Episode 164: Towards a Weird Materialism: On Expressionism in Cinema

Weird Studies

Phil Ford and J. F. Martel

Society & Culture, Arts, Philosophy

4.8 • 688 Ratings

🗓️ 6 March 2024

⏱️ 89 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What is expressionism? A school? A movement? A philosophy? At the end of this episode, Phil and JF agree that it is, above all, a sensibility, one that surfaces periodically in history, punctuating it with occasional bursts of frenetic colour and eruptions of light and shadow. Whenever it appears, expressionism challenges our tendency to divide the world up into neat quadrants: mind and matter, subject and object lose their legitimacy as they start to bleed into one another. Prior to recording, your hosts agreed to focus on two pieces of writing: Victoria Nelson's The Secret Life of Puppets and a recent Internet post on eighties and nineties American films entitled "Neo-Expressionism: The Forgotten Studio Style." Though focused on a number of films, the conversation includes forays into the world of the visual arts, literature, and music. Support us on Patreon. Buy the Weird Studies soundtrack, volumes 1 and 2, on Pierre-Yves Martel's Bandcamp page. Listen to Meredith Michael and Gabriel Lubell's podcast, Cosmophonia. Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop Find us on Discord Get the T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau! REFERENCES comrade_yui, “neo-expressionism: the forgotten studio style” Victoria Nelson, The Secret Life of Puppets Francis Ford Coppola, Bram Stoker’s Dracula Weird Studies, Episode 161 on ‘From Hell’ Bram Stoker, Dracula E. H. Gombrich, The Story of Art Jean-Francois Millet, “Gleaners” Kathe Kollwitz, “Need” Robert Weine, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari Arnold Schoneberg, Pierrot Lunaire Gilles Deleuze, Cinema 1 Peter Yates (dir.), Krull Wilhelm Worringer, German art historian Weird Studies, Episode 136 on ‘The Evil Dead’ In Camera The Naive Visual Effects of Dracula Kenneth Gross, Puppet: An Essay on Uncanny Life Weird Studies, Episode 121 ‘Mandwagon’ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Spectrevision Radio
0:02.0	Welcome to Weird Studies, an arts and philosophy podcast with hosts Phil Ford and J.F. Martel.
0:20.0	For more episodes, or to support the podcast,
0:23.3	go to weirdstud J.F. Martel.
0:53.4	First, a quick announcement. Starting on March 28th,
0:56.8	2004, I'll be offering a new course on the Mutations Learning platform, previously known as
1:02.9	Neural Learning. The title of the course is All Is Full of Love, the films of Stanley Kubrick.
1:09.6	For details, please visit Mutations.blog or look for the post on the Weird Studies Patreon.
1:15.7	Last time on Weird Studies, we discussed the devil card and the tarot.
1:20.1	As per our custom with these major Trump episodes, we seize the opportunity not merely to address
1:25.9	the devil's role within the divinatory system of the taro,
1:29.4	but also to consider the devil more broadly as a symbol, a figure, an entity.
1:35.0	Naturally, we can only skim the surface, and now I'd like to direct your attention to one aspect of the archetype
1:41.5	that we lack the time to address previously.
1:44.8	I'm thinking of the devil's association with materialism.
1:48.5	Materialism understood as both an unhealthy attachment to worldly goods and power
1:52.7	and a metaphysical stance that confines reality to what can be measured and weighed or bought
1:58.5	and sold.
1:59.9	When the anti-natalist policeman Rusty Cole,
2:03.4	portrayed by Matthew McConaughey in season one of the HBO series True Detective,
2:08.7	describes time as a flat circle.
2:11.5	And I quote,
	...

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