Date: Wed, 30 Jul 2003 08:36:32 -0400
From: hbone <hbone-AT-optonline.net>
Subject: Re: a question of quotes - Marx, Lyotard and critique


Eric, Lois/All,

Speaking of phrases,

Lately, I am wondering about belief systems and meanings as functions of
language, the most efficient means by which one "intelligence - human,
imagined, or Divine, addresses and responds to an other.

Take this quote from another List, for example, words and phrases describing
the language of  film:

"Expressionism then appeared in Hollywood, in the films of James Whale,
among others, where crazy distortion, excessive lighting, strange camera
angles became part of Melo-Gothic.  There is therefore a direct connection
between Lang's 'Metropolis' and 'Bladerunner', in the sense that German
directors made their way to Hollywood, either because they sensed bigger
opportunities (Murnau) or because they decided to flee the Nazis (Lang).
Hitler was, of course, something that lurked in tthe background of the
expressionist movement, with its emphasis on light and shadow crazily
distorted as if to maintain that there was a hyper-unreality, not just the
play of light and shadow, of appearance and illusion, that we have in
chiaroscuro."

A "hyper-unreality" ?  Mysterious force and power beyond human
sense/cogintion?  The is-it-happening?  The Unknowable?  The Sublime?
Trafficking in abstractions?  etc.etc.

regards,
Hugh