Burke's Power in relation to Hotel Rwanda

In Burke's essay, he is quoted as saying; 'I know of nothing sublime which is not some modification of power'. He also believes that power and the sublime rise from the same branch as terror; ergo, terror is imposed through power, thus making it sublime (for the being with the power). A prime example of power inflicting terror can be taken from Terry George's 'Hotel Rwanda', based on the true events of the genocide in Rwanda in 1994. Over a million innocent Africans were slaughtered on their streets and in their homes simply for the fact that they were Tutsi. The film depicts the story of Paul Rusesabagina who houses a thousand Tutsi refugees in his hotel whilst the war between the tribe rages on. In relation to Burke's essay, we can note that the Hutu tribe had ultimate power, thus inflicting terror upon the Tutsi; the Hutu's gained pleasure and sublimity through this power. Burke states that 'whilst we remain in the presence of whatsoever is supposed to have the power of inflicting either [pain or death], it is impossible to be perfectly free from terror.' this is certainly true in the case of the film Hotel Rwanda, as in many instances we see Paul and other Tutsi tribe members definitely not free from terror when in the presence of the Hutu tribe. Paul must beg and live in terror in order to save his family and other refugees. A key sequence within the film which demonstrates palpably how the Hutu tribe gain pleasure through power by inflicting terror, is when a great number of Hutu's line the road outside the Hotel, knowing that no Tutsi would dare step foot outside the compound else they will be brutally slain. Their chants, whistles and cries of joy indicate how their power is ultimate and as Burke states 'power derives all it's sublimity from terror'.

 

Burke describes Milton as I would describe Eraserhead, ‘dark, confused’ and ‘terrible’.  David Lynch’s Eraserhead demonstrates many of the qualities of obscurity.  He mentions that ‘when we know the full extent of any danger…a great deal of the apprehension vanishes.’ This works on a visual level in many films such as Jaws in which the shark does not appear until much later in the film. For example Burke describes how ‘night adds to our dread’ and certainly the darkness prevalent in the dark black and white photography of Eraserhead demonstrates this. However, I chose this film because not only does it portray aspects of obscurity visually but also on a psychological level.  The fears are unknown not simply because we can’t see them but because we can’t understand them. Lynch creates nightmarish scenes in which nothing is entirely explicable. The scene in which John Nance stares into a radiator whilst his wife is attempting to feed their deformed baby is dark, surreal and a scene in which ‘none can form clear ideas’. Burke also describes the power of certain images that are ‘crouded and confused’ but when separated these images lose their power to obscure and so they become clear.  In Eraserhead also, it is the juxtaposition of strange images together that make it obscure and surreal, such as the image of a theatre stage, seemingly behind the radiator. ‘It is our ignorance of things that causes our admiration and chiefly excites our passions.’ When watching Eraserhead it is often this ignorance and confusion created by Lynch that is affecting.

Feeling, Pain

I believe the main point covered in the ‘Feeling, Pain’ is that ‘pain’ is unique. Obviously ‘pain’ is always unpleasant but to experience ‘pleasure’ and ‘the sublime’ we must first truly have experienced it. It is the only discernable emotion with stems from distress and that ‘a number 1 pleasure from a positive cause belongs to it. I have taken a clip from a film that you would have really heard of, or you really wouldn’t. It’s a ‘fan-boy’ film, very action-orientated. However, I think it illustrates the idea, intended or not, that a person feels fulfilment after overcoming suffering and pain, and the revelation of this is also pleasurable. The clip rather acts like a metaphor, it’s very overly emphasised and is quite radical in movement and realism. It is taken from the film ‘Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children’. I’m not even going to attempt to try and explain the plot and the backstory , but please look up the context if you wish. Our protagonist, Cloud, is in the midst of a battle with the antagonist, Sephiroth. Sephiroth is the more powerful, but Cloud gallantly puts up a fight. Ultimately he succumbs to Sephiroth’s power and is wounded. This pain acts as a catalyst for Cloud to ultimately experience ‘pleasure’ and overcome and overpower Sephiroth which leads to the film’s conclusion. He would not experience this resolution without the effect of ‘pain’ and ‘distress’. In is not necessarily the actions presented on screen, although it’s always good to have an excuse to show a crazy sword-fight, but the messages that can be deciphered behind these images, I believe, relate closely to what is covered in the ‘Philosophical Enquiry’. The main section of the scene I looked specifically at was from 3:00 – 4:20 approx.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=4b8tFhn2Ji4

Sound and Loudness

I have chosen the shower scene from Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho as an example of sound and loudness being used to "overpower the soul, to suspend its action, and to fill it with terror."
I have copied Kristina by having a youtube clip of the scene I am describing.



