welcome trent! i've posted him this url to have a look at my blog!!!

oh, and yay! my archives are all there, now! at least they are available on the front page....

i've realised i haven't written recently. i've been blogging mark's blog and v.o.t's discussion blog. i'm not too keen on a 'wrap' up session on filmtheory, because it is a blog i'm still maintaining. nevertheless, for class sake, i really enjoyed the classes, and the bloggness, and the films. i've never learnt so much, in such a short space of time.
my cinema 2 book has arrived at melbuni bookshop, and unfortunately, i've no money to pick it up. i'll be able to get it friday sometime! yay!
i'm doing my commrev essay, so i'd better be off. see you guys soon... whenever wherever....

just blogged in mark's blog. yeah.
i did get to watch timecode over the weekend and i'll write more later .....

Time Code and hypertext. some people talking about the film and the digital and what hyper means.....
and then there's this page with stuff on hypertext and timecode from some uni message board - haven't read it yet!
oh, and a uni course with good links, animation page - suggestions in books and references on the web. course in narrative and digital work....
and here's one more link: another uni course with a page of links.... hooray, i might go home now and watch timecode (gosh i'm cool) i'm happy because kyle maclachlan is in it, and holly hunter... and yeah! well tonight we are all (rather innocently) going to watch englandvsargentina in the world cup at the copacobana bar on smith street. i might go for argentina...... to stick on the safe side!!! yay. oh, soccer is so cute.

here's a radio locator, find over 10, 000 radio stations web pages, and around 2 500 radio streams....
so (this is not really film stuff), come back here later...

whoa, didn't realised i'd typed so much today. once again, i wrote continuously throughout today, saving here and there. maybe i should just create noteforms....
oh, and just checked who wrote that thesis (see below for my notes on ch2): and well i'll be damned, it's stephen o'connell. who would have thought - as i read through thinking of detective deleuze. everything always comes together. he seems like a strange guy. but his reasoning for writing about d&g is interesting: Since 1989 I've been working on the writings of the two french intellectuals, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari.This culminated in a 50,000 word thesis that was completed in 1996. My interest in Deleuze and Guattari is particularly focused on the way they developed an artistic approach to thinking as philosophers and theorists of culture. Having a background in art history and currently working in the field of contemporary art, my aim has been to bring something of this aesthetical methodology to my practice as an art writer. (my bold - and erica, his email is on the site)

