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Return two-part conversation with Greg Desilet, on rethinking melodrama, mythology and Joseph Campbell, the Greeks & Nietzsche, myths vs. melodrama, violent myths as relief from disembodiment, a home for the displaced, the opposite of art, message movies, Dostoyevsky, Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein, Taxi Driver, sympathy for the damned, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, how Leatherface feels, puberty & possession, the male assaulted, Psycho & the slasher template, mother bondage and male hostility to women, an evolution in melodramatic structure, cosmological notions of evil, a Manichean identity formation, Girard & mimetic rivalry, the function of obstacles and rites of passage, manufactured outrage, The Matrix, becoming a man, the father-principal, the semblance of an enemy, facing the paper tiger, Fight Club, Peckinpah’s Wild Bunch, the quality of attention, the role of a critic, movies and reality, using art as a virtual reality domain, what’s being sold to us, the distinction between decadent and healthy art.
Songs: “I’m Going Insane 2,” by Lee Maddeford; “Things Fall Apart” by We Is Shore Dedicated; “To Learn,” by Tendon Levey; “Come Get Us Again” by Rose Windows.
Can we start a summer series called “Tea with Gregory” or something ? You guys have a fine rapport.
I got Greg’s “Radical Atheism and New Spirituality” on Hamazon.. and it’s good. Best 3 bucks I spent all month !
The Matrix.. Fight Club.. what.. what year is this ? Friendly reminder that the Watch-outski’s cut their penises off.. 😉
As to the end there, about good/bad movies/myths.. I always liked Hal Ashby’s little speech when he won the editing Oscar in 1968 : https://youtu.be/1TJBAFDpop8?t=2m45s
I’ve been reading that one too; there are parts I can’t be bothered to try and understand, but overall & so far it’s impressive.
Yeah, I think it’s in part 2 of this where Greg talks about how he formed his writing style by writing for academic journals. It shows, but it’s still enjoyable. His Cult of the Kill seems a little more accessible and it has a bad-ass name to boot ! That’s next because I think the Harry Potter essay is only available as part of a horrendous looking orange text book..