Two Q's inspired by Monaco's "How to Read a Film"
A.E. Jabbour
not only fascinating and educational, but entertaining and well-
written.
I have two questions, though neither concerns the content of the
book (I need to digest more before I can ask those questions).
1. How are his other books, especially "The New Wave"?
2. He quotes Christian Metz a good deal. Clearly Metz wrote a good
deal concerning the semiotics of film. Opinions on his books? Are
they readable by a determined layman? Are tehy interesting? Etc.
Thanks in advance.
--
A.E. Jabbour
"Dancer in the Dark" is one of the most sadistic
films I've ever seen, but it also raises the
possibility that sadism might be, in spite of itself,
a species of love." - A.O. Scott
dobe...@deletesocal.rr.com
>2. He quotes Christian Metz a good deal. Clearly Metz wrote a good
>deal concerning the semiotics of film. Opinions on his books? Are
>they readable by a determined layman? Are they interesting? Etc.
If Metz wrote about the semiotics of film, don't those questions sort
of answer themselves?
--
Yeah, we all shine on
Like the moon & the stars & the sun.
ville terminale
> I am approaching the half-way point in this book, and finding it
> not only fascinating and educational, but entertaining and well-
> written.
i think it's worthless.
>
> I have two questions, though neither concerns the content of the
> book (I need to digest more before I can ask those questions).
>
> 1. How are his other books, especially "The New Wave"?
much better. i especially like how he distinguished between the new
wave gang and guys like resnais, marker, etc. whose careers paralled
but developed apart from the new wave, according to a different set of
values.
>
> 2. He quotes Christian Metz a good deal. Clearly Metz wrote a good
> deal concerning the semiotics of film. Opinions on his books? Are
> they readable by a determined layman? Are tehy interesting? Etc.
>
mostly caca.
Randall Coleman
language and is a fantastic methodology for doing film analysis. You need a
crash course in the basic concepts and terminology of semiotics, and I don't
think you'll get it from Metz. You can probably find a good primer at a
library. It's worth the trouble of looking into. Very interesting stuff.
Dudley du Pont
<dobe...@DELETEsocal.rr.com> wrote in message
news:dqlk20p5v5hn4shua...@4ax.com...
dobe...@deletesocal.rr.com
>Metz prettymuch created the semiotics of cinema. It treats cinema as a
>language and is a fantastic methodology for doing film analysis.
Virtually _every_ branch of contemporary film theory treats cinema "as
a language" -- semiotic, structuralist, reader/viewer response,
deconstructive, postcolonial, post-genealogy, psychoanalytic,
post-Freudian, neo-Freudian, anti-Freudian, feminist,
phenomenological, hermeneutical, prandial, post-prandial, & scotch on
the rocks.
I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.
>You need a crash course in the basic concepts and terminology of
>semiotics, and I don't think you'll get it from Metz. You can probably
>find a good primer at a library. It's worth the trouble of looking into.
>Very interesting stuff.
It's doubly interesting when you actually start delving into the
mysteries of semiotics & uncover howlers like this from professional
semioticians: "Semiotics is that which is called semiotics by the
people who call themselves semioticians" [Eugene Gorny].
monsieurblob
my big brown scottish arse. some of the greatest filmic crimes ever
have been committed by theory. its a direct product of the very
essence of being-a-uni-prof. and its funny once you realise that whats
behind it all is mimesis, yes the word they use to 'describe' popular
culture. now, dont get me wrong, i do like their development of
victorian morality into ideology. for instance, a character in a jane
austen gig aint altruistic if jane says he/she is, it depends on the
notions of altruism/egoism developed by ethics at the time thje case
study is written. and a suburban (bourgois (sic, cant be arsed) or
worker or anything) kid indeed should evaluate his parents not throu
idiotic childish right wing notions of morality, but rather on a sort
of ethics as applied to society. and in tom sutpens dishonest attack
on the nouvelle vague i sense a pathetic attempt to defend half baked
crap like the billy wilder and, oh my gewd, john m stahl pics.
