Sergio Corbucci’s The Great Silence, released in 1968, is a Western film that is both captivating and unforgettable. Set in the late 19th century in “Snow Hill, Utah,” the film depicts a place where farmers have been forced into banditry, leaving them at the mercy of sadistic bounty killers, such as Klaus Kinski’s Tigrero, who embodies the brutal Darwinian world that governs Snow Hill. However, a solitary avenger known as Silenzio, played by Jean-Louis Trintignant, stands up to Tigrero and his minions.
Silenzio is a tragic and poetic character, a variation on Clint Eastwood’s Man With No Name. Silenzio is not a man of few words, but a survivor of horrific violence. When he was a child, the bounty hunters who murdered his parents severed his vocal cords to keep him from talking. He has grown up into Tigrero’s double and opposite, meting out justice for money and following a strict code of ethics. He will never draw his gun first, but he will always shoot faster than his adversary.
The film’s political ideology is also a prominent theme, as Silenzio’s services are solicited by Pauline, the widow of one of Tigrero’s victims. The fact that she and her husband are black is both a casual detail and a sign of the film’s anti-authoritarian, democratic ideology. The couple seems to have been welcomed by the other good people of Snow Hill, but their race is a big issue for the bad guys.
One of the film’s most striking aspects is its brazen mixing of incompatible elements. The Great Silence is anarchic and rigorous, sophisticated and goofy, heartfelt and cynical. The score, composed by Ennio Morricone, is as mellow as wine, but the action is raw, nasty, and blood-soaked. The story is preposterous, but the politics are sincere.
Sergio Corbucci’s “The Great Silence” is a powerful allegory that draws inspiration from the deaths of two prominent figures of the 60s, Che Guevara and Malcolm X. The film’s plot takes place in Utah prior to the Great Blizzard of 1899, subverting various conventions of the Western genre.
Corbucci chooses a snow-bound Utah as the setting, in contrast to the desert plains that are typically seen in Western films, American or Italian. This creates a unique atmosphere that heightens the sense of danger and isolation felt by the characters. Jean-Louis Trintignant’s portrayal of the protagonist, Silenzio, who is completely mute, adds a sense of vulnerability and sensitivity to the character that is rare in the Western genre.
The film’s subversion of the Western genre reaches its peak with the deaths of Silenzio, Pauline, and the outlaws at the hands of Klaus Kinski’s character, Loco, and his gang. This is in stark contrast to the deaths of characters in other films of the era such as Ben in “Night of the Living Dead” and Wyatt and Billy in “Easy Rider,” where the characters are also killed. Corbucci’s subversion and commentary on the genre culminates in the final shootout, which is not a face-to-face gunfight at the O.K. Corral, but an ambush committed by Kinski’s character.
The virtual possibilities of the 60s represented a new frontier, an unexplored world of imagination and creativity. It was a time when the boundaries of what was possible were being pushed, and people were dreaming up new ways to connect, create, and communicate.
As the virtual possibilities of the 60s were being explored, the cynicism of the post-WWII era and the noir genre seeped into the cultural consciousness, leading to a new type of creative expression. The optimism and idealism of the 60s collided with the disillusionment and skepticism of the previous decade, resulting in a fusion of styles that was both exciting and contradictory.
In literature and film, this fusion was evident in the emergence of the new wave of noir, which was characterized by a more fragmented narrative structure, ambiguous moral landscapes, and a heightened sense of existential angst. The virtual possibilities of the 60s, on the other hand, were marked by a utopian spirit that sought to transcend the limitations of reality through technological innovation.
This juxtaposition of styles explored themes of identity, reality, and technology in a world that was both dystopian and utopian. Corbucci’s’s work captured the contradictions of the era, reflecting the optimism and disillusionment that coexisted within the collective consciousness.
The 60s can certainly be seen as a kind of collective unconscious dark matter. The decade was marked by a profound cultural shift that had far-reaching implications for society as a whole. It was a time of great upheaval, with widespread social and political movements challenging traditional modes of thinking and behavior.
At the heart of this shift was a growing sense of disillusionment with the status quo. People were no longer content with the established norms and values of their society and sought to break free from the constraints that had held them back for so long. But this shift was not just about rebellion and revolution. It was also about a new way of thinking about the world and our place in it. The virtual possibilities of the 60s, such as space exploration, computer technology, and new forms of media, represented a new frontier that promised to expand our understanding of the universe and our place within it.
In conclusion, the virtual possibilities of the 60s were marked by both optimism and cynicism, reflecting the contradictions of the post-WWII era and the emergence of the new wave of noir. This fusion of styles produced a new form of creative expression that challenged traditional modes of storytelling and opened up new possibilities for exploring the human condition.
The story follows a Romanian aristocrat, Alexander Petrovic (Peter O’Toole), who retreats to a desert island with his wife, Gabrielle (Charlotte Rampling), and their servants on the eve of World War II.
At the beginning of WW2, Liviu, a Romanian count, and his wife Julia come to live on an uninhabited tropical island, where they hope to escape the war and their past. They bring with them all conceivable provisions and their servants, and live in luxury in a mansion-like tent on the beach. After a short time, a group of uninvited friends arrive. They decimate the supplies and, in the course of a frenzied shooting party, kill every living animal on the island before leaving, bringing most of the servants with them. The only people left on the island are Liviu and his wife, their friend Larson, and one servant, Eusebio. The expected supplies do not arrive, the party has no way of communicating with the outside world, and passion is rife between the one woman and three men on the island. As supplies run short, mistrust, greed and jealousy threaten their idyllic life style.
The movie explores themes of isolation, desire, and human nature, all of which are reminiscent of the principles of Antonin Artaud’s Theater of Cruelty.
The Theater of Cruelty, as developed by Artaud, was a form of theater that aimed to evoke strong emotional and physical responses from its audience. It rejected traditional forms of theater, which relied on dialogue and character development, in favor of more primal, visceral experiences. This was achieved through the use of intense sound, movement, and visual effects, all of which were designed to shock and unsettle the audience. The central idea behind the Theater of Cruelty was to create a space where the audience could confront the raw, unfiltered aspects of their own humanity.
