Umberto Eco on Aesthetic Mythopoeia (4): Casablanca

from: Umberto Eco, "The Cult of the Imperfect," The Paris Review, October 28, 2019:

According to the traditional aesthetic canons, Casablanca is not or ought not to be a work of art, if the films of Dreyer, Eisenstein, and Antonioni are works of art. From the standpoint of formal coherence Casablanca is a very modest aesthetic product. It is a hodgepodge of sensational scenes put together in a rather implausible way, the characters are psychologically improbable, and the actors’ performance looks slapdash. That notwithstanding, it is a great example of filmic discourse, and has become a cult movie.

[...]

When we do not know how to deal with a story, we resort to stereotypical situations since, at least, they have already worked elsewhere. Let’s take a marginal but significant example. Every time Laszlo orders a drink (and this happens four times), his choice is always different: (1) Cointreau, (2) a cocktail, (3) cognac, (4) whisky—once, he drinks champagne but without having ordered it. Why does a man of ascetic character demonstrate such inconsistency in his alcoholic preferences? There is no psychological justification for this. To my mind, every time this kind of thing happens, Curtiz is unconsciously quoting similar situations in other films, in an attempt to provide a reasonably complete range.

[...]

Obliged to invent the plot as they went along, the scriptwriters threw everything into the mix, drawing on the tried and tested repertoire. When the choice of tried and tested is limited, the result is merely kitsch. But when you put in all the tried and tested elements, the result is architecture like Gaudí’s Sagrada Familia: the same dizzying brilliance.
Casablanca is a cult movie because it contains all the archetypes, because every actor reproduces a part played on other occasions, and because human beings do not live a “real” life but a life portrayed stereotypically in previous films. [...] Casablanca stages the powers of narrativity in the natural state, without art stepping in to tame them.

[...]

When all the archetypes shamelessly burst in, we plumb Homeric depths. Two clichés are laughable. A hundred clichés are affecting—because we become obscurely aware that the clichés are talking to one another and holding a get-together. As the height of suffering meets sensuality, and the height of depravity verges on mystical energy, the height of banality lets us glimpse a hint of the sublime.

Umberto Eco on Aesthetic Mythopoeia (3): Cult vs. Artistic Movies

from: Umberto Eco, "The Cult of the Imperfect," The Paris Review, October 28, 2019:

In order to transform a work into a cult object, you must be able to take it to pieces, disassemble it, and unhinge it in such a way that only parts of it are remembered, regardless of their original relationship with the whole. In the case of a book, it is possible to disassemble it, so to speak, physically, reducing it to a series of excerpts. And so it happens that a book can give life to a cult phenomenon even if it is a masterpiece, especially if it is a complex masterpiece. Consider the Divine Comedy, which has given rise to many trivia games, or Dante cryptography, where what matters for the faithful is to recall certain memorable lines, without posing themselves the problem of the poem as a whole. This means that even a masterpiece, when it comes to haunt the collective memory, can be made ramshackle. But in other cases it becomes a cult object because it is fundamentally, radically ramshackle. This happens more easily with a film than a book. To give rise to a cult, a film must already be inherently ramshackle, shaky and disconnected in itself. A perfect film, given that we cannot reread it as we please, from the point we prefer, as with a book, remains imprinted in our memory as a whole, in the form of an idea or a principal emotion; but only a ramshackle film survives in a disjointed series of images and visual high points. It should show not one central idea, but many. It should not reveal a coherent “philosophy of composition,” but it should live on, and by virtue of, its magnificent instability. And in fact the bombastic Rio Bravo is apparently a cult movie, while the perfect Stagecoach is not.

Umberto Eco on Aesthetic Mythopoeia (2): Hamlet (and Shakespeare)

from: Umberto Eco, "The Cult of the Imperfect," The Paris Review, October 28, 2019:

According to Eliot, Hamlet is the result of an unsuccessful fusion of several previous versions, so the bewildering ambiguity of the main character is due to the difficulty the author had in putting together several topoi. Hamlet is certainly a disturbing work in which the psychology of the character strikes us as impossible to grasp. Eliot tells us that the mystery of Hamlet is clarified if, instead of considering the entire action of the drama as being due to Shakespeare’s design, we see the tragedy as a sort of poorly made patchwork of previous tragic material.