In the scene we see the protagonist, Marion, enter the shower. The only sound we hear is of the water quietly hitting her body until her murderer pulls back the shower curtain. All of a sudden Bernard Herrmann's blaring strings are heard as Marion is repeatedly stabbed. This sound surprises the viewer and "awakes a great and aweful sensation in the mind". We are left scared by the music, as well as shocked that the character we have been following has been killed halfway through the film. It is not pleasant music to listen to, and coupled with the shocking images has a powerful and terrifying effect on the viewer.

Another reason why I chose this particular scene is because Hitchcock initially wanted there to be no sound. It was only on Herrmann's insistence that it was included. It is hard to imagine the scene being anywhere near as powerful on the viewer if his score had not been employed.

Obscurity by Michelle C

"To make any thing very terrible, obscurity seems in general to be necessary. When we know the full extent of any danger, when we can accustom our eyes to it, a great deal of the apprehension vanishes." - Edmund Burke

Burke writes that obscurity (shrouded in or hidden by darkness, or not clearly seen or easily distinguished) in fiction can be used to heighten our sense of terror and fear. This is certainly applicable to the famous shower scene of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho.



In this scene, Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) enjoys a leisurely shower and is lulled into a false sense of security. We cut to a shot of a black silohette entering the room and slowly approach from behind the shower curtain, unbeknowst to Marion Crane. The shadowed man rips back the shower curtain, and the extreme backlighting creates an effect where we are unable to discern his face but only his outline including the brandished knife. There is then a series of short cuts of Marion Crane screaming and shruggling, and of the man stabbing his knife in a downward motion. The viewer is never privy to his face or any distinguishable features. As Burke wrote: "all is dark, uncertain, confused, terrible and sublime".

Power in relation to There Will Be Blood

Burke believes that power is often exemplified through terror and it is the fact that the terrifying are uncontrollable that makes them sublime. Daniel Plainview in There Will Be Blood is a man of considerable power, perhaps due to the terror he imposes. He is tall, strong man with a fixed gaze and a booming, persuasive voice. Not only that, but he possesses many things that one might equate with power in 1912- alot of money, a motor car, a large house. The character is perhaps most terrifying simply due to his lack of discernible emotions, apart from greed. He abandons his deaf son, shoots a man, beats another to death and shows no care or concern when his employees are killed in accidents. It is this display of physical and mental strength that makes him terrifying and appear powerful to us. Through our fear of how he may react or how he may treat other characters, Plainview exerts power over the audience by having them in submission of his will, shaping the narrative seemingly as he sees fit. He even over powers audience expectations by escaping from the justice that viewers expect him to recieve by the end of the film. For all his coercion, violence and temper, Plainview escapes with his life. Yes, he has committed murder at the end of the film but oddly you cannot help but feel that due to his power and overwhelming skills of exerting himself, he will escape any persecution.

Power

When Burke describes power he says, ‘the power which arises from institution in kings and commanders has the same connection with terror’. Therefore, I decided to focus on this connection between power and terror and felt that Polanski’s The Pianist displays many examples of this connection due to its depiction of the Nazi occupation of Warsaw during World War II. In the scene that I have concentrated on and believe to be a particularly good example of power and fear, the Jewish people are rounded up and told to collect a limited amount of belongings in order for them to be transported to an extermination facility at Treblinka. Their willingness to cooperate displays their fear of the Nazi soldiers and it becomes clear when one woman gets shot for questioning where they are going why they are so fearful. A particularly poignant moment in this scene comes when the father of the leading family is speaking to two friends while they wait for their transport to arrive, and one of the friends says, ‘Why don’t we attack them? There’s half a million of us here, we could break out of the ghetto. At least we could die honourably and not as a stain on the face of history.’ To this, the father jokes ‘What do you think I’m going to do? Fight them with my violin pole?’ As the man pointed out, the Jewish people greatly outnumber the Nazi soldiers, yet their fear of what may happen prevents them from taking action and the father merely sees it as a throwaway comment. Overall, Burke’s comment that ‘pain is always inflicted by a power in some way superior, because we never submit to pain willingly’ is exemplified in this scene, as their willingness to cooperate is only so great due to their fear of the Nazis’ armed SS organisation: a power superior to them at that time and in their situation.

Sound and Loudness - Kristina T

I’ve chosen Michael Haneke’s film Funny Games as an example of Sound and Loudness, and in particular the sound of artillery “awakening a great and aweful sensation in the mind, though we can observe no nicety or artifice in this sort of music.”

