jeanne dielmann by akerman one of the worst ever
catch of the day
and just left. couldn't see the point of watching the remaining 90
minutes.
this is shit. akerman is the worst, most putrid, insufferable, dumb,
pompous, moronic pile of manure ever to arise from the world of art
cinema.
what's the movie about? you get see some woman shine shoes, bake
cookies, and eat soup. actually one scene in the bathtub shows some
titties but forget about the rest.
the point of the movie? yet get sit in the dark for 3 hrs and 30
minutes to be told that life is boring and humdrum, something i kinda
knew before and after i stepped into the theater.
i wonder why akerman, if she cares so much about humdrum, never shows
dielmann taking a dump. no need since the movie's nothing more than
akerman's 3 1/2 hrs of shitting.
Randall Coleman
first place? Sounds like you were familiar with her work and already knew
what you'd be getting into.
Criticize the film if you want, but must you be so angry and aggressive -
and use such vile language? That's the kind of attack I reserve for right
wing, reactionary films, where the content really matters. Jeanne Dielman is
just a film that most people find tremendously boring and a handful
appreciate and enjoy. I don't understand why you're getting so hopped up
about it.
Randall
"catch of the day" <fishi...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:d100c106.04021...@posting.google.com...
madkevin
"Randall Coleman" <randall...@verizon.net> wrote in message
news:Jv9Zb.29952$5W3....@nwrddc02.gnilink.net...
> I don't understand why you're getting so hopped up
> about it.
Well, he's sort of an idiot, so that explains a lot. (This is the latest
troll-name-du-jour for Anthony Gaza, the movies newsgroups' most desperate
current troll.) Just be thankful he didn't compare Ackerman to Aquaman.
Kevin "Public Service Announcement" Cogliano
club that would have you as a member
> first place?
> Sounds like you were familiar with her work and already knew
> what you'd be getting into.
because there are always surprises. never liked rivette until secret
defense and va savoir. same with coens until o brother where be thou?
also, i do pay some heed to critical opinion and sometimes a
difficult movies can challenge us to see movies--and reality--in a
whole new way.
but akerman and greenaway are two filmmakers i have always virulently
hated. but, it's like a religious person dragging himself to church
because he feels obligated to. so, just to be openminded, i drove 40
miles to the screening. and, man oh man, a 80 min akerman movie is bad
enough but a a freakin' 3 1/2 hr akerman shitpile? it ruined my
evening, robbed me of my time and money, but no way i was gonna be
robbed completely so i left and went a nice long jog around the city
and felt alot of better about everything.
>
> Criticize the film if you want, but must you be so angry and aggressive -
> and use such vile language?
oh, i went easy. what akerman did was the equivalent of sticking her
ugly ass at us and taking a big smelly shit. the very conceit that we
have to see some wunkeroo go thru daily chores for 3 1/2 hrs to learn
something about art, cinema, life, and society is arrogant and smarmy
indeed.
it takes supreme decadence, contempt, flakiness, and idiocy to concoct
something like jeanne dielmann. thank god it didn't come in trilogy
ala star wars or lord of the rings. what would jeanne dielmann II been
about? 4 hr snorefest with 30 min scene of dielmann folding her
laundry, 45 min of dielmann washing her dishes, and so on and on?
this is shit.
>That's the kind of attack I reserve for right
> wing, reactionary films, where the content really matters.
at least they have content. if dielmann at least sang The
Internationale while kneading dough or grinding coffee, it might have
been barely tolerable.
of course, the movie's defenders will claim that jeanne dielmann has
real content, just that it's not obvious to philistines like myself.
oh, it takes a progressive, radical, righteous, do-goody,
godard-ass-kissing-slavish-mentality to really understand akerman's
profoundly radical exposition on patriarchy, bourgeois imprisonment,
structuralist network of oppression, yabba dabba do.
tell you what. you reserve your bile for stuff like red dawn. as for
me, i don't mind a leftist or rightist movie as long as it's engaging.
battle of algiers or dirty harry is fine by me. but, jeanne dielmann
is shit. it is elephant dung stretching for miles and miles.
> Jeanne Dielman is
> just a film that most people find tremendously boring and a handful
> appreciate and enjoy. I don't understand why you're getting so hopped up
> about it.
>
because i drove a total of 80 miles to support cinema, to be
openminded, and i was rewarded with a 3 1/2 hr movie which smarmily
pretends that the audience has something to gain by watching some dull
middle class woman do house chores. hey man, we have to do house
chores and shopping and cooking, etc, etc. why do we have to watch it
for 3 1/2 hrs? we know life is often boring. i mean, no shit!
also, it's not the subject of boredom that's the problem. antonioni's
characters are often bored but antonioni's visual expression has
always been strikingly expressive, fascinating, poetic. bresson was
not the most thrilling director around but as his films progress the
visual dust slowly settle into layerings of spiritual depth.
but akerman... shit, the bitch is just plain nasty, a totally smarmy
spoiled flake twad. and, do you really like her or do you get a kick
out of pretending to like her so all your academic and critical
slavemasters can pat you on the back for being a good 'arthouse
nigger'?
larry legallo
day) wrote:
>wow. after 10 min fell asleep for the next hr. awoke, saw 50 min more
>and just left. couldn't see the point of watching the remaining 90
>minutes.
>
>this is shit. akerman is the worst, most putrid, insufferable, dumb,
>pompous, moronic pile of manure ever to arise from the world of art
>cinema.
>
>what's the movie about? you get see some woman shine shoes, bake
>cookies, and eat soup. actually one scene in the bathtub shows some
>titties but forget about the rest.
>
>the point of the movie? yet get sit in the dark for 3 hrs and 30
>minutes to be told that life is boring and humdrum, something i kinda
>knew before and after i stepped into the theater.
What was the point of Rashomon? I already knew that memories and
perceptions of a particular event differed greatly depending on who
you asked.
And I knew that violence in the Old West wasn't as sanitary and heroic
as commonly portrayed by Hollywood. So why did I see The Wild Bunch?
Some of us also had a pretty good idea that postwar Italy was no
picnic. So why did De Sica keep making films about it? It's
depressing.
Leaving Las Vegas? You mean alcoholism can be destructive? Shocker.
Renoir had no new insights on humnaity. Bresson? Pointless. Ozu?
Repetitive. Mizoguchi? Boring.
Tony, you've been whipping Akerman on here for years. She's not your
thing, fine. You, no doubt, had read enough about Jeanne Dielman...
to know what you were in for. So why would you drive 40 miles to go
see it? Wasn't there a tractor pull in town or something else you
could have done that night? Just the idea of you behind the wheel of
a motor vehicle is frightening enough, but the thought of you driving
home after sitting through an Akerman film makes me glad I live
several states away.
club that would have you as a member
> On 19 Feb 2004 10:48:35 -0800, fishi...@hotmail.com (catch of the
> day) wrote:
>
> >wow. after 10 min fell asleep for the next hr. awoke, saw 50 min more
> >and just left. couldn't see the point of watching the remaining 90
> >minutes.
> >
> >this is shit. akerman is the worst, most putrid, insufferable, dumb,
> >pompous, moronic pile of manure ever to arise from the world of art
> >cinema.
> >
> >what's the movie about? you get see some woman shine shoes, bake
> >cookies, and eat soup. actually one scene in the bathtub shows some
> >titties but forget about the rest.
> >
> >the point of the movie? yet get sit in the dark for 3 hrs and 30
> >minutes to be told that life is boring and humdrum, something i kinda
> >knew before and after i stepped into the theater.
>
> What was the point of Rashomon? I already knew that memories and
> perceptions of a particular event differed greatly depending on who
> you asked.
message matters less than delivery. there are countless movies about
the relavity of truth but only a handful have lasting value. if
rashomon had a woodcutter sharpening his axe for 3 1/2 hrs, i wouldn't
care what the hell it's about.
ordinary people and ordinary situations can be extraordinarily
interesting. take films of ozu for instance. or those of rohmer. or
cassavetes. but, akerman's affectless borefest is indulgent. worse,
it's arrogant, as though the audience should waste 3 1/2 hrs of their
precious time to watch a dullard shine shoes and grind coffee because
we just might learn a thing or two about the imprisonment of bourgois
life in a feminist context. for chrissakes, akerman should write an
editorial, not putz about.
>
> And I knew that violence in the Old West wasn't as sanitary and heroic
> as commonly portrayed by Hollywood. So why did I see The Wild Bunch?
because we didn't have to see the bunch shine their boots, feed their
horses, and wash their underwear for 3 1/2 hrs.
>
> Some of us also had a pretty good idea that postwar Italy was no
> picnic. So why did De Sica keep making films about it? It's
> depressing.
because watching ricci search for his bike for 90 min is far more
riveting and suspenseful than, say, watching him shave, clip his
toenails, tie his shoelaces, pick his teeth, and sit around for 3 1/2
hrs.
>
> Leaving Las Vegas? You mean alcoholism can be destructive? Shocker.
shit movie. self-pitying turned into overwrought cine opera. still,
watching someone booze out is alot more fun than watching him make his
bed, watch tv, make eggs and bacon, vacuum, and wash his car for 3 1/2
hrs.
>
> Renoir had no new insights on humnaity. Bresson? Pointless. Ozu?
> Repetitive. Mizoguchi? Boring.
no, they were all visual poets. akerman is the most prosaic among
directors. she IS dull.
>
> Tony, you've been whipping Akerman on here for years. She's not your
> thing, fine. You, no doubt, had read enough about Jeanne Dielman...
> to know what you were in for. So why would you drive 40 miles to go
> see it? Wasn't there a tractor pull in town or something else you
> could have done that night? Just the idea of you behind the wheel of
> a motor vehicle is frightening enough, but the thought of you driving
> home after sitting through an Akerman film makes me glad I live
> several states away.
call me an eternal optimist. but, i finally got akerman out of my
system. she really is shit. prior to dielmann i'd seen je tu il el,
eighties, day and night, letters to home. couldn't stand any of them.
still, i read critics say jeanne dielman and 'to the east' are
genuinely great and thoughtful. bullshit. akerman is caca. i now know
100% that she is worthless and i never ever need to bother with her
again. free at last!
monsieurblob
in other words you liked antonioni despite antonioni. and you like
bresson despite bresson.
club that would have you as a member
no, not 'despite' but 'because'. their approach and sensibility render
what we call normal reality into a fascinating irreality. they drew
themes about modern life from mundane reality or unearthed deeper
layers of emotions and consciousness from what might appear as merely
ordinary upon first glance.
you keep watching and you notice something about life and movies you
hadn't before(akerman's movies, on the other hand, have nothing under
the surface; oh sure, there's something OUTSIDE the surface, the
so-called feminist CONTEXT but that's the stuff for stupid
post-modernist academic journals no one reads, not suitable material
for a movie) also, their movies are about conflict--moral, emotional,
spiritual, psychological--whereas akerman's cinema is about enclosed
solipsistic flakery. she's a putz who refuses to grapple with reality
and confuses her indulgences as profound.
she's the worst kind of flake--the pompous flake. a flake should be
like that character amelie. fanciful and ditzy in a lovable way.
similarly, adam sandler is fun because he's a dork who sticks to his
dorkhood. imagine sandler making a 3 1/2 hr art movie from a dork
perspective. ugh.
larry legallo
(club that would have you as a member) wrote:
>larry legallo <lleg...@usa.net> wrote in message news:<csri301dmlvb9o90c...@4ax.com>...