but enough is enough. theory is too ambitious, too pointless, too
vague, too idiotic, too moronic, too monolithic, too idiotic and too
moronic. it allows the uni prof to be lazy and to say idiotic crap,
because if he says it in the name of theory its alright and it can be
taught in class. part of the comedie humaine of having to justify your
subject as a subject in the humanities, in relation to literature (its
war with it) and whatelse, like the 1001 reasons why pop or rock music
might not deserve respect...
and out of them emerge morons like madkevin and idiotic 10 best mooees
all time every 10 year sprees of shit like the ones in sight n sound.
madkevin, a dull little idiot then steps into the world as
wittgenstein number 2 and says moronic trollacies like citizen kane is
better than touch of evil.
the classes todayadays are full of morons that like shit like
gladiator, shawshank redemption and american beauty, but thats another
story...
monsieurblob
but on the other hand, i loved your account of the viewers in moma of
the akerman movie. i havent seen any of her stuff but from what you
said the film they watched and you watched of akerman lazing around
doing this and that and then suddenly bursting out and leaving, i
would have loved that movie. you see, that is my idea of total or pure
cinema, it was how so much of the wading throu half baked billy wilder
or big american authors inside hollywood parade was finally
compensated. for instance i can dwell on and wonder and like the idea
of liking renoir rules of the game but the struggling auteur (usually
director or cinematographer for me, and perhaps deep down script) is
not good enough for me. i want him in full control, so that he/she can
attack the tyranny of the visible; the director and i are on the same
of the fence, the anti pro filmic side. therefore rules of the game is
not enough, what is good enough are the following off the top me head:
victor erice, terence davies, mike leigh, godard, sokurov, rossellini,
antonioni, rohmer, hsiao hsien, oliveira, bresson, cassavetes etc, and
a whole load of peeps i havent seen but wanna, like rivette, straub,
garrel, akerman
sokurov, for instance, is as good as it gets. and if i saw the akerman
pics i'd prolly like em
club that would have you as a member
sokurov is spiritual, akerman is shitual.
monsieurblob
no, dont start playing the jonathan rosenbaum other. sokurov is pure,
as is so much of avant garde and as is the loony approach on cinema in
general (i.e., entering a cinema for 15 mins, opening your bottle of
champagne and laughing your head off and getting into a fight with the
robots inside it). dont come up with the spiritual republican/
materialist democrat crap, you both did the same thing with bresson
club that would have you as a member
it's the russian soul thing. a russian artist cannot not be spiritual.
it's in his blood. same thing with bresson. take out christian ethos
and bresson's cinema is nothing but stylistics, when in fact his
cinematic language was a visual translation of spirituality. to read
bresson without christianity is like reading eisenstein without the
theory of dialectics. in both cases, the visual expression grew out
from ideological and/or spiritual concepts.
monsieurblob
hahahaha! you're being too 'literary'. tarkovsky's the one who fell
into that facile spiritual crap, it was too easy, plus there was a
public in the west ready for the spiritual thing, bearing in mind
their predisposition to the tolstoy-dostoyevsky-pasternak carnaval.
sokurov, as ian christie points out moves somewhere else (and its
beyond neither him nor i to evaluate), beyond what durgnat called
typically american bitchslappings over spirituality and materialism.
> it's in his blood. same thing with bresson. take out christian ethos
> and bresson's cinema is nothing but stylistics, when in fact his
> cinematic language was a visual translation of spirituality.
well cording to rosenbaum its materialist. the christians, the
catholics, thje evangelists, the protestants thought they finally had
a modern artist (apart from rossellini) and started boasting and
boasting but then finally oh oh devil, probably and bresson's latter
films in general. the youth in devil in the church is hardly
spiritual. l'argent, we can argue to argue but then we lose the point,
we can say is materialist
when bertolucci quotes mouchette in sognatori you think he goes
christian. not at all, quite the opposite to yours, for him the
nouvelle vague is not cinema, its cinema of resistance. something is
wrong with both yours and his view, and with sutpen's
nihilism/skepticism a la lets rehabilitate billy wilder bollocks.
to read
> bresson without christianity is like reading eisenstein without the
> theory of dialectics. in both cases, the visual expression grew out
> from ideological and/or spiritual concepts.
