
>>http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Parthenon/4942/negcap.html
>>
>>"...several things dove-tailed in my mind, and at once it struck me
>>what quality went to form a Man of Achievement, especially in
>>Literature, and which Shakespeare possessed so enormously - I mean
>>Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in
>>uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after
>>fact and reason-Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine
>>isolated verisimilitude caught from the Penetralium of mystery, from
>>being incapable of remaining content with half-knowledge. This pursued
>>through volumes would perhaps take us no further than this, that with
>>a great poet the sense of Beauty overcomes every other consideration,
>>or rather obliterates all consideration."
>>
>
> What on earth is your point? What does any of this have to
> do with whether allegories (contrasted with cliches) are generally
> fresh and original?
>
This is like saying that satires -- or sonnets -- are generally fresh
and original. Well, maybe ones that get taught in school as examples to
be admired.
David
David Kirkpatrick
Thanks for the links and the observations, Thornhill. The reference is
a bit fragmentary, but it sounds rather like Hegel and what might be
called the potentiality for synthesis latent in antithesis. It also
resonates with McLuhan's notion of low-definition information or "cool"
media leading to higher involvement in comparison to high-definition or
"hot" media. Although I find the particular jargon of each writer
unsatisfactory. But not so confusing against the ground of
"positivism", which Keats and Hegel predate.
I suspect that the history of the word "negative" would be at least as
interesting as that of the concept of "zero".
David
PT Caffey
> You have said Star Wars is an allegory "attacking American
Trade Nixon in as the Evil Emperor, and you'll have a grand unified
theory, Leonard! You've convinced me!
Best regards,
PT Caffey
Leonard F. Wheat
> Leonard F. Wheat wrote:
> >>>Leonard F. Wheat wrote:
> >>>And what's this talk about distinguishing between fresh and
> >>>stale allegories? Not that I'm familiar with a whole lot of
> >>>allegories, but how many allegories have you ever run into that
> >>>weren't fresh and original? I've never seen or heard of even one. I
> >>>don't know of any stale allegories, although they remain theoretical
> >>>possibilities. Did somebody previously construct an allegory
> >>>depicting THE ODYSSEY or THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA? Mind you, we're not
> >>>talking about "allegorical tendency," or occasional allusion to these
> >>>works. We're talking about genuine, fully developed allegory---a
> >>>continuous steam of symbols referring to the work being allegorized.
> >>P.T. Caffey wrote:
> >>At least two great 20th century works take Homer as THE great living
> >>literary work of the Western World, as it rightfully is: James
> >>Joyce's _Ulysses_, and Kubrick's "2001: ASO." But, as they are both
> >>pointedly modernist works derived from the ancient world, they are
> >>necessarily more fluid and expressive of their "foundation,"
> >>producing, in part, a "stream of consciousness" -- to be
> >>excruciatingly exacting -- that is both "continuous" and
> >>"discontinuous."
> >Leonard F. Wheat wrote:
> > You are beating around the bush rather than answering the
> > question: Did somebody previously construct an allegory depicting THE
> > ODYSSEY? You seem to be implying, without having the courage to say,
> > that James Joyce's Ulysses is an allegory depicting Homer's THE
> > ODYSSEY. I haven't read Ulysses (the Latin name for Odysseus), but I
> > have read quite a bit about it, and I did see the movie. And I am
> > reasonably confident that it is not an allegory. Rather, it embodies
> > what is called allegorical tendency, or occasional allusion to the
> > antecedent work. Allegory, in contrast, involves (a) a continuous
> > stream of symbols referring to things and events in the subject being
> > allegorized and (b)a strong focus on the antecedent work. Does Joyce,
> > like Kubrick, systematically symbolize most of the events of THE
> > ODYSSEY?
Leonard F. Wheat
getting started.
David Kirkpatrick <dak...@rogers.com> wrote in message news:<3D333A05...@rogers.com>...
> Leonard F. Wheat wrote:
> >>>Leonard F. Wheat wrote:
> >>>And what's this talk about distinguishing between fresh and
> >>>stale allegories? Not that I'm familiar with a whole lot of
> >>>allegories, but how many allegories have you ever run into that
> >>>weren't fresh and original? I've never seen or heard of even one. I
> >>>don't know of any stale allegories, although they remain theoretical
> >>>possibilities. Did somebody previously construct an allegory
> >>>depicting THE ODYSSEY or THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA? Mind you, we're not
> >>>talking about "allegorical tendency," or occasional allusion to these
> >>>works. We're talking about genuine, fully developed allegory---a
> >>>continuous steam of symbols referring to the work being allegorized.
