film-telling vs. movietelling: (no subject)

Linh Dinh's recent post on Harriet Blog is about Movietelling. 

He shares his exchange with David Larsen, as well as excerpts of Vietnamese-American writer and critic Thuy Dinh conveying her thoughts on historical film narration in Vietnam.

See Linh Dinh's movietelling piece, A Smooth Life.

In other movietelling news...

Konrad Steiner goes Northwest with Neo-Benshi, along with David Larsen & other Bay Area poets. They're joining up with a group of Portland-based artists and writers to put on: The New Talkies: Portland-San Francisco Neo-Benshi Cabaret. (May 3rd)

Just when I was about to give up my regular google search for various film narration activities, this one comes along. Sadly, I won't be able to make it out to Portland this week, but perhaps someone will be kind enough to archive some of the event on-line. 

As excited as I am just to know this event is taking place, I was disappointed upon reading Konrad Steiner's "Curator's Statement." As I'm going to write about its specifics, I'll post it here:

The "benshi" is the name for the accomplished actor/writer who wrote scripts to narrate live to projected films in Japan, where the profession reached its commercial and popular apex in the 1920s, more than in any other country, mainly because of a prosperous and prolific Japanese film industry.

There have been many variations of talking during a movie over the global history of film. The long tradition behind this current wave of interest in the form includes hecklers in theaters, dads in living rooms with their home movies, professional narrators of silent documentaries, the reknowned film-tellers in Europe and Asia, right up to TV shows like Jay Ward's Fractured Flickers in the 1960s and Mystery Science 
Theater in the 1990s.

The task of accompanying silent film is usually left to musicians. It becomes the task of writers to silence the talkies and revive the image whose meaning has been controlled and even restricted by the corporate culture of mass entertainment and mass profit. The benshi can take back the cinema, and anyone with a DVD player and a remote can give it a shot.

First off, I appreciate his anyone-can-do-it conclusion, as well as mentioning that there are ways in which a kind of spectator film narration is frequently taking place as part of a casual practice (i.e. home movies, hecklers etc). But in general, these qualities are spliced with a contrary agenda, as he opens his statement with a "benshi" definition that spends more time qualifying its dominance as a practice than it does actually wrestling with its definition. 

In an attempt to diffuse the exclusifying effects of the previous paragraph, he begins the second paragraph with a statement that translates something like: Even though the "benshi" were the predominant and most popular of the film narrators, many other people have "talked during a movie." The humor is more insulting than insightful. He may as well have begun that first sentence, "Of course, there have been many variations..." 

Among those who talk during movies, he counts "film-tellers in Europe and Asia." 

"film-tellers" vs. "movietellers." Is this similar to the semantic implications implied by saying "I've just screened a film" vs. "We went to the movies?" Or is there some other distinction? As far as I'm concerned, there is no difference, but why the distinction?

As a side note, some of those early practitioners of film narration in Europe and Asia were the Gavrilov Translators in Russia (a tradition maintained even into the 1980's), the Pyonsa in Korea, the Benzi in Taiwan, the Lector in Poland, as well as orators in Vietnam, France, and the Southern United States. All of this was happening at the same time, prompted by the influx of new mediums and technology (films), and the necessity of translation. 

In his final paragraph, Steiner heralds the subversive nature of the benshi. "The benshi can take back the cinema..." This is preceded by "It becomes the task of the writers to silence the talkies and revive the image whose meaning has been controlled and even restricted by the corporate culture of mass entertainment and mass profit." Let me juxtapose this with a more constructive quote from Linh Dinh's recent post on Harriet Blog: "Pivoted on a film, a successful movie telling narration surprises and enlightens viewers with a series of verbal tangents that riff on, play with, subvert the shown image." 

Subversion is built into the function/form of movietelling. Subversion is there in the act of altering the script, reissuing personalities, and crossing over from one medium to the next, but it's not always done well. Sometimes the effect is weak as a result of literal depictions, & sometimes the entire experience is an unpleasant collision between the filmmakers directed images and the film narrators trying to erase the effects of those images. Steiner claims, without providing any exception, that the images used by film narrators are dead of meaning and constrained by corporate culture, there value being primarily entertainment and profit. Steiner works for the SF Cinemateque... are the films they sponsor also considered waste to be recycled by a film narrator? 