The chosen sequence is embedded below:



As the camera follows Paul into the kitchen, we are left observing him as he makes a sandwich. The only way we succeed in deciphering the events going on in the next room is purely by our sense of sound. Our minds are given several types of sound to work with in the sequence. The noise in the living room is taken from racing cars on TV, which frustrates us by blocking out important lines so that we no longer follow the narrative through words. Burke would support this concentration on noise “because words do not affect simply by their sounds, but by means altogether different”.
We wait listening to the motors, which could have been used to coincide with our ‘racing hearts’, until there is a loud gunshot. The camera is still fixated on Paul and his sandwich as we begin to hear the family screaming and shouting. The high pitch of the screams juxtaposed with noise from the TV leads to confusion over exactly which members of the family are screaming and who has been killed. Haneke isolates us with these shrieks for longer than expected, still not cutting back to the living room to reunite the sound with its rightful image. In Burke’s terms, Haneke is amazing and confounding our imaginations with the “sole strength of the sound”, which in this case is the “shouting of multitudes”, and in doing this, he provides us with the degree of terror which Burke considers to be present in the sublime’s effect on the soul.

vastness and infinity

Burkes "The sublime and the beautiful" proposes that "Vastness" or "greatness of dimension" is a "powerful cause of the sublime". He further explores the notion of infinity in relation to vastness, stating that "the eye not being able to percieve he bounds of many things, they seem to be infinite, and they produce he same effects as if they were really so." Stanley kubricks 2001: A Space Oddessy" is a prime example of a cinematic exploration of these same themes discussed here by burke. Vastness and Infinty are both conveyed thematically and stylistically throughout the films narrative. Throughout the scene when the crew members are faced with the insabordination of the ships computer hal, we are made aware that the interior shots of the spaceship are composed of extreme close ups coupled with very tight angle shots, the camera cutting from object to object fairly frequently. These shots become significant when looked at in terms of thier systematic relation to the exterior shots of the vast depth of space, here the camera favours long takes composed of depth of field and very little on screen movement. In his essay, Burke would suggest that "depth"is favoured over "height" in terms of their ability to evoke feelings of the sublime, as is the "great extreme of dimension" when concomitantly opposed with the great extreme of littleness favoured under these same terms. The scene further addressess issues such as exploring the unknown and loss of control, whch arguably (and especially) in the case of the unknown, addresses the unfathomable nature and object of infinity which Burke outlines as "having the tendency to fill the mind with...delightfull horror". I enjoyed both kubricks filmic offering and Burkes essay, and when looked at together both offer much insight into the other.

Prep work for this week.

Hi all, as promised here is the preparatory assignment for this week's seminar:

The reading is: Edmund Burke, 'A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful', pp. 53-79 (although it may help you to read the first part of this, also in the theory pack).

And I'd like you to:

"Take one section from the Burke essay, and describe in about 150 words one moment from a film or television programme (of your choice) that exemplifies the characteristic he describes."

OBSCURITY - Laura & Michelle
POWER - Ed, Lucy & Ellie
VASTNESS and INFINITY - Krisztina & Damon
SOUND and LOUDNESS - Alfred, Rosen & Kristina
FEELING / PAIN - Jack & Ben

The reading is split into sections, which are headed by different characteristics - so pay particular attention to the one to which you have been assigned. Please do choose any moment from any film/TV programme that you can think of, I'd be interested to have a diverse selection of moments for us to think about. Let me know if you're confused at all.

Tom.

Un Chien Andalou Ellie

Un Chien Andalou is perhaps one the most infamous of the surrealist films; created by Salvador Dali, we can only expect the unexpected. The film has many disturbing elements, and the most poignant and shocking is the slicing of a woman's eye with a razor blade, featured in the opening sequence. Not only does the film evolve in such a labyrinthine way that the audience are left baffled and bemused, but the ever constant music also evokes a hypnotic sense. To me, the music adds to our ultimate reaction of shock at the film, as it's jovial and 'funfair' melody is used even when the darkest acts occur; for instance the sexual harassment of a woman, and the subsequent imagining of a naked body being fondled.
The film is both comic and horrific, and we are led to believe that the main protagonists are hallucinating heavily, as at one point the male and female stand looking into a hole in the man's hand with ants crawling out.
Un Chien Andalou's central theme appears to be about death, as the first time we see our main protagonists interact is when the man falls off his bike, and she cradles him; we are led to believe he is seriously hurt, perhaps even dying. There are several motifs of death throughout the film; a severed hand among them, and even the male protagonist kills himself in sequence of hallucination. Ultimately, the female protagonist and a different male character at the end of the film are left dead in the sands of a beach.
This surrealist films leaves it's audience extremely confused, as it hints at the possibility of the male character being schizophrenic. In the end, Un Chien Andalou is a disturbing film which effectively captures it's audience through the hypnotic music and recurring motifs that shock yet impel us to keep watching.

Index to 'Plot summaries of Un chien andalou'

For week 3, I asked all students to "Write a 150-word summary of the plot of Un chien andalou". For revision purposes, this is an index to all the excellent responses:

Michelle Cheung - "To value the film, one must look on it like looking on another person's dream and their inner most psyche."

Laura Dodds - "She becomes trapped in a corner and he pulls two pianos, carcasses and people attached by two ropes towards her. She runs out and traps the man's ant hand in the door."

