Dog Day Afternoon: Cinemality
After watching this film, and looking at some information about it, I learned something very interesting. The film is based on a true story, an actual bank robbery that occurred in Brooklyn New York. It stars Al Pacino as Sonny and the actor who played Fredo in the Godfather as his partner Sal. The interesting part is this; the man who was 'Sonny' in real life planned the robbery while watching The Godfather earlier that day. Where is this film then? What are we looking at? This film is not a depiction of the real world, of a real event, it is not an attempt to reproduce the event, it is a rupture with the event, a movement into the realm of virtuality in the direction of a diagram of a common conflict between established and emergent power.
This film addresses a number of interesting issues. If we choose to read it as a tracing of events that occurred, to be judged by fidelity or promiscuity in relation to the 'facts' we may not see those issues. In order to see these issues we must view this film as a sort of a blueprint. It shows us above all Sonny testing a number of lines of flight within the situation that creates itself around him. He rejects all of them, but he points to them and then he steps back.
Is it a blueprint for a bank-robbery? Let's look at it from this perspective, when we do this we can see first of all that Sonny could use the crowd to overwhelm the police and facilitate his escape, but he does not. He merely incites the crowd by shouting at the police and giving them commands, chanting "Attica" and throwing money. The crowd is visibly on Sonny's side, they are very much incensed at the police and the apparatus of state because of the slaughter at Attica, and for other reasons more particular and personal. The crowd wants Sonny to empty the signifier of the bank robbery into something that they can all identify with, cheering louder and louder when he defies the police; however, he never does this, he even looks upset when the gay rights marchers show up to support him. Sonny knows how to deterritorialize things, but he reterritorializes on his wife, who is brought from bellevue. He does not care about the crowd or about the country, he is robbing the bank because he needs money so that his wife can get a sex change operation, his wife's becoming woman is his focus.
It is a blueprint for dealing with the media? Let's look at it from this perspective. What does Sonny do in his interview? He draws attention to the frame, asking the interviewer how much money he makes, a question the interviewer refuses to answer. He does not allow the media to remain transparent, he acknowledges that he sees himself on the screen. Sonny does not allow the ritual of the interview to be taken for granted, this ritual of making a person talk without letting the person speak. The reporter asks why Sonny is robbing the bank, a question that is fairly obvious, Sonny replies with an obvious answer, money the reporter then attempts to inflict the repressive norms of bourgeois society on him, and by way of this act to interpellate the audience in the name of these values across Sonny's body. Sonny causes this interpellation to break down, Sonny can only get jobs that pay 150 a week how can he support a family on that? "How much money do you make Mr. Reporter?"
Where do I plug in the....?
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Focus by Arthur Miller: A review
This is an excellent novel about the fascism operative in our daily lives. In addition to being a very good novel in the formal sense, great suspense and characterization, and so on this novel gives us a very useful political portrait of a certain community psychology. Adorno would have really enjoyed this one, perhaps he did. Miller's novel of anti-semitism in 1945 New York is an like Adorno's social research from another angle, pointing to the potential fascism in all of us, and the fact that fascism was not an exclusively German or Italian phenomenon. This is a story of anti-semitism, it is also a story about social anxiety, uniformity and bullying in American social life, in this way it is also more generally a story about belonging in the land of the rugged individual.
This is a novel about belonging. It is an excellent uncovering of the type of sociality that exists in the American suburbs. One may remark that no Christian Front arose to purge the nation of Jewish people and democracy, the soldiers did not come home and join the fascist party to overthrow the government; this remark would be factual, but not honest. If we look at American history, in the immediate postwar period, Miller's prediction is correct in a number of ways. First, the people about whom he writes in this novel, the contours of their sociality formed the basis for the McCarthyist putsch, the surge of right wing populism that has utterly decimated America. Anti-communism, with some downtoning of the anti-semitism, became the Christian Front of the postwar period, the crucial difference is the relation to political institutions, the Christian Front was an extraparliamentary right wing group. McCarthy, Hoover and Nixon that group were an institutional group, they did not overthrow the government, instead they became the government.
Miller is to be commended for setting his novel in the North. It would have been far too easy for him to set up yet another purgative demonization of the southern states as an aberration compared to the sensible and tolerant 'progressive society' yankee north. Yes, the south had a large amount of racism at that time; however, Miller challenges us to also accept the fact that the same thing was going on in the north, albeit in a different way. Barthes would call this an inoculation whereby some reduced form of an evil within the system is admitted in order to justify or excuse a more basic, and more substantial evil. Miller will give us no vaccines against the fascism in the American suburb. He lets us know that it is a sickness, he treats us like adults telling us the frightful diagnosis in full, he tells us that something must be done.
