M (1931)

The M (1931) movie was very interesting to say the least. The parallels to our times are scary. For example, one of my favorite parts of the movie is when the commissioner is conducting his brainstorming session to try and figure a way to catch the murderer. The first response from the uniformed official in charge of the police is to “step up ID checks, comb the entire city and raids, relentless, ever tougher raids!”  He wants to do this without having a clue of what or who he is looking for. Let’s harass the people and something may fall in our laps, ala NYPD style with their Stop-and-Frisk Campaign which according to NBC New York, the Campaign has hit an all-time high; 684,330 people stopped in 2011 alone and only 12 percent were charged or received summons!  Further more, in that scene we see how the authorities view the public with contempt.

1. The evolution of police power as it is depicted in M is far from what we see in Dr. Caligari. The police were portrait in a very rudimentary way with their tight uniforms and funny looking mustache in the Dr. Caligari film. That is in very sharp contrast to what we see in the M film where the police officials are wearing suits and have different branches. Also they have more scientific knowledge at their disposal including what would be considered in today’s time a FBI profiler.  

2. Whether the killer deserves to die or not is a very personal question. I am of the opining that in cases like this one where there is no doubt of his innocence, the best thing to do is to kill him.

3. The criminals’ ability to organize themselves is what gave them the ability to capture Beckert. The police was after Beckert for eight months with no results, and yet the criminals where able to capture him in a couple of days.

4. I think the Nazis where depicted as the real heroes of the film because they where portrait as being on the right side of common and justice. They even went as far a giving Beckert a fair trial. I think that the label of criminal only added to their appeal. Yes they where criminals, but they conducted themselves as a well organized an enterprise which    held regular meetings like any good business would. They where also portrayed as being with the people and not above them like the authorities.

5. The significance of the media in this film is the same as it today. It only serves one purpose and that is to agitate the masses. The media exacerbated fear and panic and turned it in to chaos to the point that the people were turning on each other.

The Blue Angel

This film was very interesting and entertaining for me, perhaps because I know someone who followed Professor Rath’s footsteps. The scene I chose was the one where Professor Rath is leaving the school followed by his start pupil and the other students. The other students trip him after setting him up with Lola’s picture. I think that scene represents the typical scenario where a person or group is trying to obey the rules or laws and in the process becomes the outcast. He became the target of his peers because he was the nerd. I the same way anyone who did not follow the established and accepted social norms in Germany, would have suffer the same fate.   I the film reinforce traditional notions of morality because at the beginning the professor was a model citizen and everything appeared to be well in his life until he decided to get involved with Lola. Since he deviated from the rules of proper class people, he became an outcast and suffers until the end for it.

1. I the same way that Siddhartha fell for Kamala,   Rath became enamored with, so mush         so that he chooses her over his career.

2. I think Lola is an emancipated woman because she did as she pleased with men including Prof. Rath. Also her views on life are reflected in her song when she performs. All the men want her and she can’t help it.

3. I think the significance of the clown is very simple. It represents the Professor’s downfall. It clown is seen as a coarse, rude, vulgar person foolishness and disrespect, ridicule and that is what Prof. Rath becomes in the end.

4. Chaos thematically represented in the film from the very first scene where we see the houses has very irregular shapes and the disorder in the street with the ducks making noises. We also see chaos in the Blue Angel where people are coming and going back and forth for no apparent reason. The kids are hanging around and people are shouting during the performance.

5. I think the overall meaning of the film illustrates what can happen when we let irrational thinking govern us. I think the film is more inline with keeping people in fear of acting on irrational thoughts, or take a change in life and deviate from the norm. On one hand we see Prof. Rath try to corrects his students and on the other we see him throwing away his life career  for a Bar woman.

6. I think   comparing Rath to the Haussmann painting/montage is a good comparison because in the painting we see an intellectual man who is knowledgeable of the sciences and is well dressed but is juxtapose with a men who is broke with a map above him which represents his travels.  

Expressionism: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

At first glance the Doctor Caligari movie appears to be boring if we look at it from our current day’s perspective. However when we take in to consideration the time that it was filmed in, we can clearly see how it relates to that time period. There is a scene where Caligari goes to apply for a permit to operate a booth at the fair. He is very polite and patient until he noticed that the clerk is done attending the other people that where there. He gets up and goes towards the clerk official sitting on an absurdly large stool. The clerk yells at him to sit-down and calls him a fool.  After all the waiting is He is rudely dismissed by a minor official.

I choose this scene because it reminded me of my visits to the motor vehicle department. The clerks treat you like you are a bother to them and speak to you like you are a fool if there is anything missing or left unfilled on your paperwork. I also think that the clerk is showed in the absurdly large stool to portray his higher authority. He was elevated above Dr. Caligari to show that he had power over him. I believe the scene reflects the corruption of power in the German government and like the rest of the movie it shows people suffering the abused of the authorities. in this case the evil Dr, Caligari was trying to do the proper thing which is to apply for a permit to operate his both only to be ridiculed and denied his right to his per mint because the official disapprove of the show. In the same way the whole movie is about power and control.

