Many critics regarded it as the zenith of his work. "Unforgiven is the harsh, brilliant culminati... more Many critics regarded it as the zenith of his work. "Unforgiven is the harsh, brilliant culmination, indeed consummation, of themes, motifs, characterizations, and critical attitudes that have evolved in Clint Eastwood's Westerns for more than thirty years" (1). Subsequently, Eastwood has appeared in six Ilms-In the Line of Fire (Wolfgang Petersen, 1993), A Perfect World (Clint Eastwood,
The growing literature on Unforgiven (US 1992) suggests that the film attempts to examine several... more The growing literature on Unforgiven (US 1992) suggests that the film attempts to examine several intersecting concerns. [1] These include generic issues pertaining to the western, such as heroism, justice, violence, and myth-making, as well as screen violence generally, the inequity of gender relations, and contemporary sociopolitical parallels. However, this criticism tends to identify the most siginficant aspect of the film as "Clint Eastwood", a figure that is the nexus of many critical debates. This figure, "Clint Eastwood", then becomes the criterion of whether or not the film succeeds as a critique of the topics it raises. As Christopher Frayling states succinctly, Unforgiven is a film "where the story of the lead actor's career and the film story become inseparable".[2] For many critics the film marked this figure's redemption as a director and/or cultural identity. Other writers, though, have derided Unforgiven for not breaking with the patterns of "Clint Eastwood's" previous work. Others still have pointed to the film's complexity and that of William Munny, Eastwood's character, who is somehow also "Clint Eastwood". Despite the critical importance of this "Eastwood" figure, there has been a tendency in Unforgiven criticism to conflate the actor/star, the character and the director into a single "Clint Eastwood". There has been little analysis of how "he" is represented stylistically in the film, that is, how this is achieved through direction. Thus, it is precisely Eastwood the director who is repressed in these discussions. It is my contention that Eastwood's direction constructs William Munny and the Eastwood persona in ambiguous and complex ways. If this is the case, why do critics eschew his direction in favour of "forgiving" or "damning" the less sophisticated "Clint Eastwood" they perceive in the film? Hypothesis: critics have an affective investment in "Eastwood" that underpins their interpretations. In order to provide a basis for comparing Unforgiven criticism with the film, let us begin by considering the depiction of William Munny. Munny seems to be constructed in binary terms. Early in the film he appears to be a family man and farmer: if he returns to crime, it is because of financial desperation. William Beard argues that the film suggests his dead wife, Claudia, forgave Munny, in an unseen period that predates the film's opening. This enabled Munny to escape from "a maelstrom of nihilistic compulsive violence and drunken self-obliteration"[3]. It is the (humiliating) death of Munny's old partner, Ned Logan, late in the film that provokes his return to violence. Beard claims, Ned's death is also Munny's loss of his "good" self, his loss of Claudia's forgiveness and his own self-forgiveness. When he walks into Greely's to kill Skinny and Little Bill he is a creature who has lost salvation, a damned soul, "unforgiven" (50). However, the film indicates that Munny's transformation is far more gradual. In this regard, Julia Kristeva's discussion of forgiveness in Fydor Dostoyevsky's work is useful. [4] Kristeva argues that the act of forgiveness enables the criminal's "confession" to be heard without judgement. Although the past is not forgotten, it is displaced. This creates an opportunity for psychological renewal (of the kind Munny apparently experienced after marrying Claudia). Yet it is important to note that, despite the redemptive act, the past is always present somewhere. While Kristeva does not consider it explicitly, it seems that the criminal will commit further crimes if he loses or rejects forgiveness. When the Schofield Kid arrives at the Munny farm to invite Munny to join him in collecting the bounty offered by the wronged prositutes of Big Whiskey, the narrative and mise-enscène look simple and clear. Munny is an old man flailing around in the dirt trying to save his hogs from disease. While he listens to the Kid's story, he rejects the younger man's
As scholars have reconsidered early scholarship on affective contagion and immaterial forms of co... more As scholars have reconsidered early scholarship on affective contagion and immaterial forms of communication, there has been a renewed interest in Freud's work on suggestion, telepathy and transference. This article will employ Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen's critique of Freud to develop an alternative account of the relation between affect and subjectivity. I will argue that the performative identification or affective mimesis found in both the rapport of suggestion and the psychoanalytic transference creates and dislocates affect even in the absence of the hypnotist or doctor.
