- Sep 22, 2013
- 4,956
- 250
- 85
Is modern media a cauldron for synthetic imagination?
====
"As civilization became more market-friendly and toy-like in consumerism fancies (e.g., Toys 'R Us, Burger King, etc.), people celebrated artifacts of Christmastime shopping such as video-games for kids and vintage video-game items such as the original Atari joystick. This was the age of archaeology in vitro and modern American media catered to a lifestyle-sensibility (e.g., MTV's The Real World). Companies such as Tandy and DreamWorks rose to prominence...but so did the AntiChrist."
"Two late-century films, Ridley Scott's Gladiator and Roman Polanski's The Ninth Gate, presented to very different female characters in Connie Nielsen's brooding Roman woman Lucilla yearning to be heroic (Gladiator) and Emmanuelle Seigner's eerie and haunting/hypnotic Satanic 'Mystery-Girl' (The Ninth Gate). Lucilla was everything Mystery-Girl was not --- regal, governed, dignified, refined, and spiritual. Mystery-Girl was the Biblical harlot of Babylon in Polanski's Occultism-themed film and was a Cassandra for the coming of the AntiChrist, while Lucilla was the Scott's faithful and steadfast fictional Centurion-patriotism minded Roman woman daydreaming about liberty from the oppression of intolerable emperors."
"One might imagine that in this 'arena' or 'atmosphere' of media/society gossip and aesthetics that consumerism-appreciative audiences would be sensitized to the notion that the new age of media and networks catered to different forms of private creativity such as daydream-catering TV-indulgence ('guilty-pleasure'/'comfort-food') programs such as The People's Court, The Real World, and Say Yes to the Dress(!). In other words, armchair-coziness was now an 'art-form,' which is why movies presented very symbolic/psychological characters for mass audiences (such as Lucilla in Gladiator and Mystery-Girl in The Ninth Gate). If the AntiChrist is real, would he be a wild movie-star making incendiary stories about the cerebral allure of toys?"
"A diligent Harvard student and scholar of telekinesis named Ethan Hunt was handicapped and confined to a custom-made gold-and-wood wheelchair his uncle crafted for him with great care/love. Ethan always rode around in his 'magic-wheelchair' which was connected to a portable music-box which he used to play Beatles and Bjork songs. Ethan believed that the power and allure of cinema in modern times reflected a social fascination with convenient idea-exchange on the dynamic global network (e.g., Facebook). Ethan wanted to see if Lucilla (Gladiator) and Mystery-Girl (The Ninth Gate) were somehow 'free-speech angels' (and hence receptive to political imagination!)."
ETHAN: Thanks for letting me interview you!
CONNIE: It's my pleasure; I love your wheelchair.
ETHAN: It's custom-made, a real artifact...
CONNIE: Wow; so, well, what did you want to know, Ethan?
ETHAN: What was it like making Gladiator?
CONNIE: It was thrilling and educational, honestly; a real gem.
ETHAN: You portrayed an 'evil woman' in The Devil's Advocate.
CONNIE: Yes, I did; I wanted a different turn in my film-role selections.
ETHAN: Lucilla in Gladiator is the model of a patriotic/defiant Roman heroine.
CONNIE: She endures cruelty and foolishness; she's a 'diplomat' of sorts.
ETHAN: Are you familiar with 'Mystery-Girl' from The Ninth Gate (Polanski)?
CONNIE: Yes, I saw Polanski's unusual but rather searing Satanic film!
ETHAN: Something like a continuation of Rosemary's Baby (Mia Farrow).
CONNIE: Yes, and Emmanuelle Seigner (Frantic) portrayed Mystery-Girl!
ETHAN: How different is Mystery-Girl from Lucilla?
CONNIE: Oh, they're night-and-day --- nearly opposites.
ETHAN: Do you appreciate the roles women receive in media/movies?
CONNIE: As long as women are characterizing a spectrum of folklore, it's good.
ETHAN: Good for democracy and free-speech...all this gender-pageantry, no?
CONNIE: True; you should put in your New Yorker editorial a note about Satanism.
ETHAN: Yes, this film-interview I'm conducting for Harvard is for the New Yorker.
CONNIE: Doesn't it seem that the presentation of females in folklore is invaluable?
ETHAN: Yes! That's why I wanted to know if you think Mystery-Girl and you are 'sisters.'
CONNIE: I suppose we're 'soul-sisters' in the cinema-gender 'spectrum' of creative chatter!
ETHAN: How long civilization has come since the days of Tandy/Atari and Citizen Kane...
CONNIE: The idea of women embracing stories about virtue/customs is Biblical, no?
ETHAN: It seems that modern-day gender-films like Working Girl are...apocrypha!