Similarly, Foxtrot is a movie that explores the raw, unfiltered aspects of human nature. The characters in the movie are thrust into an extreme situation, isolated on a deserted island with limited resources and no way to contact the outside world. As their situation becomes increasingly dire, they are forced to confront their own desires, fears, and flaws. The movie depicts the struggle between civilization and primal instincts, as the characters’ relationships are strained by mistrust, greed, and jealousy. The tension and conflict that arise among the characters are reminiscent of the intense emotional responses that Artaud sought to elicit in his audiences.
Another key aspect of the Theater of Cruelty was its use of ritual and symbolism. Artaud believed that theater should be a kind of spiritual experience, one that transcended the boundaries of language and rational thought. He sought to create a kind of “language of the body,” a series of movements and gestures that could communicate deep, primal truths. This emphasis on ritual and symbolism is also present in Foxtrot, particularly in the movie’s use of imagery and visual motifs. The barren landscape of the island, for example, serves as a powerful symbol of the characters’ isolation and helplessness. The recurring image of the foxtrot dance, which Liviu and Julia perform on the beach, serves as a metaphor for the characters’ attempt to maintain a sense of order and control in an increasingly chaotic world.
In conclusion, the movie Foxtrot shares many similarities with the principles of Artaud’s Theater of Cruelty. Both explore the raw, unfiltered aspects of human nature, using intense emotional experiences to elicit a response from their audiences. Both also emphasize ritual and symbolism as a means of transcending language and rational thought. Foxtrot is a powerful and thought-provoking movie that offers a compelling exploration of human nature and the struggle between civilization and primal instincts.
Time is a complex and multi-dimensional concept that has fascinated philosophers, scientists, and poets throughout history. Yet, as modern society continues to progress and become more technologically advanced, our understanding and relationship with time has become increasingly distorted. In particular, the idea of the present moment, or the “Now,” has been warped into a spatial concept that fails to capture the true essence of time.
Time is a fundamental aspect of our experience of the world, yet our attempts to understand it have often led us to distort its nature. One way in which time has become increasingly distorted is through our attempts to spatialize it, which has turned it into a measurable and quantifiable commodity rather than a subjective experience.
As soon as we divide time into past, present, and future, we lose sight of its original character and turn it into something measurable. By placing the Now as an “in-between” between past and future, time becomes a divider and loses its intrinsic nature. This division of time into discrete units has allowed us to measure it and quantify it, but it has also robbed it of its subjective character.
As soon as the Now is interposed as an “in-between” between the past and the future, it loses its original character as a mental modality of time and becomes a spatialized modality. This spatialization of time is a perversion of its true nature because it turns time into something that can be measured and quantified, devoid of any qualitative character. The Now becomes a divider, tearing apart past, present, and future, and creating a sense of disunity that was not present before.
Our focus on clock time, in particular, has distorted our understanding of time. The phrase “I have no time” reflects our preoccupation with clock time, but it also reflects our tendency to equate time with productivity and efficiency. We are always trying to “gain time” by increasing our productivity and filling our schedules with activities, but this only leads to an empty and fragmented experience of time.
We also tend to equate time with money, as if time were a commodity that could be bought and sold. This “falsified time” can be turned into money, but it does not have any intrinsic value of its own. Our obsession with productivity and efficiency has led us to quantify time and measure it in increasingly precise units, but this has only served to distort our experience of time.
This disunity is further perpetuated by our tendency to think of time in terms of clock time, leading to a preoccupation with the negative form of time, as expressed by the common phrase “I have no time.” This phrase is symptomatic of our time anxiety and our fixation on gaining more time. However, the time gained is often the wrong kind, transformed into a visible multiplication of spatially fragmented “activity” or wasted on killing time.
Our attempts to fill time with activities and material possessions have also contributed to the distortion of time. By treating time as a bucket to be filled, we have turned it into something empty and spatial rather than a subjective experience. This has led to an anxiety about time, as we try to arrest time and hold onto it through its materialization.
The addiction to speed is another way in which we have distorted time. Each new record is a further step towards the “killing of time,” as we prioritize speed and efficiency over the subjective experience of time. This flight into quantification has brought us closer to the death of time, rather than leading to freedom from it.
This anxiety also leads us to attempt to hold onto time and materialize it, as evidenced by the belief that time is money. However, this belief only serves to further falsify time, turning it into something that can be turned into money rather than a value in its own right. The idea of filling time as if it were an empty container also reinforces this spatialization of time, further divorcing it from its true nature.
The tragedy of our spatialization of time is that it prevents us from finding an escape from spatial captivity. By seeking to locate time “somewhere,” we lose sight of its true nature and become fixated on a distorted and false version of time. This spatial fixation is reinforced by our addiction to speed, which only serves to bring us closer to the death of time rather than leading to freedom from it.
In conclusion, our understanding of time has become increasingly distorted as we have attempted to spatialize it. The Now has become a divider rather than a unifier, and our fixation on clock time and gaining more time has only served to further distance us from the true nature of time. We must learn to appreciate time as a qualitative value in its own right rather than as a quantifiable commodity to be gained or lost. Only then can we escape from spatial captivity and truly understand the complexity and beauty of time.
In summary, our attempts to spatialize time have led us to distort its nature and turn it into a measurable and quantifiable commodity. This has robbed time of its intrinsic value and turned it into something that can be bought, sold, and manipulated. By prioritizing productivity, efficiency, and speed over the subjective experience of time, we have lost sight of the true nature of time and its importance to our lives.
The idea that the Baby Boomers and Silent Generation have opened a path for Millennials and Zoomers to take revenge on others may seem far-fetched at first. However, when one looks at the historical and cultural contexts that shaped these generations, this theory is not entirely unfounded.
Firstly, it’s important to consider the socioeconomic circumstances that the Baby Boomers and Silent Generation grew up in. Both generations experienced unprecedented economic prosperity and stability during their youth, which led to a sense of entitlement and complacency that has been criticized by subsequent generations. They also benefited from government policies and institutions that were designed to support their economic and social well-being, such as the GI Bill and Social Security. As a result, many Boomers and Silents have been accused of failing to acknowledge the struggles and disadvantages that other groups, such as minorities and women, have faced in the United States.
