Porn symposium

Update: Aug 24: pornography – symposium

Via girish again comes:

Terrific post by Owen Hatherley, part of the Porn Symposium (hey, there’s an idea for a future blog-a-thon): Russ Meyer, Vilgot Sjöman, etc, but mostly Dušan Makavejev.

Sexpol and Sexploitation in the cinema of the New Left

Part of a Porn Symposium with K-Punk, Infinite Thought, Poetix, Effay, Bacteriagrl and Different Maps. —Owen Hatherley

There is a story of the permeation of pornography into mainstream cinema and into everyday life, and it goes much like this; a combination of American exploitation directors and French arthouse in the early 1970s, through a conjunction of fake orgasms and truck drivers on the one hand and soft focus and cod-philosophy on the other takes what was previously suppressed and places it in the heart of the multiplex. In this narrative the heroes are the hucksters behind Deep Throat or the faux-sophisticates of Emmanuelle, with even dissenting semi-mainstream directors like Russ Meyer considered too original to be relevant. These are two films from which one can trace a line to the frat film, the overlit horrors of most American porn and the ‘another round of whispering on a bed’ (Foucault) that is, the French sex drama, always aiming to reveal some essential truth or other. The confirmation seemingly of the Foucauldian admonition that ‘sex is boring’. —Owen Hatherley

P.S.

[This post forms part of a symposium with bacteriagrl, k-punk, sit down man you’re a bloody tragedy (I still dream of orgonon), infinite thought (the money shot and vintage porn), effay, poetix.] —Different Maps

My two cents:

 

Related: 1971 – European cinema – Freudo-Marxism – Dušan Makavejev – Wilhelm Reich – the sexual revolution in the cinema

The ravishing sex reformer and radical in a provocative pose; composing sex and politics, it also reveals Makavejev’s “aestheticism”; the unexpected rabbit, the strong, two-colored vertical stripes and particularly the inexplicable empty frame. SC via Film As a Subversive Art (1974) – Amos Vogel

Update Aug 23 2006:

As you’ll recall, Ariel Levy snarled about porn studies in the confessional section of Female Chauvinist Pigs. If you are unfamiliar with the evil that is porn studies, you should check out the Porn Symposium going on now! You can see why Ariel Levy felt that this kind of feminism contributed to raunch culture and the gyrations and tough talk of female chauvinist pigs. –via blog.pulpculture.org

Introducing “You cried for night”

“You cried for night” is an Australian literary blog, found via the comments on The Reading Experience’s piece on psychological realism. From its header:

” You cried for night – it falls. Now cry in darkness.” (Sam Beckett). How quickly will these colours date in the service of Australian literature and other bookish matters? It’s the content that matters…And the dots.

In one of the comments on Freud, the novel and the New York Times Anne remarks:

Wonderful post: one thing blogging surely is good for is puncturing the gaseousness of other bloggers. You’ve done a lovely job here.

The poetics of Fritz Freleng

Girish asks:

“Why is it that acts that would horrify us in real life instead evoke in us shameless, uncontainable joy when encountered in a cartoon?”

Girish’s post is part of the Friz Freleng Blog-A-Thon by Brian Darr at Hell On Frisco Bay.

The first person to have tried to answer Girish’s question was Aristotle in Poetics when he said (I am providing two alternative translations):

  • Objects which in themselves we view with pain, we delight to contemplate when reproduced with minute fidelity: such as the forms of the most ignoble animals and of dead bodies. –sourced here. [Aug 2005]
  • for we enjoy looking at accurate likenesses of things which are themselves painful to see, obscene beasts, for instance, and corpses. –sourced here. [Aug 2005]

Poetics () – Aristotle

More on Freleng:

Isadore “Friz” Freleng (1906–1995) was an animator, cartoonist, director, and producer best known for his work on the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of cartoons from Warner Bros. He introduced and/or developed several of the studio’s biggest stars, including Porky Pig, Tweety Bird, Sylvester the cat, Yosemite Sam (to whom he was said to bear more than a passing resemblance) and Speedy Gonzales. He was a contemporary of the better known Tex Avery.