>> On 19 Feb 2004 10:48:35 -0800, fishi...@hotmail.com (catch of the
>> day) wrote:
>>
>> >the point of the movie? yet get sit in the dark for 3 hrs and 30
>> >minutes to be told that life is boring and humdrum, something i kinda
>> >knew before and after i stepped into the theater.
>>
>> What was the point of Rashomon? I already knew that memories and
>> perceptions of a particular event differed greatly depending on who
>> you asked.
>
>message matters less than delivery.
No, what seems to matter to you *is* the message. Because it's not
just Akerman you bash. It's Jane Campion, it's Thelma & Louise, it's
Naomi Wolf- anything or anyone with even a mildly feminist perspective
or message. Name one piece of feminism that you doesn't disgust you.
>there are countless movies about
>the relavity of truth but only a handful have lasting value. if
>rashomon had a woodcutter sharpening his axe for 3 1/2 hrs, i wouldn't
>care what the hell it's about.
>ordinary people and ordinary situations can be extraordinarily
>interesting. take films of ozu for instance. or those of rohmer. or
>cassavetes. but, akerman's affectless borefest is indulgent.
But it's not affectless. The seeming lack of affectation is itself a
conscious statement. And much of the inflection is quite subtle,
right down to the unusually low camera position- at Akerman's own
height- instead of the normal angle we're used to for interior shots,
from the height of a male cinematographer (okay, I got that part from
a reivew I read-probably Amy Taubin- but it might have been
subconsciously effective when I saw the film).
> worse,
>it's arrogant, as though the audience should waste 3 1/2 hrs of their
>precious time to watch a dullard shine shoes and grind coffee because
>we just might learn a thing or two about the imprisonment of bourgois
>life in a feminist context. for chrissakes, akerman should write an
>editorial, not putz about.
The boredom is part of it. You're supposed to feel the boredom, the
monotony, the daily cycle of non-stop drudgery. If you commit
yourself to the film, instead of scoffing at it, you might find
yourself drawn into Jeanne's grueling rhythm. And then you might
empathize with her, and with all the many housewives trapped in the
same daily routine of staleness and repression. Or you could just
whine about wasting 3 hours of your own life, and ignore a social
structure in which millions of women are having their whole existences
wasted.
>> And I knew that violence in the Old West wasn't as sanitary and heroic
>> as commonly portrayed by Hollywood. So why did I see The Wild Bunch?
>
>because we didn't have to see the bunch shine their boots, feed their
>horses, and wash their underwear for 3 1/2 hrs.
Because that's not what defines those characters. Their gunfighting,
robbing, boozing, and whoring are what they are. Whareas Jeanne's
life is about grinding the coffee, scrubbing the toilet, prostituting
herself for money while she boils potatoes, walking around the block
with her son, etc. That The Wild Bunch's characters- with their
freedom and excitement and danger and maleness- is more exciting than
Jeanne's life is precisely the point.
>> Some of us also had a pretty good idea that postwar Italy was no
>> picnic. So why did De Sica keep making films about it? It's
>> depressing.
>
>because watching ricci search for his bike for 90 min is far more
>riveting and suspenseful than, say, watching him shave, clip his
>toenails, tie his shoelaces, pick his teeth, and sit around for 3 1/2
>hrs.
Once again, that's the point. There is nothing riveting or
suspenseful in the life of a housewife. Why does this truth rankle
you so much?
>> Renoir had no new insights on humnaity. Bresson? Pointless. Ozu?
>> Repetitive. Mizoguchi? Boring.
>
>no, they were all visual poets. akerman is the most prosaic among
>directors. she IS dull.
To you. To others, Akerman's works contains its own poetry. Even in
the hyper-realistic Jeanne Dielman, there are several shots and
moments that are extremely poetic. Just not to you.
But it's interesting that you're quite okay with Tarkovsky showing us
a car driving through tunnels and highway stretches for what seems
like forever in Solaris. And how come it's okay for Ozu to hold the
camera on an empty room well after everyone has left? When Rivette
gives us long, long, long, mostly static shots of a painter preparing
his brushes in La Belle Noiseuse, I don't hear you bellyaching about
it. Why are these techniques "poetry" while Akerman's are "manure"?
>call me an eternal optimist. but, i finally got akerman out of my
>system. she really is shit. prior to dielmann i'd seen je tu il el,
>eighties, day and night, letters to home. couldn't stand any of them.
>still, i read critics say jeanne dielman and 'to the east' are
>genuinely great and thoughtful. bullshit. akerman is caca. i now know
>100% that she is worthless and i never ever need to bother with her
>again. free at last!
I've seen Jeanne Dielman twice, and admittedly, I'm in no rush to see
it again. But the scenes that you find so putrid- the housekeeping
scenes- have stayed with me for a long time. The "shocking" ending,
which apparently you left before seeing, is what left me cold. And
though it's significantly flawed in my opinion, it's unquestionably a
landmark piece of feminist cinema, and still one of the most important
films of the past three decades. So there.
dobe...@deletesocal.rr.com
>No, what seems to matter to you *is* the message. Because it's not
>just Akerman you bash. It's Jane Campion, it's Thelma & Louise, it's
>Naomi Wolf- anything or anyone with even a mildly feminist perspective
>or message. Name one piece of feminism that you doesn't disgust you.
I thought Sandra Gilbert's "The Madwoman in the Attic" was an
interesting analysis. I took a course with Gilbert up at U.C. Davis &
she's a brilliant scholar.
>The boredom is part of it. You're supposed to feel the boredom, the
>monotony, the daily cycle of non-stop drudgery. If you commit
>yourself to the film, instead of scoffing at it, you might find
>yourself drawn into Jeanne's grueling rhythm. And then you might
>empathize with her, and with all the many housewives trapped in the
>same daily routine of staleness and repression. Or you could just
>whine about wasting 3 hours of your own life, and ignore a social
>structure in which millions of women are having their whole existences
>wasted.
My mom was a housewife. I don't think her whole existence was wasted,
& nor does she.
Is trudging off to an office five days a week to put up with strange
supervisors, backstabbing co-workers, sanctimonious bosses &
truckloads of paper to be pushed all that much more interesting? As
women moved into the workplace more & more in the 1970s, most of them
learned that both types of "existences" are extremely confining &
stale.
>Because that's not what defines those characters. Their gunfighting,
>robbing, boozing, and whoring are what they are. Whareas Jeanne's
>life is about grinding the coffee, scrubbing the toilet, prostituting
>herself for money while she boils potatoes, walking around the block
>with her son, etc. That The Wild Bunch's characters- with their
>freedom and excitement and danger and maleness- is more exciting than
>Jeanne's life is precisely the point.
The guys in "The Wild Bunch" have more freedom & excitement, eh? I
guess they do at that. And name one person in his or her right mind
who would prefer that sort of life over the staleness & drudgery of
keeping a home. Give me the toilet bowl cleaner any day over a bullet
in my face on the open range.
--
Clearly, he said, we are concerned with that part of
geometry that relates to war.
-- The Republic, Book VII
ville terminale
> On 22 Feb 2004 23:23:17 -0800, precious_min...@hotmail.com
> (club that would have you as a member) wrote:
>
> >larry legallo <lleg...@usa.net> wrote in message news:<csri301dmlvb9o90c...@4ax.com>...
> >> On 19 Feb 2004 10:48:35 -0800, fishi...@hotmail.com (catch of the
> >> day) wrote:
> >>
> >> >the point of the movie? yet get sit in the dark for 3 hrs and 30
> >> >minutes to be told that life is boring and humdrum, something i kinda
> >> >knew before and after i stepped into the theater.
> >>
> >> What was the point of Rashomon? I already knew that memories and
> >> perceptions of a particular event differed greatly depending on who
> >> you asked.
> >
> >message matters less than delivery.
>
> No, what seems to matter to you *is* the message. Because it's not
> just Akerman you bash. It's Jane Campion, it's Thelma & Louise, it's
> Naomi Wolf- anything or anyone with even a mildly feminist perspective
> or message. Name one piece of feminism that you doesn't disgust you.
for different reasons. i can disagree with the message and still
admire the work: anything by eisenstein, triumph of the will, platoon,
battle of algiers, etc.
i just don't like campion as a filmmaker. of course, her spinsterish
feminist dweebery is plenty irritating too, so in her case i abhor
both her art and her message. portrait of a lady was BAD filmmaking.
house of mirth, which covered a similar era and characters and
directed by a homo, was a very fine movie.
as for thelma and louise, it's crassly stupid. i have nothing against
a movie about the evil of brutalization of women. when you turn it
into BIMBO FIRST BLOOD, no, i don't like it.
i have liked every movie by von trotta except sheer madness. i rather
admire entres nous and love peppermint soda by kurys. wertmuller is
one of my great heroes. i like the woman character in land and
freedom. i love the strong women of bubblegum crisis. but, then
again, i prefer women as individuals, not as ideological constructs. i
think people are too complex to be simply labeled as thisist or
thatist, and i think reality is far too multifaceted to pigeonhole
into intellectualized circles and squares. akerman should write
essays or make stupid modern sculptures for museum of contemp art, not
make movies.
and don't tell me you respect naomi wolf. she is a bimbo feminist
wanna-be, which is why I rather like her in an adoring way. she tries
soooooo hard to be one of the sisters, she declares that she's soooo
radical. yet, with her doe-like eyes and cheerleader spirit, she
should be working as a waitress at hooters.
>
> >there are countless movies about
> >the relavity of truth but only a handful have lasting value. if
> >rashomon had a woodcutter sharpening his axe for 3 1/2 hrs, i wouldn't
> >care what the hell it's about.
> >ordinary people and ordinary situations can be extraordinarily
> >interesting. take films of ozu for instance. or those of rohmer. or
> >cassavetes. but, akerman's affectless borefest is indulgent.
>
> But it's not affectless. The seeming lack of affectation is itself a
> conscious statement.
see, here we go again. this is what i call intellectual
chasing-the-tail, something we should leave to our canine friends.
it's like having a movie with a blank screen. if someone complains
nothing is happening...'ah, but the lack of something happening is a
conscious statement!'
> And much of the inflection is quite subtle,
> right down to the unusually low camera position- at Akerman's own
> height- instead of the normal angle we're used to for interior shots,
> from the height of a male cinematographer (okay, I got that part from
> a reivew I read-probably Amy Taubin- but it might have been
> subconsciously effective when I saw the film).
okay, so where did you get this? amy taubin, eh? taubin, smart as she
is, always played the sisterhood card, often championing movies
explicitly for their feminist message. do you know that she listed
portrait of a lady as the best movie of the year? i know she's not
THAT stupid and blind; it was all about sisterhood. unless one
bothers to read up on the so-called concept behind the movie, a movie
such as jeanne dielmann means nothing. it's like the emperor with no
clothes. fool enough people that he's wearing clothes and there you
go, the con is on. what do i care about the camera angle when i have
to watch a woman do house chores for 3 1/2 hrs? suppose akerman was a
midget and shot it at midget level to convey the meaning of existence
from a dwarf context. as arnold would say 'what you talkin about,
larry?'. also, didn't akerman already do this in je tu il el? the
flaky schtick about a woman doing nothing? that first 20 min of that
movie was enough especially as akerman's lumpy fatassed body nearly
made me wanna puke. so why 3 1/2 hrs of this nonsense? you are
arguing for camera ideolo. i suppose a black feminist director should
wiggle the camera left and right to approximate the shaky neck
movement of the uppity negress. or, a gay director make his camera
flutter slightly as to convey tinkerbell sensibility.
as far as i'm concerned, akerman could have shot it at any angle AS
LONG AS what she put on the screen was worth watching. also, i have
too much respect for women to think that women are this boring as
movie character or movie director. even most liberal women would
rather die than sit thru jeanne dielmann. my sister's been a liberal
all her life. she can't stand campion and akerman would drive her
batty.
