Robert Bresson's Pickpocket is the story of Michel, a troubled young man who can only express himself by the titular means of petty thievery. He's tortured but ultimately his activities are a cover for a desire for love symbolized by Jeanne, who lives in his mother's apartment complex. Bresson is masterful with the camera - it's like a ballet although the entire film is minimalistic. There are some interesting references to Nietzsche and Dostoyevsky's existentialism and the film is a bit stark, but this fits the theme and mood. Not one second is superfluous and this is one of the reasons why this is considered Bresson's masterpiece in a career that produced so many wonderful films.

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John Huston's adaptation of Night of the Iguana is superb, primarily for the always incredible performance of Richard Burton. Burton may be my favorite male actor for his command of the English language and the intensity of his acting and this is one of his best performances as the wayward Rev. Dr. T. Lawrence Shannon. The qualities of dramatic intensity and incredible dialogue are at their peak in the works of Tennessee Williams. Great performances all around including Ava Gardner, in possibly her last great role, Deborah Kerr and the actually hateable - not for lack of performance quality but b/c of the quality - performances of Sue Lyon (who plays an annoying, confused tease) and Grayson Hall (as a spinster who is keeping an eye on Lyon's character and despises Burton's Shannon). Richard Burton has been in classics and he's been in crap, but he's always great regardless of the material.

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Abu Ghraib, anti-depressant suicides with their new black box warnings are good examples. Even contests can do it provided that they're stressful enough.

Laborde said he had bonded with Vega, who loved country music and had a large tattoo of praying hands on his arm. The tattoo was a tribute to his father, who committed suicide by hanging himself several years ago, family members said.

"Typically ... you don't normally start getting the serious hallucinations until a little bit later, especially somebody so young and in good shape," Nimmons said.

We surely know not what we do.

At Patterson Nissan in Longview, Texas, 24 brave men and women are gathered from all walks of life.* They come to put themselves to the test. both physically and mentally. all for a brand new pick up truck. The event is the ultimate test of human endurance: Whoever can stand upright the longest with his or her hand flat on the truck, will drive it home. Along with the pick up, the first place prize also boasts a pop up camper. Not bad. If you can stand the test. Suicide puts future of contest in doubt

And if you can't, then you may become homicidal or suicidal.

In March 2003, Rumsfeld engaged in a little bit of amateur philosophizing about the relationship between the known and the unknown: "There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know." What he forgot to add was the crucial fourth term: the "unknown knowns," the things we don't know that we know-which is precisely, the Freudian unconscious, the "knowledge which doesn't know itself," as Lacan used to say.

If Rumsfeld thinks that the main dangers in the confrontation with Iraq were the "unknown unknowns," that is, the threats from Saddam whose nature we cannot even suspect, then the Abu Ghraib scandal shows that the main dangers lie in the "unknown knowns" - the disavowed beliefs, suppositions and obscene practices we pretend not to know about, even though they form the background of our public values.

Thus, Bush was wrong. What we get when we see the photos of humiliated Iraqi prisoners is precisely a direct insight into "American values," into the core of an obscene enjoyment that sustains the American way of life.

by Slavoj Zizek at http://lacan.com/zizekrumsfeld.htm

The weekend I will be watching Zizek's Philosophy of Cinema - a treat for fans of psychoanalysis and film.

Love Affair (aka The Case of the Missing Switchboard Operator) by Serbian director Dusan Makavejev is a murder mystery and also a tragic love story set in Belgrade amidst totalitarian rule. Although short at 69 minutes, a lot of drama and social criticism is fit in mixing live action with footage of Yugoslavia's history. Woody Allen definitely saw this film but hardly references it as an influence.

Links: Bright Lights Film Journal Article, The Country of Movies: An Interview with Dusan Makavejev at Senses of Cinema, and Strictly Film School profile.

Coming Soon: WR: Mysteries of the Organism & Sweet Movie also by Makavejev

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