Re: [Marxism] Quentin Tarantino, Eileen Jones, and the perils of film school theorizing | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * At NYU there was a Dept. of Cinema Studies and a Dept. of Film & Television Production. By the mid-70s the theorizing of Screen magazine was taking center stage, and much of that theorizing was informed by linguistic models derived from Sassure, psychological interpretations from Lacan, structuralism, etc, and the jargon was the "suture"," le petit object a", the "gaze", etc., very different from substituting intellectual montage for Hollywood montage. I remember the enthusiasm for Noel Burch's article classifying Hollywood movies according to their formal challenges to the dominant ideology, where violation of the Hollywood representational codes constituted a critique. The other big article was Stephen Heath's piece on Touch of Evil in Screen. My point is that the movies were used as examples to prove the theoru rather than as investigative tools for understanding the movie. Richard Modiano On Thu, Aug 22, 2019 at 8:11 AM Jeffrey Masko wrote: > Good and bad news here, the bad news is as an academic subject, we do use > jargon - such as "intellectual montage" instead of "Hollywood montage" - > comes from theory, so yes jargon can still be used to mystify positions > taken on interpretation. One the other hand, we are a long way away from > the 70s; film study in no longer a humanities based project, but more > fruitfully finds its home in communication studies, especially mass comm, > among others. One of my mentors, Bill Nichols had read ALL film criticism > while at UCLA in the early 70s; now one could not read all of the > literature coming out in any given quarter, so quite a bit more going on > now than in the 70s. To me this is not a question of using theory, but > which ones and to what extent and purpose. > > > _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Quentin Tarantino, Eileen Jones, and the perils of film school theorizing | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Good and bad news here, the bad news is as an academic subject, we do use jargon - such as "intellectual montage" instead of "Hollywood montage" - comes from theory, so yes jargon can still be used to mystify positions taken on interpretation. One the other hand, we are a long way away from the 70s; film study in no longer a humanities based project, but more fruitfully finds its home in communication studies, especially mass comm, among others. One of my mentors, Bill Nichols had read ALL film criticism while at UCLA in the early 70s; now one could not read all of the literature coming out in any given quarter, so quite a bit more going on now than in the 70s. To me this is not a question of using theory, but which ones and to what extent and purpose. _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Quentin Tarantino, Eileen Jones, and the perils of film school theorizing | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * It's not, but using theory to inform interpretation to understand film and study of film is. It needed not be filled with academic jargon, but it does need to be in dialogue with those perspectives that lead us away from Marxist theories - or others- that help us better understand about the connection between politics and ideology as proposed by Gramsci (in my case), or for someone like Ron Betting, how the political economy of Big Media functions from a Marxist perspective. You know, basic stuff. _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Quentin Tarantino, Eileen Jones, and the perils of film school theorizing | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * If higher ed is going to be the yardstick for what is and isn't Marxism, is it out of order to suggest seppuku. _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Quentin Tarantino, Eileen Jones, and the perils of film school theorizing | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * On 8/21/19 4:01 PM, Jeffrey Masko wrote: No, you are not stepping on my toes because Cinema and Media Studies is a real thing taught in higher ed, "Film Journalism" - or movie reviewing, is not. You do catch my attention though, like sand in the eyes, when you try to present what you do on your blog as something that connects Marxist theories - of film, media, or anything else - to film, media, or other moments of cultural production. Not sure if you call yourself a Marxist film reviewer, but it's more like a film reviewer that happens to be a Marxist. I also write about TV shows, novels, music, and other aspects of culture. I wouldn't be at all interested in "theorizing" about any of these things. My theorizing is strictly limited to things like American slavery, the Democratic Party, fascism, etc. My inspiration for film journalism is Roger Ebert, not any film or communications professor writing for academic journals. I critiqued Eileen Jones because her theorizing about Tarantino was totally absurd. Calling the alternative history of the Sharon Tate story "radical" and likening it to Eisenstein or Vertov was laughable. I should add that Eileen Jones mostly writes reviews like mine but about commercial junk that I generally avoid. Her take on Tarantino's latest was not the typical jargon-filled baloney you read in a film journal but it certainly reflected film school tendencies. Finally, I am not that impressed with any Marxism that is based in the academy. From Zizek to Robert Brenner, there's just a kind of failure to engage with the real class relations of capitalist society that makes me think I made the right decision to give up on getting a PhD in philosophy back in 1967 and getting educated by people like George Novack, Farrell Dobbs and Joe Hansen. Their "vanguardism" was a mistake but their analysis of American society was not. _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Quentin Tarantino, Eileen Jones, and the perils of film school theorizing | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * >From my experience this is an accurate take. I went to graduate school at NYU in the 1970s working on an M.A. in Cinema Studies. What I experienced was the actual movies being used as grist for the theoretical mills. The kind of political film criticism that was clear, jargon free and useful to me were pieces like Brecht's review of "Gunga Din" (1939) (reprinted in Brecht on Theater.) Richard Modiano _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Quentin Tarantino, Eileen Jones, and the perils of film school theorizing | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * No, you are not stepping on my toes because Cinema and Media Studies is a real thing taught in higher ed, "Film Journalism" - or movie reviewing, is not. You do catch my attention though, like sand in the eyes, when you try to present what you do on your blog as something that connects Marxist theories - of film, media, or anything else - to film, media, or other moments of cultural production. Not sure if you call yourself a Marxist film reviewer, but it's more like a film reviewer that happens to be a Marxist. jm _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Quentin Tarantino, Eileen Jones, and the perils of film school theorizing | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * On 8/20/19 3:59 PM, Jeffrey Masko wrote: Film journalism? Ah, yeah, right, lol. You should know what you are critiquing. Sorry to step on your toes, Jeffrey. Please feel free to theorize to your heart's content. I bet you are really good at it. _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Quentin Tarantino, Eileen Jones, and the perils of film school theorizing | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Film journalism? Ah, yeah, right, lol. You should know what you are critiquing. On Tue, Aug 20, 2019 at 12:08 PM Louis Proyect via Marxism < marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote: > POSTING RULES & NOTES > #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. > #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. > #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. > * > > > https://louisproyect.org/2019/08/20/quentin-tarantino-eileen-jones-and-the-perils-of-film-school-theorizing/ > _ > Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm > Set your options at: > https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/mediacrusher%40gmail.com > -- J.A. Masko "The challenge of modernity is to live without illusions and without becoming disillusioned." Antonio Gramsci. _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Quentin Tarantino, Eileen Jones, and the perils of film school theorizing | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * https://louisproyect.org/2019/08/20/quentin-tarantino-eileen-jones-and-the-perils-of-film-school-theorizing/ _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
