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Email three questions for the assigned readings and / or film on the schedule page to me at [email protected] by nidnight the day before the class during which we'll discuss the reading. Please remember to put your name at the bottom of the email, after the three questions.

Brazil

1. How much of this film is based in reality and how much is a dream/hallucination?

2. What role does Sam's mother play in his disconnection with reality? They don't seem to be very close. What's the deal with obssession with plastic surgery? Sam's mom and her friend are mostly synthetic--hair, boobs, reversal of aging process....

3. What is Sam's fascination with Jill? He sees her in his dreams but opposite of what she is like in "reality." She's portrayed as feminine and helpless in his dreams, but she's actually butch and aggressive. It's only when she wears his mother's things that she resembles the woman in his dreams. What does that say about his relationship with his mother?

--Sondra M. Smiley

Was the dream sequence symbolic for any mythical stroy?

Was Tuttle a real person or a figment of the main character's mind?

what was up with the common phrase of "central"---central info, central air?

Trey Lineberger

1) Is a person the same after multiple plastic surgeries? What is it about plastic surgery that so inherently changes a person?

2) How is one to find the truth if they cannot trust anyone and, on the same note, how can you be confident in someone/thing if you are suspicious of them/it? It doesn't make sense.

3) What si the director trying to say about our society? He contrasts such things as nuns and guns, consumers for Christ, a factory behind a picket fence, the list goes on and on.
~Ashley Gillett
1. Is Brazil offering and alternate reality for the 20th century as if WWII had never occurred? It obviously isn't a utopian vision. Is the purpose in offering this other bleak possibility to acknowledge that the late-capitalist/ post-WWII world we find our selves in is a preferable existence than the proposed alternative in the movie?

2. What does the medieval knight represent that the main character fights in his dreams that is so reminiscent of The Fisher King?

3. The camera work is very choppy and irregular. Were there hand-held cameras used a lot of the time?

Sarah Byrd

1. Why does the "samurai" need to be pinned down in order to be defeated? What does it mean to be pinned down: the samurai is trapped but do we know anything about it nature?
2. Was the eisenstein sequence bring anything to film besides letting the astute viewer know that Gilliam was familiar with battleship potemkin?
3. Does the use of the baby mask imply an attempt to retain a child-like ignorance on the part of the "butchers," or are those being tortured supposed to succumb to a state represented through the mask?

g hughes

1) In the main character's dreams, he's flying, but he seems to be in a sort of mechanical suit. Is it a measure of his immersion in technology that he can't even dream-fly without machines, or do you think the film is saying that as negative as technology can be, it still helps us extend ourselves.

2) Brazil seems to be set in a really retro-50's version of the future. Why do you think the creators chose to do this (with the costumes and architecture and b&w tv sets and stuff)?

3) Can we talk about how the film mocks beurocracy? 'Cause it does that really well.

4) Do you think Terry Gilliam would bear my children?

--Lauren Vogelbaum

1. Is there a relationship between bureaucracy takeover and technological takeovers?

2. Lynch and Gilliam are able to successfully film the surreal. Are any other directors doing this?

3. How much psychoanalysis can be done on the different dream angles?

M Sarrow

1. Is the ultimate goal of life in "Brazil" to become insane? The future is that bad?
2. Is Robert Deniro's character supposed to be Jonathan Pryce's double?
3. Why the reference to the Odessa steps sequence? Is it just a nod to Eisenstein?

1) Is Harry Tuttle Sam's alter-ego? I mean, did he ever physcially exist in sam's presence? Or was he some imagined double ala fight club.

2) When was the fantasy of escape etc. implanted in Lowry's head?

3)Is there any symbolism with the giant samuri?

Josh Stephenson

1. where did the studio version end?

2. could the entire film have been a delusion (with de niro being a double, et cetera)?

3. if so, what might have driven the main character over the edge?

robbie.

1) Did the Tuttle/Buttle name have any meaning?

2) Why the references to samurai?

3) Is Gilliam suggesting that there is no way to defeat the system? And if that is what he is saying, is the only escape in your mind?

Eddie Geller

TelephoneBook

1, "heidegger tells us, without dwelling on the point, that opinion--usually in the form of rumor--is eventually related to the most daring thinking."



2. "heidegger will not install the telephone where on might reasonably expect its ringing." in what dimension should this be interpreted. what is "the where" in time, a location? both?

3."in the regard,the artwork performs the essense, performs the telephone?" where does the self fit in, then?

g hughes

1) Where is the concrete connection that Ronell is trying to make between the phone and the dead?

2) If the operators are the mother, what does the machinery represent?

3) Is Ronell anti-American?

Eddie Geller

1. The radical shifts in form in this section in particular in the book don't seem to necessarily correspond to the content. What is Ronell saying by arbitrarily changing the form in The telephone book?

2.Ronell writes, "We are hypnotized things suffering from positive and negative hallucinations; that is, we see what is not there and often we do not see what is there" (187). Is she saying that in modernity (or, postmodernity), with its advanced technology is so complex and abstract as to make the inner-workings of everyday life unseeable? If so, what is the effect of this on the human psyche?

3. Ronell writes, "What is least remote from us in point of distance, by virtue of its picture on film or its sound on the radio, can remain far from us." How has this false chasm of distance, or intimate closeness effected the world-view of humans living in a post-modern world?

Sarah Byrd

1. What is the difference between the "soul" and the "spirit" ? (p181)

2. How is a woman's voice "perfectly suited to perform phalic penetration" and what exactly is "phalic" penetration in this context? (p201-202)

3. Why is the chapter/section starting on p178 called "the call of the colon" ? I didn't find anything on colons in the reading.

Josh Stephenson

I've read the reading and I can't think of any questions, except, what the was the first 15 pages about?

1. On page194, Ronell says,"The monster could not become what it is, the argument goes, until the feminized other were made to join him." He's talking about Frankenstein and Bell, but I didn't catch who the "feminized other," is. What is the feminized other? The "other" ear?

2. Who is calling Heidegger? Why does someone need to call Heidegger? What is so important about the fact that Heidegger's walls may be wired if he doesn't have a telephone? He only heard the radio, right? I don't understand the metaphor- pg.199

3. I like Heidegger's shoe story, but I don't understand how Ronell relates it to the telephone. Any ideas?
1) What is technology trying to tell us with it's "phone call"?

2) What is it about the human soul and spirit that makes us humans special?

3) What does Ronell mean by all this talk about the ghost in the machine?

~Ashley Gillett

1. Is the metaphore between evil and the stone that evil is hard to accept? "the harmful enters, like a lump or stone in one's throat."
2. Ronnell says that Heidegger is saying that opinion, or critisism is the closest thing to original thought. Is she making this point with her book in mind?
3. Ronnell says that because of technology man controls the world, but it is not a good thing because the earth is polluted. And technology is killing everything. Is this worse than not enheriting the world?

--
SADOW,ZAC

1. "...rumor and instant opinion nonetheless act as enablers, as the ground and horizon for the founding of a 'more original and more careful thinking.'" (p185) Do you agree with that?

2. "'...countless people look upon this 'thing' sputnik, too, as a wonder, this 'thing' that races around in a worldless 'world'--space; to many people it was and still is a dream--wonder and dream of this modern technology which would be the last to admit the thought that what gives things their being is the word.'" (p188) Can something exist if there is no word for it? Or would it just be a 'thing?'

3. What is the petrified stone that Ronell mentions?

--Sondra M. Smiley

1. the people referenced in the book (e.g., Trakl, of whom i have never heard): are they pulled out of nowhere, or are they properly introduced somewhere in the book (that we weren’t assigned)? either would make sense, i suppose.

2. “every instrument of war is given a feminine name”?

3. ronell seems to needlessly mystify things, such as the telephone, by personifying them or relating them to ghosts or what have you. anyone else get this sense, that things are being made too important?

robbie.

With the mentioning of stones and flames, especially after bringing spirits, I couldn't help lookiing from a spiritual angle in that many consider God to be their stone or rock. I've heard some also say thattheir personal "flame" or spirit is burning bright, like the childrens song, "this little light of mine, i'm gonna let it shine"....i was wondering if looking at these symbols (stone and flame) from this stand point was accurate?

I also enjoyed the lines about the poet having to listen to the words that have been speaking all the poets life, but he must just learn how to listen to it first to be able to write it down,....but is this bordering on schizo when a poet begins to hear words?

i also found the phrase, when the book was discussing the sputnik, ...."the thought that what gives things their beings is the word".... as if a name gives something more than just a label. What is it about names that automatically provide meaning or a first impression of something?..... Is the word beautiful a beautiful word?....and what if it was called shit, would it still be beautiful?.......

