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(reverberating guitar music)

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Downloaded from
YTS.MX

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Official YIFY movies site:
YTS.MX

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(ethereal synth music)

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(metal clanking)

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(engine rumbling)

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- I'm giving you a choice.

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Either put on these glasses
or start eating that trashcan.

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- I already am eating from
the trashcan all the time.

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The name of this
trashcan is ideology.

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The material force of ideology

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makes me not see what
I'm effectively eating.

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It's not only our reality
which enslaves us.

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The tragedy of our predicament,

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when we are within
ideology, is that

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when we think that we
escape it, into our dreams,

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at that point, we
are within ideology.

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(distorted chime music)

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(slow-paced guitar music)

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- "They Live" from
1988 is definitely

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one of the forgotten
masterpieces of
the Hollywood Left.

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(slow-paced saxophone music)

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It tells the story of John Nada.

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Nada, of course, in
Spanish means nothing.

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A pure subject deprived of
all substantial content.

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A homeless worker in
L.A. who, drifting around

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(wood crashes)

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one day, enters into
an abandoned church

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and finds there a strange
box full of sunglasses.

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(tape scratching)

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And when he put one of them on,

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walking along the L.A. streets,

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he discovers something weird,

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(car horn honks)

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that these glasses function like

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critique-of-ideology glasses.

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They allow you to
see the real message

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beneath all the
propaganda, publicity,

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glitz, posters, and so on.

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You see a large publicity
board telling you,

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have your holiday of a lifetime,

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and when you put the glasses on,

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you see just on the white
background a gray inscription.

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(car honking)

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We live, so we are told, in
a post-ideological society.

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We are interpolated,
that is to say,

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addressed by social authority,

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not as subjects who
should do their duty,

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sacrifice themselves, but
subjects of pleasures.

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Realize your true potential.

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Be yourself.

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Lead a satisfying life.

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When you put the glasses on,

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you see dictatorship
in democracy.

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It's the invisible order which

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sustains your apparent freedom.

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The explanation for
the existence of these

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strange ideology glasses
is the standard story

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of the "Invasion of
the Body Snatchers."

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Humanity is already under
the control of aliens.

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- Hey buddy, you gonna
pay for that or what?

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Look buddy, I don't
want no hassle today.

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Either pay for it
or put it back.

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- According to our common sense,

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we think that
ideology is something

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blurring, confusing
our straight view.

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Ideology should be glasses which

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distort our view,
and the critique of

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ideology should be
the opposite like,

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you take off the
glasses so that you can

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finally see the way
things really are.

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This precisely and
here, the pessimism of

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the film, of "They
Live" is well justified.

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This precisely is the
ultimate illusion.

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Ideology is not simply
imposed on ourselves.

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Ideology is our
spontaneous relationship

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to our social world,
how we perceive

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each meaning and
so on and so on.

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We, in a way,
enjoy our ideology.

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- Alright.

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- [Voiceover] To step out
of ideology, it hurts.

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It's a painful experience.

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You must force
yourself to do it.

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This is rendered in
a wonderful way with

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a further scene
in the film where

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John Nada tries to
force his best friend,

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John Armitage, to also
put the glasses on.

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- I don't want to fight you.

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- Come on!

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- I don't want to fight you.
- [John] Come on!

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- Stop it!
- [John] No!

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- [Voiceover] And it's the
weirdest scene in the film.

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The fight takes
eight, nine minutes.

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- Put on the glasses!

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- It may appear irrational
because why does this guy reject

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so violently to
put the glasses on?

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It is as if he is
well aware that,

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spontaneously, he
lives in a lie,

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that the glasses will
make him see the truth,

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but that this truth
can be painful,

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can shatter many
of your illusions.

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(car banging)

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This is a paradox
we have to accept.

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- Put the glasses on!

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Put 'em on!

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- The extreme violence
of liberation.

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You must be forced to be free.

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If you trust simply your
spontaneous sense of wellbeing

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or whatever you
will never get free.

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- Look!

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- Freedom hurts.

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(choir singing)

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The basic insight of
psychoanalysis is to distinguish

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between enjoyment
and simple pleasures.

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They are not the same.

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(choir singing)

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Enjoyment is
precisely enjoyment in

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disturbed pleasure,
even enjoyment in pain,

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and this excessive
factor disturbs

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the apparently
simple relationship

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between duty and pleasures.

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(choir singing)

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This is also a space
where ideology,

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up to and especially
religious ideology, operates.

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(choir singing)

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This brings me to maybe
my favorite example,

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the great classical Hollywood
film "The Sound of Music."

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(metal squeaking)

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We all know it's the
story of a nun who is

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too alive with too much energy,

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ultimately, sexual energy, to be

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constrained to
the role of a nun.

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- Oh, oh Reverend
Mother, I'm so sorry.

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I just couldn't help myself.

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The gates were
open and the hills

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were beckoning and before I--

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- Maria, I haven't summoned
you here for apologies.

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- Oh, please mother do let
me ask for forgiveness.

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One, two, three,
one, two, three,

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one, two, three,
step together, now--

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- [Voiceover] So, Mother
Superior sends her to

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the von Trapp family where she
takes care of the children.

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- Hop and under (chuckles)
Kurt, we'll have to practice--

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- Do allow me will you?

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- Mm-hmm.

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- [Voiceover] And at the
same time, of course,

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falls in love with
the Baron von Trapp.

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(lively waltz music)

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And Maria gets too
disturbed by it,

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cannot control it,
returns to the convent.

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- Oh there were times when
we would look at each other.

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Oh Mother, I could
hardly breathe.

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- Did you let him
see how you felt?

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If I did, I didn't know it.

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That's what's been torturing me.

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I was there on God's errand.

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- No wonder that in old
communist Yugoslavia

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where I saw this film
for the first time,

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exactly this scene,
or more precisely,

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the song which follows this
strange hedonist, if you want,

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advice from the mother superior,

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go back, seduce the
guy, follow this path.

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Do not betray your desire.

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Namely the song which begins
with, "Climb every mountain."

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The song which is an
almost embarrassing

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display and
affirmation of desire.

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These three minutes
were censored.

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* Climb every mountain

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* Search high and low

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* Follow every byway

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* Every path you know

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- [Voiceover] I think the sensor
was a very intelligent man.

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He knew, as probably
an atheist communist,

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where the power of attraction
of Catholic religion resides.

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* Rainbow, 'till
you find your dream.

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* A dream

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- [Voiceover] If
you read intelligent

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Catholic propagandists,
and if you really try to

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discern what deal are
they offering you,

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it's not to prohibit, in
this case sexual pleasures.

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It's a much more cynical
contract, as it were,

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between the church as an
institution and the believer,

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00:12:09,296 --> 00:12:13,533
troubled with, in this
case, sexual desires.

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It is this hidden obscene
permission that you get.

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You are covered by
the divine Big Other.

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You can do what ever
you want, enjoy.

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* Dream

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* A dream that will need

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- [Voiceover] This
obscene contract does not

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belong to Christianity as such.

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It belongs to Catholic
Church as an institution.

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* For as long as you live

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- [Voiceover] It is the logic
of institution at its purest.

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* Climb every mountain

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- [Voiceover] This
is again a key

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to the functioning of ideology.

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* Follow every rainbow

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- [Voiceover] Not only
the explicit message,

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renounce, suffer and so on,
but the true hidden message.

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00:13:08,621 --> 00:13:12,025
pretend to renounce
and you can get it all.

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(woman singing)

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00:13:16,529 --> 00:13:20,000
My psychoanalytic friends
are telling me that

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00:13:20,000 --> 00:13:25,005
typically today, patients
who come to the analyst

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00:13:26,106 --> 00:13:28,308
to resolve their
problems feel guilty,

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not because of
excessive pleasures,

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00:13:32,045 --> 00:13:36,549
not because they indulge in
pleasures which go against

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00:13:36,549 --> 00:13:40,620
their sense of duty or
morality, or whatsoever.

208
00:13:40,620 --> 00:13:44,958
On the contrary, they
feel guilty for not

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enjoying enough, for
not being able to enjoy.

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00:14:04,344 --> 00:14:07,948
(gravel crunching)

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00:14:07,948 --> 00:14:09,216
(exhales)

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00:14:14,922 --> 00:14:19,826
(gravel crunching)

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00:14:26,099 --> 00:14:28,335
Oh my god, one is thirsty in the

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00:14:28,335 --> 00:14:33,306
desert and what
to drink but Coke.

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00:14:33,306 --> 00:14:34,241
(cat meows)

216
00:14:34,241 --> 00:14:36,009
The perfect commodity, why?

217
00:14:36,009 --> 00:14:37,477
(cat meows)

218
00:14:37,477 --> 00:14:41,081
It was already Marx who long
ago emphasized that a commodity

219
00:14:41,081 --> 00:14:45,953
is never just a simple object
that we buy and consume.

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00:14:46,954 --> 00:14:51,091
A commodity is an object full of

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00:14:51,091 --> 00:14:55,528
theological, even
metaphysical niceties.

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00:14:55,528 --> 00:15:00,433
Its presence always reflects
an invisible transcendence,

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00:15:00,433 --> 00:15:04,737
and the classical
publicity for Coke

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00:15:04,737 --> 00:15:07,740
quite openly refers to this

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00:15:09,876 --> 00:15:12,679
absent, invisible quality.

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00:15:12,679 --> 00:15:17,050
Coke is the real thing
or Coke, that's it.

227
00:15:17,050 --> 00:15:19,852
What is that it, the real thing?

228
00:15:19,852 --> 00:15:24,857
It's not just another
positive property of Coke,

229
00:15:25,725 --> 00:15:27,227
something that can be described

230
00:15:27,227 --> 00:15:30,597
or pinpointed through
chemical analysis.

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00:15:30,597 --> 00:15:33,533
It's that mysterious
something more.

232
00:15:33,533 --> 00:15:35,268
(bursting pop music)

233
00:15:35,268 --> 00:15:39,006
The indescribable
excess which is

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00:15:39,006 --> 00:15:42,275
the object cause of my desire.

235
00:15:42,275 --> 00:15:44,811
(lively pop music)

236
00:15:44,811 --> 00:15:47,814
In our postmodern,
however we call them,

237
00:15:47,814 --> 00:15:51,051
societies, we are
obliged to enjoy.

238
00:15:51,051 --> 00:15:53,453
(lively pop music)

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00:15:53,453 --> 00:15:57,190
Enjoyment becomes a kind
of a weird perverted duty.

240
00:15:57,190 --> 00:16:00,793
* Enjoy, Coca-Cola, enjoy

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00:16:00,793 --> 00:16:04,031
- The paradox of Coke
is that you are thirsty.

242
00:16:04,031 --> 00:16:06,933
You drink it, but
as everyone knows,

243
00:16:06,933 --> 00:16:10,503
the more you drink it,
the more thirsty you get.

