tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8347718.post1150855762655294237..comments2024-03-29T00:03:18.432-07:00Comments on VINYL IS HEAVY: Saturday School: The Class Structure, or, Procedures of Breaking Down.Ryland Walker Knighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09233954424885027837noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8347718.post-2987188787489120502009-02-17T16:09:00.000-08:002009-02-17T16:09:00.000-08:00If you read portuguese, you can find Mirreille's b...If you read portuguese, you can find Mirreille's blog for the shoot of Blindness where he talks about his own 3-camera technique on location.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8347718.post-33808425686515527962009-02-09T21:31:00.000-08:002009-02-09T21:31:00.000-08:00Mark, thanks for this. I really enjoy how your exp...Mark, thanks for this. I really enjoy how your experience teaching over the past half year inflects your reading, even if it's only apparent to friends like me, because it professes a certain faith in the value of pedagogy. Also, as Martha talks about (thanks for taking the time to comment!), any movie explicitly about language and language games sounds right up my alley. Both of your guys' enthusiasm for all the stuff outside the typical (expected) schoolteacher narratives makes me really hope I can catch this thing sooner rather than later despite all the other films I'm supposed to watch and write about all the time. I guess my question, at this stage, is this: does it require a big screen? Or would I be fine catching it on DVD?Ryland Walker Knighthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09233954424885027837noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8347718.post-21286545579917858462009-02-08T22:28:00.000-08:002009-02-08T22:28:00.000-08:00Hey, yeah! I so like this idea of a language-bound...Hey, yeah! I so like this idea of a language-bound sort of ordered chaos for this movie--of chaotic patterns and a component of seeing (or blindness/miscommunication) within this mess of language. It resulted in good jokes and a sincere note of tragedy running strong from start to finish. For what makes a joke a joke but MIS-communication? And what makes little tragedies tragedies but MIS-understanding? Everybody maneuvering, everybody struggling as they miss each others' eyes, words, intentions, gestures, actions, etc etc etc. And as Mark says, this often leaves our relentless teacher in an awkward, outsider position, navigating the language lacunae and its peripheries. I love it when Bégaudeau makes one of his students repeat the same statement of apology over and over, demanding increasing intonation of "sincerity" until he's satisfied. It's as if he's forcing his side of the linguistic lacuna on her so that she becomes legible to him. "Please just make sense to me!," he seems to be begging. And I LOVE when she responds with an equally defiant/demanding "Fuck No" from her side of the lacuna. And yet this moment stands out because our teacher is--as he is rewarded in this essay-- almost always in the business of TEACHING and navigating the mysterious space between him and his students, instead of conducting simplistic law-enforcement. He's not afraid of this space but wants to explore it! And half the time he comes at this strange ether with jokes! It's only when he forces himself or his kids into across the lacuna and into foreign ground, instead of exploring and teaching and joking through these untamed periods of mis-communication and mis-understanding that the world of the class starts to fall apart (?). This seems to be what happens in the incident with the two girls. In this heated moment, Bégaudeau appears pushed to put his emotions in words they will be sure to understand. He crosses some sort of line into a dangerous Now-do-you-get-me?!" zone. What an unavoidable (not to mention excessively Human) problem though: forcing legibility even when the linguistic patterns at hand resist structure and the world finds its order in chaos.marthahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10014088559449475293noreply@blogger.com