After all, what was the news? The news was that the infection of India by the "foreign coast" starts producing very sad and also explosive results there. But that "foreign coast" still does as if it wouldn't have to do anything at all with that - no, they rather accuse India for "inefficiency".
So, to return to our subject, as long as the makers of opinions and trends enjoy such an untouchable image, and as long as they direct us towards stupidity, we will be only facing this: Stupidity! Be it it the white color of the teeth of some hollywoodian smile, or in the cup-size of Pamela Anderson. One of the very very main rules of marketing is: *create* demand. The wish for such smiles and cup-sizes is not inherently existing in anyone of us. It is created by the "leaders" in order to keep us inside the stream that statisfies their own interests and needs for being "VIPs". What an overload!
But we can simply ignore them. It doesn't take that much to go to a movie by Tarkovsky instead of going to a movie by Spielberg. One only has to use the own brain. (Or what is for, anyway?) One just has to sit in peace and think, that's all. The industrial production of burned up brains can only work as long as the brains themselves go to the factory to be burned up. If they stop going there... what chances does that factory have? Zero!
Thank you very much for your messages full of content, Indranil!
As it happens I have a closely related discussion with Harry about such things, and to my shame I am able to answer his last message after such a long time. Well, better late than never! ;-)
So, one of the several reasons for not paying attention to the good quality of "products of thinking", as I call them, seems to be the general tendency to "remain inside the norm". Not a big problem until the norm starts decaying. Then you can still stick to it, avoiding unpleasant things. Or you can gi against it, but then you have to face great opposition. (The latter isn't so important if we try to so something good.)
There is much guidance of the mass into completely stupid things nowadays and it gets stronger and stronger as the "leaders" manage to influence our thinking more and more. In a way it is a kind of brain surgery, if you wish, but it is a "silent" brain surgery. It is infecting us bit without much noise. It happens quietly.
As a parallel to this, consider the "salvaging of the economy" the way they present it to us now every day. Well... How many of us remember what they were telling us about "too little money" and "too big difficulties" when we were asking for a better eductaion, a better insurance, health, whatever? Wasn't the very same "leaders" that always told us how hard ot was? And now... Now they are boosting billions and billions in banks, which *do* have the necessary means for paying for they mistakes themselves. Where the heck dod they find that money so suddenly when at the same time they were talking to us about "difficulties" for such a ling time?
You see the parallel? It is an industry of stupidification and it works much the same way in economy as it does in arts. The main pronciple is: Buy and don't ask. Don't think! Just buy!
So, either we keep our minds intact or we let it be violated by that stupidity, which after all was not our own essence. It was induced!
And so for example, after the bad happenings in India... what do they show me on the news? They show me the (smile please!!! ;-)) "responsibility of India for not facing the real inside problems". Haaaaha! And what about those who first introduced those problems into India? Well, *that* would be the news! Is it that far in the past that we soon forgot? But they keep very very silent about such things.
I dont know when it will stop or it will stop or not? What would be the future I dont know? But still life is there, our beautiful world and nature is waiting for us. Who cares other, Our Ideas, Our believes and Feelings with us :).
"What ancestor speaks in me? I can’t leave simultaneously in my head and in my body. That’s why I can’t be just one person. I can feel myself countless things at once. There are no great masters left. That’s the real evil of out time. The heart’s path is covered in shadow. We must listen to the voices that seem useless. In brains full of long sewage pipes of school wall, tarmac and welfare papers the buzzing of insects must enter. We must fill the eyes and ears of all of use with things that are the beginning of a great dream. Someone must shout that we will build the pyramids. It does’nt matters if we don’t. We must fuel that wish and stretch the corners of the soul like and endless sheet. If you want the world to go forward, we must hold hands. We must mix the so-called wealthy, with the so-called sick, you healthy ones. What does your health means? The eyes of all mankind at are looking at the pit into which we are plunging. Freedom is useless. If you don’t have the courage to look us in the eye to eat, drink and sleep with us! It is the so called healthy, who have brought the world to the verge of ruin. Man, listen! In you, water, fire and then ashes and the bones in the ashes. The bones and the ashes! Where am I, when I am not in reality or in my imagination? Here is my new pact! It must be sunny at night and showy in august. Great things end. Small things endure. Society must become united again, instead of so disjointed. Just look at nature and you will see that life is simple. We must go back to where we were to the point where you took the wrong turn. We must go back to the main foundations of life, without dirtying the water. What kind of world is this? If a mad man tells you, you must be ashamed to yourselves"
You are absoulitely right Nick. Excellent post. Thank you very much.
