Great film, but no market for it: Sorry...

[mattias]

boy meets girl

some will say that's a hetero-normative political statement though. :-)

/matt

[steve hyde]

boy meets girl

some will say that's a hetero-normative political statement though.

/matt

nice point..

[steve hyde]

I really do see all human actions as political actions because all actions have an effect on the polis (e.g. the city, state, nation-state, world)

i always saw it the other way around, as the effect the "polis" has on people. to be a politician is to take the role of the "polis". i'm not interested in that.

as for whether people can be depressed because they are poor or racially discriminated, i obviously agree. but the line between that it is so and why it is so is very clear to me. movies about people with problems aren't necessarily political.

/matt

...It's certainly a perspective with a certain measure of truth: that is the "top-down perspective on Power. My view on Power has been influenced by Michel Foucault. For me it is the best explanation I have found. Power doesn't come from above it comes from below from the people. It comes from labor. How much power do factory owners have without a labor force? How much Power does a film director have without a crew and actors? (oversimplified, I know)

What is a government without people to govern? The state is just that (a state) it is the state of society, a state of being. It is a relational thing. Politics, the way I see it, is a relational process that constitutes the state. I think of "polis" as this relational process between the governed and the governors.

If we consider Guy Debord's thesis on "Society of the Spectacle", we can think about the ways that Power does do its work from the bottom up. Unless of course we choose to see the Mass-Media and other institutionalized forms of education as Power exercised from above. It's messy because both are true and traceable. Power is exercised from above and below. From above it takes the form of discipline: Obey and you will be free. From below it takes the form of choice: follow common sense and make your own decision and you will be free. Either way the "Spectacle" succeeds at its divisive work. The Spectacle succeeds at restoring class Power. In the end, most people are enslaved and a few people are free. In todays lexicon, especially in the USA, this is what we call "freedom"and "liberty"....or what I call unfreedom and unliberty.
The words Freedom and Liberty have been territorialized by the Spectacle.

Steve

[mattias]

How much power do factory owners have without a labor force? How much Power does a film director have without a crew and actors? [...] What is a government without people to govern?

"labor force", "crew", "actors" and "people" are collectives. i'm not.

/matt

[VideoFred]

In the end, most people are enslaved and a few people are free.

What is real freedom, Steve?
We all have a body that needs food to begin with.
So we are all forced to get food, one way or another.
This is already a very strong limit, and there's nothing we can do about it.
Our mind is captured in a fysical body.....
There is no absolute freedom.. at least not on this earth.

Being independent and having a small company of my own, I am relative free. The freedom to post here while working for example. On the other hand, I do not have the freedom to stop working for -say- 6 months.

It is all very relative.....
Thank God it is possible to feel free... in your mind. 8)

Fred.

[steve hyde]

In the end, most people are enslaved and a few people are free.

What is real freedom, Steve?

...an interesting question with a range of answers to be sure. I will have to spend some time thinking about how to respond to this. What does the concept freedom mean for *me*? Keeping in mind that life is a political project and the only political project that makes any sense is life.

A question this good needs to be answered with some kind of slam poetry.

I'll have to go to work on that.. Thanks for the idea.

Steve

[audadvnc]

I LOVE Big Brother!

(That should get me off the hook...)

[fritzcarraldo]

He made it, he filmed, edited, shown it, that's the best prize a director should have

Perfect. That's exactly right.

Roger

Er, no, for a political filmmaker, political change and discourse is what is aimed for. All this about merely showing a film ignores every single conceivable issue facing film making today. It is new age bollocks.

Well NP you can discuss what i've said in any way you want,

But, there is an eternal certain in cinema

It's meant to be filmed and projected, a film that a director can conceive and can show it's the main goal he can have,

I remembered the words from someone i respect very much, Gilles Deleuze, that once said something like: It's very easy to stop a director from making his film.

The discussion you're trying to have it's not about cinema, it's about politics, about the message the director may or may not try to give,

I don't know this film in particular, i just discussed that the main goal in cinema must be cinema itself, not the market or politics, or any other thing

But, certainly, the great thing about cinema is that it can take all this subjects into it, like if it could create another world, another reality,

I think that a true director is a director that puts cinema (artistic or not) above all

I like John Ford, and i also like Werner Herzog

They're very different, but they are both directors

John Ford once thanked cinema because it gave him and his family what to eat,

Werner Herzog is a great artist,

But both are directors,

In my opinion, both see cinema as cinema,

That's no "New Age bollocks"

[VideoFred]

What does the concept freedom mean for *me*?

That's the question if you ask me. The answer will be different for every individual. If you can do the things you like, then you are already pretty free.


Fred.

[Nigel]

Wanna talk about movies??

There are plenty of boards where you can post about politics. Not that politics are bad.

"Iraq In Fragments" has done far better than any movie made by any poster on this board so I really don't see what this fucking crying game is about--Unless it is politics which will lead to a never ending argument over who pissed where first.

If politics need to be the center of your filmic endeavors so be it. But if all you can see is politics in film/story then that is your problem. Not ours. Let the viewer make a choice about the film.

If "Iraq in Fragments" sucks then so be it. There are a lot of Oscar nominated films that are shit.

At this point the thread is 11 pages and what has been accomplished??

You are the Marxist that creates a world of parataxis. Which is fine for circular discussion but doesn't actually accomplish or solve anything.

In 11 pages of discussion we should have solved the "film's" distribution problem in your train of thought.

Instead we ended up in the standard pissing contest of circular shit.

Use your own ideology and make your fucking movie instead of deconstructing other people's lame ass shit in the same old marxist vein.

Good Luck

[mattias]

i think the mere fact that we have to eat doesn't enslave us, that's pushing it, but the things we have to do in order to eat sure do. but then again in my definition of freedom you have a choice whether to eat or not, and making a choice that ultimately enslaves me is also freedom, so i don't think it's theoretically impossible to be free. there's a tendency in politics now to let people chose for themselves, but only a set number of choices are presented (coke or pepsi?). if you don't choose somebody else will choose for you, and that's not freedom.

/matt

[Nigel]

That might have been harsh...It's how I feel about this thread not any singular poster.

Good Luck

[mattias]

i agree but also not. i don't find it very hard to simply ignore the pissing contest posts in this thread. and the other political rants seem to be pretty much on topic?

/matt

[VideoFred]

but then again in my definition of freedom you have a choice whether to eat or not
/matt

In this case, your body will take over and will force you to eat.
If you have a very strong will-power and still not eat, you will die At least you body will die but that's another subject

I see this as a limit for absolute freedom.. The limit of being in a material world. Real absolute freedom is in our mind if you ask me.

Fred.

[mattias]

In this case, your body will take over and will force you to eat.

nah, my body is me. will is only an electro-chemical reaction as well.

Real absolute freedom is in our mind if you ask me.

but our minds are slaves under the chemicals as well. and without them i'm not sure there would be a soul at all, we would just be neural networks evaluating input, like ants.

/matt