http://deichen.us/blog1 Images enter your head, become indistinguishable from reality, and acquire a convinction independent of reason. Mon, 19 Apr 2010 17:25:05 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Thomas Merton paraphrasing Hegel: History--the judgment not of intentions only, nor of consequences only, but of the measure in ... http://deichen.us/blog1/2010/04/19/outliving-the-wreckage/ From Thomas Merton's A Vow of Conversation: “The artist who recognizes and loves his own style to the great damage of his work, the style being imagined as himself. At this point he begins to know and will his style, as it were, without contact with the world outside, whereas, in ... http://deichen.us/blog1/2010/04/18/film-style-without-communication/ I should have no desire to watch a film that stylizes violence for visual pleasure, nor glorifies violence as something to emulate. In the physical world I live in, I have been exposed to: a bloody woman at my back gate asking for help after appearing to have been raped, ... http://deichen.us/blog1/2010/04/09/film-violence-language-warning/ Even the marked fluttering of the projector seemed to enhance the movie experience as DiCaprio drew deep from his seemingly fathomless depths of acting chops, and Scorsese deftly arrayed both familiar riffs (his ubiquitously present steadicam shot circling a stationary subject) and novel hooks (perhaps the longest and most realistically ... http://deichen.us/blog1/2010/04/06/shutter-island-4210/ When Quentin Tarantino repositions the classic Hollywood hero into a fantasy re-inscribing of humanity's moral failure during World War II, he encourages the spectator of Inglourious Basterds to withdraw from the problematic ethical responsibility that is implied in our own history as participants. It is in this fantasy avoidance of ... http://deichen.us/blog1/2010/04/02/green-zone-32610/ Effective film trade-craft involves supporting the text of the narrative with the conventions used to physically make the film, such as the choice to use handheld camera work to reinforce the idea of a chaotic or unstable story world. In the case of The Ghost Writer, the reverse is happening ... http://deichen.us/blog1/2010/04/02/the-ghost-writer-31010/ If mainstream American cinema resembles an illicit drug, in that it is an incredibly powerful, high-stimulus substance that occupies the mind while simultaneously fomenting passivity, then Hollywood is the prototypical pusher, vending an overpriced product without regard for the long-term effects that habitual users encounter. And if a simple representation ... http://deichen.us/blog1/2010/04/02/crazy-heart-3310/ If the right-wing complaints against Avatar are true, that the film makes an explicit statement against colonial militarism and wanton, conspicuous consumption of natural resources while attempting to violently dominate a native culture, then the implicit statement made within the film-- that the native culture is best served by a ... http://deichen.us/blog1/2010/02/09/avatar-2810/ Are the flight attendants stationed in the front of the aircraft more attractive than the ones in the back? Is the aircraft choreographed the way one might imagine a stage would be in a corporate "theater in the cylinder", with the physically gorgeous actors performing in what would be considered "downstage", ... http://deichen.us/blog1/2010/02/04/corporate-theater-in-the-cylinder/ If an actual, physical, American road is the most apt symbol for the trajectory of United States culture and civilization, from Lewis and Clark's pragmatic and disciplined forging across the North American continent, to Jack Kerouac's open road of modern bohemianism, then the film The Road symbolically plots that trajectory ... http://deichen.us/blog1/2009/11/27/the-road-112609/