Secondly, the cultural values and beliefs that shaped the Baby Boomers and Silent Generation have been criticized for perpetuating inequality and oppression. For example, both generations were heavily influenced by conservative and traditionalist ideals that reinforced patriarchal and heteronormative structures. These values have been accused of perpetuating discrimination against marginalized groups, including LGBTQ+ individuals and people of color. Additionally, the Silent Generation was heavily influenced by Cold War propaganda, which fostered a culture of fear and mistrust that has had lasting effects on American politics and foreign policy.
Given these circumstances, it’s possible that the Baby Boomers and Silent Generation have unwittingly opened a path for subsequent generations to take revenge on others who are easier to attack than themselves. By failing to acknowledge and address systemic inequalities and injustices, they have created a breeding ground for resentment and anger that younger generations have channeled into social and political activism. Moreover, by perpetuating cultural values and beliefs that are seen as oppressive by younger generations, they have effectively placed themselves in opposition to the very groups that they should be supporting and nurturing.
However, it’s important to note that this theory is not a call to violence or retribution. Rather, it’s a recognition of the systemic issues that have been created by previous generations, and a call to action for younger generations to address and correct these issues in a constructive and peaceful manner. It’s also important to acknowledge that not all members of the Baby Boomer and Silent Generation share the same values and beliefs, and that many have been active in promoting social justice and equality throughout their lives.
In conclusion, the idea that the Baby Boomers and Silent Generation have opened a path for younger generations to take revenge on others is not entirely unfounded. However, it’s important to approach this theory with nuance and empathy, and to focus on constructive solutions rather than perpetuating animosity and division. Ultimately, it’s up to all generations to work together to build a more just and equitable society for all.
The Tower of Babel sequence in Metropolis is delivered by Maria during a sermon to the workers in the underground factory.
In this sequence, Maria uses the story of the Tower of Babel to inspire the workers to rise up against their oppressors and to come together in unity. She tells the story of how the people of Babel tried to build a tower to reach the heavens, but their arrogance and desire for power led to their downfall. The story serves as a cautionary tale about the dangers of unchecked ambition and the consequences of hubris.
As Maria delivers her sermon, the scene cuts to images of the city’s elite, who are shown plotting to maintain their power and control over the workers. The contrast between the opulence and luxury of the city’s elite and the squalor and poverty of the workers in the underground factory is stark.
The Babel sequence in Fritz Lang’s Metropolis explores the division between the “Head” that conceptualizes the glorious tower and the “Hands” that are recruited to build it. Unlike in Genesis, where the same men propose and construct Babel, an immediate rift is established in Metropolis. The sequence is visually captivating, with a crystalline focus on the images that is evocative and overpowering. The geometry is clean, precise, yet still larger than life. Thematically, the sequence is rich and fascinating, exploring the division between Head and Hands and the need for a Heart to mediate between them. The tower itself has an elegant, focused beauty, winding stairways, and a conical form, a true tribute to humanity’s aspirations for divine transcendence. The novella, written by Thea Von Harbou between preproduction and release, also highlights the alienation of the builders from the actual purpose of the tower. The characters watching the sequence in Jacques Rivette’s Paris Belongs to Us belong to a secret society grappling with a right-wing conspiracy, possibly mocking their metaphysical presuppositions. The Tower of Babel sequence is a highlight of both films and a favorite of many in silent cinema.
The Tower of Babel sequence is a powerful moment in the film, serving as a metaphor for the struggle between the workers and the city’s elite. The workers are like the people of Babel, striving to rise up against the power structure that keeps them in subjugation. The city’s elite, meanwhile, are like the rulers of Babel, blinded by their desire for power and control.
In conclusion, the Tower of Babel sequence in Metropolis is a mesmerizing and powerful moment in the film, delivered by Maria during a sermon to the workers in the underground factory. It serves as a cautionary tale about the dangers of unchecked ambition and the consequences of hubris, and as a metaphor for the struggle between the workers and the city’s elite. Fritz Lang’s use of religious imagery and symbolism in this sequence adds depth and complexity to the film’s themes, making it a landmark in cinema history.
Narrativium is a term coined by the famous author, Terry Pratchett, to describe the substance that makes up stories. According to him, Narrativium is the element that allows a story to exist, and it is present in every story ever told. Within this concept, actantial relationships have been developed as a tool for analyzing and understanding the characters and their roles within a story.
Actantial relationships are binary opposition pairings between characters, objects, or concepts that are essential to the development of the story. They are used to explain the problems within a narrative, and they help to define the roles that characters play in the story. Examples of these pairings include a hero paired with a villain, a dragon paired with a dragon-slaying sword, and a helper paired with an opponent.
The hero and villain pairing is perhaps the most recognizable actantial relationship. The hero is the protagonist, the one who the reader or viewer is meant to identify with, and who must overcome the obstacles that the villain places in their path. The villain is the antagonist, the one who creates the problems that the hero must solve, and who must be defeated for the story to reach its conclusion. This pairing is often used to explore themes of good versus evil, and it is a fundamental aspect of many stories, from fairy tales to epic adventures.
Another example of an actantial relationship is the dragon and dragon-slaying sword pairing. This pairing is used to explore the theme of power and its abuse. The dragon represents an almost insurmountable obstacle, a force of nature that must be conquered in order to achieve victory. The dragon-slaying sword, on the other hand, represents the power of human ingenuity and the ability to overcome seemingly impossible odds. This pairing is often used in stories that explore themes of bravery and perseverance.
The helper and opponent pairing is perhaps the most complex of the actantial relationships. The helper is a character who provides aid to the hero, while the opponent is a character who creates obstacles for the hero to overcome. These two characters are often in opposition to each other, but they are both necessary for the story to progress. The helper is the one who provides the hero with the tools they need to succeed, while the opponent is the one who challenges the hero and makes them stronger.
Actantial relationships are useful tools for analyzing the characters and their roles within a story. However, they are not without their limitations. While actantial relationships can help to explain the problems within a narrative, they do not necessarily provide a complete understanding of the story. There are many other factors that contribute to the development of a narrative, such as setting, theme, and tone, that actantial relationships do not address.