Meterialistic people doesn't think much. Day by day the condition of out society (I can able to say only about my society and culture) becoming worse. I dont know what is enjoyment but the way few people are trying to establish the "ENJOY?" issue,is quite ridiculous.
I really like your writing. How many people knows Tarkovsky, Bergman, Godar, Felini or saw their cinema? Not really caring the mass, you should go with your own ideas and feelings. I like to study those great films and great paintings.
Yes everything is now business in the world. Even how you will love your girlfriend or wife that those people will decide or suggest you, what a hideousness world this is. Chirlie Chaplin in his "Mosia Vardox" film told this things. Chaplin was a great person to me, the most tragic hero.
I think, Money is the essencial for human being but not everything, people should think in what way they are earning money. I believe self criticism is the most vital thing of human beings.
After reading your writing, it reminds me a Speech from "Nostalghia", one of my favorite Tarkovsky film.
Such people, like those who you mentioned, all delivered astonishing works. Each of them by the own signature, but one thing they have in common. They are primarily interessted in the result of their work but not in the massive commercialisation. The latter includes a "simplification" of the sense of a movie down to light entertainment, which of course also has to be, but never in such an exclusive form like most of the typical movies.
The sense of "telling a story" goes back to the ancient greek theater where an actor was called: Ηθοπειος (speak like Ethopeios), a composite word from Ηθος (speak like Ethos = Ethics) and Πειην (speak like Peiin = making, generating, doing). (The latter is also the root of the word "Poetry". The Poet is one that "makes" in old Greek.) So, telling a story with a movie or a theater play or a poem, etc. has the sense to "produce ethics", to put some questions, some doubts, some laughing, some conclusions into the mind of the spectator. The massive commercialization most often aviods that since it is directed to a public that shouldn't have as high measures for quality in order to buy and consume regardless of what the story says. If you deal with a mass of which you wish to consume your product without thinking too much, then the best way to use is: stupidify that mass! Sounds hard but so is business.
The directors you referred to are not the "big businessmen". (Add Orson Welles for me too!) They did (consciously or not) their work in the already mentioned sense. Some times the resonance from the public was big but not as the result of those people's aiming at breaking the records of tickets sold. It is much like doing your own work in photography and not really caring that much if many people will say that it is good. If they say that it's OK but this shouldn't be the "guidance". It should be the wish to do something good.
So, when it comes to gaining something else than light entertainment, who cares about Spielberg when there is Tarkovsky, who cares about Jarre when there is Vangelis, and who cares about Ramones when there is Sex Pistols. ;-)
WOW, thats great. Apart from Tarkovsky I also like Fellini, Bergman, Kurosawa, Krzysztof Kieślowski and other great directors film very much. I also like few Hollywood film like Frida, A Beautiful Mind, Forest Gump, Apocalypto kind and few Roman Polanski film but obviously not Spielberg type. Only Sindlers List of Spielberg I like a bit. I am really really happy to know your choice. You are different than others. Glad to meet you.
Thanks a lot for the info about the situation during the shot, Indranil. I can imagine that much better now. But it already has that atmosphere of some of Tarkovsky's movies perhaps because the reflections do already look also like objects under water distorted by the wavelets' motion.
Thank you very much Nick for your suggestion and comments. Actually it is a reflection of a light post. On the water there are few original cables also. It was waterlog on that street. If there would have been few objects on the street under the water then I could have got an impression of Tarkovsky's films;)
It has a very own kind of coloring and also composition, Indranil. The colors have some resemblance to watercolors but also to the very individuall looks of colors on old colorized B&W images.
The composition combines depth with flatness. A very straneg kind of perspective that seems to be swinging between the two extrems. Those cables (or whatever they are) running from top to bottom are a bit "foreign" to the composition, but I guess that there was no other way to shoot this, ey?
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{K:127263} 12/3/2008
