and even doubling is doubled…

The Truman Show is one I will never forget. Why hadn’t I seen it before? Probably because it is fairly creepy and left me sort of melancholy and hopeless about any kind of individuality whether living in an unreal world as Truman does or even more discouraging the one he walks into—our so-called real world (of course, the latter does not include our real communities of suburbia).  I tended to see Truman’s utopia world as real in this sense.

I sense the director aimed for creating a utopia-like world for Truman, but I could not help feel like the poor guy, throughout the movie is an experiment. Yes, I get Baudrillard’s theory about simulacra and simulation:

“By crossing into a space whose curvature is no longer that of the real, nor that of truth, the era of simulation is inaugurated by a liquidation of all referentials – worse: with their artificial resurrection in the systems of signs, a material more malleable than meaning, in that it lends itself to all systems of equivalences, to all binary oppositions, to all combinatory algebra. It is no longer a question of imitation, nor duplication, nor even parody. It is a question of substituting the signs of the real for the real, that is to say of an operation of deterring every real process via its operational double, a programmatic, metastable, perfectly descriptive machines that offers all the signs of the real and shortcircuits all it vicissitudes.”

But really, Truman, to me seems like a rat trapped. I nearly jumped out of my seat when his little boat crashes into the fake wall…that’s the creepiest part of the entire movie—at least it was for me. Parts of the film I like include Truman’s tests of his reality and his spontaneity to do so. He upsets the actors’ moves to keep him trapped and when the two assistant directors (Christoph’s main men) are called asks, “Is he looking at us?” Here, Truman returns the gaze. And when he begins to figure out that he is being watched, Marlin asks something like “How do you know which is who?” Truman responds, “It is hard to tell…they look like regular people.” Of course, this statement seems hinged in Baudrillard’s theory and also suggests that at times, it is difficult to discern reality from fake reality. What about the bus driver actor who can’t operate a boat—now there’s a test of simulation if ever…

Finally, Marlin’s character took me back to Nosferatu. As the director instructs him and his every move to find Truman, saying “Don’t look into the camera,” act normal, I was reminded of the Vampire and actors in Nosferatu being told exactly how to move or make gestures, when to do so and what to say. Of course, Christoph tries to blot Marlin out when his directions fail, which to me suggests that reality spills most often is capable of seeping into simulation. But this is probably a reach…

Mark A. McCutcheon’s article “Downloading Doppelgangers: New media anxieties and transnational ironies in Battlestar Galactica” brings out an interesting point:

By modelling the culture of an imagined remainder of all humankind on that of the contemporary US, the remake not only lends critical urgency to its allegory but also reproduces the universalising tendency of US national ideology to imagine itself (as that ’80s charity single put it) as ‘the world’.”

But I have more questions than comments.

I’m wondering how many shows can continue, ones that perpetuate the idea that the US holds on to its historical position of being the empire country of all countries? The unfortunate side to themes like these portrayed in Battlestar Galatica is that our country is now in a place where sustaining such an image as “the world” or “the empire” of worlds seems more fragile now than it has ever been. What would change if shows like BG were run over and over and over in other countries as opposed to our own? Would the underlying image of our country change not only in foreign viewers’ eyes, but our own?

I do enjoy, however, the clash of cultures in the episode. But really? Do we need to experience hints of superiority and fear of terrorism in this show, at least by terrorists who come in from outside the US? Would not it be interesting to see what groups in the film would represent domestic or “home grown” terrorists? Who or what group would play their parts and what in the world would they look like?

