Dan Sallitt wrote:

> > My problem with what you write is that I wish you would not use words
> > like realism and genre.
> >
> > I do not think they have meaning.
> >
> > "Genre" simply does not exist -- other than as an academic conspiracy.
>
> Interesting.
>
> I'd certainly go as far as saying that realism is a relative concept:
> that there's no such thing as an absolute standard of realism in any
> representation. There's a well-known book called MIMESIS by Erich
> Auerbach that goes through the history of literature and examines the
> impact of successive concepts of realism. It constitutes a pretty good
> demonstration of how realism only seems to have meaning relative to
> existing standards. But it also shows that art does feel the impact of
> these shifts in representational convention.

So can you give me a short concise definition of "realism" à la
Auerbach, one which I can repeat the people on the street which they'll
all understand quickly?

And is this the same as "realism" in Méliès or Ford? Is Rossellini's
realism the same as De Sica's? Is there anyway to tell what you meant
when you spoke of realism in regard to Hawks? Is realism in cinema when
you have real things in front of the camera? or does it refer to the
sense that there is someone real looking through the camera? Is a film
about an historical event realistic if it convinces people or conveys
some truth, despite having the facts wrong?

Is there not a better way to say what you mean than to use a word whose
meanings shift like desert sands, never to be defined ever, anywhere?

>
>
> As for genre, I guess I need more info from you or Croce. Academics
> didn't invent genre. People say, "Let's go to a Western." And then
> they go and say, "That was a good Western," or "That was a strange
> Western," of "I've never seen that in a Western before."

Most people who talk about "westerns" have never heard of genre. Genre
is an academic invention. The concept didn't exist in French until
Anglo-Americans took over the word.

I have never found anyone who can define what a "western" is.
Everyone's denotation seems to be completely different. I've spent my
life going around pissing people off like Socrates trying to get them to
define western and in EVERY case it ends up with them growling
defiantly: "I can't put it into words. But I KNOW WHAT IT IS!!!" This
is the state of academia.

About Croce, I gave you a great source, Orsini's book, which takes
somewhat of a lit crit approach; he has a lot about pseudo-concepts. I
think you would find it extremely exciting and useful.

>
>
> > Do you really believe that someone writing a story or directing a scene
> > or playing a part is studiously contemplating what everyone else has
> > done and deliberately striving to do it differently? Isn't this a
> > shoddy kind of "originality," "being yourself" or "being unqiue" --
> > when actually one is simply conforming to conventional models?
>
> Well, yeah, people think about what went before.

Sure. But people who are truly original don't become so simply by
perversion. There is a great difference between wearing a white hat
simply because everyone else wears a black hat; and wearing a white hat
because you like it and don't care what everyone else wears. That's my
point. Be yourself.


> But I'm not really
> interested in getting into Hawks' head - God knows what you'd find
> there.

Especially with the state of things these days!

> Looking at the films, I see a collision between a background
> that is a bunch of signs that say "genre," and a more playful, reflexive
> set of actions in the foreground. I think this is what David Thomson
> was referring to when he compared THE BIG SLEEP to a home movie, and
> made a connection between Hawks and cinema verite.

Oh, I can see cinéma vérité in anyone who points a camera at anything.
Can't you?
Do you think Hawks ever heard the word genre before, say, 1970?

>
>
> > The problem is that this sort of thinking assumes that poetry is a
> sign,
> > whereas (says Croce) a sign stands for something other than itself,
> > poetry stands only for itself.
>
> Poetry isn't just a representation of something else, of course. But it
> uses signs, it's full of signs. Everything is. The idea of poetry is
> to arrange them so you haven't just wound up representing when you're
> done.


That's one way of looking at it. The trouble with academia is that they
assume this is a religious truth certified by the pope and NASA combined.

Croce denies all of this. To repeat: a sign stands for something other
than itself, poetry stands only for itself. I cite this because by
analogy a piece of art, like a genuine person, is not art (or a person)
because of its differences or commonalities, but because of its
uniqueness.

Croce admits signs into prose, which he does not regard as language but
as a degeneration of language into a sign system. "Born as poetry,
language was afterwards twisted to serve as a sign."

I suggest to you that this is quite inspiring and exciting to
investigate, to liberate people's minds from the shackles and chains of
academic slavery which, like the guys in Plato's cave, they don't even
know are binding them.

Incidentally, I'd go so far as to say that about 99 percent of what's
good in "Culture Theory" is basically Croce's "historicism."



>
>
> > Can you imagine, in real life, having a conversation with a beautiful
> > woman who constantly consciously strove to contrast her actions with
> our
> > expectations of what she was going to do?
>
> This happens to me all the time....
>
> > How long before the game gets
> > stale?
>
> There's infinite variety in the ways one can play off of other things.
> It certainly doesn't diminish one's individuality. Hawks is a quirky
> guy, and he gets opportunities to indulge all his quirky pleasures when
> making films.

Yes. But is there life beyond quirkiness? Is art only an indulgence in
the grotesque?

My point is that I think your adhearance to genre THEORY does what Fritz
Lang claimed theory does to him.

>
>
>
> ?
>
> Sometimes they have an aspect of the outrageous. David Huxley in BABY
> starts out as an eccentric comic type, but he quickly develops into a
> Hawks hero using exasperation and humor to keep himself level against
> Susan's destabilizing effect.

He doesn't succeed, does he?

> Henri Rochard in MALE WAR BRIDE is more
> or less exclusively concerned with self-stabilization; Hildy in HIS GIRL
> FRIDAY knows that Walter Burns is a force of nature and narrates the
> conflict for us.

She does? Have you come up with an unexpurgated edition of the movie
I've not heard of?

>
>
> In TWENTIETH CENTURY, I'd say the reps are both outrageous. And so a
> whole lot of weight is thrown on Roscoe Karns and Walter Connelly -
> because they are trying to cling to sanity, they become more important
> to the film.

I'm not sure that people are trying to cling to sanity, but I suspect
that sanity is an illusion in Hawks, and that biology rules all, and
from a male point of view (Hawks's) that's the power of women. Sanity
may be a possibility, but it's irrelevant ultimately.

>
>
> > Is sanity truly a goal or even a desideratum in Bringing Up Baby, The
> > Big Sky, Red River ... ?
>
> I'm talking about a model for the comedies, so I'd like to throw RED
> RIVER and THE BIG SKY out of court. In BABY, I'd say yes, absolutely -
> what makes the film feel like Hawks is the way David Huxley reacts to
> his plight.

Red River is a comedy. So is Big Sky. You may wish they were not. But...
David reacts to his plight by clinging to Hepburn no matter what.

>
>