Category: Reminiscents

The Dreamers (Three)

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A perk of working part-time at a video store, more than anything, is stumbling upon the most eccentric films you would ever lay MV5BMjA4MDU3ODM3OV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTYwMDE0Njc2._V1_SY317_CR0,0,214,317_your eyes upon. Bertolucci’s The Dreamers conveys the story of Matthew, an American student who finds himself entranced with the lives of the exotic French beauty Isabelle and her unorthodox-thinking twin brother, Theo. The film begins by conveying the three protagonists’ addiction to the cinematic art, for which they consistently attend the Cinémathèque Française. This provides us many opportunities of insight into the world of cinematic exclusivity by using snippets from both classic and New Wave films.

Bertolucci’s cinematography in the film reminds me (once in a while) of Godardian techniques, specifically in his choice of long shots and sweeping (panning) movements. The use of red to shock symbolism in certain scenes is another example of this intertextuality. A key moment arrives when the film’s Theo quotes the cahiers du cinema‘s “the camera is like a peeping hole,” aligning this statement to the curious child’s keyhole to his parents’ bedroom. Of course, the film maker himself adapts this within the voyeuristic elements of the film, as the audience continue to pry into the lives of the three teenagers like the inquisitive stalker.

Essentially, the film’s plot holds over the American kid thrown into the sensual gratification of the French siblings, enraptured in a whirlwind of sexual experimentation without no necessary direction. Bertolucci, and of course the actors themselves, are largecommendable in being unafraid to reveal the extent of what the human body is capable of, in a flurry of flesh, smoke and bodily fluids (and not just blood, at that). The film also touches on the taboo topic of incest, exploring the abnormal proximity between Isabelle and Theo.

This is one of those films that welcomes response in opposites, or the “You love it or hate it” scenario. It isn’t really something that I would look forward to seeing more than twice, but it is definitely something to try if you want something out of the conventional.

Defining Concepts

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The Potts & Murphie reading (whose names remind me of RMIT’s campus cafe), take on the influences of technology on our culture and its transformative evolution through the 17th to the 19th century.

Firstly, the authors reference the term technology‘s origins from the Ancient Greek, as the system of art. In the 17th century, the meaning behind the word is extracted from exactly this,  until its shift to a modern usage in the 19th century. Occurring in the rise of  science, technology became the system of mechanical and industrial arts, the foundation of a new world whose growing future is dependent on its mechanical inventions. Therefore, the term technique is subjected as the way we use such technology. The technological concept is labelled as a “vast pile of junk”, without the knowledge of the how and why we use them. “Losing” our techniques or awareness of operational skill means corresponds with its uselessness.

Culture, on the other hand, requires more effort in understanding. Whereas it is possible to contain culture as its self-contained element within arts and/or entertainment, i.e. French culture and youth culture, it simplifies the potential for culture to embrace all human activity. The early 19th century recognised culture as the artistic and intellectual aspects to a civilisation, Romantics claiming  industrial mechanisation as inhumane. In the 20th century, however, with the foundation of our dependency on computer technology, we witness a convergence of civilisation’s “techno-culture”.

Ultimately, the technology we use today is reliant on a co-dependency between how we use them (technique) and the benefits they provide for us. But if the human mind is correlated to the abilities of the advanced computer, does that make our bodies technologies themselves? Then the computer technology we are dependent upon would possess its own techniques that provides purpose to our modern existence. The challenge on the definition of technology once again arises, in this case…techno-culture beginning even further back in history than we imagine. The artistic and intellectual aspects of civilisation is then to be considered, the offspring of the technology of our own bodies, with which civilisation is built upon.