Trey L.

1) How is the latest news "dead news?" What exactly
does Ronell mean by "dead news?"
2)How do poetry and schizophrenia fit together?
3)WHy does Heidegger not take the call of technology?
Sheenah Dunbar

1) Some of the films we've screened have seemed to suggest that men are becoming "things" that can be just as objectified as women. Do you think that the symbolism that connects thingness to femininity will begin to change accordingly?

2) Metalinguistics? (p. 190)

3) It seems like a lot of the people we're learning from in this class are German/native speakers of German. What about Germany's culture and/or language might possibly create such interest in media analysis and psychoanalysis?

Lauren

1.) Is Ronell stating that the "two ears" are completely independent of one another? Would this include when using the telephone (like the "swimming" analogy)?

2.) If Ronell is saying that the woman's voice is like "phallic penetration" on the telephone, than is a phone call a form of fellatio (sorry to bring this up again)?

3.) Is the telephone a high tech instrument? If not, then is it bringing us back instead of being a progression forward? It would't seem so, since we use the telephone as a progressive tool.

- Stephen Shuck

Blade Runner

1) Was Rick a replicant?

2) If the replicants are so close to human, should we feel sorry for them?

3) If humans do start cloning themselves, will there be a different social
class for "clones?"

Eddie Geller

Discussion Questions on BR
1.) What is the connection between the totalitarian like society and the technological advancement? Why would a society with the power to produce these replicants be so controlling?

2.) What is the secondary or deeper meaning of the tinfoil unicorn?

3.) What is Pris' significance in the film? It seems like we hardly get to know her, she hides out, then she dies? Is this because she is a replicant or an undeveloped character? (This question might not be so much psycho-analytical so much as for my own curiousity)

Chris Glenn

1) How does the construction of urban space affect (effect?) the tones of the other films we've watched? Do cities usually = paranoia on film? If so (I kinda think so), why do you think this is?

2) What's with the unicorn dream sequence? Is Ridley Scott just fondly remembering the filming of Legend?

3) For those who're familiar with the book: the book's central subject, livestock & electronic livestock, is almost entirely absent in the film. How does this change the mood and message of the narritive? Which version do you think is more compelling?

--Lauren Vogelbaum

what was up with the shot of the unicorn running through the woods when he played the piano?

Was it possiblw for him to be a replcant?

I thought they couldn't love or feel emotions, then why was there a romance between harrison ford and the girl (sean young)?

Trey

1) How come the general public's perception of the future is so 'futuristic'? This film is set in 2019, that's right around the corner for us today and I highly doubt that 2019 is going to look like it did in the film.

2) Will technology really be the end of the human race?

3) What makes a human 'human'? This seems to be the ongoing them of most sci fi films
~Ashley Gillett

1. why do the replicants kill humans by putting out their eyes? how do eyes come into play in the film?
2. Why is the entropy that is taking over la (and the universe) compared relatively only to moral precedent? is moral ity an order, or is a symbol whose connotations we are supposed to understand, being human and not replicant?
3. are there any animals left on earth in 2019?

g hughes

1. What is the significance of the Tyrell building's temple like structure?

2. How does the memory aspect of artificial intelligence make it more or less human?

3. How come filmmakers that push the boundaries of technology seemingly always make movies about the bleak future of an overly mechanical world?

M Sarrow

1.) Is Deckerd an android? Some of his narration would indicate that he may be.

2.) Like the "Strangers" in Dark City, are the androids in the film really a threat to humanity, or merely a foreign group trying to survive?

3.) Philip K. Dick seems fascinated by the idea of a utopian or perfect world (Minority Report-no murders), so is Blade Runner about the quest for godliness? Are the androids trying to create a perfect world? Or are the humans?

- Stephen Shuck

1)Was Deckard a replicant? He showed signs of real
human emotion sometimes.
2)Are Roy and Deckard doubles? Deckard is the best
blade runner and Roy is the ultimate replicant so it
could work out or they could just be the right match
up for a good fight.
3)Ridley Scott says Deckard is a replicant and
Harrison Ford says he isn't so who is right?
Sheenah Dunbar

3 questions

1. What is the deal with the number of Replicants on the loose? Bryant (M
Emmet Walsh) tells Deckard (Harrison Ford) that 6 escaped and that one died
while they attempted to break into the Tyrell Corporation. However, he tells
Deckard that there are "4 skin jobs walking the streets." So where is number 5?

2. Why are Rachael's (Sean Young) implanted "memories" so bizarre? There's
the almost incestuous incident with her brother and then there's one about
baby spiders eating their mother. What is the deal?

3. Why does Roy (Rutger Hauer) kiss his creator on the mouth? Does this
perhaps tie in with Rachael's (Sean Young) implanted memories? An incestuous
intimacy with your maker before its death perhaps?

Josh Stephenson

one) why did the replicants choose the eyes as targets when killing people with their hands?

two) so harrison ford is a replicant, right?

three) and how did his asian sidekick know this?

robbie.

Perfect Blue questions

1.) Why is the supposed stalker character seen dead along with Mima's agent toward the end? I always saw him as another hallucination, but if he wasn't really the killer, then why does Rumi kill him in the end if he serves no purpose?

2.) Was there really a website with her current/future thoughts and subconscious feelings? Was this a hallucination? Was this internal dialogue with her "Cham" self?

3.) Was the film a comment on the soullessness of show business? If this is so, then wouldn't it be easier to sense that she would have been worse off as a pop singer? Isn't that more shallow?

1. Is Mima pyschotic?
2. What is that article on the elevator wall that Mima sees after she runs off the subway and into the T.V. building? Right beforehand she walks by the photographers, one of which is the stalker, who obviously put it there.
3. Why does Mima first see her double on the subway? Freud saw his double on a train as well. I guess it goes back to the theory that tecnology is somehow repsonsiblefor the appearance of the double.
4. Is there any definitive sign to know when the film is portraying a hallucination or reality?

Matt

Perfect Blue

1) Is the director more critical of obsession or of the internet's ability to gain access to anyone? Or is the ability to manifest obsession through the internet?

2) Is there a critism of wanting to be a "star" implied in Perfect Blue?

3) Why is one of the antagonists killed and the other instituted?

Eddie Geller

1. The ending is such a shift from the tone and mood of the rest of the film
that one has to ponder if it is but another fantasy?

2. What is the significance to the murder victims missing their eyes?

3. Does the medium of animation help or hurt the story?

Josh Stephenson

1. Besides one of the nude photos that was a direct imitation of playboy's M
Monroe 's pictorial, were there any other connections to monroe?

2. Are the photos on the website hallucinations?

3. Ruki's installation of the computer coincides with the beginning of
"illness's" course. With this in mind, is it still possible to say that the
conclusion of the film was a superfical one, another dream-sequence for
which the audience is anticipating an end?

g hughes

1)Does the film make it clear which scenes are definitively delusional and which are actually taking place?

2)As related to Detour, when does thought cross the line to volition? (Mima doubts her decision to become an actress, she is being physically threatened for leaving her pop group)

3)What, if any, relationships can be drawn in the subtext of "Mima's Room"?

3 questions on Perfect Blue:

Why was she blacking out and sleeping all day?

I had a tough time believing her confusion about who she was and what she was really doing during her days, do people really get confused and not remember what they did during the day?

How did the bloody clothes get in her closet or was that just a hallucination?

Trey Lineberger

2. was the position she landed in the street with her lady stalker the same one that her doctor friend (the man that was always with her) and the guy stalker were shown in earlier in the movie?

3. is she still crazy at the end?

robbie.

1. What was Rumi's relationship/connection with Mumi?

2. Did Mumi imagine any/all of the film?

3. Was Mumi a strong character?

Sara Duff

1) Is the director more critical of obsession or of the internet's ability to gain access to anyone? Or is the ability to manifest obsession through the internet?

2) Is there a critism of wanting to be a "star" implied in Perfect Blue?

3) Why is one of the antagonists killed and the other instituted?

Eddie Geller

Blade Runner:

1. Is Rick Deckard a Replicant?
2.This movie poses the question, what makes real humans? If androids can have memories and emotions, even if artificial, aren't they still humans?
3.What genre does Blade Runner fit into? Cyberpunk? Neonoir?

