This fall I took a Social Theories class, which went over a bunch of the big names in sociological theory- including Marx, Gramsci, and Benjamin (as well as McLuhan, whom Corey has mentioned before- McLuhan is most famous for his idea of “the medium as the massage”).

I’m sure most of us have studied Marx in some form beginning in high school, but Gramsci, at least for me, remained unknown until this fall. Gramsci had a very interesting life, and because of his tumult, a very interesting perspective on social theory.

Gramsci was born to a poor family in Sardinia in the late 1800s. He was born with health problems, including a spine deformation, which doctors treated by hanging him upside down from the ceiling–he only grew to about five feet tall. Although most people from his town were illiterate, Gramsci earned a scholarship to the University of Turin. There, he founded a socialist newspaper that was a response to the growing socialist movement in Italy. The socialist party eventually folded into the communist party, and Gramsci was sent to Moscow as a representative of the Italian Communist party. While in Russia, Mussolini took over Italy with the Fascists and upon his return, Gramsci was arrested because as a communist he was viewed as a challenge to the Fascist regime. While in prison, Gramsci wrote his “prison notebooks”, which were written mostly in code, due to heavy censorship by the government and prison authorities. His notebooks were fragmentary thoughts that he eventually planned to create into a book, but he died in prison before his notes could be organized into a cohesive novel. Even so, his notebooks were published posthumously. They were snuck of out the prison by his sister-in-law, who knew the code words Gramsci used to speak about Marx, and other communist leaders. The notebooks outline his thoughts on why the Fascist party came to power, why the socialist revolution failed, and most importantly- what could the oppressed (subaltern) due to overthrow their oppressors (the hegemony).

Gramsci’s argument is complicated, and this is not made easier by the language he used to write his theories in order to avoid them being confiscated by prison guards. His basic argument, which I spoke briefly about in class, is this:

You have the hegemonic power (what Marx calls the bourgeoisie) and the subaltern (Marx’s proletariat). The hegemonic power maintains control of the subaltern either by force- what Gramsci calls “coercive power”, or spontaneous consent. Spontaneous consent is achieved when the hegemonic group convinces the subaltern that their lowly position in society is natural/deserved- Gramsci might say an example of this would be the “American Dream”, i.e. that anyone can succeed in American society if they pick themselves up by the bootstraps. This view, dictacted by those in power, clouds over the societal irregularities that perpetuate the wealth gap, keeping the “have-nots” poor in comparison to the “haves”, and instead places the blame on the “have-nots”.

Gramsci marries his theories of class struggle with culture via his theory of “folklore”. By folklore, Gramsci means pop-culture- the  music, film, advertisements, newspapers, etc. particular to a society. He sites folklore as the foundation of subaltern thought, that stands in opposition to “official” conceptions of the world- that being the ideology that the hegemonic power imposes on the subaltern. In layman’s terms: cultural expressions (pop-culture) are products of what the subaltern truly think and feel, without the total interference or censorship of the hegemony.

Gramsci narrows the idea of folklore further with his term “common sense”. Common sense is the cultural expressions particular to a certain time and people. Out of this common sense, there needs to be found “good sense”.

In order to explain good sense, it is first necessary to explain “organic intellectuals”. Organic intellectuals are people in society that are able to sift through the common sense of a particular society to find its oppositional characteristics (elements of culture that are counter-hegemonic). For example, an organic intellectual in present day American might read “The Hunger Games”, “Divergent”, or see the movie The Giver, and identify a common theme of oppression, or a desire to box people into categories which they are trapped in for their lifetimes. The recognition of the themes of oppression in culture would be “good sense”.

Having found good sense, it is the job of the organic intellectual to convince the rest of the subalterns of that society to rally against the hegemonic power in order to overthrow it. This is a long process, as all of society needs to be convinced of their “false consciousness” (that they have been presented a false reality by the hegemonic power, like the “American Dream” example). Unlike Marx, Gramsci did not think this was bound to happen, but thought under the right circumstances it was certainly possible.

This explanation does not do Gramsci any justice, and certaintly detracts from his argument by simplifying it so much…but he, along with Marx, are amazing intellectuals that are worth trying to understand.