this week i have read 'chapter 2: semiology - she is filled with secrets' by someone on the web. the link is in another posting somewhere below.
this chapter looks at semiology, from a Deleuze perspective in terms of Twin Peaks. the first part sets up some aspects of cinema and philosophy. the writer bluntly says that on hand the Deleuze cinema books interpret the history of cinematic concepts, and on the other hand, thru these books Deleuze is asking what does it mean for a philosopher to interpret and analyse?
These are his two lines of inquiry, according to this writer. i liked parts of this chapter, but became overwelmed when the author expanded their inquiry to other deleuze texts, especially to Spinoza, Proust, and eventually Nietzche.
but the cool bits are as follows:
firstly, the author (i really must go back to the pdf and look for he or her) clearly says (in regards to the cinema books) that deleuze's "extensive taxonomy demonstrates that the cinema itself creates a meaning which 'belongs' to the cinema. in other words, the cinema posits its own meaning. there is no underlying ideological or psychoanalytic structure which organises cinema's signs. its signs create meaning by referring in different ways to their genesis of formation in time." (p31) this is like a summary of that cinema thinks for itself. i like it that there is no 'psychoanalytical structure' organising cinema's signs/images. i am looking at david lynch critiques and they are all blardy blar psychoanalytical babble. this author does go into that a bit later on in the peice, but mainly sticks to what the images or signs of Twin Peaks do, as opposed to what they mean. he/she also goes into some body stuff of deleuze. but maybe i'll leave that for now.
so, another part (p33) goes like this, "But while Deleuze frustrates attempts to treat his concepts as if they are universally applicable, he often invites his readers to re-use his terms and ideas in their own way. in other words, readers of deleuze are implored to create further digressions and movements that resonate with his theories rather than logically follow or correspond with them." and that is exactly what this author then tends to do. an interesting thing to note is that deleuze makes 'surgical incisions in the corpus of the history of philosophy', and that whilst the "exploratory surgery on the cinematic corpus outlines certain ideas, such as the m-i and t-i, but these ideas do not have any actual content outside of their manifestations in cinema history." (p34) (this leads the question, why are they important? but then again, why do most theorists look at other deleuze philosophy when talking about cinema? as this person does) the writer goes on with saying "the idea-images release the signs that deleuze interprets in the same way that a sickness releases symptons for a doctor to classify. the signs express the tendency of an idea, but the idea continues to change and mutate through different situations." (p34)
from the movement-image book, this writer deciphers that "deleuze is inspired by how the cinema already works in this way, linking and relinking, introducing movement to the meaning of signs, making the screen function like a brain (or making the brain function as a luminous screen) without a common sense image of thought" (p37), which then leads on into how fbi agent cooper (in twin peaks) unravelles a "seemingly endless web of connections" (p38) and "rather than proceeding along a logical path of clues to the murderer, cooper becomes more and more entwined in the world that he interprets." (p38). linking and relinking, in how we make connections and make meanings.
the first few scenes of the twin peak series has numerous affection-images that the writer mentions in accordance to m-i - "we are presented with a series of postures or signs acted on by something impreceptible. a girl runs across the school yard screaming, a mother cries, unknown people tremble with fear. intense close-up shots of faces, phones and rotating fans reverberate with the secrets which are folded up in their postures." (p40) there is a footnote here that reads "the affection-image, produced in the cinema by the close-up (particularly of the face), is that facet of subjectivity which absorbs rather than reflects movement."
(there is a part where the writer mentions the platform of Lynch-Frost. that lynch is the secrecy of the past and frost is the anticipation of the future. interesting platform = twin peaks)
mentioning d & guattari's detective novel work - the writer talks about agent cooper/any other detective in terms of time - "the model detective seeks to discover the past by moving tentatively into the future. time is momentarily out of joint in the detective novel, but the aim is to straighten things out." (p42)
in terms of time: "the concept of becoming that we find in Twin Peaks plays havoc with common-sense notions of time to the point where the episodes can be enjoyed out of sequence, and a movie-length prequel can still keep people interested even though Laura's murderer has been revealed" (p45) that's quite interesting for lynch fans who haven't watched the tv series as it aired. there's a movie intro, then the series, then a prequel. some people watch these out of order, some in parts (it requires over 20 hours of viewing and loads of hiring of tapes).
another thing is the concept of the Body without Organs (from D & Guattari's work - a bit hard to when i've not read where it fits into cinema, if at all) but the writer mentions it in the chance connections clue game that agent cooper plays to solve part of the mystery. a "rather quirky Ouija-board-cum-game-of-chance" (p46) helps assist their investigation, where "cooper accepts the violence of signs. he is affected by the encounter. in the tibetan forest scene his body is affected in such a way that its cognitive faculties are redistributed to create a body with an open assemblage of organs; a body set free from the organism." although i don't really understand d&g's concept here, it's quite interesting, and a very weird scene - chance connections helping a murder mystery.
when talking about 'the laura palmer problem', the author mentions the 'power of the false' from d's cinema 2 for ever character fits into laura's life, they all have a connection in some way, and her death has different meanings to them all. agent cooper unearths many mysteries (some very unknown) as he investigates her death, and although she could easily become an 'object' for investigation and narrative, "lynch and frost avoid simply objectifying laura's body. as a signletic interval, laura expresses a certain secrecy or a 'power of the false' which actively generates meaning." (p48) as the narrative continues her "poly-perverse body" is not the passive object created for the enjoyment of an active subject, with an open ended field of possibilities. her body forms a "creative secrecy, an unknowable outside, which actively rearranges the subject's relation with themselves and the world" (p49) we don't know, the characters don't know, "knowing has been replaced by a gesture toward the unknowable." expressing the unexpressable (was that right james) thinking the unpossible. grr! anyways, i think i'm drivvling on a bit. but i have two more favourite parts:
as displayed in previous films, lynch "has a keen sense of cinematic conventions" (p52) the camera angles, and particularly the close ups (think mystery man - how can that be familiar? think sms), these things make up the banal, or mysterious, the romantic and scary-ness. what is interesting (and i'm feeling de ja vu here!) here is that "he does not simply use these techniques in a pornographic fashion, ordering and directing the way we feel. he exaggerates or accentuates the signs of the cinema so that they suspend our belief in these codes, leaving us uncertain as to how they make us feel." (p52) this, i think, is what i meant by the time-image and my 'singing at bens' eg in blue velvet - the exaggeration of particular images (and in bv's case - characters) leaves you uncertain and in an unfamiliar area - so that we wonder what they mean. most of the time, with lynch stuff, i am left wondering what does this mean, but there's never going to be an answer, it's the mystery that this kind of cinema creates. confusion. and feeling of misunderstand (sometimes creates unbelonging for some viewers).
anyways, the last bit i liked was right at the end of chapter (the writer goes of with lacan and psycho stuff - critising it as an approach for this area), i think it's about interpreting signs, for that's all that agent cooper spends his time doing. he says (from memory) 'when two things happen at the same time concerning the same thing, it's a cooincidence not to be ignored' (it's the middle of the night and he got two phone calls - one from the police secretary, the other from a mysterious one armed man - both calls were about a 'killer bob') but cooper "perceives and acts through a process of contracting and relaxing the rhythms of the world in which he is entwined, unfolding on the Lynch-frost plane of consistency. Or as Deleuze explains, the brain or living image, as the instrument of analysis, 'is nothing but this - an interval, a gap between an action and a reaction' (d quote from c1, p62)"(p57). as cooper goes on this journey (murder-mystery) he translates, deciphers and interprets signs. as he goes on for truth, he becomes part (becoming stuff) of this, his body is now a sign in the whole scheme of things. the best quote (romantic me) is right at the end: "His body itself ultimately turns into a sign or hieroglyph that envelopes the disjunctions and false continuties of the past, and as he unfolds the pure and timeless sensiblities of these possible worlds her creates this life as a literary work. it is this same aesthetical approach to interpretation that twin peaks develops to such baroque ends, tracing the complicated essemblages of adjacent worlds through the sinuous fold of time. the hero of the twin peaks search, agent cooper, dandyfies the detective role and invents himself as a work of art, composing and recomposing an aesthetic territory around his encounters." (p58) beautiful. ohhhh i love twin peaks. now after i've written all this: twin peaks is tv. tv is always a time-image from the moment it's switched on (so says deleuze). tv isn't cinema. but isn't twinpeaks full of stuff nonetheless?