Perfect Blue:
1. The main character, Mani (or something like that- I forget her name), is somewhat delusional because of the pressures of the entertainment industry and because she is being stalked. Which of her fantasies actually occurred?
2.What does a film like this say about the psychological pressures of young Japanese pop idols? (I have heard that the pop idol phenomenon is different in Japan- it is much more overnight.
3.A lt could be said about the persistence of the double in this film, as well as the uncanny. What is the significance of the main character's alter-ego?

Sarah Byrd

--
LACHS,ERIC MICHAEL

Blade Runner

1. There is a reoccuring obsession with the eye and vision in the movie, what significance does this have?
2. There are many simulations and fakes in the movie, does this point to the fact that sight doesn't always mean truth?
3. Is there any use of the double in this film? Maybe between humans and replicants?

Perfect Blue

1. Are parts of the film supposed to be Mina's dream, she kept waking up abruptly, is this supposed to let us know it was a dream?
2. Is everything that happens to Mina real?
3. Was the whole actress/pop idol thing also part of Mina's imagination?

Jen Rahimitabar

1) What's the significance of the name of the show that Mima gets a part on, "Double Bind"?

2) Do you believe the simple happy ending? Do you think Rumi was the only psychotic one? I think that Mima, Rumi, and Me-Mania were all pretty equally cracked....

3) What influences do you sense in this from American psycho-thrillers?

--Lauren Vogelbaum

Dark City

1. What was the significance of the drawings left by the strangers? Was it just representative of the inescapable "maze" they created or something else?

2. How does changing people's memories enlighten the strangers on the human soul? Wouldn't stripping someone of their identity take away from the essence of being human?

3. What time period was this supposed to be set in? Or is the city just made up of people's memories?

--Sondra M. Smiley

1. Could this be considered "film noir"?

2. What was the purpose of naming the character Schreber? Any connection to the godlike characters?

3. Why was Kiefer Sutherland overacting so much?

M Sarrow

1) Why did the detective wear a hat similar to those of the bald pale guys? the way he was shot, there seemed to be a connection.

2) Did the others not like water because they represent electronics? or to take it a step farther media?

3) How did John come about these special powers? Was he perhaps given a shot from one of the bald pale guys?

--John Cassaras

1. The city and other details looked obviously fake. Was there a reason for this? Maybe the idea that nothing is real?
2. Was Mr. Hand human?
3. If aliens had only one mind why didn't they get Murdocks memories from Mr. Hand?

Jen Rahimitabar

1. What was the significance of using Schreber as the one who knows
everything. Is this movie based on any of his memoirs?

2. How does the notion of "tuning" in this film correlate with mental
manipulation of environment in "The Matrix"

3. If all we are "is a collection of memories" how can we possibly know that
anything we see is real? Is this movie trying to refute reality as we know
it?

Blade Runner

1. Is Deckard a replicant? In the director's cut, they both run out at the
end to escape...

2. If Roy "dies" then what does that say about the blurring of
human/non-human boundaries?

3. How does Scott's portrayal of the future cities compare to other
portrayals in science fiction (Matrix, AI, Minority Report, Dark City)

Perfect Blue

1. If Rumi is pretending to be Mima, then how can Mima explain her
hallucinations of herself jumping across street lights?

2. Not that this is pertinent, but I think it's interesting to note the
Japanese perspective of the status of the "pop icon" versus the American status.

3. How does this movie's portrayal of what is "real" affect the flow of the
story? The parallel soap opera theme is also applicable

Dark City

1. The movie is visually amazing (really the best part). Did the set have an inordinately high budget? What does it mean when a director focuses more attention on the set and general mood than the script or the plot, in terms of the movie's intended psychological effect?

2.The cinematography is interesting, with lots of bizarre angles and such. Is it an attempt to convey psychological turmoil?

3. Is Dark City supposed to be futuristic despite the fact that it looks very 1940s and there are no spaceships? Or is it supposed to be some sort of parallel universe/madness realm?

Sarah Byrd

. is the use of schreber a comment that we should heed, or more a joke about the nature of schizophrenia?
2. ultimately, what do the aliens/abductors represent symbolically? what is it the up-ends so-called "mental health"?
3. does the film's centering around murdoch
(a facet of the "narrative" that condemns it to psychosis) , perpetuate delusion?

g hughes

1) Why didn't he use his power to bring them back to earth?

2) Could John Murdoch be considered just as selfish as the strangers were?

3) Schreber, Schreber, eh, eh??

Eddie Geller

1. one of the aliens says "we use your dead as vessels." so are they all
supposed to be possessed human corpses? and if so, why all male?

2. john says something about how a person isn't his memories (or his mind,
maybe) at the end, but he clings to the notion of being in love with what's
her face. i thought the "but i love you, that can't be faked" that she said
was kind of naïve.. because they wouldn't have been in love if it wasn't for
the implanted memories. so does john decide to go back to her because it's
the only thing he knows, or because he was made to love her, or because he's
a hypocritical ass?

3. the aliens were supposed to be unemotional, i guess, but they often
seemed to show fear or satisfaction (when the one guy gets crushed between
buildings, when the little kid is carving spirals into the dead woman); am i
wrong to assume they were meant to be unemotional?

raw bee.

Does the doctor's name and personality owe its inspiration from the schreber who's memiors we read?

Why did the director choose to over comic-book-ize schreber's behavior? I feel it distracted too much, personally?

I'm not sure i understand why the strangers used dr shreber the way they did. Was/Why was he the only one who mixed people's new memories? Why was he the one incharge of injecting them? isn't that kind of risky of the strangers to deligate that job?

is it just me or did they change the name of the "tuning" choo-ning/jew-ning thing every single time they said it !?!?!

~Mike F.

Dark City

1) Does the ending feel a bit too optimistic?

2) Why is this film rated R? It should have been PG. There's no profanity and one to two VERY brief breast shots.

3) What's up with the film's pacing? The music and speed never seems to stop. The whole movie feels like a two hour commercial.

Josh Stephenson

1. What was the significance of the drawings left by the strangers? Was it just representative of the inescapable "maze" they created or something else?

2. How does changing people's memories enlighten the strangers on the human soul? Wouldn't stripping someone of their identity take away from the essence of being human?

3. What time period was this supposed to be set in? Or is the city just made up of people's memories?

--Sondra M. Smiley

1. Could this be considered "film noir"?

2. What was the purpose of naming the character Schreber? Any connection to the godlike characters?

3. Why was Kiefer Sutherland overacting so much?

M Sarrow

1) Why did the detective wear a hat similar to those of the bald pale guys? the way he was shot, there seemed to be a connection.

2) Did the others not like water because they represent electronics? or to take it a step farther media?

3) How did John come about these special powers? Was he perhaps given a shot from one of the bald pale guys?

--John Cassaras

Questions on Dark City
1.) What is the psychoanalytical significance of the alien's power to induce sleep in the humans? Does this reflect on the fact that the humans' lives are lived like dark nightmares?
2.) What does Shell Beach represent? Is this the waking from the nightmare into reality, or is this a transition from nightmare to dream (yet still asleep)? If so (to the transition), will they continue to live their existence within this dream at the end when John reaches Shell Beach?
3.) Do those who are able to use "tuning" on some level represent a deity in that they are able to manipulate all aspects of the Dark City world (time, physical matter, memories, etc...)?
- Chris Glenn

1.) Is John Murdoch being reborn as he emerges from the water in the beginning of the film? Or are all the inhabitants of 'Dark City' being reborn after "sleep," since many of them have new identities?
2.) Was Proyas directly influenced by Fritz Lang's "Metropolis," or the German expressionist movement in general?
3.) Roger Ebert states in his commentary that the Strangers had a "feteshistic" look in their black leather suits. Is there a "fetishism" that exists in German expressionism, film noir, of sci-fi? Or are the Strangers masochistic as well? They are all men and they brutalize many women throughout the film.

- Stephen Shuck

Kittler

1. On p. 263, Kittler writes about how professors and Nasa are becoming more and more technologically advanced. He then writes, "Trenches, flashes of lightening, stars--storage, transmission, <<the laying of cables>> (> represents italics). What is the significance of the italicized "laying of cables"?

2. On p. 229, Kittler writes that factual conditions are all techno-historical events. Is this technological determinism? Is he saying our reality is dictated by technological advances?

3.On p. 115, Kittler writes, "Media cross one another in time, which is no longer history". What does this mean? That the term "history" as a representation of time is antiquated?

Sarah Byrd

1) Was the guy that made Fight Club (his name escapes me right now) trying to make a commentary on sublimal messages of the past by inserting the shots of Brad Pitt? This questions doesn't really relate to the reading, but Kittler does mention in the beginning.