> >>P.T. Caffey wrote:
> >>At least two great 20th century works take Homer as THE great living
> >>literary work of the Western World, as it rightfully is: James
> >>Joyce's _Ulysses_, and Kubrick's "2001: ASO." But, as they are both
> >>pointedly modernist works derived from the ancient world, they are
> >>necessarily more fluid and expressive of their "foundation,"
> >>producing, in part, a "stream of consciousness" -- to be
> >>excruciatingly exacting -- that is both "continuous" and
> >>"discontinuous."> >>
> > You are beating around the bush rather than answering the
> > question: Did somebody previously construct an allegory depicting THE
> > ODYSSEY? You seem to be implying, without having the courage to say,
> > that James Joyce's Ulysses is an allegory depicting Homer's THE
> > ODYSSEY. I haven't read Ulysses (the Latin name for Odysseus), but I
> > have read quite a bit about it, and I did see the movie. And I am
> > reasonably confident that it is not an allegory. Rather, it embodies
> > what is called allegorical tendency, or occasional allusion to the
> > antecedent work. Allegory, in contrast, involves (a) a continuous
> > stream of symbols referring to things and events in the subject being
> > allegorized and (b)a strong focus on the antecedent work. Does Joyce,
> > like Kubrick, systematically symbolize most of the events of THE
> > ODYSSEY?
> David Kirkpatrick wrote:
> Much more systematically, although loosely by some standards. The
> identity of Penelope is pretty obscure in 2001;
Penelope's identity isn't all that obscure. Bowman as the
star-child continues to symbolize Odysseus. At the end of THE
ODYSSEY, Odysseus is reunited with Penelope. At the end of 2001,
Odysseus (star-child, shining down on the earth) is reunited with
Penelope, symbolized by the earth. When Bowman gazes down at the face
of the earth, Odysseus is gazing at the face of Penelope.
> Whether what Ulysses does is aptly called allegory is something I would
> question.
And that is what I also questioned. In his article on
"Allegory" in the Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics,
Friedman distinguishes between genuine allegory and mere "allegorical
tendency." Continuity is what distinguishes between allegory and
ambiguity or allusion. "We have allegory when the events [I would say
"elements"] of the narrative obviously and continuously refer to
another underlying structure of events or ideas." If the symbols are
only occasional, we have what is called "allegorical tendency."
> Generally, the partially disguised content in a allegory is a
> reference to the real world or to theological imagination taken to be
> real by a religious audience, not another work of literature. I am not
> a literature professor, but I believe the relationship between Joyce and
> and Homer would be more aptly called "parody" than "allegory".
Parody is something entirely different. Parody's main
ingredient is humor or ridicule. And its analogies emphasize style
rather than the content of whatever it points to. The American
Heritage Dictionary thus defines parody as "a literary or artistic
work that imitates the characteristic STYLE of an author for comic
effect or ridicule."
Ulysses is not a parody. It is a work that occasionally
alludes to THE ODYSSEY but lacks the continuous stream of symbols that
would make it a retelling of THE ODYSSEY. It therefore is a work
displaying allegorical tendency.
> And the
> same would apply to Wheat analysis of 2001, at least as it involves The
> Odyssey. Of course, both works are more than just parodies, just as
> they would be more than allegories if they were allegories.
2001 is not in any sense a parody. It neither imitates nor
ridicules Homer's style. 2001 is instead a full-fledged allegory. It
has the continuous stream of symbols that allegory requires. It is an
analogical (symbolic) retelling of THE ODYSSEY (including events from
other ancient sources that lead up to Odysseus' voyage home).
> Correct me
> if I am wrong someone, but my understanding is that parody and allegory
> equally involve analogy but parody is a text-to-text connection whereas
> allegory is a text-to-idea connection.
Parody does not require text-to-text connection. (For that
matter, neither does allegory, although we do find such a connection
in 2001.) Parody is based on style. On stage, a parody might involve
an entirely original story that lampoons the accent and mannerisms of
a character. 2001's Odysseus allegory has a text-to-text connection.
The man-machine symbiosis allegory has a text-to-idea connection. The
Zarathustra allegory has both connections.
> Of course, Ulysses is full of parallel relationships with structures
> other than Homer. For example, each chapter is connected with a time of
> day, a bodily organ, an art or science, a style of rhetoric, and so on,
> besides being a parallel to an episode in The Odyssey. If it is an
> allegory then what it is an allegory of is not Homer's epic itself but
> of something more like conditions of modern life or better yet the very
> universality of the human condition that binds the ancient to the new.
You have probably hit the nail on the head. Enda Duffy, in
THE SUBALTERN ULYSSES (1994), argues that Ulysses allegorizes the
struggle for Irish independence. I quote from a review: "Duffy
presents the arresting thesis that Ulysses is . . . the text of
Ireland's independence, written during the years of violent
anticolonial struggle and published on the brink of Ireland's
political independence. As such, it can be understood as a "national
allegory" reworking in narrative form the ideological forces at work
in a colonized community . . . forging a new identity. . . . Writing
from the condition of exile on the continent, Joyce . . . lived
through the violent events in Irish history in his imagination and
sought forms to express this experience in writing Ulysses. . . .
