Saturday, June 7, 2008

Exposed Negatives

Joel is poised to return Stateside, just as the Euro Cup kicks off and co-host Switzerland takes one in the gut from the Czechs. John Lukacs is known for myriad conceptual platforms, not the least of which is that populism is the greatest threat to civilization. Somehow, the idea of that demarcation rears its head when discussing Thin Blue Lines, to echo Joel's citation of Errol Morris, or a more vertical metric of aptitude -- that some how We/Them needs to be registered via these spatial models. Somehow, regardless, it is a pause for joy when the Bohemians strike a blow against the august centers of power (or cuckoo clocks). (see CZ-USA 2006 World Cup)

Yet, I wrestle with cinema. Joel assayed from abroad the moment when Senator Obama became the THE candidate. The Feral Doctor's subjecting such to print was what struck me. Somehow I find the significance of this time continued by other means in the Guardian interview where Clint Eastwood told Spike Lee to "shut his face" in lieu of Lee's expressed concern about the absence of black soldiers in Eastwood's Band of Brothers. All of this will be moot when my planned vision for the Ping-pong Diplomacy ensures biopic immortality: Woody Harrelson as Chairman Mao and Samuel L. Jackson as Richard Nixon

5 comments:

jon faith said...

Ideas. . . be-coming ab-stracted. . . too. . . m-much torque, must find shelter from the Tokyo Manga fanatic with the survival knife.

How's Jesus Shuttlecock going to fare on Heartbreak Ridge?

Eastwood wants to be John Ford; Spike Lee is occasionally our Truffaut.

the feral professor said...

I take nothing away from your characterization of Eastwood as desiring to be John Ford - though I think one might also consider, with some good reason, the other John . . . Huston - perhaps, and related to the latest hullaballo, even more with considering Eastwood's commitment to pursuing a pic on/of/deriving from the life of Nelson Mandela. Now won't that cheese Spike? Let me again veer towards the fact that pour moi this is all personal and even situational (more on this idea as it relates to H.C. later) and note that while I appreciate and even follow with great conscience the idea that "Spike Lee is occasionally our Truffaut" - one can even begin with Truffaut's first feature "400 Blows" and the idea of alienation - though in the French it is a specifically personal disjunction rather than the general/social that is the mark of Lee. But let me say that there has always been, for me, an undercurrent of humor to the simmering tensions that played out in Lee's films and for that reason I cop to an odd - not specifically or directly comparative necessarily - weighted congruence of Lee as Tati with a touch of J.A. Rogers

jon faith said...

Mon Oncle Radio Raheem?

jon faith said...

I found Spike's response interesting: paraphrasing, he said, well, he isn't my father and we aren't on a plantation, so . . .

the feral professor said...

I suppose that be better than "carlingue d'mon oncle tom sans acres ou mule" - at least far more succinct.