[...]

In several ways the play is puzzling, disquieting as none of the others is. Shakespeare left in unnecessary and incongruent scenes that ought to have been spotted on even the hastiest revision. Then there are unexplained scenes that would seem to derive from a reworking of Kyd’s original play perhaps by Chapman. In conclusion, Hamlet is a stratification of motifs that have not merged, and represents the efforts of different authors, where each one put his hand to the work of his predecessors. So, far from being Shakespeare’s masterpiece, the play is an artistic failure.

---

NB: In fact, what T.S. Eliot says about Hamlet in "Hamlet and His Problems" can be said virtually about any other Shakespeare play, as Hamlet is neither "more disquieting" nor less "ramshackled" and "unhinged" than almost any other of the Bard's plays, specifically his "great tragedies" (not excluding even the fairly brief and compact—possibly even severly cut—Macbeth).

Umberto Eco on Aesthetic Mythopoeia (1): The Count of Monte Cristo

from: Umberto Eco, "The Cult of the Imperfect," The Paris Review, October 28, 2019:

The Count of Monte Cristo is one of the most exciting novels ever written and on the other hand is one of the most badly written novels of all time and in any literature. The book is full of holes. [...] This novel is highly reprehensible from the standpoint of literary style and, if you will, from that of aesthetics. But The Count of Monte Cristo is not intended to be art. Its intentions are mythopoeic. Its aim is to create a myth.

Oedipus and Medea were terrifying mythical characters before Sophocles and Euripides transformed them into art, and Freud would have been able to talk about the Oedipus complex even if Sophocles had never written one word, provided the myth had come to him from another source, perhaps recounted by Dumas or somebody worse than him. Mythopoeia creates a cult and veneration precisely because it allows of what aesthetics would deem to be imperfections.

In fact, many of the works we call cults are such precisely because they are basically ramshackle, or “unhinged,” so to speak.

John Ruskin on the Nature of Possession and Who Has What

John Ruskin, Unto This Last (via The Victorian Web):

What is the meaning of 'having,' or the nature of Possession. Then what is the meaning of 'useful,' or the nature of Utility.

And first of possession. At the crossing of the transepts of Milan Cathedral has lain, for three hundred years, the embalmed body of St Carlo Borromeo. It holds a golden crosier, and has a cross of emeralds on its breast. Admitting the crosier and emeralds to be useful articles, is the body to be considered as 'having' them? Do they, in the politico-economical sense of property, belong to it? If not, and if we may, therefore, conclude generally that a dead body cannot possess property, what degree and period of animation in the body will render possession possible?

As thus: lately in a wreck of a Californian ship, one of the passengers fastened a belt about him with two hundred pounds of gold in it, with which he was found afterwards at the bottom. Now, as he was sinking — had he the gold? or had the gold him? — "Ad Valorem"

 

Distant Music: "O, I am thinking about that song, The Lass of Aughrim..."

"The Lass of Aughrim." Lunchtime recitals by John Feeley and Fran O'Rourke with Joyce's recently restored guitar. Newman House, 86 St Stephen's Green:

---

from James Joyce, "The Dead," from Dubliners (1917)

Gabriel had not gone to the door with the others. He was in a dark part of the hall gazing up the staircase. A woman was standing near the top of the first flight, in the shadow also. He could not see her face but he could see the terracotta and salmon-pink panels of her skirt which the shadow made appear black and white. It was his wife. She was leaning on the banisters, listening to something. Gabriel was surprised at her stillness and strained his ear to listen also. But he could hear little save the noise of laughter and dispute on the front steps, a few chords struck on the piano and a few notes of a man's voice singing.
He stood still in the gloom of the hall, trying to catch the air that the voice was singing and gazing up at his wife. There was grace and mystery in her attitude as if she were a symbol of something. He asked himself what is a woman standing on the stairs in the shadow, listening to distant music, a symbol of. If he were a painter he would paint her in that attitude. Her blue felt hat would show off the bronze of her hair against the darkness and the dark panels of her skirt would show off the light ones. Distant Music he would call the picture if he were a painter.


[...]

