One man's critism is another's pissing party
parrotfish
may as well stick my fat straight into the fire by offering some
opinions regarding the negativity so many people (myself included) feel
about the season that just ended.
I just read a whole mess o' messages, and I don't remember who said
what, nor am I going to bother hunting down specific quotes. I'm
responding to my general impression of what's been said, so PLEASE don't
write to me saying I misrepresented what you said, because I probably
have no idea what you specifically said.
A lot of people seem to be sick and tired of the negativity about season
six because they enjoyed most of the season, and they feel that others
are cutting them down for feeling that way.
While I'm sympathetic to this point of view, it just doesn't seem to
invalidate the legitimate, negative criticism that's been levelled at
the show lately. As others have pointed out, The X-Files bears a heavy
burden because of the high standard set through so much of the show's
run. Obviously, this doesn't mean every ep has always been a gem. But
for the most part, the XF has managed to deal with some very outlandish
subject matter while striking an uncanny chord of realism; to establish
surprisingly fresh, complex, flawed characters about whom viewers care
passionately; to elevate the technical and visual aspects of the
one-hour television drama to a new artistic height; to deal in
refreshingly creative ways with some very profound, thought-provoking
topics; from time to time, to turn a jaundiced eye on itself and offer
some scathingly self-satirizing humor; etc. etc.
Very little this season has measured up to those standards. The show has
a tired feeling about it overall, as though the creative well is running
dry, or worse still, as though all the writers are new and just aren't
quite tuned to the right frequency. There have been a few eps that have
risen above this level (among which I count Milagro and Drive), and a
few more that have masked the ennui with some superficial but ultimately
shallow vitality (I think Triangle and Tithonus are among these), and
then a whole lot more that just kind of limped along, dragging the
characters behind them (I won't name these for fear of giving offense to
anyone who disagrees).
And then there's been the mytharc, with its baffling storyline and
rampant character assassinations, both literal and figurative. I won't
go into that, because it's all been said before, and better than I
could.
I truly believe that, while there's clearly room for reasonable
individuals to disagree on the merits of almost any individual episode
(except Agua Mala!), there's just too much cumulative, objective
evidence of a downward trend in season six to simply ignore it or write
it off.
Which brings me to my next point:
I can already hear the voices being raised in objection to my use of the
word "objective" in reference to such an inherently subjective thing as
... well, you decide what it is. Art? Entertainment? Both?
Again, I'm sympathetic to those who say, "Who the hell are you to tell
me what to like, or to judge me on the basis of my likes and dislikes?"
That's a legitimate reaction to artsy-fartsy, elitist snobbery. But I
simply can't joint the camp of the "reader response" critics, who say
that something is good art simply because one likes it. It's a hard
point to argue, especially if, like me, you believe that there's usually
room to debate the merits of any individual work of art. But I also
strongly believe that it is possible to recognize the difference between
something profound, enlightening, original and challenging, and
something merely entertaining, engaging and amusing.
Take, for example, a really popular genre of fiction: the romance. Lots
of perfectly intelligent, sane and mentally balanced people enjoy
reading the latest from Harlequin. Few, however, would confuse it with
the prototypical works of genius in the genre like, say, Wuthering
Heights or Jane Eyre.
In the XF universe, I'd say that's like the difference between the
semi-enjoyment I got from watching Dreamland vs. the eye-popping
revelation that was Humbug.
One last thing before I'm all blathered out: A very few people really
seem to feel that their enjoyment of the season has made them targets of
the scorn of those who disliked the season. And, what the hell do I know
-- maybe in some cases it has. But I do feel that there's room for
strong disagreement that need not be taken personally -- and I hope that
nothing I've said will offend any individual.
Phew. Enough.
Parrotfish
ABauer7333
invalidate the legitimate, negative criticism that's been levelled at
the show lately. As others have pointed out, The X-Files bears a heavy
burden because of the high standard set through so much of the show's
run. Obviously, this doesn't mean every ep has always been a gem. But
for the most part, the XF has managed to deal with some very outlandish
subject matter while striking an uncanny chord of realism; to establish
surprisingly fresh, complex, flawed characters about whom viewers care
passionately; to elevate the technical and visual aspects of the
one-hour television drama to a new artistic height; to deal in
refreshingly creative ways with some very profound, thought-provoking
topics; from time to time, to turn a jaundiced eye on itself and offer
some scathingly self-satirizing humor; etc. etc.
Very little this season has measured up to those standards. The show has
a tired feeling about it overall, as though the creative well is running
dry, or worse still, as though all the writers are new and just aren't
quite tuned to the right frequency. There have been a few eps that have
risen above this level (among which I count Milagro and Drive), and a
few more that have masked the ennui with some superficial but ultimately
shallow vitality (I think Triangle and Tithonus are among these), and
then a whole lot more that just kind of limped along, dragging the
characters behind them (I won't name these for fear of giving offense to
anyone who disagrees).>>
I don't want to necessarily keep this thread going endlessly, but I appreciate
Parrotfish's calm exposition. In watching a few of the rerun-from-the Pilot
eps on FX, a lot of details popped out to confirm everything above. There was,
of course, the characterization, changing wardrobe (including specs), charming
naivete that Scully exhibits in the beginning, the prosaic detective work, etc.
But what I really misswed: the conflict with fellow agents in Squeeze. M & S
seem to have entered a fantasy world in which they move in and out of temporary
assignments with no relation to the FBI, its methods, procedures or personnel.
That was an element of the earlier TXF that rooted it a little deeper in
reality, thus ratcheting up the level of concern generated by both MOTW and
conspiracy plotlines.
Dr. B
GravesPA2
appreciate
Parrotfish's calm exposition. In watching a few of the rerun-from-the Pilot
eps on FX, a lot of details popped out to confirm everything above. There was,
of course, the characterization, changing wardrobe (including specs), charming
naivete that Scully exhibits in the beginning, the prosaic detective work, etc.
But what I really misswed: the conflict with fellow agents in Squeeze. M & S
seem to have entered a fantasy world in which they move in and out of temporary
assignments with no relation to the FBI, its methods, procedures or personnel.
That was an element of the earlier TXF that rooted it a little deeper in
reality, thus ratcheting up the level of concern generated by both MOTW and
conspiracy plotlines.>>
On the other hand, as I've been watching the S1 episodes on FX, I've noticed a
few things too---how must stronger the acting is in Season 6, how much more
layered and complex the main characters are on the whole, how much more
textured much of the dialogue is. There were lines and line deliveries in
Season 1, in episodes I otherwise love, that just make me cringe, and many of
the MOTWs were almost "by the numbers."
The MOTWs of this season have been hit and miss---but in fairness, the early
seasons had the advantage of having standard monsters to work from. As more
and more monsters have been "done," it becomes harder and harder for writers to
come up with stories that haven't been explored in some way on the show. Some
writers---Vince Gilligan comes to mind---write paranormal stories about humans
rather than monster stories. His episodes are also the most consistently
strong--and yet, there are those who complain that he cheats because he doesn't
really write "monsters." (Although I contend there's never been a more
horrifying monster on XF than John Lee Roche).
Something else I noticed---nitpicky things that would have some folks howling
this season never even get mentioned about first season episodes. Like how
stupid Mulder was to just walk out into the middle of the tarmac of a
top-secret air base---excuse me, Mr. Secret Agent Man? How the back window of
their rental car shattered---then miraculously fixed itself the next time we
saw it---when we know full well they didn't go to the Glass Doctor or anything.
How about how Scully lets government agents walk all over her time and time
again because "they're N.S.A."? Or when she just looks away when some MIBs
kidney-punch her partner?
I think the point I'm making is that there was a lot wrong with the early
seasons. A lot of the same logic problems, a lot of the same nitpicks, a lot of
the same implausibilities. I see Season Six getting slammed over "flaws" that
have existed throughout the series and, in some cases, characterize the series.
Do I think Season Six was perfect? Hell, no. Many of the scripts, particularly
those by newbie writers, were weak and unimaginative. However, I don't agree
with the characterization of some episodes, such as "Triangle" and "Tithonus"
as having "masked the ennui with some superficial but ultimately shallow
vitality." I think I would need more episode-specific examples of this,
because I didn't see it in either episode, and I truly have no idea what this
particular criticism refers to.
Paula Graves
Bjm1352
>Something else I noticed---nitpicky things that would have some folks howling
>this season never even get mentioned about first season episodes. Like
>how
>stupid Mulder was to just walk out into the middle of the tarmac of a
>top-secret air base---excuse me, Mr. Secret Agent Man?
I'm a few days behind in my FX viewing and just finished watching my tape of
"Deep Throat" tonight. Your comment above really gave me a grin, Paula,
because when I saw that scene tonight I practically screamed at Mulder when he
tried to escape from the vehicles chasing him *by running down the tarmac*.
"RUN BACK INTO THE WEEDS! RUN BACK INTO THE WEEDS!"
Good thing I kept quiet or the neighbors would really start wondering about me.
<g>
>How about how Scully lets government agents walk all over her time and time
>again because "they're N.S.A."? Or when she just looks away when some MIBs
>kidney-punch her partner?
I read her reaction to be an involuntary motion, a combination of disgust at
the MIBs and sympathy for Mulder, as though she'd felt the blow herself and was
pulling away from the attacker. Since she rescued his ass the next day, I
can't see her lacking concern for her partner's well-being. 'Course, if she
had known that that was the first in a string of ditches... <g>
Bonnie (aka Forte)
(to e-mail me, delete the 9999 from my addy)
* * * * * * * * * * * *
"Scully?" "Yes?" "Marry me."
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be
satisfied. (Matthew 5:6)
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Lee Burwasser
Parrotfish posted:
>>> After the usual amount of cautious observation (aka lurking), I figure I may as well stick my fat straight into the fire by offering some opinions regarding the negativity so many people (myself included) feel about the season that just ended. <<<
I, too, am new to atxa, but both atxf and atxc have far too many
posters
who are rather like Mulder at the start of "Field Trip." After five
years of "Why won't you believe?" he finally twigged in "FTF" that
Scully's skepticism is what keeps him honest. (He doesn't say so 'til
he thinks she's leaving him, which is a whole 'nother issue.) But
come
the season six opener, he didn't want to hear her evidence unless it
supported his position. And just before the finale, he was back to
treating her as an enemy trying to debunk him instead of a partner
keeping his feet on the ground. She had been giving him the very real
benefit of her doubts throughout their partnership; what *he* meant by
demanding the benefit of the doubt was for her to stop keeping him
honest.
Mulder has an excuse: he's paranoid. Why are there so many on the
atx* newsgroups who treat anything less than praise as an attack?
>>> they enjoyed most of the season, and they feel that others are cutting them down for feeling that way. <<<
Takes all kinds. The X-Files Disenchatment Society, over at:
http://www.InsideTheWeb.com/mbs.cgi/mb161607
is made up of people who feel that they can't criticise the show
without getting flamed. I myself have noticed (again on sister
newsgroups, I haven't been here long enough to say) more "If you don't
like the show, don't watch it!" response to reasoned criticism than
cutting down for enjoyment.
>>> Very little this season has measured up to those standards. <<<
I would amend this to: Very few scripts have measured up. The
audiovisual production values are still very good. It's Story that's
declined. And part of that decline is the cracks in the foundation
working up to the facade. Hollywood generally (and even while the
show was shot in Vancouver, it was written in LA) is bad at Story, and
Carter's views on continuity and closure were bound to trip him up
eventually.
>>> objection to my use of the word "objective" in reference to such
an inherently subjective thing <<<
Pardon my French, but that's bull. Artsy-fartsy critics might call
twelve-tone music no better than a five-year-old banging on the piano,
or call surrealism nothing but kindergarden fingerpainting, but no one
in fact mistakes even alien artistic styles for untrained dabbling.
The mistakes are usually vice-versa, when ignorant patrons get conned
by imitators who don't understand the old idiom, much less the new
one.
As for Story: We have millennia of accumulated lore to tell us what
keeps people's attention, what communicates and entertains. There
have
been innovations all along, just as there are mutations all the time;
and just as natural selection kills off all but a miniscule proportion
of the mutants, audience response kills off all but a miniscule
proportion of the innovations. (Aristotle's _Poetics_ is essentially
a
tip sheet for winning the tragedy contest.)
Consider those genealogical sketches in Icelandic family sagas.
English
translations either leave them out or stick them in the footnotes,
since
anglophonic readers really don't care who the hero's wife's
grandfather
was. Doesn't that show subjectivity? No, it doesn't. The
anglophonic
audience doesn't care because they're not related to the hero or the
villain, while the original audience was descended from the people in
these stories. Anglophones are just as interested in connections when
the story is about their own families or associates.
I mentioned continuity, earlier. There are objective reasons for
keeping track of what's been established from episode to episode, and
for taking Carter to task for not doing so. It may not matter that
the protagonists have two birth dates and at least two addresses each,
but it definitely does matter that Scully can assist in an emergency
room in one episode and hardly knows first aid in another, or that
Mulder needs lectures in the basics of the field where he took his
degree. We can, if we must, shrug off the discrepancy between Scully
being gone for three months or one, but if Mulder learned of his
father's unsavory connections before he ever found the X-Files, what
of his shock at discovering them at the start of third season?
I chose these particular story criteria for their clarity. Others are
more complex, or more subtle, but still objective.
>>> Phew. Enough. <<<
Right.
=^.^=
Lee Burwasser
Deborah A Tinsley
mine for the last few days has not. :o( <BF>
Lee Burwasser <lee...@gateway.net> wrote in article
snip
> I, too, am new to atxa, but both atxf and atxc have far too many
> posters
> who are rather like Mulder at the start of "Field Trip." After five
> years of "Why won't you believe?" he finally twigged in "FTF" that
> Scully's skepticism is what keeps him honest. (He doesn't say so 'til
> he thinks she's leaving him, which is a whole 'nother issue.) But come
> the season six opener, he didn't want to hear her evidence unless it
> supported his position. And just before the finale, he was back to
> treating her as an enemy trying to debunk him instead of a partner
> keeping his feet on the ground. She had been giving him the very real
> benefit of her doubts throughout their partnership; what *he* meant by
> demanding the benefit of the doubt was for her to stop keeping him
> honest.
> Mulder has an excuse: he's paranoid. Why are there so many on the
> atx* newsgroups who treat anything less than praise as an attack?
I saw Mulder's response in a similar fashion in The Beginning, but I didn't
feel it was disrespectful toward Mulder. He's human. He's been through a
lot. He has every reason to be paranoid. He pushes Scully to come around
and it's the hallmark of her strength as a character that she stands up to
him. They both push each other to the limit. That's the way their
partnership is extraordinary. Their commitment goes far beyond hurt
feelings, pricked pride. I thought it was good writing to show Mulder
vulnerable, thin skinned, and a little on the cranky side. It was all the
more pleasurable to see him melt when Scully finally presents the evidence
he wants to hear. It doesn't say less of Mulder, just what we already know.
He is passionate about his beliefs and sometimes (2%?) he's flat out wrong.
snip
> without getting flamed. I myself have noticed (again on sister
> newsgroups, I haven't been here long enough to say) more "If you don't
> like the show, don't watch it!" response to reasoned criticism than
> cutting down for enjoyment.
I don't mind criticism, but sometimes within the criticism there's a lot of
other stuff. There's the kind of criticism where the poster basically tells
you that you are delusional if you like the ep you like.
I am all for posting strong criticism, but if one does, one must expect a
strong reaction - especially on this ng. Very intelligent, articulate,
feisty folk here. It's why it's so much fun. If I choose to argue with the
critics that's fair too. It's about discussion. Sometimes they make me see
the ep differently and I hope sometimes I do the same for them, but it's
never my intention to attempt to silence them. I like to debate and if I
think my point is valid I argue with great vigor. That's not cutting anyone
down. I assume the opposition believes in their opinions. I try to support
my opinions or at least explain why I see things as I do. If the opposition
can't answer, I assume their argument is not as strong as mine or they
can't really explain or they have better things to do.
It really annoys me when in the middle of the argument they complain about
me being so argumentative. My standard reply is, "If you don't want to
argue stop replying to my posts."
snip
> I would amend this to: Very few scripts have measured up. The
> audiovisual production values are still very good. It's Story that's
> declined.
I don't see it that way, but putting that issue aside, I have to say I
think the acting is so much better. I watched Fire tonight, an ep I always
enjoy, and then I watched Pine Bluff Variant. DD's acting has grown
incredibly. GA has made Scully into a fascinating character.
snip
>
snip
> I mentioned continuity, earlier. There are objective reasons for
> keeping track of what's been established from episode to episode, and
> for taking Carter to task for not doing so. It may not matter that
> the protagonists have two birth dates and at least two addresses each,
> but it definitely does matter that Scully can assist in an emergency
> room in one episode and hardly knows first aid in another, or that
> Mulder needs lectures in the basics of the field where he took his
> degree. We can, if we must, shrug off the discrepancy between Scully
> being gone for three months or one, but if Mulder learned of his
> father's unsavory connections before he ever found the X-Files, what
> of his shock at discovering them at the start of third season?
If we grant that all these examples of inconsistency are true, then what
does that say of the power the show de spite of those flaws? Is the fact
that TXF retains popularity, that indeed some of those shows most cited for
inconsistency or failure to be true to XF traditions or unofficial bible
have the highest ratings significant?
My most profound feelings about the show, the ones that make me
compulsively watch it and scan the newsgroups for discussion are not
affected by its flaws. I work with and around art all the time. It's my
profession and I have to say, it's awfully hard to pin down. The tradition
of classics I believe is tied to class separation (you are one of us if you
see what we see), and this is best demonstrated when the aristocracy
decides to canonize some artist who's class is so foreign to them. They
don't really understand its power, but they try tame it, make it behave by
co-opting it. It only retains its power if it remains a bit wild and does
not conform to the very standards that have killed the power of their own
efforts to be creative. Van Gogh was considered a mad man and now his art
graces candy boxes.
It actually makes me think of the film Kalifornia. I found it fascinating.
The mirrored couples with DD and Michele Forbes being the sophisticated,
art smart, arrogant, bohemian wannabes, flirting with the edge of all that
dark dangerous energy but having no clue what they were getting themselves
into, condescending to the two ignorant, trailer trash hitchers as if they
were retarded children.
Pitt and Juliette Lewis (Early and Adele) mirror DD and Forbes, but the
pairing is Juliette and DD / Pitt and Forbes. Both DD and Forbes are
trying to be artists and they look for meaning in the edges of society
where civilization and the rules fade away quickly. Pitt seduces DD's
character with his knowledge of death and violence, the law of the jungle.
He takes their art and shows them what it really is, the real dangers
involved instead of playing acting about it. Early and Adele show them that
life is life and death.
Oops! I digress. My antennae go up when people start talking about quality
and real art. It's tricky. Standards are tricky. What if television is a
new kind of art that is breaking away from the absolute structures of
literature, theatre. In a way a show like XF's has no choice. CC had no
idea the show would last and become popular. It almost didn't. It isn't
like a book or play where you perfect it in private or in rehearsals before
the crowd has access to it. Even more than movies, this is drama on the fly
and I think either you like TV or you don't. Maybe in television, more than
any other art form, at least in serial television, the creation is more
likely to take on a life of it's own--an odd primordial soup of original
intention, natural evolution, pressure from all the interested financial
parties, the demands of the audience. I think this is a considerable force
in the shaping of a TV show and the reasons they succeed is hard to pin
down. A television show is like a living thing once it gets legs. That's
different than any other art form--period.
I think it's miraculous to get 5 or 6 great eps per season. I think it's
incredible that they have lasting power and are viewed over and over again,
stir up passionate conversation. If you want to argue TXF isn't Bronte or
Joyce or even The Godfather, you'd be right. It's something different.
There's something alchemical in TXF, something that makes the whole greater
than the parts.
snip
--
Deborah
"One day I learned that science was not true.
I do not recall the day, but I recall the moment..
The God of the twentieth century was no longer God."
Kosko
dee...@primenet.com
> The MOTWs of this season have been hit and miss---but in fairness, the early
> seasons had the advantage of having standard monsters to work from. As more
> and more monsters have been "done," it becomes harder and harder for writers to
> come up with stories that haven't been explored in some way on the show.
Oh, _God_, please don't go there. Please. If I never hear this "there
aren't enough monsters out there for XF to work with anymore" crap
again, I will be one _happy_ woman. Gee, not having enough monsters
hasn't kept current writers like Thomas Ligotti or Poppy S. Brite or Kim
Newman from coming up with ingenious, intelligent horror stories--hell,
that hasn't kept non-genre "literary" authors like A. M. Homes or Iain
Banks from coming up with some incredibly scary _non_-supernatural
monsters. All it takes is imagination, talent, and knowing what scares
one--or anyone. The brutal fact of the matter is that XF doesn't have
enough writers who have imagination to come up with good monsters, and
the few (make that one--g!) that could aren't getting the time they'd
need to do so. As well, there doesn't seem to be anyone on staff who
could take a halfway monster premise and rewrite it up to snuff. It's
not that 1013 can't--it's that they. . . can't--g!
Some
> writers---Vince Gilligan comes to mind---write paranormal stories about humans
> rather than monster stories. His episodes are also the most consistently
> strong--and yet, there are those who complain that he cheats because he doesn't
> really write "monsters." (Although I contend there's never been a more
> horrifying monster on XF than John Lee Roche).
One can have supernatural monster tales that are just as emotionally
complex as ones involving humans--TURN OF THE SCREW/THE INNOCENTS comes
to mind, as does THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE and GHOST STORY (the book
more than the movie--g!).
>
> Something else I noticed---nitpicky things that would have some folks howling
> this season never even get mentioned about first season episodes. Like how
> stupid Mulder was to just walk out into the middle of the tarmac of a
> top-secret air base---excuse me, Mr. Secret Agent Man? How the back window of
> their rental car shattered---then miraculously fixed itself the next time we
> saw it---when we know full well they didn't go to the Glass Doctor or anything.
> How about how Scully lets government agents walk all over her time and time
> again because "they're N.S.A."? Or when she just looks away when some MIBs
> kidney-punch her partner?
>
> I think the point I'm making is that there was a lot wrong with the early
> seasons. A lot of the same logic problems, a lot of the same nitpicks, a lot of
> the same implausibilities. I see Season Six getting slammed over "flaws" that
> have existed throughout the series and, in some cases, characterize the series.
>
Sure XF has always had lapses in logic/plotting. Sure, it had some duds
in seasons 1-3. However, it used to _more_ than make up for that by the
strength/consistency of its characterization, a great premise, and
ingenious/intelligent plotting more often than not. And you are not
taking in account that by now, after six years, one should reasonably
expect XF's main arc to be tightening up and delivering _some_ payoffs
and its characters to be a lot farther along in their development than
this "skeptic/believer," high-school "will they or won't they" tease
stuff. The fact that XF is so inconsistent and sputtering in those
departments is a major reason folks get annoyed. A show is suppose to
build on its strengths, not squander them. It also should fix/improve
flaws, not to let them slide or let them get worse.
C.
**
Extex1013
>build on its strengths, not squander them.
Yeah tell that to the supporting cast.
They have all been virtuially destroyed over the last three years and in
Skinner's and CSM's case rendered practicaly invisible
extex
Magpie
Sometimes I feel like it's not so much a question of my not
disliking things that I should, but that I don't dislike them
enough. I realized this last weekend when my roommate and I
saw Phantom Menace. We had mostly the same criticisms of the
movie one thing that worked for me and not for her. When we
were discussing it we got into how our reactions to these
things differ. She feels like I give creators too much credit;
she feels that they must be berated for anything sloppy because
any mistake is a direct insult to the audience and should be
taken as such.
To me, it seemed like it came down to my going into a movie considering
the creators and myself to be allies: they made something they hope
I'll like. It takes a lot to make me feel insulted (I don't go see
movies that are obviously that way). She sees creators as the enemy
who must prove that they really want her to like it.
So, for instance, with the Phantom
Menace issue we were discussing, she kept insisting that it was
a mistake and that I was making it work in my head. I said that,
no, it *did* work, it just didn't work for her--this was one of
those subjective things (whether it was believable that the little
boy and Natalie Portman could be lovers in the next movie). I
didn't feel like I was doing any extra work; I just had no trouble
with the relationship and she did. I didn't think she was wrong
for having a problem with it, but she thought I was wrong with not
having a problem with it.
I have never argued that someone was wrong for pointing out continuity
flaws or any number of things, but I can't help it if they don't
whip me into a lather.
-m
GravesPA2
enough monsters out there for XF to work with anymore" crap again, I will be
one _happy_ woman. Gee, not having enough monsters
hasn't kept current writers like Thomas Ligotti or Poppy S. Brite or Kim Newman
from coming up with ingenious, intelligent horror stories--hell, that hasn't
kept non-genre "literary" authors like A. M. Homes or Iain
Banks from coming up with some incredibly scary _non_-supernatural monsters.
All it takes is imagination, talent, and knowing what scares one--or anyone.>>
And enough time and concentration to put months of focused attention into the
telling of the story. Quite the luxury in TV writing.
<< The brutal fact of the matter is that XF doesn't have enough writers who
have imagination to come up with good monsters, and the few (make that one--g!)
that could aren't getting the time they'd need to do so.>>
I can sit here and come up with dozens of new monsters. It's a hell of a lot
harder to make them work in the X-Files milieu, or create a story in a period
of four to six weeks that will work visually, within time constraints, within
BS&P guidelines, within budget....
Of course, I've personally thought there were some quite intelligent, textured
MOTW episodes this season, so I don't even agree with your basic premise here.
;)
Paula Graves
Unbound I
on. After reading through all the posts, my feeling is that it really boils
down to perception and what each of us asks from the show each week.
If you have certain standards that you feel are not being met, then you have
a right to be disappointed. But if you feel, as I do, the show has eclipsed all
you could possibly hope for then you also have a right to be widely enthused
about what you have just witnessed.
Personally, that is how I felt about season 6. I felt it was one of the most
remarkable seasons the show has produced and a definitie improvement over
season 5, which I thought was solid but only rarely outstanding.
So who is right? Perhaps both sides are--from their respective vantage
points.
I'm not sick and tired of negativity since I respect everyone's right to
love or hate or feel uninspired by the show--whatever. What does bother me,
however, is being told that my viewpoints, or anyone else's, carry less weight
than someone else's just because we deem to disagree or defend the show on what
we believe are its continuing artistic merits. The critics of the show say the
series doesn't measure up to past efforts and that creatively and artistically
it has regressed.
I couldn't disagree more.
Season 6 took me on a wild ride that I thoroughly enjoyed. Triangle remains
one of the fascinating and enjoyable hours of television I have witnessed in
many many years. Not since some of the creative highpoints of Moonlighting,
Northern Exposure or the first season of Twin Peaks has an episode so enchanted
me. And on every conceivable level--from the writing, to the lighting, to the
acting, to the score, to the ideas being expressed. Wonderful.
But Triangle was hardly the only episode that I enjoyed this season. Drive,
Rain King, Monday, Tithonus, Milagro, Field Trip, The Unnatural were all stand
alones that captivated my imagination as much as any x file episode ever had in
the past. I saw creativity there and an energy level that few shows in their
sixth season can match.
Did I feel these episodes limped along and the players involved were just
going through the motions? Hardly. Personally, I'd take Triangle and stack it
up against any episode from the past--I enjoyed it that much. And I'd say the
same about The Unnatural as well. So from my vantage point, the show's level of
creativity has not suffered whatsoever.
In fact, I believe there was, in some respects, a creative rebirth this
season. I saw an energy there I didn't expect to see. The show was that fresh,
that inspired.
I agree, the mytharc is an area where fans have a legitimate right to
question what the hell is going on. There have been shifts in continuity and
character moments that make us wonder if CC is playing fair or if he has any
idea what he wants to do here next.
But my feeling on the mytharc is I've come this far and I'm willing to give
CC the benefit of the doubt as long as the ideas he's toying with capture my
interest. And with 2F/1S and Biogenesis, he did that. I still don't have a
handle on what he's trying to do, but I don't mind some confusion since it
leads me to try and decipher things for myself. I enjoy trying to unravel the
mystery even if I wonder if the rug will be pulled out from underneath my feet
at times. And though CC tugs at that rug from time to time, he hasn't yanked it
out completely from under me just yet.
