Movies that change the way you see life

Originally Posted by LeHah

Like I'm going to start waving around Georges Bataille everytime some jackass on the internet thinks he knows something? God knows if I did that, I'd've rubbed my dick off years ago from all the constant jacking off.

Yeah, but it'd be really erudite intellectual masturbation. Gotta give it that much. Some weird mix of Bataille and Besson? Like a commentary on the concept of experience between the spiritual and the physical, only it has Bruce Willis in it?

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by LeHah

No one in this thread is remotely acredited to make a philosophical debate, least of all you.

nice logic.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by Denicalis

Yeah, but it'd be really erudite intellectual masturbation. Gotta give it that much. Some weird mix of Bataille and Besson? Like a commentary on the concept of experience between the spiritual and the physical, only it has Bruce Willis in it?

Thats not an individual error. The weakness of Besson's analysis is exactly that he is content with a single aspect - the inclination of rejection of transcendental form. This is what reduces it to negative observations which have only to be situated in time or history for us to get a positive view. The collective relationship between production (the film) and expenditure (the result of the film - critque, income, etc) is in history - Baudelaire's experience is in history, after all. Postitively, it has that perceise sense which history confers upon it.

Film may be assenting to life even in death but those are unquantifiable abstracts in which none can weigh their costs upon.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by LeHah

Thats not an individual error. The weakness of Besson's analysis is exactly that he is content with a single aspect - the inclination of rejection of transcendental form. This is what reduces it to negative observations which have only to be situated in time or history for us to get a positive view. The collective relationship between production (the film) and expenditure (the result of the film - critque, income, etc) is in history - Baudelaire's experience is in history, after all. Postitively, it has that perceise sense which history confers upon it.

Film may be assenting to life even in death but those are unquantifiable abstracts in which none can weigh their costs upon.

So really the difficulty doesn't lie in the concept of the production, but in the ephemeral nature of the result. It is, like all creative endeavors, incapable of hanging anything on itself beyond that mean which people infuse into it. It is, as a concept, a hollow thing, until someone prescribes meaning based on their own understanding and experience/history. Besson isn't wrong, Film won't save your life. It isn't a firm construct by any means, just a hollow vessel for projected meaning. Which is well and good, but what about the sort of Geertzian or Barth models, which would say that a meaning of different things to different people is almost Marxian in its ability to reflect their social standing?

Too broad, perhaps. But the irony of it being truly panem et cricenses in the truest sense, at best a distraction (What up, Pirates of the Caribbean?), and at worst, straight propaganda (What up, Hero?).

But let me go all Althusser at the end and say if Film is just a hollow concept, something to be read into and prescribed meaning by the viewer, it can be a saviour. You just need someone desperate enough to be saved by Ray Romano doing the voice of a Mammoth and bam. Transcendental conceptualization in a cartoon box. Film isn't lacking, the person sad enough to be saved by it (or religion, or philosophy, or politics) is.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

The contradiction of modern film, especially of industry film, consists of the fact that it is the negation of art from the standpoint of art or the negation of art which itself is again deconstruction art; this contradiction especially characterises the Terrence Malick philosophy.

For modern film, and hence also for Malick, the non-material being or being as a pure object of the intellect, as a pure being of the intellect, is the only true and Absolute Art, that is, Film and not movie. Even matter, which some turn into an attribute of the divine substance, is a metaphysical thing, a pure being of the intellect, for the essential determination of matter as distinguished from the intellect and the activity of thinking – that it is a passive being – is taken away from it. But Malick differs from Besson's earlier philosophy by the fact that he determines the relationship of the material sensuous being to the non-material being differently. The earlier filmmakers and producers of the 1970s held the true divine being to be detached and liberated from nature; that is, from sensuousness or matter. They situated the toil of abstraction and self-liberation from the sensuous in themselves in order to arrive at that which in itself is free from the sensuous. To this condition of being free, they ascribed the blissfulness of the divine, and to this self-liberation, the virtue of the human essence through film. Malick, on the other hand, turned this subjective activity into the self-activity of the Absolute Art. All film, then, must subject himself to this toil, and must, like pagan heroes, win his divinity through virtue.