and whats more, where in the unassuming nature of l'argent can we find
spiritualism. its materialism, an essay on materialism, proving a
point by painstakingly goind throu the motions. the guy in l'argent,
his hand as he does the work he's about to lose.
but what does jones say bout that hand. not that its spiritual or
material, he says its 'unassuming'.
something is tremendously odd here. for you jules et jim is the
nouvelle vague. odd, that. mine is more the sort of the one o donaghue
mentions in his reviews of tirez sur le pianiste and le samourai at
imdb. truffaut looks at pianiste and says it was wrong if the public
didnt like it, so he went down another path. i must say youve never
been a cineclub rat, a cinematheque rat, you're too literary, too
ideological.
your mentions of 'poetry' are odd
ville terminale
by spirituality i don't mean specific religious affiliation or faith.
rather, it's a matter of questioning and pondering the grand mystery.
or, having the courage or imagination to confront even if there are no
answers. so there is a spiritualist element or aspect to the works of
sokurov. his art would be inconceivable outside the russian artistic
tradition deeply affected by its unique brand of earthy
paganist-christianity.
>
>
>
> > it's in his blood. same thing with bresson. take out christian ethos
> > and bresson's cinema is nothing but stylistics, when in fact his
> > cinematic language was a visual translation of spirituality.
>
>
> well cording to rosenbaum its materialist. the christians, the
> catholics, thje evangelists, the protestants thought they finally had
> a modern artist (apart from rossellini) and started boasting and
> boasting but then finally oh oh devil, probably and bresson's latter
> films in general. the youth in devil in the church is hardly
> spiritual. l'argent, we can argue to argue but then we lose the point,
> we can say is materialist
i'm not saying bresson was explicitly religious or that he even
believed in god. whether he did or didn't is besides the point. but,
he did grapple with the notion of man's existential conundrum in a
spiritualist context. there is depth, sorrow, serenity, and agony
expressed in his films which derive their power from christian
spirituality. but, i agree that rosenbaum is half right. bresson's
films are materialist in the sense that whatever spiritual
transformation or awakening that occurs is within the isolated
character alone. the world remains harsh and unaltered, ruthless
materiality rules every inch of the objective world. in this sense,
spirituality may only be a subjective delusion but bresson was
interested in this psychological aspect of existence.
>
> when bertolucci quotes mouchette in sognatori you think he goes
> christian. not at all, quite the opposite to yours, for him the
> nouvelle vague is not cinema, its cinema of resistance. something is
> wrong with both yours and his view, and with sutpen's
> nihilism/skepticism a la lets rehabilitate billy wilder bollocks.
>
i'm puzzled. i don't know what you're getting at but maybe you're just
too deep for me. at any rate, guys like rosenbaum are hardline
leftists and want to narrowly characterize artists into ideological
groupings. he's so anti-religion that he can't see any value
whatsoever in spiritual concerns.
>
>
>
>
> to read
> > bresson without christianity is like reading eisenstein without the
> > theory of dialectics. in both cases, the visual expression grew out
> > from ideological and/or spiritual concepts.
>
>
> and whats more, where in the unassuming nature of l'argent can we find
> spiritualism. its materialism, an essay on materialism, proving a
> point by painstakingly goind throu the motions. the guy in l'argent,
> his hand as he does the work he's about to lose.
>
> but what does jones say bout that hand. not that its spiritual or
> material, he says its 'unassuming'.
l'argent is one of his more materialist movies. but, it's still a
vaguely spiritualist critique of the value of materialism. mere greed
or materialist actions set into motion a series of misfortunes which
ruin a young man's life and then leads him to murder. yet, his murder
of the old woman at the end is almost an act of spiritualist mercy, to
release her from the cold materialist prison walls of this world.
it's a condemnation of the materialistic world. if bresson had simply
been a materialist, he would have accepted the world for what it is.
but, in l'argent he investigates it, pries into it, despairs over it.
now, why would a materialist condemn materialism? the perspective of
bresson's criticism of materialism originates from the deeper ideals
of spiritualism.