So I'll continue to see where this journey takes me.
Honestly, with the exception of Fowley (who has been discussed enough so I
won't go into her any further), I think there has been an attempt to streamline
the mytharc since The Red and The Black. You can debate the merits of the path
they're on now, that's fine, but I do think CC has tried to turn this into a
linear plot form and keep things on the straight and narrow--as much as he can
anyway.
So I think there has been an attempt to make something coherent out of all
of this. And if the ideas that are being expressed fascinate me, I'm willing to
stay on the ride.
In the end, it all becomes highly personal. This is the ultimate of
paraoxes--a highly personal event that can be also be a communal activity.
There is truly something special about that. I'm allowed to love season 6 while
others are allowed to think it stunk and the show has veered madly off course.
That's fine. Who's right? Perhaps we both are in the framework of what each of
us brings to the show and what we expect from it.
My hopes and expectations were met and greatly exceeded this season. I tune
in each week to see interesting stories and fascinating character development
and engaging ideas. I believed the show produced on all 3 levels this season.
With the exception of a handful of shows, I felt the stories were inventive
creatively and enjoyable to behold.
As far as the character development goes, season 6 was as rich in that area
than any other season, and in many ways the characters were examined far more
intensely than ever before.
There is plenty of room for debate here since by its very nature TXF leaves
itself open to intense speculation and discussion. That's one of the things
that, IMO, makes the show special. We can all watch the same episode and come
away with wildly different feelings.
My point is that all of those feelings are legitimate--no matter how
different they may be. What it all ultimately boils down to is one simple
question--is the show meeting your expectations each week?
Many of you do not believe it is and that is your right to feel that way. I,
on the other hand, was dazzled by the events that unfolded in season 6 and
cannot wait for season 7 to begin. That is my right as well.
Unbound I
Kipler
flaws or any number of things, but I can't help it if they don't whip me into a
lather. >>
Yeah, same here. I could probably write a thesis about the development of XF
characters over the 6 seasons - but that sounds like a heck of a lot of work,
to me. That's why I only wander in here once in a while; I'm too shallow for
y'all. Or maybe I'm impassioned about the wrong things.
--Kipler
Loligo Opalescens
<various snips>
>I would amend this to: Very few scripts have measured up. The
>audiovisual production values are still very good. It's Story that's
>declined. And part of that decline is the cracks in the foundation
>working up to the facade.
>As for Story: We have millennia of accumulated lore to tell us what
>keeps people's attention, what communicates and entertains. There
>have
>been innovations all along, just as there are mutations all the time;
>and just as natural selection kills off all but a miniscule proportion
>of the mutants, audience response kills off all but a miniscule
>proportion of the innovations. (Aristotle's _Poetics_ is essentially
>a
>tip sheet for winning the tragedy contest.)
I'm basically repeating something I posted a few weeks ago, but it's a
point that I *really* believe in:
TXF is virtually unprecedented in its combination of extravagant
talent and inexplicable weakness. The show just nails all the
"extras" (acting, directing, production values, music, themes,
symbols, intriguing metafiction, relationships, characterization (most
of the time)...), and screws up so flagrantly on the "basics" of
narrative logic and continuity.
So every fan has to ask, how basic are those "basics"? Is it
literally like a foundation, and if you've got cracks there the entire
edifice will crumble? Or can all the show's good qualities kind of
float away and maintain themselves intact, even without that firm
narrative grounding? Clearly, there are fans holding firmly to each
of these positions, and I don't think that either side will ever
convince the other. People who think the show is going downhill don't
see how those who like it can possibly ignore the severity of the
flaws, and those who still love the show don't understand why the
others aren't swayed by the greatness of the show's unique
accomplishments.
L.O.
Deborah A Tinsley
Magpie <bel...@ibm.net> wrote in article <375A85...@ibm.net>...
snip
> I didn't think she was wrong
> for having a problem with it, but she thought I was wrong with not
> having a problem with it.
>
> I have never argued that someone was wrong for pointing out continuity
> flaws or any number of things, but I can't help it if they don't
> whip me into a lather.
>
> -m
Yes, I think you've hit the nail on the head here Magpie. I know those who
believe we are "making it work in our heads" just don't see what we see. To
me it's part of the interaction of the creative process and the part of it
I am most interested in. No story, no work of art is entirely above the
viewer's imaginative connection. If we don't interact with it in someway,
if it doesn't touch us personally, give us a way to connect-- we simply
don't care about it. I don't care how lauded a work may be, if I don't
connect-- it doesn't interest me that much.
And if the drama connects so strongly that it makes us engage with it in an
interactive way, I feel we are the richer for it. To me often the creation
is separate from the creator. I love Gauguin, Degas, Matisee and Picasso,
but those artists were incredible jerks and more than a little misogynist.
I am sure their works mean something entirely different to me than it did
to them. Thank God! In a real way, their work transcended them.
I feel the same way about TXF. I accept it as a television program with all
the limitations of that medium. I have more timely, and extensive info
about CC and Co. than I have with other "art" -- that is, the creator is
living and extensively covered by the media and press. I read a lot about
the actors too. It's fun to suss out the way their real lives and
situations affect the show, but the bottom line for me is the show itself.
Deborah
Deborah A Tinsley
snip:
>
> TXF is virtually unprecedented in its combination of extravagant
> talent and inexplicable weakness. The show just nails all the
> "extras" (acting, directing, production values, music, themes,
> symbols, intriguing metafiction, relationships, characterization (most
> of the time)...), and screws up so flagrantly on the "basics" of
> narrative logic and continuity.
Very good points! I like the way you have steered this conversation.
I think this helps support my contention in this thread that television
cannot be measured by the same criteria as literature, theatre or even
films. The most basic difference is that it is always in motion for the
length of it's run. Where a play may be constantly reinterpreted every time
a production is mounted or even each night as the actors give better or
worse performances, the whole television show from the writers to the
special effects, the editing, the music, the lighting , etc. . . are moving
in space and time as the saga evolves.
CC lost complete control as soon as FOX picked up his show, may have lost
some control while selling it in the first place. Every season, every ep is
a new negotiation. And it plays out while the creators' lives move on. CC &
Co. are not the same people who gave us the first season of TXF and neither
are we. This is played out most noticeably with DD and GA. We have seen
them grow as actors, tire as in S5 with the added strain from the movie,
rejuvenate (S6 with the move to LA and new directions taken), and age.
These are not the young actors we saw in the first season. They have been
blooded.
> So every fan has to ask, how basic are those "basics"? Is it
> literally like a foundation, and if you've got cracks there the entire
> edifice will crumble? Or can all the show's good qualities kind of
> float away and maintain themselves intact, even without that firm
> narrative grounding?
Only time will tell. I think it will hold up over time even when it is
eventually seen as a period piece - a piece of time, a gestalt captured in
a time capsule.
Clearly, there are fans holding firmly to each
> of these positions, and I don't think that either side will ever
> convince the other. People who think the show is going downhill don't
> see how those who like it can possibly ignore the severity of the
> flaws, and those who still love the show don't understand why the
> others aren't swayed by the greatness of the show's unique
> accomplishments.
>
> L.O.
Very well put LO.
Konrad Douglas Frye
(Loligo Opalescens) writes:
>So every fan has to ask, how basic are those "basics"? Is it
>literally like a foundation, and if you've got cracks there the entire
>edifice will crumble?
I don't think it's quite that dire but it does warrant some serious
examination by the creative folks at 1013. Lets face it, if they had
the desire they could probably solve 95% of their continuity problems for
free. My only conclusion after six seasons of watching the show is that
they don't really want to. That dismays me.
>Or can all the show's good qualities kind of
>float away and maintain themselves intact, even without that firm
>narrative grounding? Clearly, there are fans holding firmly to each
>of these positions, and I don't think that either side will ever
>convince the other. People who think the show is going downhill don't
>see how those who like it can possibly ignore the severity of the
>flaws, and those who still love the show don't understand why the
>others aren't swayed by the greatness of the show's unique
>accomplishments.
To an extent they can. Mark Snow's score has little to do with narritive
continuity for example. The same is true for most of the other
audio/visual aspects of the show.
In the beginning, I think it's a little easier to play quick and dirty
with the basics. Think of the situation as a game of Jenga. Over time,
weaknesses in the foundation magnify themselves and even though things
might be fine on top, the tower is swaying like a tree in the wind. A good
player can keep picking away at the foundation for quite some time and
perhaps even straighten things out, but repeated mistakes are sure to lead
to disaster.
1013 has two towers: the mytharc tower, and the MOTW tower. I think we can
all identify the one with the weakest foundation. Unfortunately, these
towers are close enough together that in some cases, the weaknesses of one
affect the other.
In the end there's essentially only one question to ask and that's whether
the problems 1013 makes can be avoided. I believe that problems made at
the script level certainly can. Everyone makes mistakes and for the most
part we all try to learn something from them. I only worry when the same
mistakes start to repeat themselves.
-----
Konrad Frye (umfr...@ccu.umanitoba.ca)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
"Or what? You'll release the dogs? Or the bees? Or the dogs with the
bees in their mouths and when they bark they shoot bees at you?"
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Magpie
>
> Lee Burwasser <lee...@gateway.net> wrote:
>
> <various snips>
> >I would amend this to: Very few scripts have measured up. The
> >audiovisual production values are still very good. It's Story that's
> >declined. And part of that decline is the cracks in the foundation
> >working up to the facade.
>
> >As for Story: We have millennia of accumulated lore to tell us what
> >keeps people's attention, what communicates and entertains. There
> >have
> >been innovations all along, just as there are mutations all the time;
> >and just as natural selection kills off all but a miniscule proportion
> >of the mutants, audience response kills off all but a miniscule
> >proportion of the innovations. (Aristotle's _Poetics_ is essentially
> >a
> >tip sheet for winning the tragedy contest.)
>
> I'm basically repeating something I posted a few weeks ago, but it's a
> point that I *really* believe in:
And it bears repeating...:)
>
> TXF is virtually unprecedented in its combination of extravagant
> talent and inexplicable weakness. The show just nails all the
> "extras" (acting, directing, production values, music, themes,
> symbols, intriguing metafiction, relationships, characterization (most
> of the time)...), and screws up so flagrantly on the "basics" of
> narrative logic and continuity.
>
> So every fan has to ask, how basic are those "basics"? Is it
> literally like a foundation, and if you've got cracks there the entire
> edifice will crumble? Or can all the show's good qualities kind of
> float away and maintain themselves intact, even without that firm
> narrative grounding? Clearly, there are fans holding firmly to each
> of these positions, and I don't think that either side will ever
> convince the other. People who think the show is going downhill don't
> see how those who like it can possibly ignore the severity of the
> flaws, and those who still love the show don't understand why the
> others aren't swayed by the greatness of the show's unique
> accomplishments.
I don't believe the basics are always so basic either, even in movies.
It was really just randomly decided that movies should be filmed
plays, following the same structure, when they could just as
easily have been nothing like plays. Who says, for example, that
a movie must be one shot at a time? Why not have two squares on
screen, each with a different thing going on? It seems ridiculous
to us, but it wouldn't if we were used to it. It's like the
difference between...I don't know...a novel and a haiku.
For me, TXF has never been a show about investigating crimes or
chasing monsters--something I didn't realize about the show until
the ng made me think about it. I guess I see it more as if each
episode is another story about Mulder and Scully, just as one could
introduce a story as being about Arthur and Kai going forth from
Camelot again. Those stories followed some kind of continuity, but
not completely. There might be some stories that advanced the
characters, saying that Kai became so angry with Arthur he would
have nothing to do with him after that point,for example, but the
stories aren't about the cumulative experiences of the warriors
from week to week. There's not even a particular order to each
adventure.
That, I think, is the way I view M&S. There's an overall story
that develops (just as Camelot has a beginning, middle and
end), but each episode just starts for me with, "one day Mulder
came into office and told Scully, "there is a monster
doing this-and-that at such-and-such a place". They go off
to find it, each taking their own special powers (in the early
Celtic Arthurian tales they usually had special powers) and
their own special flaws and limits (I wish I could go so far
as to suggest they have geisa placed on them--a kind of
restriction that results in a sort of curse if broken, like
"you can't ever kill a wild boar", but that's a little
much.;). Each victory is just that--a victory. Both M&S
are trying to cross the border into the Otherworld on
different paths (since each person has their own path).
What keeps them back is their own lack of valor/courage.
They gain more valor and courage with each adventure--
that's the goal.
Anyway, this is why I just don't have any problem with a
MOTW following a Mytharc. I know there's an overall
threat of an invading army that will figure into the
End of M&S, but the MOTWs are preparing them for whatever
they will face in the Otherworld when it's over. The
end of Camelot might have come in the form of another
warrior (Mordred) but it didn't make the Quest for the
Grail or the various other adventures a digression.
I don't expect everyone to watch the show this way, obviously.
I didn't even realize I was doing it myself, but it's just the
way my mind works.
-m
dee...@primenet.com
I wrote:
>
> <<Oh, _God_, please don't go there. Please. If I never hear this "there aren't
> enough monsters out there for XF to work with anymore" crap again, I will be
> one _happy_ woman. Gee, not having enough monsters
> hasn't kept current writers like Thomas Ligotti or Poppy S. Brite or Kim Newman
> from coming up with ingenious, intelligent horror stories--hell, that hasn't
> kept non-genre "literary" authors like A. M. Homes or Iain
> Banks from coming up with some incredibly scary _non_-supernatural monsters.
> All it takes is imagination, talent, and knowing what scares one--or anyone.>>
>
> And enough time and concentration to put months of focused attention into the
> telling of the story. Quite the luxury in TV writing.
>
. . .as the system supposedly stands. And frankly, given that network TV
has continued to lose viewers overall this season because of the
resulting lame shows, and the companies who own studios/networks are
_not_ happy over stagnant stocks/bottom line in general, isn't it clear
that that system is no longer _working_? You mean to tell me that
people-with-power-and-major-cash-flow like Carter can't use some of that
to have more than a skeleton staff on tap and use the time having more
writers on board would give for writers to develop their stuff? Just as
well, why not open up the show to established/promising prose writers
and couple them with scripters if you worry they "can't handle the
format." It's not that these folks can't rejigger the system to put out
better work, it's that they don't _want_ to. Why? Because there's less
money to go around if you let "outside" people into the game. If you
hire a staff consisting of mostly people you know/friends; confine a
show's writing/production chores in-house; and have staffers doing
double-duty, that's more money for you all. As well, it saves you the
"trouble" of dealing with people who don't think like you--and of you
maybe having to develop the skill to bring out the best in their work
and the show.
> << The brutal fact of the matter is that XF doesn't have enough writers who
> have imagination to come up with good monsters, and the few (make that one--g!)
> that could aren't getting the time they'd need to do so.>>
>
> I can sit here and come up with dozens of new monsters. It's a hell of a lot
> harder to make them work in the X-Files milieu, or create a story in a period
> of four to six weeks that will work visually, within time constraints, within
> BS&P guidelines, within budget....
Well, it certainly doesn't help the situation to work with a limited
number of staffers, several of whom need help turning out even
reasonably workmanlike episodes. Nor does it make sense to have only one
real writer-with-chops in the house and stretch him thin trying to help
everyone else. Please. If Carter really wanted to or knew how to do XF
right, he could easily use his power to give writers time to do good
work that would work in an XF millieu. He doesn't; he can't, and the
results have been evident these past three years.
>
> Of course, I've personally thought there were some quite intelligent, textured
> MOTW episodes this season, so I don't even agree with your basic premise here.
> ;)
TREVOR, yep. The last half of FIELD TRIP, yep. The basic idea in
MILAGRO, yep. Beyond that, we're looking at one long stretch of
good-ideas-severely-hampered-by-weak-execution (TITHONUS; ARCADIA; TERMS
OF ENDEARMENT) or weak ideas that didn't get the execution they needed
(AGUA MALA; ALPHA.)
C.
**
Maggie Helwig
> TXF is virtually unprecedented in its combination of extravagant
> talent and inexplicable weakness. The show just nails all the
> "extras" (acting, directing, production values, music, themes,
> symbols, intriguing metafiction, relationships, characterization (most
> of the time)...), and screws up so flagrantly on the "basics" of
> narrative logic and continuity.
>
> So every fan has to ask, how basic are those "basics"? Is it
> literally like a foundation, and if you've got cracks there the entire
> edifice will crumble? Or can all the show's good qualities kind of
> float away and maintain themselves intact, even without that firm
> narrative grounding?
Well, I can quite happily float away on the "extras" actually -- that's
the kind of audience I am -- but I get very cranky when I feel that a
bad job is being done on any of these extras. When I've complained
lately (and I'm not a flat-out season six basher, just somewhat
discontented), it's because I feel like the characterization, themes,
symbols, metafiction have been badly handled -- and I do feel they have
been badly handled sometimes in the latter part of this season, though I
don't feel that it's past repair & season seven could yet draw me back
in. The extras to me are the whole point of the show & I have always
been more than willing to overlook narrative logic and continuity if I
feel like the parts that I care about are ticking along nicely.
This probably doesn't help the development of your theory much though.
maggie h
petit...@my-deja.com
bel...@ibm.net wrote:
> Loligo Opalescens wrote:
> >
> > Lee Burwasser <lee...@gateway.net> wrote:
> >
> > <various snips>
> > >I would amend this to: Very few scripts have measured up. The
> > >audiovisual production values are still very good. It's Story
> > I'm basically repeating something I posted a few weeks ago...<snip>
> > TXF is virtually unprecedented in its combination of extravagant
> > talent and inexplicable weakness. The show just nails all the
> > "extras" (acting, directing, production values, music, themes,
> > symbols, intriguing metafiction, relationships, characterization
> > of narrative logic and continuity.
> > So every fan has to ask, how basic are those "basics"? Is it
>
> I don't believe the basics are always so basic either, even in movies.
> It was really just randomly decided that movies should be filmed
> plays, following the same structure, when they could just as
> easily have been nothing like plays. Who says, for example, that
> a movie must be one shot at a time? Why not have two squares on
> screen, each with a different thing going on? It seems ridiculous
> to us, but it wouldn't if we were used to it. It's like the
> difference between...I don't know...a novel and a haiku.
Sure thing. There's more than one way to skin a cat. There's the
standard classical Hollywood approach to the development of narrative
logic and continuity. But that's not the only way to slice it and dice
it. Other's have done it differently, for instance -- the Russian
Constructivists, the French New Wavers, the Hong Kong martial artists.
> For me, TXF has never been a show about investigating crimes or
> chasing monsters--something I didn't realize about the show until
> the ng made me think about it. I guess I see it more as if each
> episode is another story about Mulder and Scully, just as one could
> introduce a story as being about Arthur and Kai going forth from
> Camelot again. Those stories followed some kind of continuity, but
> not completely. >>snip<< There's not even a particular order to each
> adventure.
>
> That, I think, is the way I view M&S. There's an overall story
> that develops (just as Camelot has a beginning, middle and
> end), but each episode just starts for me with, "one day Mulder
> came into office and told Scully, "there is a monster
> doing this-and-that at such-and-such a place". >>snip<<
> They gain more valor and courage with each adventure--
> that's the goal.
>>snip<<
> I don't expect everyone to watch the show this way, obviously.
> I didn't even realize I was doing it myself, but it's just the
> way my mind works.
>
> -m
What a great image -- M & S sallying forth like two knights of the round
table to slay dragons!
I've always thought of TXF's narrative form as a prism. Each episode
presents a single facet which refracts the underlying narrative form
through a different perspective. The facets fit together at the edges
because there are certain consistent elements (i.e. the characters &
underlying story premise} in every episode. Rather than creating a
straight line, each episode reconfigures the shape of the narrative.
TXF is always the same and never the same. It's not about progress.
It's about paradox.
And I've found this to be this interesting approach to storytelling,
especially for a tv show. But hey, one person's meat can be another's
poison.
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
Deborah A Tinsley
petit...@my-deja.com wrote in article <7jf2os$99t$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>...
snip>
> presents a single facet which refracts the underlying narrative form
> through a different perspective. The facets fit together at the edges
> because there are certain consistent elements (i.e. the characters &
> underlying story premise} in every episode. Rather than creating a
> straight line, each episode reconfigures the shape of the narrative.
> TXF is always the same and never the same. It's not about progress.
> It's about paradox.
What a wonderful way to describe it. I love you prismatic metaphor. You've
really captured the way I see TXF -- except I was unable to express it in
this elegant way. Another metaphor that could be applied would be a house
of mirrors or maybe it's like Futurism (early 20th Cent. Italian movement.
Futurist Manifesto, The City Rises, Boccioni, Carlo Carra, et al). The
painting and sculpture were all about movement which they did with a kind
of flickering faceting of the images.
Someone else was talking about the stasis of beauty. TXF is about movement,
but not only in time and space but "Through the Doors of Perception".
Finding truth is a journey and journeys require movement. DD and GA are
both very beautiful, but there are a lot of beautiful people in
entertainment and DD and GA are not exactly Baywatch material. It is their
journey that draws us in. Where have they been? Where are they going? How
will they get there? What is the goal of their journey? What will they
discover along the way?
It's the story of our lives regardless of what monster or mytharc they must
face in any given episode. I really think television is reaching its peak
in this cycle of it's lifetime. A show like X-Files has enlarged the way
the medium can be presented. Many shows only need their shiny surface and a
few subterranean threads to find their audience. I've always thought of TXF
as stratified, layers upon layers that fall away to draw us in. We become
prospectors searching likely spots for gold.
But maybe likening it to a prism is closer to the mark. I like the imagery
- sparkling light, pure colors, flashes of pure white, flickering over the
eye. A prism can be used to hypnotize, an image we've seen more than once
on the show. Maybe the flickering facets of TXF mesmerize us.
LOL-- well what can I say? I get carried away sometimes.
> And I've found this to be this interesting approach to storytelling,
> especially for a tv show. But hey, one person's meat can be another's
> poison.
I've started to think of it as Traditionalists vs. Progressive. Both view
have merit. It's the way they are balanced or unbalanced that give us
plenty to argue about.
Deborah
parrotfish
May 27th, and it seems to have posted to the NG more than a week later!
I figured no one was interested in the subject, but I guess I was wrong!
GravesPA2 wrote:
> Something else I noticed---nitpicky things that would have some folks howling
> this season never even get mentioned about first season episodes.
I'm sure that's true, Paula. But I think in general people nitpick more
when there aren't other, more compelling aspects to the story to
overwhelm their pickiness. Of course, some people will ALWAYS nitpick,
but there's not much you can do about that. I know that I can forgive
huge, gaping plot holes and gaps in reason when the story itself just
carries me away.
> Do I think Season Six was perfect? Hell, no. Many of the scripts, particularly
> those by newbie writers, were weak and unimaginative. However, I don't agree
> with the characterization of some episodes, such as "Triangle" and "Tithonus"
> as having "masked the ennui with some superficial but ultimately shallow
> vitality." I think I would need more episode-specific examples of this,
> because I didn't see it in either episode, and I truly have no idea what this
> particular criticism refers to.
I really can't be as specific as you'd probably like me to me because I
don't have time to rewatch either ep -- I didn't even see Tithonus when
it was rebroadcast last night. I doubt this explanation will be to your
satisfaction, but here goes anyway:
Triangle was truly stylish, in the best sense of the word -- it was a
truly interesting exercise in stylized narration. But it had the feeling
of an exercise, and I think that was because as an X-File it was rather
weak. It had more in common with a Star Trek time-travel or
alternate-universe ep than an XF ep. And I don't think it's overly
nitpicky to criticize Triangle for being a
"maybe-it-never-really-happened-at-all" outing, especially given the
number of those we had in season six.
In the case of Tithonus, I find myself unable to resist comparing the ep
to Clyde Bruckman, one of my all-time faves. I felt that CB dealt with
its death theme so intelligently, weaving deep philosophical issues into
the story with humor, intelligence and humanity. Tithonus felt to me
like it revisited the same or similar subject matter with a heavier hand
-- humorless, flat and a little baffling.
But I DO want to say that both of these eps were still quite good. The
trouble is, I believe they were in the top 10 percent of season six eps,
whereas in an earlier season they might have made only the top 50
percent.
Magpie wrote:
> Sometimes I feel like it's not so much a question of my not
> disliking things that I should, but that I don't dislike them
> enough.
I think Magpie has an excellent point here. Some people are just more
disposed to be harsh than others. If you really WANT to like something,
of course that helps you like it, and I don't think that's illegitimate
-- up to a point. One can only forgive so much.
Deborah wrote:
> I've started to think of it as Traditionalists vs. Progressive. Both view
> have merit. It's the way they are balanced or unbalanced that give us
> plenty to argue about.
I'm going to take issue with those terms: Traditionalist and
Progressive. Just to clarify, I'm assuming by "Traditionalist" you mean
those who apply more conventional literary standards in judging XF, and
by "Progressive" you mean those who believe XF creates and should be
judged by its own mileu.
The problem is that these labels carry with them other kinds of
implications. "Traditionalist" smacks of "old-fashioned, stodgy,
reactionary," etc. "Progressive" seems to imply "forward-thinking,
flexible, open-minded," etc.
Labels are always tough. It's like the ol' abortion debate. If you
accept the label, "Pro-life" to describe one side, then what does that
make the other side? Pro...?
(Oops. I really probably shouldn't have opened THAT can of worms...)
Parrotfish
petit...@my-deja.com
parrotfish <tam...@gateway.net> wrote:
> Unbelievable. I originally sent the message that began this thread on
> May 27th, and it seems to have posted to the NG more than a week
later!
> I figured no one was interested in the subject, but I guess I was
wrong!
Given that I was the one who got Deborah started off on this track, I'm
going to jump right in to the debate.
People have different tastes in art. For instance, I prefer paintings
with recognizable subject matter. Intellectually, I understand the
merits of abstract painting but it leaves me cold and I prefer art which
reaches for my heart as well as for my head. I'm not alone in
experiencing this difference in my reaction to "narrative" vs.
"abstract" painting. When a number of people profess the same
preferences they are generally clumped together & labeled. It's true, as
you point out, that "traditionalist" vs. "progressive" have many other
connotations. However, their aesthetic connotations differ from those
associated with the political references. You started out by offering
aesthetic definitions of these terms and then objected to their
political references which are much more loaded with derogatory
implications.
I would choose the terms "traditional" & "experimental" to engage in
aesthetic discussion. [If I wanted to get into a political debate I'd
probably pair "conservative" with "progressive."] There are many
"traditional" elements to TXF but there are also many "experimental"
elements. One area in which CC & co. have experimented is in the area
of narrative development & continuity. Well, I like to think that they
made a conscious choice to experiment with what is referred to as
classic Hollywood cinematic conventions. But, it's also perfectly
possible that they either just heedlessly disregarded the "traditional "
narrative approach or that they are unbelievably sloppy craftspeople.
If the production team has made has a conscious choice to push the
"traditional" narrative envelope, then part of the excitement in
watching TXF is seeing the development of a new approach. It may not
always work. It may make us uncomfortable. We don't have to like it,
we just have to go with it. And we can also have the added pleasure of
trying to understand and describe it. Our very own X-File! <VBG>
On the other hand, the production team might be a pack of incompetent
fools. TXF is suppose to be marching down the the straight & narrow
path of "traditional" linear development but no one has been paying
attention. In which case all those nitpics about "traditional"
development & continuity would be right on the money. Nobody's been
purposively trying to do anything new. It's all been a mistake. If so --
well, what a happy accident! I enjoy the narrative disjunctures. The
form seems to fit the content -- a disjointed journey for an allusive
truth.
--irene
resurre
Deborah A Tinsley <TINS...@prodigy.net> wrote:
>
> petit...@my-deja.com wrote in article
<7jf2os$99t$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>...
> snip>
> > I've always thought of TXF's narrative form as a prism. Each
episode
> > presents a single facet which refracts the underlying narrative form
> > It's about paradox.
>
>Maybe it's like Futurism (early 20th Cent. Italian
movement.
> Futurist Manifesto, The City Rises, Boccioni, Carlo Carra, et al). The
> painting and sculpture were all about movement which they did with a
kind
> of flickering faceting of the images.