Reminding the reader of Ireland's colonial subjection and its
narrative representation in Ulysses appears to be Duffy's main
objective, and in that he succeeds."
The quotation that follows (from one of my posts) refers to
P.T. Caffey's attack on the idea that 2001 is the work of a genius.
Caffey's position is that multiple allegories like 2001 are easy to
construct and that Star Wars, for example, is such a multiple
allegory. Caffey: "You think multiple allegories require genius to
construct? Gee, you must have missed Star Wars. Was there a story
Lucas did not "retell"?" Here Caffey alludes to such "hackneyed"
situations (he calls them "allegories") as the saloon scene and the
spaceship dogfights in Star Wars.
I replied by pointing out that Caffey's "allegories" were
not allegories at all; they were cliches. I pointed out the
difference, including the fact that a cliche is trite, hackneyed, worn
out from overuse. Caffey responded: "Whether the film's [Star Wars']
several allegories are hackneyed, or not, doesn't change one salient
fact: They exist. And it's quite a feat. Consider what Lucas has
achieved. He's combined (1) a symbolic retelling of the Hero's
Journey, a distillation of the central thread of Western heroic
narrative; (2) a symbolic replay of "The Searchers," a key American
Western by John Ford about racial prejudice and miscegenation, and a
virtual text for the "movie brat" generation; and (3) a symbolic
reenactment of the Vietnam War, with "a technologically advanced
country taking on a smaller nation at the heart of the concept."
"[Star Wars] was written during the Vietnam War and a lot of that
deals with emotions and feelings I was going through in that period,"
Lucas has said.
Using the same criteria he had used in asserting that Star
Wars is an allegory, Caffey next seemed to called Ulysses an allegory.
I replied:
> > Even if Ulysses were an allegory, that would not vitiate the
> > distinction I was making between cliche and allegory. A cliche is an
> > expression or idea that has grown stale through being repeated again
> > and again and again and again. One repetition does not make a cliche.
> > An allegory, by contrast, is almost always fresh and original. I
> > asked, "How many allegories have you run into that weren't fresh and
> > original?" Even if I were to concede your point (if it is your point:
> > you don't say it is) that Ulysses is an allegory, that would not give
> > allegory the defining characteristic of a cliche: constant repetition,
> > triteness. Being done twice does not make something trite.>
> How's this for "shifting ground"? No one's making the argument you are
> trying to refute.
On the contrary, Caffey was making that argument. He was
calling film cliches "allegories" and was using these so-called
allegories to demonstrate that Star Wars and Ulysses were allegories.
Calling a spade a spade is not "shifting ground" (switching to a new
issue).
> >>P.T. Caffey wrote:
> >>John Keat's letter to his brothers regarding "negative capability" is
> >>a very brief centerpiece to his notions about art, and which is really
> >>required reading for a sort of comprehensive understanding, not only
> >>of art, but of the world in general. It is a notion, not a theory,
> >>but its impact is still felt after nearly 200 years.
> >>
> >>Below are two links. The first is a good, brief summary of the
> >>critical notions of Keats's recognition and how others, Joyce
> >>particularly, have been influenced by it. The second is the entire
> >>letter of 1817 to his brothers; not lengthy, but from which I've
> >>excerpted the salient passage. I post this, not for Leonard, as he is
> >>cozy and comfortable where he is, but for any others who may think
> >>that his theories have authentic life beyond the Iron Maiden in which
> >>they are enclosed:
> > What's your point? You're going off on a tangent. This has
> > nothing to do with the distinction between cliche and allegory. This
> > does not justify your claim that movie cliches constitute allegory,
> > hence that a cliche-filled movie like Star Wars (your example) is an
> > allegory. Your assertion that Star Wars is an allegory is
> > indefensible.
>
> I believe it was P.T. Caffey's point that Star Wars qualified as
> allegory.
That was an earlier point of his and was the one under
discussion. But I was asking about the point of the two paragraphs
beginning with John Keats' letter.
> An innocuous premise that, to my mind. Whether it is true or
> not has a lot more to do with George Lucas's intentions than whether he
> employs various cliches to achieve those intentions.