In conclusion, actantial relationships are an important aspect of the study of narrative structure. They provide a framework for understanding the roles that characters play within a story and the problems that they must overcome. However, they are not a complete analysis of a narrative, and they must be considered in the context of the other elements that contribute to the development of a story. Ultimately, actantial relationships are a useful tool, but the world is a complex and multifaceted place, and it cannot be reduced to a simple dialectic between two or more people holding different points of view about a subject. While reasoned argumentation and discourse are essential to understanding and solving problems, they are not the only means of achieving truth or progress.
Similarly, while the Marxist theory of change through the conflict of opposing forces has its merits, it too cannot account for the full complexity of the world. There are many factors that contribute to social change, and not all of them can be reduced to the conflict between opposing forces.
In reality, the world is characterized by a multitude of interacting systems and variables, each of which has its own unique characteristics and behaviors. These systems are often complex and unpredictable, and they do not always follow a linear or dialectical path towards resolution or change.
Furthermore, the world is also shaped by factors such as culture, history, geography, and biology, which all contribute to the way that people think, behave, and interact with each other. These factors cannot be reduced to simple binaries or dialectical oppositions, and they must be understood in their own terms.
In order to navigate the complexities of the world, it is important to approach problems with an open mind and a willingness to engage with multiple perspectives and viewpoints. This requires a deep understanding of the underlying systems and variables that shape our world, as well as a commitment to ongoing learning and growth.
Ultimately, while dialectics and conflict theory can be useful tools for understanding certain aspects of the world, they are not sufficient for fully comprehending its complexity. To truly understand and address the challenges we face as a global society, we must embrace a more nuanced and holistic approach that recognizes the multitude of factors that shape our world.
The phrase “Netflix and chill” has become a ubiquitous part of modern dating culture, a shorthand for inviting someone over for a night of binge-watching TV shows or movies. However, this seemingly innocuous trend has darker implications when examined through the lens of cultural decay and the role of technology in modern society.
The comparison of Netflix to fentanyl is a striking one, as both have the potential to be addictive and destructive. Fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid, is responsible for a growing epidemic of overdose deaths in many parts of the world. Similarly, Netflix has been criticized for its addictive nature, with users spending countless hours consuming content at the expense of other activities, including socializing and engaging with the world outside of the screen.
The comparison to fentanyl also speaks to the way in which Netflix and other streaming services can contribute to the entropic decay of culture. Entropy is a measure of the disorder or randomness of a system, and it is often used as a metaphor for cultural decline. When we spend all of our time consuming media, we are neglecting other areas of our lives, including intellectual pursuits, socializing, and engaging with the world around us. This can lead to a kind of cultural entropy, where we become increasingly disengaged and disconnected from the world, and our ability to create and innovate suffers as a result.
Furthermore, the rise of streaming services like Netflix has had a profound impact on the entertainment industry, leading to a homogenization of culture and a narrowing of the kinds of stories and perspectives that are being told. As the algorithmic recommendation engines of these services feed us content based on our past viewing habits, we are increasingly exposed to a narrow range of stories and perspectives, reinforcing our existing beliefs and biases and limiting our ability to empathize with others and expand our worldview.
To be clear, this is not to say that streaming services like Netflix are inherently bad or destructive. Like any technology, they can be used in positive or negative ways, and there are certainly benefits to having access to a vast library of movies and TV shows at our fingertips. However, it is important to be aware of the potential negative consequences of these services, including their addictive nature and their impact on cultural diversity and creativity.
In the end, the comparison of Netflix to fentanyl is a provocative one, but it serves as a powerful reminder of the need to approach technology and culture with a critical eye, and to be mindful of the ways in which they can shape our lives and the world around us.
Optical illusions are intriguing phenomena that can trick our eyes and brain into perceiving something that is not actually present or perceiving it differently from reality. These illusions can be caused by various factors, such as the way our eyes perceive light, shadows, or depth perception, light, color, shape, and contrast, to name a few. They can be static, dynamic, or even interactive, providing endless opportunities for scientific research and artistic expression.
The Ninio’s extinction illusion. It shows 12 black dots on a gray-and-white grid. However, it is impossible to see all 12 dots at once. If the grid wasn’t in the picture, people could see all 12 dots.
My wife and My Mother in law. Some people see a young lady with her head turned towards the background while others see an elderly woman’s side profile.
What do you see in the center of the image: curvy lines or zigzag ones? Most people see both — double wavy lines and double angled lines alternating. Now look at them as they appear over the black and white area. What do you see now? The truth is all the lines are wavy.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1206458118873309185
The back wall is in fact built at a sharp angle and the floor and ceiling are steeply slanted. This creates an illusion that makes people and objects on one side of the room seem much smaller or larger than people or objects on the other side of the room.
The Cafe Wall Illusion has been described as a checkerboard with the squares slightly jumbled or off-kilter. The alternating light and dark squares do not line up directly with the squares on the rows above and below them. The result is that the horizontal lines in between each row appear to be slanted. In reality, the horizontal lines are perfectly parallel with one another and totally straight.
The Simultaneous Contrast Illusion uses a shaded background to trick the viewer into inferring things about the color of the main object. The horizontal bar in the middle of the picture is one solid color. However, the changing gradient behind the bar makes it seem changing
The penrose stairs. The four flights of stairs appear to link together so that a climber would go up or down the steps in a continuous loop but never arrive at a higher or lower point.
The Ponzo Illusion: Ponzo was able to trick viewers into thinking that the parallel line in the background was much longer than the one in the foreground.
The Necker Cube: The basic illusion is that some people will perceive a three dimensional cube with one side in the front while others will imagine that the very same side is the back of the cube.
The rabbit duck head
If you show people the same image in different locations, they will automatically assume motion. pic.twitter.com/rMKj8ZqqlV
Optical art images seem to be moving even though they aren’t animated. Most theories about the illusion of motion in optical art have to do with the brain’s inability to process the different colors and shapes simultaneously. sm and other more-classic forms of art.
@YouTube The illusion uses a set of cylinders and a mirror, with the cylinders cut so that depending on the angle from which you look at them, they appear to be either rounded or to have angled corners.
The Müller-Lyer illusion consists of three stylized arrows. When viewers are asked to place a mark on the figure at the midpoint, they invariably place it more towards the “tail” end. . This illusion consists of two lines of equal length with arrowheads pointing inward or outward at each end. The line with outward-pointing arrowheads appears longer than the one with inward-pointing arrowheads, even though they are the same length.
