From: "michelle phil lewis-king" <king.lewis-AT-easynet.co.uk>
Subject: RE: Deleuze and Redemption - or flight. (work).
Date: Mon, 7 Dec 1998 00:51:44 -0000


Dear Anthony,

you wrote to Dan:
>
> Dan,
> May I merely touch on two points of the interesting ones you raise:
> 1. the unconnectivity of rhizomes - in what sense is it still a rhizome?
> 2.  The cut - I saw, degradedly, last night, again, Total Recall (Sharon
> Stone. Arnie) in which SFX do indeed cut into what is on the whole for the
> rest a narrative which passes muster as somewhat plausible, in order to
> expose total implausibility.  One does indeed enjoy them as SFX and they
> offer in some ways the best part of an empty film.  If the film was not so
> vapid one would not be so grateful for the SFX.  That is not a defense for
> your position - narrative is powerful in producinf suspense and sustaining
> conflict, the essnticals of any dramatic genre, conventionally conceived.
> There may be other conventions - but are they superior, or even is
> no-conventions superior?  The bottom line is the aesthetic sense.
>  It s not
> that there is no bottom line.
> Anthony.
>
I disagree completly with you regarding 'Total Recall'. It is a fine example
of how Philip K. Dicks twisted intelligence infects Hollywood.. and also of
the dutch directors odd euro-protestant perversities.. I've seen it many
times and love it on many levels. The asthetic sense you mention as if it
were a self evident basis of judgement strikes me as a somewhat redundant
ground on which to value art and its affects. There is no such transcendent
basis of sense. Below this so called 'bottom line' is work. The actual
production of a bottom line (constantly disrupted by art (sense, desire,
affect etc))..is not a force which respects conventions... even as it
produces them.

phil.