>
> > worse,
> >it's arrogant, as though the audience should waste 3 1/2 hrs of their
> >precious time to watch a dullard shine shoes and grind coffee because
> >we just might learn a thing or two about the imprisonment of bourgois
> >life in a feminist context. for chrissakes, akerman should write an
> >editorial, not putz about.
>
> The boredom is part of it. You're supposed to feel the boredom, the
> monotony, the daily cycle of non-stop drudgery.
as if life isn't boring already. how would you like to see me do
nothing for 4 hrs? this is like showing a movie of some guy baking
under a hot sun to a bunch of arabs. they know the sun is a bitch.
> If you commit
> yourself to the film, instead of scoffing at it, you might find
> yourself drawn into Jeanne's grueling rhythm.
most of us LIVE it. house chores, all the knickknacky things we have
to do to cook, sweeping the floor, shopping, getting in and out of
the car, running errands, etc. etc. why do i have to be drawn into
some grueling rhythm we all go thru everyday!!?? it's like showing a
sick patient at a hospital a 4 hr movie about a sick patient lying on
the bed moaning in pain.
i think i understand your perspective. you are a priveleged
intellectual. you have houseservants. you spend all your time doing
exactly what you want to do. you have people cook for you, bathe you,
run errands for you, even hold the underwear for you to slip your legs
thru. i can understand from your priveleged elitist intellectual
perspective the humdrum can be fascinating just as marie antoinette
thought it was just so interesting to play peasant lady once in
awhile, just as it's fun for modern people to watch documentaries on
primitive people doing simple but exotic things like skinning a
caribou or building an igloo. from your ivory tower, the humdrum life
may seem distant, strange, and fascinating, the stuff for ideological
and intellectual theorizing, just as karl marx who NEVER ever visited
a factory thought he knew everything about it.
but the rest of us unlucky dufuses have to do these humdrum things.
after we clean our houses all day, we don't wanna see a 3 1/2 hr movie
about a woman doing housechores. of course, your perspective is
different. after reading books, visiting museums, attending jazz and
classical concerts, and having intellectual conversations with
sophisticated friends over expensive wine, you might find the humdrum
rather fascinating. well, it's a matter of different POVs then.
> And then you might
> empathize with her, and with all the many housewives trapped in the
> same daily routine of staleness and repression. Or you could just
> whine about wasting 3 hours of your own life, and ignore a social
> structure in which millions of women are having their whole existences
> wasted.
i picked up on this right away, which is why i said akerman should
write an essay about dreariness of housechores, not make a damn movie.
but several problems with your argument. first, it's not much
different than the one being made for Passion. let's rub the
audience's face in the gore, or in the case of dielmann, bore. let's
unrelentingly pile it on and on and on to drive home point that jesus
got whupped bad or being a housewife is no rose garden. this is
unsound as artistic or ideological approach. you don't have to show a
movie where an inmate sits in a prison for 4 hrs in a cell to
illustrate it's BORING being locked up. if anything, akerman makes us
dislike not only akerman and her movie but dielmann. if you were
forced to watch your next door neighbor do dull crap for 4 hrs, the
last thing you'd feel for her is sympathy.
also, why is it staleness and repression? suppose our world was
overrun by feminists and feminist agenda determined every
socio-political policy. somoeone would still have to grind the coffee,
shine shoes, knead flour, clean the floor, wash(or is bathing a form
of oppression too?), etc. etc.
what or where is the oppression? i have done more chores than
dielmann all my life. i don't like it. i suppose it's oppression in
the sense that life is about maintenance, constant cleaning, tuning,
and grooming. animals do this too. ever see birds clean their
feathers? gerbils build little nests? it's life. there is NO political
or ideological solution.
and why do you say millions of women are having their lives wasted?
this is elitist and arrogant, as though only intellectual pursuit is
worthy in life. is a woman who feeds her family less worthy than the
likes of akerman who make stupid movies? if the wife dies and the
father cooks for his kids, is he oppressed because he does the
cooking? i cook my own food. am i oppressing myself?
if anything, dielmann's daily routine just reminded me of how much of
full-time job it is to maintain the house and do seemingly simple
chores, the stuff all of us have done all our lives... like mowing
the grass, fixing the plumbing, raking the leaves, throwing out the
garbage, cleaning your room. what dielmann does is crucial to healthy
living though i just don't wanna see it because i live it. because
unless we maintain efficiency and order around the house, it all goes
to pot; ozzy can be crazy on stage but good thing there's order at
home. how nice if we didn't have to wash our clothes but we have to.
who wants to wash everday but i do it because who wants to be grubby?
who wants to clean the kitty litter or clean up after the dog? this
is life and it's often dreary and repetitious but most people accept
it. only elitist snobs who sneer at regular work call it oppression
and pull something as nasty as having dielmann work as a part-time
prostititute to equate being a bourgeois housewife with
whoredom(though it wouldn't have been so bad if i could have seen
dielmann in action). such literalmindedness. it would make even godard
blush.
now, how about a movie like 'twice in a lifetime' where a housewife
was wronged by her husband and finds strength within her to strike out
anew? but, in that movie, the director respected the woman as a
character, possessed of a mind, emotions, and individual will. but,
intellectuals don't like to see people as free-willed individuals but
as constructs, so dielmann is just a ideological robot programmed to
make a point. dielmann is less imprisoned by society than akerman's
smarmy conceits. most dielmanns of the world would have the radio on,
talk with their friends on the phone, etc. also, in a given day,
let's say dielmann spends 4 hrs doing housechores. minus 8 hrs for
sleeping, she still has 12 hrs of free time. why doesn't akerman show
what dielmann does during those hours? does dielmann like to play
beatle records? does she like to read or write poetry? does she like
to dance? does he like to go for a stroll in a nice park? does she get
together with friends? does she like to read novels? where is that
part of dielmann? isn't it one-dimensional to show ONLY the dreary
aspect of life and scream 'oppression'? it's like american teens
summing up their highschool experience as bad school lunch, boring gym
class, and stupid fellow students who happen to be everyone but
themselves. smarmy.
i mean let's get real about what it means to be a housewife. donna
reed showed us the truth. so did alice kramden. or maybe american
women got what it takes while european women are as boring as dielmann
but that's their fault, not ours.
>
> >> And I knew that violence in the Old West wasn't as sanitary and heroic
> >> as commonly portrayed by Hollywood. So why did I see The Wild Bunch?
> >
> >because we didn't have to see the bunch shine their boots, feed their
> >horses, and wash their underwear for 3 1/2 hrs.
>
> Because that's not what defines those characters. Their gunfighting,
> robbing, boozing, and whoring are what they are. Whareas Jeanne's
> life is about grinding the coffee, scrubbing the toilet, prostituting
> herself for money while she boils potatoes, walking around the block
> with her son, etc. That The Wild Bunch's characters- with their
> freedom and excitement and danger and maleness- is more exciting than
> Jeanne's life is precisely the point.
gimme a break. there's no way anyone can be peeling potatoes and
grinding coffee all day long. it's akerman who says dielmann is
defined by those chores, not dielmann. you ask most housewives if
their life amounts to housechores and they'll whup your ass on jerry
springfield.
also, you know nothing about criminals. except for full time organized
criminals, there's nothing more boring than being a outlaws like in
the wild bunch. yeah, once in awhile they make off with a big loot but
on most days, they just laze around doing dreary stuff like fixing
horseshoes, cleaning their guns, etc. heck, the daily grind of outlaws
is more boring than that of jeanne dielmann. as for old man sykes,
he's jeanne dielmann of the bunch. he has to watch the horses, serve
the coffee, fetch the wagon, etc. but do you see him complaining about
oppression? did peckinpah feel the need to make jean sykeman, a 3 1/2
movie about an old western coot doing such chores to make some dull
point about life? peckinpah did make a movie about a westerner who
led a mostly humdrum existence, ballad of cable hogue, but peckinpah
cared about hogue as a character, not as a construct. if doing dreary
chores is to be oppressed, akerman must be the most oppressed woman in
the world. making that movie must have been a chore. i think most
women would rather grind coffee than make movies like that.
>
> >> Some of us also had a pretty good idea that postwar Italy was no
> >> picnic. So why did De Sica keep making films about it? It's
> >> depressing.
> >
> >because watching ricci search for his bike for 90 min is far more
> >riveting and suspenseful than, say, watching him shave, clip his
> >toenails, tie his shoelaces, pick his teeth, and sit around for 3 1/2
> >hrs.
>
> Once again, that's the point. There is nothing riveting or
> suspenseful in the life of a housewife. Why does this truth rankle
> you so much?
because no one is JUST a housewife. many of ozu's characters are not
exciting people doing thrilling things. ozu still finds poetry behind
the daily rituals.
it's not much fun being a janitor or an auto mechanic. so what would
be the point of a 4 hr movie showing some guy change tires and engine
oil all day? also, isn't the point of art to look beyond the social
roles and unearth the individual?
is every housewife same as the next? does every doctor think like all
the others? do all plumbers act alike? do all busdrivers have the
same personalities and politics? do all teachers face life's problems
in the same fashion? the problem is jean dielmann isn't a character
but a jane doe, a straw target created by smarmy feminism.
also, it's very spoiled to say dielmann is oppressed. most women in
communist countries from soviet union to china would have found her
life priveleged. most arab women would have found dielmann's life to
be free. even her prostitution is voluntary, not forced as in some
parts of asia and africa. it's only from the perspective of pampered,
lazy, priveleged, flaky leftism that dielmann is oh so oppressed.
and, how do you know there is nothing riveting and suspenseful in the
life of a housewife? there are plenty of housewives who find
happiness in home and family and having free time to socialize with
fellow housewives, going to museusm and concerts, and doing volunteer
work. and, is there something particularly riveting about being a
cook, plumber, bus driver, secretary, nurse, doctor, carpenter, movie
projector, usher, waiter, assembly line worker, accountant? only a
few professions or endeavors are fun, engaging, or challenging. most
of us are stuck in crap. but, the suspense or fun of life comes from
things apart from the narrowly defined social roles, like reading a
great book, falling in love, forming friendships, taking pride in
one's children, talking about life's ups and downs, attending sporting
events, etc.
>
> >> Renoir had no new insights on humnaity. Bresson? Pointless. Ozu?
> >> Repetitive. Mizoguchi? Boring.
> >
> >no, they were all visual poets. akerman is the most prosaic among
> >directors. she IS dull.
>
> To you. To others, Akerman's works contains its own poetry. Even in
> the hyper-realistic Jeanne Dielman, there are several shots and
> moments that are extremely poetic. Just not to you.
well, if someone tells me there's a few pearls imbedded in a ton of
manure, i aint gonna bother looking.
>
> But it's interesting that you're quite okay with Tarkovsky showing us
> a car driving through tunnels and highway stretches for what seems
> like forever in Solaris.
the imagery is striking. so is the music. also the context is
interesting is solaris is about a long, mysterious, winding journey
into weird places of the universe, the mind, and human heart. the long
drive convey those eerie feelings. tarkovsky's long shots can be
mesmerizing, sinking us into deeper, murkier levels of consciousness.
if tarkovsky had shown us an astronaut grinding coffee for 15 minutes,
i would have dumped him too.