Other
The Hermann grid illusion: This illusion involves black squares that appear at the intersections of white lines, creating the illusion of gray blobs.
The Kanizsa triangle illusion: This illusion involves the perception of a white triangle against a black background, although no such triangle is physically present.
The Zöllner illusion: This illusion involves parallel lines that appear to be distorted by diagonal lines placed across them.
The Motion aftereffect illusion: This illusion occurs when we perceive motion in a stationary object after being exposed to a moving image for a prolonged period.
The Adelson checker shadow illusion: This illusion involves two identical squares of different shades of grey, but one appears lighter or darker due to the shadow cast by the cylinder.
At a weekend gathering, a man (referred to in the screenplay as X, and played by Giorgio Albertazzi) tries to convince a woman (referred as A, and played by Delphine Seyrig) that they had fallen in love the previous summer, “in Karlstadt, Marienbad, or Baden-Salsa. Or even here in this salon.” In his telling, the two had planned to run away together, from “M” (Sascha Pitoeff), who may be A’s husband or lover, but certainly exercises authority over her.
Now, the year has passed and X has come to their agreed rendezvous to take her away. A claims she does not recognize X, and cannot remember any agreement between them. At first, X is surprised, and he recounts conversations the two of them had, supporting details, relating scenes convincingly.
The soundtrack features music by Francis Seyrig, mostly performed on an organ – Gothic, liturgical, like a requiem and Narrated by X with the other characters have a few lines of dialogue here and there. The more the man talks about their activities the previous year however, the more convincing he becomes. A persists in not remembering, even though X produces a photograph of her as a proof of his claim.
The imagery of the film is lush yet formal and disciplined (formal surrealism?). The editing gives us jump cuts and sound overlaps. We see her in white, in black. Dead, alive. The film, photographed in black and white by Sacha Vierny, in widescreen allowing Resnais to create compositions in which X, A and M seem to occupy different planes, even different states of being. The artificiality glazing the visuals with a patina of stillness, much like the fashion photos of Helmut Newton or Philippe Halsman — and perfectly in sync with A’s over-the-top Chanel.
The woman, A, moves about the hotel in a series of stylized poses. She spends her time reading, watching a play, walking about the gardens, and having conversations with X. M hovers throughout the film, drifting from room to room, engaged in a multitude of pursuits. In particular, he gambles and plays a variation of the game of “Nim” with the other guests, which he claims he always wins. The camera travels sinuously; so that any sudden movement is a shock (when A stumbles on a gravel walk and X steadies her, it is like a sudden breath of reality).
At one point X submits a more dramatic episode of their alleged past at Marienbad: “One evening, I went up to your bedroom…” Changing images of a plush bedroom appear. At a subsequent point X’s voice describes the details. “At that hour, in any case, he [M] is at the gambling table. I had warned you I would come. ‘You didn’t answer. When I came I found all the doors ajar…” At a later point X asserts: “You’ve always been afraid. But I loved your fear that evening. I watched you, letting you struggle a little… I loved you. There was something in your eyes, you were alive… finally… I took you, half by force.” A few moments later X recants the rape aspect of his visit to A’s bedroom: “Oh no… Probably it wasn’t by force… But you’re the only one who knows that.”
In one version she is aghast, afraid of his violence. In another she welcomes him with dizzy joy, arms open. In yet another she is dead, presumably shot by M.
Still more drama is added to the story. M, after a conversation with A in her bedroom, leaves — supposedly to exercise with other male guests at the hotel’s shooting gallery. X intends to use M’s absence to pay A a visit. Unexpectedly M reenters A’s bedroom, brandishing his pistol. He shoots A, who comes to lie on a rug in a lascivious posture. The alleged incident is conveyed both by images and words.
Before long X recants this whole story, however: “No, this isn’t the right ending… I must have you alive…” The fact that X begins to treat details of last year’s events at Marienbad like obvious fictions of a conventional movie drama naturally casts doubts on the entirety of his allegations concerning their affair.
Another mysterious aspect is X’s haunting narration and much of his speech, eternally stuck on repetition. He always returns to two themes: the atmosphere of the hotel and his first encounter with A. It’s a constant liturgy, spoken over and over again with only minor variations throughout the film. The effect is that of an intelligent and cultured man in the grips of an obsession.
The narrative presses on. The insistent, persuasive X recalls a shooting, a death. No – he corrects himself. It did not happen that way. It must have happened this way, instead. Everything is narrated in the past tense, even when we seem to have arrived at the present. The present too, the implication is, will become a story any minute now, and like all stories, subject to debate and denial.
A does not remember. She entreats X, unconvincingly, to leave her alone. He presses on with his memories in the second person: “You told me … you said … you begged me … .” It is a narrative he is constructing for her, a story he is telling her about herself. It may be true. We cannot tell.
EVIDENCE
Pieces of evidence of past encounters, such as the bracelet and the snapshot, are quickly discounted as proofs of anything. As the film goes on the photograph itself seems more and more like fantasy than proof. The woman sits in a chair, looking at it enfolded in a book. She opens a drawer in her hotel bedroom and finds it there. She opens the same drawer and finds it full of copies of the photograph, 15 or 20 of them.
A points out that “anyone could have taken the snapshot, at any time, and anywhere: the setting was vague, remote, scarcely visible…” All these uncertainties about important events go together with the film’s practice of frequently showing details as different when they should be the same. A’s bedroom is furnished quite differently every time it is shown, and sometimes A is wearing different dresses even within the same scene or during the same conversation. It is the basic strategy of the film to account for all the possibilities and eliminate the difference between fact and fiction, between inner thought and external event.
THE GAME: NIM
The men play a game. It has been proposed by M. It involves setting out several rows of matchsticks in four piles: 1, 3, 5, and 7mand then removing, as many as they want, but only from one row at a time. Playing alternately, each player can take as many matches as he likes from any one pile; the one who must take the last match “loses.”
The first step is to write (or imagine) the number of matches in each pile in numbers to the base two, arranging those binary numbers in a column for addition. The player who is left with the last matchstick loses. M always wins. On the soundtrack, we hear theories: “The one who starts first wins … the one who goes second wins … you must take only one stick at a time … you must know when to … .”