Caffey's use of the word "hackneyed" (trite, overused) in
reference to his so-called allegories shows this argument goes well
beyond intent. He wrote: "Whether the film's [Star Wars'] several
allegories are hackneyed, or not, doesn't change one salient fact:
They exist." He obviously is referring to some of the Star Wars
characteristics listed below in Tim Dirks' Imdb summary analysis
article of Star Wars:
"The archetypal plot [of Star Wars] was influenced by a varied
anthology of sources and eclectic references:
* legendary Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon comic-book heroes and
films
* previous science fiction films (such as Forbidden Planet (1956)
and Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968))
* the saloon setting of westerns
* Joseph Campbell's book Hero with a Thousand Faces
* medieval knights (King Arthur and Camelot) [Camelot's story also
told of a young Prince, who with the help of a sorcerer/Merlin, a
Sword and 'the Force' saves a Queen and defeats the Black Knight with
the help of his Roundtable aides.]
* sorcerers' tales and stories about magic (Tolkien's Lord of the
Rings and Carlos Castaneda tales)
* warrior legends, myths, fairy tales
* Western good-guy vs. bad-guy stories
* elements of other classic films or tales (e.g., The Wizard of Oz
(1939), John Ford's The Searchers (1956), TV's Star Trek, Fritz Lang's
Metropolis (1926), Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will (1936), and
Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress (1958) and Yojimbo (1961))
* swashbucklers
* dogfight-filled WWII war films, such as 633 Squadron (1964)"
Caffey's examples of the Hero (duplicated by "warrior
legends, myths") and "The Searchers" are on this list. These are his
"allegories." But hero tales (the category, not specific tales) are
not an allegory, they are film cliches (like the Star Wars saloon
scene and the dogfights, also on the list and apparently treated as
allegories by Caffey). "The Searchers" is not a cliche, but neither
is it an allegory; it is a source of material.
David Kirkpatrick
If I get over the association of "earth" with "mother" instead of
"wife", and if I disregard the fact that the Odyssey begins with
Odysseus separated from Penelope and proceeds with his return home
whereas 2001 begins on Earth and continually travels further and further
away from home, and the fact that the spirit of exploration in the film
seems the diametric opposite to homesickness ... what is it I'm supposed
to imagine?
>
>>Whether what Ulysses does is aptly called allegory is something I would
>>question.
>>
>
> And that is what I also questioned. In his article on
> "Allegory" in the Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics,
> Friedman distinguishes between genuine allegory and mere "allegorical
> tendency." Continuity is what distinguishes between allegory and
> ambiguity or allusion. "We have allegory when the events [I would say
> "elements"] of the narrative obviously and continuously refer to
> another underlying structure of events or ideas." If the symbols are
> only occasional, we have what is called "allegorical tendency."
>
It is not occasional; it is fairly systematic -- to the extent that the
chapters are all known by their Homeric names although those titles
don't appear in the book. What makes it unallegorical to my mind is
that however anchored in the structure and context of the Homeric legend
Ulysses may be, it
>
>>Generally, the partially disguised content in a allegory is a
>>reference to the real world or to theological imagination taken to be
>>real by a religious audience, not another work of literature. I am not
>>a literature professor, but I believe the relationship between Joyce and
>>and Homer would be more aptly called "parody" than "allegory".
>>
>
> Parody is something entirely different. Parody's main
> ingredient is humor or ridicule. And its analogies emphasize style
> rather than the content of whatever it points to. The American
> Heritage Dictionary thus defines parody as "a literary or artistic
> work that imitates the characteristic STYLE of an author for comic
> effect or ridicule."
>
True, it does. There seems to be a bit of a gap between what artists
actually do and how those things are defined or labeled. The problem
may lie in determining where style, form and content leave off. Another
problem is that many definitions had gotten fixed in place before
modernism had its swing at the old forms.
It seems to me that what we tend to call "parody" as often enough is
ridiculing content more than style. Perhaps the word "hommage" would
suffice to take the "ridicule" connotation out of "parody" (or
"pastiche", which ridicules the creator rather than the recreated). Or
simply the non-technical term "re-telling".
If these old words don't work, then the relatively new term
"intertextuality" may have to be used instead to describe connections
between old and new texts. But my main point is that in the history of
literature, "allegory" appears to be associated with fictions whose
subtexts are ideas, beliefs or political concerns rather than other
other fictions. Allegories are messages that carry an obvious moral
once you decrypt the message, they do not just give themselves over to
other messages
Here is a sense of "parody" (from the realm of music history) that does
not imply ridicule, only parallel.
Parody: as in "parody mass," a work based on
previous material, one of the three common
techniques of composition in medieval and
Renaissance sacred music.
http://www.enjoythemusic.com/musicdefinition2.htm
> Ulysses is not a parody. It is a work that occasionally
> alludes to THE ODYSSEY but lacks the continuous stream of symbols that
> would make it a retelling of THE ODYSSEY. It therefore is a work
> displaying allegorical tendency.