>And how come it's okay for Ozu to hold the
>camera on an empty room well after everyone has left?
because it's poetic and elegant. his characters go thru ritualized
motions. they move carefully, almost delicately. they enter a space
and then they leave; it's as though nothing more than a gentle breeze
had passed thru. it's like that scene in kung fu where the blind monk
says 'grasshopper, walk on rice paper' and grasshopper does so and
crinkles it all up and so the monk says 'grasshopper, you no
concentrate right, you no understand what it mean be graceful
spiritual warrior' and so grasshopper does it again and we see the
paper exactly as it was before grasshopper had walked on it. people
in ozu lead rigid lives but such norms have been programmed into them
so totally since childhood that it's almost second nature to them.
they don't even know they are 'oppressed', 'stifled', etc. of course,
ozu knew japan was changing, that while much on the surface seems to
be remain the same, traditions were fading though undiscernible to the
naked eye just as the hand of a clock appears to be stand still but is
actually moving. it's this elegiac quality in ozu's works that's truly
beautiful. the lingering camera shot after the people leave also
suggests that this world that ozu loves and feels close to so much is
slowly being emptied, that he wishes to hold onto its simple beauty if
only for a second more.
> When Rivette
> gives us long, long, long, mostly static shots of a painter preparing
> his brushes in La Belle Noiseuse, I don't hear you bellyaching about
> it. Why are these techniques "poetry" while Akerman's are "manure"?
i don't like rivette. i saw divertimento and nearly died. but, i
respect rivette. i think he is a SERIOUS director with weighty ideas,
not a ditzo flake. his long austere style can be heavy and burdensome
but i don't doubt his commitment to experimentalism. he's just not my
cup of tea.
but akerman is a flake, indulgent because she's spoiled, pampered, and
a privleged dolt wanna-be experimental radical filmmaker. boring.
>
> >call me an eternal optimist. but, i finally got akerman out of my
> >system. she really is shit. prior to dielmann i'd seen je tu il el,
> >eighties, day and night, letters to home. couldn't stand any of them.
> >still, i read critics say jeanne dielman and 'to the east' are
> >genuinely great and thoughtful. bullshit. akerman is caca. i now know
> >100% that she is worthless and i never ever need to bother with her
> >again. free at last!
>
> I've seen Jeanne Dielman twice, and admittedly, I'm in no rush to see
> it again. But the scenes that you find so putrid- the housekeeping
> scenes- have stayed with me for a long time. The "shocking" ending,
> which apparently you left before seeing, is what left me cold. And
> though it's significantly flawed in my opinion, it's unquestionably a
> landmark piece of feminist cinema, and still one of the most important
> films of the past three decades. So there.
landmark piece in feminist cinema... it's like saying texas chainsaw
massacre is a landmark slasher movie. who cares about giants among
midgets?
and trust me, i will never forget dielman either. torture victims have
nightmares that never go away.
and what is the shocking ending? maybe i should have gone to see the
last hour instead. do tell me.
Randall Coleman
In a way, the ending doesn't seem to jive with the rest of the film. It
introduces tawdry sensationalism in a narrative which, up to that point, had
operated on the opposite end of the spectrum. It just doesn't feel right.
On an intellectual level, though, it might make some sense. It is said - I
don't know how the film supports this (and I haven't seen it for years) -
that in the last scene with her john, she experiences her first orgasm. So,
we see intense sensation unexpectedly interjected into the numbing tedium of
her routine, an opposition she can't deal with. Why it follows that she
must stab the john I don't know. It certainly cuts out the possibility of a
sequel. Anyhow, I find the long take of her rocking that ends the film very
satisfying. I think Ackerman's work is very uneven, but "Jeanne Dielman" is
one of a small handful of outstanding films from the 1970s.
If these guys think Ackerman is boring (their bitching has gone on for
days), they should be locked in a projection room and be made to watch a
Marguerite Duras triple feature. That would surely break their spirit.
Randall
>
> >larry legallo <lleg...@usa.net> wrote in message
news:<csri301dmlvb9o90c...@4ax.com>...
>
tracker
> In a way, the ending doesn't seem to jive with the rest of the film. It
> introduces tawdry sensationalism in a narrative which, up to that point, had
> operated on the opposite end of the spectrum. It just doesn't feel right.
> On an intellectual level, though, it might make some sense. It is said - I
> don't know how the film supports this (and I haven't seen it for years) -
> that in the last scene with her john, she experiences her first orgasm. So,
> we see intense sensation unexpectedly interjected into the numbing tedium of
> her routine, an opposition she can't deal with. Why it follows that she
> must stab the john I don't know. It certainly cuts out the possibility of a
> sequel. Anyhow, I find the long take of her rocking that ends the film very
> satisfying. I think Ackerman's work is very uneven, but "Jeanne Dielman" is
> one of a small handful of outstanding films from the 1970s.
wow, jeanne dielmann inspired basic instinct and pleasantville. and
what does rock to at the end? stones, beatles, the who?
all i know is i wanted to stab akerman after the first 15 minutes.
and if orgasm after tedium leads to violence, how would you explain
the pud cutter 'in the realm in the senses'? i guess both too much
tedium or sex is bad for female psychology.
>
> If these guys think Ackerman is boring (their bitching has gone on for
> days), they should be locked in a projection room and be made to watch a
> Marguerite Duras triple feature. That would surely break their spirit.
>
only if my testasterone level was as low as yours and if i were
disposed toward masochism. but, most of us guys are grateful for the
UN charter against use of torture.
Randall Coleman
"tracker" <arrowp...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:62960b1e.04022...@posting.google.com...
> > If these guys think Ackerman is boring (their bitching has gone on for
> > days), they should be locked in a projection room and be made to watch a
> > Marguerite Duras triple feature. That would surely break their spirit.
>
> only if my testasterone level was as low as yours and if i were
> disposed toward masochism. but, most of us guys are grateful for the
> UN charter against use of torture.
How about this for a scenerio. Show you just one Duras film: "Le Camion."
Ten minute takes of a semi trailer driving down a highway alternating with
ten minute takes of Duras talking to Gerard Depardieu about a semi trailer
driving down a highway. Outfit you with eyelid seperators like the ones
used in "A Clockwork Orange." so you'd have to watch. And play it over and
over and over and over and....
Fondest regards,
Randall
monsieurblob
in bresson unassuming reality
they drew
> themes about modern life from mundane reality or unearthed deeper
> layers of emotions and consciousness from what might appear as merely
> ordinary upon first glance.
> you keep watching and you notice something about life and movies you
> hadn't before(akerman's movies, on the other hand, have nothing under
> the surface; oh sure, there's something OUTSIDE the surface, the
> so-called feminist CONTEXT but that's the stuff for stupid
> post-modernist academic journals no one reads,
the post modernists are on your side! its the modernism and neo
modernism your supposed to be worryin bout
not suitable material
> for a movie) also, their movies are about conflict--moral, emotional,
> spiritual, psychological--whereas akerman's cinema is about enclosed
> solipsistic flakery. she's a putz who refuses to grapple with reality
> and confuses her indulgences as profound.
> she's the worst kind of flake--the pompous flake. a flake should be
> like that character amelie. fanciful and ditzy in a lovable way.
> similarly, adam sandler is fun because he's a dork who sticks to his
> dorkhood. imagine sandler making a 3 1/2 hr art movie from a dork
> perspective. ugh.
and amelie you said was what you thought the nouvelle vague was at its
best! amelie just caters to public sugar yum yum. jeunet is just a
calculator, a spielberg, calculating how much of what the public
wants, how much newness and how much already-there-ness!
tracker
> and amelie you said was what you thought the nouvelle vague was at its
> best! amelie just caters to public sugar yum yum. jeunet is just a
> calculator, a spielberg, calculating how much of what the public
> wants, how much newness and how much already-there-ness!
nothing remains 'new' forever but the spirit. amelie has that fresh
spirit, yum yum or not. spielberg at his best is NEW in the best
sense. it remains fresh for all time.
many 'new' wave films look very dated and passe. amelie will delight
audiences 20 yrs from now. i'll take fresh wave over new wave.
ville terminale
how about this one: escape from akertraz. dielmann realizes she's
imprisoned in a dull art movie. she wants to call her friends on the
phone but isn't allowed. she wants to turn on the radio but isn't
allowed. she wants some interior monologue to convey to the audience
that she's not as boring as she appears on the screen, that there is
inner psychology behind peeling the potatoes, grinding the coffee, and
shining the shoes, but isn't allowed. all such things are not allowed
by big sister aker 60. so dielmann hatches a plan to make a run for
it. she's chased by aker 60's secret police feminist goons. we can
have a major car chase with explosions and all sorts of neat stunts.
then, dielmann suddenly jumps out of the car with a pistol in each
hand like chow yun fat and blasts away and kills aker 60's goons and
drives into freedom like lemmy caution in alphaville.
larry legallo
>larry legallo <lleg...@usa.net> wrote:
>
>>The boredom is part of it. You're supposed to feel the boredom, the
>>monotony, the daily cycle of non-stop drudgery. If you commit
>>yourself to the film, instead of scoffing at it, you might find
>>yourself drawn into Jeanne's grueling rhythm. And then you might
>>empathize with her, and with all the many housewives trapped in the
>>same daily routine of staleness and repression. Or you could just
>>whine about wasting 3 hours of your own life, and ignore a social
>>structure in which millions of women are having their whole existences
>>wasted.
>
>My mom was a housewife. I don't think her whole existence was wasted,
>& nor does she.
I didn't mean to imply that all housewives lead meaningless or wasted
lives. Jeanne Dielman's routine was particularly dreadful. And
especially at the time it was made, the film was an important look
into a widespread, and artistically neglected, social reality.
>Is trudging off to an office five days a week to put up with strange
>supervisors, backstabbing co-workers, sanctimonious bosses &
>truckloads of paper to be pushed all that much more interesting? As
>women moved into the workplace more & more in the 1970s, most of them
>learned that both types of "existences" are extremely confining &
>stale.
Yes, of course. And both forms of drudgery are worth examination,
cinematically and otherwise. But when you watch Jeanne Dielman,
there's a sense that three is a unique form of despair involved with
housework. At least the office worker, and even the factory worker,
has certain satisfactions he can count on: the company of colleagues,
a paycheck, some tangible results of their work. A housewife works in
ritual solitude, producing no tangible object (even the meals she
prepares diappear quickly), and toiling away at a job that a market
society does not deem worthy of compensation.
(I always end up sounding like someone from the Socialist Review when
Tony gets me going. I really don't talk like that normally, but
sometimes it just can't be helped.)
larry legallo
<randall...@verizon.net> wrote:
>In a way, the ending doesn't seem to jive with the rest of the film. It
>introduces tawdry sensationalism in a narrative which, up to that point, had
>operated on the opposite end of the spectrum. It just doesn't feel right.
Yeah, I didn't like the ending either. It seems like a concession to
sudience expectations or conventional narrative demands (which is kind
of pointless after the whole movie has been spent flouting those
concepts). It does seem to provide the most division and debate among
viewers and theorists, though.
Akerman herself has spoken about it. I can't find the direct quote,
but she said something like, "It was either him or her. I'm glad it
was him" (ahh, the days of radical feminism), a message that I
probably find more patently offensive than Gaza does.
>On an intellectual level, though, it might make some sense. It is said - I
>don't know how the film supports this (and I haven't seen it for years) -
>that in the last scene with her john, she experiences her first orgasm.
This is one of the problems with not showing us the previous sexual
encounters. We don't know if this client or Jeanne herself did
anything different this time that might have provoked her action.
