Hearing these reflections in your voice gives a distance not usually present when watching violence, real or simulated. Film and video invite us to relish the acts depicted; a voice is dispassionate. Which medium gives the greater clarity; expresses the greater truth? It's a query that raises issues of an almost talmudic intricacy, comparable to that classic conundrum "Which is the greater evil; to steal by day or by night?" Bravo, anyway. I great start.
I'd be curious to delve into the history of radio and the ways in which violence was depicted vocally back then ... a fascinating thought. Since at least the time of gladiators we've been scratching the itch until it bleeds ... it's one I can't seem to shake and I thought naming it might help. Thanks for the kind words friend. See you on the Mean Parisian Streets (tomorrow)
Funny enough, I just watched CIVIL WAR myself and I'm recapping it in this Friday's newsletter. I liked it overall, but found the writing/world-building to be severely lacking.
As American as apple pie indeed, and in this da I'd venture to guess as many people know how to make apple pies as they can assemble an AR-15.
Fair critique of CIVIL WAR, I actually loved that they didn't over-explain what was happening lest one side of the political spectrum co-opted it as a "warning" about the other.
I understood the intent, for sure, but for my money they should’ve distanced themselves more from “near-future” America and leaned harder into abstraction and surrealism.
I’ll have more to say in my post, but overall recommend the film.
That's quite the jazzy tune. Soon Trump shall return to a reality where he only exists in the television. A telereality, if you will. And then he can eat all the dogs he likes.
Though you are young enough to be my youngest son, I find we are intrigued/troubled by the same things and think similarly. These musings on violence and the complicity of the bystander have much in common with my own plaints and feelings of impotence as violence whelms us and then becomes normalized. After a recent Georgia school shooting, a state legislator insisted the solution is not addressing the gun virus epidemic but hardening the schools. That is, he said without saying, normalize gun violence in our children's lives and plan for it by turning schools into citadels. So sad.
I will look with interest for your followup to this post in which you explore the conflation of sex & violence in so much of the entertainment and imagery we are exposed to. And I look forward to our eventual meeting in Paris for my tour(s).
Thank you for these words David. Each time I return to the US I can't help but notice it, partly because there are so many TVs everywhere, even if you don't have one at home (restaurants and bars have always seemed to be extensions of a living room for many).
I love the thought of an essay about the conflation of sex & violence in the metamodern era. I should (re)read some Barthes first. Maybe some Sontag, too. Stand by.
Samuel - before your essay, I had no interest in the movie Civil War. On its surface, it seemed exactly the wrong story to be telling the emboldened militia patroling our disunited streets, regardless of whatever Garland's intended moral might be. But after reading your comments here, I was compelled to watch.
Unfortunately, I did not have the same experience of the film as you. I found its lack of context made the violence not only banal but gratuitous, and its treatment of the role of combat photojournalists as adrenilin-junkie thrill seekers whose job a sixteen-year-old can do (Dunst's lifeless amoralistic portryal of a burnout notwithstanding) was trivialising. And don't get me started on the inane ending that is less concerned with what's next for the North American continent than with the furture of the neophyte's developing schadenfreude.
Perhaps the most disturbing and meaningful aspect of this film is that Garland sees the motivation for the succession and resulting warfare as presumed; that it is a natural playing out of current events that needs no further context. Tragic and so dispiritingly cynical. I'm curious what you felt you may have missed or underappreciated that you were compelled to watch it three times?
I applaud your willingness to watch Civil War even though you sensed it wasn't for you. Something something, at least you gave it a shot.
Of course, your opinion is not wrong, and I can see how the lack of narrative appears to reveal a gratuitous bent. To that, I'd mostly say it was a mirror image of this day and age, which is filled with gratuitous violence, but usually for some profit-based narrative. If I found Civil War refreshing it's because there is no point to the story except, probably, not to let young professionals into your car?The fact that we wish a film about an American civil war had some moral compass says more about us than it does about the film, I think. And while I agree that the ending was a missed opportunity, that's why we're artists, so we can try and do it better.
Finally, Garland's cynicism ... I'm an absurdist at my most optimistic so the cynicism didn't really bother me. But I do think there's something important about the angle: given how much violence we are fed with the 24 hr news cycle, it's curious that we look to film to provide a reprieve or escape from the cynicism that surrounds us rather than a magnifier glass. I for one felt the pacing of the film and the way it was shot made it one of the most entertaining films in recent memory, particularly BECAUSE it is so violent in a realist, visceral way ... the happy ending is only a happy ending for the cynics, and that makes sense to me. Maybe it's too meta, but I'm a fan of the meta, as you know. In any case, it's an inspiring dialogue and I thank you for it!
I knew there must have been a good reason why I woke up at 3:00AM today; your thoughtful reply hit my inbox. LOL Thank you. Not for waking me up, but for your response. I'll try not to belabor but a couple of things come to mind.
