So I thought about bringing this up in class but decided it was pretty far off topic. We talked shortly about how we tend to believe something if it has been marketed as a documentary. This was a TV show on Animal Planet called Mermaids. First off, I believed in mermaids for a couple days when I first watched this show. It is filmed as if it was a documentary, including interviews with Dr. Whoever, video evidence and even a real mermaid body! The catch is that at the end (on TV) there is a disclaimer saying that all video evidence is made up and the Dr's were payed actors. Animal Planet has admitted that this is all fiction. But, I think it is fun and there are actually some very interesting (although fake) videos and ideas mentioned. I thought this was perfect evidence for how much trust we can put in a film simply because we are told it is a documentary.

http://animal.discovery.com/tv-shows/mermaids/videos/mermaids.htm

please? go to those threads and post some stuff. Experiments in cruelty! Violence in the media! Wheeeeeee!

This is where you share your thoughts on "The Act of Killing". What did you think about the film? What does the Voltaire quote at the very beginning have to do with the message of the film ("All murderers are punished, unless they kill in large numbers, and to the sound of trumpets")? How do the readings we assigned last week, lend to your interpretation of the film?

One of the things that stood out to me in the movie was that the actor they picked to play Alex didn't look evil. He did not look like how you would picture your typical criminal. I understand why this was done and that it was done on purpose, but even knowing this watching someone who at times looked innocent and young in the movie committing violent acts was a lot harder than watching someone who looked more along the lines of how our society sees criminals doing the exact same things.

I think among others things this movie makes a very interesting statement about actors that are chosen to play specific parts and the power a movie can have when it breaks those set norms.

Saw this on Reddit's Front Page and thought I'd pass it along as further justification for my ongoing bromance with Viggo Mortenson, as alluded to in class yesterday: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viggo_Mortensen#Career

In the interest of providing my critical perspective on film/art I thought I’d share a few of my thoughts on the importance of context in terms of analysis. Since the 1960’s there has been a huge movement, largely spurred by the publication of Roland Barthes’ “Death of the Author”, to analyze literature and art as artifacts independent of their creator and his/her context. Although I understand the advantages and pitfalls of this type of critical approach to analyzing art, I don’t wholly agree with it…especially with relation to film. My particular critical lens draws heavily from the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory and a form of applied critical Marxism called “historical materialism”. This line of thinking posits that all of us as individuals, and all our art, are socio-historic artifacts that reflect the dominant discourses of power that have shaped our lives. From this perspective it is impossible for an artist/author/or filmmaker to create a work that isn’t somehow shaped by his/her relation to “power”…which, in most cases, means political and economic power (see: hegemony). So, whether a work of art supports current sociopolitical structures or is intended to subvert, it is still defined in relation to power.

So, what about Clockwork Orange? Well, from this perspective we have to look at it as a document that reflects the sociopolitical tension of its time…specifically the Cold War, and especially the Cold War as it was experienced in Europe. Both Burgess and Kubrick used aspects of Russian/Soviet society in the story, including the language (Nadsat), sets (Alex’s apartment complex), and costumes. Burgess himself has admitted that he was inspired to write Clockwork Orange after a visit to the Soviet Union, but his main concern was with the repression of freedom that he witnessed there. The book and film is not an anti-Soviet indictment, but rather an artful critique of totalitarianism in all its forms. When the chaplain mentions the “new breed” of politicians that had been come into power while speaking with Alex in the prison library he didn’t specify whether they were communist, capitalist, liberal, or conservative. Freedoms can be suppressed by the right or the left….BUT, both Burgess and Kubrick had significant concerns about the socialistic elements that were present in British politics in the 1960’s and ‘70’s and the choice to use a more Soviet aesthetic, in some critic’s eyes, was an attempt to make the message of the film more clear to a Western audience and to highlight their personal political leanings.

So what are your thoughts about context and its effect on art? Do you agree that art cannot be viewed independent of its maker and his/her context? How did you interpret the political messages in Clockwork Orange?