And finally, to boil it down into the simplest terms possible:

You have the hegemonic power, and the subaltern. In order for the subaltern to escape their oppression, an organic intellectual from the subaltern group needs to sift through their society’s pop-culture, find cultural expressions that represent their lived reality, which stands in opposition to the ideologies the hegemonic power has been imposing on them, and unite all the other subalterns around the realization that they as a group are oppressed. Then the subalterns rise up and throw off the hegemonic power.

Once again, butchering Gramsci here but hopefully that provides some clarity!

The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility by Walter Benjamin is considered one of the most original and influential articles in the history of film criticism and theory. There was a lot that I took from his piece and I began to really agree with some of his points on how cinema has the technological ability to transform traditional art forms. One thing that I really liked to look more in depth at was sections ten and eleven (pgs. 238-240). These were the sections I was assigned in class and after reading them I really agreed with Benjamin. Basically the overall topic that these sections of the article discuss focus on actors and performances. Section ten discusses how test performance is an aspect of film production and film acting. He talks about the processes that have to be reproduced by film actors and how the film actor carries out an original performance for a “group of executives” instead of a stage actor who performs “in front of a randomly composed audience. ” He also compares film acting to sporting performances because they may at some point be intervened by a body of experts. Film gives actors the ability to exhibit test performances and gives these actors the opportunity to doing reshoots of scenes because they are performing in from of an apparatus, not a live audience.  For section eleven, Benjamin explains how the film and stage actor differ in performance. He writes “The stage actor identifies himself with a role. The film actor very often is denied this opportunity. His performance is by no means a unified whole, but is assembled from many individual performances.” What I think he is saying here is that a stage actor has one chance to get it right. There are no takes or edits in stage acting. If a stage actor doesn’t have enough expression in his face or voice it could derail the emotion of a performance. For film actors, they have the opportunity and tend to be more genuine in their actions and expressions. Also how film makers have the ability to mash all of these “individual performances” through editing. The edits that go into the finished project contain the most genuine and expressive shots that will help the film succeed. Walter Benjamin’s take on performances in film and on stage are I think very accurate analysis’. I really enjoyed reading about it because I am interested in acting and think its a good thing to read if one wants to be a film actor.

For week three so far we’ve read Benjamin’s The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibilty and Chapter 5 in UFT. Both of these I thought had a good class discussion that I may not have contributed to enough, so I thought I’d do so here, starting with Benjamin.

Chris and I were assigned to focus more on section VIII and IX (237,) which talked primarily about the “reproducibility” of ancient art vs. modern art. Benjamin writes that “Never before have artworks been technologically reproducible to such a degree and in such quantities as today.” Referring the fact that almost all art in modern times can be recreated. A movie is not shown once an discarded, it can go to VHS, DVD, and can be online as well. Reproduction is an incredibly important part of art now, which contrasts greatly with say, Ancient Greek art. Where works of art must embody the values of the time they were created in to form an accurate portrayal of the time, whereas film can be cataloged so easily to see the change in time. In addition to this, Benjamin writes that film can be improved in any desired way when ancient statues cannot be.  In section IX Benjamin writes about the impact photography had on art. Stating “the more fundamental question of whether the invention of photography had not transformed the entire character of art.” I think this even relates to the controlled accident in a way, as art was originally a metaphor for reality, when now it can be reality itself.

In chapter 5 of UTF, Marxism was discussed. I don’t know much about Marxism or comparative politics (I took a comparative politics course and we actually looked at Marxism a lot so that’s too bad) but I liked the connection that politics can have on the media industry. I guess a better way of saying that is it’s impressive what an impact it can have, not that I like it.

Nick Tassoni

I know this post may be a little late but after looking at some of my notes, I took during the screening, there are some things I want to weigh in on about the film. One thing I thought that the director, Tom Tykwer, did well was incorporate a lot of repetition in his shots and quick cuts to express a fast moving pace throughout the film. Many of the shots helped establish the sense that Lola was running out of time to save Manni and how fast she had to think and react to give her an advantage. One shot in particular is at the beginning of the movie when she is thinking of how she can help Manni and throws the telephone in the air. There are quick cuts between Lola and the flying telephone and right when she decides what to do the phone lands neatly on the hook. With the use of the types of cuts and repetition at the beginning of the film, the audience is able to get a good sense of pace for the rest of the movie. Another thing that struck me as important that I did not hear during our class discussion was the ending credits. Maybe I am thinking too far into it but I found it strange that they were backwards, meaning they ran from top to bottom. I have never seen that in a film before and was very curious as to why it was done that way? I hope that if someone is reading this they can give me their thoughts on the matter of why the director decided to do this.