First, Walt Whitman on the importance of a literature "underlying life, religious, consistent with science, handling the elements and forces with competent power, teaching and training men" to a vital democracy. He extends these criteria - as I would, particularly in this age of video games/movies/music cross-pollination - to other media stating: "The literature, songs, esthetics, &c., of a country are of importance principally because they furnish the materials and suggestions of personality for the women and men of that country, and enforce them in a thousand effective ways."
I have no problem with meta (The Requisitions remains on my desk with bookmarks), nor do I believe that the arts (if an expression in any media aspires to being art) should be expected to provide a reprieve/escape from the world of humankind as it is. (That's the role of entertainment.) However, my question when encountering any work that requests my time and serious attention is always "What's the point?" I'm like a child asking a parent "Why?" And if the answer is "Because I say so." or "There is no point; that's the point." then I, like a curious child, consider that a problem.
The second thing is the unfortunate allure of lowercase cynicism. Antisthenes's virtue-based uppercase Cynicism is hopeful albeit distrustful of human institutions. Modern day cynicism retains only the distrust, extending it to humans by association with their institutions, without offering an alternative. It is nihilism-lite. IMHO the contemporary cynic's greatest fear is that they will be proved right. If Garland's work can be said to have artistic merit, perhaps it can be found in the expression of this fear. But even with that concession, my question remains, to what end? Give me context and a point of view.
American English could also be considered more violent with everyday idioms. For example, “I’d kill for,” “bite the bullet,” “take a stab at it,” “twist your arm,” etc.
Oh bingo. The semiotics of violence in the metamodern entertainment industry would be a fascinating investigation. I've always thought of the casual colonialism/imperialism inherent to saying "America" versus the "United States" (something I still do often and can't seem to shake). It's that classic question of language being a window or a cage ... I really should buck up and venture into Wittgenstein.
I’m in Japan right now. One thing I love about Japan is that I never, ever feel like anyone is sizing me up. In the US, there is an undercurrent of potential violence that I often feel from other dudes. That’s absent in Japan.
Excellent essay!
Merci mon amie
So agree! Very spot on.
Hearing these reflections in your voice gives a distance not usually present when watching violence, real or simulated. Film and video invite us to relish the acts depicted; a voice is dispassionate. Which medium gives the greater clarity; expresses the greater truth? It's a query that raises issues of an almost talmudic intricacy, comparable to that classic conundrum "Which is the greater evil; to steal by day or by night?" Bravo, anyway. I great start.
I'd be curious to delve into the history of radio and the ways in which violence was depicted vocally back then ... a fascinating thought. Since at least the time of gladiators we've been scratching the itch until it bleeds ... it's one I can't seem to shake and I thought naming it might help. Thanks for the kind words friend. See you on the Mean Parisian Streets (tomorrow)
“It's funny how the colors of the real world only seem really real when you watch them on a screen.”
- A Clockwork Orange
It's about time for a rewatch of that ole chestnut. Looking forward to having you back in the land good sir.
Violence is as American as apple pie.
Funny enough, I just watched CIVIL WAR myself and I'm recapping it in this Friday's newsletter. I liked it overall, but found the writing/world-building to be severely lacking.
As American as apple pie indeed, and in this da I'd venture to guess as many people know how to make apple pies as they can assemble an AR-15.
Fair critique of CIVIL WAR, I actually loved that they didn't over-explain what was happening lest one side of the political spectrum co-opted it as a "warning" about the other.
I understood the intent, for sure, but for my money they should’ve distanced themselves more from “near-future” America and leaned harder into abstraction and surrealism.
I’ll have more to say in my post, but overall recommend the film.
😋🙀🐶 🎵🎵 they’re eating the cats. They’re eating the dogs. They’re eating the pets in Springfield.🎵🎵🎶
https://x.com/FearghasKelly/status/1833826081754808363
That's quite the jazzy tune. Soon Trump shall return to a reality where he only exists in the television. A telereality, if you will. And then he can eat all the dogs he likes.
Though you are young enough to be my youngest son, I find we are intrigued/troubled by the same things and think similarly. These musings on violence and the complicity of the bystander have much in common with my own plaints and feelings of impotence as violence whelms us and then becomes normalized. After a recent Georgia school shooting, a state legislator insisted the solution is not addressing the gun virus epidemic but hardening the schools. That is, he said without saying, normalize gun violence in our children's lives and plan for it by turning schools into citadels. So sad.
I will look with interest for your followup to this post in which you explore the conflation of sex & violence in so much of the entertainment and imagery we are exposed to. And I look forward to our eventual meeting in Paris for my tour(s).
Thank you for these words David. Each time I return to the US I can't help but notice it, partly because there are so many TVs everywhere, even if you don't have one at home (restaurants and bars have always seemed to be extensions of a living room for many).