244
00:16:10,503 --> 00:16:15,108
A desire is never simply

245
00:16:15,108 --> 00:16:18,045
the desire for a certain thing.

246
00:16:18,045 --> 00:16:21,781
It's always also a
desire for desire itself,

247
00:16:21,781 --> 00:16:26,619
a desire to continue to desire.

248
00:16:26,619 --> 00:16:30,257
Perhaps the ultimate
horror of a desire is

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00:16:31,358 --> 00:16:34,361
to be fully filled in, met,

250
00:16:34,361 --> 00:16:37,730
so that I desire no longer.

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00:16:37,730 --> 00:16:41,401
The ultimate melancholic
experience is the

252
00:16:41,401 --> 00:16:46,373
experience of a loss
of desire itself.

253
00:16:47,307 --> 00:16:51,278
It's not that in
some return to a

254
00:16:51,278 --> 00:16:56,283
previous era of
natural consummation

255
00:16:57,150 --> 00:16:58,785
where we got rid of this excess

256
00:16:58,785 --> 00:17:02,222
and were only consuming
for actual needs,

257
00:17:02,222 --> 00:17:05,658
like you were thirsty, you
drank water, and so on.

258
00:17:05,658 --> 00:17:07,360
We cannot return to that.

259
00:17:07,360 --> 00:17:10,330
The excess is with us forever.

260
00:17:10,330 --> 00:17:12,599
So, let's have a drink of Coke.

261
00:17:12,599 --> 00:17:14,967
(liquid sloshes)

262
00:17:16,369 --> 00:17:18,205
It's getting warm.

263
00:17:18,205 --> 00:17:21,941
It's no longer the real
Coke, and that's the problem,

264
00:17:21,941 --> 00:17:24,010
you know, this passage from

265
00:17:25,512 --> 00:17:28,681
sublime to
excremental dimension.

266
00:17:28,681 --> 00:17:32,119
When it's cold, properly served,

267
00:17:32,119 --> 00:17:33,686
it has a certain attraction.

268
00:17:33,686 --> 00:17:36,956
All of a sudden, this
can change into shit.

269
00:17:36,956 --> 00:17:40,427
It's the elementary
dialectics of commodities.

270
00:17:40,427 --> 00:17:41,661
(cat meowing)

271
00:17:41,661 --> 00:17:43,763
We are not talking
about objective,

272
00:17:43,763 --> 00:17:46,333
factual properties
of a commodity.

273
00:17:46,333 --> 00:17:50,703
We are talking only here
about that elusive surplus.

274
00:17:50,703 --> 00:17:55,708
(soothing classical music)

275
00:17:59,946 --> 00:18:04,951
Kinder Surprise egg, a
quite astonishing commodity.

276
00:18:06,153 --> 00:18:09,556
The surprise of the
Kinder Surprise egg

277
00:18:09,556 --> 00:18:13,493
is that this excessive object,

278
00:18:13,493 --> 00:18:16,863
the cause of your desire is here

279
00:18:16,863 --> 00:18:20,767
materialized in the
guise of an object,

280
00:18:20,767 --> 00:18:24,471
a plastic toy which fills in the

281
00:18:24,471 --> 00:18:27,974
inner void of the chocolate egg.

282
00:18:27,974 --> 00:18:32,979
The whole delicate balance is
between these two dimensions,

283
00:18:32,979 --> 00:18:37,650
what you bought, the chocolate
egg, and the surplus,

284
00:18:37,650 --> 00:18:40,587
probably made in some
Chinese gulag or whatever,

285
00:18:40,587 --> 00:18:43,290
the surplus that
you get for free.

286
00:18:43,290 --> 00:18:46,993
I don't think that
the chocolate frame

287
00:18:46,993 --> 00:18:51,898
is here just to
send you on a deeper

288
00:18:51,898 --> 00:18:55,368
voyage towards the
inner treasure,

289
00:18:55,368 --> 00:18:58,871
the, what Plato
calls the agalma,

290
00:18:58,871 --> 00:19:01,541
which makes you a worthy person,

291
00:19:01,541 --> 00:19:05,278
which makes a commodity,
the desirable commodity.

292
00:19:05,278 --> 00:19:08,215
I think it's the
other way around.

293
00:19:08,215 --> 00:19:12,285
We should aim at
the higher goal,

294
00:19:12,285 --> 00:19:14,754
the gold in the
middle of an object,

295
00:19:14,754 --> 00:19:19,592
precisely in order to be
able to enjoy the surface.

296
00:19:19,592 --> 00:19:22,862
This is what is the
anti-metaphysical

297
00:19:22,862 --> 00:19:27,066
lesson, which is
difficult to accept.

298
00:19:27,066 --> 00:19:32,071
("Ode to Joy" by
Ludwig van Beethoven)

299
00:19:48,020 --> 00:19:52,259
What does this famous
"Ode to Joy" stand for?

300
00:19:53,626 --> 00:19:58,265
It's usually perceived as a
kind of ode to humanity as such

301
00:19:58,265 --> 00:20:03,035
to the brotherhood and
freedom of all people.

302
00:20:03,035 --> 00:20:05,772
And what strikes
the eye here is the

303
00:20:05,772 --> 00:20:10,243
universal adaptability of
this well-known melody.

304
00:20:10,243 --> 00:20:15,248
("Ode to Joy" by
Ludwig van Beethoven)

305
00:20:17,750 --> 00:20:20,553
It can be used by
political movements

306
00:20:20,553 --> 00:20:24,357
which are totally
opposed to each other.

307
00:20:24,357 --> 00:20:28,194
In Nazi Germany,
it was widely used

308
00:20:28,194 --> 00:20:31,264
to celebrate great
public events.

309
00:20:32,532 --> 00:20:36,102
In Soviet Union,
Beethoven was lionized,

310
00:20:36,102 --> 00:20:38,771
and the "Ode to
Joy" was performed

311
00:20:38,771 --> 00:20:41,508
almost as a kind of
a communist song.

312
00:20:41,508 --> 00:20:45,312
("Ode to Joy" by
Ludwig van Beethoven)

313
00:20:45,312 --> 00:20:49,248
In China, during the time of
the great Cultural Revolution,

314
00:20:50,483 --> 00:20:53,953
when almost all western
music was prohibited,

315
00:20:53,953 --> 00:20:56,856
the 9th symphony was accepted.

316
00:20:56,856 --> 00:20:58,725
It was allowed to play it as a

317
00:20:58,725 --> 00:21:00,927
piece of progressive
bourgeois music.

318
00:21:00,927 --> 00:21:04,431
(crowd cheering and chanting)

319
00:21:04,431 --> 00:21:07,066
("Ode to Joy" by
Ludwig van Beethoven)

320
00:21:09,936 --> 00:21:13,673
At the extreme right
in South Rhodesia,

321
00:21:13,673 --> 00:21:17,176
before it became Zimbabwe,
it proclaimed independence

322
00:21:17,176 --> 00:21:20,947
to be able to postpone the
abolishment of apartheid.

323
00:21:20,947 --> 00:21:22,682
("Ode to Joy" by
Ludwig van Beethoven)

324
00:21:22,682 --> 00:21:25,117
Therefore, those couple
of years of independence,

325
00:21:25,117 --> 00:21:28,888
South Rhodesia, again the
melody of the "Ode to Joy"

326
00:21:28,888 --> 00:21:31,123
with changed lyrics of course,

327
00:21:31,123 --> 00:21:33,593
was the anthem of the country.

328
00:21:33,593 --> 00:21:38,097
("Ode to Joy" by
Ludwig van Beethoven)

329
00:21:39,532 --> 00:21:43,770
(crowd chanting)

330
00:21:43,770 --> 00:21:46,973
At the opposite end,
when Abimael Guzman,

331
00:21:46,973 --> 00:21:50,777
Presidente Gonzalo,,
the leader of

332
00:21:50,777 --> 00:21:54,447
Sendero Luminoso,
the Shining Path,

333
00:21:54,447 --> 00:21:58,618
the extreme leftist
guerrilla in Peru,

334
00:21:58,618 --> 00:22:00,820
when he was asked
by a journalist

335
00:22:00,820 --> 00:22:03,956
which piece of music
is his favorite,

336
00:22:03,956 --> 00:22:08,961
he claimed, again, Beethoven's
9th symphony, "Ode to Joy."

337
00:22:10,062 --> 00:22:12,665
("Ode to Joy" by
Ludwig van Beethoven)

338
00:22:12,665 --> 00:22:15,067
When Germany was still divided,

339
00:22:15,067 --> 00:22:19,739
and their team was appearing
together at the Olympics,

340
00:22:19,739 --> 00:22:22,775
when one of the Germans
won golden medal,

341
00:22:22,775 --> 00:22:25,144
(crowd cheering)

342
00:22:25,144 --> 00:22:27,514
again, "Ode to Joy" was played

343
00:22:27,514 --> 00:22:32,018
instead of either East or
West German national anthem.

344
00:22:32,018 --> 00:22:36,022
And even now today,
"Ode to Joy" is the

345
00:22:36,022 --> 00:22:39,726
unofficial anthem
of European Union.

346
00:22:39,726 --> 00:22:44,731
("Ode to Joy" by
Ludwig van Beethoven)

347
00:23:01,548 --> 00:23:06,118
So it's truly that we
can imagine a kind of a

348
00:23:06,118 --> 00:23:09,489
perverse scene of
universal fraternity

349
00:23:09,489 --> 00:23:13,960
where Osama Bin Laden is
embracing President Bush,

350
00:23:13,960 --> 00:23:17,029
Saddam is embracing
Fidel Castro,

351
00:23:17,029 --> 00:23:20,266
white racists is
embracing Mao Zedong,

352
00:23:20,266 --> 00:23:23,603
and all together, they
sing "Ode to Joy."

353
00:23:23,603 --> 00:23:27,574
It works, and this is how

354
00:23:27,574 --> 00:23:30,309
every ideology has to work.

355
00:23:30,309 --> 00:23:32,712
It's never just meaning.

356
00:23:32,712 --> 00:23:36,949
It always has to
also work as an empty

357
00:23:36,949 --> 00:23:41,488
container open to all
possible meanings.

358
00:23:41,488 --> 00:23:45,725
It's, you know, that
gut feeling that we feel

359
00:23:45,725 --> 00:23:48,528
when we experience something
pathetic and we say,

360
00:23:48,528 --> 00:23:50,663
oh my God, I am so moved.

361
00:23:50,663 --> 00:23:52,398
There is something so deep.

362
00:23:52,398 --> 00:23:54,867
But you never know
what this depth is.

363
00:23:54,867 --> 00:23:56,368
It's a void.

364
00:23:57,504 --> 00:23:59,972
Now, of course, there
is a catch here.

365
00:23:59,972 --> 00:24:03,876
The catch is that, of course,
this neutrality of a frame

366
00:24:03,876 --> 00:24:07,413
is never as neutral
as it appears.