>
>
>>And the
>>same would apply to Wheat analysis of 2001, at least as it involves The
>>Odyssey. Of course, both works are more than just parodies, just as
>>they would be more than allegories if they were allegories.
>>
>
> 2001 is not in any sense a parody. It neither imitates nor
> ridicules Homer's style. 2001 is instead a full-fledged allegory. It
> has the continuous stream of symbols that allegory requires. It is an
> analogical (symbolic) retelling of THE ODYSSEY (including events from
> other ancient sources that lead up to Odysseus' voyage home).
>
>
>>Correct me
>>if I am wrong someone, but my understanding is that parody and allegory
>>equally involve analogy but parody is a text-to-text connection whereas
>>allegory is a text-to-idea connection.
>>
>
> Parody does not require text-to-text connection. (For that
> matter, neither does allegory, although we do find such a connection
> in 2001.) Parody is based on style. On stage, a parody might involve
> an entirely original story that lampoons the accent and mannerisms of
> a character. 2001's Odysseus allegory has a text-to-text connection.
> The man-machine symbiosis allegory has a text-to-idea connection. The
> Zarathustra allegory has both connections.
>
Parody is perhaps most impressive when it targets style rather than
content, or an entire genre rather than a particular work, but it seems
to me that in practice many things we are apt to call parody target
content at least as much as style.
Parody might be whimsically etymologized as "the comedy of parallel".
What makes parody work is that at the same time there is an attempt to
parallel the structure or elements of an old subject matter there is an
effort to distort or transform it into something new and surprising.
Generally there is a going hand-to-hand of serious hommage and whimsical
lampoon. The punch line of the ridicule depends on the straight-man
techniques of getting the parallels, the analogies, just right. One
method of parody is to play straight man with the content of one's
source but play fool with the style. Another is to play straight man
with the style but make fun of the content. Without the serious side of
parody, the ludicrous side is much less effective. Like most forms of
humor, parody involves a coordination of love (and therefore
understanding)and scorn; it is not essentially an expression of scorn
over love.
To my mind, the most essential difference between "parody" and
"allegory" is that a parody has as its target an artifact whereas
allegories point to a world more real or ideas more universal than the
forms used within the allegory.
>
>>Of course, Ulysses is full of parallel relationships with structures
>>other than Homer. For example, each chapter is connected with a time of
>>day, a bodily organ, an art or science, a style of rhetoric, and so on,
>>besides being a parallel to an episode in The Odyssey. If it is an
>>allegory then what it is an allegory of is not Homer's epic itself but
>>of something more like conditions of modern life or better yet the very
>>universality of the human condition that binds the ancient to the new.
>>
>
> You have probably hit the nail on the head. Enda Duffy, in
> THE SUBALTERN ULYSSES (1994), argues that Ulysses allegorizes the
> struggle for Irish independence. I quote from a review: "Duffy
> presents the arresting thesis that Ulysses is . . . the text of
> Ireland's independence, written during the years of violent
> anticolonial struggle and published on the brink of Ireland's
> political independence. As such, it can be understood as a "national
> allegory" reworking in narrative form the ideological forces at work
> in a colonized community . . . forging a new identity. . . . Writing
> from the condition of exile on the continent, Joyce . . . lived
> through the violent events in Irish history in his imagination and
> sought forms to express this experience in writing Ulysses. . . .
> Reminding the reader of Ireland's colonial subjection and its
> narrative representation in Ulysses appears to be Duffy's main
> objective, and in that he succeeds."
>
Hadn't heard of that one.
http://muse.jhu.edu/demo/mod/2.3br_duffy.html
or there's...
http://www.sc.edu/uscpress/Fw00/3383.html
or there's
The Cybernetic Plot of Ulysses
Leonard F. Wheat
> Leonard F. Wheat wrote:
>
> > > David Kirkpatrick <dak...@rogers.com> wrote
> >>Leonard F. Wheat wrote:
> >>David Kirkpatrick wrote:
> >>The identity of Penelope is pretty obscure in 2001.
> > Penelope's identity isn't all that obscure. Bowman as the
> > star-child continues to symbolize Odysseus. At the end of THE
> > ODYSSEY, Odysseus is reunited with Penelope. At the end of 2001,
> > Odysseus (star-child, shining down on the earth) is reunited with
> > Penelope, symbolized by the earth. When Bowman gazes down at the face
> > of the earth, Odysseus is gazing at the face of Penelope.> >
> If I get over the association of "earth" with "mother" instead of
> "wife", and if I disregard the fact that the Odyssey begins with
> Odysseus separated from Penelope and proceeds with his return home
> whereas 2001 begins on Earth and continually travels further and further
> away from home, and the fact that the spirit of exploration in the film
> seems the diametric opposite to homesickness ... what is it I'm supposed
> to imagine?
