First, tell a joke:
(1): I have never borrowed a kettle from you
(2): It didn’t break when I returned your kettle
(3): When I got this kettle from you, it was broken
The above three paragraphs are the strange logic used by Freud to interpret dreams, but this kind of discourse structure of "even...and then..." is not exactly the premise of the film "Square". NS?
"Square" should be regarded as a kind of realism-not the "social reality" of Desica or Rossellini, nor the "psychological reality" of Antonioni. To explain this kind of "realism", a term should be invented : Surrealism (not surrealism or hyperrealism), a kind of unbalanced realism that exists only in video texts.
In surrealism, "Square" is engaged in a "contemporary art", a war. As long as films such as "Square" or "Dream Quest" still become popular today, there is no need for contemporary Lacanists to list "The Lost Corner" or "The Lost Corner Meets Dzogchen" as a must for children. The purpose of reading is necessary, and worrying about what you want? (Che vuoi?) is the first thing they should do at this time.
(1) Why is all art contemporary art?
From Ai Weiwei to Ge Yulu, until the 21st century, "contemporary art" still exists as a rude and terrifying face that threatens social order-if you only watch and watch the popular news on TV on time.
However, "contemporary art" does not exist, or only exists in the "fantasy" of conservatives.
In the 2017 Golden Lion Award winner "The Shape of Water", the humanoid water monster's anomaly provides an addition to the remaining background of the film's dualistic ideological ideology-it may be the "third pole of ideology" "(For many countries in the "non-aligned" movement, it is interesting that the hometown of the "water monster" comes from the third world), or it may be an individual within the "bipolar" that does not belong to the "bipolar" (does this argument think of Schelling's "World The "sacred madness" of Time?), or other images-if we shift our perspective from its context to the present, does it represent a kind of minority? Black or Mexican immigrants? But there is no doubt that the director Gilmour Del Toro only shows us an anomaly, a three-pole struggle.
The so-called "contemporary art" of the conservatives is equivalent to such a "water monster" image, which is produced in modern or contemporary times. It is the general term for some performance art, installation art, Dadaism... all subversive experiences, or threats Established art forms, aesthetic art methods or content can all enter this hostile "addition."
"All art is contemporary art" is not just a metaphor, nor the "being" of time. On the contrary, judging "what art is not contemporary art" is a political proposition.
Back to the primitive age, the beginning of the definition of "art", the process from "no art" to "art" needs to face a question: "What do we call'beauty'", some non-art daily experience is entered" Among the demands of “art”.
Gothic and Baroque are two of the mainstream Western art, and their etymology is "Goth" and "Barocco".
The meaning of "art" is the process from "non-art" to "art", rather than repeating itself. This is why we should pay attention to what Christian explained in an interview with a female reporter shortly after the opening of "Square". The reasons for the highly specialized terminology symbols (exhibition-non-exhibition, "exhibitability", location-non-location...), these can be attributed to the "primitive production", the film self-understanding soon The self that will be gradually revealed later, on the other hand, we have to pay tribute to Deleuze again.
In a narrow sense, "contemporary art" on the one hand oversteps the space in which it occurs, and on the other hand, makes "non-art" break into the once "art" space (Duchamp's "Spring" is an argument for the latter)
"Contemporary art" in the narrow sense is an empirical demonstration of Lacan's theory, or a preview, which previews how the real world breaks into the symbolic order.
Ruben Ostlund designed a trap for filmmakers who want to "interpret" the film. From the detained composition surrounded by doors and windows to the stage boundary of Christian's daughter's cheerleading performance, "Square" does not lack the image of "square". But it also means that a larger, closer, and ubiquitous "square" has been ignored, that is, the screen where the audience is staring at the movie, except for the "metamovie", few movies will remind us to pay attention to the screen. "Square" pays attention to the metaphor of the boundary and the line of sight, so it belongs to "contemporary art" outside of the text.
Here, the silver screen = what Lacan calls "mirror". After the lights in the theater are completely turned off, we will briefly return to the state of the baby before the mirror phase.
The ideal audience group for "Square" is not the youth of a third country, nor the United States, but the "middle and upper class" or intellectuals known as "White Left" in Europe. They are the same as "Christian". "Watching" means completing the final creation of art (or better to use "generating"?). After the internal-external relationship is established, all people are part of the art.
(2) Why is the "square" a place of mutual trust and help?
A ghost, the ghost of cynicism, wanders the world.
Marx’s "commodity fetishism" is gradually being revised by a kind of "cynicism." The key point is not "they don't know. But they are doing it" but "they clearly understand it, but they are still doing it." Cynicism shows the rupture of intellectual rationality and behavioral rationality. Everyone may be the subject of cynicism. Kant wrote in his supplement to "free argument": "Obey" means: "In academia, deconstruct at will, but in life, obey authority!"-Cynicism creates a "temporary" value.
What really drives our (cynicist) daily behavior is not the result of our thinking, but more like a belief machine: Tibetan prayer wheel or automatic juicer, all we need to do is to turn it or press a button ——Go to "action"!
What Christian faces is not "obedience in public space, deconstruction in private space", on the contrary, "deconstruction" in public space is inverted into another form of "obedience", which means: in public space (daily policy During the exhibition), he had to deconstruct the indifference of the current society. In private, when the real world’s vision "breaks into" the symbolic order, he had to act like everyone else, because the leftists occupy the right to speak and morals. The commanding heights, the current cynicism (at least in the art and ideological world), is reversely encrypted, and "Square" is based on its "reverse and reverse" structure.
