Duck Soup VS The Way Things Go

I believe that Duck Soup can indeed be considered a narrative, that is, up until the climax of the film. The first 3/4 of the film follow the logical point A to B narrative structure of story, as we follow Firefly's misadventures as ruler of Freedonia and the possible lead-up to war with Slyvania. The end of the film is more splintered in spatial and temporal logic however, as we see the Marx brothers switch costumes irregularly and are in one spot one minute and another the next. The Way Things Go can also be considered a narrative because there is a natural progression of the various contraptions that lead to an eventual end (albeit somewhat anti-climatic in my opinion). And while both films are filled with gags and spectacle, I feel that The Way Things Go is meant as more of a showmanship of the director's ability to make good inventions and isn't a sum of it's parts because of the anti-climatic ending, while Duck Soup seems to offer commentary on the absurdity of war and those who wage it, making it more than just a gag reel.

Report

I found Conner's film very intriguing, not only because of the way the Kennedy assassination was presented mainly by audio, but also the footage at the very end with the bull. This video reminded me of how my Dad told me that he heard about the Kennedy assassination by listening to the radio in his car. I imagine that many people received this news the same way and they probably constructed their own image of the shooting in their head, which is the point I think Conner was trying to make with his film. The ending with the bull was very intriguing, and I my own personal interpretation of this was that this was possibly supposed to be symbolic of the conspiracy to kill JFK. Much like a bull is used as spectacle in a bullfight and is then sacrificed, I saw this as being similar to Kennedy's presidency and assassination; how he was used as a public figure head for leading the US into the Vietnam war and the whole Cuban fiasco, only to be executed when he was no longer needed, or even considered a threat.

Andy Warhol

Warhol's most prominent work began in the 60's when he began making paintings of famous American pop culture products. He was often criticized for this by being called a "capitalist artist", but Warhol wanted to make his work accessible to all types of people. He was also very interested in the recontextualization of the medium itself. He would paint banal and simple things to comment on art itself and the society that inhabited these items and his use of oxidation paintings were canvases prepared with copper paint that were then soaked with urine. He was also famous for making his art extremely mechanized so that he rarely even had his hand in mass producing it.

Table Top Assignment

(Note- Though the syllabus said that this blog should be posted by noon, I didn't perform my presentation until after noon and I wanted to post some reactions on how I felt the piece went. Therefore I am hoping it will be counted as I am posting it as if it were a regular blog assignment, before 5pm)

For my presentation, I wanted to make a political statement of some sort but also try and embrace the class philosophy of "serious clowning." For some odd reason, I have kept this Garfield postcard booklet for many years and combined with the genius strips of Bill Watterson's Calvin and Hobbes, I decided to a make statements on 9/11, the war in Iraq & its current proponents, history and the perception of truth. I felt that by using comics, I could bring across a couple of interesting ideas without being overly preachy because there would be the humor of the cartoons to contrast the ideas with.

For the most part I think the presentation went pretty well. There was a question that was discussed last week in lab about whether or not rehearsal was a good idea compared to just winging it when working on a work of art. Though I originally expressed an interest in the improvisational aspect of winging it, I see that rehearsal can be a very useful tool as it allows the artist to make sure they fully understand the boundaries or limitations that they will face while creating and performing the work. For example, though I had gone in to make sure my focus of the "strip" on the table was good, I didn't take into account that the table being used was rounded off and this made it difficult when trying to keep the strip evenly flowing across the table. Luckily another student was there to assist me and I was able to keep the pace on track and aligned for the most part.

Week #5- "Tree"

In considering authorship, I would say that though Welsby is most certainly the creator behind "Tree", he relinquishes some if not all of his control to the audience. The whole piece in itself seems to be meant as meditative, remaining fixed on the same background for the whole film while we sit and contemplate its meaning or mood. So in essence the whole film is somewhat left to our own interpretation since not much appears to be happening. The part of the film where I feel that Welsby really relinquishes control is when the camera tilts slightly towards the left and the image becomes very jostled and unsettling. For me personally it was hard to even keep a steady eye on the screen and I had to turn away multiple times because I was getting nausea. Welsby was presenting me with a choice to either continue on the path he had set out for me as the spectator to follow or to turn back. He left the control to me.

Week #2- Time in Deren's Film "At Land"

One of the interesting things that I found about At Land and a couple other of Maya Deren's films is her use of space. She is constantly moving about different areas and interacting in mysterious ways, often seeing herself in these spaces from a different time. And I think it is these encounters she has with her other selves that give her films somewhat of a comic edge, as it can be entertaining to watch representations of one arguing with themselves.

Week # 1- Serious Clowning in "The Boat"

There is no better personification of the playful aesthetic this class aims to investigate than the work of Buster Keaton and, more broadly, slapstick comedy in general. Slapstick seems to find it's comic power in the ability to find humor in extremely precarious situations. In Keaton's case, it's usually his body that he puts in constant danger for comic effect. I thought about this while watching The Boat and I asked myself, why do I find this so funny? Why am I laughing at a man who is putting himself and his family in such danger? And the only two reasons I can of is just my awareness that it is a performance and the fact that I can enjoy these simulated acts of violence from the comfort of my chair, as an act of catharsis.

I also think there is a relevant point to make from Freud's article where he talks about jokes and their relation to the comic. There is a point he makes about how the comic is concerned with manifestations of that which is ugly and how a certain caricature arises from this type of joking. He cites Kuno Fischer: "If what is ugly is concealed, it must be uncovered in the light of the comic way of looking at things; if it is noticed only a little bit or scarcely at all, it must be brought forward and made obvious, so that it lies clear and open to the light of day....in this way caricature comes about." To me, this is precisely what Keaton does in his films; taking a grim situation and exposing it to laughter. Taking another look at The Boat, it's a fairly grim story if you look at it without the comic way of seeing things. A man destroys his house trying to launch a boat into the water, which almost ends up in his son being seriously injured. When they are out at sea, everything that can go wrong does including the boat flooding and sinking. Now because we are familiar with the Buster Keaton styled caricature of comedy, we can laugh at this situation. But what I think really gives this film its appeal is the use of the family in it. By using this grim backdrop of a shipwreck, we get an intimate look at how the family functions. We can tell Buster is a strict father by the way he constantly carries his sons around by the seat of their pants but also that he shares a bond with the boys when they all secretly discard the bad dinner Buster's wife has cooked. And though it appears that Buster is willing to "go down with his ship" at the end of the film, we are pleased to see his head pop up from the water and watch him swim back to his family. So through the use of physical humor and family nuances, Keaton is able to bring laughter to the ugliest of situations.