VLVL2 (2): Film as Metaphor -- Made-for-TV Movie Theory

[Paul Nightingale]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org] On
> Behalf Of gumbo at fuse.net
> Sent: 28 July 2003 22:40
> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
> Subject: Re: Re: VLVL2 (2): Film as Metaphor -- Made-for-TV Movie
Theory
> 
> The Pia and Clara namedrop is a complex little joke. It tracks the
> objectification of women across sixty years of film history, and the
irony
> of one Svengali-managed actress being played by another, and the
process
> of authenticity giving way to an ineptly drawn replica.
>

Yes, tragedy and farce perhaps. And the authentic original is herself a
movie image.

This is a good example of how we have to think about P's invention of TV
movies in VL. The way A is juxtaposed to B. For Woody Allen and
Kissinger, I suppose there's a physical resemblance, not least with the
glasses they each wear (and think of the child actors Allen uses to play
his younger selves in films like Radio Days; it’s the glasses that
identify the boys as Allen Jr). Also the difference in politics between
the two men, the New York liberal playing the war criminal. Perhaps
reminiscent of the way the novel juxtaposes Brock and Weed.
 
> It also seems to relate to the novel's concern with how media and
> particularly film influence individual and group behavior. Not long
after
> she watches the film, Prairie is observed fretting about her body
image in
> a conversation with Zoyd.
> 

And there's also the jokey pose she strikes when Zoyd starts to 'strip
off': the Ingénue, 'threatened'.