VLVL(5) At the Movies and on the Tube

[Paul Nightingale]

>From Dave Monroe:
> 
> --- Otto <ottosell at yahoo.de> wrote:
> >
> > What about the strange idea of describing his "inner
> > feelings" by a movie-quote? It doesn't make those
> > feelings very authentic.
> 
> But the question here then, is exactly when are
> feelings "authentic" or otherwise?  Especially in any
> given description/expression/whatever thereof?  When
> is any such description NOT a "quote" of some sort?

My immediate response to Otto's question ... would it be better if Zoyd
quoted Shakespeare?

It's interesting that Zoyd expresses his feelings through, and therefore
hides them behind, any kind of quotation. As far as the novel's
concerned, this scene is in marked contrast to the previous one with
Frenesi, at the wedding. There Zoyd gushes something about being saved,
because "he hadn't learned yet what a stupid question it was" (39).
Here, in a jump-cut to the end of their relationship, he plays on her
knowledge of film history: to ingratiate himself?

24fps invokes Godard's ("film is truth 24 frames per second")
Dziga-Vertov period in the mid-60s, as well as, eg, a film like Medium
Cool (in part about the 1968 Chicago convention). Whatever else you say
about that generation of film-makers, they knew their history and could
quote from it. The so-called 'movie brats', Scorsese, De Palma et al,
were just starting then; film studies was still being established as a
serious academic discipline (probably against the wishes of most
litcritters, don't forget). As a product of its time, film culture had,
therefore, a revisionist attitude to classical Hollywood; one could
appreciate the commercial studio product, even if none of the people
concerned were interested in making films that way.