Plus, we know when we *do* begin to see the sex with the last client
that something is bound to happen this time. Maybe Akerman was wary
of giving into voyeurism or providing unwanted tittilation for the
audience, but she should have shown us the other sex scenes.
> So,
>we see intense sensation unexpectedly interjected into the numbing tedium of
>her routine, an opposition she can't deal with. Why it follows that she
>must stab the john I don't know. It certainly cuts out the possibility of a
>sequel.
Jeanne Dielman 2: The Prison Years
> Anyhow, I find the long take of her rocking that ends the film very
>satisfying. I think Ackerman's work is very uneven, but "Jeanne Dielman" is
>one of a small handful of outstanding films from the 1970s.
>
>If these guys think Ackerman is boring (their bitching has gone on for
>days), they should be locked in a projection room and be made to watch a
>Marguerite Duras triple feature. That would surely break their spirit.
Even better, we force Tony to read Dinah Brooke's novel 'Death Games',
which has it all over Dielman when it comes to allegorical resolutions
in feminist fiction. In the book, the heroine crawls into bed with
her father after he's suffered a heart attack, and fellates him until
he dies. A literal "blow" to partiarchal culture. Perfect for Tony.
ville terminale
> On Wed, 25 Feb 2004 00:32:19 GMT, dobe...@DELETEsocal.rr.com wrote:
>
> >larry legallo <lleg...@usa.net> wrote:
> >
> >>The boredom is part of it. You're supposed to feel the boredom, the
> >>monotony, the daily cycle of non-stop drudgery. If you commit
> >>yourself to the film, instead of scoffing at it, you might find
> >>yourself drawn into Jeanne's grueling rhythm. And then you might
> >>empathize with her, and with all the many housewives trapped in the
> >>same daily routine of staleness and repression. Or you could just
> >>whine about wasting 3 hours of your own life, and ignore a social
> >>structure in which millions of women are having their whole existences
> >>wasted.
> >
> >My mom was a housewife. I don't think her whole existence was wasted,
> >& nor does she.
>
> I didn't mean to imply that all housewives lead meaningless or wasted
> lives. Jeanne Dielman's routine was particularly dreadful. And
> especially at the time it was made, the film was an important look
> into a widespread, and artistically neglected, social reality.
your statement makes no sense logically. dielman is NOT a character
but a social type meant to symbolize THE HOUSEWIFE. so, it should
follow that it's an ideological misconception or socially true of
every housewife. if many housewives are not miserable, it must mean
misery among housewives is more a psychological or subjective matter
than of objective reality.
in essence, you're chickening out by saying to doberman 'oh not YOUR
housewife mother but all the other housewife mothers. don't mean to
get personal'. and then he whispers to himself 'well, his mother too
but she was so brainwashed by patriarchy that she didn't even know she
was being oppressed'. this is like saying 'oh not you, my black
friend, but all the OTHER blacks out there. you are nice and noble,
the rest are criminals'.
>
> >Is trudging off to an office five days a week to put up with strange
> >supervisors, backstabbing co-workers, sanctimonious bosses &
> >truckloads of paper to be pushed all that much more interesting? As
> >women moved into the workplace more & more in the 1970s, most of them
> >learned that both types of "existences" are extremely confining &
> >stale.
>
> Yes, of course. And both forms of drudgery are worth examination,
> cinematically and otherwise. But when you watch Jeanne Dielman,
> there's a sense that three is a unique form of despair involved with
> housework. At least the office worker, and even the factory worker,
> has certain satisfactions he can count on: the company of colleagues,
> a paycheck, some tangible results of their work.
despair is a part of life! it cannot be got rid of by socio-economic
factors. an assembly line worker has certain 'satisfactions'? wow,
lookie, the tangible result of my 8 hrs at the factory, some machine
part for a electric razor. my mother worked in a factory for years and
years because she had to provide. she would have much preferred being
FREE at home. ya gotta do what ya gotta do. woman having an
independent income is the only good thing about most menial jobs women
do. but the job itself is 100x drearier than any housework. also, you
have a freakin' supervisor watching over you, the sound inside a
factory is numbing to the mind and soul, and if you think people
working in the assembly line have time to socialize with other
workers, you IS crazy. 20 minutes lunch break, big deal, but would any
woman want to get together with friends and share lunch or sit in some
drab factory cafeteria with other tired workers over cruddy
sandwiches?
> A housewife works in
> ritual solitude, producing no tangible object (even the meals she
> prepares diappear quickly), and toiling away at a job that a market
> society does not deem worthy of compensation.
ritual solitude? eh? ever heard of the phone? housewives spend most of
their time on the phone gabbing with their momma, sister, friends,
etc, etc. ever heard of the tv? they are always watching oprah and
other crap. or, since the advent of the vcr, who knows what else they
are watching. also, you know that alot of housewives do volunteer work
after their kids all grow up and become independent? and some take
care of their grandkids. some find parttime jobs off and on. some go
to healthclubs.
also, what's wrong ritual solitude? would it be better if families
all lived in communes and 10 women shared the same kitchen? you ask
any woman if she wants to share her kitchen with anyone else and she
will kick your arse. and, producing no tangible objects? gimme a
break. what can be more tangible than spending time with your kids and
see them grow into nice gals and fellers? what can be tangible and
rewarding than that? instead, alot of working parents spend little
time with their kids, the kids turn out rotten and
spoiled--compensated with material goods and hedonistic freedom for
lack of attention by parents--, and what tangible things have the
working parents produced? a contract for a sodapop company, the latest
hightech gadget no one needs, a screenplay for another dumb tv show.
for all your leftist pro-people shenanigans, you have no respect for
life but for wealth and power.
personally, i find nothing wrong with solitude, ritualistic or
otherwise. a man who seeks god alone is, in my book, much better
person than one who seeks in within organized religion. a woman who
raises her own family is much nobler than one who demands the state do
so, with its gang of lazy stupid bureaucrats.
you seem to be suggesting that a modern woman should make alot of
money, do no housechores herself but hire a stupid polack cleaning
lady. so, if dielmann was an executive who hired a poor polish woman
or a bolivian illegal alien, that would have been cool with larry.
>
> (I always end up sounding like someone from the Socialist Review when
> Tony gets me going. I really don't talk like that normally, but
> sometimes it just can't be helped.)
except that you were responding to doberman.
larry, why you be thinking cooking hamburgers at a diner is creating
tangible results? what do you do with burgers anyway? most of us eat
it up quickly and it's gone! and, you know what happens to most
paychecks for people who are not married? it goes poof, disappears on
danceclubs, beer, partying, etc. it's when you have kids and become
parents and invest in a house, education for kids, and etc, that the
money goes to something more meaningful and longlasting. but, just
keep looking at the burger. look at it for 3 1/2 hrs and you might
find answers as profound as the ones you got from jeanne dielmann.
after 3 1/2 hrs.... LARRY: oh, i get it! i didn't ask for onions. this
burger is oppressed by onions! but look how poetically that cheese
drools over the side. and let me ponder the signficance of how the
patriarchal buns enclose the meat within their tight clasp. i'm just
gonna have to watch this for another 3 1/2 hrs to truly understand its
significance as art, as haminist critique of onion oppression, and the
poetry of the american single.
ville terminale
> On Wed, 25 Feb 2004 09:52:58 GMT, "Randall Coleman"
> <randall...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
> >In a way, the ending doesn't seem to jive with the rest of the film. It
> >introduces tawdry sensationalism in a narrative which, up to that point, had
> >operated on the opposite end of the spectrum. It just doesn't feel right.
>
> Yeah, I didn't like the ending either. It seems like a concession to
> sudience expectations or conventional narrative demands (which is kind
> of pointless after the whole movie has been spent flouting those
> concepts). It does seem to provide the most division and debate among
> viewers and theorists, though.
what i wanna know is why dielmann didn't stab akerman after the first
hour. "why did you cast me in this shit movie, bitch?". that would
have been cool.
>
> Akerman herself has spoken about it. I can't find the direct quote,
> but she said something like, "It was either him or her. I'm glad it
> was him" (ahh, the days of radical feminism), a message that I
> probably find more patently offensive than Gaza does.
she should have stabbed akerman. by the way, dielmann's ending, for
all its radical posturing, is just a variation of dodeskaden by
kurosawa. akerman wants to show us that an oppressed woman embraces
oppression as a value system to rationalize her station in life. so we
have muslim women who actually defend fundamentalist islam. we have
christian fundamentalist women who defend archconservatism. some of
these women are stupid, uneducated, and good for nothing but marrying
someone who could provide. for them, a modern liberated woman is a
threat to their sense of being because the liberated woman shows how
far they've fallen from what's possible. it's like in china today.
when everyone was equally poor under maoism, it was okay. but when
your next door neighbor proves that you can get ahead and buy a bigger
house, you feel like shit. so a poor farmer left behind in china
might espouse maoism to rationalize his poverty(that he chose it out
of principle instead of being proven a talentless lazyass). or, a
republican housewife might repress her jealousy of the rich
independent CEO woman by saying her role as a housewife is just as, if
not more, rewarding than making alot of moolah. so dielman felt
threatened by her orgasm because it made her aware of the imprisoned
state of her life. someone locked in a prison would rather not be
reminded of all the freedom out there. it will just make him feel like
shit more.
in dodeskaden, a shy girl is exploited and abused by her uncle. she is
befriended by some friendly kid whom she stabs. she does this because
he reminds her of how life should be, how people should be, and it
challenges what she has already accepted as her fate in life. so if
akerman is just doing what old man kurosawa already did in his 60s, i
mean that's some pisspoor b.s.
>
> >On an intellectual level, though, it might make some sense. It is said - I
> >don't know how the film supports this (and I haven't seen it for years) -
> >that in the last scene with her john, she experiences her first orgasm.
>
> This is one of the problems with not showing us the previous sexual
> encounters. We don't know if this client or Jeanne herself did
> anything different this time that might have provoked her action.
> Plus, we know when we *do* begin to see the sex with the last client
> that something is bound to happen this time. Maybe Akerman was wary
> of giving into voyeurism or providing unwanted tittilation for the
> audience, but she should have shown us the other sex scenes.
or maybe dielman is just psychotic. ever think of that?
>
> > So,
> >we see intense sensation unexpectedly interjected into the numbing tedium of
> >her routine, an opposition she can't deal with. Why it follows that she
> >must stab the john I don't know. It certainly cuts out the possibility of a
> >sequel.
>
> Jeanne Dielman 2: The Prison Years
rather redundant since akerman's point housewife = prisoner.
i'd still like to see dielman in something like switchblade sisters,
though we'd probably get nothing but dielmann sharpening her blade for
15 minutes, doing prison work for the next 20 minutes, etc.
>
> > Anyhow, I find the long take of her rocking that ends the film very
> >satisfying. I think Ackerman's work is very uneven, but "Jeanne Dielman" is
> >one of a small handful of outstanding films from the 1970s.
> >
> >If these guys think Ackerman is boring (their bitching has gone on for
> >days), they should be locked in a projection room and be made to watch a
> >Marguerite Duras triple feature. That would surely break their spirit.
>
> Even better, we force Tony to read Dinah Brooke's novel 'Death Games',
> which has it all over Dielman when it comes to allegorical resolutions
> in feminist fiction. In the book, the heroine crawls into bed with
> her father after he's suffered a heart attack, and fellates him until
> he dies. A literal "blow" to partiarchal culture. Perfect for Tony.
you actually read that? WHY? is this like a longterm plan in case you
have a daughter one of these days?
monsieurblob
fresh according to you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
larry legallo
terminale) wrote:
>larry legallo <lleg...@usa.net> wrote in message news:<g5on301stiletmjok...@4ax.com>...
