Fwd: Re: Are tyrants good for art?

Mon Aug 13 11:56:55 CDT 2012

right. right. hardship strengthens the soul. no matter who oppresses 
you, hollywood or gulag, pardon me for those cliches
we all have our warm memories about our soviet past when the grass was 
greener (however, 1998 seems like not it, it was more of yeltsin's break 
in that ethnically hereditary tyranny we're still having here with those 
two revolting clowns replacing each other now and then), and, for 
tourists, it might be especially dear. but please mind, in this country 
all real good art, be it tarkovsky, klimov or whoever in other venues or 
genres, has always existed neither thanks to nor in opposition to power 
(there are exceptions, of course, but they are, well, exceptions, etc.) 
it has always been totally parallel to to the regime, not even on the 
same plane with it. i suspect, it happens everywhere but can speak only 
from my experience in this country. if a tyranny is instrumental in 
creating good art, it may be so in a very, very roundabout way. to say 
it is "good" for anything apart from corruption and suffering is, well, 
stretching the truth ideologically. of course, i'm prejudiced against 
it, i've spent the last 50 years (almost) in here, and i hope that i 
know how much better the art could have been without the dubious beauty 
of the soviet power adorning it. the regime broke tarkovsky, at least, 
it corrupted klimov into prolonged silence and bureaucratic toil, it 
ruined eisenstein's last years, if we must speak of the cinema. so, how 
good was that for art? please
Mx