Media International Australia incorporating Culture and Policy
In a culture saturated with media images of terrorism, it is all too easy to conflate identities ... more In a culture saturated with media images of terrorism, it is all too easy to conflate identities with representation. This article explores some of the sense made by terrorist figures such as master criminals, serial killers, bushrangers and the shuhada. It suggests the complexity of such cultural tropes by indicating some of the ways in which they are deployed and thought within the specific experiences of the authors. The piece takes the form of a free-flowing dialogue that disrupts the identities of the speakers. There is a sense in which terror is evoked directly in images: skyscrapers falling, the rubble of what was once a nightclub, explosions, bodies, the faces of grief — or, if these are not simple images of terror, they only require simple stories to become them. This piece takes the form of a free-flowing ‘dialogue’ in which the speakers — the terrorist and the collaborator — are deliberately not identified.
Review(s) of: The Silence of the Lamps, by Yvonne Tasker, BFI Publishing, London 2002. Includes e... more Review(s) of: The Silence of the Lamps, by Yvonne Tasker, BFI Publishing, London 2002. Includes endnotes.
This article analyses the problem of transmitting the affects of film viewing, especially melanch... more This article analyses the problem of transmitting the affects of film viewing, especially melancholia, through writing. It employs the work of Barthes, Derrida and Kristeva.
The article examines the stylistic influence of Kyle Cooper's renowned opening title sequence of ... more The article examines the stylistic influence of Kyle Cooper's renowned opening title sequence of Se7en on other serial killer texts.
Vertigo and the Maelstrom of Criticism Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958) is a site of cultural fas... more Vertigo and the Maelstrom of Criticism Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958) is a site of cultural fascination. Brian de Palma has remade the film twice (Obsession [1976], Body double [1984]), while it has been reworked or quoted in films such as Twelve monkeys (Terry Gilliam, 1995), Basic instinct (Paul Verhoeven, 1992), and Color of night (Richard Rush, 1994). Chris Marker pays tribute to Vertigo ("a film I had seen nineteen times") in his meditation on cinematic memory, Sans soleil (1983), by making "pilgrimage to all the film's locations," following "Madeleine as Scottie had done". Katie Trumpener argues that Vertigo "has long been the object of unusually obsessive, self-involved, often autobiographical commentary." 1 The publicity surrounding the release of the 'restored' version and the continuation of Vertigo tours in San Francisco indicate that the film still enchants people half a century after its release. 2 This delirium also affects critics. In her 1991 article "Allegory and Referentiality: Vertigo and Feminist Criticism" Susan White contends that there is a critical fixation on the female victim in and around Vertigo that involves a "melancholy identification with female suffering and with the woman as lost object" (925). 3 This article will examine the nature of this "melancholy identification" in order to highlight parallels between the position of critics and the film that have significant implications for understanding their obsession with Vertigo.
This article explores John Carpenter's last four films in the context of his retirement from cine... more This article explores John Carpenter's last four films in the context of his retirement from cinema, his reputation and influence: It analyses Ghosts of Mars, Cigarette Burns, Pro-Life, and The Ward
... Issue 152 (Apr 2007). The Silence of the Lambs [Book Review]. Groves, Tim (Reviewed by) 1. Fu... more ... Issue 152 (Apr 2007). The Silence of the Lambs [Book Review]. Groves, Tim (Reviewed by) 1. Full Text PDF (149kb). To cite this article: Groves, Tim. ... [cited 23 Oct 10]. Personal Author:Groves, Tim. Source: Metro Magazine: Media & Education Magazine, No. ...
Abstract: In a culture saturated with media images of terrorism, it is all too easy to conflate i... more Abstract: In a culture saturated with media images of terrorism, it is all too easy to conflate identities with representation. This article explores some of the sense made by terrorist figures such as master criminals, serial killers, bushrangers and the shuhada. It suggests the complexity ...
