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January 1996, Week 5

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From:
psycho boy <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Film and TV Studies Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Tue, 30 Jan 1996 11:43:33 -0600
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I saw Belle De Jour this summer on the silver screen and my hazy memory is
telling me that in the version I saw the husband was killed by the
boyfriend and the boyfriend was killed by a cop.
 
And then I remember, vaguely, a cut to a final fantasy sequence.
 
>My other query is:  What is this film about?
>Let me suggest an odd answer:  It is about what it is about.  My intended
>contrast is with a mimetic theory where the work of art is about what it
>imitates.  Perhaps Bunuel's films are closer to "pure" works of art.
 
It is definitely about itself, but also what it imitates...people, although
I find it more of a satire than an imitation.  Whether the satire is
intentional or not is a question of how self-important/indulgent the french
are.
 
>A parallel may help.  Perhaps some Romantic music is about that which it is
>the story of, often what is suggested in the title of the piece.  Surely there
>is also music which tells no story, paints no scene, does not even set or
>explore some mood; it is just music.  Of this music, we might say that it is
>about nothing, or about itself, or about what it is about, treating all three
>statements as at least roughly equivalent.
 
I don't believe that anything tells no story.  Everything creative tells a
story, at the least, about the creator as well as the medium used if it
doesn't have a "real" narrative.
 
True.  Different films are a mix form and content, consiously or not, but I
don't see how either can be called "pure" film.
 
-Jeff Stein
 
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                         "Me, Grimlok, mad!"
                                             -Grimlok, Dinobot
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jeff stein  608.264.2587                    1082 wales house  sellery a
 
                                            821 W. johnson st.
[log in to unmask]                  madison  wi  53706-1798
 
        http://www-arch.housing.wisc.edu/Stein_Jeffrey/WWW/
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