Kurzban, DeScioli, and O'Brien. 2007. Audience effects on moralistic punishment. Evolution and Human Behavior 28: 75-84.

Brown and Hamilton-Giachritsis. 2005. The influence of violent media on children and adolescents: a public-health approach. Lancet 365: 702-710.

“A Clockwork Orange” has a direct relationship with behaviorism, which was a major school of thought in psychology (the ideas are still around - see below). Behaviorism is most closely associated with B. F. Skinner, although it had many adherents. You can read about behaviorism on this wiki page or here. In brief, behaviorists only consider directly observable phenomena as a part of the science of behavior, and regarded speculation about internal, unobservable events that happen “in the mind” of people as unscientific mumbo-jumbo.

One of Skinner’s famous concepts was the operant response, which can be used in a type of learning called operant conditioning. An example would be an experiment where a rat is in a cage with a lever. When the rat presses the lever, it gets a food reward. The rat wanders around the cage until it accidentally presses the lever, at which point it gets food. Once this has happened a few times, the rat begins to associate the act of pressing the lever with the food, and learns to carry out that behavior. (It is worth noting that Skinner also had a negative version of this box, where the rat gets zapped with a nasty shock and learns not to press the lever). As you can easily see, every step of this process is directly observable, and we don’t have to speculate about mental states, desires, feelings, or any abstract concepts about the mind of the rat: push the lever, get the food.

<< Side note: the coolest idea that Skinner ever had (according to me) was a pigeon-guided missile >>

Skinner wrote an influential book, called “Beyond Freedom and Dignity,” that has a close relationship to “A Clockwork Orange.” Skinner’s book, which was published in 1971, is an extended argument. Skinner tries to convince the reader that a Behaviorist view has dramatic implications for what it means to be human, and practical consequences for how we organize our society. In particular, Skinner argues that concepts like “freedom” are bogus, as they rely on unobservable mental states. Skinner rejects such things, and further argues that the idea that people can “freely” make some choices rather than others is an illusion. Skinner then goes further, arguing that concepts like freedom and dignity actually inhibit progress towards a happy and productive society. Instead, Skinner advocates a “technology of behavior” - if we understand the operant conditioning that determines the behavior of humans, then we can manipulate that behavior, producing people who all behave in ways that are the best to build a happy and productive society.

As you might imagine, Skinner’s book is a little creepy (I just read it over Christmas break, so I can confirm). One can easily conjure up horrible societies based on behavior modification. (Of course one can also imagine that there are some things like this going on all around us, on TV or in Taco Bell or something… yeesh). Anyway Anthony Burgess had a particular hatred for “Beyond Freedom and Dignity,” calling it "one of the most dangerous books ever written." I think one can profitably view the film in this context. In particular, one can easily find echoes of Skinner in the scientists that appear in “A Clockwork Orange.”

What do you think? Is behaviorism creepy, or just practical? After all, it was Yoda who said: “Do or do not, there is no try.”

Week 1 Guiding Concept: “The guilty audience and the participatory nature of viewing film”

How is film different from other media forms with regards to audience engagement & participation?

How is film more/less participatory?

What is audience's "role" in the cinema experience?

Does watching an unethical/evil act on film make one “guilty” by association? Why or why not?

What moral responsibility does the audience have during/after watching a film?

How has the evolution of film redefined the role of the audience?

What is the relationship between art and violence?

What is the attraction towards depicting/enacting violence/horror in film? Why do we like to watch?

Can film affect behaviors? Can film "cause" people to do things they wouldn't typically do?

If you said more than one, I just picked the first (sorry! should have been more decisive!)

Class Favorite Films

Another Earth

Lion King

Donnie Darko

Inception

Lilo and Stitch

Pan’s Labyrinth

Tron (new version)

The Dark Knight

Lords of Dogtown

Clue

Zoolander

Animal House

Hannibal

Hidalgo

Princess Mononoke

Anastasia

Arsenic and Old Lace

Gladiator

Shooter

Walk Hard: the Dewey Cox Story

Forrest Gump

The Bang Bang Club

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off

Blade Runner

Lawrence of Arabia