i have republished my archives, and still they don't appear - at this present stage, only may and june are appearing, and when i went and published them, they are there from march, but just never appear - maybe it's this template. grrrr. who knows? can anyone help, i'm finding it difficult to self-assess when i know i've written more than what's appearing for me in my blog....grrrr. oh, by the way i can't stop reading kathyacker, i love her (she's very pretty too) o dear.

recently watched films: by me.
on sunday night, after big brother, we watched 'bring it on'. starring kirsten dunst (we look similar, i've been told) and the girl who plays faith in buffy. this was a very interesting film because it was funny, and the cheerleading squad did not win in the end. (they had been winning for 6 years with stolen cheers). i really liked it, and i got so nervous when the national competition started, because i didn't want them to drop anyone (cheerleading does weird things to you). anyways, it was funny. everybody in my house have seen it 2-5 times already, and have been going around saying 'brrr, it's cold in here, there must be some toros in the atmosphere' for about six months, and i finally found out what it means.
then last week i watched 'scenes from a mall', starring the wonderful bette midler & woody allen. this film is old. divorces, flashy cars, woody allen's yuppie ponytail (yuk!), but it was great. they were the only characters with dialogue (mostly) the whole way through the film. amy (lovely flatmate) told me that this is the only film, that she's aware of, that woody allen stars in, but doesn't direct. i didn't know that. he's alright, love hate thing going on for me. i asked amy if she would kiss him (if he cast her in his next film) and she said yes!
anyways, i've been thinking about what these two films have in common... probably nothing. however, they are both about a dream of success - (successful cheerleading and successful marriage) and in the end the cheerleaders come second, and we aren't really sure if bette and woody are going to divorce, but they seem happy with each other's imperfections, so they come second two. they are both traditionally movement-image, i'm trying to think if anything is good gossip (deleuze-wize) the credits of 'bring it on' contain some bloopers, and everyone singing along to 'oh mickey what a pity, can't you understand'. the bloopers in films are very interesting, i'm guessing, because they show us the mistakes and mishaps of the actors, making them real people with real hiccups. bloopers also have that formalism thing, we are watching (or have watched) a film, and these actors aren't really the characters you've just seen.... any more dudes? ok, better not crap on now, i'm sorry that these films were really bad films, i really liked them though! especially cheerleading, i might go for that look on thursday! i heard jess has got some outfit on the go!!! bye!