Gardner and Alice, and Bryan too, know vastly more about film than I do, and so might find the recent Open Source program with Slavoj Žižek and Sophie Fiennes less entrancing than I did, but I was pretty continuously bugeyed by what I heard. The mp3 was the soundtrack to a brisk morning walk in which I seemed to see a photograph every few strides (and the camera at home on the kitchen table), but perhaps my reaction was a function of all that seaside oxygen. Clearly I hafta get my hands on the documentary, yclept The Pervert’s Guide To Cinema. These outtakes from the conversation may convey some of what riveted me:
choosing fiction over reality: The Matrix (0:40)
the true mystery of cinema (0:33)
Žižek on freedom (1:08)
Fiennes on psychic transvestitism (0:30)
Žižek on 300 (1:05)
Hugh, this is really good stuff. I don’t know Zizek’s work except by lit-crit journalism I’ve read about it, but this makes me want to dig a bit. I do think he over-reaches when he concludes we’re watching shit, an example of the regrettable reductio ad absurdum that characterizes a lot of spiffy au courant lit-crit and “theory.” That said, apart from these typical excesses, his readings of the films are quite astute on many points (the analysis of coincident desire in Blue Velvet is right on, I think, as is the mise-en-abyme in Hitchcock, though he’s hardly the first to notice that one), and the method of appearing to speak within the film itself is really quite intriguing to me. A stunt, but also an argument. Very intriguing.
Thanks!
P.S. I’m speaking only of the video clips so far–haven’t yet listened to the podcast. Looking forward to it.
Oh, and I don’t believe cinema constructs our desires for us. I like Jean Baudry’s freudianism much better, as it leads him to conclude that cinema gives us a community of lucid dreamers.
He’s fun in doses. I first started reading him when I was in full theory mode, so he was then yes, another one, keep going… Plus I was antiLacanian.
Open Source is one podcast I keep returning to.