2) What does the word 'kitsch' mean?

3) What is Kittler trying to say about the doppleganger? He mentions it over and over, but I just wasn't getting anything out of it.

~Ashley Gillett
Kittler, Gramophone, Film, Typewriter, 115-54; 167-75;
221-31;
263;

p115-54

1) I’m sorry, but what in the hell does castration have to do with the “stop trick” in film editing?

2) What is the connection Nietzsche is trying to make with sunlight, vision, and hallucination?

3) Why does Freud place so much emphasis on one’s sex and how does this play a part in his diagnosis?

p167-75

1) What are doppelgangers?

2) Why did so many pervieve "sound film" as such a threat?

3) Why is one's gender relevant in such circumstances?

p221-31, 263

1) Who are these "ghosts" that Kafka refers to when writing love letters?

2) What kind of transition is it for professors to switch from typewriters to word processors.

3) How does "love" relate to typists, manuscripts, and the like? 1. how would the advent of light-speed optical recording affect cinema? life?
2. where does the feeling of wanting to amaze/trick others (as with camera tricks) come from? an altruistic desire to entertain, or just wanting to be the only person that can do certain things (kind of like magicians.. not sure if this makes sense)?
3. why did the typewriter, an instrument that already makes writing easier, inspire abbreviation? did i miss that part?

Robbie

1)How is time past not history anymore? I don't really
understand how the inception of cinema has changed the
definition of history.
2)Why is film a much more debated/discussed topic than
gramophone?
3)How si it that women authors are considered by
Kittler to be secretaries turned authors?
Sheenah

1.) Kittler says that the invention of the machine gun coincides with the invention of the camera. Is he implying that the camera has always been associated with death? This would be a fair assumption; could he take it farther saying the camera is fascinated with sex, death, and voyeurism?

2.) Is technology meant to further death? In other words, it seems the most advanced technology goes to the military. Is this why we have so many war simulators?

3.)Is the advancement of the typewriter a symbol for the advancement of humans? T.S. Eliot is quoted in the essay as saying that the typewriter allowed him a lucidity that was not allowed in his writing by hand. So does technology increase our function in society?

- Stephen Shuck

Josh Stephenson

1. What role does technology play in relationships (families & couples) and why is it important? (p221)

2. "...the NSA has 'accelerated' the 'advent of the computer age,' and hence the end of history, like nothing else." (p263) What does this mean?

3. Radio can be enjoyed by itself but a moving picture alone isn't captivating. Why is that?

--Sondra M. Smiley

1. What invention did mark the beginning of film and why is this significant?

2. Why does Kittler choose to compare the history of movies in a parrallel way to the history of other inventions like weapons?

3. Freud documented things in writting so that they could be read and unlocked as a puzzle to be figured out, does the documentation of something with film take away from this? Is there anything to be discovered?

Jen Rahimitabar

DETOUR

1. So, was this a happy ending? The soundtrack turned awfully triumphant as
the cops picked him up.

2. What the hell was the point to this film? At the end I felt the whole
thing was a sadistic joke on some poor fella.

3. Was this all of the film? What I mean is, was this the true version the
creator wanted to present? At times the film felt not censored, but rather
cut up...segmented really. Sort of like there were moments that we cut out of
the film. For instance, when he calls his lady in LA we never hear her talk.
And then the next thing you know, he's thumbing across country.

Josh Stephenson

Why was I left with an unresolved or "that's it?" feeling at the end?

Why didn't he just drive into the next town and go straight to the hospital when the guy died in the car?

Why didn't he jsut leave that girl or did he really like having her around?

Trey Lineberger

Questions:
1) Is it significant or coincidence that the girl was killed by a telephone?

2) Why can't the main character speak to his girlfriend when he calls her on the first night that he spends with the girl?

3) Why is he arrested at the end of the film? Loitering? Is this an O Henry reference?

1) what was the first noir film? this seems like such an
archetypical/stereotypical noir; i'm wondering where it fits on the
timeline.

2) vera a double for sue harvey?

3) is the "telephone cord as a strangulation" device really something that
the director (or, i guess, novelist) might have thought about? i know we
probably make up meaning for a lot of our movies, but i'm really not sure
that this one has a whole lot of depth. especially given the genre.

1. Does the film draw a parallel between dangerous women and doomed fate?
2. The film portrays men as being so innocent and women as motivated and trecherous. The innocent woman in the film can only be gotten to by hitchhiking through the desert. Is there a sense women in general being a man's downfall?
3. Is it obvious that I've been having girl problems?
4. Did she wrap the phone cord around her neck on purpose?1. What percentage (roughly) of the shots in the movie were shot on scene? it looks as though most every shot is done indoors, very, very economically.
2. IN another film-noir classic "kiss me deadly," the daunting elements of post-ww2 society are brought together in a very concrete way, especially in the case of the infamous "briefcase", that has, since, also made an appearance in Pulp Fiction. Why is it that the mental illness is visited upon the main character, thereby ruining the frame of reference through which the insanity of the time can filtered? Are we supposed to understand this world as a figment of his imagination? does the noir world only exist in psychosis?
3. Does the telephone cord represent the umbilical cord? and in the strangulation are we supposed to think that the best we can hope for in birth is nascent death?

g hughes

1) Why did the main character, Al hate the music that was on the jukebox?

2) Why did Al walk into the police car so quickly? He got past the worst of it I think, should have kept on going.

3) I can't come up with a reason why the girl would have scratched Haskel. He didnt seem like the type to try and rape her. I guess she's just one crazy bitch.

-John Cassaras

1. Very little of the film was grounded in reality. From the ridiculous amount of fog at the beginning to the strange deaths, the film seems to be over the top. Was this simply a matter of genre (the necessary film noir voice-overs, etc) or was it a plot device to get the audience to consider the possibility of everything being fantasy?

2. Did Al Roberts really love Sue? He seemed to give up on her awfully fast.

3. Why was Vera always at extremes with Roberts? One moment she hated him, the next moment she was trying to seduce him.

-Sara Duff

SADOW,ZAC

1) Was there significance to comparing women to animals throughout the film?

2) Is Al remorseful for killing Vera?

3) Is Al actually carted off at the end?

Ed Geller

1. How did the man die in the car? Did it have to do with the pills?

2. Was there any classic movie "sin" that the man committed to be locked into his fate of running away from murder charges?

3. One person died in a car, the other with the telephone wire. Because all of our technology talk usually centers on the phone, can we get some Fordian analysis of the automobile?

M Sarrow

1. What is up with those pills that "the real Haskell" keeps eating in the fateful car ride?
2. Did Roberts kill Haskell, or is Roberts a double of Haskell?
3. What is the significance of all that fog at the beginning of the movie when Roberts and his woman are walking back from the club?

1. What is implied in the movie with the characters dying? Is it possible that the main character is supposed to be delusional?

2. The dialogue and premise of the movie seems a bit scandalous for the time, for a movie especially. Am I right?

3. Was detour a typical film noir, or was it darker?

-S. Byrd

2)At what point does it cross the line between coincidence (fate/bad luck) and murder?

3)Other than in the plot and the circumstances of the main character, in what other ways does Detour mirror Psycho?

Eric Lachs

1)Are Al and Vera's roles switched? It seems that she
has the masculine role in the relationship and he is
submissive to her.
2)How could Al just leave LA without talking to Sue at
all? If he wanted to marry her so much like he said,
wouldn't he at least want to let her know that he
isn't dead?
3)Was Al arrested at the end? Why did they leave it
like that?
Sheenah Dunbar

1. Is the dialogue in this movie deliberately cheesy? And what is the reason for this?
2. Is there any use of the double in this movie, maybe between the two men?
3. Does the man get caught in the end? Is he arrested by the policeman?

Jen Rahimitabar

Psycho Questions

Could all of the story of been a dream,--after she fell asleep at the wheel?

What was the main girl's own problems? (she seemed to have doubles of her own)

Was the explaination by the psychiatrist at the end really needed, was it saying to much?

Trey Lineberger

1. are we supposed to parallel the "voices" that marion "hears" and those that norman hears? are the two doppelgangers perhaps?

2. Norman and schreber both suffer from psychosis that can be linked through freudian analysis to the loss of a father-figure: what other common ground do they share? what should we make of Norman's thwarted oepidal love?

3. what should we make of the hotel when considered in light of Norman's hatred of it? how can the metaphor be explained?

g hughes

Psycho 3 questions

1) What is Hitchcock trying to tell the audience about sexuality with the
opening sequence?