>
>
> something is tremendously odd here. for you jules et jim is the
> nouvelle vague. odd, that. mine is more the sort of the one o donaghue
> mentions in his reviews of tirez sur le pianiste and le samourai at
> imdb. truffaut looks at pianiste and says it was wrong if the public
> didnt like it, so he went down another path. i must say youve never
> been a cineclub rat, a cinematheque rat, you're too literary, too
> ideological.
>
> your mentions of 'poetry' are odd
new wave or old wave, what does it matter? good movies are always
fresh, therefore always new. citizen kane is new. so is ivan the
terrible. they will always be new. new wave flows thru all cultures,
thru all periods. whenever someone does something fresh and exciting,
it's part of the new wave. y tu mama tambien is part of the new wave.
so is the wild bunch. so is tokyo drifter. and, fires on the plain,
ohayo, topsy turvy. watch the artist, not the movement.
monsieurblob
you're taking things too far back, like the priests. so we were built
by christianity, who cares! its time to move on, which is basically
the same thing you guys say bout liberals and black communities.
christianity is moronic, lets move on to the most sophisticated
ethics. aesthetics in the case. sokurov, first of all, is avant garde,
a museum piece. then, and only then, can you literary peeps have a go
at the spirituality.
>
> >
> >
> >
> > > it's in his blood. same thing with bresson. take out christian ethos
> > > and bresson's cinema is nothing but stylistics, when in fact his
> > > cinematic language was a visual translation of spirituality.
> >
> >
> > well cording to rosenbaum its materialist. the christians, the
> > catholics, thje evangelists, the protestants thought they finally had
> > a modern artist (apart from rossellini) and started boasting and
> > boasting but then finally oh oh devil, probably and bresson's latter
> > films in general. the youth in devil in the church is hardly
> > spiritual. l'argent, we can argue to argue but then we lose the point,
> > we can say is materialist
>
> i'm not saying bresson was explicitly religious or that he even
> believed in god. whether he did or didn't is besides the point. but,
> he did grapple with the notion of man's existential conundrum in a
> spiritualist context. there is depth, sorrow, serenity, and agony
> expressed in his films which derive their power from christian
> spirituality. but, i agree that rosenbaum is half right. bresson's
> films are materialist in the sense that whatever spiritual
> transformation or awakening that occurs is within the isolated
> character alone. the world remains harsh and unaltered, ruthless
> materiality rules every inch of the objective world. in this sense,
> spirituality may only be a subjective delusion but bresson was
> interested in this psychological aspect of existence.
lets agree to disagree; i believe you are both wrong. bresson is
neither this nor that he simply belongs to a line of film: dreyer-
bresson- (cassavetes)- melville- erice- godard- or the catherine
deneuve in the phillipe garrel pic- hou hsiao hsien (all which i
love). teleological, its about film. its not a column in a fascist or
a maoist 'cultural' mag
e.e.cummings is not post structuralist in the same way bresson is not
spiritual.
>
> >
> > when bertolucci quotes mouchette in sognatori you think he goes
> > christian. not at all, quite the opposite to yours, for him the
> > nouvelle vague is not cinema, its cinema of resistance. something is
> > wrong with both yours and his view, and with sutpen's
> > nihilism/skepticism a la lets rehabilitate billy wilder bollocks.
> >
>
> i'm puzzled. i don't know what you're getting at but maybe you're just
> too deep for me. at any rate, guys like rosenbaum are hardline
> leftists and want to narrowly characterize artists into ideological
> groupings. he's so anti-religion that he can't see any value
> whatsoever in spiritual concerns.
>
no i'm usually impressionist heretic film loon ex student, not deep.
but in this case i'm talking bout the latest bertolucci pic.
and on a wholly different plane, i.e. i dont think should be used to
interpret bresson, i agree with rosenbaum. spirituality just gets in
the way proof seeking. materialism doesnt mean what you ppl want it to
mean. its neither greed nor zola naturalism. its just proof seeking,
not having to go to church to find out you're right.
oh well
tuco
> by christianity, who cares! its time to move on, which is basically
> the same thing you guys say bout liberals and black communities.
