Film or Fetish? YOU decide.

I've been meaning to work this out, but never quite got around to it. I like movies, a lot. Always have. (There was a falling-out once, but we've made up since then.) And of course it becomes something I think about when I get the chance, which isn't often these days. So this is just trying out some thoughts...

I've had several conversations with folks who will say things like "I don't like war films" or "Drama's stupid, I like comedies." Those kinds of statements never used to make me wonder, but now they do.

"Why?" you ask. Because it seems to me that they are basically saying they have no interest in film. What I mean by this is that they're more interested in a certain kind of movie than in the medium of film itself. If they were interested in the medium, they would want to know what could be done with it - in terms of writing, or cinematography, etc. - in any genre whatsoever. They'd read up on film, take a class. Some do, but many don't. So they prefer this form of the art, not the art itself.

(I'm not talking here about conditioned, negative repulsions. Some people are highly sensitive to violence, and avoid films with a lot of it. I respect that. It's a separate matter that is up to the individual to address. What I'm talking about here is a positive attraction to some genres and indifference to others.)

Now here's where it gets a little tougher for me, because I risk stepping on people's toes. Movies, whatever they deal with, if they have anything to say, say something about the human condition. That goes for your slasher flicks as well as the musicals. If they didn't, there wouldn't be anything interesting in them except the medium itself. Even your animal adventures speak to man, by showing our kinship to the animals. So, in limiting your moviegoing to a few genres, you limit the dialogue that's occurring in the darkened theater.

Also, people tend anymore to identify themselves with their interests. (This is especially true with music.) Some people, when they say they like comedies, tend to be talking about themselves - "I have a good sense of humor, I like to laugh,..." It's the "Soundtrack of Your Life" syndrome: the music for who I am, the movie that expresses me. Le film, c'est moi.

And now for the real toe-stepping: I can think of no other word for this than fetishism. If you say you like movies but you only like certain kinds, that's a fetish. Which, by that logic, would mean there's a whole of fetish going on. (I'm not talking here about conditioned repulsions. Some people are highly sensitive to violence, and avoid films with a lot of it. That is a separate matter that is up to the individual to answer for him/herself. What I'm talking about here is an attraction to some genres and indifference to others.)

"You self-righteous bastard! You think you're better than us?" Am I above this fetishism? Am I saying that I am holier than thou, who callest thyself a moviegoer? In terms of film, yes - but I've got my own fetishes in other departments. Music, for instance: I've got definite tastes there, though little by little I'm trying to get over them. Reggae, for example, I just can't listen to it. But it's very popular, and there are great names in there, so it speaks to many people. So my theory is equally identifying a weak spot in moi-self, even while it's talking about movies.

"So why are you posting this? is it somehow timely or relevant to the news?" No, I just wanted to know what you thought about it. Comments and criticisms are all welcome. Dear readers, both of you and your thoughts matter to me.

Addendum: It might be objected that folks are simply unaware of the medium, which is why they have no interest in it. To some extent I can agree, but the degree of self-consciousness within the media makes this claim hard to uphold. The Simpsons is unbelievably ironic and metacritical. Film in particular has long made movies about...making movies; Singin' in the Rain comes to mind, or Borat today. Or little reminders that jolt us out of the genre - The English Patient, when Kristin Scott Thomas bangs her head against a low beam in a room, and breaks the romantic spell that has been set up to that point. Or the brilliant machine-gun shot in Miller's Crossing - yeah, the one where Albert Finney seems to make a day filling one guy full of lead. The outtakes at the end of every Jackie Chan flick. All these things remind us: "This is film, you guys."

And you know damn well it's going to come out on DVD - most likely with the extra features, including "The Making of ___," which are so obviously planned into the whole production from the beginning! When filmmakers themselves exploit this sort of meta-comment regularly, isn't it hard not to notice it yourself? Or have they effectively buried the message?

(Image involuntarily donated by http://cubeme.com/blog/?s=lynch&x=0&y=0)

Stupidity Running Ramthant

This sort of rant shouldn't have to be written. It's been done before I-don't-know-how-many times, by I-don't-know-how-many better thinkers than me.