CONNIE: There's nothing wrong with a little 'heresy-dialogue,' right?
====
====
"As civilization became more market-friendly and toy-like in consumerism fancies (e.g., Toys 'R Us, Burger King, etc.), people celebrated artifacts of Christmastime shopping such as video-games for kids and vintage video-game items such as the original Atari joystick. This was the age of archaeology in vitro and modern American media catered to a lifestyle-sensibility (e.g., MTV's The Real World). Companies such as Tandy and DreamWorks rose to prominence...but so did the AntiChrist."
"Two late-century films, Ridley Scott's Gladiator and Roman Polanski's The Ninth Gate, presented to very different female characters in Connie Nielsen's brooding Roman woman Lucilla yearning to be heroic (Gladiator) and Emmanuelle Seigner's eerie and haunting/hypnotic Satanic 'Mystery-Girl' (The Ninth Gate). Lucilla was everything Mystery-Girl was not --- regal, governed, dignified, refined, and spiritual. Mystery-Girl was the Biblical harlot of Babylon in Polanski's Occultism-themed film and was a Cassandra for the coming of the AntiChrist, while Lucilla was the Scott's faithful and steadfast fictional Centurion-patriotism minded Roman woman daydreaming about liberty from the oppression of intolerable emperors."
"One might imagine that in this 'arena' or 'atmosphere' of media/society gossip and aesthetics that consumerism-appreciative audiences would be sensitized to the notion that the new age of media and networks catered to different forms of private creativity such as daydream-catering TV-indulgence ('guilty-pleasure'/'comfort-food') programs such as The People's Court, The Real World, and Say Yes to the Dress(!). In other words, armchair-coziness was now an 'art-form,' which is why movies presented very symbolic/psychological characters for mass audiences (such as Lucilla in Gladiator and Mystery-Girl in The Ninth Gate). If the AntiChrist is real, would he be a wild movie-star making incendiary stories about the cerebral allure of toys?"
"A diligent Harvard student and scholar of telekinesis named Ethan Hunt was handicapped and confined to a custom-made gold-and-wood wheelchair his uncle crafted for him with great care/love. Ethan always rode around in his 'magic-wheelchair' which was connected to a portable music-box which he used to play Beatles and Bjork songs. Ethan believed that the power and allure of cinema in modern times reflected a social fascination with convenient idea-exchange on the dynamic global network (e.g., Facebook). Ethan wanted to see if Lucilla (Gladiator) and Mystery-Girl (The Ninth Gate) were somehow 'free-speech angels' (and hence receptive to political imagination!)."
ETHAN: Thanks for letting me interview you!
CONNIE: It's my pleasure; I love your wheelchair.
ETHAN: It's custom-made, a real artifact...
CONNIE: Wow; so, well, what did you want to know, Ethan?
ETHAN: What was it like making Gladiator?
CONNIE: It was thrilling and educational, honestly; a real gem.
ETHAN: You portrayed an 'evil woman' in The Devil's Advocate.
CONNIE: Yes, I did; I wanted a different turn in my film-role selections.
ETHAN: Lucilla in Gladiator is the model of a patriotic/defiant Roman heroine.
CONNIE: She endures cruelty and foolishness; she's a 'diplomat' of sorts.
ETHAN: Are you familiar with 'Mystery-Girl' from The Ninth Gate (Polanski)?
CONNIE: Yes, I saw Polanski's unusual but rather searing Satanic film!
ETHAN: Something like a continuation of Rosemary's Baby (Mia Farrow).
CONNIE: Yes, and Emmanuelle Seigner (Frantic) portrayed Mystery-Girl!
ETHAN: How different is Mystery-Girl from Lucilla?
CONNIE: Oh, they're night-and-day --- nearly opposites.
ETHAN: Do you appreciate the roles women receive in media/movies?
CONNIE: As long as women are characterizing a spectrum of folklore, it's good.
ETHAN: Good for democracy and free-speech...all this gender-pageantry, no?
CONNIE: True; you should put in your New Yorker editorial a note about Satanism.
ETHAN: Yes, this film-interview I'm conducting for Harvard is for the New Yorker.
CONNIE: Doesn't it seem that the presentation of females in folklore is invaluable?
ETHAN: Yes! That's why I wanted to know if you think Mystery-Girl and you are 'sisters.'
CONNIE: I suppose we're 'soul-sisters' in the cinema-gender 'spectrum' of creative chatter!
ETHAN: How long civilization has come since the days of Tandy/Atari and Citizen Kane...
CONNIE: The idea of women embracing stories about virtue/customs is Biblical, no?
ETHAN: It seems that modern-day gender-films like Working Girl are...apocrypha!
CONNIE: There's nothing wrong with a little 'heresy-dialogue,' right?
====
