On Tue, 6 Sep 1994, John R Groch wrote: > But I actually logged in to take friendly issue with your premise, which > is that the text is legible outside of its discursive and other contexts > and that it has meaning apart from the multiple instances of its being > read (i.e., it still "has" meaning even if that meaning is not conveyed). > Even your own reading of the film has not been a reading of > the-text-itself but a reading of that text against contexts, including > Stone's corpus and film history. A knowledge of Stone's work in some ways > pre-reads NBK for you. In the same way, the marketing campaign pre-reads > the film for an audience paying attention to such a campaign (indeed, this > is its purpose), so in fact studio marketing whores have EVERYTHING to do > with the film's artistic statement. And while we may suggest that Stone > is not responsible for the work of marketers who muddy "his" message, > neither is he responsible for the long history of humanist criticism which > encourages our seeing the message as "his" to begin with. Moreover, the > fact that Stone has made a mass-marketed R-rated film already structures > expectations, and thus readings, to an extent that Stone himself surely > understands. Even if every frame of the film remained the same, NBK would > be a "different" film if it played only in art houses, or went straight to > video, or carried an NC-17 rating. In short, everything about this film -- > its budget, its cast, its marketing, its timing as a summer film, the > soundtrack by Trent Reznor, the scramble to get Tarantino's name somewhere > on the credits even after he disowned the project -- is very clearly > seeking out a mass market, which with today's demographics means first and > foremost 18-34-year-old males; to say it is not a film "for" them is to > willfully remove it from the cultural context in which it exists and with > which it wishes to engage. This is the argument I find myself in a lot these days. Somebody trots out an economically determinist critique of a film, and I respond with a more textually based reply. I am seen as denying economic influences, and perhaps am seen as doing so for good reason. Clearly there is a heavy context within which folks like Stone operate, and equally clear is the role of economic influences in that context. I do not deny the existence of such factors, even when I assert the comparative importance of textual qualities. My take is that of an artist. I'm a writer and a half-assed painter, sort of. I was writing long before I gave a whit about criticism and scholarly analysis. I usually have a pretty good feel for how influential the paycheck-chase was in the creative process. As a writer I'd love to be paid for what I do, and the current book I'm working on does, in fact, have marketing potential. An economic determinist would read the MS and see sex, violence, rock and roll, and probably conclude I was out to make a buck. True, to a small degree. HOWEVER, $$$ is really of very little concern to me - the book is designed to make a certain statement about where I see certain media institutions heading, and it would be beyond impossible for me to make my critical commentary without creating a fairly splashy backdrop. These things would be evident to a critic who was intent on reading the text, but damned near invisible to the scholar who looked at the financial possibilities and stopped there. This is, in fact, an issue I will be addressing at PCA in the Spring (assuming they let me in). My presentation takes a look at the charge leveled by many that U2 has "sold out." From certain perspectives it sure looks that way. However, if you take a good hard look at the actual music, videos, and performances involved in the ACHTUNG BABY & ZOOROPA projects it rapidly becomes clear that superficial economic analyses miss the boat and miss it badly. Hope that clarifies. Conspiratorially, Road Angel ^V^V^V^V^V^V^V^V^V^V^V^V^V^V^V^V^V^V^V^V^V^V^V^V^V It seems to me a change is really needed I'm sick of tra-la-las and la-de-das No more long days hocking hunks of garbage Bitter fingers never swung on swinging stars - Bernie Taupin ^V^V^V^V^V^V^V^V^V^V^V^V^V^V^V^V^V^V^V^V^V^V^V^V^V