Damon Hannis - "The film follows a series of disturbing and often surreal montages, yet purposely fails to bind itself to any kind of linear narrative."

Alfred Joyner - "A policeman arrives, picks up the hand and puts it in another striped box, giving it to the man. The policeman makes the crowd leave."

Jack Porter - "We are then subjected to a montage of scenes which explores the ideas of rape, anti-bourgeoisies, anti-establishment etc."

Lucy Reeves - "Due to these odd images and the seeming lack of narrative or plot, this film appears to be more of an artistic creation used to challenge the audience rather than a story for us to follow and be entertained by."

Ben Shewry - "...a bizarre and almost perversely obscure piece of film in which a sequence of surreal events present a confusing and intentionally plotless narrative."

Ed Smith - "Despite this nonsensical flurry of images and my own cynical response to them, I did manage to derive one interpretation..."

Krisztina Szemerey - "The lack of logic and absence of emotions in the common sense causes the feeling of missing a 'handrail' to reality."

Kristina Tarasova - "With two main characters and a vague chronology of events, the film still shows some mercy to the majority of viewers unaccustomed to surrealism."


Thanks again for all your great responses. I suggest that you take some time to read each others, and reflect upon the different approaches that were taken towards this task.

I also recommend watching the first episode of Stephen Fry in America.

Un Chien Andalou

A man is fingering his razor. He then walks out onto a balcony and sees a full moon. Next he holds a woman’s left eye open and slices the eyeball with his razor as a thin cloud passes across the moon.

A title card states it is eight years later. Another man is cycling down the street wearing what appears to be a nun’s habit and box around his neck. The same woman (eye in tact) sees from her window the man cycling and falling over. It seems she knows him and rushes down to him, kissing him as he lies on the pavement. She opens the box that the man was wearing and takes his clothing out of it and lays the articles on the bed in the apartment. The clothes move as she stares at them and the man appears at the door. Both the man and woman watch ants appear out of a hole in his hand.

On the street a person is prodding a severed hand with a cane, surrounded by a group of people and police.  The police place the hand in the box from before. The person clutches the box and gets run over by a car to the glee of man looking out of the window.  The man then harasses the woman, feeling her breasts and fantasizing about her naked body. She pushes him away and he chases her about the apartment. She becomes trapped in corner and he pulls two pianos, carcasses and people attached by two ropes towards her. She runs out and traps the man’s ant hand in the door.

A title card states it is three in the morning. The man is wearing the nun and box outfit in bed. Two hands holding drinks shakers through two holes in the wall shake and the woman lets a man wearing a suit into the room.  The man wearing the suit takes the nun outfit off the man in bed and throws the clothes out of the window.

The man who was wearing the clothes is ashamed and is made to stand in the corner, facing the wall.

A title card states it is seven years earlier. The man in the suit gives two books to the man in the corner. The books turn into guns in his hands and the man in the corner shoots the man in the suit. He dies and falls into a forest stroking a naked woman’s back as he falls, people gather in forest around body. The men take the body away and carry it through forest.

Back in the apartment the woman enters, there is a death moth on the wall. The man who shot the other, makes his mouth disappear and makes her underarm hair appear on his face.

The woman leaves through the door onto a beach. A new man is waiting for her on the beach. He is annoyed she is late. They cuddle and walk down beach together. They find the nun and box outfit in the sand. Final shot of them dead and half buried in sand.

Un Chien Andalou

Un Chien Andalou is one of the most, if not the most, famous or infamous surrealist picture of all time, the directorial debut of Luis Bunuel, and the first collaboration between Bunuel and the artist Salvador Dali (although they would subsequently fall out during the production of their next film L’Age D’or after Bunuel tried to strangle Dali’s wife!). It opens with the infamous slicing of the eye (featuring for the only time Bunuel appearing as a character’. It is a juxtaposition of shots, an initial slicing action of the eye, cut away to a cloud ‘slicing the moon’, then back to the eye actually being cut. We are then subjected to a montage of scenes which explores the ideas of rape, anti-bourgeoisies, anti-establishment etc. The contrast between the conscious and the unconscious is prevalent, images of dead horses on pianos, priests being dragged across the floor (exploring Bunuel’s favourite topic, anti-religion), severed hands, and corpses buried in sand follow and remain in the viewer’s mind long after the film (only 15 minutes running time) end. From the outset, we know that this film intends to shock, and challenge our ideologies and beliefs. It wants to change the way we see things, our perspective, our line of sight to subject to chan


Bunuel’s associative montage raises a philosophical query ‘Is it more dreadful than the spectacle of a cloud veiling a full moon’.


I found this nice quote from Alfred Hitchcock, ‘If I am the Master of Suspense, then Bunuel is the Master of us all’. And Jean Vigo hailed Un Chien Andalou for its ‘social consciousness’.