Only in this way does the freedom of the Absolute from matter, which is, besides, only a precondition and a conception, become reality and truth. This self-liberation from matter, however, can be posited in Film only if matter, too, is posited in him. But how can it be posited in him? Only in this way that he himself posits it. But in Film there is only Film. Hence, the only way to do this is that he posits himself as matter, as non-Film; that is, as his otherness. In this way, matter is not an antithesis of the ego and the spirit, preceding them, as it were, in an incomprehensible way; it is the self-alienation of the Art Form. Thus, matter itself acquires spirit and intellect; it is taken over into the absolute essence as a moment in its life, formation, and development. But then, matter is again posited as an untrue being resembling nothingness in so far as only the being that restores itself out of this alienation, that is, that sheds matter and sensuousness off from itself, is pronounced to be the perfect being in its true form. The natural, material, and sensuous – and indeed, the sensuous, not in the vulgar and moral, but in the metaphysical sense – are therefore even here something to be negated, like nature which in theology has been poisoned by the original sin. The sensuous is incorporated into reason, the ego, and the spirit, but it is something irrational, a note of discord within reason; it is the non-ego in the ego, that is, that which negates it. For example in Besson's nature of Film it is the non-divine in Film; it is in Film and yet outside him; the same is true of the body in the philosophy of Kubrick which, although connected with me, that is, with the spirit, is nevertheless external, and does not belong to me, that is, to my essence; it is of no consequence, therefore, whether it is or is not connected with me or you or anyone. Matter will remain in contradiction to what is presupposed by philosophy as the true meaning inside film.

FELIPE NO

Originally Posted by LeHah

The contradiction of modern film, especially of industry film, consists of the fact that it is the negation of art from the standpoint of art or the negation of art which itself is again deconstruction art; this contradiction especially characterises the Terrence Malick philosophy.

For modern film, and hence also for Malick, the non-material being or being as a pure object of the intellect, as a pure being of the intellect, is the only true and Absolute Art, that is, Film and not movie. Even matter, which some turn into an attribute of the divine substance, is a metaphysical thing, a pure being of the intellect, for the essential determination of matter as distinguished from the intellect and the activity of thinking – that it is a passive being – is taken away from it. But Malick differs from Besson's earlier philosophy by the fact that he determines the relationship of the material sensuous being to the non-material being differently. The earlier filmmakers and producers of the 1970s held the true divine being to be detached and liberated from nature; that is, from sensuousness or matter. They situated the toil of abstraction and self-liberation from the sensuous in themselves in order to arrive at that which in itself is free from the sensuous. To this condition of being free, they ascribed the blissfulness of the divine, and to this self-liberation, the virtue of the human essence through film. Malick, on the other hand, turned this subjective activity into the self-activity of the Absolute Art. All film, then, must subject himself to this toil, and must, like pagan heroes, win his divinity through virtue.

Only in this way does the freedom of the Absolute from matter, which is, besides, only a precondition and a conception, become reality and truth. This self-liberation from matter, however, can be posited in Film only if matter, too, is posited in him. But how can it be posited in him? Only in this way that he himself posits it. But in Film there is only Film. Hence, the only way to do this is that he posits himself as matter, as non-Film; that is, as his otherness. In this way, matter is not an antithesis of the ego and the spirit, preceding them, as it were, in an incomprehensible way; it is the self-alienation of the Art Form. Thus, matter itself acquires spirit and intellect; it is taken over into the absolute essence as a moment in its life, formation, and development. But then, matter is again posited as an untrue being resembling nothingness in so far as only the being that restores itself out of this alienation, that is, that sheds matter and sensuousness off from itself, is pronounced to be the perfect being in its true form. The natural, material, and sensuous – and indeed, the sensuous, not in the vulgar and moral, but in the metaphysical sense – are therefore even here something to be negated, like nature which in theology has been poisoned by the original sin. The sensuous is incorporated into reason, the ego, and the spirit, but it is something irrational, a note of discord within reason; it is the non-ego in the ego, that is, that which negates it. For example in Besson's nature of Film it is the non-divine in Film; it is in Film and yet outside him; the same is true of the body in the philosophy of Kubrick which, although connected with me, that is, with the spirit, is nevertheless external, and does not belong to me, that is, to my essence; it is of no consequence, therefore, whether it is or is not connected with me or you or anyone. Matter will remain in contradiction to what is presupposed by philosophy as the true meaning inside film.

