A Startling Fact
Nikolaus Maack
"Patch Adams," starring Robin Williams, is a surrealist film. A little
sentimental in places -- "cue the violins to tell the audience what to
feel!" -- but has nice surrealist sensibilities in places.
Nik
--
Twelve contorted faces. No lines, no waiting.
Visit The Nik Maack Art Gallery
http://www.chat.carleton.ca/~mrtribe
el...@dialin34.ottawa.globalserve.net
>
> "Patch Adams," starring Robin Williams, is a surrealist film. A little
> sentimental in places -- "cue the violins to tell the audience what to
> feel!" -- but has nice surrealist sensibilities in places.
....? I didn't get that at all when I saw the film.
http://ter.air0day.com/patchadams.shtml
"A butterfly? In the middle of the wilderness in warm weather season?
What are the odds? It's a sign! I'm going back to medicine!"
_
Nikolaus Maack
[Patch Adams as surreal]
(el...@dialin34.ottawa.globalserve.net) writes:
> ....? I didn't get that at all when I saw the film.
It promotes the idea of questioning authority, questioning the stiffled
way of thinking, going with your gut, and that sort of thing. Some in
this newsgroup claim these to be ideas behind surrealism.
> "A butterfly? In the middle of the wilderness in warm weather season?
> What are the odds? It's a sign! I'm going back to medicine!"
I actually liked this scene a lot. It's fun to get "signals from the
universe" and I see this as another aspect of surrealism. To be fair, the
butterfly was perched on his medicine bag, flew up to him, sat on his
chest, then got on his finger and sat there for a moment. All just after
he'd asked God for a sign. This part I liked.
What I didn't like was the swell of violins loudly telling me that this
scene was of emotional significance. I hate it when sountracks in movies
act as emotional cue cards, instead of a compliment to the scenery.
kristina
news:81rofm$4...@freenet-news.carleton.ca...
>
> [Patch Adams as surreal]
>
> (el...@dialin34.ottawa.globalserve.net) writes:
> > ....? I didn't get that at all when I saw the film.
>
> It promotes the idea of questioning authority, questioning the stiffled
> way of thinking, going with your gut, and that sort of thing. Some in
> this newsgroup claim these to be ideas behind surrealism.
A man that goes to the football every saturday questions the authority of
whether or not his football team should be sold to another company! He wil
even protest march for it...does that make him surreal? Hardly!
kristina.
Morpheal
news:81rofm$4...@freenet-news.carleton.ca...
> It promotes the idea of questioning authority, questioning the
stiffled way of thinking, going with your gut, and that sort of thing.
Some in this newsgroup claim these to be ideas behind surrealism.
Ah, but surrealism does not really emphasize questionning authority, or
challenging authority. What it does do is reveal the reality that often
remains occluded, consciously ignored, bringing those elements into
clearer view and definition. In that sense surrealism is considered by
some to be dangerous.
The intuitive element has a role, in surrealism, and yet it is like
automatic writing, an effort to elucidate and describe clearly what
remained hidden beneath the surface. It was there all the time, and yet
occulted by what activity was given more conscious attention. Occulted
and yet strongly influencing, even formative, to the surface activities
beneath which that part of life dwelt.
The interesting thing about this is that if all of Germany prior to
World War II had been surealists there would have been no fascist
takeover of Germany and no World War II. It would have been impossible
for fascism to gain a foothold there and to sway the masses without the
intuitively discerned elements beneath the surface of overt fascist
activities remaining occulted beneath the surface. If surrealism had
brought that occulted material that formed the collective unconscious
of fascist Germany to a conscious level, then history would never have
happened as it did.
Similarly as to Soviet communism. Particularly in the 1930s and after.
> A man that goes to the football every saturday questions the authority
of whether or not his football team should be sold to another company!
He will even protest march for it...does that make him surreal? Hardly!
That is actually surreal IF and only if it is placed into emphasis. Lost
in the details of everyone's everyday lives, it is NOT surreal, but
brought into the forefront, and emphasized, it is VERY surreal. It might
also be absurd, in the Ionesco sense of the absurd.
Take that man's inner life, his occulted subconscious influences,
drives, programming, psychological life, twisted perceptions of reality,
and put them into conscious view to an audience and the work is
definitely VERY surreal.
Surrealism is as dangerous as depth psychology (Jungian particularly).
Nothing is really more dangerous to totalism or totalitarianism than
the surrealist and depths psychology movements, which are supportive of
each other's efforts in various ways.
Morphealism is even more dangerous.
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
john adams
Excuse me for pointing it out, but isn't this the same thing as saying
"if everyone in germany before fascism came to power had been anti-fascist
to begin with, there would have been no fascist state afterall." ? An obvious
line of thought. And what is the collective unconscious of Germany?
Ignorance & deceit?
Unrelated to surrealism, i think.
john
kristina
news:81sm6h$jq1$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
> Nikolaus Maack <ac...@FreeNet.Carleton.CA> wrote in message
> news:81rofm$4...@freenet-news.carleton.ca...
I saided:
> > A man that goes to the football every saturday questions the authority
> of whether or not his football team should be sold to another company!
> He will even protest march for it...does that make him surreal? Hardly!
> That is actually surreal IF and only if it is placed into emphasis. Lost
> in the details of everyone's everyday lives, it is NOT surreal, but
> brought into the forefront, and emphasized, it is VERY surreal. It might
> also be absurd, in the Ionesco sense of the absurd.
Yes, I agree...there is potential for it to be a surreal experience. I was
illustrating it more in the way of the "everyday shallowness", and how
standing up to oppression or challenging the system, (whether it be a
personal belief system or a wider encompassing one) does not "necessarily"
constitute as an experience in the surreal. I think you know what I mean
here, I hope so...
kristina.
> Morphealism is even more dangerous.
ha ha ha....how is that?
Morpheal
"kristina" <bu...@start.com.au> wrote:
> Yes, I agree...there is potential for it to be a surreal experience.
I was illustrating it more in the way of the "everyday shallowness", and
how standing up to oppression or challenging the system, (whether it be
a personal belief system or a wider encompassing one) does not
"necessarily" constitute as an experience in the surreal. I think you
know what I mean here, I hope so... kristina.
Yes, I would agree as to challenging it not being necessarily surreal.
Surreal can be what never challenges anything, to the contrary of what
challenges chancing to be anything but surreal. Everyday shallowness can
be as surreal as the very extraordinary moment.
I had a surreal experience today. I was posting a rewrite of Elag's poem
and got the message "435 duplicate" on my screen. The message simply
would not post until I changed the subject line. This had never happened
before in responding to a message here in this system. First time ever.
I did not do anything different, but it came up with that... I was
shocked at that, so in a way, it was oddly surreal.
>Morphealism is even more dangerous.
> ha ha ha....how is that?
I will post the Manifesto again. That's better said than I can
paraphrase it.