“The most important social function of film is to establish equilibrium between human beings and the apparatus”

After a series of installments in an essay dedicated to “Art in the age of its technological reproducibility,” Benjamin arrives in the 16^th section to a point about a certain “equilibrium” between humans and the apparatus of film making.  What Benjamin ends up referring to here is the “insight into the necesseties governing our lives” that film can provide.  I found this to be a very interesting statement, especially with the specific examples that Benjamin uses – “…its use of close-ups, by its accentuation of hidden details in familiar objects, and by its exploration… through the ingenious guidance of the camera.”  Benjamin is drawing our attention to the very attention to detail that films provide us with.  It is a fact of viewership, and vitally important to theory arguments surrounding the falseness of the apparatus (and of course for Benjamin’s larger arguments about the falseness of the reproduction of art let alone a physical landscape).

If any one of us were standing in a room with one of our friends, our attention may be drawn to the little trinkets that he or she possesses, in an effort to better understand that person.  Say, for example, there is a special pen on his or her desk – it might draw our attention.  But our scope of those things is rather short as the moment is instantaneous, and presumably we are more focused on the person themselves.  In films, however, the close-up that Benjamin refers to serves to replicate an impossibly attentive version of this same situation.  Filming a scene in which we stand in a room with our friends can employ a greater range of perception than a real-life version of that instance ever could.  If there is a special pen on the desk, we might get a close up, HD image of that pen, providing us with a hyper-real interpretation of that person’s belongings (and implicitly their personality, style, etc).  “Clearly,” as Benjamin says, “it is another nature which speaks to the camera as compared to the eye.”  Benjamin refers to this as the “optical unconscious” – that is, things we consciously have no knowledge of as human beings in day to day life, but rather rely on the apparatus of a camera to reveal.  In this same light, Benjamin reinforces his point by noting that previous theory on the existence of two worlds by Heraclitus – the collective real world and the solitary dream world – is now “invalidated by film” due to this cinematic exposé on the unconscious elements of everyday life.

Bringing it all back to Benjamin’s first statement about the equilibrium between human beings and the apparatus, he validates the existence of this unconscious world by noting the “possibility of psychic immunization… by means of certain films in which the forced development of fantasies or masochistic delusions can present their natural and dangerous maturation in the masses.”  To paraphrase,film can take our multifaceted individual minds and tranquilize them using what they at first thought could only exist in a dream world, and now exists in a conjunctive “imagination land” on screen,provided by the ability of a film to depict the “unconscious.”

http://knowmore.washingtonpost.com/2015/02/06/kurt-vonnegut-and-the-shapes-of-stories/

Run Lola Run. Damn, a hell of a film. It reminds me of the refreshing quality of  foreign film and decentralizes my perspective so I can be reminded that film is not purely American-centric. There are other countries making films. Which brings me to my question of the day, what are people’s favorite foreign films? Here are some of mine

(In no particular order)

Blue is the Warmest Color

8 1/2

Once Upon A Time In the West

Y Tu Mama Tambien

The Hunt

Amelie

CIty of God

Run Lola Run

The Holy Mountain

This list just reaffirms that i’ve got to start watching much more!

In considering the Gorbman piece I was curious as to people’s reactions to what she put forth. In many ways as was discussed in class the piece seems as much a summary of common, if not explicitly stated, knowledge. Sound as a bridge, emotional cue, etc. is ubiquitously known but do we believe in all that is written. It seemed to me as if some of her rules are not only regularly broken in current Hollywood Cinema but foreground the issue of sound in cinema. Dialogue itself no longer seems a contentious issue, it is a mainstay, but I do believe that musical score or soundtrack should be discussed in both its effectiveness and in its necessity.