Miller, in this novel shows us a very serious problem, and also opens up a path toward health. What is his suggested course of action? When Newman, the main character, goes to the police in the end of the book he must submit to the nomination of the mob in order to be recognized. The police are also present at the fascist rally. Finklestein tells Newman that the only way the police to intervene in their favor, against the fascist impulse, is if they can bring together a delegation from the community to complain and demand action. However, and this is the crucial point, the community is too intimidated, and the fascists are too well organized for that to be a viable possibility. What is the option that seems plausible? Direct action, if the people who are not fascists meet the fascists as they try to bully and stand toe to toe with their threat of violence, unafraid of busting some heads, the fascist ranks will open up and more people will be willing to oppose them.
This is another reason that we should commend Miller. He is willing to face the fact that sometimes violence in necessary in the political sphere. For too long conservatives and fascistic types have enjoyed a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence which has effectively decapitated the parties and groups struggling for equality and justice. Miller shows the radicalization of two good men, two decent men, overcoming their differences in order to bring into being a community that will not be dominated by fascisizing impulses.
This is an excellent novel about the fascism operative in our daily lives. In addition to being a very good novel in the formal sense, great suspense and characterization, and so on this novel gives us a very useful political portrait of a certain community psychology. Adorno would have really enjoyed this one, perhaps he did. Miller's novel of anti-semitism in 1945 New York is an like Adorno's social research from another angle, pointing to the potential fascism in all of us, and the fact that fascism was not an exclusively German or Italian phenomenon. This is a story of anti-semitism, it is also a story about social anxiety, uniformity and bullying in American social life, in this way it is also more generally a story about belonging in the land of the rugged individual.
This is a novel about belonging. It is an excellent uncovering of the type of sociality that exists in the American suburbs. One may remark that no Christian Front arose to purge the nation of Jewish people and democracy, the soldiers did not come home and join the fascist party to overthrow the government; this remark would be factual, but not honest. If we look at American history, in the immediate postwar period, Miller's prediction is correct in a number of ways. First, the people about whom he writes in this novel, the contours of their sociality formed the basis for the McCarthyist putsch, the surge of right wing populism that has utterly decimated America. Anti-communism, with some downtoning of the anti-semitism, became the Christian Front of the postwar period, the crucial difference is the relation to political institutions, the Christian Front was an extraparliamentary right wing group. McCarthy, Hoover and Nixon that group were an institutional group, they did not overthrow the government, instead they became the government.
Miller is to be commended for setting his novel in the North. It would have been far too easy for him to set up yet another purgative demonization of the southern states as an aberration compared to the sensible and tolerant 'progressive society' yankee north. Yes, the south had a large amount of racism at that time; however, Miller challenges us to also accept the fact that the same thing was going on in the north, albeit in a different way. Barthes would call this an inoculation whereby some reduced form of an evil within the system is admitted in order to justify or excuse a more basic, and more substantial evil. Miller will give us no vaccines against the fascism in the American suburb. He lets us know that it is a sickness, he treats us like adults telling us the frightful diagnosis in full, he tells us that something must be done.
Miller, in this novel shows us a very serious problem, and also opens up a path toward health. What is his suggested course of action? When Newman, the main character, goes to the police in the end of the book he must submit to the nomination of the mob in order to be recognized. The police are also present at the fascist rally. Finklestein tells Newman that the only way the police to intervene in their favor, against the fascist impulse, is if they can bring together a delegation from the community to complain and demand action. However, and this is the crucial point, the community is too intimidated, and the fascists are too well organized for that to be a viable possibility. What is the option that seems plausible? Direct action, if the people who are not fascists meet the fascists as they try to bully and stand toe to toe with their threat of violence, unafraid of busting some heads, the fascist ranks will open up and more people will be willing to oppose them.
This is another reason that we should commend Miller. He is willing to face the fact that sometimes violence in necessary in the political sphere. For too long conservatives and fascistic types have enjoyed a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence which has effectively decapitated the parties and groups struggling for equality and justice. Miller shows the radicalization of two good men, two decent men, overcoming their differences in order to bring into being a community that will not be dominated by fascisizing impulses.
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