367
00:24:07,413 --> 00:24:12,418
(dramatic synth music)

368
00:24:13,520 --> 00:24:16,222
Here, I think the
perspective of Alex from

369
00:24:16,222 --> 00:24:18,991
the "Clockwork Orange" enters.

370
00:24:18,991 --> 00:24:20,527
- [Voiceover] We were
all feeling a bit

371
00:24:20,527 --> 00:24:23,062
shagged and fagged and fashed,

372
00:24:23,062 --> 00:24:24,964
it having been an
evening of some small

373
00:24:24,964 --> 00:24:27,934
energy expenditure,
oh my brothers.

374
00:24:27,934 --> 00:24:29,969
So we got rid of
the auto and stopped

375
00:24:29,969 --> 00:24:32,705
off at The Korova
for a nightcap.

376
00:24:32,705 --> 00:24:37,677
- Why is Alex, this
ultimate cynical delinquent,

377
00:24:37,677 --> 00:24:40,547
the hero of "Clockwork Orange"?

378
00:24:40,547 --> 00:24:44,216
Why is he so
fascinated, overwhelmed

379
00:24:44,216 --> 00:24:48,655
when he sees the lady singing
Beethoven's "Ode to Joy"?

380
00:24:48,655 --> 00:24:49,889
(woman singing in
foreign language)

381
00:24:49,889 --> 00:24:51,357
- [Voiceover] And it
was like for a moment,

382
00:24:51,357 --> 00:24:53,860
oh my brothers,
some great bird had

383
00:24:53,860 --> 00:24:57,630
flown into the milk bar
and I felt all the malenky

384
00:24:57,630 --> 00:25:01,634
little hairs on my
plott standing endwise,

385
00:25:01,634 --> 00:25:05,638
and the shivers crawling up
like slow, malenky lizards,

386
00:25:05,638 --> 00:25:10,643
and then down again because
I knew what she sang.

387
00:25:12,011 --> 00:25:14,246
It was a bit from the
glorious 9th by Ludwig van.

388
00:25:14,246 --> 00:25:15,748
(mimics fart)

389
00:25:15,748 --> 00:25:17,216
(man screams)

390
00:25:17,216 --> 00:25:20,587
- [Voiceover] Whenever
an ideological text says,

391
00:25:20,587 --> 00:25:23,590
all humanity unite
in brotherhood,

392
00:25:23,590 --> 00:25:26,292
joy, and so on, you
should always ask,

393
00:25:26,292 --> 00:25:28,494
okay, okay, okay,
but are these all,

394
00:25:28,494 --> 00:25:32,464
really all, or is
someone excluded?

395
00:25:32,464 --> 00:25:36,402
I think Alex, the delinquent
from "Clockwork Orange,"

396
00:25:36,402 --> 00:25:39,606
identifies with this
place of exclusion.

397
00:25:39,606 --> 00:25:42,609
("Ode to Joy" by
Ludwig van Beethoven)

398
00:25:42,609 --> 00:25:46,145
And the great genius
of Beethoven is that

399
00:25:46,145 --> 00:25:50,049
he literally states
this exclusion.

400
00:25:50,049 --> 00:25:53,419
All of a sudden the
whole tone changes into

401
00:25:53,419 --> 00:25:56,956
a kind of a
carnivalesque rhythm.

402
00:25:56,956 --> 00:25:59,992
It's no longer this
sublime beauty.

403
00:25:59,992 --> 00:26:03,996
("Ode to Joy" by
Ludwig van Beethoven)

404
00:26:03,996 --> 00:26:05,765
- [Man with Cane]
Excuse me, brother,

405
00:26:05,765 --> 00:26:07,033
I ordered this two weeks ago.

406
00:26:07,033 --> 00:26:08,801
Can you see if it's
arrived yet, please?

407
00:26:08,801 --> 00:26:10,770
("Ode to Joy" by
Ludwig van Beethoven)

408
00:26:10,770 --> 00:26:11,938
- Just a minute.

409
00:26:11,938 --> 00:26:16,709
("Ode to Joy" by
Ludwig van Beethoven)

410
00:26:18,144 --> 00:26:21,180
- [Voiceover] We hear this
vulgar music precisely when

411
00:26:21,180 --> 00:26:25,652
Alex enters a shopping
arcade and we can see from

412
00:26:25,652 --> 00:26:28,955
his movements that
now he feels at home.

413
00:26:28,955 --> 00:26:31,257
He is like fish in the water.

414
00:26:31,257 --> 00:26:36,228
("Ode to Joy" by
Ludwig van Beethoven)

415
00:26:38,430 --> 00:26:39,932
- Pardon me, ladies.

416
00:26:39,932 --> 00:26:41,801
- [Voiceover] Beethoven
is not a cheap celebrator

417
00:26:41,801 --> 00:26:44,203
of the brotherhood of
humanity and so on.

418
00:26:44,203 --> 00:26:46,673
We are one big happy
family enjoying

419
00:26:46,673 --> 00:26:48,841
freedom, dignity, and so on.

420
00:26:48,841 --> 00:26:50,476
- Enjoying that,
are you my darling?

421
00:26:50,476 --> 00:26:53,680
- The first part, which is
falsely celebrated today,

422
00:26:53,680 --> 00:26:55,915
you hear it in all
official events

423
00:26:55,915 --> 00:26:59,251
is clearly identified
with Beethoven

424
00:26:59,251 --> 00:27:03,690
as ideology, and then
the second part tells

425
00:27:03,690 --> 00:27:08,294
the true story of that which
disturbs the official ideology,

426
00:27:08,294 --> 00:27:11,097
and of the failure
of the official

427
00:27:11,097 --> 00:27:14,967
ideology to constrain
it, to tame it.

428
00:27:14,967 --> 00:27:18,938
This is why Beethoven
was doing something

429
00:27:18,938 --> 00:27:21,708
which may appear
difficult to do.

430
00:27:21,708 --> 00:27:25,444
He was already in the
purely musical work

431
00:27:25,444 --> 00:27:27,546
practicing critique of ideology.

432
00:27:27,546 --> 00:27:32,018
("Symphony No. 9 in D minor"
by Ludwig van Beethoven)

433
00:27:32,018 --> 00:27:36,823
If the classical ideology
functioned in the way

434
00:27:36,823 --> 00:27:39,892
designated by Marx in his nice

435
00:27:39,892 --> 00:27:42,161
formula from,
"Capital Volume I,"

436
00:27:42,161 --> 00:27:44,296
(speaking in foreign language)

437
00:27:44,296 --> 00:27:45,965
"They don't know
what they are doing,"

438
00:27:45,965 --> 00:27:48,367
"but they are none
the less doing it."

439
00:27:48,367 --> 00:27:53,072
Cynical ideology
functions in the mode of,

440
00:27:53,072 --> 00:27:55,775
"I know very well
what I am doing"

441
00:27:55,775 --> 00:27:58,544
"but I am still none
the less doing it."

442
00:27:58,544 --> 00:28:03,349
(lively orchestral music)

443
00:28:03,349 --> 00:28:08,187
This paradoxical constellation
is staged in a beautiful way

444
00:28:08,187 --> 00:28:10,823
in the famous song
"Officer Krupke"

445
00:28:10,823 --> 00:28:14,927
in Bernstein's and
Sondheim's "West Side Story."

446
00:28:14,927 --> 00:28:16,763
- Hey you!

447
00:28:16,763 --> 00:28:18,130
- Who me, Officer Krupke?

448
00:28:18,130 --> 00:28:19,431
- Yeah, you!

449
00:28:19,431 --> 00:28:20,933
Give me one good reason for not

450
00:28:20,933 --> 00:28:24,170
dragging you down to the
station house, you punk.

451
00:28:24,170 --> 00:28:28,941
* Dear kindly Sergeant
Krupke, ya gotta understand

452
00:28:28,941 --> 00:28:32,278
* it's just our bringin'
up-ke that gets us out of hand

453
00:28:32,278 --> 00:28:35,948
* Our mothers all are junkies,
our fathers all are drunks

454
00:28:35,948 --> 00:28:38,851
* Golly Moses,
natcherly we're punks

455
00:28:38,851 --> 00:28:42,388
* Gee, Officer Krupke,
we're very upset

456
00:28:42,388 --> 00:28:43,589
* We never had the

457
00:28:43,589 --> 00:28:46,425
- [Voiceover] The
delinquent gang enact

458
00:28:46,425 --> 00:28:49,328
a whole explanation
as a musical number,

459
00:28:49,328 --> 00:28:52,598
of course, of why
they are delinquents.

460
00:28:52,598 --> 00:28:56,035
* There is good, there is
good, there is untapped good

461
00:28:56,035 --> 00:28:58,104
* Like inside, the
worst of us is good *

462
00:28:58,104 --> 00:29:00,572
- [Voiceover] Addressing
the police officer, Krupke,

463
00:29:00,572 --> 00:29:04,176
who is not there but all is
addressed at the police officer.

464
00:29:04,176 --> 00:29:05,978
- That's a touchin' good story!

465
00:29:05,978 --> 00:29:07,679
- Lemme tell it to the world!

466
00:29:07,679 --> 00:29:09,615
- Just tell it to the judge.

467
00:29:09,615 --> 00:29:12,284
- [Voiceover] So one of them
adopts the position of a judge.

468
00:29:12,284 --> 00:29:14,120
(men arguing)

469
00:29:14,120 --> 00:29:15,554
(speaking gibberish)

470
00:29:15,554 --> 00:29:19,992
* Dear kindly Judge, your
Honor, my parents treat me rough

471
00:29:19,992 --> 00:29:23,029
* With all their marijuana,
they won't give me a puff *

472
00:29:23,029 --> 00:29:24,997
- [Voiceover] Then, the
psychological explanation.

473
00:29:24,997 --> 00:29:27,066
* Krupke, he shouldn't be here

474
00:29:27,066 --> 00:29:30,369
* This boy don't need a couch,
he needs a useful career

475
00:29:30,369 --> 00:29:33,840
* Society's played
him a terrible trick

476
00:29:33,840 --> 00:29:35,842
* And sociologically he's sick

477
00:29:35,842 --> 00:29:36,843
- I am sick!

478
00:29:36,843 --> 00:29:38,244
* We are sick, we are sick

479
00:29:38,244 --> 00:29:40,847
- The paradox here
is how can you

480
00:29:40,847 --> 00:29:44,283
know all this and still do it?

481
00:29:44,283 --> 00:29:48,520
This is the cynical
functioning of ideology.

482
00:29:48,520 --> 00:29:50,289
They're never what they appear

483
00:29:50,289 --> 00:29:53,392
to be cynical
brutal delinquents.

484
00:29:53,392 --> 00:29:56,728
They always have a
tiny private dream.

485
00:29:56,728 --> 00:29:58,931
This dream can be many things.

486
00:29:58,931 --> 00:30:02,501
(slow-paced orchestral music)

487
00:30:02,501 --> 00:30:05,905
It can even be something
quite ordinary.