She paused for a moment to get her voice under control, and then went on:
"Then the night before I left, I was in my grandmother's house in Nuns' Island, packing up, and I heard gravel thrown up against the window. The window was so wet I couldn't see, so I ran downstairs as I was and slipped out the back into the garden and there was the poor fellow at the end of the garden, shivering."
"And did you not tell him to go back?" asked Gabriel.
"I implored of him to go home at once and told him he would get his death in the rain. But he said he did not want to live. I can see his eyes as well as well! He was standing at the end of the wall where there was a tree."
"And did he go home?" asked Gabriel.
"Yes, he went home. And when I was only a week in the convent he died and he was buried in Oughterard, where his people came from. O, the day I heard that, that he was dead!"
She stopped, choking with sobs, and, overcome by emotion, flung herself face downward on the bed, sobbing in the quilt. Gabriel held her hand for a moment longer, irresolutely, and then, shy of intruding on her grief, let it fall gently and walked quietly to the window.
She was fast asleep.

---

from John Huston's final film, The Dead (1987):

 

John Burnside on Difficult Poetry (and How It Is Taught at Schools)

from Rowan Williams, "Why Poetry Matters" (A Review of  John Burnside, The Music of Time: Poetry in the Twentieth Century), New Statesman, October 23, 2019:

Burnside is a consistent champion of difficulty in poetry, the quality that liberates the reader (and writer) from a “prefabricated world” in which nothing is ever new and disorienting. On this basis he has some pretty sharp things to say about how poetry is often taught in schools – as illustrative of subject matter rather than as something that has to be wrestled with first and foremost as speech. Pupils, he says, are likely to go away thinking more about this subject matter than about what has been happening in the words they hear or read. Pushing students into prematurely writing their own poems on the subject further shrinks the challenge of staying with the difficulty and valuing it in its own terms. Yet he also has astringent things to say about “lazy” difficulty. Verbose, self-indulgent poetry, drawing attention to its own ingenuity, labours for surface effect rather than transparency to what the poem directs us to – which is not themes or ideas but the “music” of the givenness of a moment, or a juxtaposition of words, or a collision of sensations.

[...]

Burnside mischievously suggests that our passion to “understand” poetry may derive from “a middle-school confusion of literature and theology”, rooted in the abiding problem of making sense of an opaque scriptural text. But if there is a proper overlap between the two it is surely here, in the way poetry affirms the material, finite world but is always conscious of an unimaginable backdrop, never trying to occupy or contain that elusive perspective.

Euripides, Suppliants 195-245

Tr. E. P. Coleridge:

Theseus:

Full often have I argued out this subject with others. For there are those who say, there is more bad than good in human nature; but I hold a contrary view, that good over bad predominates in man, for if it were not so, we should not exist. He has my praise, whichever god brought us to live by rule from chaos and from brutishness, first by implanting reason, and next by giving us a tongue to declare our thoughts, so as to know the meaning of what is said, and bestowing fruitful crops, and drops of rain from heaven to make them grow, with which to nourish earth's fruits and to water her lap; and more than this, protection from the wintry storm, and means to ward from us the sun-god's scorching heat; the art of sailing over the sea, so that we might exchange with one another whatever our countries lack. And where sight fails us and our knowledge is not sure, the seer foretells by gazing on the flame, by reading signs in folds of entrails, or by divination from the flight of birds. Are we not then too proud, when heaven has made such preparation for our life, not to be content with it? But our presumption seeks to lord it over heaven, and in the pride of our hearts we think we are wiser than the gods.

[...]

There are three ranks of citizens; the rich, a useless set, that ever crave for more; the poor and destitute, fearful folk, that cherish envy more than is right, and shoot out grievous stings against the men who have anything, beguiled as they are by the eloquence of vicious leaders; while the class that is midmost of the three preserves cities, observing such order as the state ordains.

Euripides, Hecuba 864-867

Tr. E. P. Coleridge:

Hecuba
Ah! there is not in the world a single man free; for he is a slave either to money or to fortune, or else the people in their thousands or the fear of public prosecution prevents him from following the dictates of his heart.

Euripides, Hecuba 426-427

Tr. E. P. Coleridge:

Polyxena
Farewell, my mother! farewell, Cassandra!

Hecuba
“Fare well!” others do, but not your mother, no!