Lovely thoughts all, and certainly true of the early days of the mytharc
<sigh> when every ep brought a new revelation and a new alteration to
our viewpoint without ever succumbing to the temptation to deliver a
master narrative (I'm thinking particularly of those moments in
Nisei/731 when we realise that it is humans who have been experimenting
on humans and the whole Mufon scene. But also you could say that Red
Museum did something similar in TV terms by making us think it was MOTW
and then revealing itself to be mytharc.)
I also loved the fact that they were so playful and smart about defying
audience expectations (which is a different thing to blatantly messing
with heads)
That's why I was disappointed with 2F1S - apart from characterisation
which just didn't ring true, it just seemed that they had traded all of
this ambiguity for a none too original sci-fi story.
> DD and GA are not exactly Baywatch material.
Well yes but they don't exactly have faces like a bag of
spanners either <g>
It is their
> journey that draws us in.
> I've always thought of TXF
> as stratified, layers upon layers that fall away to draw us in. We
become
> prospectors searching likely spots for gold.
<snip>
That's true and that's why I like the Arthurian idea too - the
quest as metaphor. On one level it's just a great story but if you so
desire you can find deeper meanings. The attraction for me is that the
heroes of XF are flawed but genuinely good. They repeatedly deny
their own desires to do what is right.
I'm enjoying S6 so far. It's good TV and I think it's an improvement on
S5 for much the same reasons as others have cited.
But I wish they would do "heartfelt" a bit more often - and I think
that's the real difference. It's as though some of the belief has gone
out of it. In the early days it felt as though they knew they were
making something interesting and unusual, Now they're just making a very
successful TV show. It feels more prosaic when it used to feel magical.
Or maybe I'm getting old.
I like XF when it's more about choices between right and wrong than
about M&S in jeopardy. It feels more like an adventure series than it
used to. (Wouldn't mind if they did a bit more "scary" too ;0))
One other thing. XF is like a palace
Chris Carter may have been the original architect.
The writers may have provided the wood, stone and glass.
GA, DD and the directors and cinematographers may have built it.
But you're the ones who decorated it, left graffiti on the walls, ran
screaming with laughter through the halls, had fights in the vestibule
with everyone watching – and in the case of many fanfic writers, held
orgies in the upstairs rooms.
Without y'all analysing, caring, investing it with meaning and arguing
like cat and dog over it, it's nothing.
It's 45 minutes of stylish dead air which fat cat execs use to sell
adverts.
We made this.
<bg>
K.
--
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
Cou
--
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
Couldn't be cool if I
lived in a fr
Maggie Helwig
> Deborah wrote:
> > I've started to think of it as Traditionalists vs. Progressive. Both view
> > have merit. It's the way they are balanced or unbalanced that give us
> > plenty to argue about.
>
> I'm going to take issue with those terms: Traditionalist and
> Progressive. Just to clarify, I'm assuming by "Traditionalist" you mean
> those who apply more conventional literary standards in judging XF, and
> by "Progressive" you mean those who believe XF creates and should be
> judged by its own mileu.
>
> The problem is that these labels carry with them other kinds of
> implications. "Traditionalist" smacks of "old-fashioned, stodgy,
> reactionary," etc. "Progressive" seems to imply "forward-thinking,
> flexible, open-minded," etc.
I suspect the division being posed here is actually modernists versus
post-modernists, which (I hope) is less value-laden terminology.
My problem is that as someone with heavily post-modern viewing/reading
tastes (though I am on the whole a modernist writer, I think), I have
real cavils with some parts of season six -- it's entirely possible
(though hardly mandatory) to take a po-mo approach & still see serious
problems (though as I said elsewhere, I don't consider the problems
irreparable). Whether it's possible to take a modernist approach and
still think things are going well, I don't know.
Unbound pointed out recently that 1013 really has been trying to turn
the mytharc into a more conventional linear narrative since The Red and
the Black. This is making some people quite happy, and is near the root
of my own discontent. That seems to undermine a simple
traditionalist/progressive or modernist/postmodernist dichotomy.
maggie h
Sonic lXl
fatal illness. Foregoing the traditional grieving process, I bought a new one,
and I must say I am quite happy to come back online and find such passionate
postings from the X Files analysts.
Regarding this thread and the bipolar views expressed within, I feel the need
to add my two cents. For what it's worth.
Unbound said:
>Season 6 took me on a wild ride that I thoroughly enjoyed.
Unbound also said many other things that I agree with, but this simple
statement pretty much sums up my sentiments.
Season 6 is one of my favorites - perhaps my very favorite - for I am at the
peak of frenzied XF fever. I practically worship the ground these writers and
actors walk upon, and have not been disappointed in the least this year.
They do a good job, you know. I have watched many, many (too many) shows in
the course of my life, and I have become fevered and frenzied only for a few of
them. The fever has always died, though. I used to watch E.R. faithfully, but
sometime after Susan Lewis left town, so did I. There were other favorite
shows: Cagney & Lacey, Cheers, Seinfeld, MASH, Hill St. Blues, LA Law. But I
seemed to run out of steam when they did, and quit watching them all before
they took their bows.
The XF is different for me. I have seen every episode at least once, and all
of the great ones more than twice. This year, there was not a single show that
failed to engage me. I will watch them all again. While the storylines of
Trevor, Alpha and T.o.E. didn't really appeal to me, the undercurrent and
character interaction certainly did. And the great shows this year were
absolutely brilliant. The Unnatural, Triangle, How the Ghosts Stole Christmas,
Tithonus, Milagro and Monday are all in my top ten of the series. Well, better
make that top 20; I have too many great ones to narrow it down.
I do have one complaint, however. I only have one more season to relish. My
Sunday evenings will never be the same without these people. Mulder and Scully
are legends to me. I wish I could shake their hands and tell them Thank You.
Sonic lXl
parrotfish
> People have different tastes in art. For instance, I prefer paintings
> with recognizable subject matter. Intellectually, I understand the
> merits of abstract painting but it leaves me cold and I prefer art which
> reaches for my heart as well as for my head. I'm not alone in
> experiencing this difference in my reaction to "narrative" vs.
> "abstract" painting. When a number of people profess the same
> preferences they are generally clumped together & labeled. It's true, as
> you point out, that "traditionalist" vs. "progressive" have many other
> connotations. However, their aesthetic connotations differ from those
> associated with the political references.
I agree. But because the connotations are there, albeit in a slightly
different context, I'm leery of accepting the labels.
(snip)
> If the production team has made has a conscious choice to push the
> "traditional" narrative envelope, then part of the excitement in
> watching TXF is seeing the development of a new approach.
I see your point, but I wouldn't go as far as you do with it. Even
assuming that XF is purposely attempting to subvert the traditional
linear narrative, that's not such a new, experimental thing to do.
Certainly, it's been around in literature for many decades, or even
ceturies if you count Sterne's "Tristram Shandy," which I most
definitely do. It's not at all new in film, either. It IS a somewhat
less-used device in television, but still, that ground has been ploughed
by McGoohan and Lynch in "The Prisoner" and "Twin Peaks."
(snip)
> On the other hand, the production team might be a pack of incompetent
> fools. TXF is suppose to be marching down the the straight & narrow
> path of "traditional" linear development but no one has been paying
> attention. In which case all those nitpics about "traditional"
> development & continuity would be right on the money. Nobody's been
> purposively trying to do anything new. It's all been a mistake.
Unfortunately, I do believe there's been an element of track-covering in
the way CC&co. tell their story. I think to some extent they meant to
tell a coherent story in a fairly traditional manner, and it got away
from them a bit, so they have to do a little tap dance to cover their
tracks. I mean, no one watching "The Prisoner" or "Twin Peaks" even
needs to ask whether the odd bits are odd on purpose. The fact that one
has to ask regarding XF is not a good sign.
I should clarify what I mean by the traditional storytelling in XF --
it's more in line with the mystery than any other genre, which is
inherently somewhat non-linear. After all, if you knew the solution to
the mystery halfway through the story, it wouldn't be much fun, so it's
quite common to head down the wrong path or drop misleading clues along
the way. Then, at the end, you have to go back and piece the story
together with all the proper information in place.
There IS often some wonderful intentional ambiguity in XF stories, and
sometimes it does truly break out of the really conventional
storytelling mode. But in order for the ambiguity to really work, it has
to leave you thinking about something really worth thinking about, like
what the character's motivation really is, or if it even matters whether
there's a rational explanation for something or not. Too often recently,
attempts at ambiguity have just left me thinking, "Huh?" or "Who cares?"
"The Ghosts Who Stole Christmas" would be a good example. I wound up
confused and annoyed, not involved and intrigued.
At any rate, I don't think experimental narrative form is what makes XF
great. I think what makes it extraordinary is the placement of
compelling and complex characters into a staggeringly hostile
environment that threatens to undermine the very foundation of human
understanding, and even existence.
Maggie h wrote:
> Unbound pointed out recently that 1013 really has been trying to turn
> the mytharc into a more conventional linear narrative since The Red and
> the Black. This is making some people quite happy, and is near the root
> of my own discontent. That seems to undermine a simple
> traditionalist/progressive or modernist/postmodernist dichotomy.
I agree regarding the linear turn the mytharc has taken (is "linear
turn" an oxymoron?). I think this reinforces the notion that one really
must question whether all the early ambiguity, in the mytharc at least,
was an attempt to subvert traditional storytelling, or more the
traditional way of telling a mystery story by withholding key bits of
information until later, when it will All Make Sense.
I'd be interested in hearing more about what folks see as the modernist
vs. postmodernist elements of XF.
Parrotfish
Magpie
I think you're right about this--I hadn't been able to put my
finger on it. I don't hate the mytharcs as many have come to,
but I did prefer those that were still kind of "blind men and
the elephant"--each one feeling a piece of the elephant and
guessing it was the wrong thing because they could never step
back and see the whole animal.
More and more the mytharc makes me think back to Twin Peaks and
the whole "Who killed Laura Palmer" idea. I was sure in the
beginning that the mystery was never supposed to be solved. It
was just something to hang over the whole series as a metaphor
and a symbol and a motivation and whatever else David Lynch needed
it for! But then people started clamoring for an answer as if
they ever really cared about this character they'd never met,
and they were disappointed with the outcome. Personally, I
was satisfied with the resolution of the quivering dwarf in the
red room!
>
> > DD and GA are not exactly Baywatch material.
>
> Well yes but they don't exactly have faces like a bag of
> spanners either <g>
Yeah, I hate people with faces like bags of of spanners.
What's a spanner?
(Just kidding--I know what a spanner is. I just wanted to say it.)
>
> It is their
> > journey that draws us in.
> > I've always thought of TXF
> > as stratified, layers upon layers that fall away to draw us in. We
> become
> > prospectors searching likely spots for gold.
> <snip>
>
> That's true and that's why I like the Arthurian idea too - the
> quest as metaphor. On one level it's just a great story but if you so
> desire you can find deeper meanings. The attraction for me is that the
> heroes of XF are flawed but genuinely good. They repeatedly deny
> their own desires to do what is right.
And I loved the prism metaphor--I tried to say something like
it once but couldn't. Each episode seems to ask us to imagine
a world where a certain monster exists--for that episode, that
is the only monster. If you think of them all existing at once,
it gets silly. And actually, the show would lose a lot of it
became too self-referential (and too trendy!). It's fine for
them to mention cases sometimes, but imagine how flip the show
would be if they were constantly joking about how many monsters
they'd met. "God, Scully. You're cranky today. Let me check
your neck for that worm thing from Ice!" It would be like watching
the Scream movies every week (and I hated sitting through one
of them once).
I think one of the things that really surprised critics about the
show was that it took a campy premise (The Night Stalker) and
took it very seriously--and we couldn't resist! Even the "lite"
episodes wear their heart on their sleeve. "I didn't spend all
those years playing Dungeons and Dragons and not learn a little
bit about courage."
>
> I'm enjoying S6 so far. It's good TV and I think it's an improvement on
> S5 for much the same reasons as others have cited.
>
> But I wish they would do "heartfelt" a bit more often - and I think
> that's the real difference. It's as though some of the belief has gone
> out of it.
Have you seen The Unnatural yet?;-)
In the early days it felt as though they knew they were
> making something interesting and unusual, Now they're just making a very
> successful TV show. It feels more prosaic when it used to feel magical.
>
> Or maybe I'm getting old.
>
> I like XF when it's more about choices between right and wrong than
> about M&S in jeopardy. It feels more like an adventure series than it
> used to. (Wouldn't mind if they did a bit more "scary" too ;0))
>
> One other thing. XF is like a palace
>
> Chris Carter may have been the original architect.
> The writers may have provided the wood, stone and glass.
> GA, DD and the directors and cinematographers may have built it.
> But you're the ones who decorated it, left graffiti on the walls, ran
> screaming with laughter through the halls, had fights in the vestibule
> with everyone watching – and in the case of many fanfic writers, held
> orgies in the upstairs rooms.
I'm keeping this paragraph forever!:D
>
> Without y'all analysing, caring, investing it with meaning and arguing
> like cat and dog over it, it's nothing.
>
> It's 45 minutes of stylish dead air which fat cat execs use to sell
> adverts.
>
> We made this.
We're the best!
-m
Deborah A Tinsley
parrotfish <tam...@gateway.net> wrote in article
<375BCBA6...@gateway.net>...
snip
> Deborah wrote:
> > I've started to think of it as Traditionalists vs. Progressive. Both
view
> > have merit. It's the way they are balanced or unbalanced that give us
> > plenty to argue about.
>
> I'm going to take issue with those terms: Traditionalist and
> Progressive. Just to clarify, I'm assuming by "Traditionalist" you mean
> those who apply more conventional literary standards in judging XF, and
> by "Progressive" you mean those who believe XF creates and should be
> judged by its own mileu.
>
> The problem is that these labels carry with them other kinds of
> implications. "Traditionalist" smacks of "old-fashioned, stodgy,
> reactionary," etc. "Progressive" seems to imply "forward-thinking,
> flexible, open-minded," etc.
snip
Well you are absolutely right Parrotfish. I just couldn't think of better
terms. Those are much too loaded. Anyone have any suggestions. I didn't
mean to be negative about traditionalist-- and that is the trouble with
labels. It generalizes.
By Traditionalist I meant folks who want X-Files to be more like it was for
the first four seasons. They are plot centered and liked the dark, foggy
ambience of Vancouver. Please add to this or change this definition. What
would be a better name? I guess we need more of a definition before we can
give it a label -- or maybe it doesn't need a label.
I'm trying to analyze the main split, or a dominant or prevalent split.
The Progressives, and again you are right--terrible label, are folks who
have rather liked the evolution of TXF from S1 through S6. We are less
interested in plot than in characters. We love character development. Not
only are we less bothered by the inconsistencies, some of us (me) thinks
it's the very nature of 1013 vulnerability that gives TXF some of it's
magic.
Separate from this division are those who love to seine for meaning,
discover layer, revel in the faceting of the saga. We love making those
wonderful connections to larger issues. We think (again I'm part of this
group) TXF is as much about late twentieth century sociology and
psychology.
The other group thinks we are full of manure, piles and piles of manure.
I'd love to hear what y'all have to say about this. I'd love to refine and
deepen this little outline.
Deborah
Deborah A Tinsley
<7jhijf$46m$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>...
snip
> Chris Carter may have been the original architect.
> The writers may have provided the wood, stone and glass.
> GA, DD and the directors and cinematographers may have built it.
> But you're the ones who decorated it, left graffiti on the walls, ran
> screaming with laughter through the halls, had fights in the vestibule
> with everyone watching – and in the case of many fanfic writers, held
> orgies in the upstairs rooms.
>
> like cat and dog over it, it's nothing.
>
> It's 45 minutes of stylish dead air which fat cat execs use to sell
> adverts.
>
> We made this.
>
>
> K.
Well, even after my contention that CC doesn't owe us a thing, I think you
are very, very right in what you say. I really enjoyed the X-Files before
joining the ng's, but ATXFA especially has sharpened my focus, expanded
what I see, opened me up to a lot of possibilities. It has given a great TV
show a bigger portion of my time, my life.
I wonder if TXF had stayed a cult hit, struggled every year to be renewed
but somehow made it, how different things would have been? I'm sure it
would have changed the stories in some way. Would CC be threshing around
looking for just the right mix, giving up on subtlety and going for more
car chases and fiery crashes (not that we don't have our share)? I imagine
M&S would be much more involved by now to lure the audience. There would
have been no movie. I have no idea what would have happened with the
mytharc, but it might have been tighter, threads resolved earlier.
Deborah
Deborah A Tinsley
> petit...@my-deja.com wrote:
snip
> > If the production team has made has a conscious choice to push the
> > "traditional" narrative envelope, then part of the excitement in
> > watching TXF is seeing the development of a new approach.
>
> I see your point, but I wouldn't go as far as you do with it. Even
> assuming that XF is purposely attempting to subvert the traditional
> linear narrative, that's not such a new, experimental thing to do.
snip
It IS a somewhat
> less-used device in television, but still, that ground has been ploughed
> by McGoohan and Lynch in "The Prisoner" and "Twin Peaks."
And yet TXF is like neither. It comes closest to "Twin Peaks", but TP was
"mytharc" every week. And just because it has been tried before doesn't
mean every aspect has been explored. TXF is very different format TP or The
Prisoner (another TP--odd coincidence) in mere construction alone and story
alone. It also has a very different visual style.
snip
> Unfortunately, I do believe there's been an element of track-covering in
> the way CC&co. tell their story. I think to some extent they meant to
> tell a coherent story in a fairly traditional manner, and it got away
> from them a bit, so they have to do a little tap dance to cover their
> tracks. I mean, no one watching "The Prisoner" or "Twin Peaks" even
> needs to ask whether the odd bits are odd on purpose. The fact that one
> has to ask regarding XF is not a good sign.
And neither TP lasted 6 years by any means. How many eps of The Prisoner
were there? And Twin Peaks started falling apart in the second year.
Neither could have made it through 6 years. TXF has had more elbow room to
experiment and have taken greater license with the original material.
That's something neither of the TPs did. Once they were set, that was it.
Twin Peaks may have suffered from the decision not to make some changes in
the story line and the way it was presented. Instead it dissolved into
meaningless obsfucation so no one ever could ever find the meaning. That
last ep with the dwarf and the giant was a sign that the writers had just
given up.
snip
> There IS often some wonderful intentional ambiguity in XF stories, and
> sometimes it does truly break out of the really conventional
> storytelling mode. But in order for the ambiguity to really work, it has
> to leave you thinking about something really worth thinking about, like
> what the character's motivation really is, or if it even matters whether
> there's a rational explanation for something or not. Too often recently,
> attempts at ambiguity have just left me thinking, "Huh?" or "Who cares?"
> "The Ghosts Who Stole Christmas" would be a good example. I wound up
> confused and annoyed, not involved and intrigued.
But some of us didn't. Some of us found a lot to think about. HTGSC was a
wonderful exploration of the characters, how they really feel, how their
partnership works and its vulnerabilities-- and finally how they overcame
them. The end was a reaffirmation of their commitment to one another.
Maybe it didn't make you think about what you wanted to think about? I
don't know. But I loved going through all the layers of this ghost story.
> At any rate, I don't think experimental narrative form is what makes XF
> great. I think what makes it extraordinary is the placement of
> compelling and complex characters into a staggeringly hostile
> environment that threatens to undermine the very foundation of human
> understanding, and even existence.
I don't think you can isolate it from the whole. It's a part, an element of
TXF, and underlying element. It may not be the one single thing, but it is
an important part of the whole.
snip
> I'd be interested in hearing more about what folks see as the modernist
> vs. postmodernist elements of XF.
>
> Parrotfish
We did discuss this before and got into some quite lengthy and contentious
debates.
Deborah
esme...@my-deja.com
petit...@my-deja.com wrote:
>
> I would choose the terms "traditional" & "experimental" to engage in
> aesthetic discussion. [If I wanted to get into a political debate I'd
> probably pair "conservative" with "progressive."] There are many
> "traditional" elements to TXF but there are also many "experimental"
> elements. One area in which CC & co. have experimented is in the area
> of narrative development & continuity.
You think that CC is something like TV Tarantino?
> Well, I like to think that
> they
> made a conscious choice to experiment with what is referred to as
> classic Hollywood cinematic conventions.
In that case it has to be very well disguised experiment.
> But, it's also perfectly
> possible that they either just heedlessly disregarded the
> "traditional" narrative approach
OK, but what for?
> or that they are unbelievably sloppy craftspeople.
Close!!!
> If the production team has made has a conscious choice to push the
> "traditional" narrative envelope, then part of the excitement in
> watching TXF is seeing the development of a new approach.
Actually what one? To tell the story 100x differently? In some respect,
this was done better in the movie Rashomon Gate made after Akutagawa's
stories. I mean the one named "It happened in the bushes" or maybe it is
different title in English. The story about the husband, wife and the
robber told three times from their respective POV.
> It may not
> always work. It may make us uncomfortable. We don't have to like it,
> we just have to go with it.
Still we can stop watching it.
> And we can also have the added pleasure
> of trying to understand and describe it. Our very own X-File!
I still do not understand what I should try to understand. The
traditionalist painting saus something to my head and feelings. The
abstract ones (at least some of them) affect my feelings. But what
component of my brain processes should address this lousy writing?
> TXF is suppose to be marching down the the straight & narrow
> path of "traditional" linear development but no one has been paying
> attention. In which case all those nitpics about "traditional"
> development & continuity would be right on the money. Nobody's been
> purposively trying to do anything new. It's all been a mistake.
I would vote for this. The writers were too satisfied with their success
so that they think the audience will swallow anything. Oh well, what the
hell, only one season to go....
> The
> form seems to fit the content -- a disjointed journey for an allusive
> truth.
Maybe you have different psychics. For me is exactly this disjointed
walking in the circles unacceptable and unpleasant. After 6 years we got
to nothing. If I imagine that 6 years of my real life would be so
purposeless like M&S's I would seriously think about suicide.
Esme
Deborah A Tinsley
esme...@my-deja.com wrote in article <7jjcks$no9$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>...snip
> > Well, I like to think that they
> > made a conscious choice to experiment with what is referred to as
> > classic Hollywood cinematic conventions.
>
> In that case it has to be very well disguised experiment.
Some of us see this very clearly that CC and Co. are stretching the medium
of TV.
> > But, it's also perfectly possible that they either just heedlessly
disregarded the
> > "traditional" narrative approach
>
> OK, but what for?
To experiment with the form. Why should it necessarily follow traditional
narrative guidelines. By not doing so they've created an intriguing program
that has kept a lot of us absolutely hooked for six years.
> > or that they are unbelievably sloppy craftspeople.
> Close!!!
Low blow.
> > If the production team has made has a conscious choice to push the
> > "traditional" narrative envelope, then part of the excitement in
> > watching TXF is seeing the development of a new approach.
> Actually what one? To tell the story 100x differently?
No. To tell a story on different levels. To comment on the times we live
in. To make us aware through a non-traditional expressionism of what we
feel, care about and think. I know very few show that stir up the
conversation, debate and controversy of TXF.
In some respect,
> this was done better in the movie Rashomon Gate made after Akutagawa's
> stories. I mean the one named "It happened in the bushes" or maybe it is
> different title in English. The story about the husband, wife and the
> robber told three times from their respective POV.
A few eps have used this Gates of Rashomon (most notably Bad Blood), but
that's just one style, not the general nature of the show.
> > It may not always work. It may make us uncomfortable. We don't have
to like it,
> > we just have to go with it.
> Still we can stop watching it.
Exactly! No one is forced to watch. You have a choice to buy what they are
selling or not. I watch it because I love it.
> > And we can also have the added pleasure
> > of trying to understand and describe it. Our very own X-File!
> I still do not understand what I should try to understand.
That's fine. No one is saying "you should", but a lot of us like analyzing
it, looking for hidden meanings, the secrets that lie beneath the surface.
There aren't a lot of TV shows one can do that with. They're too shallow,
too much all on the surface. It's part of the joy of X-files for many of us
that there is so much depth to each ep.
The
> traditionalist painting saus something to my head and feelings. The
> abstract ones (at least some of them) affect my feelings. But what
> component of my brain processes should address this lousy writing?
Are you saying all X-Files suffer from lousy writing? Surely you don't hate
all of it or you wouldn't be here. I don't think there's that much lousy
writing on X-Files. I think TXF can't be everything to everyone.
> > TXF is suppose to be marching down the the straight & narrow
> > path of "traditional" linear development but no one has been paying
> > attention. In which case all those nitpics about "traditional"
> > development & continuity would be right on the money. Nobody's been
> > purposively trying to do anything new. It's all been a mistake.
> I would vote for this. The writers were too satisfied with their success
> so that they think the audience will swallow anything. Oh well, what the
> hell, only one season to go....
You make it sound like you are being forced to watch it. "only one season
to go"???? I don't get where you're coming from. Is it so punishing? I
loved S6 and am eagerly awaiting S7. Lucky me.
> > The
> > form seems to fit the content -- a disjointed journey for an allusive
> > truth.
>
> Maybe you have different psychics. For me is exactly this disjointed
> walking in the circles unacceptable and unpleasant. After 6 years we got
> to nothing. If I imagine that 6 years of my real life would be so
> purposeless like M&S's I would seriously think about suicide.
>
> Esme
And yet some us loved what we've seen and even if all the questions aren't
answered (and I am 100% sure they will not be answered), then it's like
life where many intriguing questions are never answered. If this makes you
suicidal, seek help. I hope you were kidding. You were kidding weren't you?
Magpie
>
> esme...@my-deja.com wrote in article <7jjcks$no9$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>...
> > In article <7jhaho$17h$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
> > petit...@my-deja.com wrote:
> snip
> > > TXF is suppose to be marching down the the straight & narrow
> > > path of "traditional" linear development but no one has been paying
> > > attention. In which case all those nitpics about "traditional"
> > > development & continuity would be right on the money. Nobody's been
> > > purposively trying to do anything new. It's all been a mistake.
>
> > I would vote for this. The writers were too satisfied with their success
> > so that they think the audience will swallow anything. Oh well, what the
> > hell, only one season to go....
>
> You make it sound like you are being forced to watch it. "only one season
> to go"???? I don't get where you're coming from. Is it so punishing? I
> loved S6 and am eagerly awaiting S7. Lucky me.
Maybe I'm hopelessly naive, but why would you want to
assume the absolute worst about people you don't know?
I'm the first to admit that I willingly give 1013 the
benefit of the doubt, but I'm aware that I'm doing that--I
have no idea what's really going on in their heads. Deciding
that they've gotten too satisfied and think we're all idiots
is taking a lot of creative license, I think. These guys
must *enjoy* writing for TV, otherwise they wouldn't be doing
it. So why would I assume I am more committed to writing
for TV than they are? And if I really thought I was getting
jerked around...why would I watch the show?
I felt like Northern Exposure got off track in its later years.
I often felt manipulated in a bad way (we're always being
manipulated, after all)--it wasn't working for me. Sometimes
I'd find other people who felt the same way and we'd rant,
but I basically just stopped watching it. I didn't miss all
that many episodes--mostly the ones without Joel. I admit
I did feel like the writers had bad feelings toward Rob
Morrow that was reflected in their writing, but I never
convinced myself that this was really true. It's just the
way it seemed to me, so I didn't watch it.
> > > The
> > > form seems to fit the content -- a disjointed journey for an allusive
> > > truth.
> >
> > Maybe you have different psychics. For me is exactly this disjointed
> > walking in the circles unacceptable and unpleasant. After 6 years we got
> > to nothing. If I imagine that 6 years of my real life would be so
> > purposeless like M&S's I would seriously think about suicide.
> And yet some us loved what we've seen and even if all the questions aren't
> answered (and I am 100% sure they will not be answered), then it's like
> life where many intriguing questions are never answered. If this makes you
> suicidal, seek help. I hope you were kidding. You were kidding weren't you?
Well, Mulder's already seriously thought about suicide, so
maybe the writers are on track! ;-)
-m
Deborah A Tinsley
Magpie <bel...@ibm.net> wrote in article <375DC2...@ibm.net>...
> Maybe I'm hopelessly naive, but why would you want to
> assume the absolute worst about people you don't know?
I think I'm in your boat Magpie. I'm not naturally suspicious and I do get
fooled.
> I'm the first to admit that I willingly give 1013 the
> benefit of the doubt, but I'm aware that I'm doing that--I
> have no idea what's really going on in their heads.