1 11 101 111 224
To win the game, let the other player start; then remove matches in such a way that the number of units in each column after your move is either even or zero (but do not, leave your opponent an even number of piles with one match in each).
“He knows all the outcomes in advance,” someone says. Sort of. Tall, he looks down at the other players, dominating them.
Resnais and Robbe-Grillet are using the properties of this game much as Bergman used the two-dimensional properties of chess in The Seventh Seal. The film pretends that Nim is a true game in which either player could win. Actually, once the piles are laid out, the game is as determined as tic-tac-toe — a perfect symbol for possibilities which begin as many but converge to one foregone conclusion. A leaves with X.
The play mentioned in the film. Rosmer, probably refers then, not to Ibsen’s Rosmersholm, but to a folktale about Rosmer Havmand. He is a troll or merman, handsome in form, who lures a maiden away from her home to his other world.
The woman at first refutes X’s claim but is gradually swayed by his insistence. “He offers her the impossible, what seems most impossible in this labyrinth where time is apparently abolished: he offers her a past, a future and freedom.” Indeed, in therapeutic terms, by accepting a past one has repressed, one does achieve this freedom. By accepting time, specifically the fact that time forecloses possibilities and eliminates freedom, one achieves freedom.
When he seems to have finally reached her, she has moved into another time, into another memory. As he renews his efforts to convince her, new nightmares arise. He is not even sure of loving her, or even if it was she who was or the object of his love.
A finally agrees to leave with X.
THE ENDING
At the end of the film, the lovers (A and X) run away together into the night, but this flight is recounted to us by X, in the past tense. We see A in traveling clothes, waiting in a lobby for X and the clock’s stroke of midnight — the deadline she has set in order to give M a chance to prevent her from leaving. The clock strikes, X appears, and A gets up to leave with him. A little later M appears, troubled, in the vacant lobby, and then walks to his suite. The result is that the story can be re-started from the beginning: the whole thing took place last year, and it can be repeated ad infinitum.
The last shot of the film is of the castle looming darkly in the night, while X’s voice defines the conclusion of the story: “The park of this hotel was a kind of garden a la francaise without any trees or flowers, without any foliage… Gravel, stone, marble and straight lines marked out rigid spaces, surfaces without mystery. It seemed, at first glance, impossible to get lost here… down straight paths, between the statues with frozen gestures and the granite slabs, where you were now already getting lost, forever, in the calm night, alone with me.”
When they leave the hotel together, they are not arm in arm but quite separate, walking like zombies, their backs to us. They can only get away, it seems, in order to come back and start again, trying to remember, trying to forget.
X’s last words state explicitly that the pair is getting lost in the very world that they are seemingly leaving: in the Cartesian park with its clipped bushes and regular pathways that add up to a giant labyrinth. Proceeding from the inside of the building to the open spaces of the park represents, to be sure, a certain escape or liberation. (It is significant that earlier in the movie the pair was increasingly shown outside the walls of the hotel.) But the gardens of the park are still part of the hotel, part of the Cartesian world.
In taking their leave X and A are not getting very far. All they accomplish is a certain variation of their life inside the Cartesian world. What they say and do is not spontaneous and free, but part of a studied ritual. Hence the fact that the very last picture is that of the dark and looming castle which, although the camera is moving away from it, “seems to grow larger and larger” (according to the screenplay).
Descartes reminds us that waking up from a dream can itself be part of a dream. No matter how awake we feel, we may still be asleep and in the grip of a dream. There is no possible way of getting “outside” of our minds to determine in what state we actually are. It is similar with X’s and A’s escape from the hotel. Although X and A rebel against the confinements of the world of the castle, their futile rebellion is nothing more than yet another variation of life at the hotel. The end of the theatrical and ceremonial life is itself a ritual and part of the show.
PHILOSOPHY AND PHYSICS
Starting with the “flux doctrine” of “Heraclitus,” according to which everything is constantly altering (“You cannot step twice in the same river”), to Henry Bergson, who was one of the first philosophers to incorporate cinema into a philosophical discourse.
Bergson, whom Proust admired, made a distinction between the concept (“clock time”) and the experience of time (“real time”), arguing that “real time” is experienced as “duration” and apprehended by “intuition.” He further stated that time is in constant flux, with moments of the past and the present having equal reality.
In literature, Marcel Proust with his novel “Remembrance of Things Past,” and on the scientific side, Albert Einstein with his “Theory of General Relativity.” Einstein posited that time is simply another dimension, which with space forms a four-dimensional space-time continuum (that was until recently, when seven more dimensions were added with the M-theory, the “theory of everything”).
Stephen Hawking distinguishes three different “arrows of time”: thermodynamic, cosmological, and psychological (“A Brief History of Time,” 1988). Although all of these three time arrows enter in our daily lives to a greater or lesser extent, we are here only concerned with the psychological arrow of time.
SPACE
Space too is a worry. The protagonists can’t remember, if it was in a fancy hotel in a German spa, to be sure. Friedrichstadt, perhaps? Karlstadt? Last year in Marienbad is just one of the possibilities.
lush with furnishings, moldings, and sculptures, the setting is a luxurious hotel, one with ornate ceilings, vast drawing rooms, enormous mirrors and paintings, endless corridors and grounds in which shrubbery has been tortured into geometric shapes and patterns.
The baroque tracery of the ceilings and walls represents a style in which the decorator has actualized all the possibilities a given line has. We see baroque plasterwork with endless branchings and mirrors with intricate reflections.
There are endless formal gardens surrounding the hotel. And shadows, especially the iconic image of people standing in the garden: the people have shadows but the shrubs do not. (Resnais had the people’s shadows painted on the gravel.)
The guests — elegant, expensively dressed, impassive making cryptic conversation, watching a play, attending a concert, shooting in a shooting gallery, and playing games of cards. They all vousvoyer, addressing one another in the formal “you” as aristocrats do. It is “a place for relaxation. Conversations are overheard. Words float in the air as if trapped inside the hotel, in search of a listener. Time itself moves forward or backward, depending on the subject of conversations, or the mood of the people. No business is carried out. No plots are hatched.