Many critics regarded it as the zenith of his work. "Unforgiven is the harsh, brilliant culminati... more Many critics regarded it as the zenith of his work. "Unforgiven is the harsh, brilliant culmination, indeed consummation, of themes, motifs, characterizations, and critical attitudes that have evolved in Clint Eastwood's Westerns for more than thirty years" (1). Subsequently, Eastwood has appeared in six Ilms-In the Line of Fire (Wolfgang Petersen, 1993), A Perfect World (Clint Eastwood,
The growing literature on Unforgiven (US 1992) suggests that the film attempts to examine several... more The growing literature on Unforgiven (US 1992) suggests that the film attempts to examine several intersecting concerns. [1] These include generic issues pertaining to the western, such as heroism, justice, violence, and myth-making, as well as screen violence generally, the inequity of gender relations, and contemporary sociopolitical parallels. However, this criticism tends to identify the most siginficant aspect of the film as "Clint Eastwood", a figure that is the nexus of many critical debates. This figure, "Clint Eastwood", then becomes the criterion of whether or not the film succeeds as a critique of the topics it raises. As Christopher Frayling states succinctly, Unforgiven is a film "where the story of the lead actor's career and the film story become inseparable".[2] For many critics the film marked this figure's redemption as a director and/or cultural identity. Other writers, though, have derided Unforgiven for not breaking with the patterns of "Clint Eastwood's" previous work. Others still have pointed to the film's complexity and that of William Munny, Eastwood's character, who is somehow also "Clint Eastwood". Despite the critical importance of this "Eastwood" figure, there has been a tendency in Unforgiven criticism to conflate the actor/star, the character and the director into a single "Clint Eastwood". There has been little analysis of how "he" is represented stylistically in the film, that is, how this is achieved through direction. Thus, it is precisely Eastwood the director who is repressed in these discussions. It is my contention that Eastwood's direction constructs William Munny and the Eastwood persona in ambiguous and complex ways. If this is the case, why do critics eschew his direction in favour of "forgiving" or "damning" the less sophisticated "Clint Eastwood" they perceive in the film? Hypothesis: critics have an affective investment in "Eastwood" that underpins their interpretations. In order to provide a basis for comparing Unforgiven criticism with the film, let us begin by considering the depiction of William Munny. Munny seems to be constructed in binary terms. Early in the film he appears to be a family man and farmer: if he returns to crime, it is because of financial desperation. William Beard argues that the film suggests his dead wife, Claudia, forgave Munny, in an unseen period that predates the film's opening. This enabled Munny to escape from "a maelstrom of nihilistic compulsive violence and drunken self-obliteration"[3]. It is the (humiliating) death of Munny's old partner, Ned Logan, late in the film that provokes his return to violence. Beard claims, Ned's death is also Munny's loss of his "good" self, his loss of Claudia's forgiveness and his own self-forgiveness. When he walks into Greely's to kill Skinny and Little Bill he is a creature who has lost salvation, a damned soul, "unforgiven" (50). However, the film indicates that Munny's transformation is far more gradual. In this regard, Julia Kristeva's discussion of forgiveness in Fydor Dostoyevsky's work is useful. [4] Kristeva argues that the act of forgiveness enables the criminal's "confession" to be heard without judgement. Although the past is not forgotten, it is displaced. This creates an opportunity for psychological renewal (of the kind Munny apparently experienced after marrying Claudia). Yet it is important to note that, despite the redemptive act, the past is always present somewhere. While Kristeva does not consider it explicitly, it seems that the criminal will commit further crimes if he loses or rejects forgiveness. When the Schofield Kid arrives at the Munny farm to invite Munny to join him in collecting the bounty offered by the wronged prositutes of Big Whiskey, the narrative and mise-enscène look simple and clear. Munny is an old man flailing around in the dirt trying to save his hogs from disease. While he listens to the Kid's story, he rejects the younger man's
As scholars have reconsidered early scholarship on affective contagion and immaterial forms of co... more As scholars have reconsidered early scholarship on affective contagion and immaterial forms of communication, there has been a renewed interest in Freud's work on suggestion, telepathy and transference. This article will employ Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen's critique of Freud to develop an alternative account of the relation between affect and subjectivity. I will argue that the performative identification or affective mimesis found in both the rapport of suggestion and the psychoanalytic transference creates and dislocates affect even in the absence of the hypnotist or doctor.