As to my first point, Gorbman describes sound as a background instrument, unobtrusive, quietly and subtly moving the film. Now take for example a Interstellar. Nolan has gone on record stating that there were moments in the film in which he considered dialogue supplementary to the BOOMING score, I mean the score blasted your ears off. He was not concerned with the dialogue being audible as he believed the soaring score to be more representative, symbolic, metaphoric? of the local mood of the film. Music of such volume immediately draws attention to itself thereby conflicting with Gorbman’s notion. Does this make it any less effective? In the case of Nolan’s film, and this is of course a subjective statement, I felt it overwhelming and a tad bit manipulative, though I’m willing to concede that i’m not 100% on that statement, it did at least seem in parallel with the trajectory of the film in the moment. Is music that draws attention to itself always manipulative? In a sense, yes. It is intentionally drawing the audience towards a certain mood, perspective. Now the degree of manipulation is of course a large gradient. There are degrees. Some is straight out swindling, the result of a poorly done scene that requires music to make up for its deficiency. Others is earned. I believe that The Shining was brought up in class as an example. The music draws attention to itself and in other moments fades into the background. The Shining is a hell of a film, but if its score creates a certain mood for the audience is it therefore manipulative? Yes. But it seems earned in its manipulation as if it becomes a character in and of itself and is not part of a cheap tactic to elicit an emotional response. We as an audience are quite aware of the difference between a Kubrick score and a score for some lesser movie. We can feel the contrived nature of the lesser film, but what separates the two? I’m not sure I’m able to put a finger to it but it’s an interesting question for discussion. I will say this, it seems to me that a score only escapes it manipulative effect if it is utilized for a purpose beyond the manipulation of an audience to feel a certain emotional trait. In The Shining the audience is already creeped out and frightened as hell, the music only adds to the mood, it’s not forcing the audience into that mood.

This clumsily brings me into my next query: the necessity of a soundtrack or score. One of my favorite films is No Country For Old Men. God I love that film. NO score in it. At all. And I never even realized. I had to find out through the internet. Music has its purpose in film, this is without doubt. It is able to express fluidity and feeling, elation, pathos and catharsis that finds no place in dialogue. Nonetheless, I’ve always had a nagging belief that a truly great film works without a score. That is unless the film is trying to draw attention to the score and what it is showing or expressing. This falls in line with any other discussion of filmic purpose. There’s got to be a reason for something to be in a film, a reason with weight to it. It should sink in water.

Maya Deren was a renowned experimental filmmaker who believed the main objective of art was to create new realities to add onto the already accepted ones. While some of the authors we’ve previously discussed believed art replicated reality and others believed it replaced it entirely, Deren’s mindset is plotted directly in-between these two opposing perspectives. One of her main points in the article describes the art of the controlled accident. The recognition of a known reality plus the reality of the image itself creates a reality that is derived from a situation that is not fully controllable. Through the use of properties such as slow motion, negative images and disjunctive editing, an alternate reality is formed. She goes on to say that a major portion of the creative action occurs through the manipulation of time and space in both pre production and postproduction. In her experimental films, Meshes of the Afternoon and At Land, the manipulation of space and time is very evident and profound.

In Meshes of the Afternoon, she combined reality with a layer of cinematic illusions allowing the audience the ability to jump back and fourth between what is real and what is falsified. She elaborates that this ability defines film as its own art form, different from any other medium. It is clear that Deren is not concerned with showing the world everyday reality. Both of her films are not as much narrative pieces, as they are expressions of art. After one screening, it was very difficult to understand what the main objectives were in either film. However, upon further investigation, and taking into account all of Deren’s viewpoints such as the controlled accident, manipulation of time and space, and different editing techniques, the themes became much more clear.

Tom Tykwer’s film Run Lola Run, utilizes the concepts of time, destiny, and fate to portray a story of two lovers in an unfortunate and seemingly impossible situation. At the beginning of the film, two quotes are presented; one from T.S Elliot and one from Herberger. T.S Elliot’s quote dealt with the concept of exploration and time as a cyclical process, whereas Herberger’s statement referenced life as a game. Although the two quotes seem rather unrelated, when brought together in the context of the film, they shape the main message depicted in the story.

In addition to the clever and rich depth of the storyline itself, the use of various editing and filming techniques made it visually pleasing as well. The use of a flashback scene in the beginning of the film effectively set the pace of the story as well as setting up a clear and understandable context for the rest of the film. Furthermore, the butterfly snapshots sequences of random strangers lives at first seemed random, but later added to the underlying theme of how choices affect our destiny. Maya Deren’s message about how editing enables a creator to dictate a new reality is revealed in this film in various subtle manners. For example, Deren uses the example of making a staircase seem longer than it is simply by varying the film angle used and this similar technique is used in the scene of the telephone falling back to its original position. Overall, this fast paced action film was highly entertaining and well made.