From: Elizaphanian (Elizaphanian@members.v21.co.uk)
Date: Sat Oct 05 2002 - 10:16:21 BST
Hi David,
Your response (and others) is in part 'Pirsig can't have been quite so
sweeping in his judgement' - hence you say "I don't have a page number or
anything, but I'm sure that Pirsig allows for exceptions, like documentaries
and stuff. Further, I'd bet Pirsig would make even more exceptions if he saw
what independent film makers have been doing in recent years."
But it was precisely because Pirsig doesn't leave a get out clause that I
sent out my original post. He writes:
"Films are social media; his book was largely intellectual. That was the
center of the problem....Sure, it's possible to use film for primarily
intellectual purposes, to make a documentary, but Redford wasn't here to
make a documentary, or anything close to it... Pictures aren't intellectual
media. Pictures are pictures... what he saw at this point was a social
pattern of values, a film, devouring an intelletual pattern of values, his
book. It would be a lower form of life feeding upon a higher form of life.
As such it would be immoral."
"Films are social media... pictures aren't intellectual media... a social
pattern of values, a film". He allows documentaries to be an exception, but
that's not my point - my point is that, to refer to something I read
somewhere, film can 'change the way you think and feel about your life'.
Which to my mind is not a social level function. Pirsig seems pretty
unambiguous to me - unambiguous and wrong. (Which isn't to say that I think
all film is intellectual - it clearly isn't, but what I'm objecting to is
Pirsig's assumption that film is *incapable* of being an intellectual
medium. That just seems ignorant, although it is consistent with a number of
other attitudes that Pirsig holds. I'd be interested to know what Platt
thinks on this, because Pirsig seems very close to saying that Art
(pictures) cannot be an intellectual medium. Isn't Pirsig lapsing into an
equation of SOM and the intellectual level? (Bo? any comments here?))
BTW I agree with you about the Matrix, that you need to be educated to get
an intellectual 'fix' from watching it, I just didn't want to dive straight
in with pretentious waffling about Tarkovsky ;-) I haven't seen Henry Fool,
I'll try and get hold of a copy. But I think the Coen brothers are
marvellous too. Recent 'Hollywood/popular' films that have intellectual
content: Magnolia (primus inter pares), American Beauty, Eyes Wide Shut,
Fight Club and, yes, the Matrix. BEND THE SPOON!
Sam
www.elizaphanian.v-2-1.net/home.html
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