2) How symbolic is Norman's hobby (taxidermy)?

3) Did Norma really kill his mother or was he so distraught about loosing
her that he kept her corpse after she died?

Josh Stephenson

2. Had overt violence ever been displayed on the big screen before Psycho? I never realized before, but it seems like Psycho is the archetype for the horror movie/ psychological thriller. How many movies like it (psychological thriller) preceeded it or came out around the same time that was not a Hitchcock movie?

3. The psychoanalyst in the end diagnosis Norman without hesitation as having multiple personality disorder. He also casually defines transexual to his listeners. How common place were these concepts at the time in society in general? Were they taboo at all?

Sarah B.

--
SADOW,ZACHARY FORD

1. Was there a significance to the book and record shown in Norman's room?

2. What makes this movie a classic?

3. Why do we get a POV shot from the shower head? Bathtub drain?

--Sondra M. Smiley

Discussion questions for Psycho
1.) What is the psych-analytical meaning for Norman Bates fondness of taxidermy?
2.) If Norman has his mother's personality inside of him, why must he keep her physical remains?
3.) Why must Norman's mother punish Norman for liking Marion Crane by killing her?
- Chris Glenn, Psycho-Cinem-Analysis

1) Why does Norman take on homicidal traits if his mother was never originally homicidal?

2) Are we take everything the man says at the end to be the absolute truth?

3) What is the significance of the reappearance of birds?

Eddie Geller

1.) There seems to be a heavy hint of voyeurism in this film. Hitchcock does several shots with a close-up of eyes. Is there a pattern or relevance to this?

2.) Marion Crane dies while taking a shower, but is she trying to "cleanse" her soul in the process. Does she seem ready to take the money back and do right after dinner with Norman? Does her face look as if a burden has been released before she dies?

3.) The bird imagery is very obvious throughout the film. Not only is Marion's last name Crane, but the dinner scene has the stuffed birds set throughout the room looking poised to attack her. What do birds mean to Hitchcock, especially when you consider his later film "The Birds?"

- Stephen Shuck

1) Was it Hitchcock's intention to make the entire film suspenseful only to have the climax (Norman attacking Lila) last mere seconds and essentially lack the big scary ending we were all anticipating? If so why would he decide to do this?

2) Did you find the long individual monologue that explains the events of the film in the end to be a good way for the true events of the film to be revealed? (This was actually the first time I saw this film, one of the few Hitchcocks I haven't seen, were any of you as disappointed with the delivery of the explanation of the surprise ending as I was?)

3) Besides an extra incentive for finding Marion (the money), what was the significance of her "mental breakdown"? How does it reflect and also contrast with Norman's?

4) Reviewing this film, I am thinking that it has little to do directly with technology at all. Acknowledging it was chosen to be viewed in a film class about technology and psychosis, I am wondering if I am missing something the deals with technology in the film?

~Mike F.

1)What are the logical associations accompanied by the assumption of the shower as the eye of the camera?

2)How does the idea of the double relate to multiple personality disorder?

3)How does voyeurism figure into the stages of human development? How does it relate to psychosis?

-Eric Lachs

1. What is the shower scene saying with the graphic match of the drain to the eye?
2. How does this film relate to this weeks Kittler reading? There doesn't seem to be much technology going on in the film.
3. Ahh, it relates the the double, does it not? How did ol' Norman Bates come to believe that he was, at times, his mother?
--Matt

1. Was this movie ever really considered scary in its day?
2. What was the importance of the stuffed birds and bird pictures all over the place? Is there a deeper meaning?
3. How compicated is that shower scene. I know it would be pretty easy to do something like that now, but it seems pretty damn complex for something back then?
4. Was norman bates gay? What do you think

Edwin Rivera

1)Do the stuffed birds in Norman's office have any
significance other than his love of taxidermy?

2)The shot of the blood going down the drain that cuts
to Marion's lifeless eye reminded me to the eye being
the window to the soul so was the blood going down the
drain not only her physical life being washed away but
also her soul?

3)Did Norman and his mother have a type of Oedipus
complex but maybe in reverse since it was "her"
personality that was jealous of his desire for other
women?

Sheenah

1) Does Kittler think our new methods of communication detract from communication as it used to be?

2) Is Kittler envisioning some apocalyptic scenario resulting from our creation of all this technology?

3) Can these technologies help us create better art?

----
1) Is there a future where medical treatment will be done only through machines?

2) Why do we insist on using technology to try and seek out the supernatural?

3) If Freud were alive today, would he embrace our technology-psychoanalysis connection?

Eddie Geller

1. How are Kittler's views about war being the main inspiration for technological inventions recieved in academic intellectual circles? It is a bleak thought that "pleasure is only a byproduct". While I think he is most likely right, it does seem like an extreme idea. There are numerous inventions that are inspired by an idea of increasing human pleasure and convenience, right?

2. It seems as if Kittler is dismissing the written word, i.e. history and literature as being fragmentary (hi quote from Goethe) and not useful. Is he saying that new media is somehow more accurate or closer to the truth than the written word?

3. I am not sure I fully understand how psychoalysis competes with technological sound recording. what does this mean?

-Sarah Byrd

The experiments in art and technology that typified the 1960s were as important as they were ultimately without purpose. Their importance lay in the effort to explore new media and new possibilities. Nevertheless, the tendency of the artists to focus on technical solutions rather philosophical implications rendered the work both spectacular and shallow. At the end of the day, art and technology was retinal painting write large. It was seemingly modern because it echoed the dramatic forms of the world around it. Like the belching smokestacks and grinding wheels of 1930s murals, it echoed the time in a way that made it meaningful to those who saw it while giving it what would become a quaint patina as the technology on which it was based changed.

Media might determine our situation, but how can kittler explain a cultural or personal expression (in this case art) that evolves without a change in technology similar to the way that technology-based art went from being shitty to respectable (relative judgements aside)? How can he account for the developments of philosophies that espouse such ideas?

2. Is there a documented connection in which kittler acknowledges a connection to the thinking of William Blake?

3."Time determines the limit of all art, which first has to arrest the daily data flow in order to turn it into images or signs." He then goes on "enumerate" style; why does art have a style, though? Style isn't neccessarily perceibable, possibly non-existent, why include it?

g hughes

Do you feel like, as Kittler suggested on the last page of his introduction, numbers and figures have become the key to all creatures? Have we been reduced to series of code, Matrix-style? Is there still anything to physical and emotional interation, or are we simply chemical reactions that can be graphed and explained?

How did the gramophone and phonograph affect the language and other thought patters of the people to whom they were introduced? What modern technology has similarly affected us?

--Lauren Vogelbaum

1) Is this reading suggesting that actual physical hand-written text is the last "personal" communication?

2) Is the reading suggesting that if communication encourages comprehension, then does technological advancements in communication better influence the masses?

3) Where and how does poetry fit into this equation?

p85-97

1) Why and How does psychoanalysis compete with technological sound recording?

2) So does sound recording free the listener from the letters ("devoid signifers of all meaning") of words and in doing so help him/her with the actual comprehension of that specific knowledge?

3) Why are patients not "allowed to make use of storage technologies?" I am quite interested in what such individuals could achieve or show in such circumstances.

josh stephenson
ENG4133

1. Are there writings like this about the internet and other new technological advances or did Kittler's breed die out?

2. If so, is the fresh and new War on Terrorism replacing the tired link to Fascism and "the bomb"?

3. Why do I need to pop Tylenol every 10 pages?

Michael Sarrow

1. I'd like to hear what Kittler thought of The Matrix. If indeed everything in the present day has been relegated to a number or cypher, or is at is least headed that way, it seems that our generation or the next will be the last to learn how to write their names instead of typing it. What kind of consequences will this have on spoken language?

2. Kittler says, "His essence (so-called Man) escapes into apparatuses. Machines take over the functions of the central nervous system, and no longer, as in times past, merely those of muscles." So was the Industrial Revolution the beginning of man's descent in to not only physical laziness, but mental laziness as well?
"...the implementation of a writing that is only cypher, not meaning-one century was enough to transfer the age-old monopoly of writing into the omnipotence of integrated circuits." How terrifying is that? People are going to be even fatter and lazier than they are now. What will be lost when people no longer have to write with pen and paper?

3. What is a paraprax?- on page 90, Kittler says that "The storage medium of writing fails once it is utilized by the patient and not by the analyst." What does this mean?