Un Chien Andalou

A short movie that refuses everything conversional, it does not fulfill any expectations one would normally have from a film or from life on the whole. The awkward  surprise it creates dislocates people from everyday life.  The lack of logic and absence of emotions in the common sense causes the feeling of missing a 'handrail' to reality. 

 The music perfectly suits to the film, as its melody is fairly tragic, fairly comic, knit together precisely like the scenes in the film.

Un Chien Andalou is probably the most well-known of its unforgettable eye-cut screen, that literally crushes up one's stomach. Instead of having an impact on our emotions, it has an effect straight to the senses.

Un Chien Andalou - Kristina T

Using 15 minutes of imagery designed to shock, the film is doing exactly the same as its opening sequence, entering our minds aggressively through the human eye, cutting through the safety of conventional linearity with the blade which Dali and Bunuel sharpened using art and surrealism.

A man’s hand is infested with ants, possibly symbolizing an itching to kill, restlessness, or even a sexual awakening. An androgynous woman pokes at a severed hand in the street with her cane. A man drags two pianos, dead animals, and two live priests towards a woman, implying cultural and religious symbolism. There are references to attempted rape and a man’s joy over a woman being run over. All of these sadistic images could interrelate to show Dali’s fascination with the enigma of Hitler, a man who he said was “uniquely capable of turning things completely upside down”.

A woman’s armpit hair attaches itself to a man’s face, and a dying man is later seen clinging to a naked woman. Devoid of meaning or not, these two ideas (especially of the naked woman) are prominent in Dali’s paintings, suggesting he could simply be applying artistic ideas to the complex possibilities of the moving image.

To say that Un Chien Andalou deviates from any narrative flow may be a misunderstood interpretation on our part. “For a story long or short; of past, present, or future; factual or imagined; told for any purpose; and with or without much detail”, Un Chien Andalou still applies to this definition despite its scenes not adhering to any conventional structure or relation to one another. With two main characters and a vague chronology of events, the film still shows some mercy to the majority of viewers unaccustomed to surrealism.

Kristina Tarasova

A man sharpens a blade. We then see a cloud cut across the moon at night before the man cuts open a motionless woman’s eye.

We cut to a man in strange feminine clothing cycling down a road with a stripy box. A woman goes to the window of her house to see the man cycling below fall off his bike. He lies motionless as she rushes down to him. She kisses him and takes the stripy box. Opening it, she sees it is a tie, and lays it down on some other clothes on her bed. We see another man in her room, who is looking at his hand, which has ants crawling out of it.

We see another man prodding a dismembered hand in the street, with a crowd around him. The two in the house watch from their window. A policeman arrives, picks up the hand and puts it in another striped box, giving it to the man. The Policeman makes the crowd leave. The man with the striped box stays in the road, with cars rushing past. One is heading straight for him, but he doesn’t move out the way and he is run over.

Suddenly, the ant man lunges for the woman’s breasts, squeezing them and imagining what they look like. The woman pushes him back and is chased around the room. He tries to reach her, but is held back because he is carrying two tablets, two priests and two pianos with a dead horse on each. She escapes from the room, and slams his arm in the door. In the other room we see the man who previously fell off the bike lying in bed, with the stripy box on his chest.

A man in a suit comes up the stairs and enters the room. He acts aggressively towards the bike man, pulling him out of bed. He then throws some of his clothes out the window, before making him face the wall. He picks up some books and gives them to the man. These books turn into guns, and as the man in the suit tries to leave, he is gunned down by the bike man.

It cuts to the man in the suit falling onto a naked woman’s back, who then herself fades away. A crowd gathers around the deceased, and tells a wandering couple of what happened. They help in carrying the body away.

We see the woman again enter a room, where she is concerned by a moth on the wall. We see the ant man again, this time wiping his mouth, as it changes from his lips to the woman’s armpit hair. The outraged woman sticks her tongue out at him before leaving the room. Outside her door is a beach, where she passionately embraces a man there. They look at some objects on the ground, before discarding them and walk off together.

'Un chien andolou' by Michelle

The surreal nature of Un chien andalou means that the viewer must watch it with an open mind, or perhaps comprehend the dream logic that it is presented in, attempting to shock the audience with its static cuts of seemingly related yet unrelated scenes.

The short realist film released in 1929 by Bunuel and Dali is one of the best-known films of the avant-garde movement of the 1920s. It is difficult to understand the popularity of this bizarre piece, as there is neither narrative to follow nor any form of obvious plot. The film opens with the controversial scene in which a man sharpens a barber knife and slices the eye of a calm and composed woman. It then progresses eight years into the future, involving a young man riding a bicycle, cross-dressed as a nun, to an apartment occupied by the eagerly awaiting woman from the first scene, both eyes intact. This man is possibly the lover of the married woman. This precedes another series of illogical sequences involving a severed hand in the street, attempted rape and apparently a domestic disturbance involving the use of a piano with several items, including two men, attached to it. Furthermore, these scenes are all backed by a displaced fairground like soundtrack, which adds to the surreal experience of the whole film. The closing sequence of the film is as irrational as the rest, involving the two lovers strolling on the beach hand in hand, and then their untimely and unexplained deaths.