On 13.08.2012 20:14, Phillip Greenlief wrote:
> *From:* Max Nemtsov <max.nemtsov at gmail.com>
> **
> hm, a hectic mix
> and, this list covers at least 3 different tyrants, with different
> degrees of tightening screws on art (not to mention, several works from
> it are specimens of pre-ordered propaganda art). and, this is cinema
> which, according to the greatest moviegoer of all times, named
> Ulyanov-Lenin, was nothing better for the masses than circus, so of
> course it thrived under the Soviets, why shouldn't it. and it
> disproportionately veers towards one director
> try to take instead, something like a typical annual output of Soviet
> film studios of mid-seventies, and see how many gems you could find.
> then, let's talk art
> Mx
>
> jesus, i just adore people nostalgic for the soviet era, it's like the
> 60s. have you lived there?
>
> ************************
> sir,
>
> well, i'm just a dumb-ass american, commenting on movies that i like.
>
> i did live in saint petersburg, but in 1998, after glasnost, so no, i 
> didn't live there during the soviet era. i tell you what i did like 
> about living there: lots of wonderful musicians to play with - going 
> to the marinsky theater and seeing WAITING FOR GODOT and paying the 
> equivalent of $3.50 to see it, or ballet, opera, all of it - usually 
> less than $4 to see great performances - good food to buy for cheap in 
> the sennaya ploschad - cheap rent (i know it's gone up a lot since 
> then, but it's not like the cost of housing in the sf bay area hasn't 
> increased since 1998 ... fuck, give me a break) - and the russians 
> were no where near as snotty as any new yorker or bay area musician i 
> run into.
>
> onward - do you really think hollywood is without tyrants? does not 
> the capitalist system come with its own insidious brand of censorship? 
> movies get made in america that can make money. art isn't so terribly 
> important to the mix - the so called independent cinema movement in 
> america (which smells a lot like the current brand of liberalism - 
> meaning, it no longer exists in a form that is consistent with its 
> definition) has become little more than an avenue for young filmmakers 
> to show the big studios they can suck up to the status quo with the 
> best of 'em.
>
> i can only judge those (russian) films through the same set of eyes 
> that i view any work of world cinema, and for my money, or focused 
> attention, those films on that list stand up against anything that 
> bergman, fellini, hitchcock, ozu, antonioni, or any of the other great 
> film-makers have produced. they present fascinating stories that 
> engage me intellectually and emotionally ... works for me. the first 
> five minutes of THE CRANES ARE FLYING are as good as any out there, 
> imo ...
>
> but i'm probably suffering from the same disease as you - namely, that 
> anything (in the realm of art - and hell, politics for that matter) 
> that comes out of my country - nowadays anyway - is met with a great 
> deal of suspicion - the system that has created it is a corrupt, 
> morally bankrupt system that prizes gold above all else. that's how we 
> measure success in this country - what did the box office have to say 
> about it? even a film like VERTIGO is still apprehended (when 
> professionals in the film industry talk about it) with: well, it 
> didn't do so well at the box office, but time seems to have been kind 
> to it - and that's just about the best film hitchcock ever made.
>
> look at the summer releases in america and tell me which film out in 
> the theaters right now stands up against tarkovsky or klimov? the 
> fucking DARK KNIGHT RISES? HUNGER GAMES? MADAGASCAR 3??? ... please. 
> two of the best american films i've seen this year are - no wait, WE 
> NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN is lynne ramsay - english ... never mind. i 
> take it back - i haven't seen an independent film released from an 
> american director this year that can touch any of the films on that list.
>
> ok, sorry, rant over. just sayin' ... the capitalist system is not 
> without tyrants, and not without censorship and not without a lot of 
> people toiling and getting exploited.
>
>
> ************************
> On 12.08.2012 23:14, kelber at mindspring.com 
> <mailto:kelber at mindspring.com> wrote:
> > Battleship Potemkin (1925)
> > Alexander Nevsky (1938)
> > The Cranes are Flying (1957)
> > Ivan's Childhood (1962)
> > Andrei Rublev (1966)
> > Stalker (1979)
> > Come and See (1985)
> >
> > And for all of its repressive structures in place, Iran has a great 
> cinema movement.
> >
> > Laura
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> >> From: Joe Allonby <joeallonby at gmail.com <mailto:joeallonby at gmail.com>>
> >> Sent: Aug 12, 2012 1:08 PM
> >> To: Alex Colter <recoignishon at gmail.com 
> <mailto:recoignishon at gmail.com>>
> >> Cc: Dave Monroe <against.the.dave at gmail.com 
> <mailto:against.the.dave at gmail.com>>, pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org 
> <mailto:pynchon-l at waste.org>>
> >> Subject: Re: Are tyrants good for art?
> >>
> >>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oRbStmxvm4
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> On Sun, Aug 12, 2012 at 1:03 PM, Alex Colter 
> <recoignishon at gmail.com <mailto:recoignishon at gmail.com>> wrote:
> >>> "It's because traditional tyrants left a good deal of freedom in 
> society.
> >>> Ancient China wasn't anything like a modern democracy, but it 
> produced some
> >>> of the greatest art there's ever been, while Mao's China produced 
> nothing.
> >>> Tsarist Russia contained many kinds of discrimination and 
> injustice, but in
> >>> the late 19th and early 20th Century it was in the vanguard of 
> literature,
> >>> painting, music and dance. The Soviet Union produced little that 
> was even
> >>> remotely comparable. The arts flourished in the empire of the 
> Habsburgs,
> >>> while Nazism produced Leni Riefenstahl's repugnant and much over-rated
> >>> Triumph of the Will. Whereas authoritarian regimes leave much of 
> society
> >>> alone, totalitarianism aims to control everything. Invariably, the 
> result is
> >>> a cultural desert."
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> On Sun, Aug 12, 2012 at 11:08 AM, Dave Monroe 
> <against.the.dave at gmail.com <mailto:against.the.dave at gmail.com>>
> >>> wrote:
> >>>> Culture thrives on conflict and antagonism, not social harmony - a
> >>>> point made rather memorably by a certain Harry Lime, says philosopher
> >>>> John Gray.
> >>>>
> >>>>http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19202527
> >>>>
> >>>> John Gray
> >>>>
> >>>>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_N._Gray
> >>>
>
>
>
>
>
>

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