> christianity is moronic, lets move on to the most sophisticated
> ethics. aesthetics in the case. sokurov, first of all, is avant garde,
> a museum piece. then, and only then, can you literary peeps have a go
> at the spirituality.
history may be 1000s of yrs old but the life of a man is only 70 yrs.
nothing is old. everything starts fresh and new with every life. when
i was discovering antonioni, kurosawa, new wave in the 80s, the boomer
generation had already moved on to different things. but all that
stuff was new to me.
life is a duality of historical continuity/development AND starting
completely new on a blank slate. rousseau is new to anyone who hasn't
read him. same with plato and jesus.
>
> lets agree to disagree; i believe you are both wrong. bresson is
> neither this nor that he simply belongs to a line of film: dreyer-
> bresson- (cassavetes)- melville- erice- godard- or the catherine
> deneuve in the phillipe garrel pic- hou hsiao hsien (all which i
> love). teleological, its about film. its not a column in a fascist or
> a maoist 'cultural' mag
i would like to hear your defense of who how when. i think he's
booooring. i think 30 yrs hence, no one will care who he was, how he
made his films, or when.
> and on a wholly different plane, i.e. i dont think should be used
to
> interpret bresson, i agree with rosenbaum. spirituality just gets in
> the way proof seeking. materialism doesnt mean what you ppl want it to
> mean. its neither greed nor zola naturalism. its just proof seeking,
> not having to go to church to find out you're right.
we may be agreeing but getting entangled on definitions. i've been a
diehard atheist all my life. spiritual to me doesn't mean there is a
god or some work of art must prove his existence. to me, it's a matter
of feeling. even if we understand why the wind blows and what it's
made of--oxygen, nitrogen, carbon dioxide--, we feel something sublime
about the wind brushing against our skin, tingling our senses,
rejuvenating something mysterious from inside us. i think all art, in
this sense, is spiritual. it's links us back to the source beyond
rationality and intellect. not all the dots connect and we have to
take it on faith. this is truest with music, the greatest of all the
arts.
monsieurblob
> monsie...@hotmail.com (monsieurblob) wrote in message
> >
> > you're taking things too far back, like the priests. so we were built
> > by christianity, who cares! its time to move on, which is basically
> > the same thing you guys say bout liberals and black communities.
> > christianity is moronic, lets move on to the most sophisticated
> > ethics. aesthetics in the case. sokurov, first of all, is avant garde,
> > a museum piece. then, and only then, can you literary peeps have a go
> > at the spirituality.
>
>
> history may be 1000s of yrs old but the life of a man is only 70 yrs.
> nothing is old. everything starts fresh and new with every life. when
> i was discovering antonioni, kurosawa, new wave in the 80s, the boomer
> generation had already moved on to different things. but all that
> stuff was new to me.
> life is a duality of historical continuity/development AND starting
> completely new on a blank slate. rousseau is new to anyone who hasn't
> read him. same with plato and jesus.
>
like the liberals with the ideas that blacks are poor because 200
years ago, when the land was spread, they could get none. or that the
land was indian american, only that because they were nomads and had
no military superiority, this allowed the whites to move in. that for
you conservatives has been a case of going too far back. this is
simply the reverse case.
we´re talking in the present for the present. and so there's no place
for jesus or christianity. its been substituted by ethics feuillerbach
(?), george eliot, bahktin and wittgenstein and whatnot, all of which
may be faulty or tangential or simply plagued with errors but are at
least much better than pointing out the foundations when these are
stale and anticuated.
the only way out now is ethics, which is something i dont practice. i
find it boring, but its infinitely better than insisting on our
inheritance, as if he had depts to the past, to that tiresome
bureaucracy of language
> >
> > lets agree to disagree; i believe you are both wrong. bresson is
> > neither this nor that he simply belongs to a line of film: dreyer-
> > bresson- (cassavetes)- melville- erice- godard- or the catherine
> > deneuve in the phillipe garrel pic- hou hsiao hsien (all which i
> > love). teleological, its about film. its not a column in a fascist or
> > a maoist 'cultural' mag
>
> i would like to hear your defense of who how when. i think he's
> booooring. i think 30 yrs hence, no one will care who he was, how he
> made his films, or when.
