Ok, so I don't think I could have gotten any more confused about this article. Rather than providing some concrete evidence to which an audience in 2009 might have some experience (frankly, I had never heard of films like October or The Devil's Wheel), Christie more-or-less just threw in some really big words and concepts every other sentence. I'm no film director, and even if I were I don't think words like semioticians, socialist realism, template schemata, and transtextual allusion would give me anything less than a massive migraine. Had Christie perhaps provided a more watered-down, simplistic analysis, I might have found the article to be mildly interesting.
This isn't to say that there were not some attention-grabbing points. I enjoyed the Russian history lesson and the concept of "carnivalism" (yeah for Mardi Gras!), but all-in-all Christie's explanation about the differences between formalism and neo-formalism (which probably could have been said in one concrete sentence), left me feeling more clueless than informed at the end. I really hope our class discussion might clear up the confusion and help me to see its relevance in relation to the films we are watching.
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I could not agree more. What ever happened to saying what you mean and meaning what you say? We know you’re smart, otherwise we wouldn’t be reading your article. No need to fluff your writing to the point of speaking in circles.
ReplyDeleteBut on that note, there were a few interesting tidbits that helped the pages turn. In addition to “carnivalistic”, Bakhtin’s concept of “dialogism” broached an interesting subject. The comparison and contrast of the author’s meaning and the direct dialogue laid out for the characters has always been a point of interest for me (bringing it back to what you say and what you mean). I would have really enjoyed seeing both of these topics explained or elaborated on. As I think one of my classmates stated in a post above mine, the “Neo-formalism” section is by far the most comprehensible of the article.
Perhaps with a greater knowledge of Russian film history, or even with a more detailed explanation of the films being referenced throughout the article, Christie’s words might have been less confusing (and even, dare I say it, enjoyable?). Our class might just have been the wrong audience for this subject matter.