488
00:30:05,905 --> 00:30:08,941
Let's take the English riots

489
00:30:08,941 --> 00:30:11,878
of August 2011.

490
00:30:11,878 --> 00:30:15,281
The standard liberal
explanation really sounds like

491
00:30:15,281 --> 00:30:18,985
a repetition of
"Officer Krupke" song.

492
00:30:18,985 --> 00:30:22,721
We cannot just condemn this riot

493
00:30:22,721 --> 00:30:24,924
as delinquent vandalism.

494
00:30:24,924 --> 00:30:27,659
You have to see how
these people live in

495
00:30:27,659 --> 00:30:30,562
practically ghettos,
isolated communities,

496
00:30:30,562 --> 00:30:33,933
no proper family life,
no proper education.

497
00:30:33,933 --> 00:30:38,270
They don't even have a prospect
of a regular employment.

498
00:30:38,270 --> 00:30:43,209
But this is not enough
because man is not simply

499
00:30:43,209 --> 00:30:46,378
a product of objective
circumstances.

500
00:30:46,378 --> 00:30:48,981
(operatic singing)

501
00:30:48,981 --> 00:30:52,351
We all have this
margin of freedom

502
00:30:54,053 --> 00:30:56,855
in deciding how we

503
00:30:58,290 --> 00:31:01,928
subjectivize these
objective circumstances

504
00:31:01,928 --> 00:31:04,430
which, of course, determine us,

505
00:31:04,430 --> 00:31:08,100
how we react to them by

506
00:31:08,100 --> 00:31:10,736
constructing our own universe.

507
00:31:10,736 --> 00:31:12,304
(operatic singing)

508
00:31:12,304 --> 00:31:16,508
The conservative solution
is we need more police.

509
00:31:16,508 --> 00:31:19,946
We need courts which
pass severe judgements.

510
00:31:19,946 --> 00:31:22,748
I think this solution
is too simple.

511
00:31:24,416 --> 00:31:28,187
If I listen closely to some
of David Cameron's statements,

512
00:31:28,187 --> 00:31:31,257
it looked as if okay,
they are beating people,

513
00:31:31,257 --> 00:31:34,626
burning houses, but the
truly horrible thing is

514
00:31:34,626 --> 00:31:38,264
that they were taking objects
without paying for them,

515
00:31:38,264 --> 00:31:41,600
(chuckles) the ultimate
things that we can imagine.

516
00:31:41,600 --> 00:31:44,570
In a very limited way,
Cameron was right.

517
00:31:44,570 --> 00:31:48,640
There was no ideological
justification.

518
00:31:48,640 --> 00:31:53,612
It is the reaction of people
who are totally caught

519
00:31:53,612 --> 00:31:58,217
into the predominant
ideology but have no ways

520
00:31:58,217 --> 00:32:02,854
to realize what this
ideology demands of them,

521
00:32:02,854 --> 00:32:07,593
so it's a kind of a wild
acting out within this

522
00:32:07,593 --> 00:32:10,162
ideological space
of consumerism.

523
00:32:10,162 --> 00:32:12,431
(fast-paced strings music)

524
00:32:12,431 --> 00:32:15,267
Even if we are dealing
with apparently

525
00:32:15,267 --> 00:32:18,470
totally non-ideological
brutality,

526
00:32:18,470 --> 00:32:23,009
I just want to burn
houses, to get objects,

527
00:32:23,009 --> 00:32:27,379
it is the result of a
very specific social

528
00:32:27,379 --> 00:32:31,883
and ideological constellation
where big ideology,

529
00:32:31,883 --> 00:32:36,022
striving for justice, equality,
etcetera, disintegrates.

530
00:32:37,289 --> 00:32:41,027
The only functioning
ideology is pure consumerism,

531
00:32:41,027 --> 00:32:45,031
and then no wonder what you
get as a form of protest.

532
00:32:46,798 --> 00:32:50,702
Every violent acting
out is a sign that

533
00:32:50,702 --> 00:32:55,074
there is something you are
not able to put into words.

534
00:32:55,074 --> 00:32:59,578
Even the most brutal
violence is the enacting

535
00:32:59,578 --> 00:33:03,082
of a certain symbolic deadlock.

536
00:33:04,683 --> 00:33:06,352
(gun clicks)

537
00:33:06,352 --> 00:33:10,289
The great thing about
the "Taxi Driver"

538
00:33:10,289 --> 00:33:14,860
is that it brings this
brutal outburst of

539
00:33:14,860 --> 00:33:19,565
violence to it's radical,
suicidal dimension.

540
00:33:23,735 --> 00:33:25,204
(holster scratches)

541
00:33:25,204 --> 00:33:28,340
We are not dealing here with
something which simply concerns

542
00:33:30,276 --> 00:33:35,081
the fragile psychology
of a distorted

543
00:33:35,081 --> 00:33:38,417
person, what Travis
in "Taxi Driver" is.

544
00:33:38,417 --> 00:33:42,088
It has something to
do with ideology.

545
00:33:42,088 --> 00:33:44,690
- [Voiceover] Listen, you
fuckers, you screw-heads.

546
00:33:44,690 --> 00:33:46,592
Here is a man who would not take

547
00:33:46,592 --> 00:33:49,895
it anymore, who would not let.

548
00:33:49,895 --> 00:33:53,365
Listen, you fuckers,
you screw-heads.

549
00:33:53,365 --> 00:33:56,768
Here is a man who would
not take it anymore,

550
00:33:56,768 --> 00:33:59,105
a man who stood up
against the scum,

551
00:33:59,105 --> 00:34:01,573
the cunts, the dogs,
the filth, the shit.

552
00:34:01,573 --> 00:34:04,810
Here is someone who stood up.

553
00:34:04,810 --> 00:34:08,314
- [Voiceover] In the "Taxi
Driver," Travis, the hero,

554
00:34:08,314 --> 00:34:12,718
is bothered by the
young prostitute
played by Jody Foster.

555
00:34:14,120 --> 00:34:18,357
What bothers him are, of
course, as is always the case,

556
00:34:18,357 --> 00:34:22,794
precisely his fantasies,
fantasies of her,

557
00:34:22,794 --> 00:34:26,031
victimhood of her
hidden pleasures.

558
00:34:26,031 --> 00:34:28,200
(man shouting)

559
00:34:28,200 --> 00:34:33,004
And fantasies are not just a
private matter of individuals.

560
00:34:33,004 --> 00:34:36,742
Fantasies are the central stuff

561
00:34:36,742 --> 00:34:39,945
our ideologies are made of.

562
00:34:39,945 --> 00:34:41,947
- [Prostitute]
Don't look at him.

563
00:34:41,947 --> 00:34:46,285
- Fantasy is, in
psychoanalytic perspective,

564
00:34:46,285 --> 00:34:49,821
fundamentally, a lie,
not a lie in the sense

565
00:34:49,821 --> 00:34:52,624
that it's just a fantasy
but not a reality,

566
00:34:52,624 --> 00:34:55,794
but a lie in the
sense that fantasy

567
00:34:55,794 --> 00:34:59,765
covers up a certain
gap in consistency.

568
00:35:01,200 --> 00:35:03,569
When things are blurred,
when we cannot really get

569
00:35:03,569 --> 00:35:08,174
to know things, fantasy
provides an easy answer.

570
00:35:10,041 --> 00:35:11,877
(tires squealing)

571
00:35:13,312 --> 00:35:17,916
The usual mode of fantasy
is to construct a scene,

572
00:35:19,084 --> 00:35:21,019
not a scene where I
get what I desire,

573
00:35:21,019 --> 00:35:24,055
but a scene in which I imagine

574
00:35:24,055 --> 00:35:27,459
myself as desired by others.

575
00:35:27,459 --> 00:35:28,827
(yelping)

576
00:35:28,827 --> 00:35:29,928
(gun fires)

577
00:35:31,062 --> 00:35:35,401
"Taxi Driver" is an
unacknowledged remake of

578
00:35:35,401 --> 00:35:38,537
perhaps the greatest of
John Ford's Westerns,

579
00:35:38,537 --> 00:35:41,807
his late classic,"'The
Searchers."

580
00:35:41,807 --> 00:35:44,643
- I take many...

581
00:35:44,643 --> 00:35:46,912
- Scalps.

582
00:35:46,912 --> 00:35:50,949
(speaking in foreign language)

583
00:35:50,949 --> 00:35:55,587
- [Voiceover] In both films,
the hero tries to save a young

584
00:35:55,587 --> 00:36:00,592
woman who is perceived as
a victim of brutal abuse.

585
00:36:01,460 --> 00:36:05,597
(dramatic orchestral music)

586
00:36:07,132 --> 00:36:10,336
In "The Searchers,"
the young Natalie Wood

587
00:36:10,336 --> 00:36:13,872
was kidnapped and lived
for a couple of years

588
00:36:13,872 --> 00:36:17,476
as the wife of an Indian chief.

589
00:36:19,378 --> 00:36:22,248
In "Taxi Driver," the
young Jodie Foster

590
00:36:22,248 --> 00:36:25,150
is controlled by
a ruthless pimp.

591
00:36:25,150 --> 00:36:27,686
- You walk out with those
fucking creeps and lowlifes

592
00:36:27,686 --> 00:36:29,154
and degenerates
out on the street,

593
00:36:29,154 --> 00:36:32,591
and you sell your little
pussy for nothing, man?

594
00:36:32,591 --> 00:36:34,926
For some low life pimp?

595
00:36:34,926 --> 00:36:36,395
Stands in a hall?

596
00:36:38,264 --> 00:36:39,531
I'm the, I'm square?

597
00:36:39,531 --> 00:36:41,567
You're the one
that's square, man.

598
00:36:41,567 --> 00:36:43,101
I don't go screw and
fuck with a bunch of

599
00:36:43,101 --> 00:36:44,936
killers and junkies
the way you do.

600
00:36:44,936 --> 00:36:46,638
- [Voiceover] The task is always

601
00:36:46,638 --> 00:36:49,775
to save the perceived victim.

602
00:36:51,943 --> 00:36:56,081
But what really drives
this violence of the hero

603
00:36:56,081 --> 00:37:01,086
is a deep suspicion that the
victim is not simply a victim.

604
00:37:02,454 --> 00:37:04,890
That the victim, effectively,
in a perverted way,

605
00:37:04,890 --> 00:37:09,361
enjoys or participates
in what appears as

606
00:37:09,361 --> 00:37:13,432
her victimhood, so that,
to put it very simply,

607
00:37:13,432 --> 00:37:17,836
she doesn't want to be
redeemed, she resists it.

608
00:37:17,836 --> 00:37:22,841
(dramatic orchestral music)

609
00:37:25,811 --> 00:37:27,646
- Let's go home, Debby.

610
00:37:32,484 --> 00:37:35,086
- And this is the big problem.