"The Odyssey" doesn't begin with Odysseus' separating from
Penelope. It begins with Odysseus' leaving Troy (after a 10-year
siege, and also roughly 10 years after Odysseus left Penelope behind
and sailed for Troy). In other words, The Odyssey (the journey, not
the poem) is Odysseus' 10-year homeward trip from Troy back to Ithaca.
THE ODYSSEY (Homer's work) also includes flashback references to
earlier events, including Iphitus' gift of the Great Bow to Odysseus
and the Trojan Horse episode.
2001 begins with the very earliest pre-Odyssey event, the
gift of the Great Bow (symbolized in the "Dawn of Man" sequence), and
also includes the events leading up to the Trojan War (the beauty
contest among the three goddesses, the golden apple, Paris' being
bribed by Aphrodite with the gift of sex with Helen, Paris's seduction
of Helen, Menelaus' being off in the Mediterranean at the time,
Menelaus' being briefed on what happened, Menelaus' sailing to Troy in
1,000 ships, and the fall of Troy). Part 2 of 2001 ("Jupiter Mission:
18 Months Later) begins with the beginning of Odysseus' voyage home.
The very first thing we see in part 2 is Dave Bowman's (Odysseus')
ship sailing toward Jupiter, beginning its mission.
In 2001's surface story, Dave Bowman does leave earth (not
depicted) and return to earth (end of movie). Bowman's return to
earth symbolizes Odysseus' return to Penelope. Here the symbolism
gets more abstract in the sense that Kubrick once more uses things
other than people to symbolize people. Earlier he used four orbiting
bombs to symbolize the three goddesses and Zeus. And he used the
AE-35 unit to symbolize AEolus (the AE) and his winds (the 35,
symbolizing the Hawker Hurricane, a hurricane being the epitome of
wind).
At the end of 2001, the endings of three allegories are
being symbolized at once. In the Zarathustra allegory, Nietzsche's
"great noontime" is symbolized: the sun shines down on earth at high
noon. The globe-encased star-child is Bowman, but Bowman (like
overman) is a FIGURATIVE sun. And the figurative sun symbolizes
Odysseus in the Odysseus allegory. Since Odysseus is an astronomical
body in this scene, Kubrick uses parallel symbolism for Penelope.
Penelope is the earth.
Hence when the sun shines down on the face of the earth,
Odysseus is gazing down at the face of Penelope. Bowman has returned
to earth. And Odysseus has returned to Penelope.
> >>Whether what Ulysses does is aptly called allegory is something I would
> >>question.
> > And that is what I also questioned. In his article on
> > "Allegory" in the Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics,
> > Friedman distinguishes between genuine allegory and mere "allegorical
> > tendency." Continuity is what distinguishes between allegory and
> > ambiguity or allusion. "We have allegory when the events [I would say
> > "elements"] of the narrative obviously and continuously refer to
> > another underlying structure of events or ideas." If the symbols are
> > only occasional, we have what is called "allegorical tendency."
> It is not occasional; it is fairly systematic -- to the extent that the
> chapters are all known by their Homeric names although those titles
> don't appear in the book. What makes it unallegorical to my mind is
> that however anchored in the structure and context of the Homeric legend
> Ulysses may be, it
"Not occasional" is a matter of opinion. What Ulysses does
is use events from THE ODYSSEY as a framework (a chapter structure)
for organizing several trains of thought that go off in non-Odyssey
directions. This does not amount to a systematic retelling of THE
ODYSSEY, and such a retelling is not Joyce's purpose. As you say,
another aspect of Ulysses "makes it unallegorical," at least in an
Odyssey sense. (Your reason got left unfinished, but your words "what
makes it [Ulysses] unallegorical" are sufficient.
> >>Generally, the partially disguised content in a allegory is a
> >>reference to the real world or to theological imagination taken to be
> >>real by a religious audience, not another work of literature. I am not
> >>a literature professor, but I believe the relationship between Joyce and
> >>and Homer would be more aptly called "parody" than "allegory".
> >
> > Parody is something entirely different. Parody's main
> > ingredient is humor or ridicule. And its analogies emphasize style
> > rather than the content of whatever it points to. The American
> > Heritage Dictionary thus defines parody as "a literary or artistic
> > work that imitates the characteristic STYLE of an author for comic
> > effect or ridicule."
>
> True, it does. There seems to be a bit of a gap between what artists
> actually do and how those things are defined or labeled. The problem
> may lie in determining where style, form and content leave off. Another
> problem is that many definitions had gotten fixed in place before
> modernism had its swing at the old forms.
>
> It seems to me that what we tend to call "parody" as often enough is
> ridiculing content more than style.
