What has Ranciere taught me?

I’ve formed some to the conclusions concerning Ranciere (as I have been trying to get my head around this all semester). I now understand that his “aesthetic regimes” can be understood in several different ways.

1. Although aesthetics, according to Ranciere, is synonymous with political events, a regime doesn’t necessarily have to be explicitly political or historical, and doesn’t have to be thought of in terms of governance.
regime = a system or planned way of doing things
I found this definition more useful because it seems to broaden the term. In this sense, a regime can be thought of in terms of what is done. It can be in a group of people, a movement or even just one person.
artistic forms reflect social structures or movements (14)
Therefore, the linke between poltics and aesthetics/cinema isn’t always explicit. (as in, a film doesn’t have to be “political” in order to be thought of in this way.) All films are a product of the politcal climate in which they are made. A prime example is Blissfully Yours. The film doesn’t set up the political situation on the Thai/Burma border and it could be read in a way that ignores poiltcs yet it is still synonymous with its aesthetic.

2. Something that interests me about Ranciere’s “aesthetics” is his idea of the equality involved in aesthetics. In this interview, he uses the Internet as an example of “equal intelligence.” It means, according to Ranciere, that the circulation of words and knowledge could be appropriated by anyone. A speaking being, according to Aristotle, is a political being. (12) But when Aristotle said this, a slave that understood the language of its rulers still did not ‘possess it.’ I think Ranciere is right though. Although there are still groups condemned to silence, the evolution of the media has seen the emergence of many previously silent groups.
An example that immediately came to my mind was the Zapatistas, the Mexican-based revolutionary movement who have used the internet to not only harness support, but to form a larger indigenous-based, anti-globalization movement. Their website is basic but it has worked because it can be appropriated by anyone.

Furthermore, Rage Against The Machine have gotten on side…
“turn that shit up”

I suppose music could also be a place for “equal intelligence.” Ranciere talks about establishing a “community of readers as a community without legitimacy, a community formed only by the random circulation of the written word.” (14) This could be transposed to form a community of listeners or a community who surf randomly on the internet or even a community of cinema spectators. Therefore, these equalities destroy hierarchies of representation. (14) Thus, we have the “aesthetic regime of the arts” which frees art from hierarchies, genres or rules and allows it to be singular. (wow, I’ve come full circle)

She’s Lost Control

I just saw Anton Corbijn’s film Control, a biopic of Joy Division’s Ian Curtis.

I’ve been thinking about the similarities and difference between this film and Marie Antoinette. Both films have this very immerisve and personal aesthetic and both explore the life of mythical/legendary figures.

It is an interesting difference that Sofia Coppola was criticized for making a film about French history, something that is so far removed from her position as an American who grew up in Hollywood. The film looks back a couple of hundred years at a story that’s been told over and over. Conversely, Control was made by the people close to Ian. Debrorah Curtis was co-producer, and the film was based on her book “Touching From a Distance.” Director Anton Corbijn was a photographer of the bands in the 1970s. Furthermore, co-producer Tony Wilson, founder of Factory records, gave Joy Division their TV break and invested much of his own money into the band. These people, who knew Ian so personally, had around twenty years to allow Ian’s suicide to ressonate before setting out to make this film.

In terms of Jacques Ranciere’s “aesthetic regime of the arts”, I think it is interesting to think of these films in contrast. He says:

the aesthetic regime of the arts is first of all a new regime for relating to the past. (25)

(the aesthetic regime of the arts) traces, in order either to exalt or deplore it, a simple line of transition or rupture between the old and the new, the representative and the non-representative or the anti-representative. (24)

Marie Antoinette perhaps explores the line of rupture between the old and the new in the way it separates the two. The film is aware of its own reconstruction of the past from the view, and using the technology, of the present. This is predominantly through the use of anachronistic music.
Conversely, Control explores the line of transition between the old and the new. As I said, we see this in that the people who made the film were living when Ian Curtis was, and actually knew him. Also, the smoke of his ashes rising into the sky at the end of the film could be seen as symbolising Ian’s lingering presence. The credits then role with The Killers’ cover of the song Shadowplay. So Ian Curtis is still here and impacting on today’s world in many ways. The film then repesents a smooth change from old to new rather than pointing to difference (as in MA).

Interesting article here by Natalie Curtis, Ian’s daughter who was on the set of Control.

“Bleak portrait of a tortured soul.”
Review by Peter Bradshaw

Official movie website: Control

What does 1970s Punk (in Britain) look/feel like?
Can it be thought of as a “regime“?

The film is shot in black and white monochrome, producing the same look as Corbijn’s original photographs.
The aesthetic is dull and bleak.
Corbijn says in this Q&A on you tube “…its black and white, it not very fast, its about the 70s..”