611
00:37:35,086 --> 00:37:38,357
If I make an immediate jump
to the political dimension,

612
00:37:38,357 --> 00:37:41,627
the big problem of American
military interventions,

613
00:37:41,627 --> 00:37:45,331
especially so-called
humanitarian interventions,

614
00:37:45,331 --> 00:37:48,800
from Iraq to already Vietnam

615
00:37:50,402 --> 00:37:52,571
half a century ago,

616
00:37:52,571 --> 00:37:56,107
we try to help them, but what if

617
00:37:56,107 --> 00:37:59,244
they really did
not want our help?

618
00:37:59,244 --> 00:38:01,813
The result of this
debilitating deadlock

619
00:38:01,813 --> 00:38:04,583
can only be an
outburst of violence.

620
00:38:09,120 --> 00:38:11,657
We do get, towards
the end of the film,

621
00:38:11,657 --> 00:38:15,927
Travis exploding
in a killing spree,

622
00:38:15,927 --> 00:38:20,165
killing the pimps, all the
people around the young girl.

623
00:38:20,165 --> 00:38:25,170
(guns fire)

624
00:38:25,170 --> 00:38:27,539
(glass shatters)

625
00:38:27,539 --> 00:38:31,543
Violence is never just
abstract violence.

626
00:38:31,543 --> 00:38:34,980
It's a kind of brutal
intervention in the real

627
00:38:34,980 --> 00:38:36,848
(gun fires)

628
00:38:36,848 --> 00:38:40,786
to cover up a certain
impotence concerning

629
00:38:40,786 --> 00:38:42,421
(gun fires)

630
00:38:42,421 --> 00:38:45,290
what we may call
cognitive mapping.

631
00:38:45,290 --> 00:38:50,295
You lack a clear picture of
what's going on, where are we.

632
00:38:50,295 --> 00:38:52,764
(men screaming)

633
00:38:52,764 --> 00:38:54,766
Exactly the same holds for the

634
00:38:54,766 --> 00:38:58,970
terrifying outburst of violence,

635
00:38:58,970 --> 00:39:03,542
Anders Behring Breivik's
murderous spree in Oslo,

636
00:39:03,542 --> 00:39:06,712
exploding a bomb in front
of the government building

637
00:39:06,712 --> 00:39:09,981
and then killing
dozens of young members

638
00:39:09,981 --> 00:39:14,119
of the social democratic party
in an island close to Oslo.

639
00:39:14,119 --> 00:39:15,721
(speaking in foreign language)

640
00:39:15,721 --> 00:39:18,023
(screaming)

641
00:39:18,023 --> 00:39:20,692
Many commentators tried
to dismiss this as

642
00:39:20,692 --> 00:39:24,430
a clear case of
personal insanity,

643
00:39:24,430 --> 00:39:29,435
but I think Breivik's manifesto
is well worth reading.

644
00:39:29,435 --> 00:39:32,971
It is palpably clear there how

645
00:39:34,239 --> 00:39:38,510
this violence that
Breivik not only

646
00:39:38,510 --> 00:39:41,046
theorized about
but also enacted,

647
00:39:41,046 --> 00:39:45,451
is a reaction to
the impenetrability

648
00:39:45,451 --> 00:39:48,887
and confusion of global capital.

649
00:39:48,887 --> 00:39:53,459
It's exactly like
Travis Bickle's

650
00:39:53,459 --> 00:39:57,629
killing spree at the end
of the "Taxi Driver."

651
00:40:01,467 --> 00:40:04,002
When he is there,
barely alive, he,

652
00:40:04,002 --> 00:40:09,007
symbolically with his fingers,
points a gun at his own head.

653
00:40:09,007 --> 00:40:13,479
Clear sign that all this
violence was basically suicidal.

654
00:40:15,080 --> 00:40:17,516
He was on the right
path, in a way,

655
00:40:17,516 --> 00:40:19,951
Travis in the "Taxi Driver."

656
00:40:19,951 --> 00:40:22,888
You should have the outburst
of violence, and you should

657
00:40:22,888 --> 00:40:27,793
direct it at yourself but
in a very specific way,

658
00:40:27,793 --> 00:40:31,963
at what in yourself change you,

659
00:40:31,963 --> 00:40:34,933
ties you to the ruling ideology.

660
00:40:34,933 --> 00:40:39,938
(drumroll)

661
00:40:42,841 --> 00:40:45,877
* Oh, do you know the muffin man

662
00:40:45,877 --> 00:40:48,079
* The muffin man,
the muffin man *

663
00:40:48,079 --> 00:40:51,416
- Pippin, Pippin, Pippin?

664
00:40:51,416 --> 00:40:55,386
- [Voiceover] In Steven
Spielberg's "Jaws," a shark

665
00:40:55,386 --> 00:40:58,857
starts to attack
people on the beach.

666
00:41:00,058 --> 00:41:02,794
What does this attack mean?

667
00:41:02,794 --> 00:41:05,664
What does the shark stand for?

668
00:41:05,664 --> 00:41:10,368
(suspenseful orchestral music)

669
00:41:10,368 --> 00:41:12,538
There were different,
even mutually

670
00:41:12,538 --> 00:41:15,040
exclusive, answers
to this question.

671
00:41:15,040 --> 00:41:17,075
(suspenseful orchestral music)

672
00:41:17,075 --> 00:41:19,444
(kids screaming and splashing)

673
00:41:19,444 --> 00:41:20,646
- [Man Getting Up]
Did you see that?

674
00:41:20,646 --> 00:41:22,548
- [Woman Getting Up] Yes.

675
00:41:22,548 --> 00:41:25,016
- [Voiceover] On the one
hand, some critics claimed

676
00:41:25,016 --> 00:41:28,386
that obviously the
shark stands for

677
00:41:28,386 --> 00:41:32,457
the foreign threat to
ordinary Americans.

678
00:41:32,457 --> 00:41:36,795
The shark is a metaphor for
either natural disaster,

679
00:41:36,795 --> 00:41:40,098
storms, or immigrants
threatening

680
00:41:40,098 --> 00:41:42,901
United States
citizens and so on.

681
00:41:42,901 --> 00:41:46,271
On the other hand, it's
interesting to note that

682
00:41:46,271 --> 00:41:49,174
Fidel Castro, who
loves the film,

683
00:41:49,174 --> 00:41:53,211
once said that for him,
it was obvious that

684
00:41:53,211 --> 00:41:56,281
"Jaws" is kind of a
leftist Marxist film,

685
00:41:56,281 --> 00:42:00,752
and that the shark is
a metaphor for brutal

686
00:42:00,752 --> 00:42:05,591
big capital exploiting
ordinary Americans.

687
00:42:05,591 --> 00:42:08,660
(water splashing)

688
00:42:08,660 --> 00:42:09,595
- Alice?

689
00:42:09,595 --> 00:42:11,597
- So which is the right answer?

690
00:42:11,597 --> 00:42:15,934
I claim none of them and at
the same time all of them.

691
00:42:17,168 --> 00:42:19,504
Ordinary Americans,
as ordinary people

692
00:42:19,504 --> 00:42:23,241
in all countries, have
a multitude of fears.

693
00:42:23,241 --> 00:42:25,476
We fear all kind of things.

694
00:42:25,476 --> 00:42:29,815
We fear maybe,
immigrants or people

695
00:42:29,815 --> 00:42:31,349
whom we perceive as lower than

696
00:42:31,349 --> 00:42:34,319
ourselves attacking
us, robbing us.

697
00:42:34,319 --> 00:42:36,888
We fear people
raping our children.

698
00:42:36,888 --> 00:42:41,893
We fear natural disasters,
tornados, earthquakes, tsunamis.

699
00:42:41,893 --> 00:42:44,462
We fear corrupted politicians.

700
00:42:44,462 --> 00:42:47,799
We fear big companies
which can basically

701
00:42:47,799 --> 00:42:49,668
do with us whatever they want.

702
00:42:49,668 --> 00:42:54,139
(suspenseful orchestral music)

703
00:42:54,139 --> 00:42:58,777
The function of the shark
is to unite all these fears

704
00:42:58,777 --> 00:43:01,346
so that we can in away trade all

705
00:43:01,346 --> 00:43:04,082
these fears for one fear alone.

706
00:43:04,082 --> 00:43:07,653
(gun fires)

707
00:43:07,653 --> 00:43:08,887
- Smile you son of a--

708
00:43:08,887 --> 00:43:09,788
(gun fires)

709
00:43:09,788 --> 00:43:14,793
(shark explodes)

710
00:43:16,261 --> 00:43:20,031
- In this way, our experience
of reality gets much simpler.

711
00:43:21,132 --> 00:43:22,567
Why am I mentioning this?

712
00:43:22,567 --> 00:43:26,237
Because isn't it
that, for example,

713
00:43:26,237 --> 00:43:29,307
the most extreme
case of ideology

714
00:43:29,307 --> 00:43:32,043
maybe in the
history of humanity,

715
00:43:32,043 --> 00:43:35,313
the Nazi fascist anti-Semitism,

716
00:43:35,313 --> 00:43:38,449
work precisely in the same way?

717
00:43:38,449 --> 00:43:42,320
Imagine an ordinary
German citizen

718
00:43:42,320 --> 00:43:45,156
in the late 20s, early 30s.

719
00:43:45,156 --> 00:43:48,593
His situation is,
in an abstract way,

720
00:43:48,593 --> 00:43:51,697
the same as that
of a small child.

721
00:43:51,697 --> 00:43:54,365
He's totally perplexed.

722
00:43:54,365 --> 00:43:57,936
Social authority, symbolic
order is telling him,

723
00:43:57,936 --> 00:44:01,707
you are a German worker, banker,

724
00:44:01,707 --> 00:44:04,509
whatever, but nothing functions.

725
00:44:04,509 --> 00:44:06,712
What does society want from him?

726
00:44:06,712 --> 00:44:09,380
Why is everything going wrong?

727
00:44:09,380 --> 00:44:10,882
The way he perceives
the situation

728
00:44:10,882 --> 00:44:13,284
is that newspapers lie to him.

729
00:44:13,284 --> 00:44:15,754
He lost his work
because of inflation.

730
00:44:15,754 --> 00:44:17,222
He lost all his,

731
00:44:18,924 --> 00:44:21,860
all his money in the bank.

732
00:44:21,860 --> 00:44:24,029
He sees moral
degradation and so on,

733
00:44:24,029 --> 00:44:26,197
so what's the
meaning of this all?

734
00:44:26,197 --> 00:44:31,202
(tranquil orchestral music)

735
00:44:38,744 --> 00:44:42,380
The original fascist dream is to

736
00:44:42,380 --> 00:44:45,450
of course, as the dream
of every ideology,

737
00:44:45,450 --> 00:44:47,753
to have a cake and to eat it.

738
00:44:50,355 --> 00:44:53,825
As it was often pointed
out, fascism is,

739
00:44:53,825 --> 00:44:58,463
at it's most elementary,
a conservative revolution.

