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On Sat, Mar 13, 2010 at 9:37 AM, Bill Stephens <wrstp...@gmail.com> wrote: > well we're not crucifying people along the trans-canada highway so at > least we've made some progress since spartacus - a low standard i know. > So you were exaggerating for effect. I understood that. My reply was not to be taken literally. > films come out of nowhere often enough and set the style followed by > numerous copy cat movies. you seem to think that ideology is all top > down. isn't there more of a dialectic going on, if they have such a > enormous advantage in well mind control why the need for ever more > security forces? > It's true that there are accidental successes from time to time. Reservoir Dogs would perhaps be an example. Smart producers respond to that by finding out what explains the success and trying to replicate it. Does this mean that ideology is "all top down"? I don't think so. I haven't claimed that these producers independently produce the dominant ideologies. I've claimed that they find out what people already think, feel, desire, and find ways to appropriate and commodify those experiences. If they do it effectively, if their team of directors and subeditors and cinematographers etc do their job well, if the technology works, they have a hit film. And it doesn't matter if some people watching the film don't enjoy it, so long as they got their market. Hence, to return to the original point, the fact that you derived no satisfaction from the sadistic violence in Inglourious Basterds doesn't mean that this isn't in the film. It doesn't mean that the violence isn't intended to be appealling. Actually, we know from the statements of the producer Lawrence Bender and the director Quentin Tarantino, as well as from various reviews, that it was intended to be an orgasmic experience. it's not a mistake it's one of many ways to look at movies. It's a solipsistic error to think that the meaning of a film is determined by one's own reaction to it. everything has a nature. there are certain things we can do and a > great many other things, a veritable infinity of things we can't do. > There are biological givens, but if that's all we're talking about, then 'human nature' is a tautology - like 'bee nature', 'nettle nature', 'asteroid nature' etc. It was clear from your useage that you intended 'human nature' to mean something more than that, something politically significant (cf the "dark concept of human nature" that conservatives have). This doesn't exist. There is no 'human nature' in the sense of our being either naturally 'good' or 'bad', cooperative or competitive, altruistic or selfish, etc. There is no 'human nature' that is relevant to the question of whether people are susceptible to emotional domination by well-made movie technologies. -- Richard Seymour Writer and blogger Email: leninstombb...@googlemail.com Website: http://www.leninology.blogspot.com Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/leninology Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Seymour_(writer) Book: http://www.versobooks.com/books/nopqrs/s-titles/seymour_r_the_liberal_defense_of_murder.shtml ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
