'Words of love in broken English
Have a lonesome tone'
- Phoenix, '(You can't blame it on) anybody'
The Ball on Friday night turned out to be rather painful, but then I guess what did I really expect? The venue was inpropitious (is this a word?) to social interaction, the meal disappointing, and the backless beauties all ten years my junior. I did a little flirting with the secretary from my department. This followed the usual pattern: I wowed her with my knowledge of astrology; she tried to convince me she was depressed.
Someone at my table came out with the old line about 'everyone' being shy. If this is true, it seems to me that 'everyone' is also depressed: those who appear happy and buoyant are merely doing a better job of concealing their hurt than the rest of us. But, if 'everyone' is shy and 'everyone' is depressed, then these words cease to have any appreciable meaning.
Saturday went to see Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
Charlie Kaufman represents everything that is wrong with contemporary Hollywood. Discuss.
Across his films - and I'm taking Kaufman as screenwriter-auteur here: Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (note the signficantly recurring word) - Charlie Kaufman has presented us with a series of images of the mind-as-labyrinth allowing for a number of pseud-experimental narrative pirouettes. My question is: what motivates these images? Is it a celebration of the terrifying power of the mind in and for itself, a la Deleuze? Is it a desire to make the world a better place for such minds to develop and deploy themselves? Or is is simply a desire to make a lot of money out of Hollywood? I'm inclined to think the latter, and Hollywood is merely too short-sighted to realize that Eternal Sunshine is simply an inside-out replica of Alejandro Amenabar's Abre los ojos (1997), itself already (badly) remade in Hollywood as Vanilla Sky (2001).
In fact, Eternal Sunshine constitutes a rather sweet love story with some terrific dialogue, and all the mind-fuckery tends only to get in the way. But it exists in a culture in which love and life are not considered of sufficient value in themselves. In this context, the quotation from Nietzsche that recurs pointedly in the film comes across as something of an insult...
Saturday night: friends' engagement party (and all the straights are getting engaged now: it's like they're desperately bunkering down for the long nuclear winter of middle age). Present are two young women whom I've recently pursued without success and another with whom I had some misguided comfort sex around three years ago. Two of these women are here with their new boyfriends, the third fails to meet my eye all night. Instead, I do my best to flirt with a crazily intense guy in a tight ribbed T-shirt who insists on expounding his theory that the essence of romance is 'secret self-sacrifice' (sounds a little like something he got out of a self-help book).
Sorry to sound so negative, it's been a long weekend.
Otherwise I spent most of it reading Deleuze and Guattari's Qu'est-ce que la philosophie? which proved, unsurprisingly, inspirational.
Have a lonesome tone'
- Phoenix, '(You can't blame it on) anybody'
The Ball on Friday night turned out to be rather painful, but then I guess what did I really expect? The venue was inpropitious (is this a word?) to social interaction, the meal disappointing, and the backless beauties all ten years my junior. I did a little flirting with the secretary from my department. This followed the usual pattern: I wowed her with my knowledge of astrology; she tried to convince me she was depressed.
Someone at my table came out with the old line about 'everyone' being shy. If this is true, it seems to me that 'everyone' is also depressed: those who appear happy and buoyant are merely doing a better job of concealing their hurt than the rest of us. But, if 'everyone' is shy and 'everyone' is depressed, then these words cease to have any appreciable meaning.
Saturday went to see Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
Charlie Kaufman represents everything that is wrong with contemporary Hollywood. Discuss.
Across his films - and I'm taking Kaufman as screenwriter-auteur here: Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (note the signficantly recurring word) - Charlie Kaufman has presented us with a series of images of the mind-as-labyrinth allowing for a number of pseud-experimental narrative pirouettes. My question is: what motivates these images? Is it a celebration of the terrifying power of the mind in and for itself, a la Deleuze? Is it a desire to make the world a better place for such minds to develop and deploy themselves? Or is is simply a desire to make a lot of money out of Hollywood? I'm inclined to think the latter, and Hollywood is merely too short-sighted to realize that Eternal Sunshine is simply an inside-out replica of Alejandro Amenabar's Abre los ojos (1997), itself already (badly) remade in Hollywood as Vanilla Sky (2001).
In fact, Eternal Sunshine constitutes a rather sweet love story with some terrific dialogue, and all the mind-fuckery tends only to get in the way. But it exists in a culture in which love and life are not considered of sufficient value in themselves. In this context, the quotation from Nietzsche that recurs pointedly in the film comes across as something of an insult...
Saturday night: friends' engagement party (and all the straights are getting engaged now: it's like they're desperately bunkering down for the long nuclear winter of middle age). Present are two young women whom I've recently pursued without success and another with whom I had some misguided comfort sex around three years ago. Two of these women are here with their new boyfriends, the third fails to meet my eye all night. Instead, I do my best to flirt with a crazily intense guy in a tight ribbed T-shirt who insists on expounding his theory that the essence of romance is 'secret self-sacrifice' (sounds a little like something he got out of a self-help book).
Sorry to sound so negative, it's been a long weekend.
Otherwise I spent most of it reading Deleuze and Guattari's Qu'est-ce que la philosophie? which proved, unsurprisingly, inspirational.
VIEW 3 of 3 COMMENTS
The story, or idea, has been told a thousand times before. So, a few more people get it this time. Nothing new under the sun? I don't know.
Have you seen Memento? What did you think? I loved it. This is the story that got this idea through to me. I have a history with the theatre so the whole non-linear thing is understood to me. I very much like abstractions in all their forms (or non-forms as the case may be.) What can you tell me about the non-linear story line and abstractions, o' wise one?
I haven't seen Eternal Sunshine yet. Hmmm.
All of my straight acquaintances have already hunkered down or are going through divorces.