If there's one thing that pisses me off, it's New Age claptrap. Let me rephrase that: it pisses me off when New Age claptrap claims to be somehow superior to contemporary science. In reality, such talk often betrays a complete misunderstanding of science. What's especially disturbing about it is its popularity, sort of a Scientology Lite.

Case in point: Water, a documentary film about the substance. In the trailer, our announcer tells us (in deep, dramatic tones, of course) about how essential water is for life and how we the people have so many different uses for it. True enough. But - and here's where the credibility gap yawns wider than the Grand Canyon - he informs us that water "acts outside all physical laws of nature." (Seek to 1:00 if you don't believe me.)

Acts outside all physical laws of nature? Holy Trevi fountain, Batman! You're playing with fire! It's such an obvious fallacy, I'd be surprised if nobody pointed it out.

Have the filmmakers ever heard of fluid mechanics? Apparently not.

Do they have a perspective on what "physical laws of nature" means? Nope. Physical laws are those regularities which govern the behavior of matter. It's the way things are - nature.

Water is about as natural as can be: hydrogen, oxygen. Physical elements. And the relations among the atoms are as common as can be. You can find this stuff in any chemistry book. True, water does have remarkable properties, but supernatural? Come on! If you really believe water defies all physical laws, you don't know anything about fluid mechanics (see above), you haven't opened your eyes to the plain facts around you, and you probably also think bumblebees defy the laws of aerodynamics.

Do the filmmakers understand what science is all about? Not in the least. To say water acts outside all physical laws is to presuppose we understand everything there is to know about physics. But we don't. If you think science is a finished product, think again. Science is a form of inquiry, making rigorous use of the same forms of reasoning that every human being has in their noggin. It is not the body of knowledge that results from inquiry, it is the process itself. What that means is knowledge evolves over time. Einstein's theories of relativity - do they overturn science? Of course not, they're products of scientific inquiry. And that inquiry is highly rigorous, not to beat you down but to identify and test factors of an event.

What this means is, science generally takes baby steps. That manifests itself in at least two ways. (a) Relatively slow progress. Those baby steps may accumulate in a giant leap forward in an overall theory, but you can't forgo the baby steps on that account. We're making much more progress now than before, but that's because we've honed the technique, we're training to do research, and doing a lot more of it now than before. Oh yeah, and we've got more people to do it - overpopulation has its upside. (b) Relative ignorance. We don't know the half about the physical universe. Seasoned scientists are painfully aware of this, which is why they keep doing research.

So - is water a wonderful substance? Yes. Has it got strange properties? Sure. Is it magical? I don't think so. The hyperbolic gobbledygook that productions such as Water purvey is the kind of thing that makes scientists look kind of laughable, when they deserve a lot of respect. I don't deny that there is a mystical dimension to scientific inquiry - far from it, I think science does bring us closer to huge questions of cosmological and theological import. I'm simply annoyed when somebody reads a few pop-science books and concludes that they know What It's All About. It pisses me off that they think their armchair's a better place to see these things than in the trenches. That's pretty damn arrogant.

Think I'm exaggerating? These are the same folks who made the annoyingly-titled What the Bleep Do We Know!?, and they're members of Ramtha's school of enlightenment. What do we know? Well, sit back and let Ramtha tell you.

What does our friend Ramtha say? "You are God."
What do I say? "That is Horseshit."

"God" is a highly vague name, and there are numerous ways to interpret it, but it's practically impossible to avoid the sense of somehow being superior to all else. What's a God worth if (s)he can't beat Mother Nature? If the filmmakers are going to attribute supernatural powers to water, how much more to themselves?

"Oh, but it's not just us; you too are God." Of course!

See? I make water!

Dude, spare me; calling any one of us God - calling all of us God, for that matter - is an insult to God.

Interlude - Cheap thrills

I love it when some of my favorite things come together - in this case, Youtube, Pan Sonic, and images like you see on the inside of your eyes when you close them. I'm not sure if it's a fan video, but it fits the music and is well done. Enjoy.