740
00:44:58,463 --> 00:45:03,134
Revolution, economic
development, modern
industry, yes,

741
00:45:03,134 --> 00:45:08,006
but a revolution which would
nonetheless maintain or even

742
00:45:08,006 --> 00:45:12,343
reassert a traditional
hierarchal society.

743
00:45:12,343 --> 00:45:17,348
(tranquil orchestral music)

744
00:45:18,549 --> 00:45:20,819
A society which is
modern, efficient,

745
00:45:20,819 --> 00:45:23,521
but at the same
time controlled by

746
00:45:23,521 --> 00:45:27,793
hierarchic values with no
class or other antagonisms.

747
00:45:27,793 --> 00:45:32,663
(tranquil orchestral music)

748
00:45:32,663 --> 00:45:36,902
Now, they have a problem
here, the fascists, but

749
00:45:38,236 --> 00:45:41,606
antagonism, class struggle
and other tangents

750
00:45:41,606 --> 00:45:45,877
is something inherent
to capitalism.

751
00:45:45,877 --> 00:45:48,213
Modernization,
industrialization,

752
00:45:48,213 --> 00:45:50,481
as we know from the
history of capitalism,

753
00:45:50,481 --> 00:45:54,619
means disintegration of
old stable relations.

754
00:45:54,619 --> 00:45:57,688
It means social conflicts.

755
00:45:57,688 --> 00:46:02,828
Instability is the way
capitalism functions.

756
00:46:04,329 --> 00:46:06,364
So how to solve this problem?

757
00:46:06,364 --> 00:46:10,401
Simple, you need to generate an

758
00:46:10,401 --> 00:46:14,873
ideological narrative
which explains

759
00:46:14,873 --> 00:46:19,845
how things went
wrong in a society,

760
00:46:19,845 --> 00:46:23,849
not as the result of
the inherent tensions

761
00:46:23,849 --> 00:46:25,851
in the development
of this society,

762
00:46:25,851 --> 00:46:29,888
but as the result of
a foreign intruder.

763
00:46:29,888 --> 00:46:33,391
(people cheering)

764
00:46:33,391 --> 00:46:38,396
Things were okay 'til Jews
penetrated our social body.

765
00:46:38,396 --> 00:46:40,698
(people cheering)

766
00:46:40,698 --> 00:46:43,534
The way to restore
the health of our

767
00:46:43,534 --> 00:46:47,738
social body is to
eliminate the Jews.

768
00:46:47,738 --> 00:46:51,910
(inspirational orchestral music)

769
00:46:51,910 --> 00:46:56,781
It's the same operation as
with the shark in "Jaws."

770
00:46:56,781 --> 00:46:59,584
You have a multitude of fears,

771
00:46:59,584 --> 00:47:03,088
and this multiplicity
of fears confuses you,

772
00:47:03,088 --> 00:47:05,290
like you simply
don't know what's

773
00:47:05,290 --> 00:47:07,192
the meaning of all
this confusion.

774
00:47:07,192 --> 00:47:10,896
And you replace this
confused multitude

775
00:47:10,896 --> 00:47:14,165
with one clear figure, the Jew,

776
00:47:14,165 --> 00:47:17,602
and everything becomes clear.

777
00:47:17,602 --> 00:47:18,970
- [Voiceover] The
search for cuts in the

778
00:47:18,970 --> 00:47:21,072
social security
provision to lone-parent

779
00:47:21,072 --> 00:47:23,909
families in part
spurred this report.

780
00:47:23,909 --> 00:47:25,743
The social security
department fears

781
00:47:25,743 --> 00:47:27,745
that the accelerating
budget for single mothers

782
00:47:27,745 --> 00:47:29,480
on benefits could reach nearly

783
00:47:29,480 --> 00:47:32,483
5 billion pounds by
the end of the decade.

784
00:47:32,483 --> 00:47:34,219
But the issue of the lone parent

785
00:47:34,219 --> 00:47:36,021
has increasingly been
seen as the heart

786
00:47:36,021 --> 00:47:38,924
of John Major's Back
to Basics crusade.

787
00:47:38,924 --> 00:47:42,928
- Remember, I think around
two, three decades ago,

788
00:47:42,928 --> 00:47:47,532
when the prime minister of
United Kingdom was John Major,

789
00:47:47,532 --> 00:47:50,601
there was a kind of
ideological campaign

790
00:47:50,601 --> 00:47:53,204
to return the
morality and so on.

791
00:47:53,204 --> 00:47:58,209
And all the evils
of society were

792
00:47:59,677 --> 00:48:03,581
embodied in the conservative
narrative, in the figure of

793
00:48:06,651 --> 00:48:11,656
unemployed single
mother, like there is
violence in our suburbs,

794
00:48:12,991 --> 00:48:14,559
of course, because
single, unemployed mothers

795
00:48:14,559 --> 00:48:17,262
cannot take care
of their children,

796
00:48:17,262 --> 00:48:21,032
don't properly educate
them and so on.

797
00:48:21,032 --> 00:48:25,036
We have a lack in our
budget, not enough money.

798
00:48:25,036 --> 00:48:29,975
Of course, because we
have to support unwed,

799
00:48:29,975 --> 00:48:33,211
single mothers and
so on and so on.

800
00:48:33,211 --> 00:48:36,047
In an ideological
edifice, you need

801
00:48:36,047 --> 00:48:38,483
some pseudo-concrete image like

802
00:48:38,483 --> 00:48:41,286
this to fixate your imagination,

803
00:48:41,286 --> 00:48:44,255
and then this image
can mobilize us.

804
00:48:44,255 --> 00:48:49,260
(metal clanking)

805
00:48:50,561 --> 00:48:55,133
Imagine ideology as
a kind of a filter,

806
00:48:55,133 --> 00:48:59,437
a frame, so that if
you look at the same

807
00:48:59,437 --> 00:49:03,908
ordinary reality
through that frame,

808
00:49:03,908 --> 00:49:06,311
everything changes,
in what sense?

809
00:49:06,311 --> 00:49:08,813
It's not that the frame

810
00:49:08,813 --> 00:49:12,150
actually adds anything.

811
00:49:12,150 --> 00:49:17,155
It's just that the frame
opens the abyss of suspicion.

812
00:49:26,031 --> 00:49:28,033
- [Voiceover] If we look
at the anti-Semitic image

813
00:49:28,033 --> 00:49:30,368
of the Jew, it's
crucial to notice how

814
00:49:30,368 --> 00:49:32,837
contradictory this
figure of the Jew is.

815
00:49:45,916 --> 00:49:49,154
- [Voiceover] Jews are at the
same time extra intellectual,

816
00:49:49,154 --> 00:49:52,523
like mathematicians,
whatever, and vulgar.

817
00:49:59,530 --> 00:50:01,566
- [Voiceover] Not
washing regularly.

818
00:50:07,905 --> 00:50:09,407
- [Voiceover] Seducing
innocent girls

819
00:50:09,407 --> 00:50:11,476
all the time and
so on and so on.

820
00:51:12,670 --> 00:51:15,340
- This is typical for racism.

821
00:51:15,340 --> 00:51:19,677
You try to imagine
how the other enjoys

822
00:51:19,677 --> 00:51:23,881
all the secret orgies or
whatever, because in racism,

823
00:51:23,881 --> 00:51:27,718
the other is not
simply an enemy.

824
00:51:27,718 --> 00:51:31,889
Usually, it is
also invested with

825
00:51:31,889 --> 00:51:34,792
some specific
perverse enjoyment,

826
00:51:34,792 --> 00:51:39,297
or in an inverted way,
the other can be someone

827
00:51:39,297 --> 00:51:44,302
who tries to steal from
us our enjoyment, our,

828
00:51:44,302 --> 00:51:48,005
to disturb, as we usually
put it, our way of life.

829
00:51:50,975 --> 00:51:53,978
We should be, here, very precise

830
00:51:53,978 --> 00:51:58,349
not to fall into the usual
trap of disqualifying

831
00:51:58,349 --> 00:52:03,221
all elements out of which
the Nazi ideological

832
00:52:03,221 --> 00:52:06,757
edifice is composed,
to disqualify

833
00:52:06,757 --> 00:52:09,194
all them as proto-fascist.

834
00:52:09,194 --> 00:52:12,730
(inspirational orchestral music)

835
00:52:12,730 --> 00:52:15,633
We should never forget
that the large majority

836
00:52:15,633 --> 00:52:20,605
of these elements which we
today associate with fascism

837
00:52:20,605 --> 00:52:23,908
were taken from the
workers' movement.

838
00:52:25,210 --> 00:52:28,646
(speaking in foreign language)

839
00:52:28,646 --> 00:52:33,618
This idea of large numbers
of people marching together,

840
00:52:33,618 --> 00:52:38,489
This idea of strict bodily
discipline as our duty,

841
00:52:38,489 --> 00:52:40,090
(drums banging)

842
00:52:40,090 --> 00:52:43,561
the Nazis directly
took this over

843
00:52:43,561 --> 00:52:47,465
from social democracy,
from the left.

844
00:52:47,465 --> 00:52:49,334
Let me just take
some other central

845
00:52:49,334 --> 00:52:51,736
concepts of the Nazi worldview.

846
00:52:51,736 --> 00:52:54,639
The solidarity of
the people, my God,

847
00:52:54,639 --> 00:52:57,375
there is nothing bad
in this notion as such.

848
00:52:58,843 --> 00:53:02,680
The problem is solidarity
to what kind of people?

849
00:53:02,680 --> 00:53:05,716
If by people you mean
Volksgemeinschaft,

850
00:53:05,716 --> 00:53:07,852
the organic community of people,

851
00:53:07,852 --> 00:53:12,857
where then the enemy
is automatically the
foreign intruder.

852
00:53:13,724 --> 00:53:15,793
In this case, we are in Nazism.

853
00:53:15,793 --> 00:53:19,730
(lively accordion music)

854
00:53:19,730 --> 00:53:24,134
The crucial thing is
to locate ideology

855
00:53:24,134 --> 00:53:26,271
where it belongs.

856
00:53:26,271 --> 00:53:30,908
Let's take a clear example,
the well-known song

857
00:53:30,908 --> 00:53:34,679
"Tomorrow Belongs To Me"
from the film "Cabaret."

858
00:53:34,679 --> 00:53:38,082
* The sun on the meadow

859
00:53:38,082 --> 00:53:41,719
* Is summery warm

860
00:53:41,719 --> 00:53:46,724
* The stag in the
forest runs free *

861
00:53:48,793 --> 00:53:52,162
- [Voiceover] Some of my
friends, after seeing the film,

862
00:53:52,162 --> 00:53:54,765
Bob Fosse's "Cabaret,"
thought that

863
00:53:54,765 --> 00:53:59,470
after they heard this song,
they finally understood

864
00:53:59,470 --> 00:54:02,206
what, at it's deepest as to its

865
00:54:02,206 --> 00:54:06,311
emotional impact,
what fascism is.

866
00:54:06,311 --> 00:54:10,147
But I think this precisely
is the mistake to be avoided.