If content is the object of ridicule, the technique is
better described as lampoon or satire. "Lampoon" is defined as (1) "a
written attack ridiculing a person, a group, or an institution" and
(2) "a light, good-humored satire." "Satire" is defined as "a
literary work that attacks human vice or folly through irony,
derision, or wit."
2001 is none of these. It is neither parody nor lampoon nor
satire. It is allegory, the use of a metaphorical story to tell a
hidden story.
> But my main point is that in the history of
> literature, "allegory" appears to be associated with fictions whose
> subtexts are ideas, beliefs or political concerns rather than other
> other fictions.
The TENDENCY of allegory to depict ideas is certainly there,
but depicting ideas (e.g., Clarke's idea of man-machine symbiosis in
Kubrick's symbiosis allegory) is not a requirement of allegory. The
only requirement is that one story tell another.
> Allegories are messages that carry an obvious moral
> once you decrypt the message, they do not just give themselves over to
> other messages.
What you have in mind are fables and parables. Fables tend
to be short and tend to use animals that display human qualities. A
fable has a moral, an edifying message (e.g., "The grasshopper and the
ant": save for the difficult times ahead). A parable is a story with
a moral or a religious message.
> > Ulysses is not a parody. It is a work that occasionally
> > alludes to THE ODYSSEY but lacks the continuous stream of symbols that
> > would make it a retelling of THE ODYSSEY. It therefore is a work
> > displaying allegorical tendency.
> > 2001 is not in any sense a parody. It neither imitates nor
> > ridicules Homer's style. 2001 is instead a full-fledged allegory. It
> > has the continuous stream of symbols that allegory requires. It is an
> > analogical (symbolic) retelling of THE ODYSSEY (including events from
> > other ancient sources that lead up to Odysseus' voyage home).
> Parody is perhaps most impressive when it targets style rather than
> content, or an entire genre rather than a particular work, but it seems
> to me that in practice many things we are apt to call parody target
> content at least as much as style.
If content or substance is the target, "lampoon" and
"satire" are the preferred words. Good words like "parody" get ruined
when people use them too loosely or inappropriately. For example,
"impact" was once a good metaphor for describing an effect that was
extremely severe, analogous to that of a meteorite hitting the earth
or of two speeding cars colliding. Nowadays speakers and writers who
play fast and loose with the language use (i.e., misuse) "impact" in
reference to any old effect; "impact" no longer has any metaphorical
value. Bernstein comments that "impact" has lost its power "at the
hands of the kind of faddists who are always reaching for the flame
thrower to light a cigarette."
Since language abuse is a pet peave of mine, I might as well
digress by bringing up a few more examples of how misuse ruins good
words. "Parameter" is a mathematical term referring to a constant.
In a regression equation, the parameters include the regression
constant, the coefficients (multipliers) of variables, and any
exponents attached to variables. Parameters don't vary from case to
case when an equation is used to predict values of cases. But people
who have no idea what a parameter is have adopted it as a vogue word
and given it the meaning "variable," or varying in value from case to
case (i.e., not constant). They have also given it the meaning
"factor" or "influence" (noun), referring to general categories into
which particular variables fall. (Education is a factor, something
abstract; median years of schooling is a variable, a measurable entity
that can vary from case to case.)
"Viable" is another good word that has been ruined by word
faddists. It means capable of living and growing. A fetus is viable
is it can survive and develop into a human being. But nowadays people
use "viable" to mean nothing more than good or practical or feasible
or acceptable or satisfactory.
"Dramatic" is still another word that has lost its meaning
through abuse. Applied to changes or developments, it should refer to
something really earth-shaking. But writers tend to apply it to just
about any change they discuss. A 6 percent increase in population
becomes "dramatic growth"; a house whose paint fades shows a "dramatic
change in color." In most situations where a change is being
described, no adjective is necessary. Most other times the sentence
needs a restrained adjective like modest, significant, substantial,
appreciable, promising, troublesome, or noteworthy.
Padraig L Henry
Wheat) wrote:
>Let's try again. I hit the "post" button by mistake before even
>getting started.
You really should practice this more often.
Padraig
Thornhill
> digress by bringing up a few more examples of how misuse ruins good
> words.
That's funny, because self-promotional "language mavens" who misspell
"pet peave" is a pet peeve of mine.
Thornhill
Gordon Dahlquist
> "The Odyssey" doesn't begin with Odysseus' separating from
> Penelope. It begins with Odysseus' leaving Troy (after a 10-year
> siege, and also roughly 10 years after Odysseus left Penelope behind
> and sailed for Troy). In other words, The Odyssey (the journey, not
> the poem) is Odysseus' 10-year homeward trip from Troy back to Ithaca.