>
no i dont defend him, i've only seen two of his pics so i'm not ready.
and when i do love a pic its wholly on chaotic reasoning. but in any
case;
i think of the ellipsis, yes that thing bazin blabbed bout. every
movie is the same only with different use of ellipsis, ok so its a
fallacious statement but you get the idea. i'm talking about the
disclosure we get of a character. say for instance, the event (as
portrayed by the culture du papá) as opposed to the time before or
after the event. beijing bycicle for instance. when we blurt out
'bressonian', we mean this. in paisá, the war is offstage, so its not
only bresson. its a long complex line of cinematheque rats. bazin sees
rossellini, someone reads bazin and then sees bresson. 40 years later
someone who's seen n read em all sees hsiao hsien. but for me its not
resistance, its simply different. say we had spielberg or lasse
halstrom (cider house rules) direct millenium mambo, we'd have
dialogue and event, the actor as star and as expression. but with this
other tradition du (different, and what makes it worthwhile and 'good'
is its rarity) qualité, with hsiao hsien we have disorientation and
those places that are left in the ellipsis by conventional filmmaking.
dialogue becomes disorientation only because we're not ready for this
sort of stuff, its too much because whereas dialogue constrains
meaning to itself, disorientation spreads meaning across the entire
frame, destroys the slavery of narrative. the girl just sits there in
the amazing depth of the image of their appartment, the guy with his
tecno music and the door strings moving to and fro as they go in and
out. its too much. the expression is no longer 'i want to divorce, you
bastard' dialogue. instead, its her body movements; rebellious of the
'literary', we're talking about the specificity of cinema too. the
nightclub is no longer 'lets go have some fun', but a fady blue where
motive for fight is confused, the wind blowing in yours or her face on
the highway is simply that, and the footsteps in the snow are, well,
footsteps. the actress is not star and expression, quite the opposite.
the actress is you and me as we know ourselves, we know our 'boring'
parts, beyond language as its in the novels. and thats generosity, the
idea we that we can go to the pics and come out amazed and apply that
wonder to our own lives. its beyond anything i expected, thought i
could get from the pics, or even knew could be. it's the footsteps in
the snow, worth years and years of toiling throu action-eventified
movies, tiresomely dealing with mimesis, of heroes with flaws a la
corneille or racine.
in any case its an attitude deeply ingrained cinemathequeness rats
that belong only to urban culture, we're completely apolitical and
express ourselves in half assed halkf baked ways when it comes to
politics. i suppose we're not impressionist at all after all, we just
see cinema as a language (so we dont agree with doberman without
having to masturbate about saussure) that needs to be beaten the crap
out of.
i do love that pic, i mustv lied, its just that in general i
romantically try to believe in chaos, but sometimes chaos is
impossible. now i found myself having to define cinema as a whole
because the reason i love millenium mambo or el sur is because of my
encounter with this cinema, this Thing as a general and as a product
of society. the mention of mimesis, the talk on popular culture, was
unavoidable.
> > and on a wholly different plane, i.e. i dont think should be used
> to
> > interpret bresson, i agree with rosenbaum. spirituality just gets in
> > the way proof seeking. materialism doesnt mean what you ppl want it to
> > mean. its neither greed nor zola naturalism. its just proof seeking,
> > not having to go to church to find out you're right.
>
> we may be agreeing but getting entangled on definitions. i've been a
> diehard atheist all my life. spiritual to me doesn't mean there is a
> god or some work of art must prove his existence. to me, it's a matter
> of feeling. even if we understand why the wind blows and what it's
> made of--oxygen, nitrogen, carbon dioxide--, we feel something sublime
> about the wind brushing against our skin, tingling our senses,
> rejuvenating something mysterious from inside us. i think all art, in
> this sense, is spiritual. it's links us back to the source beyond
> rationality and intellect. not all the dots connect and we have to
> take it on faith. this is truest with music, the greatest of all the
> arts.
then we're being too impressionist and this line of discussion isnt
worth pursuing. but i'm worried that you dont realise or pretend not
to realise the political implications of this impressionism. perhaps
we need theory after all