And I don't need to know exactly what's going on in their heads. They may
be the biggest bunch of self-serving, pusillanimous, cynics on the face of
the earth, and yet the show they produce is wonderful, and sometimes full
of wonder. I can't help thinking of The Unnatural. What a genuinely loving
look not just at baseball but the best of what it means to be human. And
Field Trip! It's the connection, the commitment, the love in the
relationship that finally releases them from the illusions.
Deciding
> that they've gotten too satisfied and think we're all idiots
> is taking a lot of creative license, I think. These guys
> must *enjoy* writing for TV, otherwise they wouldn't be doing
> it. So why would I assume I am more committed to writing
> for TV than they are? And if I really thought I was getting
> jerked around...why would I watch the show?
Egg-zactly! It's our responsibility to choose. I don't expect any show to
change to suit me. It's too bad when a show goes bad, but I don't take it
personally. There are a lot things that go into a show's success. If it
starts going wrong, there are a zillion reasons it could be so and to
assume that it's disrespect or hubris is a big leap.
> I felt like Northern Exposure got off track in its later years.
> I often felt manipulated in a bad way (we're always being
> manipulated, after all)--it wasn't working for me. Sometimes
> I'd find other people who felt the same way and we'd rant,
> but I basically just stopped watching it. I didn't miss all
> that many episodes--mostly the ones without Joel. I admit
> I did feel like the writers had bad feelings toward Rob
> Morrow that was reflected in their writing, but I never
> convinced myself that this was really true. It's just the
> way it seemed to me, so I didn't watch it.
And I'm sure you didn't think they were doing it on purpose. The fact that
a show succeeds at all, and especially if it's one of those shows that hold
deep meaning for a good percentage of the fan base, is incredible. If it
were a formula, there'd be dozens of great shows every year. I thanked my
lucky stars for all those great NE eps (I actually thought the show started
to find it's legs again but by that time the network had decided to let it
die). I don't feel betrayed. We all love a good thing and hate to see it
end--but as Iris Dement sang in the last episode of NE: "It seems like
nothing good ever lasts". Well yeah, to everything there is a season aye.
Deborah
parrotfish
>
> parrotfish <tam...@gateway.net> wrote
> > less-used device in television, but still, that ground has been ploughed
> > by McGoohan and Lynch in "The Prisoner" and "Twin Peaks."
>
> And yet TXF is like neither. It comes closest to "Twin Peaks", but TP was
> "mytharc" every week. And just because it has been tried before doesn't
> mean every aspect has been explored. TXF is very different format TP or The
> Prisoner (another TP--odd coincidence) in mere construction alone and story
> alone. It also has a very different visual style.
True: just because it's been done before doesn't mean there's nothing
new to try. But I just don't see XF making any significantly new
contribution in this area. In what way is there any really significant
experimentation with narrative form? I can think of a few individual eps
that have done some of that (like Jose Chung, for example), and others
that made an effort to mess with narrative form but didn't do anything
new with it (like...damn...what was the name of the "Groundhog Day"
ep?). But the vast majority of eps seem to be fairly straightforward
mysteries with bits and pieces left unresolved at the end.
> And neither TP lasted 6 years by any means. How many eps of The Prisoner
> were there? And Twin Peaks started falling apart in the second year.
> Neither could have made it through 6 years.
The Prisoner was created as a limited run series -- it was never
intended to go beyond the ... ummm, I forget how many eps there are, but
that's how many were planned from the start. (A feat of self-control I
respect enormously in McGoohan. Very few others have achieved it. John
Cleese comes to mind with the limited run of Fawlty Towers. But now I
really digress.)
And don't even get me started on Lynch and Twin Peaks. I give him and
the series lots of credit for doing some groundbreaking stuff... but my
respect for both him and the series is quite limited.
> But some of us didn't. Some of us found a lot to think about. HTGSC was a
> wonderful exploration of the characters, how they really feel, how their
> partnership works and its vulnerabilities-- and finally how they overcame
> them. The end was a reaffirmation of their commitment to one another.
> Maybe it didn't make you think about what you wanted to think about? I
> don't know. But I loved going through all the layers of this ghost story.
Boy, do I disagree! I thought How the Ghost etc. boiled the M-S rel'p
down to some tired cliches wrapped in a loosely constructed parody of a
ghost story, the humor of which fell flat at nearly every turn. When
combined with the irritatingly distracting presence of celebrity guest
stars, I found the whole thing awfully annoying. So, yeah, it didn't
make me think about what I wanted to think about -- like something
really new and interesting!
> > At any rate, I don't think experimental narrative form is what makes XF
> > great. I think what makes it extraordinary is the placement of
> > compelling and complex characters into a staggeringly hostile
> > environment that threatens to undermine the very foundation of human
> > understanding, and even existence.
>
> I don't think you can isolate it from the whole. It's a part, an element of
> TXF, and underlying element. It may not be the one single thing, but it is
> an important part of the whole.
You're certainly right. You can't isolate one aspect of the series from
the whole. But you can point to certain elements as being especially
brilliant, original and well-executed -- the things that set this whole
head and shoulders above all the other cruddy wholes on TV.
> We did discuss this before and got into some quite lengthy and contentious
> debates.
Oops. Sorry. Didn't mean to rehash some thoroughly hashed topics. Forget
I asked. <g>
Parrotfish
Magpie
> > that they've gotten too satisfied and think we're all idiots
> > is taking a lot of creative license, I think. These guys
> > must *enjoy* writing for TV, otherwise they wouldn't be doing
> > it. So why would I assume I am more committed to writing
> > for TV than they are? And if I really thought I was getting
> > jerked around...why would I watch the show?
>
> Egg-zactly! It's our responsibility to choose. I don't expect any show to
> change to suit me. It's too bad when a show goes bad, but I don't take it
> personally. There are a lot things that go into a show's success. If it
> starts going wrong, there are a zillion reasons it could be so and to
> assume that it's disrespect or hubris is a big leap.
I guess I want my work to be admired so much I can't imagine
anyone else putting stuff they know is crap out there for us
all to see!
> > I felt like Northern Exposure got off track in its later years.
> > I often felt manipulated in a bad way (we're always being
> > manipulated, after all)--it wasn't working for me. Sometimes
> > I'd find other people who felt the same way and we'd rant,
> > but I basically just stopped watching it. I didn't miss all
> > that many episodes--mostly the ones without Joel. I admit
> > I did feel like the writers had bad feelings toward Rob
> > Morrow that was reflected in their writing, but I never
> > convinced myself that this was really true. It's just the
> > way it seemed to me, so I didn't watch it.
>
> And I'm sure you didn't think they were doing it on purpose. The fact that
> a show succeeds at all, and especially if it's one of those shows that hold
> deep meaning for a good percentage of the fan base, is incredible. If it
> were a formula, there'd be dozens of great shows every year. I thanked my
> lucky stars for all those great NE eps (I actually thought the show started
> to find it's legs again but by that time the network had decided to let it
> die). I don't feel betrayed. We all love a good thing and hate to see it
> end--but as Iris Dement sang in the last episode of NE: "It seems like
> nothing good ever lasts". Well yeah, to everything there is a season aye.
Oh yes--I never thought they were doing it on purpose. I
actually remember thinking that they were very excited about
what they were doing. Since it was cancelled, I've watched
a lot of them on A&E. I no longer had the same emotions
attached to it--I wasn't watching it each week hoping it
was going to be something it wasn't. So I could just enjoy
it--and I even discovered some episodes that I had missed
because I wasn't paying attention, like the one with
Anastasia! I still always list it as one of my favorite
shows of all time.
Now when I think back on it, I just feel sad, the way I will
feel when TXF is over. And if I ever get @#$%$@!! F/X I
will watch TXF there and get excited all over again, "Oh
yay! They're showing *this* episode!"
It's funny, because the one thing that I have no tolerance for
anymore is movies/tv that I don't feel is putting itself out
there for me, showing me what TPTB think is important. The
Unnatural obviously did that, but there are other episodes
of TXF that make me feel that way: PMP, Paper Hearts, Clyde
Bruckman come to mind. (My fave NEs would be Cicely, Pierre,
the one where Joel goes hunting, Northern Lights, the one
where the ice breaks, the one where Chris loses his voice--uh-oh,
to many to count!)
In the darker eps a mystery that keeps me guessing just isn't
a top priority. Every once in a while someone will give me
a classic mystery to get me to like mysteries. I appreciate
how well some are written, and enjoy plenty of things in them,
but I just don't get why anyone would like to read a lot of them.
-m
esme...@my-deja.com
story with X-files is quite short: I was not interested from the
beginning. I got hooked two years ago on Tunguska/Terma(I'm more or less
action fan) and went quickly through all the conspiracy videos until
PatientX/TRATB. The mytharc seemed interesting to me but having seen it
in such a concentrated way, the logical flaws vere very obvious. I
started to watch the show and/or read the transcripts on a regular
basis. However, after initial interest, I gradually get disappointed.
After that concentrated mytharc I was expecting some revelations,
solutions to the old problems...Instead of it I got the loose ends,
minimizing the role of the side characters, treading in a circle...
> And if I really thought I was getting
> jerked around...why would I watch the show?
To be honest, the only thing that holds me now is Krycek's fate, but the
current approach of CC and Co. will surely remove that last link. I
liked him as 70% bad guy, but the percentage shift to 100 does not work
for me. No more interesting, but I suppose this is intently done, to
remove any concurrence to Great Mulder Character.
> > And yet some us loved what we've seen and even if all the questions
> > aren't answered (and I am 100% sure they will not be answered), then
> > it's like life where many intriguing questions are never answered.
My profession as a scientist is to seek for answers. I did that for all
my life. Sometimes I did not get the ones I wanted, sometimes I did not
like the ones I get. But still I am getting somewhere, little step by
little step, overcoming the difficulties and making my little notes.
Maybe I expected the same pattern in the X-files. Crime and X-file
investigation method is not that different from scientific
investigation. I probably wanted to identify with the show, but found
too late that it is operating on different principles than my thinking.
> > If this makes you
> > suicidal, seek help. I hope you were kidding. You were kidding
> > weren't you?
Actually, no. If my work would left me with so many pursuits in vain, so
many unanswered questions, I would quit either the work or my life. It
is that simple.
> Well, Mulder's already seriously thought about suicide, so
> maybe the writers are on track! ;-)
For me too late.
esme...@my-deja.com
Deborah A Tinsley
> new to try. But I just don't see XF making any significantly new
> contribution in this area. In what way is there any really significant
> experimentation with narrative form? I can think of a few individual eps
> that have done some of that (like Jose Chung, for example), and others
> that made an effort to mess with narrative form but didn't do anything
> new with it (like...damn...what was the name of the "Groundhog Day"
> ep?). But the vast majority of eps seem to be fairly straightforward
> mysteries with bits and pieces left unresolved at the end.
Specifically I would cite Milagro with it's meta text--it was about 1013's
relationship with the characters as much as it was a story about a writer
who killed with his typewriter. There are many individual shows that I find
stretch the frame of what we expect from TV. Maybe that's closer to what
I'm referring to.
I'm making the case that TV is an artform unlike literature or films, and
what 1013 has done is stretch the medium of television. It's not so much
that they are expanding the narrative (which is literary) but that they are
expanding the boundaries for television, changing what we expect from the
medium. They do this constantly - most prominently in the very ambiguity
folks complain so much about. Except for Twin Peaks (which only lasted 3
years), I don't know any television show that has refused to neatly tie up
mysteries or has so willingly led it's viewers with the lies and layers of
meaning we've seen in TXF. That alone changes how the viewer related to the
show.
snip
> > But some of us didn't. Some of us found a lot to think about. HTGSC was
a
> > wonderful exploration of the characters, how they really feel, how
their
> > partnership works and its vulnerabilities-- and finally how they
overcame
> > them. The end was a reaffirmation of their commitment to one another.
> > Maybe it didn't make you think about what you wanted to think about? I
> > don't know. But I loved going through all the layers of this ghost
story.
> Boy, do I disagree! I thought How the Ghost etc. boiled the M-S rel'p
> down to some tired cliches wrapped in a loosely constructed parody of a
> ghost story, the humor of which fell flat at nearly every turn. When
> combined with the irritatingly distracting presence of celebrity guest
> stars, I found the whole thing awfully annoying. So, yeah, it didn't
> make me think about what I wanted to think about -- like something
> really new and interesting!
Well I won't argue this. We definitely disagree. His is part of that split
in viewership I was talking about before. We saw entirely different things
in this ep. I was delighted with all the mirroring, now you see it now you
don't, what is real what is not shenanigans. I found it very amusing and
touching and felt it gave us a little insight as to how the relationship is
viewed by 1013, but I understand many folks did not enjoy it.
snip
> > We did discuss this before and got into some quite lengthy and
contentious
> > debates.
>
> Oops. Sorry. Didn't mean to rehash some thoroughly hashed topics. Forget
> I asked. <g>
>
> Parrotfish
I didn't mean to discourage this topic. I just felt that I've been down
that road recently with a few others on this ng. Others may be ready to
engage again.
esme...@my-deja.com
umfr...@cc.UManitoba.CA (Konrad Douglas Frye) wrote:
> In <375a94f1...@netnews.worldnet.att.net> fea...@worldnet.att.net
> (Loligo Opalescens) writes:
>
> >entire edifice will crumble?
>
> examination by the creative folks at 1013. Lets face it, if they had
> the desire they could probably solve 95% of their continuity problems
> for free. My only conclusion after six seasons of watching the show is
> that they don't really want to. That dismays me.
I see there we have something in common (at least when not discussing
Krycek :-) ). I just cannot buy these overcomplicated postmodern
explanations about the true meaning of the X-files. It is not an
experimental roman, it is simply the fiction show that should make
money. Maybe after some 10-15 years people will write their PhD theses
about that weird phenomenon of show that became religion.
> >Or can all the show's good qualities kind of
> >float away and maintain themselves intact, even without that firm
> >narrative grounding? Clearly, there are fans holding firmly to each
> >of these positions, and I don't think that either side will ever
> >convince the other. People who think the show is going downhill
> >don't see how those who like it can possibly ignore the severity of
> >the flaws, and those who still love the show don't understand why the
> >others aren't swayed by the greatness of the show's unique
> >accomplishments.
Actually what accomplishments exactly these should be? X-files to my
opinion got darkness as their visual trademark and messed up mytharc as
their gospel. The interesting faces of GA and DD made up the rest. The
darkness seems to be contagious as it spreaded into the Millenium -
sometimes I was not sure which of the shows I am watching before FB or
M&S appeared.
> Mark Snow's score has little to do with narrative
> continuity for example. The same is true for most of the other
> audio/visual aspects of the show.
I think one of the esteemed members of the ng informed me once that the
whole oil thing in Piper Maru was made around the CC's vision of
somebody banging the glass in the sunken WWII aircraft. After that I
stopped to wonder about the causes of the logical flaws but it did not
lessen my dismay about it.
> In the end there's essentially only one question to ask and that's
> whether the problems 1013 makes can be avoided. I believe that
> problems made at the script level certainly can.
In some respect it is easier with the shows where each ep is closed
story. Then it needs only to remember who's who. But I am afraid that
X-file writers failed even in these uncreative details. I just read one
mytharc compilation on the web - the author was very careful and put a
lot of effort to cover all details, but precisely this outline shows how
overcomplicated and incredible the story is.
Also for my taste there was too much of pseudopsychology and
pseudoscience. I liked the ep "Never Again" mainly because the guest
appearance of Rodney Rowland, but the whole ergot thing was ridiculous
(OK, I spent with ergot 20 years of my professional life) and it would
not be problem to look up how this hallucinogen really functions and how
it could be used in that tattoo motif. The molecular genetics babbles
about virus and the way Scully made the hybridization in Redux....all
this could be written correctly w/o losing the dramatical effect.
I think I am getting emotional about it because I had some expectations
that were not fulfilled by the further development of the show and
probably never will.
Esme
>
> -----
> Konrad Frye (umfr...@ccu.umanitoba.ca)
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> "Or what? You'll release the dogs? Or the bees? Or the dogs with the
> bees in their mouths and when they bark they shoot bees at you?"
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
petit...@my-deja.com
esme...@my-deja.com wrote:
> It's really moving to read your pro X-file happy and loving duo. Ok.
my
> story with X-files is quite short: I was not interested from the
> beginning. I got hooked two years ago on Tunguska/Terma(I'm more or
less
> action fan) and went quickly through all the conspiracy videos until
> PatientX/TRATB. The mytharc seemed interesting to me but having seen
it
> in such a concentrated way, the logical flaws vere very obvious. I
> started to watch the show and/or read the transcripts on a regular
> basis. However, after initial interest, I gradually get disappointed.
> After that concentrated mytharc I was expecting some revelations,
> solutions to the old problems...Instead of it I got the loose ends,
> minimizing the role of the side characters, treading in a circle...
> My profession as a scientist is to seek for answers. I did that for
all
> my life. Sometimes I did not get the ones I wanted, sometimes I did
not
> like the ones I get. But still I am getting somewhere, little step by
> little step, overcoming the difficulties and making my little notes.
> Maybe I expected the same pattern in the X-files. Crime and X-file
> investigation method is not that different from scientific
> investigation. I probably wanted to identify with the show, but found
> too late that it is operating on different principles than my
thinking.
This is a very clear and concise rendering of your aesthetic
expectations. From what you say it's no surprise that TXF has
proved a disappointment to you. You are completely entitled to your
aesthetic preferences. They're different from mine, but what the hey.
Art is like a gigantic cocktail party with an enormous smorgasbord. So
when you don't care for a particular conversation or dish you just move
on & try something else. It's not polite to force someone to eat
something they dislike. Neither is it courteous to make faces because
someone likes what you don't. However, it is also perfectly possible
for people with opposing views to have a respectful conversation with
each other. Sometimes it's even possible to change another person's
point of view. For example, I'm basically allergic to the half-hour
sitcom format, but some friends convinced me to 'try out' Sports Night.
Lo & behold, I love it!
For the record, I seriously doubt that the 1013 production staff is a
pack of incompetent fools. People just don't get very high up in the
entertainment industry's food chain if they can't do their job right.
I'd say it's more likely that the unconventional aspects of TXF have
been conscious or developmental choices rather than accidents.
Deborah A Tinsley
> My profession as a scientist is to seek for answers. I did that for all
> my life. Sometimes I did not get the ones I wanted, sometimes I did not
> like the ones I get. But still I am getting somewhere, little step by
> little step, overcoming the difficulties and making my little notes.
Art is not science. It cannot be analyzed like science. Art is more like a
waking dream, an emotion, a perception. It can give you an answer to an
unasked question. You can't put Art under a microscope or run tests. In
fact over-analyzing can damage or destroy it, destroy the very thing that
pulled you in the first place. The more you try to grasp it, the more it
slips through your fingers. You have to give up a part of yourself to it to
experience it fully.
> Maybe I expected the same pattern in the X-files. Crime and X-file
> investigation method is not that different from scientific
> investigation.
The X-Files is not a crime show.
I probably wanted to identify with the show, but found
> too late that it is operating on different principles than my thinking.
Yes, I would say TXF operates on different principles from yours.
I am not a scientist but an artist. I enjoy TXF very much. It stimulates my
mind and my imagination. I love its dream like qualities.
> I just cannot buy these overcomplicated postmodern
>explanations about the true meaning of the X-files.
BTW - I don't think the "post-modern" analyses, as you call them, are over
complicated. It's just a way of discovering meaning. The X-Files is a
product of the culture as much as it is the creation of Chris Carter.
Excavating for connections to our society, our culture is fun and
rewarding. The beauty is, you don't have to do this to enjoy the show.
Deborah
Cheryl Deering
: Deborah A Tinsley wrote:
: >
: >
: > And yet TXF is like neither. It comes closest to "Twin Peaks", but TP was
: > "mytharc" every week. And just because it has been tried before doesn't
: > mean every aspect has been explored. TXF is very different format TP or The
: > Prisoner (another TP--odd coincidence) in mere construction alone and story
: > alone. It also has a very different visual style.
: True: just because it's been done before doesn't mean there's nothing
: new to try. But I just don't see XF making any significantly new
: contribution in this area. In what way is there any really significant
: experimentation with narrative form? I can think of a few individual eps
: that have done some of that (like Jose Chung, for example), and others
: that made an effort to mess with narrative form but didn't do anything
: new with it (like...damn...what was the name of the "Groundhog Day"
: ep?). But the vast majority of eps seem to be fairly straightforward
: mysteries with bits and pieces left unresolved at the end.
I don't see them contributing much new with it either, in terms of
experimentation or
character or plot; they just seem to be using these expermental techniques
as gimmicks more than they are to say anything they haven't already told
us about the characters and story. FIELD TRIP (well, the last half
thereof--g!) and DREAMLAND was probably as good as it got for them in this
regard.
: > And neither TP lasted 6 years by any means. How many eps of The Prisoner
: > were there? And Twin Peaks started falling apart in the second year.
: > Neither could have made it through 6 years.
: The Prisoner was created as a limited run series -- it was never
: intended to go beyond the ... ummm, I forget how many eps there are, but
: that's how many were planned from the start. (A feat of self-control I
: respect enormously in McGoohan. Very few others have achieved it. John
: Cleese comes to mind with the limited run of Fawlty Towers. But now I
: really digress.)
British TV is _so_ much smarter in this regard--they have been doing
limited series for ages, and not only do those provide stories told
satisfactorily, they give writers a chance to try dramatic ideas too
expansive for movies but not enough for a full-run series.
: And don't even get me started on Lynch and Twin Peaks. I give him and
: the series lots of credit for doing some groundbreaking stuff... but my
: respect for both him and the series is quite limited.
A _great_ deal of the credit for TP should go to Mark Frost, who was head
writer and the narrative driving force behind the first season. He not
only gave Lynch's idea a solid framework, he helped shape those ideas into
a long-running narrative that intrigued on both concrete and abstract
levels. When he left late first season to write books/do movies, the show
immediately floundered--the writers had no idea where he planned to go
with the plotlines (particularly the one involving Dale's malevolent
ex-partner who was engaging the former in the ultimate chess game. In
one behind-the-scenes interview, one of the writers confessed that most
of 'em didn't play chess and had to solicit help from cast members--like
the guy who played the deputy--who did--g!).
Between what the writers came up with the fill in and what Lynch came up
with, it wasn't enough to sustain the show. Proof of what I was saying
earlier--it is _not_ enough to have experimentation without narrative
basics, especially in something as long-running as a series. In a default
situation, one should opt for at least meeting the
basics satisfactorily so one can at least present a solid story well-told.
: > But some of us didn't. Some of us found a lot to think about. HTGSC was a
: > wonderful exploration of the characters, how they really feel, how their
: > partnership works and its vulnerabilities
. . .all of which had never been addressed on the show already, mind
you--g!
-- and finally how they overcame
: > them. The end was a reaffirmation of their commitment to one another.
Big deal. Don't we see that affirmation almost every week--FIELD TRIP,
MILAGRO, DREAMLAND, RAIN KING, etc. etc. . .?
: > Maybe it didn't make you think about what you wanted to think about? I
: > don't know. But I loved going through all the layers of this ghost story.
: Boy, do I disagree! I thought How the Ghost etc. boiled the M-S rel'p
: down to some tired cliches wrapped in a loosely constructed parody of a
: ghost story, the humor of which fell flat at nearly every turn. When
: combined with the irritatingly distracting presence of celebrity guest
: stars, I found the whole thing awfully annoying. So, yeah, it didn't
: make me think about what I wanted to think about -- like something
: really new and interesting!
It had its moments, but needed _much_ stronger character work and
insight--the sort of thing Darin Morgan _excelled_ at.
:
: > > At any rate, I don't think experimental narrative form is what makes XF
: > > great. I think what makes it extraordinary is the placement of
: > > compelling and complex characters into a staggeringly hostile
: > > environment that threatens to undermine the very foundation of human
: > > understanding, and even existence.
: >
: > I don't think you can isolate it from the whole. It's a part, an element of
: > TXF, and underlying element. It may not be the one single thing, but it is
: > an important part of the whole.
But without it, you have no real foundation for the rest--at least, no
foundation that engages the audience and makes them care enough to see
what happens next.
C.
**
Magpie
>
> In article <7jedk8$ps5$1...@canopus.cc.umanitoba.ca>,
> umfr...@cc.UManitoba.CA (Konrad Douglas Frye) wrote:
> > In <375a94f1...@netnews.worldnet.att.net> fea...@worldnet.att.net
> > (Loligo Opalescens) writes:
> >
> > >So every fan has to ask, how basic are those "basics"? Is it
> > >literally like a foundation, and if you've got cracks there the
> > >entire edifice will crumble?
> >
> > I don't think it's quite that dire but it does warrant some serious
> > examination by the creative folks at 1013. Lets face it, if they had
> > the desire they could probably solve 95% of their continuity problems
> > for free. My only conclusion after six seasons of watching the show is
> > that they don't really want to. That dismays me.
>
> I see there we have something in common (at least when not discussing
> Krycek :-) ). I just cannot buy these overcomplicated postmodern
> explanations about the true meaning of the X-files. It is not an
> experimental roman, it is simply the fiction show that should make
> money. Maybe after some 10-15 years people will write their PhD theses
> about that weird phenomenon of show that became religion.
But who says that it's just a fiction show that should make money?
It's always been what it is; it's always been experimental. There's
tons of crime shows on tv, and who needs more of them? You might
want to see it turn into Law&Order or Murder, She Wrote, but I would
lose the show I like. I am not a big action fan.
It's not that I consider TXF to be so super-mystical and mysterious
that it's beyond critical viewing. I watch it and I enjoy it with
very little effort and like to talk about it afterwards, just
like others watch and enjoy straightforward crime shows. I
don't assume they have some kind of unnatural attachment that
defies imagination because they see something in the show that
I don't. We just have different tastes.
<snip>
> > In the end there's essentially only one question to ask and that's
> > whether the problems 1013 makes can be avoided. I believe that
> > problems made at the script level certainly can.
>
> In some respect it is easier with the shows where each ep is closed
> story. Then it needs only to remember who's who. But I am afraid that
> X-file writers failed even in these uncreative details. I just read one
> mytharc compilation on the web - the author was very careful and put a
> lot of effort to cover all details, but precisely this outline shows how
> overcomplicated and incredible the story is.
Someone recently commented that they much preferred the mytharc
overcomplicated and incredible and I agree. When they were
forced to reduce it to a simple solution, it was less interesting.
I guess they had to come up with something.
>
> Also for my taste there was too much of pseudopsychology and
> pseudoscience. I liked the ep "Never Again" mainly because the guest
> appearance of Rodney Rowland, but the whole ergot thing was ridiculous
> (OK, I spent with ergot 20 years of my professional life) and it would
> not be problem to look up how this hallucinogen really functions and how
> it could be used in that tattoo motif. The molecular genetics babbles
> about virus and the way Scully made the hybridization in Redux....all
> this could be written correctly w/o losing the dramatical effect.
Well, there you're never going to be satisfied. This is a show that
thrives on pseudopsychology and science. How else to explain
werewolves,
faith healing and man-eating mushrooms. I'm not defending the use of
bad science if, as you say, there's true science that would work
just as well, but I'm not always going to know the difference. Given
the choice between a scientific explanation that works in the real
world and a symbolic explanation in scientific language, they're
always going to go for the latter.
-m
esme...@my-deja.com
"Deborah A Tinsley" <TINS...@prodigy.net> wrote:
> Art is not science.
OK
> It cannot be analyzed like science.
You cannot analyze science. Science analyzes. You can even analyze art -
from the POV of history, psychology etc., etc.
> Art is more like a
> waking dream, an emotion, a perception. It can give you an answer to
> an unasked question. You can't put Art under a microscope or run
> tests.
Everything can be studied and tested. It's only the question of suitable
method and the current state of knowledge.
> The X-Files is not a crime show
maybe, but it uses some if its principles.
> I am not a scientist but an artist. I enjoy TXF very much. It
> stimulates my
> mind and my imagination. I love its dream like qualities.
It becomes bad dream. Like going through the maze (dark, of course) and
after all the effort ending again in its middle.
> It's just a way of discovering meaning. The X-Files is a
> product of the culture as much as it is the creation of Chris Carter.
> Excavating for connections to our society, our culture is fun and
> rewarding.