Wow! is how I’d like to start this post about the animated film Sita Sings the Blues. As commented on a different blog, I was extremely fascinated by the visual corrections, surmises, doubt then resignations about the history of Sita and Rama, especially the story-tellers’ attempt to get names, events, and even cities correct. These visuals of Sita’s or Rama’s mouths saying the discrepancies about themselves then correct them as does the story-tellers added a complex layer (of many layers) to this film. Even more startling is being able to literally see the story-tellers on top of the story being retold. Their soliloquies, at least for me, became a narrative within a narrative. We get sort of a myth-building that borders rumor-building. I don’t think there is a difference other than motifs and patterns as a backup for myth-building. At one point, the story-tellers can’t decide when one of the male characters (an important figure) dies and the female story-teller says, “He died eventually.” This statement, however, gets lost or nooked within the others’ guesses about the death of the character. Their silhouettes are always literally on top of the additional narratives, giving them agency. They are an embodiment of authorship and story-telling, literally and visually. I so dig that!

I also enjoyed the film maker’s play with literary devices like metaphor and onomatopoeia–the lotus literally becomes Sita’s breasts, face, hands and other body parts when the darker female’s description of Sita entices the many-headed male figure to steal the young wife. When the blue Rama (Mr. triangle body) goes to cross the waters to save blues singing Sita, he and his troops literally walk across the water. This artist really takes “literally” far and beyond. That was a funny scene.

There is so much here I see taken from Greek mythology, and for some odd reason I saw blues singing Sita as the Greek chorus. I’m still thinking why…  When she sings, we literally get to see the song visually, for instance, when she sings “Am I Blue,” she turns blue. But I was horrified when she sang one melancholy little song and is abruptly struck by lightening. That wasn’t funny! I had the same feeling when I saw one of the Cameron’s Avatar’s pick up a machine gun and run with it snug in his arm. I guess scenes like these are so juxtaposed and out of context that they are quite jarring and horrifying for me. More so than the Spaghetti gore and blood.

I still can’t figure out why the monkey-man grows just to cross the waters. I suppose this gives him some sort of flying power. But still…why does he need to grow larger to fly…couldn’t he have flown in his original size — the smaller size when he is on land?  Weird. But interesting.

Finally, I could not help but enjoy the mixed themes, time periods, and space play with history in this film. I especially found the dialogue interesting: “Your ass is grass” or “Don’t let the door hit ya where the good lord split ya” coming from the so-called ancient figures is great! There were others.

The plane flying through the letters spelling ”Pacific Ocean” says it all about this art medium. Anything is possible not only in new ways of story-telling, but also new ways of literal visual story-telling. Cool, cool stuff.

Sukiyaki Western Django’s film initially seemed to me no more than a Crips and Bloods themed rivalry. Ok, that’s probably a bad stretch or alignment – but what I find most fascinating about Sukiyaki Western Django is the comic book elements. The colors are brilliant and creates an experience that makes me feel I am watching comic graphics in action. The accents placed me way back when in middle school a group of friends and I would go to the Poly Theater nearly every weekend to see Bruce Lee movies. We even started teaching ourselves to fight and act like Bruce Lee. No one seemed to have been bothered by the voice overs or the off speaking lips in other Kung Fu movies. The English voice overs fit right in and we were cool with it because we could follow the story line. Easy reasons to fan something.

In this film, the bad English added to the comic book effect – at least for me. I must say, however, at times, it was difficult to place the Asian face within the context of all things Western. And at one point, one of the reds with a bandanna simply wrapped around his head and his attire appeared very contemporary and gave him the look an average every day young college student. To me, he seemed out of place, even farther than the juxtaposition of their faces with Western backdrops, themes and the like. The best for me is that I now understand Tarantino’s film art and the origins of influences.

Here are a couple of the projection works I mentioned in class last Thursday. I’m still searching for the segment that includes the dancing building, namely the church building in Mexico City. This is a celebration of Mexico’s independence. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahy0DpAyd8Q&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNHaW0Cw6aI&feature=related

In watching Being John Malkovich for the first time ever, squares and liminal spacing have never seemed more choking. Aside from the film’s peculiar subject: simulation, I was mainly struck by the spacing, both inside and outside Malkovich’s conscious. Every scene seemed trapped with a square, within a square within a square, especially Lotty in the cage, in the apartment, in the building—even Charlie Sheen’s character tosses up a Rubic’s Cube. All things seem diced.