No argument from me on that point, as matter will always stand in contradiction--if not direct opposition--to philosophy. It's the argument of the knowable versus that which is unknowable. It is, at its heart, the argument to the proof or disproof of the Divine (given reverential capitals here on account of a desire to avoid using specific deities). So do we take this towards an argument of truth? Is there more "truth" in the experience of the static observer in the static moment of the static viewing? Or is "truth" the extended, shifting experience of the whole (history) in relation to a static object (film)? Or maybe it's not a matter of what is the true nature, but rather the intention? Do we weigh the belief of the creator of something higher than the people who experience it. If a man makes a statue to fight communism (fuck you, Terry Goodkind), but it is taken as an endorsement of communism and turned into a propaganda tool by what it was meant to destroy, what has he really accomplished.

It's an interesting conundrum, especially in non-documentary film. Because it truly doesn't offer anything beyond a fictional encapsulation of an event that is, for all intents and purposes, a falsehood. Is belief in a beautiful lie, to be reverential to what Marxian philosophers would view as a form of social control (rich men making movies about inner city poverty, glorifying it to keep more people under the thumb of the bourgeoisie; he'd have a field day) something to be treated with respect, or scorned as a distraction, a vice no different from laudanum?

In short, do you respect the reverential dreamer or scorn him for a lack of logic and true-sight. The Grecian debate. Laud the blessed madman or lock him away, as he's unsightly and lacks pure logic.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Originally Posted by Denicalis

In short, do you respect the reverential dreamer or scorn him for a lack of logic and true-sight.

Any man who poses such a question is worthy to dine at my table. Any man who answers such a question is a fool.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by LeHah

Any man who poses such a question is worthy to dine at my table. Any man who answers such a question is a fool.

I don't know how you could answer that question without making yourself utterly asinine.

Though I imagine we've made this thread theoretical enough for the moment. I almost feel I should just blurt out "The Big Lebowski" to make it seem more legitimate.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Sometimes I wish my school had better theory classes so I could fit into this conversation more... Oh well, they taught me how to make films pretty damn well, and that's good enough for me.



This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by Denicalis

I almost feel I should just blurt out "The Big Lebowski" to make it seem more legitimate.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

I'm going to say Hitchcock.

Most of the serious movies in the last 20 or so years and those particularly from Hollywood try to go for some grandiose, existential, philosophic theme. They often utilise clever script writing to interweave stories and are very deliberate almost to the point of being forensic in their use of symbols and metaphors. I don't have anything against that, however I find it distracting when I'm searching for extraneous meanings rather than concentrating on the story.

My personal preference is for movies that tell about everyday mundane life. A simple story told with honesty, no tricks or gimmicks, that's not forced in it's delivery or attempts to underline it's themes, has most meaning to me. I can think of one movie that I've watched lately that fits that bill: Whisper of the Heart (1995) by Yoshifumi Kondo. I was surprised actually by how much I enjoyed it.

As for Hitchcock, he's changed the way I see movies. He's so original and unorthodox. I love how how he builds up the tension. The red herrings he throws at us. You're really kept guessing until the sudden denouement and he often finishes it abruptly so that it's up to the viewer to imagine / discuss the epilogue. I also like how he uses unusually colourful and varied backdrops - most thriller / detective films are quite serious and visually dark/dull. Hitchcock instead goes for beauty, colour and humour which I find incredibly charming.

I was speaking idiomatically.

I would say "The Butterfly Effect". Think it makes you appreciate what you have and the decisions you make in the present more. I saw it once and I remember nearly every scene in the thing...Which is very rare for any movie I see nowadays.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally Posted by Goldfish from Hell

I would say "The Butterfly Effect". Think it makes you appreciate what you have and the decisions you make in the present more. I saw it once and I remember nearly every scene in the thing...Which is very rare for any movie I see nowadays.

This post really proves my point.

How ya doing, buddy?