It thrives on our latent paranoia, mostly. The hidden fears of a human
too lonely in the complicated world governed by powerful "syndicates"
that s/he cannot either control or resist. And in fact it confirms that
whatever you do, you'll lose, a pawn in their games. The proofs
disappear, the witnesses die, the files are burned and your closest
friend could work for an enemy. Put inside a bit of UST and other
sex/procreation frustrations and the cocktail is ready. Oh, and add an
umbrella.
Esme
esme...@my-deja.com
bel...@ibm.net wrote:
> But who says that it's just a fiction show that should make money?
I do, and probably the FOX people as well.
> Someone recently commented that they much preferred the mytharc
> overcomplicated and incredible and I agree. When they were
> forced to reduce it to a simple solution, it was less interesting.
> I guess they had to come up with something.
The mytharc and colonization idea should be simple - just for the sake
of keeping it in continuity through the time. But what could be
complicated were the relationships of the people around it. Instead of
putting some more emphasis on this, these characters are diminished and
used as flat plotdevices. I could live with one kind of oil and w/o
Mulder's sister, but I would like to see about Cancerman's plans and the
relationships of Spenders, more about how Krycek came so suddenly to
making love with Marita, more about Marita/Mulder etc., etc. I heard
that Duchovny complained about being bound too much to this series so
this could be a way how to let him have more free time and give us
something more about the conspiracy.
> Well, there you're never going to be satisfied. This is a show that
> thrives on pseudopsychology and science. How else to explain
> werewolves,
> faith healing and man-eating mushrooms.
I do not object to these fiction creatures - let's have some fun with
them and some pseudoscience mumbo jumbo when studying them. But I really
hate the way the real science applications are portrayed. See, if there
is the time honored array of nonsensical twisted glass tubes filled with
blue, green and red solutions veiled in vapors of carbon dioxide ice,
everybody knows that it is just "dream of a maddened prop master". But
in TXF, there were used real procedures with twisted meaning.
> Given
> the choice between a scientific explanation that works in the real
> world and a symbolic explanation in scientific language,
It was no symbolic explanation, it was plain nonsense.
Extex1013
>fact over-analyzing can damage or destroy it, destroy the very thing that
Please you are talking about a tv show not Art.
The Xfiles is to art what paint by numbers paintings are to Van Gogh
extex
GravesPA2
lonely in the complicated world governed by powerful "syndicates" that s/he
cannot either control or resist.>>
Except that I don't buy any of this at all about the world. I'm not a
conspiracist at all. I'm a Republican, for God's sake. ;)
<<And in fact it confirms that whatever you do, you'll lose, a pawn in their
games. The proofs disappear, the witnesses die, the files are burned and your
closest friend could work for an enemy.>>
But wait---there's hope in the universe. Because two people whose lives have
been ever challenged, ever torn, ever turned upside down can STILL find the
strength, courage and hope to struggle on. And within this battle, they have
also found a way to blend two very different lives into one dynamic, vital and
intriguing relationship.
<<Put inside a bit of UST and other sex/procreation frustrations and the
cocktail is ready. Oh, and add an umbrella.>>
Well, there haven't been enough umbrellas this season, I'll grant you. But "a
bit of UST and other sex/procreation frustrations" is such an understatement of
the Scully/Mulder dynamic that I can't even try to explain why I find this
"formula" to be an inadequate description of the show.
Paula Graves
Deborah A Tinsley
> In article <01beb2ab$6e3a0340$299a...@spam.oemcomputer>,
> "Deborah A Tinsley" <TINS...@prodigy.net> wrote:
>
> > Art is not science.
>
> OK
>
> > It cannot be analyzed like science.
>
> You cannot analyze science. Science analyzes. You can even analyze art -
> from the POV of history, psychology etc., etc.
OK
> > Art is more like a
> > waking dream, an emotion, a perception. It can give you an answer to
> > an unasked question. You can't put Art under a microscope or run
> > tests.
>
> Everything can be studied and tested. It's only the question of suitable
> method and the current state of knowledge.
If that's your cup of tea fine. Of course you can test it, but I think
there are better ways to approach it, more fulfilling ways. To each her
own.
> > The X-Files is not a crime show
>
> maybe, but it uses some if its principles.
But it's still not a crime show. It's an allegory, a saga about the quest
for the truth and what that really means. Crimes just provide a mode of
expression.
> > I am not a scientist but an artist. I enjoy TXF very much. It
> > stimulates my
> > mind and my imagination. I love its dream like qualities.
>
> It becomes bad dream. Like going through the maze (dark, of course) and
> after all the effort ending again in its middle.
Well no one promised to reveal the secret of life. Progress can be an
illusion. You get "the answers" but they turn out not to be the answers at
all. That happens all the time in science. The earth is flat--no wait, it's
round. Just when you think you've got it solved you see there's more
distance to cover. This is where I find TXF very realistic.
> > It's just a way of discovering meaning. The X-Files is a
> > product of the culture as much as it is the creation of Chris Carter.
> > Excavating for connections to our society, our culture is fun and
> > rewarding.
>
> It thrives on our latent paranoia, mostly.
You think that's the main thrust? I see the main thrust being more about
making one's way through the fears and illusions, and to do that we must
always keep our eyes on the prize (in this case, the truth) and it helps if
you have someone you trust.
The hidden fears of a human
> too lonely in the complicated world governed by powerful "syndicates"
> that s/he cannot either control or resist.
Yeah, what else is new. It's true. Don't you feel your choices in life are
somewhat constrained by the will of government and corporations? I do. They
are constantly trying to control and manipulate us. We can resist but it's
a dangerous path.
And in fact it confirms that
> whatever you do, you'll lose, a pawn in their games.
Well you'll never get out alive that's for sure <g>. No, we cannot win at
their game, but if X-Files does anything it shows that that's not the only
game in town. Mulder and Scully engage them, but their lives are more than
the chase, the battle. They have found a kind of freedom in the way they
choose to fight and in the relationship that has developed between them,
far more precious than some small victory over TPTB. And along the way
they've made wondrous discoveries and seen such things that are beyond
imagination.
The proofs
> disappear, the witnesses die, the files are burned and your closest
> friend could work for an enemy. Put inside a bit of UST and other
> sex/procreation frustrations and the cocktail is ready. Oh, and add an
> umbrella.
>
> Esme
Well I don't understand the umbrella part, but the rest sounds right, and
not that foreign to my own personal experiences at work, in life. The
truths are covered up or ignored by those in charge. Witnesses don't die
but they are rendered impotent - their testimony dismissed for some minor
or imagined reason or they are dismissed. And yes, unfortunately sometimes
one's closest friend turns out to be an enemy. It has certainly happened to
me on occasion. The very ones who professed to love me sticking the
proverbial knife in my back. Very disillusioning, almost makes you want to
give up and sometimes you do for awhile. As for the UST--well it's there.
It's the same cocktail at the party that is my life. I have to drink from
it everyday.
Deborah
>
Deborah A Tinsley
Extex1013 <exte...@aol.com> wrote in article
<19990610073250...@ng-fv1.aol.com>...
I respectfully disagree.
Deborah
esme...@my-deja.com
parrotfish <tam...@gateway.net> wrote:
> petit...@my-deja.com wrote:
> that ground has been ploughed
> by McGoohan and Lynch in "The Prisoner" and "Twin Peaks."
Aaaaaaaaaaaaa! (insert various shrieks of horror) Twin Peaks?
TWIN PEAKS??? I saw only 2 eps and these plague me during the nights
that I would prefer to be sleepless. I mean, one of them was this
senseless running between various red curtains and featured cups of
coffee that was semi-solid.....In addition to Kyle McLachlan, that is
for me horror itself and spoiled the whole Dune for me (it was not only
McLachlan that went wrong in THAT movie..).
> Unfortunately, I do believe there's been an element of track-covering
> in the way CC&co. tell their story. I think to some extent they meant
> tell a coherent story in a fairly traditional manner, and it got away
> from them a bit, so they have to do a little tap dance to cover their
> tracks.
I think you're right, although I would leave out "a bit" and "a little".
At the beginning it looked like your basic mystery. The postmodernisms
sneaked in with more black clothing and forgotten details.
> I mean, no one watching "The Prisoner" or "Twin Peaks" even
> needs to ask whether the odd bits are odd on purpose. The fact that
> one has to ask regarding XF is not a good sign.
I did not even give a try to Twin Peaks, I recognized instantly this is
not the show for my simple taste. But TXF looked like nice mystery show
with interesting characters.
> I should clarify what I mean by the traditional storytelling in XF --
> it's more in line with the mystery than any other genre <snip>
> Then, at the end, you have to go back and piece the story
> together with all the proper information in place.
which is what will never happen in TXF, because all of that tape
dancing (or less subtly - trodding in a glass)
> At any rate, I don't think experimental narrative form is what makes
> XF great. I think what makes it extraordinary is the placement of
> compelling and complex characters into a staggeringly hostile
> environment
Um...I know that I am misplaced here with my action taste, but it is
exactly this time honored plot that works for B-movies. The characters
are less complex, of course, but usually, and that is the important
moment, the hero/es get win. At least a bit. Which again leaves the
audience with a feeling that maybe it is worth to fight FOR the future.
> Maggie h wrote:
> > Unbound pointed out recently that 1013 really has been trying to
> > turn the mytharc into a more conventional linear narrative since The
> > Red and the Black.
To me it seems that they are making more mess than clearing it. And the
pox-virus-corn-oil-whatever....from the movie did not help much. The
introduction of rebels seems to me a sign of sheer despair (or one of
the bright "visual ideas" again ??? Faceless menace? Whoa!). Why was
Consortium destroyed? To save the salaries of minor characters?
> I'd be interested in hearing more about what folks see as the
> modernist vs. postmodernist elements of XF.
I am confused by the word "modernist". Does that mean that telling the
story "one thing after another" is modern? And to mess it with dreams
and alternate universes and whatever is postmodern? Was the Ilias and
the Canterbury Tales modern? And all this endless dwelling on subtleties
of M&S relationship while S still deskless and nameplateless...
esme...@my-deja.com
grav...@aol.com (GravesPA2) wrote:
> But wait---there's hope in the universe. Because two people whose
lives have
> been ever challenged, ever torn, ever turned upside down can STILL
find the
> strength, courage and hope to struggle on. And within this battle,
they have
> also found a way to blend two very different lives into one dynamic,
vital and
> intriguing relationship.
I pointed already that the personal relationship of M&S is not
interesting for me, especially Mulder gets on my nerves. And to watch
somebody, who's life is "ever torn," ...and who "still can find the
courage" and despite that does not move an inch on his/her path to The
Truth that maybe is out there and maybe not... well, for me it is the
same fun like to watch somebody trying to get out of the water only to
be pushed back by a stick and admire his endurance during the process.
And there is not much intriguing on that relationship once you realize
how the writers are snipping away all possibilities of M&S to find
somebody else. Even poor Puppy-Eyes Pendrell was shot.
parrotfish
>
> In article <375C7BB5...@gateway.net>,
> parrotfish <tam...@gateway.net> wrote:
> > At any rate, I don't think experimental narrative form is what makes
> > XF great. I think what makes it extraordinary is the placement of
> > compelling and complex characters into a staggeringly hostile
> > environment
>
> Um...I know that I am misplaced here with my action taste, but it is
> exactly this time honored plot that works for B-movies. The characters
> are less complex, of course, but usually, and that is the important
> moment, the hero/es get win. At least a bit. Which again leaves the
> audience with a feeling that maybe it is worth to fight FOR the future.
But I think XF surpasses conventional action/adventure fare not only
because of the complexity of the characters, but because the hostile
environment in which they find themselves goes far beyond the mafia or
invading aliens or a youth gang or any of the other action/adventure
staples. It's a threat the magnitude of which is overwhelming, and, more
importantly, the implications of which are truly, deeply frightening to
us, in the real world. The implications about an unseen hand behind
world events, a frighteningly malevolent force that ties together many
mysteries that surround us, strike at the root of the paranoia that
characterizes modern life. That's the aspect of XF that seems to have
grabbed the imagination of the masses. In a nutshell, it's all about
paranoia... and this gnawing feeling that maybe all the paranoiacs are
right...
Parrotfish
Eric S. Smith: Left-Field Marshal
>I think one of the esteemed members of the ng informed me once that the
>whole oil thing in Piper Maru was made around the CC's vision of
>somebody banging the glass in the sunken WWII aircraft. After that I
>stopped to wonder about the causes of the logical flaws but it did not
>lessen my dismay about it.
Still, you have to wonder why the cool stuff shown in that episode never
re-surfaced (so to speak...). What of the oil's mysterious
life-sustaining properties? Why haven't we seen that blast o' radiation
trick again? I thought the two went together pretty well: the oil somehow
protects the host from the (acute?) effects of the radiation. Hey, there
could be a Krycek cancer story in that.
But noooooooooo, no, no, no. The damned oil is different every time we
see it -- worst of all in the movie, where it's suddenly a "virus" and,
well, I've got a whole separate set of reservations about that.
>I just read one
>mytharc compilation on the web - the author was very careful and put a
>lot of effort to cover all details, but precisely this outline shows how
>overcomplicated and incredible the story is.
On the other hand, wouldn't a straightforward alien invasion story be kind
of disappointing, too? My major problems with the alien conspiracy, in
fact, are pretty much exclusively to do with the fact that we "know" too
much. Around about the time the Smoke Ringers started openly gabbing
about where they hid the UFO, did they hide it with the other UFOs and so
on, well, the ambiguity went away. After that, stunts like "hah, hah,
there are no aliens. Also, Mulder is dead. Again." are less interesting.
Needless to say, I found Mr. Carter's "truth revealed" chat on one of the
CDs pretty unfulfilling. Oooh, Strughold. Oooh.
>The molecular genetics babbles
>about virus and the way Scully made the hybridization in Redux....all
>this could be written correctly w/o losing the dramatical effect.
Agreed, but for some reason, the people who write for TV and movies rarely
get this sort of thing right. I think it's at least partially the fault
of writing by committee. "Baby, we love the script, but J.B. wants it to
be a space virus or some damn thing. Can ya have that for me by lunch?"
Writers for other media have a better chance of maintaining a consistent
treatment of something -- and, in the case of novels, the time to do some
proper research.
>I think I am getting emotional about it because I had some expectations
>that were not fulfilled by the further development of the show and
>probably never will.
So, I guess you know how the 'shippers feel, eh? ;)
--Eric Smith
GravesPA2
interesting for me, especially Mulder gets on my nerves. And to watch
somebody, who's life is "ever torn," ...and who "still can find the
courage" and despite that does not move an inch on his/her path to The
Truth that maybe is out there and maybe not... well, for me it is the
same fun like to watch somebody trying to get out of the water only to
be pushed back by a stick and admire his endurance during the process.>>
There are more nuances there than simply getting shoved back into the water
every time---but if you don't see it, you don't see it, and my saying so isn't
going to make you see it.
However, because *I* see it, and I'm convinced that all the little details mean
something, then I'm quite happy to watch the story move along at its sometimes
breakneck, other times leisurely pace.
<<And there is not much intriguing on that relationship once you realize
how the writers are snipping away all possibilities of M&S to find
somebody else. Even poor Puppy-Eyes Pendrell was shot.>>
There hasn't been a possibility for Mulder and Scully to find anyone else since
probably second season. The mystery, the excitement, is in watcing two
complex, flawed people find a way, time and time again, to connect and bond and
rebound from both internal and external conflicts that conspire to keep them
apart.
It's really not the same old story every time, because they're not the same old
characters they were seven years ago. Just when certain conflicts seem to be
resolved, internally and externally, new ones arise. Sometimes these conflicts
could be a little more organic to the characters and the universe---I won't
argue that they shouldn't. But it's not repetition. It's resonance.
I don't have the interest in secondary characters that you and others do. I
like them mysterious, nebulous and somehow "apart" from Mulder and Scully, who
are the somewhat isolated center of the X-Files universe. I like that we
rarely get glimpses of other characters except as they are filtered through the
POVs of Mulder and Scully. It's a choice, a personal taste. I like that
particular way of telling the story. It's like the difference between telling
a story from a fully omniscient POV and telling the story from a very personal
point of view. It's not fully a limited 3rd person--that's rather hard to do
day in and day out on a TV show---but it has more of that flavor than a lot of
shows do.
Do I think that my personal taste in this matter is superior? No. But it's
why I find XF thrilling at times when other people find it boring and too
"Mulder/Scully centric."
Paula Graves
Magpie
>
> In article <375F16...@ibm.net>,
> bel...@ibm.net wrote:
>
> > But who says that it's just a fiction show that should make money?
>
> I do, and probably the FOX people as well.
But neither of you is making the show. Of course Fox wants it
to make money--I'm sure they wanted to cast somebody better
looking than GA to make more money. That's why they're
executives and CC is the one who creates the show--he was
interested in the premise etc., not just the money.
> > Someone recently commented that they much preferred the mytharc
> > overcomplicated and incredible and I agree. When they were
> > forced to reduce it to a simple solution, it was less interesting.
> > I guess they had to come up with something.
>
> The mytharc and colonization idea should be simple - just for the sake
> of keeping it in continuity through the time. But what could be
> complicated were the relationships of the people around it. Instead of
> putting some more emphasis on this, these characters are diminished and
> used as flat plotdevices. I could live with one kind of oil and w/o
> Mulder's sister, but I would like to see about Cancerman's plans and the
> relationships of Spenders, more about how Krycek came so suddenly to
> making love with Marita, more about Marita/Mulder etc., etc. I heard
> that Duchovny complained about being bound too much to this series so
> this could be a way how to let him have more free time and give us
> something more about the conspiracy.
How do you know this would make everything better? CSM has
diminished in stature since we've learned more about him.
Mulder's sister is what started his quest--I could not do without
her myself. You're saying here that you want to see a different show
about entangled relationships between characters, and that's not what
this is. It might be a great show, but it wouldn't be TXF as
it's developed.
I'm not defending the mytharc completely here--I see plenty of things
I think they "should have done" myself, but my ideas aren't shared
by everyone.
> > Well, there you're never going to be satisfied. This is a show that
> > thrives on pseudopsychology and science. How else to explain
> > werewolves,
> > faith healing and man-eating mushrooms.
>
> I do not object to these fiction creatures - let's have some fun with
> them and some pseudoscience mumbo jumbo when studying them. But I really
> hate the way the real science applications are portrayed. See, if there
> is the time honored array of nonsensical twisted glass tubes filled with
> blue, green and red solutions veiled in vapors of carbon dioxide ice,
> everybody knows that it is just "dream of a maddened prop master". But
> in TXF, there were used real procedures with twisted meaning.
Okay, but I don't think this bothers all scientists the way it
bothers you. I *do* see the maddened prop master at work in all
of their shows. I don't think anyone's ever been misled into
thinking they should be buying into their science as educational.
They play fast and furious with different folklore and mythology
too. Sometimes I'll notice it, but I don't think it's irresponsible.
> > Given
> > the choice between a scientific explanation that works in the real
> > world and a symbolic explanation in scientific language,
>
> It was no symbolic explanation, it was plain nonsense.
So...you mean there's a logical scientific explanation as to why ergot
would cause a tattoo to talk? From what I remember, the jist of
it was: they used this ergot stuff in the dye, which is a plant
that acted like a hallucinogen. That's why Ed acted like a psycho.
That's all I got from it--that's the "symbolic explanation", although
symbolic's completely the wrong word here. I've seen plenty of
movies and tv shows that deal with professions they know nothing
about. Flashdance comes to mind, but it doesn't make the movie not
work. You just accept it on its own silly level. They're not making
a documentary. I'm sure FBI agents watch the show and find
ridiculous things in every scene, but it doesn't keep all of
them from enjoying it.
-m
Eric S. Smith: Left-Field Marshal
Cheryl Deering <dee...@primenet.com> wrote:
>British TV is _so_ much smarter in this regard--they have been doing
>limited series for ages,
And long-running ones, too. Coronation Street is still in production,
isn't it? It's about a million years old. In the sf/fantasy realm,
Doctor Who ran for nearly 30 years, almost without missing a beat.
You think *we* have continuity problems...
[snip -- I think "Ghosts...Christmas" was under discussion]
>It had its moments, but needed _much_ stronger character work and
>insight--the sort of thing Darin Morgan _excelled_ at.
And he didn't, as I see it, do too many cheap stunts, either. I don't
think that "Humbug" was exactly a brilliant deconstruction of the M&S
relationship, but it wasn't meant to be. But it didn't end with "Mulder,
marry me/Scully, I love you -- and then they woke up", either.
--Eric Smith
ABauer7333
OK
> It cannot be analyzed like science.
You cannot analyze science. Science analyzes. >>
Don't tell that to Foucault, Deleuze, Feyerabend, Lacan . . . . . .
Dr. B
Deborah A Tinsley
Magpie <bel...@ibm.net> wrote in article <375FAE...@ibm.net>...
snip
> So...you mean there's a logical scientific explanation as to why ergot
> would cause a tattoo to talk? From what I remember, the jist of
> it was: they used this ergot stuff in the dye, which is a plant
> that acted like a hallucinogen.
Doesn't Mulder say there's no clear connection between the ergot and Ed's
erratic behavior? Something like there wasn't enough to affect either of
them.
That's why Ed acted like a psycho.
> That's all I got from it--that's the "symbolic explanation", although
> symbolic's completely the wrong word here. I've seen plenty of
> movies and tv shows that deal with professions they know nothing
> about. Flashdance comes to mind, but it doesn't make the movie not
> work. You just accept it on its own silly level. They're not making
> a documentary. I'm sure FBI agents watch the show and find
> ridiculous things in every scene, but it doesn't keep all of
> them from enjoying it.
>
> -m
I always like those theatre presentations where they have a minimum of
props and sets and let your imagination do the work. That's how I see the
pseudo-scientific lingo TXF flings about too. They are just trying to evoke
a feeling. Face it. Most of us fans don't know a genome from branched DNA,
but it sounds good especially the way the characters say it<g>. It gives us
the idea, evokes our imaginations.
The writers don't have to be scientists after all. I have a friend who is a
Doctor who can't watch ER or the other one??? I always have to laugh when
some show is trying to evoke the world of art and artists. The big mistake
they make -- they get hung up on how much everything is worth. They think
for an artist to be fulfilled their work has to be worth thousands. That's
a Hollywood value. I love when they show rich folks homes with
reproductions of museums most famous works. Titanic was a hoot! You think
Cameron could have done a little research or paid someone to do it. He
didn't because most folks won't know and don't care.
Deborah
Eric S. Smith: Left-Field Marshal
[>Someone whose attribution I've accidentally snipped wrotes:]
>one of them was this
>senseless running between various red curtains and featured cups of
>coffee that was semi-solid...
Hey, I thought that was cool -- it's pretty much the only Twin Peaks stuff
I've seen, too.
So, here's a question: given that you hated that and I thought it was
neat, what do you think of the following episodes? I liked them because
they were spooky and atmospheric and, uh, neat.
-- Christmas Carol. (Scully's lousy Christmas, Part I.)
-- Grotesque. (Mulder goes koo-koo investigating clay gargoyles.)
-- Dod Kalm. (One of the trapped in a deadly place episodes -- this time,
it's a mysteriously ageing ship.)
Reasonably straightforward and resolved, yet still cool, episodes that
perhaps we both liked, though both have non-trivial plausibility problems:
-- Darkness Falls. (Glowing Green Goober Mites.)
-- Ice. (The Thing. And how lucky that the worms are so well matched...)
I dunno what category to put "Jose Chung's `From Outer Space'" in, but I
love that one, too.
>> At any rate, I don't think experimental narrative form is what makes
>> XF great. I think what makes it extraordinary is the placement of
>> compelling and complex characters into a staggeringly hostile
>> environment
>
>Um...I know that I am misplaced here with my action taste, but it is
>exactly this time honored plot that works for B-movies. The characters
>are less complex, of course, but usually, and that is the important
>moment, the hero/es get win. At least a bit. Which again leaves the
>audience with a feeling that maybe it is worth to fight FOR the future.
But consider something sadistic like "The Evil Dead, Part II," where the
simple characters go through endless tribulations, and there's never an
end to the hero's torment -- at the end of the movie, he's trapped even
worse than before.
I think the B-movie angle is sound, for sure. I've heard it argued, and
have argued myself, that the X-Files' genre is less science fiction and
more "In Search Of..."/"Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World"/"Unsolved
Mysteries". Possible resolutions to the mystery presented are given, but
it's all supposition.
One can make a particularly strong analogy with Unsolved Mysteries, since
Robert Stack often says ominous things to us while dressed in a dark suit
in some dark location, but Mulder's slide shows owe a lot, I think, to
both series. Hey, even the theme music and title sequences aren't totally
dissimilar.
In any case, those TV shows are sensationalistic, B-movie stuff at their
core, with a certain cheap, we-didn't-make-*all*-of-this-up veneer of
respectability.
>The
>introduction of rebels seems to me a sign of sheer despair (or one of
>the bright "visual ideas" again ??? Faceless menace? Whoa!).
Yeah, the faceless menace and the mass burnings have a certain instant
appeal that suggests one of those "visual ideas." But, if they're handled
sensibly, I don't mind that -- actually, I like it. "Patient X"/"The Red
and the Black" was one of my favourites of its season, especially Scully's
hypnotic regression sequence. Sure, it was wild and overblown, but I
think it worked.
The rebels, if you ask me, are an excellent addition to what was becoming
an old-hat alien invasion story. Coupled with the
"co-operation/subversion" strategy of the Conspirators as revealed in "One
Son" (after bad signs in "One Son" -- what, they just *gave up*? Oh,
thakns...), this really gives the invasion plot somewhere interesting to
go.
Despite what I feel is poor handling of the black oil, Mr. Carter's
rationalization and consolidation of the alien conspiracy has been pretty
successful in the "co-operation/subversion" department. It gives the
dissenting behaviour of the (presumably late) Well-Manicured Man and even
Bill Mulder a good basis, and explains why the rest of the conspirators
don't/didn't get along with those guys too well. I can see them letting
Bill retire primarily to get him out of their hair: on the one hand, he's
a pain in the neck with his "let's find a vaccine, let's not give up"
nagging, but, on the other, they're kind of shamed by his refusal to
accept the defeat that they're perhaps too comfortable with. Only when he
seems ready to reveal their plans do they feel they must kill him; if you
believe, as I do, that the car bombing of the WMM was a bushwhack and not
suicide, you can see the same protocol in place in his case -- dissent is
tolerated, if not well, but betrayal must be punished, exposure prevented
at all costs.
Much better than, "these power-mad bad guys are in league with space
invaders," which is pretty much what we had until this latest set of
complications.
>Why was
>Consortium destroyed? To save the salaries of minor characters?
They were oscillating between near plausibility ("One Son") and total
ridiculousness (the movie). I think Mr. Carter shored up their
credibility one last time and then torched the lot of 'em to bury the
unanswered questions. Fine with me, since we've still got 'ol Smokey and
Krycek running around -- they're only people associated with the
Consortium who we've really got much invested in.
>while S still deskless and nameplateless...
Probably heretical, but I don't really care. I'd sort of assumed that she
had an office somewhere else, but it's just a set to me.
--Eric Smith
Eric S. Smith: Left-Field Marshal
Deborah A Tinsley <TINS...@prodigy.net> wrote:
>Art is not science. It cannot be analyzed like science. Art is more like a
>waking dream, an emotion, a perception. It can give you an answer to an
>unasked question. You can't put Art under a microscope or run tests. In
>fact over-analyzing can damage or destroy it, destroy the very thing that
>pulled you in the first place.
On the other hand, several schools of criticism disagree with you entirely
upon this point. Personally, I think that most of them are overdone (as
an extreme example, ever read Poe's presention of his alleged algorithm
for writing "The Raven"?), but, well, "critics disagree." While we might
deride some of them as overly mechanistic and practically self-deluding,
they would call the assertions above airy-fairy nonsense that throws all
hope of structure and judgment to the wind.
>You have to give up a part of yourself to it to
>experience it fully.
Or do you merely risk committing the dread "Affective Fallacy" if you do
so?
>The X-Files is not a crime show.
Then what's the FBI doing in there? Compare it with the investigative
organizations in other, more purely paranormal/fantastic shows -- OSIR
from "Psi Factor" (eeeWWWWW!) or UNIT from "Doctor Who," for instance.
