Have any of you seen Punishment Park?

[john winthrop]

Well i don't disagree with you, I just have personal qualms with the 
speculative documentary style.  A bunch of people actually believed the film 
was real when they first saw it. It had as much to do with the subject of 
the movie, i think, as with the style, meant to expose image manipulation by 
the media. it looks like tv, it's gotta be real.  the more i think about it, 
the more i realize that my reaction was probably what watkins was hoping 
for. watching his movie, you know you're being duped. then you realize that 
tv is always duping you, and you get angry...? anyway. i actually liked the 
movie, and agree with your analysis, but i guess i still squirm at fighting 
fire with fire, to cut a long story short.
this said,the movie IS a triumph,  i also agree with the connections between 
punishment park and vineland, so much so that i mention the movie in the 
thesis i'm writing on our man thomas. the nixonian camps are also mentioned 
by richard zhlubb himself in gravity's rainbow.

have you seen watkins' movie about the paris commune? i heard it was great 
too.





>From: "snappydresser" <snappydresser at rogers.com>
>To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>Subject: Re: Have any of you seen Punishment Park?
>Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2004 03:22:25 -0500
>
>I think the only thing we'll agree on is that it's a deeply disturbing 
>film.
>
>I have no problem with the "speculative documentary" format, personally. If 
>that makes the film more about media politics than politics proper, so be 
>it. Isn't that a worthy subject, too?
>
>Cinematically, I think Punishment Park is a minor triumph. The documentary 
>style totally sucks you in. A satire without comedy (is there a word for 
>that?), Punishment Park works as an action thriller, near-future science 
>fiction, an angry dialectic, and a horror movie for hippies. Having the 
>actors (mostly amateurs) on both sides of "the law" improvise their 
>self-defense testimony using their personal politic beliefs was very 
>effective. It was difficult not to imagine having to defend my own less 
>than popular beliefs before a committee of steadfast and resolute 
>ideologues.
>
>That the characters were (some rather obvious) doppelgangers for 
>counterculture figures of the time didn't bother me, either. Those who 
>occasionally sounded like they were reading from a script (the cops and the 
>morality counsel) were the ones who might actually sound scripted in real 
>life, which made it all the more jarring when they flew off the handle.
>
>Some have argued that the film is pornography for paranoids, but one of its 
>most compelling aspects was that Watkins extrapolated his vision from 
>existing legislation: the McCarran National Security Act of 1950.  Just 
>because things never got as bad as the film portrays, that doesn't mean 
>they couldn't have. The Nixonian dystopia Watkins envisions is relatively 
>realistic, even feasible. And it definitely has more than a faint echo of 
>certain passages from Vineland.
>
>I would recommend Punishment Park to anybody who enjoys and appreciates the 
>works of Thomas Pynchon.
>
>Cheers!
>YOPJ
>
>>
>>i have seen it, and even though watkins' politics are very close to mine, 
>>i didn't really like the manipulative side of it, fake tv documentary 
>>etc... there is something about it that i find even more disturbing than 
>>what it criticizes. i think that by making a fake tv documentary it tends 
>>to shift the focus from politics to media politics, and i don't think that 
>>was his original goal.
>>what do you think?
>

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