Thanks for your comment, Waqar. The Banshees of Inisherin? I did see it, but after I sent this post--I had mixed feelings about it, to be honest. I think the performances were very good. The other new one I caught up with right after sending this installment was The Eternal Daughter, which I really loved. Maybe my favorite of the past year, so far. What were some of your other favorites?
I viewed nowhere as much as I should have in the past year because of an issue which is kinda similar to what you've described in your post. My basic problem (in life, really) is that as I'm growing older I'm perceiving all kinds of hustling/ambition/hard work as gauche. I don't know why is it, though. I hope I figure it out sooner because, again, as you've described it, surely all this consumption of supposedly superior art must amount to something, no? I think - no, I *know* I can produce something to push the Hegelian consciousness further. I just don't know how, sadly.
I still have to see three of those - White Noise I admit I'm hesitant about (and though I've read the book I don't remember much of it at this point), and I haven't had a lot of luck getting on the same wavelength as the SEL filmmakers before so we'll see how De humani corporis fabrica goes. Might try to catch Decision to Leave within the next few weeks, hopefully!
Re: producing something to push the Hegelian consciousness further - what kinds of projects have you done (or even dabbled with) before, and what do you dream of doing ... if you had time and resources?
I really wish I had enough to show for, and this reminds me again of my issue of not working hard enough to write and produce more. I am working on one story with the following logline for a short film: When a screenwriter suffers from a severe writer's block, he starts dreaming regularly about a girl and falls in love with her, which finally gives him something to write about. A very amateurish idea, done to death, I admit, but I really needed something to kick-start my writing process, and what better subjects for a young writer to mull over than writer's block and love.
The other idea, the most important one I've ever had perhaps, is the idea of a play-within-a-film-within-a-film. On the surface, the film is about the stupid decisions of a person who decides to hire some actors to accomplish her target but everything goes south when one of the hired actors (who's highly sentimental) loses his grip on his role and goes full wacko (cf. Mitsuo Yanagimachi). The play within the film is pretty much the same as Pynchon's play in THE CRYING OF LOT 49. The film's a revenge story, echoing my personal belief of art as revenge. It's incredibly (and maybe stupidly) ambitious, but, hey, art is art, right?
I also have an idea about a godless guy in a conservative society trying to struggle against his parents' decision of getting him married (what did you say? sounds autobiographical? that's 'cause it is). Lastly, I have a lot of poststructural ideas (think J.O. Incandenza's filmography in INFINITE JEST).
I've never finished anything. I've only dreamt. I just hope I don't take like 5 or 10 years, like some writers, to finish writing something good. And but then so it would also be very insincere of me to say that I don't have enough time or resources. I have everything, and I'm thankful. I just lack that hustler mentality, even though that mentality I've always shat upon, lol. Just need someone of my personality type to smack some sense into me. (Life's terrible, man. It shows you beautiful dreams and possibilities
I would to hear about your ideas, too, if you feel comfortable to share.
Thanks for sharing! The value of a lot of these ideas, even if they might remain unfinished or unrealized, or if they turn into different projects altogether, is that the activity crystallizes your own mental and emotional path--and who even knows what references & influences you *don't* consciously realize about your own work ... the same goes for any of us.
Re: the hustler mentality, some people will point out that too much free time can be counterproductive. I can certainly feel it myself; on those uncommon occasions when I have a totally free day, I almost never spend it doing something constructive. There's a delicate balance to be achieved between waste and production, and between activity & idleness. A hustler attitude might be what a person lacks, or maybe a different orientation to the habit of producing might give you what you're looking for. That's what I'm trying to do myself, more--just focus on the habit, not the product. Let the byproducts of the habit be my product.
As for my own ideas, well, I think/hope some of these will filter out and manifest through this newsletter over time, as well as other places ...
Loved this post - thanks Zach. Is the term "unspectacular publics" your own coining? Either way, it gets at something I have been struggling to articulate (to myself and sometimes to a few friends) about how my chosen path, filmmaking, seems hopelessly divorced from the normal, humane process of making art primarily of and for one's own local, rooted community (normal, that is, to every age prior to modern technocratic society). If one wants to be a filmmaker today, such a desire comes pre-loaded with assumptions and desires for a certain trajectory that ends in 'success' i.e. wide viewership, festival approval, financial windfall, etc. How do we creatively encourage and affirm the value of 'unspectacular publics' when so many of our own desires and culturally embedded messages, especially those of success in the most maximal sense, play serpent in the garden?
Thank you, Nathan. I guess I might have coined "unspectacular publics," but if so, only because it's some impressionistic daubing of others' thoughts: I often like to sit in between proper Debordian theory of the spectacle and the more colloquial meanings of the word, for instance, and as for publics, well, there are a lot of thinkers (like Michael Warner) who could be cited there. But in a sense I want to gesture toward something that I think is what you're describing: a certain form of turning away from a certain structure of the world (or maybe it is just 'the world,' with its focus on success/power/quantity)? But not as a retreat, not as a brand - i.e. we're looking for MacIntyre territory, not Dreher! Amateurism, autonomy, localism, ephemerality, craft - these are all ideas or paradigms that can be useful to us ...
Kinda scary how much I relate with the views in this post. Z., I'm surprised you didn't even mention THE BANSHEES. Haven't you watched it yet?