A more intense Lacan explanation is that the reason why "square" is a place where we trust and help each other is like the circle formed by iron wire used to observe the distance between asteroids and the earth in the film "Melancholia" In the framework, we use "fantasy" to frame our daily life. Another mask of "fantasy" is "experience" or "common sense". Within the vision of "fantasy", everyone can and is worth helping each other.
"Fantasy" can be interpreted as a "filter" of the beauty camera. In the "filter", the oily shine and acne on the face of the real world disappeared. On the screen of the mobile phone, a perfect female (male) appeared. ) Sheng, she (he) should be regarded as a "symbolic order" or a "big Other".
"Square" focuses on the imbalance between fantasy and reality, the disparity between reality and symbolic order. At the moment of "action" (Christian delivers threatening letters from door to door), he had to borrow the jacket of his colleague Micheal because he " Can’t enter in a suit like this. At this time, the two readings of cynicism and “fantasy” converge. In order to maintain his public image, he has to use the fantasy of “becoming the other” to complete that he does not belong to this “Christian”. The characteristics of (the superego)-this is an excuse for "collusion", we might as well be like a utilitarian: just "do".
In this slow horror-like push shot, the uncertain light and shade constitute the foreground-background dichotomy of the composition. The dim light may swallow him at any time. Christian’s social "self" representation is banned, and he is in At the middle point of the symbolic order—the real world, or the superego—the id, there must be a threatening element of dog barking outside the painting, that is, at the end of the composition (in the extensible space outside the painting). He may retreat to the id and fall into the chaotic and obscene "Night of the World".
(3) Why is Oleg out of control?
"Square" at the party imitated the orangutan Oleg's loss of control and reached a climax. From a linear time point of view, this scene occurred after the exhibition hall caused a public relations crisis due to the "video incident". Christian attended the press conference dinner. It's on a certain side of the banquet hall, but in a sense, it seems to be suspended by the film, a "harmless" crisis
However, we can definitely assume that Christian's position was replaced by Oleg at this time. Before that, Oleg was imprisoned in the video installation of the exhibition hall (the border of the screen is again a "square"!). After the public relations crisis broke out in the exhibition hall, the object of desire, or the substitute of the "self" suddenly "breaked" into the symbolic order, and the latter was immediately deconstructed.
In Hollywood’s popular disaster movies, whether the disaster is “harmful” or “harmless,” the disaster itself often bears the “third party that brings trauma,” whether it is an earthquake or an invading alien. In the movie, There is often a dark line of emotion—disaster becomes the entity of its emotional dimension. At the end of the film, the disaster leaves, and the male and female protagonists are together—this is the most popular "reunion" ending at the moment.
We can completely regard the above plot structure as a campus-themed film (more importantly: nowadays the protagonists of this kind of themes are often teenagers). The "dark line" of emotion is actually the open line, which satisfies (or "exploits") ) The main audience group-teenagers stay away from the daily demands of the campus, but retain the part of the campus sentiment,
The "harmless" devastating disaster of "Square"-the out of control Oleg is just the "catastrophe" itself, a true and absolute subject, a "pure thing" that destroys the symbolic order.
In some devastating scenes (together with the previous scene: a public interview interrupted by a foul language by a mentally disordered person), the end of the film is implied. The meaning of "end" in this context is not only It is only used to express Christian’s resignation or the reporter’s sharp questioning. There is also a "post-end" ending where the picture fades out. The removed children are "symbolized" and may enter again with a threatening attitude of others. Enter-will be another movie, such as "Theorem" or "Fun Game", maybe it will be "Monster Night Panic"?
(4) The trap of "Square"
From "I Am Blake" to "Square", in the audience's appeal for "return to artistry", Cannes is more resolute than Berlin and Venice's denial (but "Body and Spirit" and "The Shape of Water" are really due to their artistic quality. Are you winning?)
Let's look at another joke;
"Why did you tell me that you were going to Krakow instead of Lemberg, you really went to Krakow?"
This joke comes from Freud and was later quoted by Lacan and again by Zizek. Zizek believes that "by expressing the truth as a lie, a phenomenon can accurately tell the truth", Ruben Oss Trende can also reconstruct the status of "Truth" and draw a clear line from himself through cynicism referring to the "White Left". "Square" will not be like "Mother!" "Like "Death of the Sacred Deer", it crosses the bottom line of "political correctness".
Let’s look at another popular movie from last year: "Dream Quest"
The survival of the "underworld"-death (also the construction of the film "crisis") is derived from Mexican folklore, or Lacan's "death in the symbolic world", but ultimately leads to the return of a more traditional family value: "Nothing's more important than family"
Lacan and "political correctness" (in response to Trump's "Mexico ban") have once again become objects of "need".
Do you still need a concluding remark? If so, it should be "Welcome to the jungle, soon you will be confronted by a wild animal......."
Will this be the situation of contemporary Lacanists?
references:
Slavoj Zizek: "Enjoy your symptoms-Lacan inside and outside Hollywood", translated by Wei Guangji, Nanjing, Nanjing University Press, 1st edition, November 2014
Slavore Zizek: "Zizek's Joke", translated by Yu Dongxing, Henan, Henan University Press, Class 1, March 2017
Slavozh Zizek: "The Incident", translated by Wang Shi, Shanghai, Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House, March 2016, 1st edition Slavozh Zizek: "The Abyss of Freedom", translated by Wang Jun, Shanghai, Shanghai Translation Publishing House, 1st edition, December 2012
Gil Deleuze: "Motion-Video", translated by Xie Qiang and Ma Yue, Hunan, Hunan Fine Arts Publishing House, 1st edition, January 2016
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