---

Πολυξένη
χαῖρ᾽, ὦ τεκοῦσα, χαῖρε Κασάνδρα τ᾽ ἐμοί,

Ἑκάβη
χαίρουσιν ἄλλοι, μητρὶ δ᾽ οὐκ ἔστιν τόδε. 

Euripides, Hecuba, 369-378 & 547-552

Tr. E. P. Coleridge:

Polyxena:

Here I close my eyes upon the light, free as yet, and dedicate myself to Hades. Lead me away, Odysseus, and do your worst, for I see nothing within my reach to make me hope or expect with any confidence that I am ever again to be happy. Mother, do not seek to hinder me by word or deed, but join in my wish for death before I meet with shameful treatment undeserved. For whoever is not used to taste of sorrows, though he bears it, yet it galls him when he puts his neck within the yoke; far happier would he be dead than alive, for life bereft of honor is toil and trouble.

Talthybius (recounting Polyxena's last words):

O Argives, who have sacked my city! of my free will I die; let no one lay hand on me; for bravely will I yield my neck. By the gods, leave me free; so slay me, that death may find me free; for to be called a slave among the dead fills my royal heart with shame.

Euripides, Hecuba 239-250

Tr. E. P. Coleridge:

Hecuba
Do you know when you came to spy on Ilium, disguised in rags and tatters, while down your cheek ran drops of blood?

Odysseus
I do; for it was no slight impression it made upon my heart.

Hecuba
Did Helen recognize you and tell me only?

Odysseus
I well remember the great risk I ran.

Hecuba
Did you embrace my knees in all humility?

Odysseus
Yes, so that my hand grew dead and cold upon your robe.

Hecuba
Was it I that saved and sent you forth again?

Odysseus
You did, and so I still behold the light of day.

Hecuba
What did you say then, when in my power?

Odysseus
Doubtless I found plenty to say, to save my life.

William Blake, A Letter

[To] George Cumberland, 12 April 1827, via The William Blake Archive / transcript; in bold, one of Harold Bloom's favourite passages (cf. the "Prologue" to The Visionary Company, p. 1)

Dear Cumberland,

I have been very near the gates of death & have returned very weak & an Old Man feeble & tottering, but not in Spirit & Life not in the Real Man The Imagination which Liveth for Ever. In that I am stronger& stronger as this Foolish Body decays. I thank you for the Pains you have taken with Poor Job. I know too well that a great majority of Englishmen are fond of The Indefinite which they Measure by Newtons Doctrine of the Fluxions of an Atom. A Thing that does not Exist. These are Politicians & think that Republican Art is Inimical to their Atom. For a Line or Lineament is not formed by Chance a Line is a Line in its Minutest Subdivision[s] Strait or Crooked It is Itself & Not Intermeasurable with or by any Thing Else Such is Job but since the French Revolution Englishmen are all Intermeasurable One by Another Certainly a happy state of Agreement to which I for One do not Agree. God keep me from the Divinity of Yes & No too The Yea Nay Creeping Jesus from supposing Up& Down to be the same Thing as all Experimentalists must suppose.

[...]

Flaxman is Gone & we must All soon follow every one to his Own Eternal House Leaving the Delusive Goddess Nature & her Laws to get into Freedom from all Law of the Members into The Mind in which every one is King& Priest in his own House God Send it so on Earth as it is in Heaven


I am Dear Sir Yours Affectionately
WILLIAM BLAKE

Robert Frost, "Acquainted with the Night"

I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain—and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.

I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say good-bye;
And further still at an unearthly height,
One luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.