This film must be watched with no expectation of coherent narrative or plot to be appreciated, something that is incredibly difficult to do. To value the film, one must look on it like looking on another person’s dream and their inner most psyche.

Un chien andalou

Dali and Bunuel’s short film is hard to follow let alone comprehend, due to its series of bizarre and surreal images that the audience may have trouble with placing together.

The film begins with an unsettling image of a man sharpening a razor blade that he proceeds to use to slice open a woman’s eye while she sits motionlessly, setting the scene for the rest of the film’s peculiar events. We are then told that the narrative has progressed by eight years and see a cross-dressed man cycling his way through quiet city streets. The woman we saw in the previous sequence then watches as the man falls from his bike and slumps into a comatose state. Her subsequent distress at seeing the man this way allows us to link the two characters together and accept them as our central protagonists. The film then goes on to present us with a strange series of images of ants crawling from the man’s palm, a man prodding a disembodied hand in the street while a crowd looks on, a woman getting run down by a car much to our male protagonists delight, and pianos and dead cattle being dragged across a room.

Due to these odd images and the seeming lack of narrative or plot, this film appears to be more of an artistic creation used to challenge the audience rather than a story for us to follow and be entertained by.

Bens post on Un Chien Andalou

Un Chien Andalou is a bizarre and almost perversely obscure piece of film in which a sequence of surreal events present a confusing and intentionally plotless narrative.

The film opens with one of the more gruesome and shocking scenes even by today’s standards, let alone that of 1929. A man sharpens a razor blade in the moonlight only to proceed with slicing open a woman’s eye with it while she sits motionlessly. We are then taken through a series of bizarre sequences involving an injured, cross-dressing cyclist, a young lady holding a severed hand only to then be run over, various death sequences and a man with ants crawling from his hands, dragging pianos attached to dead cattle and religious figures across the room. The setting illogically changes at a couple of points in the film. The music used seems, at times, too light hearted to coincide with what we are seeing, adding to the dream-like surrealism.

Though the scenes are strung together with a certain lack of narrative or conventional plot, this makes it seem more of a succession of artistic creations for interpretation from the audience rather than a story to follow.

Un Chien Andalou

Un Chien Andalou offers its viewers 15 minutes of purely unsettling cinema, a film which still retains just as much shock value today, as it did after the films controversial release back in 1929.

The film follows a series of disturbing and often surreal montages, yet purposely fails to bind itself to any kind of linear narrative. We are immediately introduced to the films central protagonist, as he sharpens his blade in the moonlight. The film quickly cuts to the fair face of the second character that we follow, the protagonist slowly pulls his sharpened blade across her eye; thus begins a series of somewhat disturbing events.

Our central character travels by bike to the home of his, somewhat implied, love interest. He arrives and is immediately bed ridden, due to a fall from his bike. After recuperating, our attentions are alerted to a mob which have assembled on the street below. Curious as to the mobs intentions the couple dash to the window only to see a young woman who is struck down by an oncoming car.

The man seems almost turned on by the events witnessed proceeding to attack his on screen partner. They begin to fight. Destroying the home in the process, the two seamlessly travel between eerie backdrops including surreal rooms and corridors, the woods, finally ending their struggle beside the sea. Not the easiest of films to digest, it may even leave a bitter taste in your mouth, all the same this shocking film defies every conventional characteristic of the films of its day, reason enough to indulge in its grotesque yet sublime story.

Damon Hannis.