Matt

1.) When using the Pygmalion reference in his writing, is Kittler suggesting that newer technology dehumanizes people? This seems to be the case, but he makes particular reference to women in general. Is this because women had come so far and this seemed like a retraction? Are people moving back as technology moves forward?

2.) If the telegraph is the artificial mouth, and the telephone is the artificial ear, could we take it even further into modern times, such as instant messaging, text messages, and email?

3.) If Kittler suggests early in the reading that technology dehumanizes the population, is it fair to say that the Dracula reference, especially, "my master is coming" could be Stoker's forwarning that technology was coming to take control? Considering the technology content of Stoker's novel, this seems somewhat relevant.

- Stephen Shuck

1st part
1. Kittler believe that souls live on through written stories and memories? If so does he think that media recording all these stories is a good thing?
2. Why does he call technology and aesthetics of terror?
3. Is Kittler opposed to technology?
2nd part
1. Why did he chose the gramophone as one of the subjects?
2. does he believe that the gramophone is the unconcious?
3. Does he believe that the device is simply the channel for the message or does it have an effect on the message?

Jen Rahimitabar

1. What connection is Kittler trying to make between music and psychoanalysis? (Assuming that is is trying to make one...because I didn't get it)

2. What does "paraprax" mean?

3. Does the pychoanalyst really help the patient, or does he merely make suggestions that impose his own subconscious onto to him, the patient? (p. 87-88)

--Ashley

1.Do you agree that "a digital base will erase the very concept of medium? [2]" I very much do, and that is actually what I am studying at UF.

2. Kittler asserts that "Typewriters do not store individuals [14]" and that may be true but the computer blurs this assertion. What about scanned handwriting reproduced? Also, the computer may have only a 26 letter alphabet keyboard, but with computers the writer is able to personally stylize his text, such as the case with Avital Ronell's The Telephone Book, or just about any website or even advertisement where design also went into the authoring of the text. Do these examples not store individuals? Doesn't the choice to use a typewriter or computer over handwriting tell something of the individual author? Maybe suffice it to say that by default or automatically the typewriter and computer do not store individuals, but I believe it is wrong so claim they are incapable of doing so.

3. This is more of a comment than a question, but it related to the previous question: I find it ironic and somewhat contradictory that Kittler claims that the gramophone and film can more accurately depict/represent the reality of an individual exemplified through psycho-analysis [89] while earlier he discussed the discord between reality and these quantified representations of it. Secondly this recording of voice and action is actually better at storing the individual than any form of writing (handwritten or mechanical) ever could or will be.

~ Mike F.

2)What are the potential consequences of the digital standardization of all electronic media?

3)Is the anecdote about using army equipment to entertain troops ("abuse") relative to the condition of technological advancement for governmental purposes being accompanied by eventual recreationalization of this technology?

--Eric

1) How did Kittler convey that "media determine our situation"?
2) What is his account of the relationship between violent acts and media?
3) How does the concept of modernism relate to Kittler's many theorems?

Dani Berrin

Paromita Mukherjee
Professor Burt
LIT 6856
Questions for 10/14/03

1. Ann Douglas, in “Soft-Porn Culture,” points out how and why men are in trouble due to their insecurities. If the stereotypical women characters are created just to stabilize the male ego, are the creators male or female? If male, Douglas’s argument can hold true, but if female, then the question becomes, why would the female writers/readers derive a masochistic pleasure out of the degradation of women in the romances? Is this masochistic pleasure also a male fantasy?

2. Tania Modleski claims that if the feminist scholars of cultural studies do not identify with the romance novel readers, then they will be able to conduct a socially useful critical analysis. If the writers and the readers of romance novels exist in the culture, how can the criticism of that be ignored? If the romance novel genre is creating the culture of confirming the stereotypical representation of women’s reality, and if the feminist scholars are contributing to its existence, would refusal to criticize romance novels be able to get rid of the large-scale production and reception of those novels? By rejection of the romance criticism, won’t the scholar also impose some kind of authority on an art form that is appreciated by many women in the culture?

3. Janice Radway’s argument about defending the romance genre by understanding the readership in the specific social context is interesting. However, does that help to validate the romance genre as art/fiction instead of popular culture? Would it ever gain the status of fiction written by serious women novelists? Are the critics of romance primarily female, or do male scholars also think that the genre is worth discussing?

4. Is Ann Snitow’s claim that “romance is a primary category of the female imagination” a way of justifying the pornographic characteristics of the romance novels? Can pornography be justified as “hope for love”? Why does the female critic need to justify women’s pornography?

5. Film: Marquise
Would Marquise be considered an anti-heroine for romance novel? Although she is a fallen (?) woman and sleeps around, she does die for love in the arms of her lover. Does this suicide confirm the submissive actions of the romance heroine? How different Marquise and Margo are from the romance heroines, except that both belong to two distinct classes of prostitute and royalty, respectively?

Fight Club questions:

1) Does Jack (Edward Norton's character) experience his Double, or something kinda different? Is a Double that contrasts with you really a Double?

2) Has anyone else read the book? Does it make different points/conclusions about Jack's mental state?

3) How would psychoanalysis describe Jack's mental state?

4) Do you think media -- TV, movies, etc -- had anything to do with Jack's mental break (for lack of a better term)?

--Lauren Vogelbaum

1. The double seems to be played out in the movie as a bonafide schizophrenic hallucination. What is the difference between that kind of double and the more commonplace "phantom of the ego" that Kittler mentions?

2. Is fightclub(and all that is involved with it) itself a hallucination for Ed Norton's character in addition to the Tyler Durden hallucination? Is it irrelevant? Is there a delineation between real and unreal in the movie?

3. There is a lot of in-your-face moralizing about consumer culture and the psychological effects of our consumer culture. In terms of psychoanalysis, how is culture and society figured in formally? That is, as culture changes, how does psychoanalytic theory change?

-Sarah Byrd

1. "angel face," the name of jared leto's character in the movie, is beaten badly by the humanistic side of the durden duo, in a scene that is uncharacteristic. he says that he "wanted to destroy something beautiful." is this an unconcious hate of aryanism surfacing because durden's organisation (the organisation engineered by the other half of the duo) resembles it to some degree? the blond hair is quite hard to miss.
2. how is the love/hate relationship for society rectify itself in destruction? is it durden's way of finally killing the thing that he loves the most? so does this movie suggest an anti-therapeutic approach to analysis?
3. what is durden's awakening moment? his connection to marla singer? where does he re-connect to his father?

g hughes

1) How much did the technology in Ed Norton’s life encourage the birth of
Tyler (Brad Pitt)?

2) There definitely was a level of intimacy between Ed Norton and Tyler.
Recall the scene in Tyler’s “home” where the two discuss women and Tyler
remarks something to the degree of “women, sometimes I feel we don’t even need
them.” During my first viewing, I felt this line was suggesting homosexual themes
between the two men. However, now with the knowledge of our recent Kittler
reading assignment--is this moment portraying an auto-eroticism/narcissism
within one’s self between he and the double?

3) Which medium better presents this story, film or novel?

Josh Stephenson

Dani Berrin

1. Why does the Narrator recite lines from the books he read? "I am Jack's smirking revenge."

2. Why is his power animal a penguin? And why does it turn into Marla?

3. What role did the absence of Narrator/Tyler's father play in his deterioration?

4. Why doesn't Norton's character have a name?

--Sondra M. Smiley

1) Why does Tyler disappear after the car crash?

2) What is the significance of Ed Norton not having any food in his fridge?

3) Is it just me or does this film hypocritical? It talks about ditching material things and an abhorance of star culture, but it stars to of the biggest actors in hollywood and cost 10s of millions of dollars to make.

Ed Geller

1. Is Fight Club useful as a criticism of violence and psycho-Marxism, when half of all high school boys want to be Tyler Durden?

2. As an extension of the first question... Roger Ebert rates the movie two stars based on its extreme violence and the fact that more people will see the images and imitate them than discuss the philosophy. Is the latter a fair criticism of the movie itself?

3. Would Kittler watch Fight Club and say "I told you so" or does this have nothing to do with "the Double" at all?

Mike Sarrow

1) Is Marla just another imaginary character in Jack's mind?

2) Was it just me or did the movie share the same chaotic theme as "Lord of the Flies," where men will result to anarchy and violence?

3) What triggered Tyler to finally develop in Jack's mind?

John Cassaras

• So much to discuss!

