Cartesian Theater

Racial tensions ramp up as the heat bears down on the Brooklyn Neighborhood of Bed Stuy. Too often is is a conversation of us and them and not of just "us". Too often is it a conversation of difference instead of sameness. In 1989, three years before the L.A. riots, Spike Lee's Do the Right thing foresaw the climate of racial tension leaping into dangerous and lethal extremes. Five years later, it was this climate that lead Cornel West to publish Race Matters, cementing his place as one of the articulate voices of his intellectual generation with his insightful and necessary conversation about race relations in the United States.

Funny, insightful, and painfully honest about race relations, Spike Lee's seminal foray into film making shook audiences and forever impacted the portrayal of race in cinema. Do the Right Thing follows a day in the life of an African American pizza delivery boy as he navigates the challenges of life in Brooklyn's Bed Stuy neighborhood. Paired with the excerpt from Cornel West's 1994 book, Race Matters, Do the Right Thing plays out the often difficult, but woefully important subjects of bigotry, prejudice, and violence. In a world still plagued with these issues, Do the Right Thing still rings chillingly true. Come join us this Wednesday as we tread through these tepid waters and tackle this difficult, but still relevant conversation.

This week, The Battle of Algiers focuses on the conflict between the occupying colonialist French government and the local population of Algeria, centering on the events of, you guessed it, the battle of Algiers. Intended to be paired with the excerpt from Edward Said's Orientalism,The Battle of Algiers accurately captures the western colonialist sentiment that is impressed on the orient, specifically the middle east, that is illustrated by Said. Although filmed in 1966, The Battle of Algiers still hits uncomfortably close to home with its discussions of “legitimate torture”, the stigmatic treatment of people of middle eastern descent, and the ethicality of urban warfare and su***de bombings.

Wednesday we’ll, be watching Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation; a film that focuses on a master of surveillance as he is task with observing what at first seems as a innocuous couple having a conversation in a park. As his deconstruction and filtering of the audio from the conversation progresses, the murkier the meaning it conveys becomes. Meant to be pared with the excerpt from Michel Foucault’s Discipline and Punish, witch focuses on Bentham’s notion of the panopticon and the power of surveillance.

This week we will be screening Synecdoche New York, the directorial debut of Charlie Kaufman, famous as the screenwriter who penned Being John Malkovich and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Synecdoche New York centers around a paranoid playwright who receives the MacArthur genius grant, which he uses to produce a piece of “brutal realism”, an autobiographical play that recreates his live in duplicate, even hiring an actor to portray the actor that portrays himself. Synecdoche New York is paired with The Violence of the Letter by Jacques Derrida which we will use to analyze this film through the lens of deconstruction, which will provide us the tools to crack into the structuralist motifs and symbolism in the film as well as provide critical analysis for the motivation to include these motifs in the first place

Late Spring is by and large the best example of Japanese minimalism from the postwar period, and within its cinematography and the way that Ozu handles the elements of drama and development, lies several of the elements that Barthes illustrates in Empire of Signs.

Watch this week, Wednesday September 23rd, at 6PM in the FAC. Room 339.

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Wednesday, October 1st, we'll be screening Yasujiro Ozu’s Late Spring.... 0_0

A drama focusing on a widower and his unmarried live-in daughter who attends to all the household’s needs. The daughter has no desire to marry and only seeks to attend to her father; however, her father wants her to live her own life unhampered by his situation. This film is intended to be paired with the selection from Roland Barthes’ Empire of Signs, which explores the notion of the lack of pursuit of a transcendental signifier, and the perceived semiotic indifference present in Japanese culture.

Late Spring is by and large the best example of Japanese minimalism from the postwar period, and within its cinematography and the way that Ozu handles the elements of drama and development, lies several of the elements that Barthes illustrates in Empire of Signs.

Don't walk away.

We’ll be watching Waltz with Bashir, a controversal and animated documentary about the first Israeli/Lebanese war by filmmaker Ari Folman; examining this film through the lens of Jacques Rancière’s “distribution of the sensible” as a mechanism of analysis.

Wednesday the 18th in the FAC, Room 339 @ 6PM.

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This week, on Wednesday the 18th, we’ll be screening 2008’s Waltz with Bashir, an animated documentary about the first Israeli/Lebanese war by filmmaker Ari Folman. We’ll be examining this film through the lens of Jacques Rancière’s “distribution of the sensible” as a mechanism of analysis. The film is currently the only animated documentary in existence and garnered a fair bit of controversy, especially in Lebanon, where it is still banned. The primary focus of examination that the film explores the nature of memory as the filmmaker attempts to piece together his memories of his service in the war through interviews with friends and soldiers who also served in the same conflict, the animation serves to reinforce the murky, surreal nature of memory and sensation.

Don't miss it.

Ghost in the Shell, directed by Mamoru Oshii, will be screening in Room 339, in the FAC on Wednesday (9/9) at 6PM.

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This week in Cartesian Theater we’re screening one of our personal favorite films, Mamoru Oshii’s landmark animated film Ghost in the Shell; where we follow the exploitation of an anti-cyberterrorist task force as they hunt down a cryptic and elusive hacker named the Puppet Master.

Join us at the FAC Room 339 on Wednesday (9/9) at 6PM.

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Cartesian theater (@cartesian.theater) • Instagram photos and videos Cartesian Theater is a series of films intended to pair with readings from 3100 Critical Theory for the Visual Arts, and additionally selected movies!