Un Chien Andalou

The plot of Dali and Bunuel's short is hard to fathom let alone explain. The film opens with a smoking man sharpening a razor gazing longingly at the moon. He then proceeds to slice the blade directly across a young, calm looking woman's eye, splitting it. We then dissolve to a man, wearing somewhat feminine clothing riding a pushback. An impatiant woman storms to the window only to see him fall off the bike and into a comatose state. She collects him from the pavement and opens the striped box he had around his neck, an object that serves as a motif throughout the film. After laying it's contents, a neck tie, on the bed, we see another man scrutinising the ants crawling out of his hand. This image reccurs in Dali's canvas art and some of his sculpture. Oddly, the couple seem nonchalant about this. After a zoom into the hole which becomes a street, we see a group of people crowded around a disembodied hand which is being prodded by a strange looking man. After consideration the hand is given to a woman who locks it in a box before being hit by car. The man with ants in his hand sees this through a window and laughs before becoming overwhelmed with lust for what may be his girlfriend. Resisting his advances, during which he drools openly, she backs into a corner and arms herself. The man tries to approach her but is restrained by the immense weight of pianos, dead horses and preachers that he is trying to drag across the room. The woman escapes to the room with the comatose cyclist. Then things get really weird. The comatose man awakes and through an explained time lapse which has no bearing whatsoever on anything, another man arrives stripping the cyclist of his feminine clothing and confining him to the corner. 16 years ago then arrives and a suited gentlemen picks up two books, heads back through time and passes them to the cornered cyclist. The books become guns and the man from 16 years ago is shot. Dying in a field, he grasps a nude woman before being carried away. We then return to ''normality'' and see the female character confront her ant handed boyfriend who promptly wipes his own mouth off of his face, replacing it with the woman's armpit hair. She leaves, onto a beach meeting a handsome gentlemen whom she passionately kisses as they both walk along the beach. 'In Springtime' we see them both emaciated, buried up to their elbows in sand. Fin.
Despite this non sensical flurry of images and my own cynical response to them, I did manage to derive one interpretation from the scene in which the ant handed man drags the massive weight toward the cornered woman. He sees death and bloodshed in the form of the girl being run over then attempts to engage in sex. These are acts that are representative of two very basic human instincts; survival and reproduction. He is restricted however by what could be seen as modern distractions or alternatives, being literally stopped by the weight of pianos (symbolic of culture), preachers (religion) and dead horses, perhaps representative of his awareness of his own mortality and therefore humanism, preventing him from indulging in primal urges. What may be suggested here is that through civilization we have changed in behaviour and ideals. Interestingly though, I found a quotation or paraphrased quotation from Bunuel's writings: ''the only rule for the writing of the script was that no idea or image that might lend itself to a rational explanation of any kind would be accepted. Moreover, nothing, in the film, symbolises anything. The only method of investigation of the symbols would be, perhaps, psychoanalysis."

Week 2

Hello everybody,

Thanks a lot for your contributions and attendance at this week's seminars, they were both very interesting and productive. If there are any issues arising from that work that you would like to discuss furhter, or on further reflection you're having trouble with, feel free to post them here.

I've embedded a video of Un chien andalou in this post, which you can use to help you with either this week's work or in the three weeks to come.



Perhaps ponder for a moment how amazing it is that, thanks to technologies such as DVD and the Internet, we have such easy access to a film such as this. When it was first released in 1928 (not 1922, as I believe I said in error in one class yesterday), an audience would have been able to see it once and then had to wait for it to be re-programmed at another cinema. I can imagine having some really bizarre memories of this film if you'd only seen it once, and were not physically able to see it again to refresh your memory...

Looking forward to your responses to the film this week,

Tom.

Michelle's post on Howl.

from the comments:

"What initially struck me about Allen Ginsberg’s reading of Howl was his use of a monotonous voice, further enhanced with severe repetition of words such as “who”, “Moloch” and “I’m with”. This establishes a constant beat throughout the poem, which contrasts greatly with the harsh and explicit nature of the poem, perhaps depicting his personal experience with drugs that can often be associated with times of ‘highs’ and ‘lows’. The use of this technique may be to illustrate a drug user’s dark life, which can never be satisfied. Ginsberg reads the poem with a gradual crescendo, although keeping the same dark tone, this method reminded me of sermons usually heard in Church setting, which reaches a final climax. Moreover, the language is complex, yet upon hearing the reading in which Ginsberg barely pauses for a breath, it could be deduced a tirade. However, one may appreciate the intricate expression of emotion once they have read the poem themselves."

Jack's post on Howl.

"I found 'Howl' to be an interesting but often uncomfortable read. Prolonged text on torture, and vile abuse is prevalent, and the bitterness of the poet is obvious within each line. There is continual references to the world around us which is also fairly shocking. The repetition of 'who' which more often than not starts each verse, adds a 'ongoing' sense of a single figure to represent many, and many who 'suffered'. Suffering is a common element, but the poem creates a sense of irony in that often than not, those who suffered are the intellectual and educated, who 'studied'. I found 'Howl' a fairly hard read, even the name 'Howl' itself, such a simple word, provides many connotations. A 'howl' is like a continual suffering, or at least representative of it. The degree of 'explicitness' shows the intention to shock, crude and 'vulgar' language punctuates throughout the text and the description of 'acts' a perverted nature is vividly created."

Krisztina's post on Howl.

"Certainly Howl was one of the most bizarre poem I have ever heard or read.
The mixture of the most unusual expressions and eccentric word
collocations made me the feeling that the world is puzzled and everything
around us is either foreign or morally tainted. It sounds as though
Ginsberg wanted to recite the most negative terms in succession in order
to make his reader observe the changes that the modern world or rather the
modern America brings along.
I found the work utterly grotesque, because I felt as if I had to feel sad
or mournful, however i did not. I only sensed incomprehension and
obscureness.
I could simply suppose that Ginsberg was intoxicated while writing it,
however the writing has a certain consciousness. An awareness that
suggests that with this extraordinary tone he wanted to highlight his
feelings and observations."

