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And by a prudent flight and cunning save A life which valour could not, from the grave. A better buckler I can soon regain, But who can get another life again? Archilochus

Saturday, October 14, 2017

Luv? Or Joi?

8 comments:

FreeThinke said...

Sounds like a load of pretentious post-Modern bollocks to me. The vicious tbooming, thundering sound effects, now unfortnately all too common in all "common" movies, give away the essential banality of these carryings on. A huge turnoff for me.

If you'd like to see a poignant example of what "LOVE" truly is, take a good long, searching look at Tiger Bay, a 1959 movie with Hayley Mills, Horst Buchholz and John Mills. It's available on YouTube.

Joe Cameltoe said...

Yes, I found the sound effects a bit annoying... it made it difficult to understand the dialogue. When it comes out on HBO, I'll definitely turn on the captions.

But it was visually stunning and maintained the dystopic atmosphere of the original.

It's essentially a study of what it means to be human... although I must say that it biases the artificial technology in favour of humanity. I think that the author wants the tech to seem "more noble than human"... hence all the human characters are distracted sex addicts, and the androids seem philosophers. I would think that the tech would be more likely opt for the "Lessing's son" option and avoid all the pain of life.

Joe Cameltoe said...

ps - And Joi was very much a modern "Alexa". It's not a Jim-Bob... but then "meaning" is relative.

Joe Cameltoe said...

vis Tiger Bay. Love (eros)? Or "Friendship" (philia)? I'd label it the latter, as the characters seek to improve one another through their shared experience and desire for knowledge. What starts as "pragma" (usefulness) to one another transforms to friendship (philia) as 'like' discovers 'like' (lying/murder/jealousy/theft) and both characters to "improve" one another, and eventually "for" one another. I wouldn't call it love, more than a certain mutual "sympathy/empathy" bourne of friendship (philia).

FreeThinke said...

I found Tiger Bay almost unbearably touching when it first arrived in 1959. So much so that I've never forgotten it After watching it again recently, I still feel the same, but stronger than ever now..

I don't use your sort of terminology, but the affection that develops between Horst Buccholz as the young fugitive and Hayley Mills as the pre-adolescent little girl borders ever-so-gently on the erotic. Actual sex is never suggested as a possibility, of course, but the bond of trust and growing findness that develops between the two is born of a mutual attraction that transcends the grimness and lurking aura of menace that surrounds their pure and beautiful relationship .

When he loses his one chance to escape the clutches of the law by rescuing the girl from drowning we realize wit startling clarity the truth of John 15:13: Greater love hath no man than that he lay down his life for his friends."

The expression on Buchholz's face as hugs the child at the end tells the whole story in one poignant, incredibly beautiful gesture.

Anyway, I'm glad you took the time to familiarize yourself with the film. Thank you for that.

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

Hmmm, pure and beautiful, yet filled with pragmatic deception (as when the sailor "entertains" the girl before finding a ship to escape on. Oh, yes, he confesses it to her, but still, there was the deceptive intent.

Throughout the film, the Inspector is constantly asking Haley Mills to "tell the truth" and to "stop lying". She does so only when it is "pragmatic". For she hasn't the "bond" of "intimacy through obscenity" that she shares with the sailor. There is no "trust" or "belief" in "virtue for virtue's sake".

I still think that "friendship" best describes their relationship, as much as any male's "friendship" with a woman can be "pure". ;p

Thersites said...

Perhaps a variation upon the iterated prisoner's dilemna?

FreeThinke said...

I don't possess your capacity for cynical detachment. Whether that's good or bad is for there to say, not I.

Let's just say we view the world through different prisms.

I truly believe this: "If ye would enterthe Kingdom of Heaven, first you must become as a little child."

Sundays and Cybele is another film that explores the the theme of a grown man's unusual friendship with a pre-adolescent girl. in this case an orphan imprisoned in an asylum. The "inappriate" relatinship proves tobe a beautful, life-enhancing thing for both, who are "lost souls" each in his own way.

Once again it is the cynicism –– and self-righteousness –– of the unsympathetic, morally-blind world mired in Convention outside this special relationship that interferes and thus destroys both man and girl.

At any rate getting back to Tiger Bay it is the GENUINE AFFECTION that gradually unfolds between the fugitive and the child that PURIFIES and ultimately SANCTIFIES, if you will, the nature of their relationship.

Yet another variation on Amor vincit omnia.