The guests take walks along statuaries, hedge-mazes, fountains, and long gravel paths. Everyone appears in evening clothes to attend a dinner, a concert, or a play presented at the hotel’s theater, a play that resembles the events that are unfolding in the very film we are watching— these define a world in which all possibilities (whether known presently or not) have been established at the outset (and will be narrowed down as the film proceeds)
Anti naturalism
We see the same effect in Antonioni and Bergman, and it had good intentions behind it. It was meant to signal a departure from naturalism, It’s notable that in this film Resnais succeeds best with his anti-naturalist note when the actors are either quite still — so still you don’t know whether they are in a moving picture or a photograph — or dancing, rocking slowly, dully, to the sounds of an unearthly waltz.
ROBBE-GRILLET AND THE NOUVEAU ROMAN
The “new novel” lacks the conventional elements of the literary realism, such as dramatic plotting, psychological analysis, and unities of time and place. His writing style has been described as “realist” or “phenomenological” (in the Heideggerian sense) or “a theory of pure surface”. Methodical and often repetitive descriptions of objects replace (though often reveal) the psychology of the character. The reader must slowly piece together the story, in the repetition of descriptions, the attention to odd details, and the breaks: a method that resembles the experience of psychoanalysis in which the deeper unconscious meanings are contained in the flow and disruptions of free associations.
On the one hand, Marienbad draws quite naturally on its cocreators’ prior accomplishments. Like Hiroshima, it weaves a hypnotic network of repeated phrases and recurrent visual, musical, and narrative motifs. And like Hiroshima, it stages a prolonged tug-of-war between two unnamed protagonists, he wooing her from a rival love interest with a psychoanalyst’s perseverance, caught between resistance and surrender — both films culminating in a virtual “transfer of affect.” Like Robbe-Grillet’s novels, meanwhile, Marienbad offers only the elements of a story, leaving the viewer the responsibility of piecing them together. And like the novels — Jealousy(1957) being a prime example — it introduces into the mix distinct undertows of murder and violence, as well as telling variants that constantly upend whatever certainties we think we’ve gained. Jealousy, moreover, rehearses the triangular dynamic of Marienbad, including the watchful husband and the use of the initial A to designate the heroine.
EINSENSTEIN AND THE BREAKDOWN OF SOUND AND VISION
DREAMS OF THE ID: NOT CHRONOLOGICAL
The chance of cinema is the breakdown of sound from image, praised by Eisenstein as a fabulous possibility, brilliantly played with in Singin’ in the Rain but largely ignored by an industry and a public that wanted synchronised talk and appropriate musical cues. The most vivid instance of the breakdown in Last Year in Marienbad — a truly haunting one that’s hard to shift once it’s got into your mind — has the characters attending a concert at the spa hotel. Two violinists visibly, energetically hack away at their instruments, but we hear only the familiar organ music of the soundtrack, as if the film were determined to substitute its own noise for all actual sounds of the world it is depicting.
And the most beautiful, integrated uses of the breakdown occur when the man describes an image from the past, the woman in a particular place and a particular posture, while the screen shows us the woman in a different posture and place, almost aggressively not doing what the voice-over says she is doing. But then, when the voice is talking about something else, we will see the image we have heard described, and surely, most of us, be tempted to believe the description is correct, even if the image has gone astray.
“Marienbad” is a love story, although not a “story” in the conventional narrative sense, since the fragmented images cannot be scanned chronologically. The “story” is not told rather it is described using a juxtaposition of physical images, through memories and associations, projected through a space-time continuum, which destroys both linear chronology and fixity. Any attempt to provide a satisfying chronology for the film would contradict the assumptions upon which it was built, as well as the manner in which it is shot.
There are some elements of horror in the movie. The first eight minutes are reminiscent of H.P. Lovecraft’s story The Outsider. Stanley Kubrick plucked huge parts of Last Year at Marienbad to make his version of The Shining. The film is also influenced by the silent movie, Pandora’s Box and the films of Alfred Hitchcock. A more unusual inspiration is the Mandrake the Magician series of comic books.
Resnais had tried to obtain old-fashioned film stock to get the “halo” effect typical of silents, and his use of overexposure and exaggerated gestures is remarkable. Resnais throws in another bit of cinema tradition: a ghostly profile of Alfred Hitchcock, incongruously appearing at screen right at about eleven minutes and thirty seconds — a nod to the master of suspense and his famous cameos, as well as a hint that Marienbad is, at bottom, a mystery.)
In life, things are either one way or the other; here, they are both. The people cast shadows, but the bushes don’t; a violin plays, but we hear an organ. The heroine did lose the heel of her shoe. No, she didn’t. She did meet X a year ago, but she didn’t. And so on.
The style is not that of reality at all, but of dreams or the id:
The laws of logic — above all, the law of contradiction — do not hold for processes in the id. Contradictory impulses exist side by side without neutralizing each other or drawing apart; at most they combine in compromise formations . . . There is nothing in the id which can be compared to negation, and we are astonished to find in it an exception to the philosophers’ assertion that space and time are necessary forms of our mental acts. In the id there is nothing corresponding to the idea of time, no recognition of the passage of time. . . . Naturally, the id knows no values, no good and evil, no morality.
— so Freud in the New Introductory Lectures (1932),
The film is not a riddle. But of course there is considerable energy and anxiety in all of the options. Indeed, the more evidence X provides as proof of veracity, the more discrepancies emerge, and the more the enigma thickens. As the film progresses, the image on-screen appears almost willfully to clash with X’s voice-over description, sometimes prompting him to shout at it like an exasperated director with an especially temperamental star.
And with such an image we arrive at the film’s striking originality. Last Year in Marienbad shows us, without discrimination, what is assumed to be there now, whenever now is, what was there then (actually at several past moments), and what is imagined (or narrated) by someone to be there or have been there.
When Incidents and settings repeat, their details change between one iteration and the next: A’s remembered bedroom veers from bare to baroque; the hotel gardens sometimes boast a maze of shrubbery, sometimes grand alleys as stiff and straight as the gentlemen’s tuxedos. (Resnais obtained this effect by shooting at three different palaces — none actually located in Marienbad.) Added to the narrator’s stalkerlike pursuit of the reticent heroine, these inconsistencies imbue the film with an atmosphere of uncertainty, instability, and threat.
