Tonight, a couple of friends and I watched the film The Last Unicorn, which is a childhood favorite of mine. I encountered in the watching and discussing of this film something that I am beginning to notice in my own re-reading of Anne Carson: the difference between allowing a piece of media to be an experience and analyzing that media.
When I am in the mode of experience, I am passive. I let in color, sound, light, and feel. The act is a bit like immersing oneself in water. You may retain a sense of self and an identity, but the focus is on the way that the media interacts with you on a level both superficial and deep. There is no conscious networking between these two aspects of oneself, they simply do--like waves rippling out to meet each other and stir further movement. It is not analytic, it is not focused on deconstructing the layers between the top and the bottom.
In analysis, the focus is on peeling each layer back to reveal something new and to unravel the inner lines and connections. To deconstruct the piece, one must take a step outside of the realm of feeling and movement. At least, that has always been how I perceived it--at a distance. By grappling with a topic and with issues that have evoked emotion within me, I am beginning to see where the distance lessens and can be both beautiful and distracting.
It is hard sometimes to slow down and not assume that the feeling is obvious and the meaning that hums down from skin to depths does not occur similarly for everyone. It is not a removal of oneself from the process, but an expansion and deepening of those stirring movements into vibrations that maybe make sense. The work only becomes more imbued with feeling and meaning the more I untangle those threads within it. I hope by the end of this project I can map those moments out for someone and show them that this work is meaningful.
Some day I hope you will have the joy of feeling these media experiences merge so that your conscious and unconscious are speaking to each other. That's the kind of thing that raises the hair on the back of your neck.
ReplyDeleteThe Last Unicorn was clearly related to every one of our topics, let's be real. There is the state of liminality and how it distorts Amalthea views her own identity. And when she is physically a woman, that sense of liminality increases, rather than being cemented when that gender formation is concerned.
ReplyDeleteThere is also that hell mouth clock, like what even is that.
ALSO SCHMENDRICK IS DEFINITELY A MYSTIC. And also my favorite Jewish wizard. (sorry for shout-y caps)
I'm interested in the way you can feel your analytical brain and your emotional brain working together--the active and passive ways of viewing material. I feel similar in a lot of ways--for me, I often have trouble enjoying things because I suddenly becomes so aware of how power dynamics are at play in a piece of media, how identity formation is occurring. I think, as I tell you often, that it is important and necessary to be critical of the media we consume and love, but I also know it's sometimes so frustrating to be unable to shut the part of my brain off that wants me to over analyze the last unicorn. Sometimes I just want to watch a movie about unicorns!
I've definitely been noticing this in my own research as well. I can remember my first reading of *The Sound and the Fury* like it was yesterday (it was actually about 6 years ago). The first time it was raw and emotional and profound and brilliant and everything I ever want a book to be. Reading it, this time, for analysis has been pale in comparison. It feels detached, almost like laboratory observation. I really hope that someday I get to the conscious/unconscious level that Ian mentioned, because as it is the reading experience is dimmed.
ReplyDeleteI sometimes wonder if this is the reason that the English major 'recovery period' is a thing- where after graduating former canon lit nerds read nothing but sci fi, YA novels, and beachy romances for a couple years. In simpler works, its easier to ignore the symbolism and the implications (sometimes, not always) and immerse yourself in the experience, rather than examine every word under a 100x microscope. Thinking about this blog, I think what you're expressing has been one of the most frustrating things about my college experience so far- the difficulty of attaining genuine experience after being taught to step back and analyze.
I've definitely been noticing this in my own research as well. I can remember my first reading of *The Sound and the Fury* like it was yesterday (it was actually about 6 years ago). The first time it was raw and emotional and profound and brilliant and everything I ever want a book to be. Reading it, this time, for analysis has been pale in comparison. It feels detached, almost like laboratory observation. I really hope that someday I get to the conscious/unconscious level that Ian mentioned, because as it is the reading experience is dimmed.
ReplyDeleteI sometimes wonder if this is the reason that the English major 'recovery period' is a thing- where after graduating former canon lit nerds read nothing but sci fi, YA novels, and beachy romances for a couple years. In simpler works, its easier to ignore the symbolism and the implications (sometimes, not always) and immerse yourself in the experience, rather than examine every word under a 100x microscope. Thinking about this blog, I think what you're expressing has been one of the most frustrating things about my college experience so far- the difficulty of attaining genuine experience after being taught to step back and analyze.