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February 1997, Week 2

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Subject:
From:
Johnson Cheu <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Film and TV Studies Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Wed, 12 Feb 1997 23:42:40 -0500
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With Las HURDES, just wondering if anybody has considered it's
classification with idiots in terms of disabilty, that is can we say that
the impoverished land motiff is tied up symbolically with the use of
"impoverished" people-- Donald alludes to this, but just wondering what
others think, and the implications of such a theory?
--Johnson
 
 
>I think there are several levels in the use of the "idiots" in LAS HURDES.
>(I certainly remember how strongly the image struck me when I first saw
>the film many years ago.):
>
>1. It *does* serve as an index of the impoverishment of the land and village,
>on the same order as the stream that serves as both water supply and sewer
>and contrasts with the drawings on the schoolroom walls.  (This is a
>very *angry* film, among other things.)
>
>2. Its shock effect also provides a kind of humor.  "The way to the village
>is guarded by idiots" (or something like that), the narrator says.  It's
>a disconcerting statement that provokes an uneasy laugh when the viewer
>realizes the double meaning of "idiots" (which was at one time a more or less
>clinical term for a certain level of mental retardation--followed by "moron"
>and "cretin").
>        The disjunction is somewhat similar to Faulkner's use of Benjy in
>THE SOUND AND THE FURY--"a tale told by an idiot" indeed!  (except that
>Benjy's subjective view in words in far different from Bunuel's objective
>images)
>
>3. Finally, the "idiots" also demonstrate a typcially surrealist fascination
>with other orders of being that depart from the bourgeois norm, ranging from
>sexual perversity to various kinds of physical and mental impairment.
>Those images, of course, carry their own burdens of objectification and
>distortion!
>
>All told, LAS HURDES clarified all the rest of Bunuel's work for me in a way
>I had never quite understood before!
>
>Don Larsson, Mankato State U (MN)
>
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Johnson Cheu
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The Ohio State University
Dept. of English
421 Denney Hall
164 W. 17th. Ave.
Columbus, OH 43210
(614) 292-1730 (Office)
(614) 292-6065 (Dept.)
(614) 292-7816 (Fax)
 
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