Marienbad appears “difficult” if we try to impose a traditionally logical and chrono-logical structure on the flow of sounds and images (though perhaps less difficult now that so many films have taken their cue from it — Chris Marker’s La Jetée [1962], Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining[1980], Christopher Nolan’s Memento [2000]).
By its own temporal discontinuity, its nameless characters and hermetically-sealed set, it demands that we accept it as reality itself rather than as a faithful and ultimately illusory representation of reality.
Marienbad says by its construction that art is a reality added to reality and not a copy of reality.
The film exists in a Möbius-style feedback loop, and it is impossible to determine which imitates which. Thus, though the film presents itself as non-representational, within itself it presents a story of artifice holding a mirror up to nature and vice versa (not only in the play but in the card game and the various paintings and sculptures around the resort). “X” and “A”, however, seem unaware of the mimetic nature of their activities.
It is possible to grow impatient with “Last Year at Marienbad.” To find it affected and insufferable. It is a deliberate, artificial artistic construction. “Hiroshima mon amour” should have prepared us by the way it explores his favorite themes: the anguish of oblivion and the fixity of time. In Resnais’ film traditional realism is no longer, replaced by a deeper realism, that of the mind. The illusion once dispensed with, the film has this problem before it: to replace not the forms but the reality of experience with its own. Now works of art must be real, not “realism” but reality itself. It is not a matter of “representation” much may be represented actually, but of separate existence.
Like most art, Marienbad is ultimately about its own experience, the true dialogue occurring not between characters but between maker and audience. Robbe-Grillet’s well-known comment that the “entire story of Marienbadhappens neither in two years nor in three days, but exactly in one hour and a half” — the duration of the film — could in this regard be said of any cinematic work. The midnight chime we hear at the beginning of the film is quite literally the same as the one that ends the stage- and screenplay, in an eternal loop that brings the story back to its starting point and leaves us, like the seduced (and abandoned?) A, “losing our way forever in the stillness of night.”
I didn’t always live like this—counting crumpled twenties, watching phantom faces flash across empty velvet rows, and praying to the flickering gods of Hollywood. There was a time when movies meant something, when the smell of stale popcorn mixed with nicotine and sweat, and the rattling reel of film was as sacred as mass. But that time’s gone. Swallowed whole by algorithms, marketing monsters, and some bastard child of Wall Street and Silicon Valley. Now I’m just a front man for the long con, a midway barker for a broken funhouse.
Zero Interest Rate Policy, that’s the racket now. Cheap cash flows like watered-down bourbon, and everyone’s got their hands in it—studios, hedge funds, even the damn ticket scalpers. They all figured out how to turn art into spreadsheets, and I’m the last sucker on the chain, selling fake dreams to fake people.
Welcome to the new economy.
The game’s rigged from the start. The film industry used to be a gamble—Russian roulette with a hundred thousand-dollar bullet. If the picture flopped, you’d feel it in your bones. Hell, I’d feel it in my theater, in the dead silence that echoed after the last frame cut out. But now, with ZIRP money flooding the market, there’s no risk. Just a game of musical chairs, and every seat is bought by some studio exec with an expense account thicker than his sense of reality. They don’t even need you to sit down. They’ve already bought the ticket, sold the dream, and padded the weekend numbers before the film even hits the screen.
See, it starts small—whispers of a new blockbuster. The studio shoves a suitcase of money down the throat of every theater in town, promising they’ll fill every seat, whether real or imaginary. I play my part, I pocket the cash, and smile as I project the latest visual narcotic to a room full of ghosts.
Bulk purchases, that’s the trick. You’d think people would smell the rot, but they don’t. Some poor bastard logging into Fandango sees that half the seats are gone and thinks, “I better get my ticket now, or I’ll miss out!” Little does he know, those seats were bought by an intern in a dark room full of blinking servers, feeding the illusion. Click, click, click, it’s all ones and zeros now. I’ve seen blockbusters “sell out” faster than you can light a cigarette, and when I step into the theater, I can count the real people on one hand. It’s like a reverse séance—no spirits, just empty chairs haunted by the cash that bought them.
Then there’s the seat-filler con—buying up entire rows, entire showtimes. Not to fill theaters, mind you, but to fill the studio’s numbers. You’d think it was some kind of arms race. Who can pad their box office the fastest? And I play the willing accomplice, because the ZIRP gravy train keeps the lights on and the rent paid.
I used to hate the silence. The low hum of a movie dying on its second act, the sound of an empty audience not reacting to anything, no clapping, no laughter—just the crackling buzz of the projector burning through film that nobody came to see. But now? I love it. The emptiness of the theater is the sound of money flowing upstream. I could fill the place with mannequins, and it wouldn’t matter, as long as those little green numbers keep rising in someone’s data feed.
Theater owners like me—we’re just props in the grand spectacle now. We put up the neon lights, sweep the floors, and make sure the popcorn machine’s running, but we’re part of the bigger scam. It’s all about perception. Make it look like a hit, and it’ll become one. The public? They don’t know the difference between real demand and the shadows we cast on the wall. They want to believe in blockbusters the same way they want to believe their vote matters or that their crypto’s going to the moon.
But let me tell you, this whole thing’s a Ponzi scheme on steroids. The studios pump money into the illusion, and the illusion keeps spinning. They say, “Just wait for the big weekend box office numbers!” It’s all a front. The films don’t matter; the numbers do. It’s like shooting up heroin, chasing that first high. The studios buy the illusion of success, hoping it becomes real before the money dries up.
And it will dry up, oh yes, one day the cheap money will run out, the ZIRP tap will close, and the whole house of cards will come tumbling down. When that happens, I’ll be standing here with an empty theater and an even emptier bank account. But until then, I keep playing my part. I keep selling tickets to invisible audiences, because that’s the game now. We’re all just players in the Great American Scam, chasing ghosts with stacks of counterfeit cash.
But here’s the kicker: I don’t hate it. Hell, I thrive on it. Because when you’re in on the con, when you know the hustle, you can ride that wave as far as it’ll go. The public eats this stuff up. They think they’re part of something, part of some cultural moment, some Hollywood “event”—but they’re just another line item in a balance sheet.
So yeah, I’ll keep dimming the lights, cueing up the projector, and letting the phantom crowds shuffle in. Because as long as the ZIRP money flows, the lie lives on. And in this game, the lie is more real than the truth ever could be.