Thanks for your comment, Waqar. The Banshees of Inisherin? I did see it, but after I sent this post--I had mixed feelings about it, to be honest. I think the performances were very good. The other new one I caught up with right after sending this installment was The Eternal Daughter, which I really loved. Maybe my favorite of the past year, so far. What were some of your other favorites?
My top 5 of the year are as follows:
5. TÁR
4. White Noise
3. Decision to Leave
2. De humani corporis fabrica
1. The Banshees of Inisherin
I viewed nowhere as much as I should have in the past year because of an issue which is kinda similar to what you've described in your post. My basic problem (in life, really) is that as I'm growing older I'm perceiving all kinds of hustling/ambition/hard work as gauche. I don't know why is it, though. I hope I figure it out sooner because, again, as you've described it, surely all this consumption of supposedly superior art must amount to something, no? I think - no, I *know* I can produce something to push the Hegelian consciousness further. I just don't know how, sadly.
I still have to see three of those - White Noise I admit I'm hesitant about (and though I've read the book I don't remember much of it at this point), and I haven't had a lot of luck getting on the same wavelength as the SEL filmmakers before so we'll see how De humani corporis fabrica goes. Might try to catch Decision to Leave within the next few weeks, hopefully!
Re: producing something to push the Hegelian consciousness further - what kinds of projects have you done (or even dabbled with) before, and what do you dream of doing ... if you had time and resources?
I really wish I had enough to show for, and this reminds me again of my issue of not working hard enough to write and produce more. I am working on one story with the following logline for a short film: When a screenwriter suffers from a severe writer's block, he starts dreaming regularly about a girl and falls in love with her, which finally gives him something to write about. A very amateurish idea, done to death, I admit, but I really needed something to kick-start my writing process, and what better subjects for a young writer to mull over than writer's block and love.
The other idea, the most important one I've ever had perhaps, is the idea of a play-within-a-film-within-a-film. On the surface, the film is about the stupid decisions of a person who decides to hire some actors to accomplish her target but everything goes south when one of the hired actors (who's highly sentimental) loses his grip on his role and goes full wacko (cf. Mitsuo Yanagimachi). The play within the film is pretty much the same as Pynchon's play in THE CRYING OF LOT 49. The film's a revenge story, echoing my personal belief of art as revenge. It's incredibly (and maybe stupidly) ambitious, but, hey, art is art, right?
I also have an idea about a godless guy in a conservative society trying to struggle against his parents' decision of getting him married (what did you say? sounds autobiographical? that's 'cause it is). Lastly, I have a lot of poststructural ideas (think J.O. Incandenza's filmography in INFINITE JEST).
I've never finished anything. I've only dreamt. I just hope I don't take like 5 or 10 years, like some writers, to finish writing something good. And but then so it would also be very insincere of me to say that I don't have enough time or resources. I have everything, and I'm thankful. I just lack that hustler mentality, even though that mentality I've always shat upon, lol. Just need someone of my personality type to smack some sense into me. (Life's terrible, man. It shows you beautiful dreams and possibilities
I would to hear about your ideas, too, if you feel comfortable to share.
Thanks for sharing! The value of a lot of these ideas, even if they might remain unfinished or unrealized, or if they turn into different projects altogether, is that the activity crystallizes your own mental and emotional path--and who even knows what references & influences you *don't* consciously realize about your own work ... the same goes for any of us.
Re: the hustler mentality, some people will point out that too much free time can be counterproductive. I can certainly feel it myself; on those uncommon occasions when I have a totally free day, I almost never spend it doing something constructive. There's a delicate balance to be achieved between waste and production, and between activity & idleness. A hustler attitude might be what a person lacks, or maybe a different orientation to the habit of producing might give you what you're looking for. That's what I'm trying to do myself, more--just focus on the habit, not the product. Let the byproducts of the habit be my product.
As for my own ideas, well, I think/hope some of these will filter out and manifest through this newsletter over time, as well as other places ...
Loved this post - thanks Zach. Is the term "unspectacular publics" your own coining? Either way, it gets at something I have been struggling to articulate (to myself and sometimes to a few friends) about how my chosen path, filmmaking, seems hopelessly divorced from the normal, humane process of making art primarily of and for one's own local, rooted community (normal, that is, to every age prior to modern technocratic society). If one wants to be a filmmaker today, such a desire comes pre-loaded with assumptions and desires for a certain trajectory that ends in 'success' i.e. wide viewership, festival approval, financial windfall, etc. How do we creatively encourage and affirm the value of 'unspectacular publics' when so many of our own desires and culturally embedded messages, especially those of success in the most maximal sense, play serpent in the garden?
Thank you, Nathan. I guess I might have coined "unspectacular publics," but if so, only because it's some impressionistic daubing of others' thoughts: I often like to sit in between proper Debordian theory of the spectacle and the more colloquial meanings of the word, for instance, and as for publics, well, there are a lot of thinkers (like Michael Warner) who could be cited there. But in a sense I want to gesture toward something that I think is what you're describing: a certain form of turning away from a certain structure of the world (or maybe it is just 'the world,' with its focus on success/power/quantity)? But not as a retreat, not as a brand - i.e. we're looking for MacIntyre territory, not Dreher! Amateurism, autonomy, localism, ephemerality, craft - these are all ideas or paradigms that can be useful to us ...