867
00:54:10,147 --> 00:54:12,517
(man singing)

868
00:54:12,517 --> 00:54:16,053
This song is rather
ordinary, popular song.

869
00:54:16,053 --> 00:54:18,989
Incidentally, it was
composed while they were

870
00:54:18,989 --> 00:54:22,693
shooting the movie,
by a Jewish couple.

871
00:54:22,693 --> 00:54:25,229
Nice irony.

872
00:54:25,229 --> 00:54:27,998
If you look not
only at the music,

873
00:54:27,998 --> 00:54:32,337
at the way it is sung,
but even at the words,

874
00:54:32,337 --> 00:54:36,040
"Awakening of a nation,
tomorrow belongs to me."

875
00:54:36,040 --> 00:54:40,077
One can well imagine, with
a slight change of words,

876
00:54:40,077 --> 00:54:42,347
radically leftist,
communist song.

877
00:54:42,347 --> 00:54:46,584
* Embraces the bee

878
00:54:46,584 --> 00:54:49,954
* But soon says the whisper

879
00:54:49,954 --> 00:54:52,890
* Arise, arise

880
00:54:52,890 --> 00:54:57,895
(crowd cheering)

881
00:55:00,698 --> 00:55:04,134
- [Voiceover] The German
hard rock band Rammstein

882
00:55:04,134 --> 00:55:07,538
are often accused of
flirting, playing with

883
00:55:07,538 --> 00:55:11,041
the Nazi militaristic
iconography.

884
00:55:11,041 --> 00:55:14,044
But if one observes
closely their show,

885
00:55:14,044 --> 00:55:18,483
one can see very nicely what
they are doing, exemplarily,

886
00:55:18,483 --> 00:55:21,652
in one of their best known
songs, "Reise Reise."

887
00:55:21,652 --> 00:55:26,624
("Reise Reise" by Rammstein)

888
00:55:49,480 --> 00:55:52,950
- [Voiceover] The minimal
elements of the Nazi ideology

889
00:55:52,950 --> 00:55:56,421
enacted by Rammstein
are something like

890
00:55:56,421 --> 00:55:59,757
pure elements of
libidinal investment.

891
00:55:59,757 --> 00:56:04,762
("Reise Reise" by Rammstein)

892
00:56:09,567 --> 00:56:12,202
- [Voiceover] Enjoyment
has to be, as it were,

893
00:56:12,202 --> 00:56:16,306
condensed in some
minimal tics, gestures,

894
00:56:16,306 --> 00:56:19,444
which do not have any
precise ideological meaning.

895
00:56:21,679 --> 00:56:25,816
What Rammstein does
is it liberates

896
00:56:25,816 --> 00:56:29,620
these elements from
their Nazi articulations.

897
00:56:31,055 --> 00:56:35,793
It allows us to enjoy them in
their pre-ideological state.

898
00:56:35,793 --> 00:56:40,798
("Reise Reise" by Rammstein)

899
00:56:49,239 --> 00:56:50,475
- [Voiceover] The way to fight

900
00:56:50,475 --> 00:56:54,344
Nazism is to enjoy
these elements,

901
00:56:54,344 --> 00:56:56,647
ridiculous as they may appear,

902
00:56:56,647 --> 00:57:00,084
by suspending the Nazi
horizon of meaning.

903
00:57:01,218 --> 00:57:05,490
This way, you undermine
Nazism from within.

904
00:57:05,490 --> 00:57:10,495
("Reise Reise" by Rammstein)

905
00:57:24,241 --> 00:57:29,246
(engine humming)

906
00:57:29,246 --> 00:57:32,316
- So how does, nonetheless,
ideology do this?

907
00:57:32,316 --> 00:57:37,321
How does it articulate
pre-ideological elements?

908
00:57:37,321 --> 00:57:41,158
These elements can also
be seen as a kind of a...

909
00:57:42,993 --> 00:57:43,928
bribe.

910
00:57:43,928 --> 00:57:46,764
The way ideology pays us to

911
00:57:46,764 --> 00:57:49,634
seduce us into its edifice.

912
00:57:49,634 --> 00:57:52,369
These bribes can be
purely libidinal bribes,

913
00:57:52,369 --> 00:57:54,972
all those tics which
are condensed enjoyment,

914
00:57:54,972 --> 00:57:57,942
or they can be
explicit discursive

915
00:57:57,942 --> 00:58:01,211
elements like
notions of solidarity

916
00:58:02,980 --> 00:58:06,316
of collective
discipline, struggle

917
00:58:06,316 --> 00:58:08,886
for one's destiny,
and so on and so on.

918
00:58:08,886 --> 00:58:13,658
All these, in itself,
are free-floating

919
00:58:13,658 --> 00:58:16,561
elements which open themselves

920
00:58:16,561 --> 00:58:21,398
to different ideological fields.

921
00:58:21,398 --> 00:58:25,035
Let's turn to the high point

922
00:58:25,035 --> 00:58:28,706
of our consumerism.

923
00:58:28,706 --> 00:58:31,475
Let me take a drink.

924
00:58:34,945 --> 00:58:38,983
Some of it, Starbucks
coffee, I am

925
00:58:38,983 --> 00:58:43,688
regularly drinking
it, I must admit it.

926
00:58:43,688 --> 00:58:47,925
But are we aware that
when we buy a cappuccino

927
00:58:47,925 --> 00:58:52,830
from Starbucks, we also buy
quite a lot of ideology.

928
00:58:53,798 --> 00:58:55,299
Which ideology?

929
00:58:55,299 --> 00:58:58,368
You know when you enter
a Starbucks store,

930
00:58:58,368 --> 00:59:01,606
it's usually always displayed
in some posters there,

931
00:59:01,606 --> 00:59:04,374
their message which
is, yes, our cappuccino

932
00:59:04,374 --> 00:59:06,611
is more expensive than others,

933
00:59:06,611 --> 00:59:09,146
but, and then comes the story,

934
00:59:09,146 --> 00:59:13,217
we give 1% of all
our income to some

935
00:59:13,217 --> 00:59:16,353
Guatemala children
to keep them healthy,

936
00:59:16,353 --> 00:59:20,090
for the water supply
for some Sahara farmers,

937
00:59:20,090 --> 00:59:24,094
or to save the forests,
to enable organic

938
00:59:24,094 --> 00:59:26,496
growing coffee,
whatever, whatever.

939
00:59:26,496 --> 00:59:30,500
Now, I admire the
ingeniousity of this solution.

940
00:59:30,500 --> 00:59:35,305
In the old days of pure
simple consumerism,

941
00:59:35,305 --> 00:59:38,709
you bought a product
and then you felt bad.

942
00:59:38,709 --> 00:59:41,511
My God, I'm just a consumerist

943
00:59:41,511 --> 00:59:43,547
while people are
starving in Africa.

944
00:59:43,547 --> 00:59:47,952
So the idea was you
had to do something to

945
00:59:47,952 --> 00:59:51,656
counteract your pure
distractive consumerism.

946
00:59:51,656 --> 00:59:53,390
For example, I don't know, you

947
00:59:53,390 --> 00:59:55,826
contribute to charity and so on.

948
00:59:55,826 --> 00:59:59,196
What Starbucks
enables you is to be

949
00:59:59,196 --> 01:00:04,201
a consumerist and
be a consumerist

950
01:00:04,201 --> 01:00:06,971
without any bad
conscience because

951
01:00:06,971 --> 01:00:09,339
the price for the
countermeasure,

952
01:00:09,339 --> 01:00:11,909
for fighting
consumerism, is already

953
01:00:11,909 --> 01:00:14,712
included into the
price of a commodity.

954
01:00:14,712 --> 01:00:18,015
Like you pay a little bit
more and you are not just

955
01:00:18,015 --> 01:00:22,152
a consumerist but
you do also your duty

956
01:00:22,152 --> 01:00:27,157
towards environment,
the poor starving

957
01:00:27,157 --> 01:00:29,694
people in Africa,
and so on and so on.

958
01:00:29,694 --> 01:00:33,563
It's, I think, the ultimate
form of consumerism.

959
01:00:33,563 --> 01:00:37,835
We should not simply
oppose a principal life

960
01:00:37,835 --> 01:00:42,807
dedicated to duty
and enjoying our

961
01:00:44,108 --> 01:00:46,243
small pleasures.

962
01:00:46,243 --> 01:00:49,446
Let's take today's capitalism.

963
01:00:49,446 --> 01:00:53,483
We have, on the one hand, the
demands of the circulation

964
01:00:53,483 --> 01:00:58,488
of the capital which push
us towards profit making,

965
01:00:59,957 --> 01:01:03,093
expansion, exploitation
and destruction of nature,

966
01:01:03,093 --> 01:01:07,164
and on the other hand,
ecological demands.

967
01:01:08,565 --> 01:01:12,602
Let's think about our posterity
and about our own survival.

968
01:01:12,602 --> 01:01:17,374
Let's take care of
nature and so on.

969
01:01:17,374 --> 01:01:21,411
In this opposition between
ruthless pursuit of

970
01:01:21,411 --> 01:01:26,316
capitalist expansion and
ecological awareness,

971
01:01:26,316 --> 01:01:29,854
duty, a strange
perverted duty of course,

972
01:01:29,854 --> 01:01:32,589
duty is on the side of

973
01:01:34,491 --> 01:01:37,928
capitalism, as many

974
01:01:37,928 --> 01:01:41,631
perspicuous analysts noted.

975
01:01:41,631 --> 01:01:44,268
Capitalism has a
strange religious

976
01:01:46,303 --> 01:01:47,537
structure.

977
01:01:47,537 --> 01:01:51,809
It is propelled by
this absolute demand.

978
01:01:51,809 --> 01:01:56,680
Capital has to circulate
to reproduce itself

979
01:01:56,680 --> 01:01:59,083
to expand, to multiply itself,

980
01:01:59,083 --> 01:02:02,052
and for this goal,
anything can be sacrificed,

981
01:02:02,052 --> 01:02:05,790
up to our lives, up
to nature, and so on.

982
01:02:05,790 --> 01:02:09,593
Here, we have a strange,
unconditional injunction.

983
01:02:09,593 --> 01:02:12,062
And a true capitalist
is a miser who is ready

984
01:02:12,062 --> 01:02:16,533
to sacrifice everything
for this perverted duty.

985
01:02:25,976 --> 01:02:29,479
What we see here
in Mojave Desert,

986
01:02:29,479 --> 01:02:33,818
at this resting place
for abandoned planes,

987
01:02:33,818 --> 01:02:38,222
is the other side of
capitalist dynamics.

988
01:02:42,659 --> 01:02:45,930
Capitalism is all
the time in crisis.

989
01:02:45,930 --> 01:02:50,935
This is precisely why it
appears almost indestructible.

990
01:02:50,935 --> 01:02:53,237
Crisis is not its obstacle.