> THE ODYSSEY (Homer's work) also includes flashback references to
> earlier events, including Iphitus' gift of the Great Bow to Odysseus
> and the Trojan Horse episode.
the odyssey actually begins with four chapters centering on odysseus' son
telemachus, and his struggle in ithaca in his father's absense. if one
were to be "re-telling" the odyssey, this section - and the whole
character of telemachus - is a fairly large omission, seeing as it
provides a whole heap of thematic groundwork for o's return to ithaca
later in the poem.
> "Not occasional" is a matter of opinion. What Ulysses does
> is use events from THE ODYSSEY as a framework (a chapter structure)
> for organizing several trains of thought that go off in non-Odyssey
> directions. This does not amount to a systematic retelling of THE
> ODYSSEY, and such a retelling is not Joyce's purpose. As you say,
> another aspect of Ulysses "makes it unallegorical," at least in an
> Odyssey sense. (Your reason got left unfinished, but your words "what
> makes it [Ulysses] unallegorical" are sufficient.
I agree that ulysses is not an allegory of the odyssey (what this even
means still escapes me - as if a roast beef sandwich were somehow seen
to be an "allegory" of a turkey sandwich ...), but ulysses' use of the
odyssey is much more systematic (and actually more complete - e.g., the
telemachae is fully a part of it, as is penelope) than its appearence in
2001. further I'd argue that the idea of "retelling" the odyssey is about
as much to joyce's purpose as it is to kubrick's (only with joyce it's a
more literal and complete re-telling).
David Kirkpatrick
> David Kirkpatrick <dak...@rogers.com> wrote in message news:<3D36A61A...@rogers.com>...
> >>Leonard F. Wheat wrote:
>> >>David Kirkpatrick wrote:
>>
>
>> >>The identity of Penelope is pretty obscure in 2001.
>>
>> > Penelope's identity isn't all that obscure. Bowman as the
>> > star-child continues to symbolize Odysseus. At the end of THE
>> > ODYSSEY, Odysseus is reunited with Penelope. At the end of 2001,
>> > Odysseus (star-child, shining down on the earth) is reunited with
>> > Penelope, symbolized by the earth. When Bowman gazes down at the face
>> > of the earth, Odysseus is gazing at the face of Penelope.> >
>>
>
>
>>If I get over the association of "earth" with "mother" instead of
>>"wife", and if I disregard the fact that the Odyssey begins with
>>Odysseus separated from Penelope and proceeds with his return home
>>whereas 2001 begins on Earth and continually travels further and further
>>away from home, and the fact that the spirit of exploration in the film
>>seems the diametric opposite to homesickness ... what is it I'm supposed
>>to imagine?
>>
>
> "The Odyssey" doesn't begin with Odysseus' separating from
> Penelope.
Um, I said "separated", not "separating".
If this be an allegory, I dare say it's the first that was not intended to be communicated.
If it's an inside-joke, is it still an allegory?
But a parody that ridicules may be said to lampoon or satirize. Surely
one can lampoon or satirize style as well as content (not that the style
/ content distinction doesn't get murky.) Why call anything a parody if
it can be called a lampoon or satire instead? Note that "parody" is
sometimes used to ridicule the imitator rather than the imitated. What I
suggest is that the most important aspect of a parody is the logic of
parallel or analogy between surface and target.
Check out the etymology:
parody - 1598 (first used in Eng. by Ben Jonson), from L. parodia
"parody," from Gk. paroidia "burlesque song or poem," from para-
"beside, parallel to" + oide "song, ode."
http://www.geocities.com/etymonline/p2etym.htm
>
>>But my main point is that in the history of
>>literature, "allegory" appears to be associated with fictions whose
>>subtexts are ideas, beliefs or political concerns rather than other
>>other fictions.
>>
>
> The TENDENCY of allegory to depict ideas is certainly there,
> but depicting ideas (e.g., Clarke's idea of man-machine symbiosis in
> Kubrick's symbiosis allegory) is not a requirement of allegory. The
> only requirement is that one story tell another.
So you're saying (from everything that I've read so far) that "allegory"
is totally defined by its method or means whereas "parody" is totally
defined by its purpose or effects. I don't buy it. Both are founded on
parallels or analogies, but the target of a parody is always an artifice
(something human-made), whereas I can't think of an agreed-upon allegory
that does not point to nature-made or God-made truths. Note the
political-discourse source of "allegory" in contrast to the
entertainment roots of "parody".
from Merriam-Webster on-line:
Etymology: Middle English allegorie, from Latin allegoria, from Greek
allEgoria, from allEgorein to speak figuratively, from allos other +
-Egorein to speak publicly, from agora assembly
Date: 14th century
1 : the expression by means of symbolic fictional figures and actions of
truths or generalizations about human existence; also : an instance (as
in a story or painting) of such expression
http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=allegory
I don't think your definition of "dramatic" is viable within the
parameters of exegetical discourse.
David