From: Matt Kundert (pirsigaffliction@hotmail.com)
Date: Tue Oct 25 2005 - 00:55:12 BST
Yeah, I thought I Heart Huckabees was great. There are two parts that I'd
highlight (just off the top of my head). The first I mentioned the first
time on the MD after I saw the movie. Marky Mark's character struck me as a
hilarious contradiction in terms. Philosophy prides itself on its
conversability, on the need for reasons and arguments (no less than its
historical place amongst the "high culture," where cool-headedness is given
pride of place). Marky Mark's character embraced the Greek's love of
argument and instigation, yet whenever he was confronted (or rather, when
_he_ confronted) the "conversation" quickly devolved into a shouting match,
with eventually Marky Mark either shouting "Shut up! Shut up!" or
threatening physical violence--two great faux pases, going beyond the pale
of conversation.
The other thing should be of particular interest to lovers of ZMM. ZMM is a
dialectical journey. Pirsig takes us through a tour of philosophical
positions, but they don't necessarily unfold positively, as if we are to
tick off the philosophical positions he's taking in passage after passage in
our notebook. The journey takes us through a number of areas and the effort
is to affect us in a certain way to put us in a position to receive
something. That something is never really spelled out, even at the end, but
that's because, I think, there is no "something" to receive, at least not
something like a philosophical position. More than anything, I think the
journey ZMM takes us through is a journey where, at the end, the position we
are put in is the position of starting our own journey. (I remember reading
this book about authors' favorite books and one well-known author (hell if I
can remember his name right now) said that he loved ZMM when it came
out--but damned if he could remember why, even five years after reading it.
All he could remember is that it affected him greatly at the time, though he
can't remember how or what specific way.) This is the same thing that I
Heart Huckabees displays. The movie is self-consciously a dialectical
journey, and the two existential detectives (Dustin Hoffman and Lily Tomlin)
are consciously putting the other characters (particularly Jason
Schwartzman) through an unwitting dialectical process of self-discovery
(till the end at least), and so too are we put through the hoops with them.
Matt
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