Date: Thu, 04 Jan 2001 08:29:35 -0800
Subject: Re: suffering sufferer suffers
From: Michael Moretti <moretti-AT-mac.com>


CNN is currently running a poll on "Which artist's story will make the most
compelling movie?"

The choices (and their current ratings) are:

Jackson Pollock (umbilical strangulation at birth/alcoholism) 18%
Georgia O'Keefe (claustrophobia?) 25%
Frida Kahlo (polio/bus accident/amputation/miscarriage/substance abuse) 50%
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (broken legs/deformity/alcoholism) 0%

Thoughts?

Michael

on 1/4/01 7:55 AM, kenneth.mackendrick-AT-utoronto.ca at
kenneth.mackendrick-AT-utoronto.ca wrote:

> On Wed, 3 Jan 2001 10:41:00 -0700 gary patrick norris <ngary2-AT-qwest.net>
> wrote:
> 
>> 3a. Furthermore, since most confuse "the beautiful" with "the good," then
> folks think that suffering is good.  And since we live in a moral society, no
> matter what the cynics think, some consider suffering necessary, moral and
> just.
> 
> "No pain, no autonomous art, eh?"
> 
>> 4. So, it makes sense to some that artists must suffer.  Even when the
> suffering happens to be an excuse for living the life of an artist. You know,
> a 
> mask.
> 
> I think a notion of scenic understanding is worth exploring here, like the
> ever-present cinema cliche, you know the one, a sober conversation, a paternal
> figure getting up and walking away, the pause, <insert name-of-the-father>
> "X, thanks for that" - the humble but knowing nod, final turn, and off the
> set.
> 
> The suffering artist is a bit like the cliche, a stereotype, a regressive
> image 
> - paleosymbolic perhaps, certainly prediscursive. In general, this imagistic
> understanding is read backward: from the effect back to the cause. The more
> salient point being, to look at this effect as to what it causes. Take Woody
> Allen as an example. It isn't that his films are autobiographic, rather, Allen
> puts them together and then buys into his own script. He becomes what he
> writes 
> about. Talk about "special" effects. The stereotype of the suffering artist
> *creates* suffering artists... not unlike the designated pathology of the last
> year "road rage" - once it has a name, everyone steps up to the namesake.
> 
>> Maybe we should start by asking:  is it suffering if you chose to suffer?
> 
> Is a rose by another name still a rose?
> 
> How many trees have to fall in a forest for it to cease being a forest?
> 
> Of course.
> 
> ken
> 
> 
> 
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