welsh
Junkmaster
I saw this while going through the NY TImes web page and though, hmmm... kind of neat. SO what do you think.
There has been quite a bit of work done on horror films and their appeal- some of that is developed here.
February 28, 2004
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
Big Movies, Bad Dreams
By COLIN McGINN
ach year the Academy Awards raise the same question: why is it that so many commercially successful films receive so little critical acclaim? Why, say, does "Titanic" win for best picture but "Aliens" gets nowhere, despite being made by the same director, James Cameron? The general assumption seems to be that such popular fare is flawed artistically — that it is inept, poorly acted, shoddily produced. But that is surely false; often such films are imaginative and expertly made. Nor would it be correct to say that they fail to engage our deeper concerns. So, what's the problem?
I have a theory: these critically neglected films tap most forcefully into a dreamlife we'd prefer to keep under wraps. A typical anxiety dream, for example, closely resembles a horror or suspense film, and we have no wish to dignify this aspect of our nature with some sort of award. Sex and violence are also elements of our baser dreaming selves, so a movie that evokes these themes is apt to strike a nerve of embarrassment. As a result, we repress these movies, just as we repress the materials of our more shameful dreams.
Sure, we still go to see them. After all, they enable us to engage with the fears, anxieties, lusts, childish exhilarations and delusions of power that occur in our dreams. But don't we also joke about enjoying these films? And don't we refuse to honor them?
Critical inattention, then, is a form of collective repression. I don't mean in the Freudian sense that we disguise our true unconscious feelings in our dreams — indeed, I think these feelings are only too apparent — but rather in the sense that we don't want these feelings to be rewarded. We are dream puritans, and this attitude conditions our feelings about the movies we like or esteem.
Of course, there are exceptions. This year, for example, "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" improbably combines a strongly dreamlike content with critical acclaim. But the movie exempts itself from the usual opprobrium because it enjoys a solid literary pedigree and because it stresses another aspect of our attitude toward our dreams — our tendency to associate them with the spiritual. For most of pre-Freudian history the dream was taken as a route to the divine, and this noble connotation still survives in attenuated form. When violent movies are exempted, it is perhaps because they are historical or documentary in nature, and laden with conscience ("Gladiator," "Platoon").
But the movie that sticks to the primordial dream formula — inarticulate, visceral, guilt-free — is still the one most likely to triumph at the box office, and to suffer the corresponding critical disdain. Don't expect the remake of "Dawn of the Dead" to win big at the Oscars any time soon.
Colin McGinn, a professor of philosophy at Rutgers, is writing a book about movies and dreams.
There has been quite a bit of work done on horror films and their appeal- some of that is developed here.
February 28, 2004
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
Big Movies, Bad Dreams
By COLIN McGINN
ach year the Academy Awards raise the same question: why is it that so many commercially successful films receive so little critical acclaim? Why, say, does "Titanic" win for best picture but "Aliens" gets nowhere, despite being made by the same director, James Cameron? The general assumption seems to be that such popular fare is flawed artistically — that it is inept, poorly acted, shoddily produced. But that is surely false; often such films are imaginative and expertly made. Nor would it be correct to say that they fail to engage our deeper concerns. So, what's the problem?
I have a theory: these critically neglected films tap most forcefully into a dreamlife we'd prefer to keep under wraps. A typical anxiety dream, for example, closely resembles a horror or suspense film, and we have no wish to dignify this aspect of our nature with some sort of award. Sex and violence are also elements of our baser dreaming selves, so a movie that evokes these themes is apt to strike a nerve of embarrassment. As a result, we repress these movies, just as we repress the materials of our more shameful dreams.
Sure, we still go to see them. After all, they enable us to engage with the fears, anxieties, lusts, childish exhilarations and delusions of power that occur in our dreams. But don't we also joke about enjoying these films? And don't we refuse to honor them?
Critical inattention, then, is a form of collective repression. I don't mean in the Freudian sense that we disguise our true unconscious feelings in our dreams — indeed, I think these feelings are only too apparent — but rather in the sense that we don't want these feelings to be rewarded. We are dream puritans, and this attitude conditions our feelings about the movies we like or esteem.
Of course, there are exceptions. This year, for example, "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" improbably combines a strongly dreamlike content with critical acclaim. But the movie exempts itself from the usual opprobrium because it enjoys a solid literary pedigree and because it stresses another aspect of our attitude toward our dreams — our tendency to associate them with the spiritual. For most of pre-Freudian history the dream was taken as a route to the divine, and this noble connotation still survives in attenuated form. When violent movies are exempted, it is perhaps because they are historical or documentary in nature, and laden with conscience ("Gladiator," "Platoon").
But the movie that sticks to the primordial dream formula — inarticulate, visceral, guilt-free — is still the one most likely to triumph at the box office, and to suffer the corresponding critical disdain. Don't expect the remake of "Dawn of the Dead" to win big at the Oscars any time soon.
Colin McGinn, a professor of philosophy at Rutgers, is writing a book about movies and dreams.
