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July 1997, Week 5

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Subject:
From:
Glen Norton <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Film and TV Studies Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Tue, 29 Jul 1997 14:20:16 -0400
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While we're on the subject of Godard, another "must-see" in this context
is TOUT VA BIEN (1972), which depicts the disapointment in the failure of
Marx/Maoism (at least in the way Godard had pictured it) during
the period just after May '68. Since then, Godard has all but rejected he
ever believed in Maoist doctrine. His fault was/is the fault of
many filmmakers -- the (naive) belief that "making political films
politically" can actually affect political views or even become the
catalyist to "the revolution". The only thing it can do is provide
aestehtic fodder to be rejected or assimilated by the dominant cinematic
machine. I suppose its the old Brecht vs. Lukacs debate: Which has greater
impact and/or sway over that black nebulus Baudrillard calls "the
mass"[es]? Narrative realism (i.e. Hollywood and its clones) or the
avant-garde (if such a thing even exists)? Or is cinema (and, by
extrapolation, all art) simply an enclosed space, a simulation of power,
given its political authority by theoreticians and not through the medium
itself?
 
________________________________________________________________
Glen Norton
Graduate Programme in Film and Video
York University, Toronto, Canada
 
THE PANTHEON: http://www.geocities.com/hollywood/3781
 
"When you see your own photo, do you say you're a fiction?"
                                              -- Jean-Luc Godard
----------------------------------------------------------------
 
On Mon, 28 Jul 1997, Donald Larsson wrote:
 
> SGC comments:
> "For those of you with genuine questions about what happened in May 1968, I
> will not reprimand you, but suggest a wonderful book that explores the
> intellectual ferment leading up to those events: Greil Marcus's LIPSTICK
> TRACES (Harvard UP, 1989). The Situationists are crucial to the period,
> and Marcus offers a compelling account of their history.
> After that, a must-see film is Godard's WEEKEND, which should be widely
> available on video."
>
>
> Maybe even more must-see is LA CHINOISE, dismissed by some American reviewers
> on release as being out of touch, and then soon after hailed as prophetic!
>
> Don Larsson, Mankato State U (MN)
>
> ----
> Screen-L is sponsored by the Telecommunication & Film Dept., the
> University of Alabama.
>
 
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