25.11.10





Pretty songs! Yeah!

Life has been pretty busy, the weather is horrible, school is picking up in pace and I'm feeling motivated for once. I watched two films by Yugoslavian director Dusan Makavejev on Monday and now I'm writing my final paper on the reappropriation of marxist "sexual liberation" discourses into capitalism, and the dangerous pitfalls of representing the female body in a so-called sexual/"revolutionary" context. Basically, repressive desublimation (Marcuse and Zizek), as well as Sontag and Bataille (taboo, the distinctions made between erotica/art and pornography as similar to the distinctions made between documentary/essay films/fiction or surrealist films). I have a lot of thinking and writing to do, obviously, but this is the crux.
As for the films themselves - "Sweet Movie" is an insane parody, pornographic, semi-fictional, semi-documentary Brechtian montage of insanity. It is one of the only films I have ever seen that truly provokes severe, visceral physiological responses: disgust, physical discomfort, arousal, etc. Much like reading a Bataille novel, except more fun(ny). If you can summon a copy and are into perversion and heavy handed Marxist/political critique and gratuitous sexuality - watch it! I dare not say too much for fear of scaring people away from a brilliant and revolutionary film.
On that note, I feel conflicted about what the fuck I'm doing in grad school. Big surprise. I've become disillusioned and angry with Lacan and basically want nothing to do with psychoanalysis right now. I want to do work in film studies but I feel that if I write an MA thesis on film it will narrow down my options for applying to PhD programs. And I'm not even sure if I want to do a PhD, because I am a little bit tired of theory and the usual philosophy suspects. Not scared, per se - just not as interested anymore. I just want to watch awesome movies all day.
So yeah. That's that. Apologies for the whining.

1 comment:

  1. I just saw "Salesman" which is nothing like any of those movies, but I wanted to share.

    http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064921/

    My word verification was "ovele."

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