Preliminary thoughts: It’s an extremely moving film that absents all forms of bullshit, leaving only
what’s actually happening without any explanation. The viewer feels like an
alien observing an alien world where some sort of crime seems to be unfolding.
There’s an impulse to stop and play things back [as in the original Manchurian Candidate], looking for small
signs and it pays off. One gets the sense of, if not the futility of
transgression, the larger framework in which it’s only a function of its
context.
I
also think Carruth, who wrote and starred in the film as well, which is
meticulously independent of any Hollywood influence, has found a way to dramatize
spiritual materialism in a truly groundbreaking way that leaves the viewer stunned
and speechless by all the terrible beauty passing by on the screen…occurring
beyond one’s influence [the pain of being an observer unable to participate, or,
better, at best being only able to observe their participation much like the
characters observe, on some level, the things they find themselves doing]. To
say the upstream flow “ends” at the source…the organic blue stain…isn’t quite
right, but not far off either. It displays the kind of against-the-grain biocentrism
that separates the adults like Thoreau from the children like Emerson...the
people who can accept the acid trip vs. those who take exception to it…The
world isn’t what it first seems…It’s better than that…and it will either make
you feel good or bad…it all depends who/what you think you are and what/how one
observes what one’s doing…and it all seems further entangled, somehow, on a
quantum level the curious keep looking for…make human sense of…committing
murder along the way.
The
philosophy here is Thoreauvian and therefore more Arne Naess and Helen
Caldicott than the Sierra Club [which is thankfully moving away from its
Emersonian attitude to a vibe that resonates more with its true source, John
Muir, as planetary conditions—the song itself—deteriorate with entropy and time].
A little hint about the “plot:” The worms/larvae might be viewed as an army
formed by a certain meme, as Dennett describes
it. They seem a metaphor's morphic resonance recurring in the biological realm,
in the physiology of their host organisms.
One might view Upstream as a
display of commensalism, mutualism, amensalism, parasitism and/or symbiosis
among and within species on various scales…and one can’t help but think of E.O.
Wilson’s consilience…Carruther reveals imagination becoming process becoming
film becoming a viewing that resonates for days...
The
film embodies the impossibility of distinguishing observation from
participation. For a human being to participate, she must observe. To observe,
he must participate. Observational participation requires a mixing of
identities, a further evolution of what’s actually happening…and none of it can
ever be avoided…
*****
This morning, beginning to think again
about the film and how it relates to my above stated project, I began
scratching notes on a sticky pad. These notes appeared in two distinct columns.
The subtle difference between the two columns, I think, is that the left hand
column, for which Reck and Thoreau exemplify the list, are more observer than
participant in their subject matter. Thoreau’s participation with Nature is
something that evolved out of his way of perceiving it. Reck, of course, was as
aloof as he could be to the Nazis. The right hand column of participants is
headed by Celine and Bukowski. One might think Sade would fall into this
category, and they’d be right if the characteristics I listed for the grouping
had been different.
For those writers whose language is
hateful, and, according to their texts participate in that which they hate, the
genesis of this behavior and perception seems rooted in their family
relations…their childhood. Celine and Bukowski seem to have hated their
fathers. Each seem to have battered self-esteem because of these relationships
and appear to minimize humanity [Father, superego, authority] in relation to
their privately felt selves. Celine and Bukowski read like beautiful losers to
me. Neither will be feted in good company and each would and did celebrate that
fact.
In the other column, to the left, whose
hateful language is based on astute observations of their communities, from
which they held themselves aloof, I believe the genesis of their antipathy
derives from a love of nature and Truth. They are idealists whose love of goodness
drives their hatred as they perceive their societies, their civilizations,
destroying everything they hold dear and beautiful out of some sort of satanic
malice. Also, Reck and Thoreau, unlike Celine and Bukowski, were winners, or of
higher socio-economic status. The observers’ standing was more elevated than
the participants’ view. Reck and Thoreau found ways to transcend, by which I
mean go beyond [not necessarily “above”], while Celine-Bukowski dove right the
fuck in…
Sade, of course, fits into neither
category—or maybe both. He had too much self-esteem and had a decent childhood
to match well with Celine or Bukowski. He did, however, dive right into his
shit. He was a beautiful loser, too, but didn’t minimize humanity relative to
himself but, like the observers Reck and Thoreau, minimized humanity relative
to the cosmos, putting us in our proper place. Sade may have been arrogant
relative to his fellow humans, but he was also downright humble about human
beings relative to their [our] possible place in a “moral universe.”
What they all have in common is a hatred
of human arrogance, which is something Carruth’s Upstream Colors disintegrates by actively absenting all ideology
from his film’s plot [though the same can’t be said for its structure and
themes]. It simply shows how we humans function in the germ-sphere…and what our
best hopes might consist of…
I’ll stop there, but when I pick it up
again I’ll be including Bataille, who says some interesting things about evil
and literature that, in my way of thinking and feeling, are just plain wrong…
No comments:
Post a Comment