1. Dr. Caligari has power and control over Cesar in the same way the German government had power and control thru the used of mass media also know as their propaganda machine.

2. The profit motive affects cultural production in the modern age in the same way it affected film production back then. The screenplay is change from what ever it was to something that will sell box-office tickets without regards to how those changes affect or completely change the intended message of the story. Like they say:, “it’s all about the Benjamins."

3. I believe the Frankfurt School's elitism regarding mass culture is simply part of what is normal. The only way people will understand what the Frankfurt school is trying to teach the public is if the people have a certain level of education, and so inevitably the message only reaches the few people who are educated enough to understand it.

4. I believe the three aspects of the film that relate to the attributes of the culture industry are first is  the fact that  original story intent is changed in the movie in favor for a n ending that can appeal to the masses and second because the change was drive to generate more revenue. Third  is the changing of the meaning of the story. By changing the ending of the story, Francis became a crazy person and Caligari   the hero of the story. In essence removing the anti-war message and reinforcing traditional authority.  

5. Kracauer interprets the film as a choice between chaos and anarchy because he believes that expressing freedom as the carnival is really the desire to go back to the pre-industrial past. and that the circular movements of the merry-go-round and the organ grinder's arm as he plays his music box are supposed to symbolize chaos.

6. There was increased pressure to develop the German film industry after the First World War because Germany's economy was struggling to survive due to the peace Treaty of Versailles which stated that Germany had to de-industrialize large segments of its economy. As a result Film was then seen as a very important export for Germany's economy.

7. I do not agree with the claim that expressionism breeds excessive inwardness and withdrawal. One only needs to look at the United States for example. We are made up of many cultures and we all express our individualism and at the same time we all unify by the same core believes of freedom and the pursue of happiness.

8.  According to Kracauer the film foreshadow the Nazi regime because it illustrated the unsolvable dilemma facing the German people during the 1920s. They had to choose between tyranny on the one hand and chaos on the other.

9. Praxis is the fusion of theory and practice. It relate to cultural criticism because it elicit the practical enrollment of the philosophers. Praxis calls on the cultural critics to get involve and shake things up and not just critique from the sidelines or from seclusion.

Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha

After the reading I came to believe that while Siddhartha’s life journey brings him to a nihilistic view, it is short lived. We can clearly see towards the end of the book that all of his experiences lead him to believe that the ultimate goal was to be one with the universe and to accept things for what they are. This is a total contradiction to nihilism. I felt that Hesse showed a since of surrender trough Siddhartha, because after all of his struggles and tribulation he just gave up the idea that there is a better world that could be obtained. When he starts his journey, he wants to fill a void. He knows that what he is after is not a material thing but a higher level of understanding or existence. In the end he comes to the understanding that everything in the world is good.  I can’t help but wonder if this was just a way to justify, rationalize and explain the things he was seeing in Germany at the time. It was a way of seeing the good in the evil that his society was turning into, if you will.

            I believe his detachment from his family made him more numb towards relationships and people in general. Only after falling for the beautiful Kamala, does he settle down and have a child with her. Even then he eventually leaves her and his child and runs away into the woods. It seams that he only cares about himself and his quest for internal peace. I am not sure he made an effort to maintain his friendship with Govinda. In the book it says he encounters Govinda and tells him all he has learned. Govinda is necessary to the story because it is through his interaction with his friend that we learn of his final philosophical take on life.

            In the end Hesse becomes more incline to believe that we are one with the universe. I like to think of him as a Star War Jedi saying that we are one with the force.

Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha (1922):

“What is meditation? What is leaving one's body? What is fasting? What is holding one's breath? It is fleeing from the self, it is a short escape of the agony of being a self, it is a short numbing of the senses against the pain and the pointlessness of life. The same escape, the same short numbing is what the driver of an ox-cart finds in the inn, drinking a few bowls of rice-wine or fermented coconut-milk. Then he won't feel his self any more, then he won't feel the pains of life any more, then he finds a short numbing of the senses. When he falls asleep over his bowl of rice-wine, he'll find the same what Siddhartha and Govinda find when they escape their bodies through long exercises, staying in the non-self. This is how it is, oh Govinda."

