This page will feature videos that are either assigned or that might help to flesh out some of the texts or ideas we’re discussing in class. If you feel you have one you’d like to share, just let me know and I’ll add it. Otherwise I’ll be adding to it throughout the semester.
Post-War / Contemporary Nihilism:
Sunn O))) — D))) (2016)
This is one of the bands that Eugene Thacker writes about in his book In The Dust of this Planet. Give this a listen and think about how this might be read as nihilistic; what does the droning play to, what does the screaming call for (if anything)? In the context of the current musical landscape, how does a band like Sunn O))) fit in?
Beyoncé — Formation (2016)
This one might be a bit controversial (in terms of being included on a list of contemporary forms of nihilism), but think about what is being renounced here, what is being destroyed, or broken down both visually and lyrically. What is being reasserted in this video, what is being celebrated that has historically been suppressed? The imagery in this video is rich and often refers directly to contemporary debates and movements, such as Black Lives Matter, and the failed responses to Hurricane Katrina in 2005 which left much of New Orleans underwater and people homeless for an extended amount of time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMea1UNtdI8
Nirvana — Smells Like Teen Spirit (1991)
Coming out of the 1980s and Reaganomics which favored a trickle-down theory of economics that privileged the upper classes of the US, Nirvana came at a certain moment (the right moment) to scream at and disrupt the decadent attitudes that were prevailing (think of the huge productions of 80s Hair Bands, the slick Wall Street of Oliver Stone and Gordon Gekko). Nirvana were from the lumber lands of the Pacific Northwest that represented something that opposed all that the 80s consumer culture became known for. There is also something (problematically) romantic about the young figure of Kurt Cobain that hearkens back to those tragically self-destructive characters of Romanticism, such as Goethe’s Werther, or Heinrich von Kleist: two early nihilistic figures that look for release from their bodily suffering.
Sex Pistols — God Save the Queen (1977)
The political weight of appropriating the title of the English National Anthem on the Silver Anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II’s reign is apparent here and clashed with the polite society of the time, which saw this as a vulgar affront to a certain sense of national morality. The Sex Pistols dropped a sort of bomb into the middle of all these celebrations that stirred up, or made apparent, the huge gap between the British working classes and the ruling classes, especially the Monarchy. The two, as many interviews the Sex Pistols gave in their time, lived in two entirely different worlds. For the likes of Johnny Rotten and Sid Vicious, the vulgar outcry, the screaming and destruction, self-mutiliation and scatalogical activity, was, it seemed (and seems) the only way to bring attention to that gap.
Samuel Beckett – Not I (2:45)
Samuel Beckett – Endgame (1957)
Charlie Chaplin Modern Times (1936)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gZnON6ttwI
Here is the short film that Salvador Dalí and Disney collaborated on in 1946. Below are also a list and trailers of some great films by artists-directors who were directly involved with the Surrealist movement as well as those who were influenced by them.
Destino (Salvador Dalí & Disney, 1946-2003)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GFkN4deuZU
Le Sang d’un Poète (Jean Cocteau, 1930):
https://youtu.be/yX_zdvHifrg
The Discrete Charm of the Bourgeoisie (Luis Buñuel, 1972):
I Will Walk Like A Crazy Horse (Fernando Arrabal, 1973):
Brazil (Terry Gilliam, 1985):
A Zed & Two Noughts (Peter Greenaway, 1985):
Inland Empire (David Lynch, 2006)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROg0sms3Zh8
The ABC’s of DADA (in 3 Parts)
Europe After the Rain: Dadaism and Surrealism (1978)
Un Chien Andalou – (Luis Buñuel & Salvador Dalí, 1928)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=054OIVlmjUM
Ballet Mécanique – (Fernand Léger, 1924)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QV9-l-rXOE
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
Lu Xun’s Diary of a Madman traces the increasing paranoia of a diarist who believes that the people around him are cannibals, that they are consuming the flesh of others, and that they are out to get him and make him one of them. This theme has popped up again and again over the course of the last century: zombies, vampires, etc. This film, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, came out as the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union was hitting its stride and is often read in one of two ways (at least): the fear of a Communist takeover in the US (everyone losing their individuality) or, conversely, the groupthink occurring during the McCarthy era of the 1950s. Think about the transhistorical significance of this theme of assimilation, of flesh- or blood-eating creatures that pull in individuals as we go on. . . where might we see this going in the 20th century?
Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard (1904)
Whirling Dervishes — Repetition and Spiritualism
During our discussion on Orature, we’ll be talking about repetition and the ‘spiritual’ effects it’s supposed to have. This will become evident when we hear the presentation on Navajo Night Chants. The idea of repetition is interesting in that it is something that generally opposes the linear progression that is privileged in rational, enlightened thought, and especially in bourgeois principles (capitalism, for example). We’ve also become used to linear progression in narratives, in which a story ‘must’ have a beginning, middle, and end, at which point we find some resolution. Through many religions we find this sense of progression as well. You live your life with the aim of getting to heaven . . . we progress to heaven (or hell). But what is interesting (to me, at least) is when and where we encounter repetition, and what purpose does it serve. Below is an example of a Sufi ritual in which ‘whirling dervishes’ honor God by spinning in circles for an extended period of time. As children we’ve all done this at one point or another and so have some sense of the physical effects one has while doing this. It is meditative in the sense that you detach yourself from the world around you — everything becomes blurred, and in order to continue spinning you must look inward, toward some stable position, and what you hear is a stable, repetitive rhythm or melody. It is in this state that one can, it is said, transcend the body that is attached to earthly relations and commune with something ‘higher’ so to speak, whether this is God or something else. I’m often reminded of a similar phenomenon with electronic (dance) music and the crowd sensation one feels in an anonymous crowd in which ego and boundaries are stripped away.
Carte Blanche – “Gare du Nord” (Because Music, 2010)
Nuit #1 Trailer (Dir. Anne Émond, 2012)
Heinrich Hoffmann – Der Struwwelpeter (1845)
As we’ll be seeing over the course of our Orature presentations, oral literature and oral folklore often have a function in constituting the shared identity of a community. Pay attention to what ideals and mores are being worked out in the ‘morals’ of these stories. How do they define – or try to define – the character of the community?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5GF4zrsXUw
Wilhelm Busch – Max und Moritz (1865)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOe_fLciHNc
Mood Indigo (L’Écume des Jours [2013], Dir. Michel Gondry, based on the novel by Boris Vian [1947]). Here is one example of some sort of a synesthetic experience, similar to what we read in Baudelaire’s work: the tasting of music, of sound. The piano creates a cocktail according to the notes and chords that are played.
Molière – Tartuffe (1664):