I love the thought of an essay about the conflation of sex & violence in the metamodern era. I should (re)read some Barthes first. Maybe some Sontag, too. Stand by.
Samuel - before your essay, I had no interest in the movie Civil War. On its surface, it seemed exactly the wrong story to be telling the emboldened militia patroling our disunited streets, regardless of whatever Garland's intended moral might be. But after reading your comments here, I was compelled to watch.
Unfortunately, I did not have the same experience of the film as you. I found its lack of context made the violence not only banal but gratuitous, and its treatment of the role of combat photojournalists as adrenilin-junkie thrill seekers whose job a sixteen-year-old can do (Dunst's lifeless amoralistic portryal of a burnout notwithstanding) was trivialising. And don't get me started on the inane ending that is less concerned with what's next for the North American continent than with the furture of the neophyte's developing schadenfreude.
Perhaps the most disturbing and meaningful aspect of this film is that Garland sees the motivation for the succession and resulting warfare as presumed; that it is a natural playing out of current events that needs no further context. Tragic and so dispiritingly cynical. I'm curious what you felt you may have missed or underappreciated that you were compelled to watch it three times?
Good sir,
I applaud your willingness to watch Civil War even though you sensed it wasn't for you. Something something, at least you gave it a shot.
Of course, your opinion is not wrong, and I can see how the lack of narrative appears to reveal a gratuitous bent. To that, I'd mostly say it was a mirror image of this day and age, which is filled with gratuitous violence, but usually for some profit-based narrative. If I found Civil War refreshing it's because there is no point to the story except, probably, not to let young professionals into your car?The fact that we wish a film about an American civil war had some moral compass says more about us than it does about the film, I think. And while I agree that the ending was a missed opportunity, that's why we're artists, so we can try and do it better.
Finally, Garland's cynicism ... I'm an absurdist at my most optimistic so the cynicism didn't really bother me. But I do think there's something important about the angle: given how much violence we are fed with the 24 hr news cycle, it's curious that we look to film to provide a reprieve or escape from the cynicism that surrounds us rather than a magnifier glass. I for one felt the pacing of the film and the way it was shot made it one of the most entertaining films in recent memory, particularly BECAUSE it is so violent in a realist, visceral way ... the happy ending is only a happy ending for the cynics, and that makes sense to me. Maybe it's too meta, but I'm a fan of the meta, as you know. In any case, it's an inspiring dialogue and I thank you for it!
I knew there must have been a good reason why I woke up at 3:00AM today; your thoughtful reply hit my inbox. LOL Thank you. Not for waking me up, but for your response. I'll try not to belabor but a couple of things come to mind.
First, Walt Whitman on the importance of a literature "underlying life, religious, consistent with science, handling the elements and forces with competent power, teaching and training men" to a vital democracy. He extends these criteria - as I would, particularly in this age of video games/movies/music cross-pollination - to other media stating: "The literature, songs, esthetics, &c., of a country are of importance principally because they furnish the materials and suggestions of personality for the women and men of that country, and enforce them in a thousand effective ways."
I have no problem with meta (The Requisitions remains on my desk with bookmarks), nor do I believe that the arts (if an expression in any media aspires to being art) should be expected to provide a reprieve/escape from the world of humankind as it is. (That's the role of entertainment.) However, my question when encountering any work that requests my time and serious attention is always "What's the point?" I'm like a child asking a parent "Why?" And if the answer is "Because I say so." or "There is no point; that's the point." then I, like a curious child, consider that a problem.
The second thing is the unfortunate allure of lowercase cynicism. Antisthenes's virtue-based uppercase Cynicism is hopeful albeit distrustful of human institutions. Modern day cynicism retains only the distrust, extending it to humans by association with their institutions, without offering an alternative. It is nihilism-lite. IMHO the contemporary cynic's greatest fear is that they will be proved right. If Garland's work can be said to have artistic merit, perhaps it can be found in the expression of this fear. But even with that concession, my question remains, to what end? Give me context and a point of view.
Bonne journee, mon ami absurde.
American English could also be considered more violent with everyday idioms. For example, “I’d kill for,” “bite the bullet,” “take a stab at it,” “twist your arm,” etc.
Oh bingo. The semiotics of violence in the metamodern entertainment industry would be a fascinating investigation. I've always thought of the casual colonialism/imperialism inherent to saying "America" versus the "United States" (something I still do often and can't seem to shake). It's that classic question of language being a window or a cage ... I really should buck up and venture into Wittgenstein.
I’m in Japan right now. One thing I love about Japan is that I never, ever feel like anyone is sizing me up. In the US, there is an undercurrent of potential violence that I often feel from other dudes. That’s absent in Japan.
That sounds like an absolutely surreal feeling. In France there’s certainly plenary of agromale energy 😅