I believe this passage is about the different ways people can achieve temporary rest from the pains of the world.  I like it because it rings true today. In our daily lives most people take alcohol, others take drugs like marijuana, ecstasy, cocaine, ect… but they are all  looking for the same thing. They want to numb the pain, the stress or agony of being alive and feeling helpless and only being able to find momentary reprieve from it all trough the use of substances. A good friend of mine who is a former alcohol and drug addict told me that after running for 45 minutes he feels the same high as he did when he used drugs, but it only last a couple of minutes. It is so much easier to take a pill or smoke something and the effects last longer too. Whether meditating, drinking alcohol, fasting or smoking weed, we are all trying to achieve the same goal which is to escape reality.

1. I believe Siddhartha left his father because he understood that there was nothing left for min to learn from his father or his other teachers. He also felt that his soul was not at peace. He was not satisfied and he believed that he needed to leave in order to seek higher knowledge.

3. I don’t think Siddhartha would have reached Enlightenment faster if he never lived with Kamala and the people in the city, because it was his relationship with Kamala and the people of the city that drove him to change himself so much that he ended up contemplating suicide. Without those experiences, he wouldn’t have hit rock bottom and according to himself it was only after hitting rock bottom that he was able to see the truth.

4. The river represents the fullness of existence. It was the same river at the mouth and at the end. Like the river Siddhartha believes he could view his life in the same way. The boy he was when his life began and the old men that he’ll be at the end, are part of him. They are all inside of him but he can only experience them one at time.

8. Vasudeva is the ferryman who Siddhartha begins to suspect is a god or the river itself is speaking to him.

10. Siddhartha decides not to follow Buddha because he believes that nobody will achieve Buddha’s level of enlightenment by means of teaching. He thinks a person must take his or her own journey in order to achieve salvation.  

Hannah Höch's Tamar

Tamar 1930

In Höch Tamar we see the figure of a women seated with crossed arms that appear to belong to a men she has a porcelain face and is looking down at a sea lion. The seal lion is wearing makeup. The eyes of both sea lion and mannequin are very similar, almost suggesting that the same soul is peering out of them. At the same time the eyes of both subjects appear to be looking at the viewer. Once you start to look at women and then at the seal, you start to wonder many tings. For instance who is superior and because of their confident smiles. Also it stirs up the question of whether they are one and the same; or are they looking at each others self-projected image? But more importantly what does it all mean and why does it matter?

Hannah Höch

            Hannah Höch was born in the town of Gotha, Germany 1889. She studied at the College of Arts and Crafts in Berlin under the guidance of Harold Bergen. During war world one she left the school for a year to work with the Red Cross.   During her final school years Höch began an influential friendship with a member of the Berlin Dada movement name Raoul Hausmann. After College, she worked in the handicrafts department for The Ullstein Press, designing dress and embroidery patterns for The Lady and The Practical Berlin Woman. These experiences will later influence her works of art by incorporating her knowledge dress patterns and textiles. Höch was one of the first pioneers of the art form known as photomontage.
 Hannah Höch (wikipedia)

           

            Höch lived an interesting live. She became Hausmann mistress and after several years Hausmann refusal to leave his wife, and a couple of abortions latter, she became sexually involved with women. These tough life experiences helped shape he views on women’s wrights and to point out the hypocrisy in German society.

 

From the Dada Manifesto (1916, Hugo Ball)

How does one achieve eternal bliss? By saying dada. How does one become famous? By saying dada. With a noble gesture and delicate propriety. Till one goes crazy. Till one loses consciousness. How can one get rid of everything that smacks of journalism, worms, everything nice and right, blinkered, moralistic, europeanised, enervated? By saying dada. Dada is the world soul, dada is the pawnshop. Dada is the world's best lily-milk soap. Dada Mr Rubiner, dada Mr Korrodi. Dada Mr Anastasius Lilienstein. In plain language: the hospitality of the Swiss is something to be profoundly appreciated. And in questions of aesthetics the key is quality.

 

          I believe the meaning of this paragraph is that happiness if found within. If we accept that the word Dada means nothing and everything, and that we give that sound a name and meaning, then the way to create something whether is bliss of fame is with your mind. When Mr. Ball says to one should say the word Dada till one goes crazy and loses consciousness, he is instructing us to let go of everything. Our earthly possessions, relationships, sentimental values, family ties, religious believes, desire, love and hate, these are all things that prevent us from getting in touch with our true self. If one can let go of it all, one get to higher state of being. A state where we can appreciate how absurd or nonsensical a thing, person, rules, or ideas can be. I believe that this passage instruct us to renounce the reality in witch we live and create our own. Hugo Ball was motivated by his disapproval where society was heading in Germany after the war. A philosophy that proclaim to have the ultimate truth, accepted by the general public, helped build the foundation for the start of the next war. I can’t help but fear about the parallels between out time and Mr. Ball time. We are once again at a point in time where nations believe that they way of life is not only the best way, but the only way; and are willing to use military powers to impose their way of life on others. In a time of multiple and perpetual wars between people and nations around the world, the only thing that can keep you from going crazy is Dada.