The FBI's there for a reason, and I think it's to give a certain
real-world air to the show. That implies that there'll be at least a nod
to "real" investigative techniques -- crime show, police procedural stuff.
Sometimes, there is.
Consider, too, something like Silence of the Lambs, which is superficially
a catch-the-bad-guy story, but is really more horror/suspense hung on that
frame.
>I am not a scientist but an artist. I enjoy TXF very much. It stimulates my
>mind and my imagination. I love its dream like qualities.
"Affective Fallacy!" Run for the hills!
>BTW - I don't think the "post-modern" analyses, as you call them, are over
>complicated. It's just a way of discovering meaning.
Or, alternatively, dragging it elaborately from places it never was. Such
is the peril of any analysis, of course.
>The X-Files is a
>product of the culture as much as it is the creation of Chris Carter.
>Excavating for connections to our society, our culture is fun and
>rewarding.
However, for every interpretation of an episode as a brilliant evocation
of the Fisher King myth, there's another that notices that they've screwed
up something that was carried off perfectly well last week on Law & Order.
Boring, traditional mysteries are also part of the culture of which X-F is
a product, after all.
--Eric Smith
Magpie
>
> <<It thrives on our latent paranoia, mostly. The hidden fears of a human too
> lonely in the complicated world governed by powerful "syndicates" that s/he
> cannot either control or resist.>>
>
> conspiracist at all. I'm a Republican, for God's sake. ;)
>
> closest friend could work for an enemy.>>
>
> been ever challenged, ever torn, ever turned upside down can STILL find the
> strength, courage and hope to struggle on. And within this battle, they have
> also found a way to blend two very different lives into one dynamic, vital and
> intriguing relationship.
I see even more hope than that. The bad guys on the show are
human--these are the ones that go against nature constantly,
making deals with aliens and selling their children over for
experiments. The monsters on the show, unless they are human,
rarely have any evil intentions. They just do what they do.
The main point of the mytharc for me has always seemed to be that
while the aliens are real, it is the humans that created the
horror. We know there are rebels and black oil, but early on
we were given hints from Deep Throat that the Syndicate reacted in
fear without knowing what they were fearing. We've never had proof
of what the ultimate aliens, whatever they are, want from us, if
anything.
I think M&S's search for the Truth is a search for a Plan in the
universe. That's the secret--and it's why it can't ever be
found. The clues aren't just in a line from Genesis written in
Navajo or cryptic conversations between CSM and Krycek.
It's in all the monsters of the week: the seraphim in All Souls,
the killer trees of However-you-spell-it, the ghosts in HTGSC,
Eddie Van Blundht, Leonard Betts, Tooms, The Great Mutato, Big Blue.
The Truth is always _becoming_; it is affected by M&S's actions.
The Consortium are measly little cowards before the Truth,
trying to stop it with deals and injections. The scary aliens
are small potatoes before the Truth, trying to scare us into
turning away. They're all essentially trying to hold back a flood
with umbrellas. The world is moving towards IT every day, and
those who will not move with it--who ignore it, deny it or
stand against it--will disappear. The Consortium, on some level,
created the rebels and died by them. So what if evidence
has been destroyed? We still have the memory. It's
frustrating not to be able to prove it, but isn't it great
that it's there somewhere? Most people go their whole lives
without seeing anything but the mundane. Mulder didn't think
he ever would, but he wanted to so badly that he hung in
there until Scully proved him wrong. And he was happy.
There's this incredible world we live in that the Consortium
disguises, full of fantastic things. Mulder sees it, TLG see it,
Scully is afraid to see it but will listen to Mulder tell her
stories about it and understand. Many of the "victims" they
encounter see it too: the couple in Rain King, the Stoner Dude
and his Chick, the Bikers from Conduit.
We should not fear the Truth--it's us we should be afraid of.
-m
Deborah A Tinsley
>
> I think M&S's search for the Truth is a search for a Plan in the
> universe. That's the secret--and it's why it can't ever be
> found. The clues aren't just in a line from Genesis written in
> Navajo or cryptic conversations between CSM and Krycek.
> It's in all the monsters of the week: the seraphim in All Souls,
> the killer trees of However-you-spell-it, the ghosts in HTGSC,
> Eddie Van Blundht, Leonard Betts, Tooms, The Great Mutato, Big Blue.
> The Truth is always _becoming_; it is affected by M&S's actions.
Oh Magpie, a beautiful paragraph and the last sentence is in the
neighborhood of profound. Have to go, but just wanted to let you know how
much I agree with this. I may post more later. You've put a lot into this
post.
Deborah
petit...@my-deja.com
> > by McGoohan and Lynch in "The Prisoner" and "Twin Peaks."
> Um...I know that I am misplaced here with my action taste, but it is
> exactly this time honored plot that works for B-movies. The characters
> are less complex, of course, but usually, and that is the important
> moment, the hero/es get win. At least a bit. Which again leaves the
> audience with a feeling that maybe it is worth to fight FOR the
future.
I'm not sure what films you consider as B movies. Most of the ones I
know are pretty film noirish -- harsh, gritty, pessimistic with pretty
mean central characters who meet foul & ghastly ends.
>>>more snipping<<<
>
> > I'd be interested in hearing more about what folks see as the
> > modernist vs. postmodernist elements of XF.
>
> I am confused by the word "modernist". Does that mean that telling the
> story "one thing after another" is modern? And to mess it with dreams
> and alternate universes and whatever is postmodern? Was the Ilias and
> the Canterbury Tales modern? And all this endless dwelling on
subtleties
> of M&S relationship while S still deskless and nameplateless...
>
> Esme
No need to be confused. These terms come from literary criticism, and
are used as well in the visual, performing & cinematic arts. There are
books which explain them.
from The Oxford Companion to English Literature [5th edition 1985]:
"Modernism, an omnibus term for a number of tendencies in the arts which
were prominent in the first half of the twentieth century; in English
literature it is particularily associated with the writings of T.S.
Eliot, Pound, Joyce, V. Woolf, W.B. Yeats. F.M. Ford and Conrad.
Broadly, Modernism reflects the impact of the psychology of Freud and
the anthropology of Sir J. Frazier, as expressed in 'The Golden Bough
(1890-1915). A sense of cultural relativism is pervasive in much
modernist writing, as is an awareness of the irrational and the workings
of the unconscious mind. Technically it was marked by a persistent
experimentalism; it is 'the tradition of the new', in Harold Rosenberg's
phrase. It rejected the traditional (Victorian and Edwardian) frame
work of narrative, description, and rational exposition in poetry and
prose, in favor of a stream-of-consciousness presentation of
personality, a dependence on the poetic image as the essential vehicle
of aesthetic communication, and upon myth as a characteristic structural
principle. Modernist literature is a literature of discontinuity, both
historically, being based upon a sharp rejection of the procedures and
values of the immediate past, to which it adopts an adversary stance;
and aesthetically......Modernist works (for instance, the poetry of
Eliot and Pound)may have to the unfamiliar reader a tendency to dissolve
into a chaos of sharp atomistic impressions......"
from "The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms" [1991]:"
Postmodernism, a disputed term that has occupied much recent debate
about contemporary culture since the early 1980s. In its simplest and
least satisfactory sense it refers to generally to the phase of 20th
century Western culture that succeeded the reign of high modernism, thus
indicating the products of the 'space age' after some time in the
1950's. More often,though, it is applied to a cultural condition
prevailing in advanced capatilistic societies since the 1960's,
characterized by a superabundance of disconnected images and
styles...As applied to literature and other arts, the term is
notoriously ambiguous, implying either that modernism has been
superseded or that it has continued into a new phase. Postmodernism may
be seen as a continuation of modernism's alienated mood and its
disorienting techniques and at the same time as an abandonment of its
determined quest for artistic coherence in a fragmented world......"
from "The States of Theory" [1990]: "Ultimately, the historical sense of
the post modern and the postmodern sense of history are to be found in
incommensurability, in an incommensurability that eludes representation
and which must nonetheless still be thought {i.e., presented in its
incommensurability}.......a 'world system' in which unimaginable wealth
and unbearable poverty, the increasingly rapid development of technology
and misery, and the exaggerated abstraction of power and concretization
of misery all go hand in hand.......THe postmodern, then, could in this
sense be considered to be the attempt to live this 'messiness' or
conflictual and unrepresentable heterogeneneity as the possibility of a
radical other, less oppressive, but not yet/no longer imaginable
future."
The Arthurian legends are neither modern nor postmodern, they are
medieval. They probably have some historical basis in the 5th or 6th
century. The cycle of legends dates back to the 12th century, the most
famous version is Malory's 15th century "Morte D'Arthur". "The Illiad"
being a Greek epic poem attributed to Homer is also neither modern nor
post-modern. "The Canterbury Tales" date from the mid-14th century,
also not modern or post-modern. The writers on the atxfa ng who draw
structural or metaphoric inspiration from these literary sources are
using a post-modernist critical approach to TXF.
I've been disappointed that this thread has dissolved into a defense of
aesthetic positions. It was such fun for awhile when we were sharing
our ideas about TXF's narrative structure. I've noticed that the
division of opinions seems to fall into those who go for more
rational/logical/scientific explanations & those of us who form more
intuitive/affective/metaphoric insights. Gee, that sounds like a
profile very similiar to my favorite pair of heroic FBI agents. How
about we smoke a peace pipe and work our interpretations in tandem
rather than in opposition? The R/L/S explaners can keep the ng honest
and the I/A/M insighters can -- now just what is it that Mulder does for
Scully? Heidi & Paula help me out here, please!
Esme, I wish you'd take a deep breath & stop arguing with us long enough
to explain what keeps you involved with TXF. I'd be really
interested in understanding that. I'd also wish that you'd be more
respectful towards us. Many of us have a pretty firm experiential
handle on artistic process as well as a seriously educated approach to
critical engagement. Before you tear into us, you might consider that
we really do know what we're talking about. I'm not asking you to agree
with us. Just consider that we have a valid and reasonable basis for
the interpretations we make. Please don't talk to us as if we are a pack
of fools.
--petitesoeur
Magpie
Well, gee...ummm...umm...shucks! <blush> Cut that out!
But do post more later. :-0
-m
petit...@my-deja.com
Are you saying that emotional responses are lies? So, nothing should
move us to tears, or make us laugh, or send chills down are spine ot
take our breath away? Or is it that we shouldn't discuss those
emotions?
Data longs for an emotion chip. The Scarecrow seeks a heart. Are we
suppose to give our's up?
What a bleak prospect!I suggest an immediate viewing of "Sullivan's
Travels" to remedy what ails you.
Magpie
> My hopes and expectations were met and greatly exceeded this season. I tune
> in each week to see interesting stories and fascinating character development
> and engaging ideas. I believed the show produced on all 3 levels this season.
> With the exception of a handful of shows, I felt the stories were inventive
> creatively and enjoyable to behold.
> As far as the character development goes, season 6 was as rich in that area
> than any other season, and in many ways the characters were examined far more
> intensely than ever before.
This just made me think of something. Often this season people
have referred to us "learning new things" about M&S this year,
answered by others who say that we haven't learned anything
new, at all. They mean, I assume, that to learn something
new about a character means that you do exactly that: we meet
Mulder's babysitter that molested him, Scully has flashbacks
to the guy who dateraped her in college, Mulder remembers
winning the under-16 international chess championship,
we meet Scully's best friend from camp. We learn exactly
how Mulder and his Mom related after Dad left. We see
Scully interacting with brother Charlie.
TXF often reminds me of another favorite of mine, Northern
Exposure, and I think this season's character stuff is
more like the type NX liked to do. It wasn't about
characters revealing endless sides to themselves, but
more about putting well-loved characters in strange
situations and delighting in the way they reacted. Along
the way you did get to know them more, even though there
were few big "surprises".
Just thought I'd throw that out--it's summer!
-m
Cheryl Deering
: In article <01beb2ab$6e3a0340$299a...@spam.oemcomputer>,
: Deborah A Tinsley <TINS...@prodigy.net> wrote:
: >Art is not science. It cannot be analyzed like science. Art is more like a
: >waking dream, an emotion, a perception. It can give you an answer to an
: >unasked question. You can't put Art under a microscope or run tests. In
: >fact over-analyzing can damage or destroy it, destroy the very thing that
: >pulled you in the first place.
Um, if works of art were as gossamer-delicate as you assert, they would
hardly be able to stand up to centuries of analysis and various schools
of critical thought, now would they? In fact, if a work of art is
well-constructed and truly timeless, it can not only withstand
analysis, but yields up just as rewarding commentary on all ages, not
just its own. Mary
Shelley's FRANKENSTEIN is even more relevant today than when it was
written in its takes on the morality of creating life; and DR. JEKYLL AND
MR. HYDE continues to give up insights on hypocrisy, the mutability of
morality, and double identities/shadow selves.
: On the other hand, several schools of criticism disagree with you entirely
: upon this point. Personally, I think that most of them are overdone (as
: an extreme example, ever read Poe's presention of his alleged algorithm
: for writing "The Raven"?), but, well, "critics disagree." While we might
: deride some of them as overly mechanistic and practically self-deluding,
: they would call the assertions above airy-fairy nonsense that throws all
: hope of structure and judgment to the wind.
I'd call it "fear of looking too closely at a near-object of worship
because one knows its gonna give up flaws if one does." :)
: >You have to give up a part of yourself to it to
: >experience it fully.
: Or do you merely risk committing the dread "Affective Fallacy" if you do
: so?
??
: >The X-Files is not a crime show.
It ain't a Mary Cassatt/Impressionist painting, neither, but that doesn't
stop folks from rhapsodizing at length about the show's use of light,
shadow (and dragged-out pacing) to create atmosphere.
: Consider, too, something like Silence of the Lambs, which is superficially
: a catch-the-bad-guy story, but is really more horror/suspense hung on that
: frame.
: >I am not a scientist but an artist. I enjoy TXF very much. It stimulates my
: >mind and my imagination. I love its dream like qualities.
: "Affective Fallacy!" Run for the hills!
: >BTW - I don't think the "post-modern" analyses, as you call them, are over
: >complicated. It's just a way of discovering meaning.
: Or, alternatively, dragging it elaborately from places it never was.
. . .or making it up outta one's own creativity/wishful thinking--g!
Such
: is the peril of any analysis, of course.
:)
: >The X-Files is a
: >product of the culture as much as it is the creation of Chris Carter.
: >Excavating for connections to our society, our culture is fun and
: >rewarding.
: However, for every interpretation of an episode as a brilliant evocation
: of the Fisher King myth, there's another that notices that they've screwed
: up something that was carried off perfectly well last week on Law & Order.
: Boring, traditional mysteries are also part of the culture of which X-F is
: a product, after all.
And in the long run, a good story well told beats something that strives
for "art" alone and fails, anyday.
C.
**
esme...@my-deja.com
Cheryl Deering <dee...@primenet.com> wrote:
> Eric S. Smith: Left-Field Marshal <cs...@blaze.trentu.ca> writes:
Thank you my fellow realists!
> : >The X-Files is not a crime show.
> It ain't a Mary Cassatt/Impressionist painting, neither, but that
> doesn't
> stop folks from rhapsodizing at length about the show's use of light,
> shadow (and dragged-out pacing) to create atmosphere.
Oh yes. And the subtlety of Mulder/Scully multifaceted relationship.
> : >BTW - I don't think the "post-modern" analyses, as you call them,
> : >are overcomplicated. It's just a way of discovering meaning.
>
> : Or, alternatively, dragging it elaborately from places it never was.
> . . .or making it up outta one's own creativity/wishful thinking--g!
> And in the long run, a good story well told beats something that
> strives for "art" alone and fails, anyday.
I just cannot understand why this show is attracting so many "art"
critics to praise and explain it in its alleged subtlety. I haven't seen
a poll on this yet, but it would be interesting to make an overview of
professions of X-file "artistic" admirers and the "realistic" critics. I
admit, sometimes it happens to me in the theatre or in the cinema or
even before a painting or reading a book, that my throat constricts and
I am close to tears as I feel moved or hit by the beauty or truth of the
moment, so I am not probably totally immune in my emotions against art
influence. But it never happened watching TXF.
Esme
esme...@my-deja.com
cs...@blaze.trentu.ca (Eric S. Smith: Left-Field Marshal) wrote:
> -- Christmas Carol. (Scully's lousy Christmas, Part I.)
Sentimental and depressive
> -- Grotesque. (Mulder goes koo-koo investigating clay gargoyles.)
Not seen
> -- Dod Kalm. (One of the trapped in a deadly place episodes -- this
> time,it's a mysteriously ageing ship.)
Interesting idea but not much out it
> -- Darkness Falls. (Glowing Green Goober Mites.)
> -- Ice. (The Thing. And how lucky that the worms are so well
> -- matched...)
Not seen. I am not much into MOTW's.
> I dunno what category to put "Jose Chung's `From Outer Space'" in, but
> I love that one, too.
POV' s, POV's...
> But consider something sadistic like "The Evil Dead, Part II," where
the
> simple characters go through endless tribulations, and there's never
an
> end to the hero's torment -- at the end of the movie, he's trapped
even
> worse than before.
Don't know that one, but in my previous posting I tried to make clear
that I insist of heroes getting a bit of positive outcome (sometimes the
fact that they come out alive is sufficient....)
> One can make a particularly strong analogy with Unsolved Mysteries,
> since Robert Stack often says ominous things to us while dressed in a
> dark suit in some dark location...
Is that at least an Armani suit? Maybe the darkness just becomes an
urban folklore of the last decade of the millenium. The decadent (not 10
teeth - pun not mine) writers of the end of the last century were pretty
depressive as well, maybe they would like X-files.
> Yeah, the faceless menace and the mass burnings have a certain instant
> appeal that suggests one of those "visual ideas." But, if they're
> handled sensibly, I don't mind that -- actually, I like it.
OK, but they disappeared somehow in the background after incinerating
the Syndicate guys. I can agree with your comments about Consortium
renegades WMM and BM, this would be plausible, but again - only a
glimpse and then it is out with them. Could be interesting alliances in
the subversive plot...but no.
> I'd sort of assumed that she
> had an office somewhere else, but it's just a set to me.
Not quite so - in case that once or twice Mulder would carry some file
to HER office, for e.g., to such small one that are usually near labs,
saying something about great new case he just discovered, then the
office question could be settled. But really, after so many years it is
strange.
esme...@my-deja.com
petit...@my-deja.com wrote:
> I'm not sure what films you consider as B movies. Most of the ones I
> know are pretty film noirish -- harsh, gritty, pessimistic with pretty
> mean central characters who meet foul & ghastly ends.
Harsh yes, but I meant more these movies with fighter heroes usually
with some pretty-to-watch martial arts and usually they get alive out of
it (well sometimes not too much alive). I do not like foul and ghastly
ends in general.
> No need to be confused. These terms come from literary criticism, and
> are used as well in the visual, performing & cinematic arts. There
> are books which explain them.
Real books? Printed on paper? Whoa!
> Broadly, Modernism reflects the impact of the psychology of Freud
Then skip it for me. I am Jungian.
> It rejected the traditional (Victorian and Edwardian) frame
> work of narrative, description, and rational exposition
There we are! I am Victorian! Thanks for the enlightement! I found
myself, hoorray! Pity though I missed my century...
> Modernist works (for instance, the poetry of
> Eliot and Pound)may have to the unfamiliar reader a tendency to
> dissolve into a chaos of sharp atomistic impressions......"
Um......
> Postmodernism
> may be seen as a continuation of modernism's alienated mood and its
> disorienting techniques and at the same time as an abandonment of its
> determined quest for artistic coherence in a fragmented world......"
Worse then the first one.
Though:
> 'world system' in which unimaginable wealth
> and unbearable poverty, the increasingly rapid development of
> technology and misery, and the exaggerated abstraction of power and
> concretization of misery all go hand in hand
these words may very well apply also to the last century, huh? Marx and
Dickens had some comments about that.
Im my more conscious moments I do have some vague impression as to when
the Illiad and the other classics were written. I wanted merely to point
out that even these are interpreted and reinterpreted from the present
POV's like the X-files and also with very different outcomes.
> those who go for more
> rational/logical/scientific explanations & those of us who form more
> intuitive/affective/metaphoric insights. Gee, that sounds like a
> profile very similiar to my favorite pair of heroic FBI agents.
probably that's the reason I can't stand Mulder.
> Esme, I wish you'd take a deep breath & stop arguing with us long
> enough to explain what keeps you involved with TXF. I'd be really
> interested in understanding that.
I already did it once this week.
> Many of us have a pretty firm experiential
> handle on artistic process as well as a seriously educated approach to
> critical engagement.
May be. But if we R/L/S point out the logical and scientific flaws, then
you I/A/M start about symbols and truths (nonono, Truths!), higher
meanings and multifaceted prisms.... it's just two monologues. You ask
me to be more respectful - and what if I feel that the I/A/M postings
while polite in form, actually disregard the R/L/S opinion as not so
sophisticated or not going to the roots of The True Meaning/s (let's be
multilayered)? Stuck in the past pre-modern times?
Esme
Deborah A Tinsley
<7jqde8$4pl$1...@nnrp03.primenet.com>...
> : Deborah A Tinsley <TINS...@prodigy.net> wrote:
>
> : >Art is not science. It cannot be analyzed like science. Art is more
like a
> : >waking dream, an emotion, a perception. It can give you an answer to
an
> : >unasked question. You can't put Art under a microscope or run tests.
In
> : >fact over-analyzing can damage or destroy it, destroy the very thing
that
> : >pulled you in the first place.
>
>
> Um, if works of art were as gossamer-delicate as you assert,
I didn't assert that. Do you think dreams are delicate things? You must
have different ones than I do. And as for pulling them apart with
over-analysis, that just ruins it for the individual, not for the major
portion of the audience. But it isn't just analysis, because I do that and
most of the time it enhances my enjoyment, but it's that kind of analysis,
the suspicious dissection to find fault and flaw that does it. It's a
phenomenon that has been much written about. When you pull it apart, look
at it part by part, you lose the alchemy of the whole.
snip
>
> I'd call it "fear of looking too closely at a near-object of worship
> because one knows its gonna give up flaws if one does." :)
You prove the point in my first paragraph. That's the way you look at
"art". If I enjoy, connect, relate to something, by definition the flaws
are inconsequential. I love it flaws. I have a "relationship" with art not
unlike one individual's relationship with another. For me art is almost
like a living thing. I've always asserted the so-called flaws in TXF for me
are part of the magic of the show. If you choose to dissect looking for
rottenness, go for it. I'm not saying close one's eyes to it but open one's
heart.
snip
>
> : >The X-Files is not a crime show.
>
> It ain't a Mary Cassatt/Impressionist painting, neither, but that doesn't
> stop folks from rhapsodizing at length about the show's use of light,
> shadow (and dragged-out pacing) to create atmosphere.
I don't find it very Cassatt like to tell you the truth. Perhaps more like
Munch. When we describe the light, the settings, the photography we relate
it to other visual masterpieces, but we aren't talking about plot nor
intent. These are descriptive allusions.
You misunderstand when I say it's not a crime show. It does often begin
with a crime, but it moves on quickly to the "monster". The central theme
of TXF is not crime. I thought that would be obvious. Sure, crimes are
committed, but do you really think what transpires afterward is primarily
about crime busting? It ain't The Untouchables, LA Confidential or Murder
She Wrote now is it. Do you say, "M&S were trying to solve the case of a
murderer." to describe any episode?
snip
> : >BTW - I don't think the "post-modern" analyses, as you call them, are
over
> : >complicated. It's just a way of discovering meaning.
>
> : Or, alternatively, dragging it elaborately from places it never was.
>
> . . .or making it up outta one's own creativity/wishful thinking--g!
That's what you always say, and I suppose that's one way of looking at it,
but when I do that deep kind of analysis what I'm talking about are all the
places that I connect with the show. I'm describing not only the way it
stimulates my thoughts and my imagination but about the possible effect it
may have on others. I open my heart, my eyes, my mind and try to see all
there is to see. Art is a dream and a mirror. Do you think most people see
in paintings what the artist saw? Do you think Van Gogh's "Crows in a
Wheatfield" means the same thing to me it did to him? No. It can't. It's a
product of Van Gogh's psyche, his madness, his vision, his reaction to the
times. I've read what critics thought of it, what biographers thought of
it, but I'm captured by what it means to me. I see myself in that painting
as well as Van Gogh. What it means to me has nothing to do with what he
intended. Same thing with TXF.
snip
And in the long run, a good story well told beats something that strives
for "art" alone and fails, anyday.
C.
Over time, that may be true. In 5 or 10 or 50 years no one may care about
TXF or think it has any value. I'd bet otherwise, but I could be wrong. I
don't care. I don't care what it means to anyone else just as I don't care
if anyone likes "Crows in a Wheatfield". For me art is personal. That's
where I find its power. It's not some one upsmanship game, an elitist
ordering of quality that necessarily devalues the perception of others. You
think it's flawed to the point of ruination, that it won't "beat" a "well
told" story. I don't set works up in some kind of competition with each
other. There are thousands of works of art considered classics, the best,
the enduring that I care little for. They mean something to someone else
but not to me. That's why Duchamp painted a moustache on Mona Lisa.
I respond to what's before me and hang the long run. I'm getting what I
want from it now and if I don't feel the same in 5 years time, and I won't
because I won't be the exactly the same person in 5 years, I'll be onto
something else. But TXF will always have a place in my heart for all the
enjoyment it has given me.
Deborah
Deborah A Tinsley
There, you have defined yourselves. You bring your realist views to a work
of fiction, and one that's about a world that does not exist. Perfect. That
must be fun.
> > : >The X-Files is not a crime show.
snip
> Oh yes. And the subtlety of Mulder/Scully multifaceted relationship.
Glad you are finally beginning to see the light.
snip
> I just cannot understand why this show is attracting so many "art"
> critics to praise and explain it in its alleged subtlety.
You seem to resent that. Obviously, since you don't understand it, you
cannot see what we see. And since you don't see it, being the hard shell
realist you are, you don't think we see anything either. You apparently
have no ability to consider "extreme possibilities" the hallmark of TXF.
Interesting.
snip
I
> admit, sometimes it happens to me in the theatre or in the cinema or
> even before a painting or reading a book, that my throat constricts and
> I am close to tears as I feel moved or hit by the beauty or truth of the
> moment, so I am not probably totally immune in my emotions against art
> influence. But it never happened watching TXF.
>
> Esme
Too bad. Guess you really don't like the show that much then and are
content spending your time vilifying and ridiculing those of us who do.
Well isn't that nice. It's like the jealous child who isn't invited to the
party so wants to try to spoil it for everyone else. Good luck.
Deborah
GravesPA2
you I/A/M start about symbols and truths (nonono, Truths!), higher
meanings and multifaceted prisms.... it's just two monologues. >>
Because the logical response to the sort of criticism which, consciously or
unconsciously, asks the question, "How can you allegedly (but dubiously)
intelligent people like a show that is such a pile of crap?" is to explain what
it is that makes one enjoy a show others dislike.
Your statement here would indicate that you expect this debate to reach some
sort of consensus--or maybe capitulation---but there can't be any when you
obviously aren't going to budge in your opinion of the show's desperate
failings and others aren't going to budge in their praise of its merits.
For the record, however---I haven't really seen anyone say that the show
doesn't have its flaws. They simply said that flawless perfection doesn't
always equal art---to them.
I personally don't consider myself a post-modernist or even a modernist. But
what I DO consider myself is a storyteller, and that's why I can ignore whole
episodes that are flawed to experience soaring joy when they DO tell a story in
what I consider the right way. And unlike some here, I don't think good
storytelling is nearly as rare as many of the detractors would suggest.
I love watching an episode and deconstructing it act by act, understanding why
the story evolved in the way it did from fade in to fade out. This particular
way of watching the show is, I suspect, far removed from the
modernist/post-modernist viewpoint. And yet, I tend to agree with the
assessment of the show shared by so many that you describe as the I/A/M crowd,
which indicates to me that there is more going on in terms of merit for the
show than people simply reading things into the show that isn't really there.
I don't begrudge anyone their dislike of anything I like, especially something
as personal and interpretive as entertainment. However, I do get a little
tired of people who claim that the show has suddenly deteriorated while
complaining about flaws the show has had since Season One. But that's just me.