Leonard Bernstein, Candide (BBC, 1988)

Candide at LeonardBernstein.com | "A Guide to Leonard Bernstein's Candide" at SondheimGuide.com | librettos: 1956 (Lillian Hellman & Richard Wilbur) • 1973 (Richard Wilbur & Hugh Wheeler) | venue: Theater Royal, Glasgow (1988) | cast: Voltaire/Pangloss/Martin/Cacambo: Nickolas Grace • Candide: Mark Beudert • Cunegonde: Marilyn Hill-Smith • Old Lady: Ann Howard • Governor/Captain/Gambler: Bonaventura Bottone • Maximilian: Mark Tinkler • Paquette: Gaynor Miles

Act 1
• 8:30: "Life is Happiness Indeed"
• 13:30: "The Best of All Possible Worlds" (1989, London)
• 19:09: "Oh, Happy We" (Candide & Cunegonde)
• 22:22: "It Must Be So" (Candide)
• 44:58: "Auto-da-Fé"
• 56:46: "Glitter and Be Gay" (Cunegonde) (2005, New York)
• 1:14:48: "I Am Easily Assimilated" (The Old Lady)

Act 2
• 1:35:45: "My Love" (The Governer)
• 1:53:57: "The Ballad of Eldorado" (Candide)
• 1:59:45: "Words, Words, Words" (Martin)
• 2:08:33: "The Kings' Barcarolle" (The Five Kings)
• 2:16:00: "We Are Women" (The Old Lady & Cunegonde) (2005, New York)
• 2:28:00: "Nothing More Than This" (Candide)
• 2:34:40: "Make Our Garden Grow"

"Meine Freundin ist schön..."

Puhdys - "Wenn ein Mensch lebt" • from: Heiner Carrow, Die Legende von Paul und Paula (1974) 

 

Wenn ein Mensch kurze Zeit lebt, sagt die Welt, dass er zu früh geht. Wenn ein Mensch lange Zeit lebt, sagt die Welt es ist Zeit. Meine Freundin ist schön, als ich aufstand ist sie gegangen. Weckt sie nicht, bis sie sich regt, ich habe mich in ihren Schatten gelegt. Jegliches hat seine Zeit, Steine sammeln, Steine zerstreun, Bäume pflanzen, Bäume abhaun, leben und sterben und Streit. Wenn ein Mensch kurze Zeit lebt, sagt die Welt, dass er zu früh geht. Wenn ein Mensch lange Zeit lebt, sagt die Welt es ist Zeit, dass er geht. Jegliches hat seine Zeit, Steine sammeln, Steine zerstreun, Bäume pflanzen, Bäume abhau'n, leben und sterben und Frieden und Streit. Weckt sie nicht, bis sie sich regt, ich habe mich in ihren Schatten gelegt. Wenn ein Mensch kurze Zeit lebt, sagt die Welt, dass er zu früh geht. Wenn ein Mensch lange Zeit lebt, sagt die Welt es ist Zeit, dass er geht. Meine Freundin ist schön, als ich aufstand ist sie gegangen. Weckt sie nicht, bis sie sich regt, ich habe mich in ihren Schatten gelegt.

When a person lives a short time the world says he went too early. When a person lives a long time the world says it is time. My girlfriend is beautiful when I get up, she is gone Don't wake her, until she stirs I have lain in her shadow To every thing there is a season: to collect stones, to scatter stones to plant trees, to harvest trees to live and to die and to wage wars. When a person lives a short time the world says he went too early. When a person lives a long time the world says it is time for him to live. To every thing there is a season: to collect stones, to scatter stones to plant trees, to harvest trees to live and to die, for peace and for war. Don't wake her, until she rouses herself I have lain in her shadow When a person lives a short time the world says he went too early. When a person lives a long time the world says it is time for him to live. My girlfriend is beautiful when I get up, she is gone Don't wake her, until she stirs I have lain in her shadow.

Wittgenstein, Preface to the Philosophical Investigations

I should not like my writing to spare other people the trouble of thinking. But, if possible, to stimulate someone to thoughts of his own.

Euripides, Hippolytus 106

I do not like a god worshipped at night.

Bertolt Brecht, "Der Choral vom Grossen Baal" (1918)

 