But perhaps the most jarring of scene for me was the two women, a pregnant Maxine and an obsessed Lotty running up in, around, through, down and up again through squared openings that led to more squared passages. This scene specifically put me in the mind of Alice in Wonderland, except there are two Alices in a Wonderland poignantly more disturbing than Lewis’ little Alice. The camera turns and play with linear features is quite fascinating, again, aside from the unsettling nature of the film in general.

I’m not sure what to make of Craig’s physical fights before he becomes Malkovich in relation to the fight he has in the bar after he has completely simulated. The best I can make of this repetition is that Craig cannot escape the public’s eye. He himself embodies the issues that he claims he raises—the reason he gives for viewers’ anger over his shows.

Whatever the case, I’ll have to think through this movie more before making not only more immediate connections, but what other points meant, for example, the Chimp Elijah’s flashback and the quick shot of Brad Pitt.  …there is no doubt much to work through with this film.

There is not anthing new I can say about Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo that has not already been said or studied or put out. However, several features about the groundbreaking film stood out to me this time around as opposed to the first or second time I viewed the film: scenes of literal voyeurism and moments of “copy” dialogue–how these concepts have unfolded today.

I find the flower shop scene familiar and seems to prefigure today’s hidden camera vantagepoints and the manner in which this technology plays out in contemporary film . When Johnny follows Madelaine to the flower shop, she literally walks up close to his position, pinpointedly looks in his direction, but is unable to see him looking at her. All the while I felt as if she were being watched by a hidden camera. Of course when we do get a view of Johnny peering, he does so through an elongated crack between the door and frame–highly different than a tiny hidden camera. Nonetheless, the effect seemed timeless and very 21st century-ish.

Hitchcock’s shot of the church at a high angle literally splits our view and we see two tales unfolding on either side of the church: one, the nuns running to Carlotta or Maddy’s body after being pushed by her husband, and two, Johnny fleeing the scene. Viewing the action split by the church top put me in the mind of a painting. Was Hitchcock inspired by any artists?

Finally, there are two moments in dialogue that struck me. Meg’s character at one point tries to lure Johnny out of his acute melancholly state with Mozart; she comments that they now have tapes of music for “dypsomaniacs, melancholiacs, and hypocrondriacs” and wonders what would happened if “someone got their files all mixed up”–a concept that has come to survive and thrive ever so in contemporary music making, art, literature, and film.

We see also early ideas of art appropriation when Scottie says to Judy “You’re nothing but a copy, a counterfeit…made over.” Hitchcock seems to have tapped into something earlier on, ideas that would later become a fruitful discipline, one that has only just begun to build whole theories on copying, counterfeiting, mixing, and mashing up.

For me, the film Fight Club mirrors exactly what Jean Baudrillard asserts in a chapter entitled “Absolute Advertising, Ground-Zero Advertising,” that the “form of advertising, that of a simplified operational mode, vaguely seductive, vaguely consensual (all the modalities are confused therein, but in an attenuated, agitated mode” (87). Basically, the medium itself becomes a commodity and that proproganda “becomes the marketing and merchandising of idea-forces, of political men and parties with their ‘trademark image’” (88). Baudrillard, like Fight Club’s Tyler, believes that proproganda is a lifestyle that dictates how one should be living one’s life.

Tyler makes this contention clear when he says something like we are byproducts of lifestyle and goes on to loathe the idea that another guys name is in his underwear. However, a more lucid statement ringing true to Baudrillard’s assertion is the character’s comment that “The things you own end up owning you.” Advertising is so pervasive that we start to think in terms of advertising. This likened to the protagonist’s response to Tyler “we are consumers” and nothing more. Tyler’s solution is to stop or never be complete, to stop being perfect—each ideals we take from magazines and television and the like.