One mark of a good film narrator/ movieteller/ neo-benshi, what have you, is a respect for the material being used: the film. I understand that some films are used because of their accepted lack of value, and that is a fine form of subversion, but that does not define the intent of film narration in general. 

The (katsuben) benshi were not subversive. They were not against the predominant culture or mass sentiments. More often than not, they were exceptionally pro-mass sentiments, in that pro-imperialist "popular apex in the 1920's" kind of way. Their performances, more so than their international contemporaries, maintained a definitively traditional practice, and most of the modern Japanese benshi continue to do so.

Walter Lew who heads up shadoWord (a contemporary production of movietelling and cinepoetics) provides an alternative perspective:

A fascinating, oft-neglected fact of world film history is that nearly everywhere movies have been regularly shown there was an era in which they were screened with live speech by orators or voice actors. The katsuben of Japan and pyônsa of Korea were the most celebrated forms of this once-global practice. Sometimes praised during their heyday as “poets of the dark,” in Korea the most iconoclastic “movietellers” risked imprisonment or worse to share their interpretations of films with local communities.

Perhaps they would have approved of the wit and freedom with which [contemporary] poets have chosen to recast the 20th century’s most powerful and oppressive artistic form.

I continue to explore movietelling as a practice. I spend an equal amount of time in search of instances of live film narration or creative dubbing. Though sometimes treated as a fad, this practice has roots around the globe, and its continued practice has the potential to bring together the cultural nuances and practical techniques behind each. It has also begun to provide a creative space where filmmakers, poets, performance artists, and musicians collaborate and improvise. I don't want to take back the cinema. If it was lost to me, I don't think I'd feel compelled to practice film narration. I want to confront cinema. I want to subvert specifically, rather than demonstrating my capacity to subvert a medium in general. 

For more information on movietelling and related subjects, follow the Movieteling label of this post to several previous posts pertaining to the subject(s).

Recent Discoveries on The Internet

1. Noah Cicero's poetic politics

In a recent post, I mentioned Cicero along side Tao Lin and Zachary German. Actually, all I did was mention Cicero, focusing my comments on German and Lin. Since, I've been frequently reading Cicero's blog, which he updates often. Reading his broad generalizing posts about current politics/ economics has been cathartic. He writes in a frenzied way: quick, spasmodic, sincere. Witness some Cicero insights I've recently enjoyed:

-Another problem in the American economy is that are not enough jobs, but with our technological resources we can still make plenty of shit.

-There are so many design problems in capitalism, I'm not even sure how they did it.

-We are using a lot of our fields to feed animals. Which I think is fucking stupid.

-There are fields [in] every [state ?] in America that could grow shit. 

Also see his Capitalism Video Blog.

2. Geof Huth's Fidgetglyphs & found text on Vacation

Geof Huth is a visual poetics guru. As Autotypographer, I am excited by search for word shapes in the world, and his creation of text shapes within his immediate environments. Recently, he's travelled south, waxing his own brand of poetics (Fidgetglyphs) in the sands of Floridian beaches, and archiving textual events (graffiti, ephemera) on the walls and floors of Louisiana. Witness a Fidgetglyph: 

“searead,” Blind Pass Park, Manasota Key, Englewood, Florida (18 April 2008)

Allegedly, there is only one recorded incident of Jesus Christ writing anything down. We don't know what he wrote, but he wrote it in the sand, and it made the Pharasies run off. Christ made a Fidgetglyph.

3.Stan Apps on the upcoming Conference on Conceptual Poetry at the University of Arizona

I first learned about Stan Apps through William Moor, a poet whose work & opinion I respect very much. William respects Stan & his work. So I read Stan's work, starting with "info ration," a book which I now feel should be a staple in graduate poetics workshops. Stan Apps' blog leaves little room for frivolity; his posts range from the occasional to poem, to the more frequent lengthy critique or investigation of an author, text or event. A lot of poets just putz around on their blogs. He doesn't putz around. A recent post of his, The Purity Racket, investigates the possible reasonings behind & ramifications of the upcoming Conference on Conceptual Poetry at U of A. This is of particular interest to me, as I've recently written several posts in regard to the issue(s) of Conceptual Poetics as they pertain to Kenneth Goldsmith. His posts also brought comments from Mark Wallace, and the exchange that follows between Apps and Wallace is as on topic and valuable as the post itself. Witness excerpts:

-Now, I have many faults, both aesthetically and personally, but I draw the line at any involvement in the pure poetry racket, which is the ultimate ivory tower scam as far as poetry goes. -Apps

-Apart the purity rhetoric, Uncreative Writing is a fascinating thing. -Apps

-Is this conference just a big joke (i.e. a poker-faced provocation) that Goldsmith and a few others are playing on a group of academics? -Apps

-The con-artist has a long lineage in literature. -Wallace

4. Other Notable Notes

- Blake Butler writes and reads thousands of words regularly. How?