Bertolt Brecht, “Der Choral vom Großen Baal” Prolog des Stücks Baal (1918)     Als im weißen Mutterschoße aufwuchs Baal War der Himmel schon so groß und still und fahl Jung und nackt und ungeheuer wundersam Wie ihn Baal dann liebte, als Baal kam.   Und der Himmel blieb in Lust und Kummer da Auch wenn Baal schlief, selig war und ihn nicht sah: Nachts er violett und trunken Baal Baal früh fromm, er aprikosenfahl.   Und durch Schnapsbudike, Dom, Spital Trottet Baal mit Gleichmut und gewöhnt sich's ab. Mag Baal müde sein, Kinder, nie sinkt Baal: Baal nimmt seinen Himmel mit hinab.   In der Sünder schamvollem Gewimmel Lag Baal nackt und wälzte sich voll Ruh: Nur der Himmel, aber immer Himmel Deckte mächtig seine Blöße zu.   Und das große Weib Welt, das sich lachend gibt Dem, der sich zermalmen läßt von ihren Knien Gab ihm einige Ekstase, die er liebt Aber Baal starb nicht: er sah nur hin.   Und wenn Baal nur Leichen um sich sah War die Wollust immer doppelt groß. Man hat Platz, sagt Baal, es sind nicht viele da. Man hat Platz, sagt Baal, in dieses Weibes Schoß.   Gibt ein Weib, sagt Baal, euch alles her Laßt es fahren, denn sie hat nicht mehr! Fürchtet Männer nicht beim Weib, die sind egal: Aber Kinder fürchtet sogar Baal.   Alle Laster sind zu etwas gut Und der Mann auch, sagt Baal, der sie tut. Laster sind was, weiß man was man will. Sucht euch zwei aus: eines ist zuviel!   Seid nur nicht so faul und so verweicht Denn genießen ist bei Gott nicht leicht! Starke Glieder braucht man und Erfahrung auch: Und mitunter stört ein dicker Bauch.   Zu den feisten Geiern blinzelt Baal hinauf Die im Sternenhimmel warten auf den Leichnam Baal. Manchmal stellt sich Baal tot. stürzt ein Geier drauf Speist Baal einen Geier, stumm, zum Abendmahl.   Unter düstern Sternen in dem Jammertal Grast Baal weite Felder schmatzend ab. Sind sie leer, dann trottet singend Baal In den ewigen Wald zum Schlaf hinab.   Und wenn Baal der dunkle Schoß hinunter zieht: Was ist Welt für Baal noch? Baal ist satt. Soviel Himmel hat Baal unterm Lid Daß er tot noch grad gnug Himmel hat.   Als im dunklen Erdenschoße faulte Baal War der Himmel noch so groß und still und fahl Jung und nackt und ungeheuer wunderbar Wie in Baal einst liebte, als Baal war.

David Bowie, “Baal’s Hymn” Baal EP (1982) • tr. John Willett     Whilst his mother's womb contained the growing Baal Even then the sky was waiting quiet and pale Naked, young, immensely marvelous Like Baal loved it, when he came to us   That same sky remained with him in joy and care Even when Baal slept peaceful and unaware At night a lilac sky, a drunken Baal Turning pious as the sky grows pale   So through hospital, cathedral, whiskey bar Baal kept moving onwards and just let things go When Baal's tired, boys, Baal cannot fall far He will have his sky down there below   When the sinners congregate in shame together Baal lay naked, reveling in their distress Only sky, a sky that will go on forever Formed a blanket for his nakedness   And that lusty girl, the world, who'll laughing yield To the men who'll stand the pressure of her thighs Sometimes gave him love-bites, such as can't be healed Baal survived it, he just used his eyes   And when Baal saw lots of corpses scattered round He felt twice the thrill, despite the lack of room "Space enough" said Baal, "Then I'll thicken the ground Space enough within this woman's womb"   / / / /   Any vice for Baal has got its useful side It's the man who practices it, he can't abide Vices have their point, once you see it as such Stick to two for one will be too much   Slackness, softness are the sort of things to shun Nothing could be harder than the quest for fun Lots of strength is needed and experience too Swollen bellies can embarrass you   Under gloomy stars and this poor veil of tears Baal will graze a pasture till it disappears Once it's been digested to the forest's teeth Baal trod singing for a well earned sleep   Baal can spot the vultures in the stormy sky As they wait up there to see if Baal will die Sometimes Baal pretends he's dead, but vultures swoop Baal in silence dines on vulture-soup   When the dark womb drags him down to its prize What's the world still mean to Baal, he's overfed So much sky is lurking still behind his eyes He'll just have enough sky when he's dead   Once the Earth's dark womb engulfed the rotting Baal Even then the sky was up there, quiet and pale Naked, young, immensely marvelous Like Baal loved it when he lived with us