But even in Tyler’s non-conformist, rebellious carpe diem attitude, advertising has become a unity with the social, “whose historical necessity has found itself absorbed by the pure and simple demand for the social: a demand that the social function like a business, a group of services, a mode of living or of survival (the social must be saved just as nature must be preserved: the social is our niche,” argues Baudrillard (90). The film overall seems to highlight and complicate on some level the fact that being original is a problem.

Shadow of the Vampire and Nosferatu are fascinating examples of versioning. Several aspects in the films proved most prominent for me: genre-mixing in Shadow as a film and Orlock’s ability to be unseen/seen in the mirror in both.

Marcus Boon asserts “…copying, rather than being the production of a distorted, inferior version of an original, emerges from emptiness and from the impermanence, dependent origination, or lack of essence of all things” (79).

Boon’s passage, to me, seems more pertinent in aligning the two films. Shadow becomes a piece highly indicative of our culture with respect to text-mixing. The film moves viewers back and forth between the process of film-making and the film itself. Further, no one in the later film seems to ever be out of character, even when they were not shooting. Shadow gives at least three frames from which we can view: inside the film, the actors, and the actors acting in the film within the movie. At times, non-acting moments for the contemporary making of Nosteratu became more staged than the moments of filming. The triple-framing creates a complex and nuanced effect and makes the film completely independent, adding even a story to Marnu’s story, to  Stoker’s—I wondered throughout about the origins of Hutter’s relationship with Orlock. Unlike the jumps in and out, Marnu’s Nosteratu remained in character throughout. Here, Orlock the vampire is always in character and highly independent—not to mention creepier than any other dracula vampire, especially when compared to 21^st century more romanticized vampires.

In Marnu’s version of Stoker’s novel, there is an unwillingness to be anything but what he, Orlock, is: a vampire. The scene in Shadow, however, showing Orlock catching the bat (not in character) breathes a completely different outlook on culture, as the two others miss the point, believing its part of his art in character. We get none of this in Nosferatu, which cements the film in its own imaginative ability. Even as Shadows plays off Nosfertu, the feature of it is turned upside down, completely.

Two parts of our last lecture and class discussion on Marcus Boon’s book, In Praise of Copying, a look at fake originals, and even memes stood out most: the idea that instant replay spatializes time and the undeniable truth that because of digital technology, everyone is an author. This latter concept makes me giddy in that digital technology has leveled the publishing playing field and further overturns past publishing hierarchies (at least before the 60s), the periods when cherry picking and choosing who and which work(s) were most valued and earned a place in the American canon.

Copying is profoundly useful as long as something else, for instance, a new idea, a separate thought, and a fresh twist comes out of imitating. Reformation and transformation deems the act humanly and culturally valuable.  I personally find segments of Marcus Boon’s book fascinating, specifically the passage asserting “. . . copying is a fundamental part of being human, that we could not be human without copying, and that we can and should celebrate this aspect of ourselves, in full awareness of our situation. Copying is not just something human—it is part of how the universe functions and manifests” (7).  As a community college teacher who chides plagiarism, Boon’s book gives new meaning and insight to this archaic approach to copying and perhaps may work itself into a healthier approach. Parts of Boon’s book seem to suggest that the idea of copying is highly justifiable because copying births other ways of seeing something. I will take from this that copying does not mean literally word-for-word (I’m still thinking about this aspect and how it fits into the theory of imitation and lifting). Yet it seems to me that placing an art piece in a different context, from a different cultural background, or different generation at best is actually quite fascinating as long as the thing does and become something different. This latter aspect I cannot get away from.

I am also extremely fascinated in how Virginia Woolf who speaks of “the moment” fits into the copy/imitation/spatializing time theory and consider contemporary theory of spatializing time perhaps the closest move or trial we get to original repetition, even in cases when the repetition is a repetition of something else. I see the moment Woolf accounts as the first of a play and the replay, the second look as something completely different, even in its specifics of the first. However, like Woolf and perhaps Henri Bergson enlightens, Boon puts “the moment” in a narrowed perspective from which all can use.