Date: Fri, 04 Dec 1998 11:17:06 +0000
From: Daniel Haines <daniel-AT-tw2.com>
Subject: Re: Deleuze and Redemption - or flight.


Anthony Beck wrote:
> 
> Dan,
> You imply that in the film medium narrative may be sacrificed to action.  I
> think this is barbaric - theme, significance, pirtable meaning, depends
> arguably upon narrative.  there may be some limits to the portability of
> rhizomes.

this wasn't exactly what i meant!

i wasn't praising for "action" over "narrative" but only trying to point
out what a radical break in the narrative action sequences involving
special effects require - an asignifying break, a rupture, they have no
relationship to the narrative as such but bring into play a whole other
range of affects that have no place in a conventional narrative - in
short, they introduce the deluge, the inhuman...

i'm not really talking about  rhizomes as such - what I was trying to
say (perhaps not very clearly) was that while moving images/sequences of
images have been used in cinema mainly to create narrative structures
that take a model of narrative based on writing, and have continued a
form of narrative specific to writing,  developed through writing (as
opposed to narrative in oral traditions, for example,which operates
differently, has different functions) this isn't the only way of using
cinema/film.   Film doesn't have to reproduce that kind of narrative, or
any kind of narrative - it can operate through rupture and break - the
cut.  

from this kind of thinking i was speculating that perhaps it misses the
point to criticise films by placing them in the relation of "lack" to
the conventions of literary narrative structuring (if you'll excuse such
an awkward phrase!) - after all, who said film has to work this way? why
do we expect a film to "tell us a story" - with a beginning, middle, and
end? 

in terms of d&g this seems to me absolutely crucial - follow the line,
the rupture, the asignifying - whatever opens a plateau populated by
intensities, affects....  i'm not suggesting that this question has any
pat answer, but i think it's important to ask  -why do we expect a
narrative from film, and what/who does our expection
benefit/reinforce/compromise?

> I think this is barbaric - theme, significance, pirtable meaning, depends
> arguably upon narrative.  

i don't have a problem with being "barbaric" (although I am not attached
particularly to this idea - it holds a kind of  romanticism that is
essentially narcisism) - who were the barbarians if not the peoples who
exerted a "nomadic" influence over the established powers they
confronted? don't we need to get a bit "barbaric" to escape the
"decadence" of the modern west?
 
> there may be some limits to the portability of rhizomes.

if you mean that under some conditions rhizomatic connectivity will
always be channelled into existing power structures and therefore serve
only to strengthen the hold of that particular strata,  that some
systems will ALWAYS maintain equilibrium - then i wonder what justifies
thast assumption? in what way is it more valid than the opposite
assumption?

or if you mean the applicability of the 'concept' of a rhizome - isn't
it (in a sense) a way of understanding that everything is an event, of
understannding everything as an event, and as such has unlimited
"portability"?

??

dan h.


-- 
http://www.fortunecity.com/roswell/chupacabras/48/     
http://www.tw2.com/staff/daniel/

Ware ware Karate-do o shugyo surumonowa,
Tsuneni bushido seishin o wasurezu,
Wa to nin o motte nashi,
Soshite tsutomereba kanarazu tasu.

We who study Karate-do,
Should never forget the spirit of the samurai,
With peace, perseverance and hard work,
We will reach our goal without failure.