>>
>> No, what seems to matter to you *is* the message. Because it's not
>> just Akerman you bash. It's Jane Campion, it's Thelma & Louise, it's
>> Naomi Wolf- anything or anyone with even a mildly feminist perspective
>> or message. Name one piece of feminism that you doesn't disgust you.>
>
>for different reasons. i can disagree with the message and still
>admire the work: anything by eisenstein, triumph of the will, platoon,
>battle of algiers, etc.
>i just don't like campion as a filmmaker. of course, her spinsterish
>feminist dweebery is plenty irritating too, so in her case i abhor
>both her art and her message. portrait of a lady was BAD filmmaking.
Well to be honest, I don't like Campion either (or Wolf or T&L, but
not because they're feminist). And I just watched her latest, In the
Cut, a few days ago. Not only is it a brainless mess (despite good
performances and intersting visuals), Campion's commentary track just
makes it all too concise and too clear that Johanna's not even here.
>wertmuller is one of my great heroes.
So then tell me how the woman in Swept Away is real "complex", and not
mainly an ideological construct. The difference is that Wertmuller's
ideology is closer to your own.
>> But it's not affectless. The seeming lack of affectation is itself a
>> conscious statement.
>
>see, here we go again. this is what i call intellectual
>chasing-the-tail, something we should leave to our canine friends.
>it's like having a movie with a blank screen. if someone complains
>nothing is happening...'ah, but the lack of something happening is a
>conscious statement!'
You're an idiot. If you're too thick to realize that keeping the
camera static and letting the action take place in 'real time' is a
conscious and affected device, then maybe you should just stick to
your Adam Sandler movies. Plus, Akerman uses several clever
transitions: cutting between a door closing and opening, or light
switches being turned off and on, in different rooms, to make the
action appear seamless. Oh, but I forgot, you weren't even paying
attention.
>> The boredom is part of it. You're supposed to feel the boredom, the
>> monotony, the daily cycle of non-stop drudgery.
>
>as if life isn't boring already. how would you like to see me do
>nothing for 4 hrs? this is like showing a movie of some guy baking
>under a hot sun to a bunch of arabs. they know the sun is a bitch.
Didn't Andy Warhol make that film?
>> If you commit
>> yourself to the film, instead of scoffing at it, you might find
>> yourself drawn into Jeanne's grueling rhythm.
>
>most of us LIVE it. house chores, all the knickknacky things we have
>to do to cook, sweeping the floor, shopping, getting in and out of
>the car, running errands, etc. etc. why do i have to be drawn into
>some grueling rhythm we all go thru everyday!!??
I think most people like to see movies that depict something they're
familiar with. I bet most air traffic controllers lined up to see
that silly John Cusack-Billy Bob Thornton movie. I know poker players
love Rounders. In Boiler Room, all the young stock brokers sit around
quoting lines from Wall Street. My sister is a doctor, and says when
she worked in a hospital, all the residents and interns would watch
E.R. every week. Even if it's just to spot the inaccuracies, people
like to see movies (and T.V. shows) about their line of work.
So the fact that you think even housewives wouldn't be interested in a
movie about what they do all day is evidence of the ultimate
undesirability of the work, as compared to other jobs. You might have
just negated your own point. Nice.
> i cook my own food. am i oppressing myself?
Depends on your cooking.
>if anything, dielmann's daily routine just reminded me of how much of
>full-time job it is to maintain the house and do seemingly simple
>chores, the stuff all of us have done all our lives... like mowing
>the grass, fixing the plumbing, raking the leaves, throwing out the
>garbage, cleaning your room. what dielmann does is crucial to healthy
>living though i just don't wanna see it because i live it. because
>unless we maintain efficiency and order around the house, it all goes
>to pot; ozzy can be crazy on stage but good thing there's order at
>home. how nice if we didn't have to wash our clothes but we have to.
>who wants to wash everday but i do it because who wants to be grubby?
Funny, I always pegged you as the "grubby" type, Tony.
>> Because that's not what defines those characters. Their gunfighting,
>> robbing, boozing, and whoring are what they are. Whareas Jeanne's
>> life is about grinding the coffee, scrubbing the toilet, prostituting
>> herself for money while she boils potatoes, walking around the block
>> with her son, etc. That The Wild Bunch's characters- with their
>> freedom and excitement and danger and maleness- is more exciting than
>> Jeanne's life is precisely the point.
>
>gimme a break. there's no way anyone can be peeling potatoes and
>grinding coffee all day long. it's akerman who says dielmann is
>defined by those chores, not dielmann. you ask most housewives if
>their life amounts to housechores and they'll whup your ass on jerry
>springfield.
>also, you know nothing about criminals. except for full time organized
>criminals, there's nothing more boring than being a outlaws like in
>the wild bunch. yeah, once in awhile they make off with a big loot but
>on most days, they just laze around doing dreary stuff like fixing
>horseshoes, cleaning their guns, etc. heck, the daily grind of outlaws
>is more boring than that of jeanne dielmann.
And once again, you've stumbled upon the point. Jeanne Dielman shows
us things that most movies ignore. It breaks down the narrative
conventions, and gets us closer to reality.
> as for old man sykes,
>he's jeanne dielmann of the bunch. he has to watch the horses, serve
>the coffee, fetch the wagon, etc. but do you see him complaining about
>oppression? did peckinpah feel the need to make jean sykeman, a 3 1/2
>movie about an old western coot doing such chores to make some dull
>point about life? peckinpah did make a movie about a westerner who
>led a mostly humdrum existence, ballad of cable hogue, but peckinpah
>cared about hogue as a character, not as a construct. if doing dreary
>chores is to be oppressed, akerman must be the most oppressed woman in
>the world. making that movie must have been a chore. i think most
>women would rather grind coffee than make movies like that.
Okay, I never said I enjoy watching Jeanne Dielman. I'd much rather
watch, say Benoit Jacquot's A Single Girl, a movie with certain shared
elements, in that it follows the day of a hotel maid with lots of
'real time' humdrum activity, and a very loose structure. The main
reason is probably that it stars an 18-year old Virginie Ledoyen as a
French beauty (who I would gladly watch scrub bathtubs for hours)
rather than 44-year old Daphne Seyrig as a widowed Belgian housewife.
But at least I recognize my predilection for what it is, and I can be
respectful of how how it may make some other women feel and react.
You, on the other hand, are an ignorant slave to your base desires,
with no regard for their consequences or effect on others around you
and society in general.
And some films simply aren't meant to entertain.
>> Once again, that's the point. There is nothing riveting or
>> suspenseful in the life of a housewife. Why does this truth rankle
>> you so much?
>
>because no one is JUST a housewife. many of ozu's characters are not
>exciting people doing thrilling things. ozu still finds poetry behind
>the daily rituals.
>it's not much fun being a janitor or an auto mechanic. so what would
>be the point of a 4 hr movie showing some guy change tires and engine
>oil all day? also, isn't the point of art to look beyond the social
>roles and unearth the individual?
Yes, and she is unearthed, which you would have seen if you had
bothered to watch the rest of the movie.
>> I've seen Jeanne Dielman twice, and admittedly, I'm in no rush to see
>> it again. But the scenes that you find so putrid- the housekeeping
>> scenes- have stayed with me for a long time. The "shocking" ending,
>> which apparently you left before seeing, is what left me cold. And
>> though it's significantly flawed in my opinion, it's unquestionably a
>> landmark piece of feminist cinema, and still one of the most important
>> films of the past three decades. So there.
>
>landmark piece in feminist cinema... it's like saying texas chainsaw
>massacre is a landmark slasher movie. who cares about giants among
>midgets?
>and trust me, i will never forget dielman either. torture victims have
>nightmares that never go away.
>and what is the shocking ending? maybe i should have gone to see the
>last hour instead. do tell me.
As you've since learned, she stabs her last client with a pair of
scissors. A silly ending. But what Akerman had achieved up to that
point is larger than the resolution, and she was young and probably
thought she had to make some kind of big "statement" (not realizing
that she already had). But the ending is a problem.
But just because I appreciate the film more than you doesn't mean I
don't have limits to my endurance. If you think the movie was
difficult and boring, try getting through feminist critic Claire
Johnston's essay about it. I bet you can't even get through this
sample passage:
(in discussing Akerman's decision to not show the viewer the sex)
"What dominates is the 'thetic', the symbolic cutting out of the field
of vision, posing both absence and the fact of heterogeneity by the
over-inscription of rigidity- the very representation of the
repression of sexuality...a repressed sexuality erupting as
jouissance, setting up a series of parapaxes, creating both the
disorganisation of physical space and temporal gaps. This eruption of
the semiotic, the drives, closed off from our view and unnarated, in a
moment of jouissance, constitutes an expenditure without exchange
within the economy set up by the film text."
Parse that, you semioticians. I got *pages* of that.
dobe...@deletesocal.rr.com
>And some films simply aren't meant to entertain.
I think that art that entertains no one (I'm not referring
specifically to "Jeanne Dielman") is failed art. The film (or the
painting, poem, play &c.) may not entertain everyone & it may not
mindlessly entertain anyone. But if there isn't that sense of holding
together -- "entre tenir" -- or fostering interest, even if it's only
for an enlightened or informed minority, it's just bad art.
>"What dominates is the 'thetic', the symbolic cutting out of the field
>of vision, posing both absence and the fact of heterogeneity by the
>over-inscription of rigidity- the very representation of the
>repression of sexuality...a repressed sexuality erupting as
>jouissance, setting up a series of parapaxes, creating both the
>disorganisation of physical space and temporal gaps. This eruption of
>the semiotic, the drives, closed off from our view and unnarated, in a
>moment of jouissance, constitutes an expenditure without exchange
>within the economy set up by the film text."
>
>Parse that, you semioticians. I got *pages* of that.
It's not meant to be parsed -- but just tossed up & out like the nux
vomica it is. The depths to which otherwise intelligent people sink in
order to secure tenure or get published in some trendy academic
journal is rather beside the point.
I've enjoyed this thread of yours, Larry! I'm almost curious enough at
this point to look for the Akerman film.
tuco
just look at the soiled tissue after you wipe for 3 1/2 hrs. no
difference. actually, the crappy tissue may be better. it's free at
any rate.
tuco
>
> So then tell me how the woman in Swept Away is real "complex", and not
> mainly an ideological construct. The difference is that Wertmuller's
> ideology is closer to your own.
because she argues, thinks, feels, no matter how stupidly. and,
because she changes and realizes something about herself, which means
wertmuller believes in the human soul beyond the political squabbles
that set us apart.
> You're an idiot. If you're too thick to realize that keeping the
> camera static and letting the action take place in 'real time' is a
> conscious and affected device, then maybe you should just stick to
> your Adam Sandler movies.
i don't mind the device. still, what's being shown has to be worth
watching. i don't mind whether the cup is round, octagonal, square as
long as the juice is worth drinking. jarmusch used similar techniques
in stranger than paradise. charming and witty movie.