Paula Graves
esme...@my-deja.com
cs...@blaze.trentu.ca (Eric S. Smith: Left-Field Marshal) wrote:
> Still, you have to wonder why the cool stuff shown in that episode
never
> re-surfaced (so to speak...). What of the oil's mysterious
> life-sustaining properties? Why haven't we seen that blast o'
radiation
> trick again? I thought the two went together pretty well: the oil
> somehow protects the host from the (acute?) effects of the radiation.
> Hey, there could be a Krycek cancer story in that.
Nono, no cancer for Krycek. He could not make such a soulful eyes when
on the oncology ward.
Yes, that oil was very interesting. See - the "pilot 50 yrs drowned"
motif was also dropped to the floor. At least they make some use of the
blasting oil in the game. My son was blasted several times until he
found that the correct sentence is "Scully, run!"
> where it's suddenly a "virus" and,
> well, I've got a whole separate set of reservations about that.
You just forgot about bees and corn...S'funny thing, corn is NOT
pollinated by bees, it is anemophilous (by the wind) exclusively. But
our friends from Arts and Humanities would probably say that we
overlooked some deep symbolic meaning of the bees and corn.
> On the other hand, wouldn't a straightforward alien invasion story be
> kind of disappointing, too?
I mean straightforward in the line, not in that what you'll be allowed
to find out about it. For e.g., ONE type of oil, maybe with some alien
seed inside, some credible way how to spread it (underground, cinemas,
something like contact form could be spread by junk-mail etc.) Also we
could have the pro-colonization elders and the secretly plotting ones
(like WMM) that would not be removed. BTW, I somehow feel that Cancerman
is not a friend of the aliens of whatever shape because he is also not
the type of man that would like to serve. I would also give some
credible reason for which the rebels are against colonization.
> My major problems with the alien conspiracy, in
> fact, are pretty much exclusively to do with the fact that we "know"
> too much.
No, just the things you know do not make much sense.
> After that, stunts like "hah, hah,
> there are no aliens. Also, Mulder is dead. Again." are less
> interesting.
Think in alternate universes! (It maybe helps, maybe not)
> Agreed, but for some reason, the people who write for TV and movies
rarely
> get this sort of thing right. I think it's at least partially the
fault
> of writing by committee. "Baby, we love the script, but J.B. wants it
to
> be a space virus or some damn thing. Can ya have that for me by
lunch?"
What a sacrilege! That is ART you are writing about!!!!
> So, I guess you know how the 'shippers feel, eh? ;)
Now that WAS nasty! Me and shippers in one sentence! I tell you, I
resorted to the S/Krycek fic out of the sheer despair.
Two questions: I maybe did not pay proper attention so please enlighten
me:
- what did Mulder with the Scully's ova (?) that he took from that
refrigerated drawer? Not that it were important. After the sample thawed
he may throw it to the next wastebasket...
- who was Emily's father? or was that entirely Scully's clone?
Esme
>
> --Eric Smith
esme...@my-deja.com
> So...you mean there's a logical scientific explanation as to why ergot
> would cause a tattoo to talk? From what I remember, the jist of
> it was: they used this ergot stuff in the dye, which is a plant
> that acted like a hallucinogen.
He mentioned using the grass or rye as color fro tattoo. The ergot is
not plant but fungus, that replaces grain. The plant that carries the
ergot "grain" is itself toxin free. It is only in the fungus. Second,
the common rye ergot is actually not hallucinogenic, most of its toxins
constrict the veins which was the reason for its use in obstetrics. The
midwiwes gave women the fungal sclerotia to chew. The LSD, although
derived from these toxins is chemically modified and that enhances its
hallucinogenic properties. Maybe they should leave out the ergot as
such.
> I've seen plenty of
> movies and tv shows that deal with professions they know nothing
> about. Flashdance comes to mind, but it doesn't make the movie not
> work. You just accept it on its own silly level.
You would be surprised how much of the less educated audience takes the
science portrayal in these shows as real or at least similar to reality!
The popular image of an evil scientist madly grinning over the green
jellies in the Petri dishes or cloning the monsters (for evil
government or evil monopolists) did not positively influence the overall
perception of science.
> I'm sure FBI agents watch the show and find
> ridiculous things in every scene, but it doesn't keep all of
> them from enjoying it.
I feel very sorry for them. Sometimes. Is there around any real Fibbie
to tell us about his/her feelings???
Esme
esme...@my-deja.com
grav...@aol.com (GravesPA2) wrote:
> <<But if we R/L/S point out the logical and scientific flaws, then
> you I/A/M start about symbols and truths (nonono, Truths!), higher
> meanings and multifaceted prisms.... it's just two monologues. >>
> Because the logical response to the sort of criticism which,
> consciously or
> unconsciously, asks the question, "How can you allegedly (but
> dubiously)
I would remain by allegedly...
> intelligent people like a show that is such a pile of crap?" is to
> explain what it is that makes one enjoy a show others dislike.
No, more something like ...How can you make so much fuss about a more or
less good show like it were another Joyce's Ulysses?
> Your statement here would indicate that you expect this debate to
> reach some sort of consensus
I wish it were possible. But, there is one point where the consensus
will be never reached - the realists say the flawed continuity is mostly
bad writing, the artists say this is some "istic" intention. I am afraid
nothing can be done with this.
> I personally don't consider myself a post-modernist or even a
> modernist.
How kind of you :-)
> But
> what I DO consider myself is a storyteller, and that's why I can
> ignore whole
> episodes that are flawed to experience soaring joy when they DO tell a
> story in what I consider the right way.
Here I do not understand you. Maybe you are born optimist. The "right
way" eps make me just comfortable (the things are like they should be)
and the flawed are getting on my nerves. Probably I would experience
soaring joy with more than 37 seconds of Krycek, but that's again my
personal preference.
> I love watching an episode and deconstructing it act by act,
> understanding why
> the story evolved in the way it did from fade in to fade out.
But - in some eps this must be very hard work to do, tough mental
exercise...and certainly more mental effort than the writers put into
it. How did you fight with FTF?
> shared by so many that you describe as the
> I/A/M crowd
not my description, only the acronym is mine.
> However, I do get a little
> tired of people who claim that the show has suddenly deteriorated
> while complaining about flaws the show has had since Season One.
Maybe it is the 6 years of the same flaws that gets accumulated. Anyway,
I am bitching about things from all seasons. No preferences whatsoever
:-)!
ABauer7333
are used as well in the visual, performing & cinematic arts. There are
books which explain them. >>
actually is (in music), and I just wanted to thank you for the definitions! It
is truly fascinating to see how so many reference works define this term and
its relation to pomo.
BTW, OT but maybe not too much - what would you folks define as "listening to
modernism"?
Dr. B
esme...@my-deja.com
> illusion. You get "the answers" but they turn out not to be the
> answers at all. That happens all the time in science. The earth is
> flat--no wait, it's round.
At least science admits it and learns from it. BTW, there were many
other -no wait's- that were probably illusions, like the "no, wait -
we'll better use that aether before we saw your leg off" or "no wait -
there is some kind of things heavier than air that can fly". The earth
question depended also on the instruments available and the development
of sea sailing - when you just look around, the earth is still flat.
And because we saw the Earth from the outside and it still remained
round, I think this discovery will stay, at least in 3-dimensional
world. That argument was not good.
> Just when you think you've got it solved you see there's more
> distance to cover.
Uh-uh. More like "you got it solved and in relationship to it new and
interesting problem arise". That's very different from TXF mytharc line.
GravesPA2
way" eps make me just comfortable (the things are like they should be)
and the flawed are getting on my nerves. Probably I would experience
soaring joy with more than 37 seconds of Krycek, but that's again my
personal preference.>>
Because what gives you joy is not what gives me joy. I can understand that
about you. Why is it hard to understand that about me and others?
But since apparently you don't, maybe it's as simple as my finding great,
visceral joy in seeing a story work and knowing WHY it works, not just from the
outside looking in but from the inside looking out.
(Or maybe that doesn't clarify a thing. <g>)
Paula Graves
Eric S. Smith: Left-Field Marshal
>In article <7jp1vr$c58$1...@news.interlog.com>,
> cs...@blaze.trentu.ca (Eric S. Smith: Left-Field Marshal) wrote:
>> -- Christmas Carol. (Scully's lousy Christmas, Part I.)
>Sentimental and depressive
's why I love it so. ;)
>> -- Darkness Falls. (Glowing Green Goober Mites.)
>> -- Ice. (The Thing. And how lucky that the worms are so well
>> -- matched...)
>Not seen. I am not much into MOTW's.
Go. Rent. View.
Ice, anyway. Darkness Falls is no slouch, either, but I think Ice might
be the better of the two, and it's got definite action/suspense elements.
Well, maybe more suspense, since they spend most of the time indoors.
Now that I'm thinking of renting tapes, I'm associating mytharc episodes
with the MOTWs that accompany them. Hmm. What did you think of "Eve"? I
was kind of disappointed that they didn't go anywhere with the
exsanguination angle, myself...
And, now that I think of it "Eve" is arguably a mythology episode itself.
>> I dunno what category to put "Jose Chung's `From Outer Space'" in, but
>> I love that one, too.
>POV' s, POV's...
Yeah, but was it good? I saw it when it originally aired, right after a
couple of stinkers ("Teso dos Bichos" and "Hell Money") and that first
"Imperial star destroyer" shot just killed me. "This show," I said, "is
getting *way* too obvious." My opinion had, er, reversed by the end of
the teaser...
I liked the Grade A ambiguity and the way that it was coupled with a sense
that there really *was* a truth under there, even if we were never to see
it.
[snip: Evil Dead II]
>Don't know that one,
Sam Raimi. Essentially a remake of the even cheaper first Evil Dead, both
are disturbingly tasteless horror movies. He went on to direct Darkman
and Army of Darkness, which is actually Evil Dead III.
If you've seen Mars Attacks, it's the same sort of "that's
hilarious/that's horrific" mixture that leaves you feeling kind of...
implicated.
>but in my previous posting I tried to make clear
>that I insist of heroes getting a bit of positive outcome (sometimes the
>fact that they come out alive is sufficient....)
I'm less attached to this convention. I think you should be watching more
MOTW episodes, since they often have something approaching a proper
ending.
[Unsolved Mysteries' Robert Stack doing his monologues]
>Is that at least an Armani suit? Maybe the darkness just becomes an
>urban folklore of the last decade of the millenium.
Nahh, the dark's been with us longer than that. In urban areas, it
doesn't even really get all that dark anymore. Think of the film noir
stuff from the 40s and 50s, or even Shakespeare (can't think of a play
that's got darkness as an explicit dominant element, but I'll just throw
out Macbeth 'cause I like it and plenty of stuff happens at night).
>The decadent (not 10
>teeth - pun not mine) writers of the end of the last century were pretty
>depressive as well, maybe they would like X-files.
I imagine Poe would dig it. He'd be on here doing the most mechanistic
deconstructions of all...
>OK, but they disappeared somehow in the background after incinerating
>the Syndicate guys.
That was only in "One Son" that they did that, though. Maybe they'll show
up again in the season premiere, which would really only have them absent
for one mytharc episode.
>Not quite so - in case that once or twice Mulder would carry some file
>to HER office, for e.g., to such small one that are usually near labs,
>saying something about great new case he just discovered, then the
>office question could be settled.
It'd be nice, if only for the variety.
>But really, after so many years it is
>strange.
Well, they rarely go to the bathroom, either. Does Mulder's apartment
have a toilet?
Here's a thought -- maybe Scully doesn't have an office. Maybe Mulder
wouldn't either, except that he's working X-Files and they're down in the
basement, so it makes sense to hide him down there with them.
--Eric Smith
Deborah A Tinsley
> In article <01beb342$5b1a0d40$2f9a...@spam.oemcomputer>,
> Deborah A Tinsley <TINS...@prodigy.net> wrote:
> > Progress can be an
> > illusion. You get "the answers" but they turn out not to be the
> > answers at all. That happens all the time in science. The earth is
> > flat--no wait, it's round.
>
> At least science admits it and learns from it.
Unlike what. . . Are you comparing art and science using the same
criteria for evaluation? Or is it just another slam?
BTW, there were many
> other -no wait's- that were probably illusions, like the "no, wait -
> we'll better use that aether before we saw your leg off" or "no wait -
> there is some kind of things heavier than air that can fly".
This makes no sense in relation to what I'm saying? Care to try again?
The earth
> question depended also on the instruments available and the development
> of sea sailing - when you just look around, the earth is still flat.
> And because we saw the Earth from the outside and it still remained
> round, I think this discovery will stay, at least in 3-dimensional
> world. That argument was not good.
You failed to comprehend what I was saying, but then you do that so often I
think it's purposeful to divert attention away from the real issues, issues
you are unable to address. Is that how you conduct your science?
Science comes up with "answers" all the time that the next generation of
scientists or hell, the same generation disproves or at least raises
serious questions about the "solution". Are you saying that's not true? If
you are, you don't know the history of your own field.
> > Just when you think you've got it solved you see there's more
> > distance to cover.
>
> Uh-uh. More like "you got it solved and in relationship to it new and
> interesting problem arise". That's very different from TXF mytharc line.
>
> Esme
And sometimes it's the same old problem over and over and over again. Your
argument is not rational and my comments had nothing to do with the
mytharc. You continue to bait and switch. Is that sound analytical style.
If you can't solve a problem in science do you just change the terms, make
it a simpler problem you can solve.
Deborah
Eric S. Smith: Left-Field Marshal
[snip -- discussing the hyper-analytical propensity]
>But - in some eps this must be very hard work to do, tough mental
>exercise...
But enjoyable to them, presumably.
>and certainly more mental effort than the writers put into
>it.
To which the two canonical answers (albeit from different canons...) are:
1. Not necessarily.
2. The author is irrelevant. We are discussing the work.
>How did you fight with FTF?
I think that only those of us who wanted it to make sense had to fight.
;)
I'm still deeply peeved by the "oil = virus" and "blow up a building to
hide bodies that shouldn't have been there anyway" angles myself...
>Maybe it is the 6 years of the same flaws that gets accumulated.
An interesting point. Has the show been making new mistakes, or the same
old ones? I've heard a fair bit of carping about characterization over
the last couple, and I don't remember that from earlier on.
--Eric Smith
petit...@my-deja.com
esme...@my-deja.com wrote:
> In article <7jpfgr$vf8$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
> petit...@my-deja.com wrote:
>
> > I'm not sure what films you consider as B movies. Most of the ones I
> > know are pretty film noirish -- harsh, gritty, pessimistic with
pretty
> > mean central characters who meet foul & ghastly ends.
>
> with some pretty-to-watch martial arts and usually they get alive out
of
> it (well sometimes not too much alive). I do not like foul and ghastly
> ends in general.
I'm pretty sure that you and I using the term 'B movie' in reference to
entirely different films. My understanding is that a 'B movie' was a
second-billed feature film made during the heyday of the Hollywood
studio system [1930 - 1950]. During this period going to the movies
meant spending about three hours watching an 'A' movie, a 'B' movie,
some shorts, some cartoons and a newsreel [lots more bang for your
nickel than we get nowadays <g>]. 'A' movies were 90 minutes long, used
the important&famous 'A' list stars and had big budgets. 'B' movies were
60 minutes long, used 'B' list actors and had small/cheap budgets.
Anthony Mann [films include: Two O'Clock Courage, T-Men, Raw Deal,
Winchester] and Edgar Ulmer [Detour, Girls In Chains, The Naked Dawn,
Murder Is My Beat] are two of the most well-known & respectedof the
'B'movie directors.
With the demise of the classic Hollywood circa the 1960's, actual 'B'
movies went the way of the dinosaurs -- extinction. However the term is
often used to designate a film that is "like a 'B' movie" because of its
production values and the use of unknown actors. I think this may be
the manner in which you are utilizing the term. Are you referring to
Hong Kong action films or their American -made clones?
As for TXF -- well Chris Carter has drawn his inspiration for TXF from
his extensive knowledge of an eclectic mixture of 1950's - 1970's
movies & films which probably includes 'B' movies.
> > Broadly, Modernism reflects the impact of the psychology of Freud
>
> Then skip it for me. I am Jungian.
>
> > It rejected the traditional (Victorian and Edwardian) frame
> > work of narrative, description, and rational exposition
>
> There we are! I am Victorian! Thanks for the enlightement! I found
> myself, hoorray! Pity though I missed my century...
> > Postmodernism
> > may be seen as a continuation of modernism's alienated mood and its
> > disorienting techniques and at the same time as an abandonment of
its
> > determined quest for artistic coherence in a fragmented world......"
>
> Worse then the first one.
Modernism & postmodernism are well-established styles in the arts. You
are certainly not alone in finding them disagreeable & distasteful. I'd
be surprised if you dislike all kinds of modern art particularily in the
visual arts, but perhaps you do. Anyway, there's plenty of stuff
still around from previous periods to enjoy -- luckily they don't
throwaway the older stuff. And artists continue to create new work in
more traditional styles.
> Though:
>
> > 'world system' in which unimaginable wealth
> > and unbearable poverty, the increasingly rapid development of
> > technology and misery, and the exaggerated abstraction of power and
> > concretization of misery all go hand in hand
>
> these words may very well apply also to the last century, huh? Marx
and
> Dickens had some comments about that.
Yes, the more things change the more they seem to stay the same.
Modernism as a socio/political/economic reality reaches back into the
19th century with the onset of industrialization.
Edwardian & Victorian art {Dickens being a great example} presented a
different attitude towards its hideous dichotomies than subsequently
proffered by modernistic & post-modernistic art. The Romantics wanted to
flee from it, the Victorians assumed they could fix it, the Moderns
thought they could understand it, the Post-Moderns hope they can retain
their sanity & souls in the face of it.
> Im my more conscious moments I do have some vague impression as to
when
> the Illiad and the other classics were written. I wanted merely to
point
> out that even these are interpreted and reinterpreted from the present
> POV's like the X-files and also with very different outcomes.
I just meant to clarify that it is our intrepretive strategies which are
post-modern not the works in themselves. Any critical approach may
prove useful in gaining meaning from an artwork. Artworks bear distinct
relationship to what has come before so relating past works to present
is often a fruitful endeavor.
> > those who go for more
> > rational/logical/scientific explanations & those of us who form more
> > intuitive/affective/metaphoric insights. Gee, that sounds like a
> > profile very similiar to my favorite pair of heroic FBI agents.
>
> probably that's the reason I can't stand Mulder.
Ok, but please try to stand us -- after all Scully hasn't given up on
Mulder.
> > Esme, I wish you'd take a deep breath & stop arguing with us long
> > enough to explain what keeps you involved with TXF. I'd be really
> > interested in understanding that.
>
> I already did it once this week.
I think you're referring to the post in which you mentioned
"Tungaska/Terma" & expained your background as a scientist & your
preference for action films. The information was a great help in
understaning your critical position vis-a-vis TXF. What I can't figure
out is whay you continue to interested in TXF when it's very nature
diametrically opposed to your aesthetic preferences/desires. I'm
curious to ubderstand what keeps you watching and engaged with the show.
Were there any season 5 &/or season 6 episodes that came closer to your
expectations? Do you identify with Scully -- her character?, her
situation?, her dilemas?
> > Many of us have a pretty firm experiential
> > handle on artistic process as well as a seriously educated approach
to
> > critical engagement.
>
> May be. But if we R/L/S point out the logical and scientific flaws,
then
> you I/A/M start about symbols and truths (nonono, Truths!), higher
> meanings and multifaceted prisms.... it's just two monologues. You ask
> me to be more respectful - and what if I feel that the I/A/M postings
> while polite in form, actually disregard the R/L/S opinion as not so
> sophisticated or not going to the roots of The True Meaning/s (let's
be
> multilayered)? Stuck in the past pre-modern times?
>
An excellent point {although I, personally would never capitalize the
't' in truth particularily in regards to my own notions.} I think the ng
does run as two monolgues and it would be a great challenge to begin a
dialogue between us. This thread is was brought me to the I/A/M vs.
R/L/S metaphor for a opposing views. And then it struck me that Life
was imitating Art only not doing as good a job. I am game to give it a
try. Does it help to offer some clearer explications on an opinion,
such as giving the references as I have in this & the previous
posts? Maybe start a thread exploring how we see Mulder's & Scully's
interactions {after all its summer & we don't have any new eps to
fight over <g>} would give us some clues as to how we might interact
rather than react to each other.
BTW -- I not inclined to pass judgement on your aesthetics. I don't
think you're stuck in the past @ all. We're all entitled to like what
we like. I certainly have my preferences & they run all over the
stylistic spectrum. For instance I love TXF but I'm also a very serious
TeleTubbies & Rugrats fan. I adore Hong Kong martial arts films as much
as those from the French New Wave. But I do think it is somewhat futile
to expect an artwork to be other than what it is. A Jackie Chan movie
is never going to be like a Truffaut film. And then again, there's
Olivier Assayas's "Irma Vep" in which HK martial arts film star Maggie
Cheung plays the heroine in the Truffaut-like director's film.
-- petitesoeur
Magpie
>
> In article <19990611093004...@ng-fv1.aol.com>,
> grav...@aol.com (GravesPA2) wrote:
>
> > you I/A/M start about symbols and truths (nonono, Truths!), higher
> > meanings and multifaceted prisms.... it's just two monologues. >>
>
> > consciously or
> > unconsciously, asks the question, "How can you allegedly (but
> > dubiously)
>
> I would remain by allegedly...
>
> > intelligent people like a show that is such a pile of crap?" is to
> > explain what it is that makes one enjoy a show others dislike.
>
> No, more something like ...How can you make so much fuss about a more or
> less good show like it were another Joyce's Ulysses?
Oh, so is it permissible to talk about Ulysses? Why? Because
it's been designated "Art" by someone else? I enjoy TXF so
I like to talk about it. Perhaps if Ulysses had just come
out you'd be telling us we were stupid for making a fuss about
it like it was another Silas Marner.
>
> > Your statement here would indicate that you expect this debate to
> > reach some sort of consensus
>
> I wish it were possible. But, there is one point where the consensus
> will be never reached - the realists say the flawed continuity is mostly
> bad writing, the artists say this is some "istic" intention. I am afraid
> nothing can be done with this.
Then I guess you'll have to leave it alone.
>
> > I personally don't consider myself a post-modernist or even a
> > modernist.
>
> How kind of you :-)
>
> > But
> > what I DO consider myself is a storyteller, and that's why I can
> > ignore whole
> > episodes that are flawed to experience soaring joy when they DO tell a
> > story in what I consider the right way.
>
> Here I do not understand you. Maybe you are born optimist. The "right
> way" eps make me just comfortable (the things are like they should be)
> and the flawed are getting on my nerves. Probably I would experience
> soaring joy with more than 37 seconds of Krycek, but that's again my
> personal preference.
>
> > I love watching an episode and deconstructing it act by act,
> > understanding why
> > the story evolved in the way it did from fade in to fade out.
>
> But - in some eps this must be very hard work to do, tough mental
> exercise...and certainly more mental effort than the writers put into
> it. How did you fight with FTF?
Let's say this one more time. It is not work at all. I enjoy
the show. It makes me think of things. I like to talk about
them.
Here is my experience with the show: I started watching
this new show that had a MOTW format--that was the point. Some
of them have flaws, which I notice. I don't talk about them too
much because there's not much to talk about: why did Scully think
the wife killed the baby when it was the huband who was upset it
had birth defects? or First they said Scully got her cross for
her birthday, and now it's Christmas. Not much to talk about.
Then the show started something we call the mytharc. The mytharc
was a set of very loosely linked together eps that dealt with
the question of who took Samantha Mulder and why. Each one
seemed to come up with a slightly different scenario that the
writers liked for whatever reason, so I went into each one
completely open: what kind of crime against humanity could it
be this time, and what does that mean to M&S.
This seems to be your experience: You stumbled across one or two
mytharcs and made several wrong assumptions. You assumed this
was the basic format of TXF when it was not--the MOTW was. You
assumed it was a straightforward mystery you were supposed to
solve. You assumed it would be exactly like other things you
liked. After watching a few eps you must have realized you were
wrong. But you kept watching more, each time, apparently, surprised
that it still hadn't conformed to your expectations.
Rather than go for the Scully-esque SIMPLEST answer, "I guess I
was wrong", you decided that it was 1013 who was wrong. They didn't
understand the show it was supposed to be written. This made you
feel much smarter than they were, so you got on the 'net to say
so. You found some people who agreed with you and you all felt
smart together.
Then you found some simpler folk who were stupidly enjoying
the wrong version of the show. No matter how much you told
them they were full of shit, they persisted in their delusion.
So you decided those people were secretly making fun of you
and putting you down, and calling you stupid for not liking
the show behind your back.
That's what I call work.
> > shared by so many that you describe as the
> > I/A/M crowd
>
> not my description, only the acronym is mine.
>
> > However, I do get a little
> > tired of people who claim that the show has suddenly deteriorated
> > while complaining about flaws the show has had since Season One.
>
> Maybe it is the 6 years of the same flaws that gets accumulated. Anyway,
> I am bitching about things from all seasons. No preferences whatsoever
> :-)!
Not that you've really seen 6 seasons of the show.
-m
Magpie
>
> In article <7jorhr$74a$1...@news.interlog.com>,
> cs...@blaze.trentu.ca (Eric S. Smith: Left-Field Marshal) wrote:
> > where it's suddenly a "virus" and,
> > well, I've got a whole separate set of reservations about that.
>
> You just forgot about bees and corn...S'funny thing, corn is NOT
> pollinated by bees, it is anemophilous (by the wind) exclusively. But
> our friends from Arts and Humanities would probably say that we
> overlooked some deep symbolic meaning of the bees and corn.
Actually, we would say: Duh!
-m
petit...@my-deja.com
> I personally don't consider myself a post-modernist or even a
>>>more snipping<<<
> I love watching an episode and deconstructing it act by act,
>understanding why
particular
> way of watching the show is, I suspect, far removed from the
> modernist/post-modernist viewpoint. And yet, I tend to agree with the
I/A/M crowd,
> which indicates to me that there is more going on in terms of merit
for the
> show than people simply reading things into the show that isn't really
there.
Oh my Paula, you're the worst kind of all -- a deconstructionist! "A
philosophical skeptic whose difficult & paradoxical attitude to the
metaphysical tradion seeks to subvert it while bewildering everyone
else." -- a nicely mangled quote from The Concise Oxford Dictionary of
Literary Terms.
But, I'm confused. I thought you were a Republican? <g>
Joking aside -- You're certainly a Republican, Paula -- you've said so
yourself. And I'm pretty sure the last thing on Earth you'd be would be
a deconstructivist. They've even pretty much disappeared from the halls
of academia -- Thank God, they were driving us crazy! Anyway, it sounds
to me that you like to do what is called close analysis. Close analysis
is the description & evaluation of how all the components of a
production {writing, acting, cinematography, editing, lighting, sound,
scenic design, costume} in order to delineate its narrative development.
Actually, I'd bet your aesthetic viewpoint is fairly postmodern because
you're able to tolerate TXF's messiness & to discern meaning from it.
And, I've heard tell you have a romantic soul which is another symptom
of postmodernism (as opposed to modernism which was a pretty
hard-bitten, cynical stance).
I posted long definitions on modernism & post-modern yesterday, in the
hopes that we could arrive @ some clarity & peace among the warring
factions. And also because it drives me slightly nuts when people - not
you, others who shall remain nameless for now -- play Humpty-Dumpty with
established terms. I probably won't succeed {life is so much like TXF}
but I'd like the R/L/S'ers to understand that we I/A/M'ers use
established artistic & aesthetic terminology, structure, & method.
A question has arisen for me out of this debate both thankfully about
TXF & not about terminology. Mulder has said that Scully's
Rational/Logical/Scientific explanations have kept him honest. What do
you think Mulder's Intuitive/Affective/Metaphoric explanations have done
for Scully?
--petitesoeur
Magpie
> And in the long run, a good story well told beats something that strives
> for "art" alone and fails, anyday.
I disagree. I like them both. There's a lot of fascinating failures
out there, many of them much more interesting than something that
follows a tried and true formula.
We're not sitting around a campfire here, it's tv. Threre's
lots of ways you can go. I write stories to formula all day
long. I like some experimentation on my own time.