The theme of this post reminds me of an article at Wikipedia, called cartoon physics and maybe by analogy there is also such a thing as cartoon psychology, in other words the psychological realism (and here and here) of Hollywood?

Free Music Festival XXXIII

I went to the 18th edition of the Free Music Festival at the Singel in Antwerp where I saw Marc Ducret (guitar) & Scorpène Horrible (video performance).

The surprise of the evening was the Italian band Zu accompanied by Mats Gustafsson, although I left when my ears started to hurt after a prolonged electronic noise interlude.

Free Music Festival is an initiative of Fred Van Hove, a free jazz musician best known for his collaborations with Peter Brötzmann.

The Count of Monte Cristo

The Count of Monte Cristo (1934) – Rowland V. Lee [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]


In the 2006 film, V for Vendetta, characters V and Evey Hammond watch the 1934 version of The Count of Monte Cristo based a story by Alexandre Dumas which was serialized in the Journal des Débats in eighteen parts. Publication ran from August 28, 1844 through January, 1846. V cites it as his favorite film. [Aug 2006]

Exercises in Style (1947) – Raymond Queneau

Exercises in Style (1947) – Raymond Queneau

[Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

I’m in the midst of reading 1001 Books and I am in 1947 now. Time for a bit on Raymond Queneau. Using The Reading Experience as quality qualifier method explained in my previous post I came up with two interesting posts:

via Native Sensibilities:

“But then we Americans inhabit a culture that seems to find “literary” writing in general (much less the “complex negotiations” of a Perec) to be suspiciously “effete.” That American postmodernists might seem laggardly in their capacity for game-playing and their delight in “incongruity” when compared to a Georges Perec or a Raymond Queneau would no doubt strike certain no-nonsence American readers and critics as outlandish. Too many American writers disdain “psychological realism” or good old-fashioned storytelling as it is. Thus, except through the admirable efforts of publishers like Godine (publishers of Perec) or Dalkey Archive, we probably shouldn’t expect to see books by such unmanly Europeans make much of an incursion on American literary life any time soon.”

via More on Oulipo

” The Oulipo – in full, the Ouvroir de Littérature Potentielle, or Workshop for Potential Literature – was founded in France in 1960 by the French author Raymond Queneau and the mathematical historian François Le Lionnais. “

Cache (2005) – Michael Haneke

Cache (Hidden) (2005) – Michael Haneke

[Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

I saw Caché, a 2005 French language film by one of my favourite directors Michael Haneke. In the extras Haneke explains why he made this film. He wanted to work with Daniel Auteuil (Sade), who he hadn’t worked with before. He wanted to write a film where an adult was confronted with something he had done when a child and he wanted to write about the Paris massacre of 1961, when 200 peaceful Algerian demonstrators were killed by the police by being driven into the river Seine.

The level of psychological realism is very high which does not give a very optimistic film, but as Haneke explains: “it is far more enjoyable to work with me than to view a film by me.” That’s why the film has a feelgood factor of about 0/10.

The film does not give any answers, we never know who sent the tapes. Haneke: “I like the audience to finish the film; novels evoke images, cinema steals them, I am constantly looking for ways to give that power back to the spectator.” (transcription mine).

Some films, says Haneke, have had “a profound influence on my mental health and stability.” He mentions Paolini’s Salò (1975) as one such film and explains that some people even speak of cinema in terms of pre- and post-Salò.

He quotes Robert Bresson and Tarkovsky as two directors who have destabilized him in the same way.

What I found most satisfying in the film is the realism and especially the pacing, the film is slow but the rhythm is excellent.