> Plus, Akerman uses several clever
> transitions: cutting between a door closing and opening, or light
> switches being turned off and on, in different rooms, to make the
> action appear seamless. Oh, but I forgot, you weren't even paying
> attention.
i noticed those things but what of them? yes, i thought, ah the motif
of the door... suggesting the compartmentalization of her life? the
fragmentation of her life into meaningless routines? to convey the
sense of her imprisonment? going from one cell to another? the thing
is you can use these devices AND still have a character and story that
are interesting. kubrick or hitchcock also used doors and walls in
elaborate setups to convey similar ideas and moods. and, i love those
guys.
also, didn't godard do this shit already in contempt? why is akerman
repeating what was boring and pointless in the first place? we may
forgive godard because he did it first and novelty always counts for
something. by the time akerman did it, it was already stale.
> I think most people like to see movies that depict something they're
> familiar with. I bet most air traffic controllers lined up to see
> that silly John Cusack-Billy Bob Thornton movie. I know poker players
> love Rounders. In Boiler Room, all the young stock brokers sit around
> quoting lines from Wall Street. My sister is a doctor, and says when
> she worked in a hospital, all the residents and interns would watch
> E.R. every week. Even if it's just to spot the inaccuracies, people
> like to see movies (and T.V. shows) about their line of work.
>
> So the fact that you think even housewives wouldn't be interested in a
> movie about what they do all day is evidence of the ultimate
> undesirability of the work, as compared to other jobs. You might have
> just negated your own point. Nice.
wrong. people like to see movies where what they do is sensationalized
or made groovy and fun. women loved watching the donna reed show.
women loved watching tv sitcoms like all in the family, good times,
jeffersons, brady bunch and countless shows with housewives.
housewives love watching daytime talkshows focusing on housewifey
interests. many soap operas are about rich spoiled housewives fooling
around and having affairs. it's the SENSATIONALIZATION that sells.
doctors watch ER because it makes doctoring look fun. all doctors
know being a doctor is pretty dull except for the dough(why is your
sister oppressing us with medical bills, by the way?). a movie which
shows a doctor examining a bunch of old ladies waiting in a dreary
line all day long wouldn't be a hit with anyone. doctor dielmann?
give me a break. it'd be dr. dielmann going 'say ah. hmm, tonsils
look okay. okay, let me ask you about your bowel movements? are you
eating enough fiber?' for 4 hrs. for chrissakes! i'd rather watch a
housewife lying in bed and eating chocolate watching some daytime soap
opera than watch a boringass doctor movie.
i would argue that we can have something better than
sensationalization or dielmanization. something that is really true to
reality but also dramatizes it as to make it interesting. 'death of a
salesman' is powerful because it sums up a man's wasted life, not
because we see willy loman sit in the kitchen for 3 1/2 hrs. even,
when he's doing nothing, miller pries into the man's psyche, searches
his memory, his pain, and misery. that's art. 'time out' is
interesting not because we see a man leading an aimless existence but
because we gradually come to feel his anxiety, confusion, and
bitterness. it's this sense of engagment that we need in movies, not
ER or jeanne dielmann.
>
> > i cook my own food. am i oppressing myself?
>
> Depends on your cooking.
in that case, i must be royalty.
>
>
> Funny, I always pegged you as the "grubby" type, Tony.
yep, the closet elitist has sneaked out. so what's wrong with the
sweaty and greasy proles and farmers, eh? see, i respect the working
man, but not larry frasier.
>
> And once again, you've stumbled upon the point. Jeanne Dielman shows
> us things that most movies ignore. It breaks down the narrative
> conventions, and gets us closer to reality.
that's not the problem. showing us something ignored by mainstream
movies is a good thing. it's in how it's presented, how it's made
interesting that's crucial. there is more to being a housewife than
what's shown in jeanne dielman. akerman has kosherized and bled
housewivery of everything but her stupid and inane ideological
conceit.
> Okay, I never said I enjoy watching Jeanne Dielman. I'd much rather
> watch, say Benoit Jacquot's A Single Girl, a movie with certain shared
> elements, in that it follows the day of a hotel maid with lots of
> 'real time' humdrum activity, and a very loose structure. The main
> reason is probably that it stars an 18-year old Virginie Ledoyen as a
> French beauty (who I would gladly watch scrub bathtubs for hours)
> rather than 44-year old Daphne Seyrig as a widowed Belgian housewife.
daphe seyrig looked pretty good for a 44 yr old. her titties were
pretty melony, and i always thought older women have something young
ones don't. the radiance has subsided but certain shades of beauty
have deepened.
the thing is you could have cast brigit bardot as jeanne dielman and
it would still have sucked. the movie just sucks, plain and simple.
and the ONLY reason you're defending it is because doing so make you
feel progressive, ideologically correct, intellectual, and dedicated.
it's like some guy going to dull church services and then feeling so
superior over the less pious.
it's the secularized version of self-flagellation. 'oh, i'm larry,
white male, priveleged, so guilty... must watch dielman, oh it's
washing away my sins. ugh, i'll watch it again.. jesus, how many
white males have sat thru it twice? well, i will, yes i will, am i
hyper-progressive or what? so special! yes, i larry legallo have sat
thru dielman twice! yeah, take that you conservative patriarchal
buggers, I SAT THRU DIELMAN TWICE, something even most leftist males
wouldn't dare. gosh, i'm so special. i'm so marvelous for knowing that
i suck as a priveleged white male.' see it couple of more times and
you'll go to heaven and be greeted with 77 feminist virgin maidens.
>
> But at least I recognize my predilection for what it is, and I can be
> respectful of how how it may make some other women feel and react.
> You, on the other hand, are an ignorant slave to your base desires,
> with no regard for their consequences or effect on others around you
> and society in general.
>
> And some films simply aren't meant to entertain.
and you're telling me i'm insensitive about women? showing jeanne
dielman to women--housewife or not, of whatever race or religion--is
the cruelest thing i can think of. if this is your idea of compassion
for women, i shudder for womenfolk.
you should deal with reality once in awhile. most women would rather
die than watch jeanne dielmann. most wouldn't give a crap about
akerman's conceits.
>
> Yes, and she is unearthed, which you would have seen if you had
> bothered to watch the rest of the movie.
you mean i gotta see 3 1/2 hrs of boring crap to see her have an
orgasm and stab somebody? for chrissakes. and why 3 1/2 hrs? why not 5
hrs? or 7 hrs? i got the point of dielman's boring life after the
first 30 min. why the damn length? to drive home the point, right?
then would you defend a 10 hrs jeanne dielmann? maybe there is such a
director's cut. do enjoy, but i'll stick to legally blonde and
lizzie mcguire story.
>
> As you've since learned, she stabs her last client with a pair of
> scissors. A silly ending. But what Akerman had achieved up to that
> point is larger than the resolution, and she was young and probably
> thought she had to make some kind of big "statement" (not realizing
> that she already had). But the ending is a problem.
it's a problem because it happens 3 hrs too late.
>
> But just because I appreciate the film more than you doesn't mean I
> don't have limits to my endurance. If you think the movie was
> difficult and boring, try getting through feminist critic Claire
> Johnston's essay about it. I bet you can't even get through this
> sample passage:
>
> (in discussing Akerman's decision to not show the viewer the sex)
>
> "What dominates is the 'thetic', the symbolic cutting out of the field
> of vision, posing both absence and the fact of heterogeneity by the
> over-inscription of rigidity- the very representation of the
> repression of sexuality...a repressed sexuality erupting as
> jouissance, setting up a series of parapaxes, creating both the
> disorganisation of physical space and temporal gaps. This eruption of
> the semiotic, the drives, closed off from our view and unnarated, in a
> moment of jouissance, constitutes an expenditure without exchange
> within the economy set up by the film text."
>
> Parse that, you semioticians. I got *pages* of that.
all i can say, larry, is YOU SAW IT TWICE.
now, allow me to quote something which is alot easier to understand.
pt barnum: 'there's a sucker born every minute'
given that jeanne dielman is 3 1/2 hrs long, don't worry larry. there
were 210 of your kind born during its running time which means you'll
never be lonely.
as for claire johnston, i fear how SHE will react when she has her
first orgasm. never mind the scissors, don't let her anywhere near a
nuclear plant.
PS: would you rather see a woman peel potatoes or write for academic
journals? heck, maybe jeanne dielman isn't so boring after all. a 3
1/2 hr called 'claire johnston'.... NO!!!! that's aint no art movie.
that's horror!
monsieurblob
> don't have limits to my endurance. If you think the movie was
> difficult and boring, try getting through feminist critic Claire
> Johnston's essay about it. I bet you can't even get through this
> sample passage:
>
> (in discussing Akerman's decision to not show the viewer the sex)
>
> "What dominates is the 'thetic', the symbolic cutting out of the field
> of vision, posing both absence and the fact of heterogeneity by the
> over-inscription of rigidity- the very representation of the
> repression of sexuality...a repressed sexuality erupting as
> jouissance, setting up a series of parapaxes, creating both the
> disorganisation of physical space and temporal gaps. This eruption of
> the semiotic, the drives, closed off from our view and unnarated, in a
> moment of jouissance, constitutes an expenditure without exchange
> within the economy set up by the film text."
>
> Parse that, you semioticians. I got *pages* of that.
couldv sworn it was johnston who said theory was crack cocaine that
promised us the heavens but left us hanging, or something like that
in any case, thats a piece of crap, dont be fooled. the passage is
extremely poor, hyperbolic and hypertrofied, like most of screen
theory
larry legallo
>larry legallo <lleg...@usa.net> wrote in message
>>
>>
>i would argue that we can have something better than
>sensationalization or dielmanization. something that is really true to
>reality but also dramatizes it as to make it interesting. 'death of a
>salesman' is powerful because it sums up a man's wasted life, not
>because we see willy loman sit in the kitchen for 3 1/2 hrs. even,
Are you sure you didn't just watch Robert McKee's speech from
Adaptation? "I got no bloody use for it"
>> Yes, and she is unearthed, which you would have seen if you had
>> bothered to watch the rest of the movie.
>
>you mean i gotta see 3 1/2 hrs of boring crap to see her have an
>orgasm and stab somebody? for chrissakes. and why 3 1/2 hrs? why not 5
>hrs? or 7 hrs? i got the point of dielman's boring life after the
>first 30 min. why the damn length?
The length is important to embed the rythmn into our consciousness.
The first day we see how efficiently Jeanne performs each task. There
is a obviously a certain rigor to the way she shedules her day.
During the second day, that efficiency begins to break down and the
rigidity of her schedule starts to unravel, almost imperceptibly at
first, but then more and more noticeably (again, paying attention
helps). There is a nice moment when her son tells her that her hair
is messed up, and she says, "I burned the potatoes". Her son
recognizes how a single misstep affects everything else.
But with out the length, it would be harder to perceive this, without
the kind of overt exposition (which most movies rely on) that Akerman
is trying to avoid. Look how housework is portrayed in most movies,
if it's seen at all. It's either portrayed as comically frustrating-
everything going wrong- or shown very quickly in a montage of
activity: 3 seconds of scrubbing the bathtub, followed by a few frames
of vacuuming, etc.
> to drive home the point, right?
>then would you defend a 10 hrs jeanne dielmann?
I'm sure Akerman probably thought about making it longer. After all,
she does condense three days into 3 and half hours of film. So just
think, it could have been worse.
> maybe there is such a director's cut.
Yeah, the DVD has the deleted scenes, which include 'defrosting the
fridge' (45 minutes), 'bleaching the curtains' (27 minutes), and my
personal favorite, 'repotting the philodendron" (14 minutes). That
last one's a hoot.
> do enjoy, but i'll stick to legally blonde and lizzie mcguire story.
What, has Natalie Portman become too old for you?
larry legallo
>larry legallo <lleg...@usa.net> wrote:
>
>>And some films simply aren't meant to entertain.