Control also presents an alternative way of thinking about sound and Deluze/Guattari’s territorialization and deterritorialization. The way sound takes over from the image and deterritorializes was explored in relation to Marie Antoinette. The music in Control perhaps has the function of “creating territories.” The soundtrack (which is mostly diegetic and in sync with the image on screen) consists of largely Joy Division music, along with the Sex Pistols, David Bowie, Lou Reed etc.. that inform Curtis’ influences. It works to create the territory of 1970s Britain. Music that was created in that time, it response to what was going on and by the characters in the film really reinforces this sense of recognisable environment. (I should probably note that the Joy Division music in the film was actually played by the actors themeselves, not JD records. I think this adds another level of authenticity though because it might have seemed a bit strange for Sam Riley to be lip syncing Ian Curtis)

4 months, 3 weeks, 2 days

4 months, 3 weeks, 2 days is a Romanian film by first-time director Cristian Mungiu. I saw it at MIFF this year and it has now been released in Australia.

Although Mungiu “abstained from using any kind of… direct communist landmarks” (as he says), there is such a strong sense of the period of 1980s Romania, the atmosphere is so oppresssive yet the film isn’t overtly political. Mungiu’s long introduction to the film takes place in a dormitory and has received criticism for its lack of contribution to the narrative. Yet, its these scenes that contribute to the creation of this atmosphere and particular aesthetic of Romania in 1987.

David Stratton interviews Cristian Mungiu here.

The films tracks two friends, one of whom is trying to get an abortion (illegal in Romania under the Ceausescu regime). It adds yet another unique political situation to add to the plethora of films we’ve watched throughout the course that deal with specific historical/political circumstances.

The film deals with this idea of institutional control over individuals and how people then respond.

Mungiu’s long takes (many scenes are shot is one take) provide a further demonstration of the open image. The characters often walk in and out of the frame, or the camera situates itself on one player in a two-people conversation.

Good review here from Variety.

What does Ceausescu’s regime look like? What does it feel like? How do our senses perceive this as an atmosphere of oppression/rigidity/the last days of communism?
How do we describe this aesthetic
-the colour palate is greys and blues
-it is dull, grim, real
-there is a sense of something looming, a presence
-it is also personal as the story of friendship and stregth at the heart of this film and in Ottilia’s character

I read in a discussion (link below) that it is difficult for Romanian women who lived in that time to watch this film. So Mungiu has been so successful in capturing the aesthetic of this communist regime. I suppose then this is one way of understanding Jacques Ranciere’s aesthetic regime of this arts, in terms of political regimes of governance. Regimes that have existed in history and can be looked back upon and represented.

review here on cinematical and good discussion below it.

Blissfully Yours

Blissfully yours embraces this contemplative/meditative temporal mode (similarly to Spring, Summer) and lacks the causal links that define the movement-image. However, Spring Summer is, I would argue, more narrative driven and has a cohesive structure characterized by the three generations. This film is thus more suited to Deleuze’s time-image where:

films give rise to pure optical and sound situations (392 Chaudhuri and Finn)

thus…

producing images of process, of transformation; such images are…the open-ended politicization of the image. (393 Chaudhuri and Finn)

It is through the open image that the political dimension of Blissfully Yours is accessed. While watching the film I felt like I had entered some kind of trance. Brett Farmer descirbes the film to be “like a walking dream” and I definately found in to have a somnambulistic quality to it. I think these qualities are an important aspect of the entire aesthetic experience of this film. As boredem perhaps is also. Finn and Chaudhuri talk about the way boredem may be a way of defamiliarizing real-time duration.(392) The film has some incredibly long shots with a static camera and minimal dialogue which help to create this dream-like/boredom effect and allow us to move beyond the image. I believe this is a similar concept to that of deterritorializing sound in that it allows the viewer to extend their thoughts, open up beyond what is being shown to the virtual images in the mind. (398)

“When the image stops, the viewer keeps going, moving deeper and deeper, one might say, into the image.” Schrader

Blissfully Yours reminded me of a Chinese film I saw at MIFF called Still Life. It also embraces this open image/stream of consciousness kind of filmmaking.

review

Meditative thinking and ‘Spring, Summer’

I was looking back over Daniel Frampton’s filmosophy article and Heidegger’s ‘philosophy’ on thinking reminded me of ‘Spring, Summer.’

“…we are thinking less and less, mainly because the absorption of information and technology denies us a place for thinking.” 190

Heidegger makes this distinction between ‘calculative’ and ‘meditative’ thinking. Meditative thinking is thus characterized by calmness and contemplation. I couldn’t help making the link between this type of thinking and the focus on meditation, spirituality and Buddhism in ‘Spring, Summer.’ The lake in the film allows a place and time for thinking that escapes technology, (but does it really?) as does Buddhism as a religion.

Filmosophy is the study of film as thinking, yet in using the ‘image’ to contemplate philosophy, technology can hardly be ignored but is embraced through the act of making a film. Meditative thinking is thus needed to contemplate technology and to make use of technology as an articulating force.