Media International Australia incorporating Culture and Policy
In a culture saturated with media images of terrorism, it is all too easy to conflate identities ... more In a culture saturated with media images of terrorism, it is all too easy to conflate identities with representation. This article explores some of the sense made by terrorist figures such as master criminals, serial killers, bushrangers and the shuhada. It suggests the complexity of such cultural tropes by indicating some of the ways in which they are deployed and thought within the specific experiences of the authors. The piece takes the form of a free-flowing dialogue that disrupts the identities of the speakers. There is a sense in which terror is evoked directly in images: skyscrapers falling, the rubble of what was once a nightclub, explosions, bodies, the faces of grief — or, if these are not simple images of terror, they only require simple stories to become them. This piece takes the form of a free-flowing ‘dialogue’ in which the speakers — the terrorist and the collaborator — are deliberately not identified.
Review(s) of: The Silence of the Lamps, by Yvonne Tasker, BFI Publishing, London 2002. Includes e... more Review(s) of: The Silence of the Lamps, by Yvonne Tasker, BFI Publishing, London 2002. Includes endnotes.
This article analyses the problem of transmitting the affects of film viewing, especially melanch... more This article analyses the problem of transmitting the affects of film viewing, especially melancholia, through writing. It employs the work of Barthes, Derrida and Kristeva.
The article examines the stylistic influence of Kyle Cooper's renowned opening title sequence of ... more The article examines the stylistic influence of Kyle Cooper's renowned opening title sequence of Se7en on other serial killer texts.
Vertigo and the Maelstrom of Criticism Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958) is a site of cultural fas... more Vertigo and the Maelstrom of Criticism Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958) is a site of cultural fascination. Brian de Palma has remade the film twice (Obsession [1976], Body double [1984]), while it has been reworked or quoted in films such as Twelve monkeys (Terry Gilliam, 1995), Basic instinct (Paul Verhoeven, 1992), and Color of night (Richard Rush, 1994). Chris Marker pays tribute to Vertigo ("a film I had seen nineteen times") in his meditation on cinematic memory, Sans soleil (1983), by making "pilgrimage to all the film's locations," following "Madeleine as Scottie had done". Katie Trumpener argues that Vertigo "has long been the object of unusually obsessive, self-involved, often autobiographical commentary." 1 The publicity surrounding the release of the 'restored' version and the continuation of Vertigo tours in San Francisco indicate that the film still enchants people half a century after its release. 2 This delirium also affects critics. In her 1991 article "Allegory and Referentiality: Vertigo and Feminist Criticism" Susan White contends that there is a critical fixation on the female victim in and around Vertigo that involves a "melancholy identification with female suffering and with the woman as lost object" (925). 3 This article will examine the nature of this "melancholy identification" in order to highlight parallels between the position of critics and the film that have significant implications for understanding their obsession with Vertigo.
This article explores John Carpenter's last four films in the context of his retirement from cine... more This article explores John Carpenter's last four films in the context of his retirement from cinema, his reputation and influence: It analyses Ghosts of Mars, Cigarette Burns, Pro-Life, and The Ward
... Issue 152 (Apr 2007). The Silence of the Lambs [Book Review]. Groves, Tim (Reviewed by) 1. Fu... more ... Issue 152 (Apr 2007). The Silence of the Lambs [Book Review]. Groves, Tim (Reviewed by) 1. Full Text PDF (149kb). To cite this article: Groves, Tim. ... [cited 23 Oct 10]. Personal Author:Groves, Tim. Source: Metro Magazine: Media & Education Magazine, No. ...
Abstract: In a culture saturated with media images of terrorism, it is all too easy to conflate i... more Abstract: In a culture saturated with media images of terrorism, it is all too easy to conflate identities with representation. This article explores some of the sense made by terrorist figures such as master criminals, serial killers, bushrangers and the shuhada. It suggests the complexity ...
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