Guy Debord Quotes (1931-1994)
The spectacle is not a collection of images, but a social relation among people, mediated by images.
The more powerful the class, the more it claims not to exist.
In our society now, we prefer to see ourselves living than living.
The spectacle is nothing more than the common language of this separation. What binds the spectators together is no more than an irreversible relation at the very center which maintains their isolation. The spectacle reunites the separate, but reunites it as separate.
Just as early industrial capitalism moved the focus of existence from being to having, post-industrial culture has moved that focus from having to appearing.
With the destruction of history, contemporary events themselves retreat into a remote and fabulous realm of unverifiable stories, uncheckable statistics, unlikely explanations and untenable reasoning.
When art becomes independent and paints its world in dazzling colours, a moment of life has grown old. Such a moment cannot be rejuvenated by dazzling colours, it can only be evoked in memory. The greatness of art only emerges at the dusk of life.
Behind the mask of total choice, different forms of the same alienation confront each other.
Conversely, real life is materially invaded by the contemplation of the spectacle, and ends up absorbing it and aligning itself with it.
Work is only justified by leisure time. To admit the emptiness of leisure time is to admit the impossibility of life.
Spectacle is the sun that never sets over the empire of modern passivity.
The advertisements during intermission are the truest reflection of an intermission from life.
Here, in order to remain human, men must remain the same.
6 comments:
Very deep. Where do you or should I ask how do you know all this? Sometimes I feel very inadequate. You are rather genius, aren't you?
L
Nope. I learned all this from mr. ducky... he gave me a crash course in Leftism many years ago and I'm still just catching up with him. There's way too much to learn, and most people on the Right refuse to look into psychology, let alone culture and film, seiously
If there's no car chases and shootouts the film ain't worth shit.
Spoken like a Marvel Universe guy...
Take the classic existentialist ouerve Texas Chainsaw Massacre, for example. In this sad tale we have "Leatherface," a mentally challenged and mute man forced to provide for his family when the local slaughterhouse lays off all of its employees and soon the town is so destitute that the only gas station there stops receiving fuel deliveries and Leatherface's brother is forced to hitchhike up and down the highway, taking Polaroid pictures of those who pick him up, which he tries to sell for money, also trying to provide for his family. Now, of course we are supposed to empathize with the people who abandoned this town and suddenly want to come back to see how they old neglected family property is doing, but the real story here is the lack of humanity. These people want to remain detached, visiting the people of this old forgotten town as tourists visiting a zoo, never once questioning their own societal role in how the people they left behind have had to resort to cannibalism. The struggle of the everyman couldn't be more clear. Even as the tourists sneer at how these impoverished people have had to resort to building furniture from human bones, not once does it occur to them to be compassionate and charitable. As Leatherface...not actually named that...seeks to regain human dignity by wearing the skin of the faces of the tourists, you can almost hear his cries to be accepted by the outside world...except that he's mute. It's art that makes you think. Leatherface's silence is overwhelmed by the screams of horror and the sounds of his revving chainsaw as he demonstrates his meat butchering skills, but on a second viewing it's all sound effects. The gore and violence of the film is largely left to imagination...an indictment of what's in the minds of the audience if there ever was one.
Compare the elegance of Texas Chainsaw Massacre's revelation of the garbage in your head to similar films like the Graduate...we never actually see Mrs. Robinson nude yet the carnal, lascivious perversions of the audience will swear they have watched hardcore pornography. Kookoo Kachoo...you paid to see what's been in your head the whole time.
So, car chases, explosions, and being too cool to look at them, that's in your head as well.
Ahh... you are humanitarian, isn't it, TC?
Can you state what kind of? ;-)
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