File spoon-archives/lyotard.archive/lyotard_2001/lyotard.0107, message 107


From: steve.devos-AT-krokodile.com
Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2001 18:48:36 +0100
Subject: Re: ethics - Levinas


Reg and All,

Postmodern approaches to cinematic production of which MR (unseen by me) is an
exemplary example, are curious because of the deliberate 'knowingness' of the
approach. It differs from the modernist approaches that are implicit in the
previous discussions/mentioning of Joyce. Postmodern cinema is knowingly
multilayed. It is generally attempting to maintain its popular credentials and
in the process aiming to maximise revenue. The cinema is primarily aiming to
engage with a mass market which tends towards reading it acritically and
external to the history of cinema. The other primary layer is displayed through
the endless knowing references to previous cinema. This exists to supply the
increasing numbers of culturally aware viewers a different entrance point into
the film which requires an extensive knowledge of cinematic and cultural
history... This is a compartively recent tendency in cinematic production that
I think was first discussed in the late 70s or early 80s, probably in Screen.

The point of using the 'PM' concept around cinema such as MR is that it enables
a clearer understanding of the production, social and aesthtic values which we
are trained to use in 'enjoying' (I hesitate to suggest that most Hollywood
cinema has anything to do with pleasure) this form of cinema.

However it does not qualify for the label of 'transavantgardist' since any use
of the 'avantgardist' requires that in some sense the work (of art)  'abandons
the role of identification that the work previously played...' (lyotard).

regards
sdv

Reg Mifflin wrote:

> Some interesting comments below made me think ...
> To steal an old line - there's something about a good copy that the
> original never can quite match.
> I thought Baz Luhrmann's Romeo and Juliet was just gaudy so I haven't seen
> M.R. - now perhaps I shall. After all, My Own Private Idaho made a splendid
> move on Henry 5, and Apocalypse Now stepping on Conrad even better.
> What ways are these moves and steps evaluated. Is it the poncy dancing
> masters L. calls 'transavantgardist'. And the good parologist the uncanny
> knack of uttering the perfect gag without even thinking - the parologist
> surprises even himself.
> The perfect utterance is ephemeral, everything is, decadence indeed follows
> the sublime moment. Yet the moment was sublime for all that and it seemed
> to emerge from nowhere. But these are not just happy accidents, not quite.
> Like the golfer said, the harder you work the luckier you get.
> Reg
>
> At 11:04 PM 7/16/01 -0500, Mary Murphy&Salstrand wrote:
> >Glen Fuller wrote:
> >
> >> Hey that is really cool, I am going to use that in some of my fiction
> >> writing (Oh! The irony).
> >
> >I wish you well in your efforts. One master thief you may want to
> >empulate is Joyce who sample hundreds of songs in Ulysses and did it
> >long before sampling was even a term and he did it in a literary work to
> >boot!
> >
> >
> >I know this is going off on a tangent, but...Is that what we face now,
> >in the (re)production of creative works (eg the ensemble of forms that
> >constitutes Moulin Rouge)? When does the theft become merely using
> >cliche?
> >
> >In TPC Lyotard makes the point that paralogy must be distinguished from
> >innovation: "the latter is under the command of the system, or at least
> >used to improve its efficiency; the former is a move (the importance of
> >which is often not recognized until later) played in the pragmatics of
> >knowledge."
> >
> >Along these lines, I remember a essay from Octavio Paz in which he
> >compared the various movements of modern art with the need of the
> >corporation under capitalism to innovate to stimulate consumer demand.
> >In this sense, theft or innovation is merely a new product line. Cliche
> >is merely an indicator that the item has reached the end of its product
> >cycle.  The way Hollywood operates is no different in principle from
> >Detroit or Silicon Valley.
> >
> >Every once in a while a movie comes along that makes moves that redefine
> >the game. Some of these moves simply make the old appear new and can be
> >seen as a kind of theft or something illegitimate, but that is usually
> >because others never thought to make these moves themselves.
> >Afterwards, they seem so obvious. That is paralogy.
> >
> >
> >



   

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