Hypervisible

Juxtaposed

I am taking a film analysis class and it has piqued my interest enough that I’ve been watching more experimental or just generally different films than I would normally choose. Yesterday I watched The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, followed later by Metropolitan. Although I had not purposely paired the films together they played off of each other really nicely.

For those not familiar, the first film is a French surrealist’s take on the upperclass lifestyles of six friends. The filmmaker goes from the angle of satirizing the bourgeoisie and just how backwards he believes the upper class to be. (In one memorable scene the main characters vehemently denounce the use of drugs as they are talking with a man about marijuana, while they themselves are secretly running a business trafficking cocaine across international borders.) The second takes a different stance on the upper class. In Metropolitan, a group of teenagers get together nightly during their Christmas break and have intellectually stimulating conversations, picking apart what it means to be upper class from a learned perspective.

I quite enjoyed both of them and don’t wish to spoil any further details or ruin personal epiphanies to be gained while viewing; suffice it to say I am still thinking about points brought up in both of them as they are very much applicable today. 

Past Present Nowhere

I received a Kindle for Christmas and after figuring out how to use it I immediately began filling it with books to read. The library of classic literature available (for free!) is immense and I have found myself reading older novels more than anything else lately.

I have always had an affection for the mystery genre, and Agatha Christie and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle are two of my absolute favorite writers. Many of Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories were first published in the newspaper, which spurred me to think about society today versus back then. I came up with either two answers as to why they were in the newspapers (and stories are not in our newspapers today): the stories coddled a stupid populace and were therefore subpar, or the people as a whole were more educated/interested in literature.

Well, Conan Doyle was certainly not a creator of subpar works, and although I can’t say that we are less educated as a whole now than then, I can extrapolate from what knowledge I do have that we* are at the very least less interested with educated things. As a society we are too easily amused by meager pleasures and have the unfortunate tendency put things with substance, namely literature, by the wayside.

The same is evident in music; the blaring lyrics and smutty rhymes in many popular songs can hardly be attributed to creative expression. That is not to say there are not exceptions––they exist––but the “Top” scene has been overrun by unimaginative and repetitive songs.  

I am hoping to experience a cultural shift in my lifetime, a petit-Renaissance of sorts, that allows for the blossoming of creativity in literature and music. I hope to exemplify what this cultural shift should be by patronizing literature and music conducive to creative thought, but perhaps I am just destined to be part of a group far too few people are a part of or even understand.

* I use the term ‘we’ very loosely to describe the general public