The End of Civilization.

[padraig (u.s.)]

And self actualization and 'the real' in the context of the movie are the same thing I think

I don't disagree with that, only that you can definitively say it's peddling an Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test type actualization without drugs message

 

[linebaugh]

Some start ups* are just looking for a slice of the pie. Many genuinely want to change the world, and some have.

have they changed the world or just altered the ways we accomplish the same things? A bar is a heterotopia, crudely put, in that 'socializing' or 'drinking' or 'merriment' or whatever you'd like to call it is the universal that codes everything in the space. A public restroom is a heterotopia because pissing and shitting do the same work. Its a paradigm entirely alien to the space outside the hetertopia. I don't think a start up has ever affected that type of change.

 

[luka]

The problem with Limburger is he's actually read this stuff. You can't bluff him. This is why it's better to stick with Kevin Bacon. You won't get caught out.

 

[luka]

It's the danger with theory. It's very rare but there's always a slight chance you'll run into someone who actually read the whole book, and maybe made notes too.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

definitely, at some point you have to leave the Holy Mountain behind for the real world

what's less clear is why you have to leave, what you're meant to have achieved there if anything, whether or not it's bullshit, etc

I just think it's reductionist to read it as clearly saying "watch out for false prophets on the way"

tho in a more general sense it's obviously about artificiality and realness, what they mean, the problem of distinguishing between them

 

[luka]

I dunno what the film said but I don't think you ever have to leave the holy mountain for good. I think without it you die.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

or - he's obviously referencing topical early 70s things, where he stands on them is less obvious

which is what makes it (and El Topo, allowing that it has some inescapably problematic elements) still interesting films

whereas if their take on enlightenment and its pursuit were more clear they'd just be two more dated period curios

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

I dunno what the film said but I don't think you ever have to leave the holy mountain for good. I think without it you die.

it's not so much about leaving the Holy Mountain for good as not becoming trapped in it, which is the point we all agree on

 

[linebaugh]

I just think it's reductionist to read it as clearly saying "watch out for false prophets on the way"

I dont actually believe this (its been a long time since Ive seen it and while I like it Ive never bothered to think too hard about it) but whats the argument against the movie being essentially a light show with a brief message on the morality of light shows tacked on at the end?

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

whats the argument against the movie being essentially a light show with a brief message on the morality of light shows tacked on at the end?

idk what's that argument for any movie

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

what's the argument for paintings being something other than some pigments on a piece of canvas

 

[linebaugh]

idk what's that argument for any movie

I mean that The Holy Mountain on the surface looks like a bunch of fun-to-look-at nonsense for its first hour and a half before going 'aha, Ive tricked you into watching a bunch of nonsense' at the end. pretty different structure than most movies.

Im gonna abandon this line though before I sound like I have some bone to pick with a film I like and also don't know much about

 

[IdleRich]

I reckon look at the book it's based on for some clues... though not the whole answer for sure.

 

[luka]

I mean that The Holy Mountain on the surface looks like a bunch of fun-to-look-at nonsense for its first hour and a half before going 'aha, Ive tricked you into watching a bunch of nonsense' at the end. pretty different structure than most movies.

Im gonna abandon this line though before I sound like I have some bone to pick with a film I like and also don't know much about

Tell us more about how you hate Terry Malick

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

a bunch of fun-to-look-at nonsense for its first hour and a half before going 'aha, Ive tricked you into watching a bunch of nonsense' at the end

well yeah, he's kind of a bullshit artist

again I'm not claiming it's profound, just that its meaning isn't clear

I am pretty sure whatever message there is inseparable from the nonsense

whether or not he is he pretty clearly thinks he's profound, he's probably not aiming for some kind of cheap Alan Sokal gotcha moment

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

but yeah I'm not particularly attached to it either so nbd

my final verdict is that it's one of the very, very, very few films I'd actually recommend watching on acid

what that means about its meaning if anything idk

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

Tell us more about how you hate Terry Malick

almost as much as he hates Ghostbusters and The Matrix

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

while he's at it he should tell us whether he prefers "Ain't Nobody" or "Feel For You"

actually all the new people have to do that, the ultimate dissensus rite of passage

 

[version]

I've always understood heterotopias as Other not because they are unsettled, though I guess technically that's true, but as places where associations are rewired in a way alien to The Town. The whole symbolic order delineating an entirely new set of referents. Hence his his examples (unashamedly pulled right from Wikipedia): ships, cemeteries, bars, brothels, prisons etc. Objects in this space have differing meaning relative to outside the space because they are defined by a use unique to the heterotopia.

And this is right in line with Campbells conception of the Hero's Journey- its not just that the hero brings back new knowledge, its that he gets rid of the old crystalized associations fettering desire. Thats why the hero 'dies' or goes into the underworld, to kill the old self and return to the village unencumbered

Have you seen Herzog's Heart of Glass?

 

[linebaugh]

Have you seen Herzog's Heart of Glass?

nah. I just watched Aguirre last week, first non documentary herzog, and thought it was mostly boring.