Thanks for the clarifications. Given those parameters, I would reiterate Lynch's Mullholland Dr., in which the narrative structure, visual technique and even specific characters' identities shift and reconfigure throughout the film. Lynch is all about "semantic slippage," and one creepy scene set behind a diner's trash bin could connect nicely to Benjamin's analysis of the prostitute figure. In general, though, Hollywood doesn't make the kind of films you've described. It's not specifically related to film, but Celeste Olalquiaga's The Artificial Kingdom would be worth reading, as it deals with ruination, "the commodification of eras and places," etc. J. Cullum >>> Michelle Langford <[log in to unmask]> 3/11/2009 6:19 PM >>> Michael, Yes I did mention Benjamin early in the thread and yes, summarizing him is incredibly difficult...but let's have a go. I think the most important aspect of Benjamin's approach to allegory is in the way he distinguishes allegory from symbol and attempts to 'redeem' allegory from its denigration by the Romantics (principally Schopenhauer). The romantics basically viewed allegory as a trivial form of rhetoric. Benjamin is really the first to take allegory seriously since the Romantic period. He goes back to the Baroque age and looks primarily at the work of the Spanish playwrights of the 17th century (eg. Calderon), identifying in their work a level of submerged resistance to the court, for which they were commissioned to produce their dramas. 'Life is a Dream' is one play that sought to secretly critique authority. Additionally, however Benjamin identifies a series of characteristics of Baroque allegory, which he also identifies in the work of Baudelaire. These are the ruin, the corpse, narrative fragmentation, emblems etc. For Benjamin, one of the most important characteristics of allegory is its dependence upon what I call 'semantic slippage' or instability, where one thing (an object, image, word etc.) can mean absolutely anything else, so what we get in the most interesting allegories is not a 1:1 relationship between object and meaning, but a constant slippage of an object's meaning through a text. That is, while at one moment an object or image might mean one thing at the next turn, it is transformed into something else. Allegory, in this sense then involves metaphors being not only extended, but constantly transformed. This process of unstable meaning production is different from 'symbolic' forms, which tend to be more stable (immutable perhaps) (eg. The image of scales to symbolise justice. In an allegory such an image would be used to mean something else, quite possibly the opposite of justice). Allegories are also context specific and generally require knowledge of contemporary events or society in order to be fully understood. Benjamin was also careful to distinguish between allegory and myth. He says that allegory is the 'antidote to myth'. What I understand by this is that while myths provide stable models for framing our understanding of human society, allegory works to undermine these, doing so by turning them to ruins. But allegory has the capacity to mask itself as myth, a useful way of hiding its true intentions. Writing of Baudelaire, who Benjamin sees as a direct descendent of the baroque playwrights, Benjamin fixes on the figure of the prostitute, who represents a 'ruinous' form of modern society's fetishisation of the commodity. This isn't quite Benjamin in a nutshell, but I hope it helps to clarify the background of my own work on this in cinema studies. You might like to read the second chapter of my book "Allegorical Images: Tableau, Time and Gesture in the Cinema of Werner Schroeter" where I bring Deleuze to the party to interpret Benjamin's theory of allegory for film. Hope this helps, Michelle Dr Michelle Langford Lecturer School of English, Media and Performing Arts The University of New South Wales Sydney 2052 Australia Room: Webster 311O Phone: + 61 2 9385 4489 Fax: + 61 2 9385 6812 On 10/3/09 3:15 AM, "Frank, Michael" <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > it's possible, michelle, that early on in this thread you indicated that you > were using benjamin's notion of allegory . . . if you did i must have missed > it and have responded based on a literary [rather than philosophical] model > of allegory . . . for those of us who come to these discussions from a more > [narrowly] frame of reference, could you give some idea of what allegory was > for benjamin > > > > [i realize of course that summarizing benjamin is notoriously difficult, but > even a few clues would be useful] > > > > thanks > > > > mike ---- Screen-L is sponsored by the Telecommunication & Film Dept., the University of Alabama: http://www.tcf.ua.edu ( http://www.tcf.ua.edu/ ) ---- For past messages, visit the Screen-L Archives: http://bama.ua.edu/archives/screen-l.html