>
>I think that art that entertains no one (I'm not referring
>specifically to "Jeanne Dielman") is failed art. The film (or the
>painting, poem, play &c.) may not entertain everyone & it may not
>mindlessly entertain anyone. But if there isn't that sense of holding
>together -- "entre tenir" -- or fostering interest, even if it's only
>for an enlightened or informed minority, it's just bad art.
You're probably right. All art should draw us in somehow. I guess
what I mean is that it's not a fun film to watch. But "entertainment"
can be a long road sometimes. Funny thing is, I don't even
particularly like Akerman. And back in school, I'd ridicule these
pretentious Jeanne Dielman fans (all the while fawning over Godard).
But Tony's ignorance demands a counter balance sometimes.
>>"What dominates is the 'thetic', the symbolic cutting out of the field
>>of vision, posing both absence and the fact of heterogeneity by the
>>over-inscription of rigidity- the very representation of the
>>repression of sexuality...a repressed sexuality erupting as
>>jouissance, setting up a series of parapaxes, creating both the
>>disorganisation of physical space and temporal gaps. This eruption of
>>the semiotic, the drives, closed off from our view and unnarated, in a
>>moment of jouissance, constitutes an expenditure without exchange
>>within the economy set up by the film text."
>>
>>Parse that, you semioticians. I got *pages* of that.
>
>It's not meant to be parsed -- but just tossed up & out like the nux
>vomica it is. The depths to which otherwise intelligent people sink in
>order to secure tenure or get published in some trendy academic
>journal is rather beside the point.
>
>I've enjoyed this thread of yours, Larry!
Thanks, I think. When I get into these Gaza clashes, I usually
assume, and maybe even hope, that nobody else is reading. But if
there's some entertainment to be poached from it, then it's not
completely worthless.
>I'm almost curious enough at this point to look for the Akerman film.
Okay, but just don't blame me afterwards.
larry legallo
terminale) wrote:
>larry legallo <lleg...@usa.net> wrote in message news:<l8gr30958fffho2n8...@4ax.com>...
>>
That's almost an interesting reading Tony, but it goes against
Akerman's own words about it. She has said that she sees the murder
as an act of liberation, and a good thing because it will change
Jeanne's life. Like I said, she sees it as "him or her".
>in dodeskaden, a shy girl is exploited and abused by her uncle. she is
>befriended by some friendly kid whom she stabs. she does this because
>he reminds her of how life should be, how people should be, and it
>challenges what she has already accepted as her fate in life. so if
>akerman is just doing what old man kurosawa already did in his 60s, i
>mean that's some pisspoor b.s.
I haven't seen that film, but I doubt Akerman was stealing from
Kurosawa. Not that her ending was particularly original, though.
Murder as a symbolic act of liberation, by the oppressed against the
oppressors, has been used way too often, especially around that time.
Even your boy Peckinpah would probably explain Dustin Hoffman's
rampage at the end of Straw Dogs in similar terms as Akerman did
Jeanne Dielman's. And they're both irresponsible and facile endings.
>> Even better, we force Tony to read Dinah Brooke's novel 'Death Games',
>> which has it all over Dielman when it comes to allegorical resolutions
>> in feminist fiction. In the book, the heroine crawls into bed with
>> her father after he's suffered a heart attack, and fellates him until
>> he dies. A literal "blow" to partiarchal culture. Perfect for Tony.
>
>you actually read that? WHY? is this like a longterm plan in case you
>have a daughter one of these days?
No, I didn't read it. But I used to move, and kind of still do, in
the same circles as the some of the old radical feminist guard, and so
they feed me this stuff sometimes. They know I find it amusing.
angel eyes
> That's almost an interesting reading Tony, but it goes against
> Akerman's own words about it. She has said that she sees the murder
> as an act of liberation, and a good thing because it will change
> Jeanne's life. Like I said, she sees it as "him or her".
i guess i'll just have to kill akerman, then. it's either her or me.
>
> I haven't seen that film, but I doubt Akerman was stealing from
> Kurosawa. Not that her ending was particularly original, though.
> Murder as a symbolic act of liberation, by the oppressed against the
> oppressors, has been used way too often, especially around that time.
> Even your boy Peckinpah would probably explain Dustin Hoffman's
> rampage at the end of Straw Dogs in similar terms as Akerman did
> Jeanne Dielman's. And they're both irresponsible and facile endings.
you gotta be shittin' me. a peckinpah movie without a bloodbath? for
chrissakes, i gotta toughen you up kiddo. try sqeezin' your balls
once in awhile. maybe some hormones will get pumped up to your brain.
all of straw dogs is set for an explosive ending. there can be no
other way. the hoffman character isn't in liberal ivy league america
but amongst beasts. he can't squeeze out of his predicament with a
math formula. he has to fight like a man. why is that facile? if you
were surrounded by goons, what would you do? preach gandhism? the
reason it doesn't work in jeanne dielman is it comes out of nowhere,
as a smarmy conceit. what hoffman does isn't about liberation but
acceptance of what he is. he accepts that man is an animal.
acceptance is deep, 'liberation' is flaky.
if you ever find youself in a similar situation, see if it's facile to
use violence to defend your turf. i suppose seven samurai was facile
too.
> No, I didn't read it. But I used to move, and kind of still do, in
> the same circles as the some of the old radical feminist guard, and so
> they feed me this stuff sometimes. They know I find it amusing.
read some real stuff, like 'little big man'. now, that's a killer
novel for real men.
angel eyes
>
> >> Yes, and she is unearthed, which you would have seen if you had
> >> bothered to watch the rest of the movie.
> >
> >you mean i gotta see 3 1/2 hrs of boring crap to see her have an
> >orgasm and stab somebody? for chrissakes. and why 3 1/2 hrs? why not 5
> >hrs? or 7 hrs? i got the point of dielman's boring life after the
> >first 30 min. why the damn length?
>
> The length is important to embed the rythmn into our consciousness.
> The first day we see how efficiently Jeanne performs each task. There
> is a obviously a certain rigor to the way she shedules her day.
> During the second day, that efficiency begins to break down and the
> rigidity of her schedule starts to unravel, almost imperceptibly at
> first, but then more and more noticeably (again, paying attention
> helps). There is a nice moment when her son tells her that her hair
> is messed up, and she says, "I burned the potatoes". Her son
> recognizes how a single misstep affects everything else.
b.s. a true film artist could have conveyed all this in 30 minutes.
bergman's winter light is only 80 min but we minutely share in the
despair of its characters.
also, there is something called cinematic art. we see nicholson slowly
deteriorate in the shining, but it's fascinating because kubrick
relished the art of filmmaking, of exploring and expanding new ways of
expression. akerman's movie can only be sold as ideological tract,
which is why its defenders all try to find political or
meta-intellectual b.s. to justify its sheer boredom.
i understand women were dying to have a great female auteur. we all
abhor a vacuum. same reason some try to push im kwon taek as a great
filmmaker since i guess korea needs such a creature too, why hou hsaio
hsien is considered a major artist--how more diverse to have a
taiwanese master. boring.
you gimme a camera and an actress and i'll show you how daily
monotony, the deterioration of routine, etc. can all be expressed in
far less time with far greater impact. but, that would be too
conventional for akerman. she wants to stake her claim as an singular
ARTIST so, like hou hsaio hsien has to bore the shit out of us and
then say most of us just doesn't get it.
take 'the graduate'. simply during the duration of two simon and
garfunkel songs, we sense braddock's growing aimlessness and
pointlessness. we SENSE his decline from a fresh graduate to a
confused bachelor. sorry, but akerman's methods are completely baked.
>
> But with out the length, it would be harder to perceive this, without
> the kind of overt exposition (which most movies rely on) that Akerman
> is trying to avoid. Look how housework is portrayed in most movies,
> if it's seen at all. It's either portrayed as comically frustrating-
> everything going wrong- or shown very quickly in a montage of
> activity: 3 seconds of scrubbing the bathtub, followed by a few frames
> of vacuuming, etc.
because housework is only worth that amount of screentime. what are
you saying? movies should relay the sheer boredom of daily life?
yeah, how about a 4 hr movie of some guy stuck in rush hour traffic?
how about a movie showing some guy sitting on a bus for 2 hrs? or, a
movie where we see someone sleeping for 8 hrs? wow, how daring.
look, much of human life is pointless and boring. art should be about
interesting things in life. like how michael corleone gains power and
loses his soul, not how he reads a newspaper in the morning or sits on
the can. or, a movie can be about dull life but there has to be
penetrating psychological gaze beyond the dullness, as in winter light
and less successfully in the story of that woman in requiem for a
dream. or, the visual expression could be used poeticize what may
otherwise seem humdrum. so in ozu's film ordinary life is crafted into
ritualized poetry. or, as in the films of bresson where the slowness
allows us to look beyond the ordinary into the lonely souls of the
character. jean dielman has no soul because she's just akerman's
ideological sockpuppet. it's not bourgeois society that denies her an
individual interior but akerman. it's like a fundamentalist christian
filmmaker giving us a humanist character who has no inner psychology
except to be a satanist, and with the film ending with the liberation
of the character based ONLY and SOLELY according to values prescribed
by the filmmaker. jean dielman is sockpuppet cinema. and if
dielman's problem is bourgeois oppression, do tell me why watching a
liberated woman in je tu il el is just as dull?
you keep saying 'most movies' do this or that, as though simply going
against the tide makes for important art. most movies emphasize the
sounds that come out of people's mouths. what would a film that
focuses on the sounds that come out of their bungholes be? great art?
and this mentality hasn't just infected directing but acting. holly
hunter must think she's a daring actress because we see her sitting on
the toilet in 'something you know just by looking at her face'. or,
julianne moore must be patting herself on the back for exposing her
bush in every movie. like wow, what a daring artist!
>
> > to drive home the point, right?
> >then would you defend a 10 hrs jeanne dielmann?
>
> I'm sure Akerman probably thought about making it longer. After all,
> she does condense three days into 3 and half hours of film. So just
> think, it could have been worse.
and you would have seen it twice.
>
> > maybe there is such a director's cut.
>
> Yeah, the DVD has the deleted scenes, which include 'defrosting the
> fridge' (45 minutes), 'bleaching the curtains' (27 minutes), and my
> personal favorite, 'repotting the philodendron" (14 minutes). That
> last one's a hoot.
>
> > do enjoy, but i'll stick to legally blonde and lizzie mcguire story.
>
> What, has Natalie Portman become too old for you?
actually, portman is one of the few gals i wouldn't mind watching for
3 1/2 hrs doing nothing. she's wondrous, period.
gayboy
>
> I haven't seen that film, but I doubt Akerman was stealing from
> Kurosawa. Not that her ending was particularly original, though.
> Murder as a symbolic act of liberation, by the oppressed against the
> oppressors, has been used way too often, especially around that time.
> Even your boy Peckinpah would probably explain Dustin Hoffman's
> rampage at the end of Straw Dogs in similar terms as Akerman did
> Jeanne Dielman's. And they're both irresponsible and facile endings.
since when is defending one's home and hearth(and ho') going on a
rampage? he was defending himself against a rampage.
and it would have been facile if it had ended as in a stanley kramer
movie, with everyone just putting their anger aside and shaking hands
and making peace over tea and crumpets. 'guess who's coming to
trencher's farm?'
'by the way, i buggered your wife yesterday'
'oh really dear boy? i would have gone on a rampage in my old self but
i've put aside such facile boorishness. did you have a nice time?'
'dandy old time, dear chap'.