Nothing wrong with trying out an idea, even if it doesn't
completely work.
-m
petit...@my-deja.com
petit...@my-deja.com wrote:
> In article <7jqus6$e5b$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
> esme...@my-deja.com wrote:
> > In article <7jpfgr$vf8$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
> > petit...@my-deja.com wrote:
> >
> BTW -- I not inclined to pass judgement on your aesthetics. I don't
> think you're stuck in the past @ all. We're all entitled to like what
> we like. I certainly have my preferences & they run all over the
> stylistic spectrum. For instance I love TXF but I'm also a very
serious
> TeleTubbies & Rugrats fan. I adore Hong Kong martial arts films as
much
> as those from the French New Wave. But I do think it is somewhat
futile
> to expect an artwork to be other than what it is. A Jackie Chan movie
> is never going to be like a Truffaut film. And then again, there's
> Olivier Assayas's "Irma Vep" in which HK martial arts film star Maggie
> Cheung plays the heroine in the Truffaut-like director's film.
Just a few clarifications on myself:
Assayas's "Irma Vep" is a postmodern film.
"The Illiad" "The Canterbury Tales" "Morte d'Arthur" are not post-modern
works. The texts themselves will be stylistically designated within the
historical time frame of their original creation. However, they can be
interpreted using a post-modern critical approach & certain ways of
referring to them in the interpretation of other work (e.g. TXF) would
be a post-modern strategy also.
Like it or not, TXF is stylistically a post-modern TV show.
There is no critical strategy which will transform it into something
else. Kvetching won't work either. And BTW -- the deaf ears your crys,
wails & screams are falling upon don't belong to the I/A/M'ers @
the atxfa ng. Those deaf ears belong to the 1013 production staff.
Deborah A Tinsley
> A question has arisen for me out of this debate both thankfully about
> TXF & not about terminology. Mulder has said that Scully's
> Rational/Logical/Scientific explanations have kept him honest. What do
> you think Mulder's Intuitive/Affective/Metaphoric explanations have done
> for Scully?
> --petitesoeur
Kept her fascinated. Made her consider extreme possibilities. Brought
romance into her life. Think of all the adventures she's been on, all the
things she's seen and experienced. I love that scene in Squeeze where she
turns down Tom Colton's offer to come out of the basement and stop being
Mrs. Spooky. She makes it clear she's intrigued by Mulder and has a lot of
respect for him.
Deborah
GravesPA2
<<Oh my Paula, you're the worst kind of all -- a deconstructionist! "A
philosophical skeptic whose difficult & paradoxical attitude to the
metaphysical tradion seeks to subvert it while bewildering everyone
else." -- a nicely mangled quote from The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary
Terms.>>
And yet....I think it fits, somehow.... probably because of that "bewildering
everyone else" part. <g>
<<But, I'm confused. I thought you were a Republican? <g>>>
See "bewildering everyone else" above....
<<Joking aside -- You're certainly a Republican, Paula -- you've said so
yourself. And I'm pretty sure the last thing on Earth you'd be would be a
deconstructivist.>>
Aw, damn...I was getting to like the sound of it....
<< They've even pretty much disappeared from the halls of academia -- Thank
God, they were driving us crazy! >>
I disappeared from the halls of academia in 1985...deconstructivists
disappeared...I'm sensing a pattern....
<<Anyway, it sounds to me that you like to do what is called close analysis.
Close analysis is the description & evaluation of how all the components of a
production {writing, acting, cinematography, editing, lighting, sound, scenic
design, costume} in order to delineate its narrative development.>>
This does sound like what I do, but there's a definite pragmatic element to
it---I break down the elements for myself in order to understand how and why
they work. Like some people take apart a clock to see how it ticks, I guess.
I have a mechanic's approach to art....and yet...
<<Actually, I'd bet your aesthetic viewpoint is fairly postmodern because
you're able to tolerate TXF's messiness & to discern meaning from it.>>
My co-writer calls me a formalist. Whatever that is. ;)
I'm probably not as comfortable with the "messiness" of The X-Files as, say,
Magpie or Deborah T are---there are things that I would change if I were in
charge. But I'm pragmatic enough to know I'm NOT in charge, so I make a choice
with each and every episode. Will I be able to find beauty today? Will the
story work for me in this moment, and how much of my ingrained need for
continuity can I compromise in order to enjoy it?
Some days, I have to overlook a lot of things to enjoy the small but
significant joys of the story, whether it's a nicely turned phrase, a
surprising plot twist, a particulary strong performance by an actor or---in the
case of one episode I otherwise loathed---the haunting and beautiful music.
Other days, every element works together so exquisitely that I am stunned by
the beauty and message of the story. I find the sort of pleasure in seeing
this happen that other people find in watching a brilliant sunset, studying a
fine painting or listening to a symphony.
It's not something I do only with The X-Files. It's a choice I make in every
piece of art or literature or music that I experience.
<<And, I've heard tell you have a romantic soul which is another symptom
of postmodernism (as opposed to modernism which was a pretty
hard-bitten, cynical stance).>>
Me? A romantic?
Nah. I'm really quite the cynic.
Most of the time.
<<I posted long definitions on modernism & post-modern yesterday, in the
hopes that we could arrive @ some clarity & peace among the warring
factions. And also because it drives me slightly nuts when people - not
you, others who shall remain nameless for now -- play Humpty-Dumpty with
established terms.>>
I need to go back and read that again, because it's all Greek to me. ;)
Or is that classicism? <vbeg>
<<I probably won't succeed {life is so much like TXF} but I'd like the
R/L/S'ers to understand that we I/A/M'ers use established artistic & aesthetic
terminology, structure, & method.>>
Well, whether I'm an R/S/S'er or an I/A/M'er or just a BS'er...I never doubted
that for a second.
<<A question has arisen for me out of this debate both thankfully about TXF &
not about terminology. Mulder has said that Scully's
Rational/Logical/Scientific explanations have kept him honest. What do you
think Mulder's Intuitive/Affective/Metaphoric explanations have done for
Scully?>>
Um...turned her on?
Oh, wait...that's my romantic side coming out, isn't it? <g>
In the pilot, Scully said that she joined the F.B.I. in order to distinguish
herself. In Mulder, she has found that---not just in the work, not just in the
man, but in the totality of the quest that he initiated but she's gone a long
way toward defining.
Mulder cannot succeed without Scully---and she will never find anything more
meaningful or significant--more "distinguishing"--than what she's doing now.
She is the missing piece in the puzzle of the quest---she is the structure to
his substance. There's a definite pragmatic element to their pair bond---they
complete each other on a lot of levels, most of which have little to do with
"romance."
Most of which. But not all of which. ;)
Paula Graves
petit...@my-deja.com
about
> > TXF & not about terminology. Mulder has said that Scully's
> > Rational/Logical/Scientific explanations have kept him honest. What
do
> > you think Mulder's Intuitive/Affective/Metaphoric explanations have
done
> > for Scully?
>
> Kept her fascinated. Made her consider extreme possibilities. Brought
> romance into her life. Think of all the adventures she's been on, all
the
> things she's seen and experienced. I love that scene in Squeeze where
she
> turns down Tom Colton's offer to come out of the basement and stop
being
> Mrs. Spooky. She makes it clear she's intrigued by Mulder and has a
lot of
> respect for him.
>
Deborah, tanXs for the reply. I've started this question off as a new
thread. Hope you'll re-post your thoughts there. --ps
Konrad Douglas Frye
(GravesPA2) writes:
>> Anyway, it sounds to me that you like to do what is called close
>> analysis. Close analysis is the description & evaluation of how all the
>> components of a production {writing, acting, cinematography, editing,
>> lighting, sound, scenic design, costume} in order to delineate its
>> narrative development.
>This does sound like what I do, but there's a definite pragmatic element
>to it---I break down the elements for myself in order to understand how
>and why they work. Like some people take apart a clock to see how it
>ticks, I guess. I have a mechanic's approach to art....and yet...
This is the way I prefer to look at a show that tries to toe the line
between fantasy and reality. I suppose this outlook stems from my training
as an Engineer. Neither artist nor scientist but a weird hybrid of both.
>I'm probably not as comfortable with the "messiness" of The X-Files as,
>say, Magpie or Deborah T are---there are things that I would change if I
>were in charge. But I'm pragmatic enough to know I'm NOT in charge, so I
>make a choice with each and every episode. Will I be able to find beauty
>today? Will the story work for me in this moment, and how much of my
>ingrained need for continuity can I compromise in order to enjoy it?
A fine line to be sure.
I don't mind "messiness" when I can discern a dramatic reason for it but I
have little tolerance for mindless mistakes that only serve to distract
me from the story the writers are trying to tell.
My stance is fairly straightforward: the side of the X-Files that is
grounded in *our* reality needs to follow our reality's rules. As far as
the fantastic aspects are concerned however, I'm prepared to give the
writers free reign provided there's some semblance of paranormal
continuity.
>Some days, I have to overlook a lot of things to enjoy the small but
>significant joys of the story, whether it's a nicely turned phrase, a
>surprising plot twist, a particulary strong performance by an actor
>or---in the case of one episode I otherwise loathed---the haunting and
>beautiful music.
Paging Glen Morgan. Paging Glen Morgan <g>
>>A question has arisen for me out of this debate both thankfully about
>>TXF & not about terminology. Mulder has said that Scully's
>>Rational/Logical/Scientific explanations have kept him honest. What do
>>you think Mulder's Intuitive/Affective/Metaphoric explanations have done
>>for Scully?
I think he's opened up her eyes to the world around her and given her a
greater appreciation of life's mysteries. Had Mulder not sparked
her curiosity, Scully might well have turned out to be another AD.
Cassidy like CC posited in the movie. Outside of the mytharc I think
that Scully adores the work that they do. How many pathologists can claim
to have autopsied a shape-shifter?
>Um...turned her on?
<g> That too.
>Mulder cannot succeed without Scully---and she will never find anything
>more meaningful or significant--more "distinguishing"--than what she's
>doing now. She is the missing piece in the puzzle of the quest---she is
>the structure to his substance. There's a definite pragmatic element to
>their pair bond---they complete each other on a lot of levels, most of
>which have little to do with "romance."
There you have it.
>Most of which. But not all of which. ;)
-----
Konrad Frye (umfr...@ccu.umanitoba.ca)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
"Or what? You'll release the dogs? Or the bees? Or the dogs with the
bees in their mouths and when they bark they shoot bees at you?"
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Matt Hale
>
> I don't believe the basics are always so basic either, even in movies.
> It was really just randomly decided that movies should be filmed
> plays, following the same structure, when they could just as
> easily have been nothing like plays. Who says, for example, that
> a movie must be one shot at a time? Why not have two squares on
> screen, each with a different thing going on? It seems ridiculous
> to us, but it wouldn't if we were used to it. It's like the
> difference between...I don't know...a novel and a haiku.
It's not ridiculous at all. Have you ever seen Peter Greenaway's work?
He does exactly that and it works beautifully. Check out Prospero's
Books and The Pillow Book. Prospero's Books is a moving poem based on
The Tempest completely without plot and The Pillow Book uses some of the
same techniques to tell a story. In The Pillow Book, flash backs often
play in a separate square as we continue to watch the story happen in
the present. It's fascinating and surprisingly unobtrusive once you get
into the rhythm.
I also love Oliver Stone's psychological backdrops used most explicitly
in Natural Born Killers but also present, with more subtlety, in The
Doors, JFK, U-Turn and others.
>From very early on, film has never been exclusively a story telling
medium and certainly not a naturalistic story telling medium. There's
no reason why TV has to be. David Lynch is the only person that managed
to completely subvert the form of episodic television on a network
series and it didn't last too long but there have been more sneaky
examples that have managed to last. I'd put XF in that category and I
think it is second only to Twin Peaks as the most abstract, non
traditional show in TV history.
> For me, TXF has never been a show about investigating crimes or
> chasing monsters--something I didn't realize about the show until
> the ng made me think about it. I guess I see it more as if each
> episode is another story about Mulder and Scully, just as one could
> introduce a story as being about Arthur and Kai going forth from
> Camelot again. Those stories followed some kind of continuity, but
> not completely. There might be some stories that advanced the
> characters, saying that Kai became so angry with Arthur he would
> have nothing to do with him after that point,for example, but the
> stories aren't about the cumulative experiences of the warriors
> from week to week. There's not even a particular order to each
> adventure.
I like this. I think it captures the spirit of the show very well. The
big story never goes away but we only get little bits of M&S's lives
each week. An awful lot goes on off screen and, most weeks, we focus on
their jobs. I know most people seem to disagree, but I see the mytharc
as an underlying presence in nearly every episode. It doesn't have to
be explicit to be there. It's in the way M&S treat each other and view
their cases.
Now as far as plot consistency and continuity, I think the plot is
elusive because the "truth" is elusive. It changes and contradicts
itself because M&S rarely ever know where they stand. As they see more
fantastic things, it gets even more muddy. I think that makes perfect
sense because a world in which all of these things exist is a confusing
and scary world that will never make sense.
I really love the prism idea in another post. It's true that most
episodes (certainly the best ones, IMO) are about magnifying one aspect
of the show and taking a look. "It's not about progress. It's about
paradox." What a great way of describing the structure of XF. It's not
linear story telling at all. Now, an interesting thing about the MOTW
format is that we usually (less this season than in the past) get these
portraits in the form of a short, linear sci-fi/horror story. TXF is a
long, nonlinear narrative told in segments comprised of short, linear
stories.
[snip]
> Anyway, this is why I just don't have any problem with a
> MOTW following a Mytharc. I know there's an overall
> threat of an invading army that will figure into the
> End of M&S, but the MOTWs are preparing them for whatever
> they will face in the Otherworld when it's over. The
> end of Camelot might have come in the form of another
> warrior (Mordred) but it didn't make the Quest for the
> Grail or the various other adventures a digression.
That is a great way of putting it. I don't really see it so much in
terms of preparing M&S for a final battle, though. I think of it more
like a series of studies. There's no real progress (though M&S have
certainly changed over the years). Now, one might ask, "What's the
point?" That's a perfectly valid question but all I can say is I don't
need a point beyond the joy of watching an intelligent, incredibly
detailed character study. I also think XF is a defiantly optimistic
love story when the norm in pop culture is hipper than thou nihilism and
I appreciate seeing that.
> I don't expect everyone to watch the show this way, obviously.
> I didn't even realize I was doing it myself, but it's just the
> way my mind works.
Same here. I know my ideas are a bit weird and I'm not trying to change
anybody's mind. There's no way for any of us to conclusively say what
1013 intends. I can only describe what I get out of it. Now, that's
not to say that I'm making it up out of nothing. I do see evidence in
the show. I also think we've seen enough episodes that work on both a
traditional and a more experimental level to prove that these are
skilled writers who know what they're doing (a few "four weeks" type
blatant mistakes aside). If it's true, however, that CC never intended
anything like what I've said and/or 1013 is simply a group of
incompetents, well, I believe in serendipity. I get a great deal of joy
out of this show and that's real regardless.
Matt Hale
hale...@earthlink.net
ABauer7333
> > you I/A/M start about symbols and truths (nonono, Truths!), higher
> > meanings and multifaceted prisms.... it's just two monologues. >>
Whoa! This whole R/L/S vs. I/A/M dichotomy is specious reasoning! I refer you
to recent research by Mark Johnson, Gilles Fauconnier, George Lakoff, Mark
Turner et. al:
All science has it's basis in metaphor and intuition, because all reasoning and
understanding has it's basis in the systematic mapping of bodily experience
onto concepts and realms of experience outside of the physical.
An arguable point, sure, but that's my story and I'm sticking to it!
And isn't TXF a great example of that? Each agent maps his or her experience
and knowledge onto an entirely new situation each week, usually resulting in a
"concpetual blend": a new paradigm of knowledge, or a new solution to a
problem that could not have been reached using either old model in isolation?
Dr. B
GravesPA2
<< If it's true, however, that CC never intended anything like what I've said
and/or 1013 is simply a group of incompetents, well, I believe in
serendipity.>>
While I know you don't believe that 1013 is simply a group of incompetents (and
therefore, this comment is not directed at you, Matt), this brings up something
that has bothered me, somewhat, about the more dismissive criticism of the
show.
The X-Files has been and continues to be what I would call a show
"inaccessible" to the masses. The subject matter is off-putting to many; the
complex and often mysterious mytharc keeps other viewers at bay. The 13 or so
million people who watch the show week to week are primarily core viewers who
don't miss an episode if they can help it.
Inaccessible shows simply don't last six or seven seasons unless they are
well-done. Hell, even some very well-done shows don't even last a season---ask
Cupid. Six years of crappy television---or, for that matter, even three years
of crappy television (if you're of the "The X-Files has been crap since Season
Three" crowd) will not last if it is also inaccessible.
What this tells me is that the core audience is still getting something
powerful from the show. And I have a lot of trouble believing that in this day
and age those 13 million people are all "filling in the blanks" of a sub-par
show. Who has the TIME?
When I first saw this suggestion---that those of us who have been getting a lot
out of Season Six are obviously supplying most of what we're taking out of
it--I gave it some thought, because I do happen to be someone who gets a
creative charge out of filling in the blanks.
But something occurred to me about this season. I haven't felt the
overwhelming need to do that. Some episodes, indeed, I thought were so
well-done, so neatly woven, that there was simply no need to expound on them
any further. There were no holes in the fabric that needed patching. It's been
very enjoyable for me to simply watch and enjoy someone else's expert
craftsmanship.
I am, quite frankly, at a loss about what the naysayers are talking about,
beyond the handful of sub-par "newbie" episodes. Even "SR-819," which to me is
probably the weakest of the batch among established show writers, wasn't that
bad and had many good elements to recommend it.
This is not to say that I think those who haven't liked this season are wrong.
People like or don't like what they will, and there's nothing "wrong" about
that. But I do think they're wrong if they think their lack of enjoyment is
based on the deterioration of the show's quality.
Paula Graves
Magpie
>
> Magpie wrote:
> >
> > I don't believe the basics are always so basic either, even in movies.
> > It was really just randomly decided that movies should be filmed
> > plays, following the same structure, when they could just as
> > easily have been nothing like plays. Who says, for example, that
> > a movie must be one shot at a time? Why not have two squares on
> > screen, each with a different thing going on? It seems ridiculous
> > to us, but it wouldn't if we were used to it. It's like the
> > difference between...I don't know...a novel and a haiku.
>
> It's not ridiculous at all. Have you ever seen Peter Greenaway's work?
> He does exactly that and it works beautifully. Check out Prospero's
> Books and The Pillow Book. Prospero's Books is a moving poem based on
> The Tempest completely without plot and The Pillow Book uses some of the
> same techniques to tell a story. In The Pillow Book, flash backs often
> play in a separate square as we continue to watch the story happen in
> the present. It's fascinating and surprisingly unobtrusive once you get
> into the rhythm.
LOL! That's exactly who I was thinking of--Peter Greenaway. He came
to lecture when I was in grad school and was very adamant about exactly
this. It's rare that someone plays around with the physical film
they are working with. Animators use it more than live-action
directors, I guess, which is why the Simpsons is free to pack so
much into every episode--like subtly changing the artwork to look
like Dr. Seuss when Mr. Burns in acting like the Grinch (Smithers
as Max the dog, of course). It's a wild ride.
> I also love Oliver Stone's psychological backdrops used most explicitly
> in Natural Born Killers but also present, with more subtlety, in The
> Doors, JFK, U-Turn and others.
I really loved NBK. I really felt like I had stepped
inside somebody's head in that one. I remember all the debate about
it: is it criticizing the media for glorifying violence or is it
glorifying violence while pretending to do that? I thought it was
neither of those things, but a pure fantasy that someone like
Micky or Mallory might have about what a crime spree would be like.
It wasn't a true representation of how the media portrays these
things at all because a) Robert Downey Jr.'s show is obviously based on
"America's Most Wanted", which is an effective and very traditional
way of *catching* criminals, not making them heroes and b) Steven
Wright's psychiatrist IRL would have diagnosed Mallory as an incest
survivor instead of dismissing the idea (which fed her "everyone's
against me so they deserve to die" feeling). Then of course there's
the way the police are non-existant unless they're admiring M&M
or screwing up etc. And I just loved all the changes in technique
from b&w to color to animation etc. I thought that whole movie
just came together and worked beautifully.
> >From very early on, film has never been exclusively a story telling
> medium and certainly not a naturalistic story telling medium. There's
> no reason why TV has to be. David Lynch is the only person that managed
> to completely subvert the form of episodic television on a network
> series and it didn't last too long but there have been more sneaky
> examples that have managed to last. I'd put XF in that category and I
> think it is second only to Twin Peaks as the most abstract, non
> traditional show in TV history.
Peter Greenaway loved this show too, of course. Blue Velvet
seemed to be one of his absolute favorite movies. I know
a lot of people thought TP was just weird for the sake of
weirdness, but as long as DL was directing an ep they were
firmly in hand, for me, and worked completely as narrative.
Sometimes other directors seemed a little more
at sea, like they were trying to imitate Lynch without
quite knowing how. I am convinced that DL really does
just tell stories through visual images naturally. He
comes closer to recreating the dream experience for me
than anyone else (Eraserhead, of course, is the dream where
you wake up with your face in the pillow, according to
one critic!). I still remember how thrilled I was the
first time I saw the backwards red room scene. Let's
rock, indeed!:)
>
> > For me, TXF has never been a show about investigating crimes or
> > chasing monsters--something I didn't realize about the show until
> > the ng made me think about it. I guess I see it more as if each
> > episode is another story about Mulder and Scully, just as one could
> > introduce a story as being about Arthur and Kai going forth from
> > Camelot again. Those stories followed some kind of continuity, but
> > not completely. There might be some stories that advanced the
> > characters, saying that Kai became so angry with Arthur he would
> > have nothing to do with him after that point,for example, but the
> > stories aren't about the cumulative experiences of the warriors
> > from week to week. There's not even a particular order to each
> > adventure.
>
> I like this. I think it captures the spirit of the show very well. The
> big story never goes away but we only get little bits of M&S's lives
> each week. An awful lot goes on off screen and, most weeks, we focus on
> their jobs. I know most people seem to disagree, but I see the mytharc
> as an underlying presence in nearly every episode. It doesn't have to
> be explicit to be there. It's in the way M&S treat each other and view
> their cases.
I feel like they simply can't investigate the mytharc unless
it comes to them, like the door to that part of the Otherworld
opens. Krycek especially seems like a guide to me. He knows
more than anyone else in this universe and pushes everyone in
the direction they need to go in. Skinner needed to be pushed
through the Palm Pilot--which is very much like putting him under
a curse. M&S must be brought into the investigation etc. We
always know it's Krycek, but he has many faces. We haven't seen
his true one yet.
>
> Now as far as plot consistency and continuity, I think the plot is
> elusive because the "truth" is elusive. It changes and contradicts
> itself because M&S rarely ever know where they stand. As they see more
> fantastic things, it gets even more muddy. I think that makes perfect
> sense because a world in which all of these things exist is a confusing
> and scary world that will never make sense.
Exactly. I compared it once to the show "Sightings" vs. "In Search
Of...". S deals with too many phenomena--3 in a half hour time slot.
It makes everything seem silly. ISO... looked at one thing in depth
for the whole show and then went on to another the next week. On
TXF, many monsters exist, but only one monster exists at a time.
It's that wonderful prism idea.
<snip>
I also think XF is a defiantly optimistic
> love story when the norm in pop culture is hipper than thou nihilism and
> I appreciate seeing that.
Amen.
> Same here. I know my ideas are a bit weird and I'm not trying to change
> anybody's mind. There's no way for any of us to conclusively say what
> 1013 intends. I can only describe what I get out of it. Now, that's
> not to say that I'm making it up out of nothing. I do see evidence in
> the show. I also think we've seen enough episodes that work on both a
> traditional and a more experimental level to prove that these are
> skilled writers who know what they're doing (a few "four weeks" type
> blatant mistakes aside). If it's true, however, that CC never intended
> anything like what I've said and/or 1013 is simply a group of
> incompetents, well, I believe in serendipity. I get a great deal of joy
> out of this show and that's real regardless.
Yes, if 1013 really is just screwing with us, the jokes on them.
They've given me hours of entertainment and I've given them
very little in return outside of this ng.
-m
Magpie
>
> << > > <<But if we R/L/S point out the logical and scientific flaws, then
> > > you I/A/M start about symbols and truths (nonono, Truths!), higher
> > > meanings and multifaceted prisms.... it's just two monologues. >>
>
> to recent research by Mark Johnson, Gilles Fauconnier, George Lakoff, Mark
> Turner et. al:
>
> All science has it's basis in metaphor and intuition, because all reasoning and
> understanding has it's basis in the systematic mapping of bodily experience
> onto concepts and realms of experience outside of the physical.
>
> An arguable point, sure, but that's my story and I'm sticking to it!
>
> And isn't TXF a great example of that? Each agent maps his or her experience
> and knowledge onto an entirely new situation each week, usually resulting in a
> "concpetual blend": a new paradigm of knowledge, or a new solution to a
> problem that could not have been reached using either old model in isolation?
It's funny--this is the kind of thing that comes up when we
talk about Scully as scientist. Brilliant scientists are
always coming up with theories that haven't been proven.
Having Scully say things like, "it's impossible" makes her
seem more like a technician not capable of new ideas.
The Scully of Field Trip is the real scientist. The one who
says, "but what if...."
-m
Deborah A Tinsley
ABauer7333 <abaue...@aol.com> wrote in article
<19990612112838...@ng-bh1.aol.com>...
> << > > <<But if we R/L/S point out the logical and scientific flaws, then
> > > you I/A/M start about symbols and truths (nonono, Truths!), higher
> > > meanings and multifaceted prisms.... it's just two monologues. >>
>
refer you
> to recent research by Mark Johnson, Gilles Fauconnier, George Lakoff,
Mark
> Turner et. al:
>
> All science has it's basis in metaphor and intuition, because all
reasoning and
> understanding has it's basis in the systematic mapping of bodily
experience
> onto concepts and realms of experience outside of the physical.
>
> An arguable point, sure, but that's my story and I'm sticking to it!
I'm reading the Lakoff/Johnson book "Metaphors We Live By" and find it
fascinating. I know nothing of the history of this particular theory, but
it was a pleasant relief from the deconstructivists. I found an explanation
of spatial metaphors that used Body and a Box-Frame Model. Spatial
Metaphors are -- up/down, left/right, front/back, inside/outside.
Here's a simple example:
Perceptual Contrast Sample Concepts Figures of Speech
top/bottom-up/down Power control over, top dog, underdog
Social Class high, middle ,low, under
front/back Time looking forward, looking back
Progress moving forward, leaving behind
left/right judgement balancing both sides
comparison on the one hand...on the other
inside/outside category in an area or container
hidden reality "inner child"
light/shadow consciousness light of reason, the Jungian shadow
Gee, I hope my tabbing and columns don't get too scrambled.
I find think this theory is very interesting. Even science must use
metaphors to help us understand complex concepts. These metaphors, and
others, suggest to us that the focus of definition is at the level of basic
domains of experience. How do people understand their experiences? We view
language as providing data that can lead to general principles of
understanding. These principles involve whole systems of concepts rather
than individual words or individual concepts. Such principles are often
metaphoric in nature and involve understanding one kind of experience in
terms of another kind of experience.
I find TXF to model this not necessarily in it's use of language but in the
way it puts forth meaning. We understand our lives via the metaphors they
give us using monsters, conspiracies and alien creatures. That's why I
found Milagro so exciting. As Matt said in one of his posts, S6 is the
season when the subtext went wild.
Or maybe I'm just making this up to amuse myself <VBG>.
> And isn't TXF a great example of that? Each agent maps his or her
experience
> and knowledge onto an entirely new situation each week, usually resulting
in a
> "concpetual blend": a new paradigm of knowledge, or a new solution to a
> problem that could not have been reached using either old model in
isolation?
> Dr. B
I'm not sure what you mean? Is it like Mulder realizing in Field Trip that
he must be hallucinating if Scully agreed with him so readily or Scully
realizing something was wrong because her "theory" about ritual murder kept
being flung in her face? That their knowledge of themselves was adequate to
make these leaps because of their relationship?
Deborah