“Fluid film-thinking can be seen as such a usage, fluidly merging technology and life, adding one to the other rather than opposing them.” 191

‘Spring, Summer’ along with other films that embrace this contemplative film-thinking, (the article mentions David Fincher, the Wachowski brothers, David Lynch and David Cronenberg) reconcile the opposites of technology and life/philosophy/thinking.

In another cinema subject I’m taking at the moment, Film Noir: Style & History, we learnt about the Moebius Strip as a way of conceptualising the characters in David Lynch’s Lost Highway (great article on Lynch, Lacan and the Moebius Strip here). I thought this could also be useful in understanding this technology/philosophy relationship. The Moebius Strip enables us to view oppositions that would normally be seen as completely distinct as continuous with each other.

“At one point the two sides can be clearly distinguished, but when you traverse the strip as a whole, the two sides are experienced as being continuous.” 7

So, technology can be understood as denying a place for thinking but at the same time enhancing our ability to think through images. I find this a really useful way of conceptualising and articulating binary oppositions like this one.
Also, thinking through images is perhaps a more universal way of conceptualising philosophical issues. In an interview, Kim Ki-Duk talks about why he chooses to use little dialogues in his films:

Question (Me) The scripts have very little dialogue, you don’t need subtitles, is something that will continue to use, a total visual language?

KKD: This is something I’ve been contemplating for a long time, I’ve been battling with myself about dialogue part – because when you have a lot of dialogue and you have to translate from Korean to other languages, you lose a lot of nuances in the translation, and I have spent months and years trying to figure out how I can make my films with as little dialogue as possible. I think I will continue to work with little dialogue because I worry that I wont be able to convey what I want in other languages. I believe that actions have a lot more truth than words.

I think that minimal dialogue is perhaps a crucial part of meditative film-thinking and perhaps also a characteristic of certain Asian cinema (i’m thinking of Wong Ka Wai.)

In Rainbows

How much will you pay?

If the new Radiohead album had been released normally as a cd, I probably wouldn’t have thought twice about burning it off a friend. The option of getting it off a friend remains with this new digital release but now I feel compelled to download my own copy. It has caused me to think about the value of music itself and the value of a cd including booklet and atrwork etc.. If I did buy it, I probably would have paid $20-25 to buy the cd at a shop, but would I pay that much just for a download? ok, so take away the price of the booklet, the lyrics and the case itself. Then take away the satisfaction of having the case sitting in my cd rack. So now its around $5-10. Does that seem cheap when you consider the effect this new album may have on my life? The months of work behind it? Not to mention musical genius.

Nevertheless, I love the idea of cutting all the middle men involved in releasing a cd. I also love that the critics don’t get it before we do. So for this and for simply making me think, I’ll pay 5 extra dollars. So that’s $15 from me Radiohead.

Historical Truth?

Sofia Coppola’s intentions with Marie Antoinette have been doubted and questioned. Is the film an analogy of contemporary Hollywood? A personal account of what it’s like to grow up in Hollywood, surrounded by expectations and surveyed by the public? Is MA Paris Hilton or Brittany Spears? Or is it a simply an historical account? A defence of a historically defamed woman?

Todd McCarthy in his review of MA in Variety, accuses Coppola of “not dealing with the history at all.” Martha Nochimson doesn’t see any resonance of the film for today’s world, saying that “the effect is more of a shallow queen in a shallow film..” I definitely think there is more to it. I also think that perhaps it is sometimes best that a director doesn’t entirely disclose their intentions. Audiences don’t need to be told how to interpret a film and surely for a film to be received in variety of different ways is a desire for a director.

Coppola was criticized for depictng French history, like for some reason she doesn’t have the legitimacy to comment on another country’s history. This reminded me of Lars Von Trier’s Dogville. In making a film about America in the 1930s that denounces American values, having never been to the U.S, similar questions are asked. But like the Hollywood analogies in MA, Dogville can be read as a film about Denmark. Or, the lack of a real place for shooting the film may suggest that this town could be anywhere. Nevertheless, Von Trier interprets the U.S from the influx of images he is faced with and says he feels like an American. I find this strikingly similar to the way Coppola can interpret the legend of Marie Antoinette. In this global world, Coppola has access to the same records of French history that anybody does, French or American or wherever. The fact that she hasn’t grown up in France means that her view can perhaps be more valuable. At the very least, these two filmmakers offer a perspective on something they view from the outside, detached emotionally or nationally perhaps, from its ramifications.

So maybe Coppola and Von Trier are both commenting on the nature of globalization and the waning significance of the nation-state (sorry I just wrote a politics essay on this). This could be taking it a little far but I guess what I’m saying is that I think anyone can make a film about anything. And any audience member can interpret it any way they want.

By the way, I love Von Triers defence in this press conference.
“…well I’m doing it and I’m sorry…if you don’t like it …just forget it.”

Two good Dogville reveiws Leave a Comment