- Linh Dinh's blog is a DOOMSDAY news reel with poems for comic relief. Nerve-wracking to read. Hard to stop reading.

- Angela Genusa uses free internet tools in unlikely & improved ways.

Linh Dinh on/vs. Kenneth Goldsmith

Though I'm conscious enough to realize the presence of vastly different points of view being exerted throughout poetic communities, I'm still somewhat awestruck when I witness a collision of two poets' fundamental perspectives. Such collisions are invaluable insights into the poets' writings, in that they begin to reveal their acts of process, as well as their acts of understanding the other's process. For me, the recurrence and continuance of such a collision is a cornerstone of any poetic community. 

Linh Dinh and Kenneth Goldsmith are both poets I read and respect. Though I've been in discussion concerning each of their works, I've never compared them, despite having discussed topics relevant to said comparison. 

Recently, Linh Dinh wrote on his blog (excerpt):

The hot/cold dichotomy has always been a staple of the art world and attributable not just to the fashion, style of the moment but to the temperament of each individual, whose uniqueness even a Kenneth Goldsmith has to concede, although he simply calls it "taste." What makes one uncreative writer better than another is his superior taste, and so we’re back to the sad self, after all, since even ready-made clothes (and hats) make the individual...

...Minus our clothes, we become even more distinctive, since no two bodies can share the same destiny. Each of us eat, make love, smoke, throw up and die alone, no matter how many similars we’re surrounded by. Sex and sickness don't lie. And yet we’re not condemned to writing just about ourselves since we have restless eyes, ears and minds that can contain boatloads. I’m not here to express me, me alone but as many selves as possible, including you if I’m lucky. Even if I simply select, copy, paste and become uncreative tomorrow, my choices of what to notice will still define me. 

Please read the entire post for a more complete context.

His post begins with a quote from Goldsmith (on Harriet Blog) discussing our new ability to fragment and shift the self in light of technology, followed by a quote from Reginald Shepherd (on Harriet Blog) discussing his ongoing fight with Colon Cancer, HIV, Bell's palsy, and Shingles. 

Dinh's argument is a refusal to reconcile the two: 

Could someone with even a single serious illness believe that he can be "everyone and no one at all"? That's he's "infinitely adaptable and changeable minute-to-minute"? I don't think so. Hell, even a simple headache brings me back to my senses, reminds me of the limitations of my body and mind.  

After reading the Goldsmith quote again, I do find a lack of empathy, almost as if he is suggesting that there is no "one" to empathize with. He seems to be attempting a great reversal: identifying the self-degrading monstrosity of post-modern modes of communication, and then declaring it/them a highway for the rapid transit of our newly fragmented forms. I can't help my excitement at the temptation to shrug off the full girth of my meaning-laden SELF, and rocket off in every direction aimlessly. But this multitude of rockets, a DNA of RSS Feeds, might also be so many escape pods, abandoning ship without destination(s). In fairness, these analogies are oversimplified, as I've claimed them as my whole self. And to clarify, I am not speaking specifically of what Goldsmith does, but what might be done in light of our fragmentation (or is it in light of recognizing our fragmentation?). 

Is the preservation of SELF more empathetic than the acceptance of the fragmented SELF?

I really don't know. 

I've had a horrible stomach flu for the last few days. I mustered up all of my fragments and we convened on the couch, watching one ineffectual film after the next. It was all I cared to do. 

It is difficult to consider fragmentation (the sort revealed through email blasts and watching movies on my iPod on the subway) a kind of practice. It is more often a symptom or consequence of individual choices, some of which seem unavoidable, short of complete isolation. Could it be that all art practices are born of symptoms? 

If person X works to explore the possibilities of fragmentation, while personal Y works to preserve the SELF, can they communicate with each other? Can they empathize with each other? As a potential recipient of both of their communications, can I hope that an XY compound is stable? 

But of course, X & Y are only variables.