Haneke in the blogosphere:

Girish as quality qualifier: (method used: Google: Girish+Haneke): Girish on Code Unknown, CultureSpace on Code Unknown, LongPauses on Code Unknown, The Evening Class on Code Unknown, Jim Emerson on the opening sequence of Caché.

It would seem that Girish works well as a quality qualifier 😉

One more quote by Jim Emerson:

“It may be a recent film, but I don’t think it’s too early to canonize Michael Haneke’s “Caché” opening shot as one of the greats. Haneke’s first image prepares the viewer for his film’s astounding distortion of the cinematic lens.

A static shot of a house at the end of a Parisian street during early morning seems perfectly banal, as Daniel Auteuil’s character walks over to his car. But then, in voice-over, Binoche and Auteuil begin to discuss the workings of the shot — they didn’t see the camera, so how was this footage created? One of them comments that the shot is too clear to be shot through glass (i.e. hidden in someone’s car).” —Jim Emerson

Using “K-punk” as quality qualifier (method used: Google: Girish+Haneke): gives the following results: Steven Shaviro on Caché

Steven somehow contradicts Haneke’s intention of leaving interpretation up to the viewer saying:

“What’s great about the film is that it produces affective blockage on every level. It doesn’t offer the viewer (or the characters) any way out. The protagonists, Georges (Daniel Auteuil) and Anne (Juliette Binoche), are intellectual yuppies just like the target audience of the film, just like me.”

Steven’s review leads a political analysis by Armond White, who curiously forgets to add the é in Caché:

” Besides, Caché isn’t exciting anyway. When critics praise it, they’re congratulating their own bland sense of titillation; going along with Haneke’s thesis that mere recognition of the West’s guilt (in this film’s case, France’s lingering self-reproach over the Algerian Occupation from the ‘50s to the ‘60s) is tantamount to intellectual and moral progress.” —Armond White

Update [Aug 21 2006]

On my first viewing I had missed the final scene and somebody at notcoming.org describes it as:

Pierrot and Majid’s son (I don’t believe the film provides him an actual first name) do meet up on the front steps of the school in the final shot. Their inaudible discussion [for which Haneke had provided a dialog, but refused to reveal it in the extras on my version of the DVD] appears to be fairly amicable.

Conclusion:

The question of who sent the tapes is open to interpretation. Majid and his son both deny involvement. There is a cryptic last scene (as the credits roll) of Pierrot and Majid’s son interacting in front of Pierrot’s school. Haneke has said in interviews that he wrote a dialogue for that scene but he will never reveal the contents of that dialogue.

Missed: Undercover Surrealism

April 1929, first edition of Documents

Undercover Surrealism explores the ’subversive climate’ of the dark undercurrent within Surrealism in the late 1920’s spearheaded by Georges Bataille. The exhibition draws together work by Picasso, Miro, Masson, Giacometti as well as imagery from the magazine Bataille edited from 1929 to 1930 called DOCUMENTS :

“..a shocking and bizarre juxtaposition of art, ethnography, archaeology and popular culture in such a way that overturned conventional notions of ‘primitive’ and ‘ideal’. Bataille described himself as Surrealism’s ‘enemy from within’… ”

The exhibition ran at the Hayward Gallery till the 30th July 2006.

Via Desert and Sea

Robert Benayoun

 

Robert Benayoun, photocredit unidentified
Image source here

Érotique du surréalisme (1965|1978) – Robert Benayoun
[Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

Robert Benayoun wrote in the tradition of Ado Kyrou, Eric Losfeld, Joseph-Marie Lo Duca and Jean-Pierre Bouyxou, with an absolute disregard for the perceived boundaries between low and high culture. If you follow the source link of the photograph, there is a Spanish article on Benayoun’s work Érotique du surréalisme.

Regarding the publishing house of Eric Losfeld, Éditions Le Terrain Vague, I’ve always wondered if there were German and British equivalents of it. In the United States houses such as Grove Press come to mind, but I know of no equivalents in Germany or the UK.