Lucy's post on Howl.

At least a couple of people are having trouble posting, so if you are don't worry and we'll sort out issues tomorrow. If you could email me your prep work, and I'll post it on here, that'd be excellent.

From Lucy:

"When listening to Ginsberg’s performance of ‘Howl’ for the first time, what initially struck me was its explicit nature and the graphic language used throughout. However, upon hearing it again, it was the monotonous tone of his voice in the delivery of part 1 that appeared to have the most impact upon setting the overall mood and tone of the performance. This monotony is further emphasised in Ginsberg’s use of ‘who’ as a fixed base, allowing a beat to be established and breaks in his expressions and thoughts to be signalled. Ginsberg’s lament within the poem gives an almost autobiographical tone, which is further emphasised in his communication of personal events and experiences. Part 2 of the poem, though noticeably shorter, also displays a strong sense of emotion and passion, which is most prominently shown in the continuous use of exclamatives. Another similarity between the two parts is repetition, with the technique being expressed in part 2 through the character of ‘Moloch’; who serves to give a name to Ginsberg’s apparent bitterness towards the state of American society and industrialised civilisation. At first glance, ‘Howl’ merely appears to be a controversial rant, yet upon further analysis, one can realise and fully appreciate the pure expression within the poem and Ginsberg’s ability to communicate with his audience. "

Howl

http://media.sas.upenn.edu//authors/Ginsberg/SFSU-1956/Ginsberg-Allen_04_Howl_SFSU_10-25-56.mp3

In Ginsberg's reading each part of 'Howl' has an individual mood that also shifts within each section of the poem. In Part 1 i initially found that Ginsberg's reading perhaps lacked emotion which struck me as surprising due to the personal and provocative content of the poem. But the deliberate and continuous monotony of his voice emphasized not only the rhythm and repetition of each line but the disillusionment with certain American values and his lamentation of the human condition.  Ginsberg escalates the pitch of  his voice while the tone remains quite flat towards the end of Part 1. This lends power to the harsh images, scenes and situations described, which combined with the length of part 1 becomes quite overwhelming. 

In Part 2 Ginsberg's powerful delivery and repetition of  'molock' is almost alarming and it becomes a personal declaration as he employs personal prepositions to express his own anger.  Yet it was Part 3 that particularly resonated for me and conveyed most emotion and desperation. This was due to the personal address to Solomon in and the contrast to Part 2 that proceeded it.  The way in which Ginsberg delivers the refrain 'I'm with you in Rockland' changes dramatically in this section. He begins by placing emphasis on the latter half of the line but by the end 'I'm with you in Rockland' is very communicative and expressive.

Howl

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqCPfr5OiOE

Here the poem is performed by Coen brother's favourite John Turturro on an urban backdrop, backed by jazz music on a neon lit night. All of these elements give this reading real charm as well as reflecting the occasionally romantic sentiments of Ginsberg's poem. Despite the often contentious and vulgar language, his descriptions seem almost like a lament in places and Turturro's strolling and hand gestures represent this whimsy. Of course, this is juxtaposed at times, especially later in the poem by outbursts of anger and explosive linguistics possibly to reflect the passion and life of the people Ginsberg is recalling and how strongly he feels about them. At these points the cinematography flails and Turturro roars at his surroundings, implying perhaps that the scene of Ginsberg's characters is just as vital as the meme and that society is responsible for their failings and descents. Finally, the video is, in comparison to the poem, somewhat conventional. It is tempting when dealing with contemporary beat poetry to create a reading that is surreal or odd to reflect the opposal to conformity and convention that was prevalent in the beat generation; however by having a far more standard approach the focus is kept on the poem as oppose to the video. Also, it add's depth and in my opinion resonance and digntiy to 'Howl' as the video implies that this is not simply a post modern poem that is contriversial for the sake of being controversial but far more expert and insightful to the point that it should being understood and appreciated by all people.

Post on "Howl"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWqHlcAmBeA

Upon my initail exposure to the poetic lament of ginsberg's "howl", i was foremost overwhelmed by both its radical nature and explicit content.Ginsberg's almost tormented delivery serves to exacerbate the surreal and drug drenched world of imagery we are quickly faced with, giving an almost autobiographical sense of poetic direction.
The beat poet uses his ability to conjure shocking images through his uncensored command of evocative yet frank choices of language.This really gives the poem an unnerving tone, in his personal performance you quickly get the sense of a man looking for his own "angry fix" unable to be satisfied with the world around him. This mood seems to reach its climax in part two of the poem, which is drenched in a very bitter and quite surreal depction of a charcter the poet sites as "moloch" - here we are enveloped in ginsbergs melancholy and often grim view of a suggested american society, or perhaps just society in large.Overall the poem is a wonderful example of pure expression, whilst often bordering on the obscene, ginsberg challenges and shocks the listener/reader into a world of fantastic images and poetry. dhannis