  1) There certainly was a sex role relationship between the main character and Tyler; "ozzie and harriet". But were there references to the two sharing some sort of sexual relationship? "Cut the foreplay" violence as a form of sex. Bathing together; "I'm wondering if another woman is what we need." ("self improvement is masturbation") the list goes on.

  2) Are the similarities between the main character's mental disorder and Schreber's merely coincidental, or was Fight Club inspired by some of Schreber's insights?

  3) This is a pretty important question. What was the point of the movie? More specifically, Tyler is trying to free the main chara1. What effect do the quick few-frame shots have on the viewer? (Some people feel very jarred by them, some don't even notice, some spend the next 5 minutes trying to figure out what it was)

  2. How does the film portray women? Are they strong or weak?

  3. How did this film make you feel about the things that you own?

  -Sara Duff

  cter and many others from wasting their lives away as "slaves with white collars." So for much of the movie he is viewed as a positive force, but this is taken to an extreme. It gets out of control and Tyler is killed. Is this to say that being a mindless consumer yuppie is actually not that bad after all? This seems to contradict what I thought was the whole point of the movie. (In other words, why did the film makers kill Tyler?)

  ~ Mike F.

• 1. In Fight Club, Ed Norton seems to have a split personality. Is there a difference between the double and a split personality, or are they the same thing?

  2. What is the significance to the double that Ed norton's character investigates wrecked cars and insurance claims?

  3. What is it, exactly, that brings the double into existence? Kittler was saying that the double no longer appears with the glut of the media that envelopes us every day. So why does it appear for Ed Nortons character?
  

• Matt

1.) What is it about fighting that is so liberating to these corporate controlled mass media "yuppies"? Why violence afflicted on each other? Does this "in-fighting" break some threshold which allows them to then attack the corporate world?
2.) Why does the "double" of Edward Norton / Brad Pitt have to "let go" to see the truth about him / them selves?
3.) When Ed Norton / Brad Pitt are having the dialogue in the car before Brad Pitt's character drives them off the cliff, how are they directing questions to the two followers in the backseat if this is an internal dialogue in one man's mind? The two in the back appear to be listening to their conversation and know exactly what they are talking about when B.P. / Ed N. ask them questions?
-Chris Glenn, Psycho-Cinem analysis

1. What effect do the quick few-frame shots have on the viewer? (Some people feel very jarred by them, some don't even notice, some spend the next 5 minutes trying to figure out what it was)

2. How does the film portray women? Are they strong or weak?

3. How did this film make you feel about the things that you own?

-Sara Duff

1)Does the final realization in the film suggest a fallability of the negative viewpoints (Anti-yuppie, antiestablishment, anti-social hierarchy) expressed in the film?

2)Is the refusal to name the main character an extension of his characteristics to anyone? Is it a suggestion that we could all be Tyler, or capable of having a Tyler?

3)Is the revelation of Fight Club supposed to be a rejection of the Double in the way that Kittler uses it, or an affirmation?

--
LACHS,ERIC MICHAEL

1)Does it reveal anything about Edward Norton's
character that his power animal in group therapy is a
penguin?
2)Is the reason he can't cry at group when Marla is
there because he recognizes her as a part of himself,
his double?
3)Is Tyler not only a facet of himself, but also a
double for the person he wants to be?
Sheenah Dunbar

Kittler questions:

1. What exactly is the double, "phantom of our own ego"? Is it like a soul?
2. What exactly is behind the phenomenon of not recognizing one's one reflection in the mirror, and disliking what is seen. Does the dislike stem from self-loathing, or from the subconscious knowledge that one's face, the familiar, has suddenly become unfamiliar?
3.What is the separation between the image-less cult of the orinted word and the image-based world of today, i.e. what are each world's marked differences?

1.Can the differences between Freud and Lacan's theories really be marked by the computer?
2.Kittler writes that "psychoanalysis is the ony science which can conceive of, or formalize the imaginary". How can this be true? Don't disciplines like physics and mathematics conceive of and formalize the imaginary?
3.Kittler writes "The medium of the real is to be found of analogue storage devices". What is this real he is talking of? what defines it?

-Sarah Byrd

1) The first article seems to suggest that the phenomenon of the Double arose as the idea of the individual arose during and after the Renissance. If the idea of the individual had never developed in our culture (as it hasn't in other cultures), do you think the phenomenon of the Double would have developed anyway?

2) If Doubles are uncanny, and glass-based (photographic) media are Doubles of reality, does it follow that glass-based media are necessarily uncanny?

3) Does anyone know where the Bloody Mary (chick in the mirror) urban legend came from?

4) If media and technology are a reflection of a culture's psyche, what do you think our modern media & technology say about our culture's psyche? Similarly, what does our psyche predict about the immediate future of technology?

5) What's up in the second paragraph on p.143 in "The World of the Symbolic"? I don't get it.

6) Is the last paragraph of the second article a dis on African Americans?

--Lauren Vogelbaum

romanticism_psychoanalysis_film

1. IN the tin drum by gunther grass, oskar's education is gleaned mostly from texts dealing with goethe and rasputin. he actually takes the leafs from texts of both and pieces them together in a haphazard manner, making an entirely new book out of them. If one, then, in this context views geothe and rasputin as doppelgangers of each other, isn't it the person perceiving (a reader perhaps on any level) the doppelganger that is empty, and not either of parties inadvertantly involved in it? [there always seems to be a god like figure as well, (for the romantics it was beauty)]
2. "that words do not define singularities, all legends about poets to the contrary, is not their weakness but rather their cunning. In their emptiness, indentication clicks in as the mechanism of the text's readability in the new era." readability suggest reader, suggests reader as a tooled entity. words, if alive a function of human percetion, using the reader perhaps? but then who or what is empty?
3. What is the mechanism for the vanishing of the double? the writer recognizes the reader and ... was all writing up to that point resistance? (psychoanalytically, that is)

the world of the symbolic

1. "a witness for whom it exists, or more exactly, exists as a reflection." a reply to the question "what is khdfgberkbjrvkjb (neostructuralism)". isn't this the heart of the circle (hermenuetic?), and can't we go around forever?
2.how is lacan's experiment only a return to freud?
3. "god is noise in the street, very peripatetic"....
metaphysics of genealogy? (46) akin to the dissolution of the ego, and the dissociation of libido and superego, an attempt to have a mind that is not a mind by psychodynamic standards? the urges of a society made flesh are the fodder of media systems, whereas the person, a ball of repression and limited experience (jam), is the domain of the philosopher who is rendered in a more and more solipsistic light; wouldn't the aforesaid psychodynamic impossibility make the reckoning of philosophy and that "which itself emerges from stochastic disorder" impossible, for now at least? what is the dynamic of their synergy, with as few foot or endnotes as possible, and that excludes the possibility of humans turning into machines?

g hughes

"Film: A History of the Double"

1. Is Kittler saying that in literature the double is the connection a reader feels with a character? (p90)

2. Is film stupid because you can appreciate it without being educated? (p92)

3. What does Kittler mean when he says, "It is not the soul that is real, but the celluloid?" (p99)


"The World of the Symbolic"

1. Why does Kittler try to explain Aesthetics with mathematics?

2. How is the computer a "psychic apparatus?" (p134)

3. How does this essay relate to the movies we've seen thus far?


--Sondra M. Smiley

1. "Proof of this can be furnished quickly because one no longer needs to thumb through all the books. A re-reading of [single obscure text] suffices." How does this one text prove anything and why - I already know why - does Kittler refuse to actually delve into this seemingly no-brainer proof?

2. Why the German motif in both Kittler and Ronnell? Is this somehow connected to the ominipresent German accent in Fear Dot Com?

3. How do these authors sustain themselves? Do people buy these books or are textbook sales enough to get by?

Mike Sarrow

are these guys actually seeing another being or is it more of a feeling inside?

how does narcissism and the double relate to each other? because narcissism has been brought up in many of the studies, but why is it so significant?

--i don't quite understand the quote from Todorov when he says that" Psychoanalysis has replaced the literature of the fantastic" explaination?

--Trey

Doubles:

1) Does Kittler like or dislike cinema?

2) Is the point of this article to portray the power of cinema?

3) Would Kittler consider the cinematic double "uncanny?"

Symbolic:

1) Why is the medium of the symbolic the computer?

2) Can media exist that does not contain some inherent symbolism?

3) Are patterns more or less meaningful if they are unintentional?

History of the Double
1) If "Literature no longer attempts to compete with the miracles of the entertainment industry," then how come there are tons of books still being written and published? This point is very similar to that in the artice about telephone prevalence resulting in the loss of the romantic poet and "love letters."

2) Do humans still have souls or are we just puppets of technology (condering how pervasive technology is nowadays)? p.93

3) Is pyschtechnology a real science?

The World of the Symbolic
1) What is Gestalt recognition?

2) According to Kittler, the digital transmissions of the human voice over the telephone can only convey sounds that another person can only have the "appearance of understanding." If these same sounds are made without the medium of telephony to transmit them, ie. face to face, then are they also not "real"? Why must the digitized sounds be "noise" and not the actual sound of a person standing next to you?

3) Why do we believe that we as human are better then machines, considering the fact that we must also be "programmed"?

{I hate math}
~Ashley Gillett

1. i believe mirrors were mentioned in the reading as having provided
uncanniness or at least wonder to the unaffiliated. if a novel (of the sort
of novelty that causes one to restructure his concept of reality; that is,
not the first toothbrush) invention such as this were presented only after
being thoroughly explained, would it lose its impact? if this person who had
never seen a mirror before had been shown exactly how said mirror was made
beforehand, would he still find it unsettling upon seeing his own image?

2. did film destroy the imagination of the masses?

3. cybernetics?

robbie.

Rpmanticism
1. What do you think Chamisso's reason for creating the idea of the double was?

2. Why do you think it was the double at the writing desk that was the true Chamisso and not the drunk man?

3. How is the stupidity of film seen as a double? How does the camera change things?

Symbolic
1. Does aesthetics actually exist if man is not there to interpret them or is it through man's interpretation that they exist?

2. What is the role of the double here? Does the mirror play a role in aethetics?

3. What is aesthetics? Is it simply man's visual interpretation or is there some formula that could make a machine recognize aesthetics?

Jen Rahimitabar

1.) Does the "double" appear between the drunk and the academic as an extention of the good vs. evil persona, or possibly the id vs. ego?

2.) Does the person sometimes not recognize their "double" because they are blinded by their own narcissism? Is this linked with the use of mirror as vanity?

3.) The "double" seems to only be linked to alcohol-induced hallucinations or (Romantic) writing. Is Kittler suggesting that film is "stupid" because it lacks the intellect of literature to produce a "double." Or is the "double" there onscreen, nearly unrecognizable?

"World of Symbolic"

1.) Does the photograph or video display the real or reality? In other words, is the picture the complete truth, or the reality that one perceives?

2.) The eyes and the ears seem to serve the purpose of distinguishing the perceived "real" from the actual "real." Is what the eyes perceive absolute truth, and the ears as what "should" be the truth?

3.) Why does Kittler say that humanity could not have invented information machines? I did not understand this part of the essay.

- Stephen Shuck

Lost Highway Questions

1) How are Freud's ideas about Doubles played out in this film? Why are so many Doubles used, and what effect does their use have?

2) This film played with the Uncanny a lot; did it frighten you? Why or why not?

3) Can anyone explain what happened? 'Cause I don't get it.

--Lauren Vogelbaum

1) What was the significance of the porno at the end of the film? The
strange dark character (robert blake) shows Mr. Eddy (robert loggia) a porno with
Renee/Alice (patricia arquette) in it. My theory is that this videotape ties in
with Fred's (bill pullman) line early in the film. He said to the two
detectives in his home that he doesn't like video cameras because he likes to
remember things his way. This introduces the concept of memory versus documented
video tape. I felt that Mr. Eddy watching this porno was revealing to him that
his wife or whoever she is, is not who she really is. maybe?

2) So was Renee actually Alice? Were they both the same woman as Fred and
Steve possibly were?

3) What is Lynch doing with the shadows in Fred's home? Is it movement
within Fred's head? Or is it darker, an evil overcoming him?

josh stephenson

1. What is it about grainy video tapes that's so spooky?

2. Why are women in red dresses a motif?

3. How was Bill Pullman's line about remembering things how he wants to central to the film?

Michael Sarrow

1. Was Bill Pullman going insane at the beginning of the movie, or was his relationship with his wife (which seemed to be very surface level, and based entirely on their sex life) really pushing him over the edge?

2. I see Frued's "uncanny" all over the film. From the inability for Bill Pullman to have sex with his wife, to the scary clown-man's face superimposed on the familiar face of his wife when he is in bed with her, to the doppleganger concept. What exactly is Lynch's message?

3. It seems that the young mechanic boy and Bill Pullman were somehow linked in a parallel universe by their encounters with the evil Patricia Arquette twins. Why did Pullman seem to know what was going on when he was tranferred to the alternate reality. Also, why did he (Pullman) and the clown man seem to be in cahoots when he killed the mobster? Especially when it seemed at first that the clown man was his nimesis?

-Sarah Byrd

1) Does anything explain the existance of the video tapes from inside the Madison's house? Did Fred Madison unconsciously tape it, was it a supernatural manifestation of his subconscious?

2) Lynch plays with darkness. In a couple scenes in the film the current male character (Fred, Pete) walks into the darkness and seems to disappear into it. What is Lynch saying here?

3) What did the yellow tinge of the filmstock of Madison's life signify? What about the other colors, Dayton's life for example?

~ Mike F.

2. What is the deal with Robert Blake's character, is he actually a person
or a part of the hallucination in Fred/Pete's world?

3. the mystery man (Robert Blake), says, you "invited me into your house"
and Bill Pullman converses with him on the phone as he stands in front of him?
What the @#^! does that mean?

Ryan Wilson

1.) Freud's theory of "doubles" plays into this film, particularly with Alice/Renee. But were the conflicting stories, such as Pete and Fred (whether or not they are the same person)different times? Pete's story seemed much more dated than Fred's? Or is Lynch commenting on multiple personalities, universes, people occupyting two spaces at once, etc.?

2.) Does Lynch know that, through character and theme, he is mirroring several moments from "Blue Velvet." In particular, did anyone notice that Robert Blake's character seemed eerily similar to Dean Stockwell's drug dealer? Even more so, Patricia Arquette's disrobing reminded me a lot of Isabella Rossellini's humiliating nude scene in "Blue Velvet." Did anyone else notice this?

3.) Like his other films, Lynch pays particular attention to music. Was the scene where Pete becomes annoyed with the saxophone music symbolic of his alternate self? Or was it so close to his other self that by hearing it caused him pain, like same matter occupying the same space?

Bonus Question: How can Gary Busey play the most normal person in the movie?

- Stephen Shuck

1.) What role (psycho-analytically speaking) does the telephone play when characters in the film are 'placing calls' to themselves?
2.) Why is it that the only thing that connects Fred to Pete is Rosanna Arquette's
character(s)?
3.) What is the significance of this film playing like a dream (with no clear explainations, yet many viable interpretations)?
Chris Glenn English 4133

2. Are the female leads the same person?

3.What is the significance of Bill Pullman being a saxophone player?

4. What does the man with no eyebrows represent? Whose side is he on? Does he even exist?

5. What is the reverse-house burning supposed to signify, if anything?

Matt Lehtola

1. Fred says that he likes to remember things on his own, not the way they actually happened, but can we take everything they see on the videos as truth? Where did the videos come from?

2. Although Fred supposedly turns into Pete, it seems as if Fred and Laurent are doubles of each other. They both really love Renee/Alice and she cheats on both of them. They both seem to lose control--Fred killing his wife and Laurent with the tailgater. Also, the strange man seems to be friends with both of them. Would you agree?

3. What role does the telephone play in this film?

--Sondra M. Smiley

what was the sybolism in seeing the main character go from being old to young?

what was the importance of robert blake's character?

what is david lynch's fascination with sex and the naked body?

trey lineberger

1) does robert blake's character represent anything other than the "truth"?

2) was bill pullman turning into balthazar getty at the end?

3) does patricia arquette represent anything other than just a person (like
robert blake)?

2)If they are real, how did Pete get into Fred's cell
since he did look like a different person?

3)How did Fred ring his own doorbell and tell himself
that Laurent was dead?

Also, is there a reason that the mystery man in this
wears makeup similar to Ben in Blue Velvet?

Sheenah Dunbar

Previous Questions

I'll ask you to write up at least three discussion questions for each film screened and each assigned reading. Your discussion questions about the readings and films will be posted on this webpage.

Questions are due the day before class. (Questions on readings for Tuesdays are due by 9:00 p.m. on Mondays; questions on films screened on Tuesdays and assigned for classes on Thursdays are due on Wednesdays by 9:00 p.m.)

Note: All parts of the final project must be completed and turned in on time for you to receive credit. All parts of the course must be completed and turned in on time to pass the course.