991
01:02:53,237 --> 01:02:56,540
It is what pushes
it forwards towards

992
01:02:56,540 --> 01:03:00,244
permanent,
self-revolutionizing, permanent,

993
01:03:00,244 --> 01:03:05,082
extended self-reproduction,
always new products.

994
01:03:05,082 --> 01:03:08,618
The other invisible
side of it is

995
01:03:08,618 --> 01:03:13,123
waste, tremendous
amount of waste.

996
01:03:15,025 --> 01:03:19,229
We shouldn't react to
these heaps of waste

997
01:03:19,229 --> 01:03:23,200
by trying to somehow
get rid of it.

998
01:03:25,769 --> 01:03:30,574
Maybe, the first thing to
do is to accept this waste,

999
01:03:30,574 --> 01:03:33,477
to accept that there are things

1000
01:03:33,477 --> 01:03:36,346
out there which serve nothing,

1001
01:03:37,714 --> 01:03:41,251
to break out of this eternal
cycle of functioning.

1002
01:03:51,161 --> 01:03:52,930
The German philosopher, Walter

1003
01:03:52,930 --> 01:03:56,366
Benjamin, said
something very deep.

1004
01:03:56,366 --> 01:04:00,204
He said that we
experience history,

1005
01:04:00,204 --> 01:04:03,240
what does it mean for us
to be historical beings,

1006
01:04:03,240 --> 01:04:08,245
not when we are engaged in
things, when things move.

1007
01:04:09,379 --> 01:04:12,950
Only when we see this,
again, rest waste

1008
01:04:12,950 --> 01:04:16,420
of culture being half retaken
by nature, at that point,

1009
01:04:16,420 --> 01:04:20,824
we get an intuition
of what history means.

1010
01:04:26,096 --> 01:04:29,699
Maybe, this also accounts
for the redemptive value of

1011
01:04:29,699 --> 01:04:34,704
post-catastrophic movies
like "I Am Legend" and so on.

1012
01:04:36,773 --> 01:04:41,578
We see the devastated human
environment, half-empty

1013
01:04:41,578 --> 01:04:46,183
factories, machines falling
apart, half empty stores.

1014
01:04:46,183 --> 01:04:49,954
What we experience
at this moment,

1015
01:04:49,954 --> 01:04:52,389
the psychoanalytic
term for it would

1016
01:04:52,389 --> 01:04:55,993
have been the
inertia of the real,

1017
01:04:55,993 --> 01:04:59,763
this mute presence
beyond meaning,

1018
01:05:02,566 --> 01:05:05,502
what moments like
confronting planes here

1019
01:05:05,502 --> 01:05:09,606
in Mojave Desert bring
to us is maybe a chance

1020
01:05:09,606 --> 01:05:13,343
for an authentic,
passive experience.

1021
01:05:13,343 --> 01:05:17,481
Maybe without this
properly artistic moment

1022
01:05:17,481 --> 01:05:22,319
of authentic passivity,
nothing new can emerge.

1023
01:05:25,155 --> 01:05:29,994
Maybe something new only
emerges through the failure,

1024
01:05:31,061 --> 01:05:34,498
the suspension of proper
functioning of the

1025
01:05:34,498 --> 01:05:39,069
existing network of our
lifework, where we are.

1026
01:05:43,040 --> 01:05:47,411
Maybe, this is what we
need more than ever today.

1027
01:06:04,061 --> 01:06:06,696
What does the wreck of
the Titanic stand for?

1028
01:06:10,634 --> 01:06:12,869
We all know the standard reading

1029
01:06:12,869 --> 01:06:17,041
of the impact of the
sinking of the Titanic,

1030
01:06:17,041 --> 01:06:20,844
not only the film but
the real accident.

1031
01:06:22,079 --> 01:06:25,615
This sinking had such
an impact because it

1032
01:06:25,615 --> 01:06:29,053
happened in a society,
at that point,

1033
01:06:29,053 --> 01:06:32,589
still in all its
glitz and glory,

1034
01:06:32,589 --> 01:06:35,359
unaware of the decay
that awaited it

1035
01:06:35,359 --> 01:06:39,396
in the near future, the
World Wars and so on.

1036
01:06:40,597 --> 01:06:43,067
But there is something in excess

1037
01:06:43,067 --> 01:06:45,402
of this entire field of meanings

1038
01:06:45,402 --> 01:06:48,405
which is the very
fascinating presence

1039
01:06:48,405 --> 01:06:52,242
of the ruin of the Titanic
at the bottom of the ocean.

1040
01:06:53,777 --> 01:06:56,546
(mechanical whirring)

1041
01:06:56,546 --> 01:06:58,815
When James Cameron organized a

1042
01:06:58,815 --> 01:07:01,151
trip to the real
wreck of Titanic,

1043
01:07:01,151 --> 01:07:04,854
he also made a similar remark.

1044
01:07:04,854 --> 01:07:08,525
When the explorers
approached the wreck,

1045
01:07:08,525 --> 01:07:12,096
they had this almost
metaphysical experience

1046
01:07:12,096 --> 01:07:15,099
that they are approaching
a forbidden territory

1047
01:07:15,099 --> 01:07:19,769
in which the sacred and
the obscene overlap.

1048
01:07:19,769 --> 01:07:21,471
- Yeah, Roger that,
okay, drop down

1049
01:07:21,471 --> 01:07:24,141
and go into the first
class gangway door.

1050
01:07:24,141 --> 01:07:25,809
I want you guys
working the D deck.

1051
01:07:25,809 --> 01:07:29,679
- Every effective political,
ideological symbol

1052
01:07:29,679 --> 01:07:32,549
or symptom has to rely on this

1053
01:07:32,549 --> 01:07:36,820
dimension of
petrified enjoyment,

1054
01:07:36,820 --> 01:07:41,558
of the frozen grimace of an
excessive pleasure in pain.

1055
01:07:44,394 --> 01:07:47,964
(mechanical whirring)

1056
01:07:52,836 --> 01:07:57,841
(distant screaming)

1057
01:07:59,309 --> 01:08:03,180
What am I doing here in
the middle of the ocean,

1058
01:08:03,180 --> 01:08:07,484
alone in a boat surrounded
by frozen corpses?

1059
01:08:07,484 --> 01:08:08,718
- Jack?

1060
01:08:08,718 --> 01:08:10,220
- [Voiceover] I
am in a scene from

1061
01:08:10,220 --> 01:08:13,657
James Cameron's "Titanic."

1062
01:08:13,657 --> 01:08:14,858
- Jack?

1063
01:08:14,858 --> 01:08:17,527
- Which is the supreme case

1064
01:08:17,527 --> 01:08:20,697
of ideology in recent Hollywood.

1065
01:08:20,697 --> 01:08:22,766
(men shouting)

1066
01:08:22,766 --> 01:08:24,201
Why?

1067
01:08:24,201 --> 01:08:28,505
Because of the imminent tension
to the story of the film.

1068
01:08:28,505 --> 01:08:29,806
- I don't know this dance.

1069
01:08:29,806 --> 01:08:32,909
- Neither do I, just go
with it, don't think.

1070
01:08:32,909 --> 01:08:34,778
- [Voiceover] We have
at least three levels.

1071
01:08:34,778 --> 01:08:38,848
First, there is what people
ironically refer to as

1072
01:08:38,848 --> 01:08:41,918
James Cameron's
Hollywood Marxism,

1073
01:08:41,918 --> 01:08:44,688
(fast-paced folk music)

1074
01:08:44,688 --> 01:08:49,393
this ridiculous fake
sympathy with lower classes.

1075
01:08:49,393 --> 01:08:52,529
(fast-paced folk music)

1076
01:08:52,529 --> 01:08:54,398
Up there, first
class passengers,

1077
01:08:54,398 --> 01:08:58,402
they are mostly evil,
egotistic, cowardly.

1078
01:08:58,402 --> 01:09:00,937
- You know I don't
like that, Rose.

1079
01:09:00,937 --> 01:09:02,105
- [Voiceover] Embodied in Kate

1080
01:09:02,105 --> 01:09:04,574
Winslet's fiancé
played by Billy Zane.

1081
01:09:04,574 --> 01:09:06,109
- She knows.

1082
01:09:06,109 --> 01:09:08,778
- [Voiceover] This whole
narrative is sustained

1083
01:09:08,778 --> 01:09:11,548
by a much more reactionary myth.

1084
01:09:11,548 --> 01:09:15,885
(laughing)

1085
01:09:15,885 --> 01:09:18,955
- Did you see those guys' faces?

1086
01:09:18,955 --> 01:09:21,024
- [Voiceover] We
should ask what role

1087
01:09:21,024 --> 01:09:23,860
does the iceberg
hitting the ship

1088
01:09:23,860 --> 01:09:27,464
play in the development
of the love story?

1089
01:09:27,464 --> 01:09:31,901
- When the ship docks,
I'm getting off with you.

1090
01:09:33,370 --> 01:09:34,571
- This is crazy.

1091
01:09:34,571 --> 01:09:35,805
- (chuckles) I know.

1092
01:09:35,805 --> 01:09:39,243
- My claim is here a
slightly cynical one.

1093
01:09:39,243 --> 01:09:42,512
This would have been
the true catastrophe.

1094
01:09:42,512 --> 01:09:46,750
We can imagine how maybe
after two, three weeks

1095
01:09:46,750 --> 01:09:50,554
of intense sex in
New York, the love

1096
01:09:50,554 --> 01:09:54,358
affair would somehow fade away.

1097
01:09:54,358 --> 01:09:59,363
- As a paying customer, I
expect to get what I want.

1098
01:10:03,267 --> 01:10:05,569
- [Voiceover] Kate Winslet is an

1099
01:10:05,569 --> 01:10:10,307
upperclass girl in
psychological distress.

1100
01:10:10,307 --> 01:10:15,011
Confused, her ego
is in shatters.

1101
01:10:15,011 --> 01:10:17,847
And the function of
Leonardo DiCaprio--

1102
01:10:17,847 --> 01:10:21,551
- Over on the bed, the couch.

1103
01:10:21,551 --> 01:10:23,820
- [Voiceover] Is simply that he

1104
01:10:23,820 --> 01:10:28,024
helps her to
reconstitute her ego.

1105
01:10:29,526 --> 01:10:31,761
- Good, lie down.

1106
01:10:31,761 --> 01:10:34,998
- [Voiceover] Her self image,
literally, he draws her image.

1107
01:10:34,998 --> 01:10:36,199
- Tell me when it looks right.

1108
01:10:36,199 --> 01:10:38,435
- Put your arm back
the way it was.

1109
01:10:38,435 --> 01:10:41,871
- It's really a new
version of one of the

1110
01:10:41,871 --> 01:10:45,642
old, favorite,
imperialist myths.

1111
01:10:45,642 --> 01:10:50,013
The idea being that when the
upper class people lose their

1112
01:10:50,013 --> 01:10:54,884
vitality, they need a
contact with lower classes.

1113
01:10:56,219 --> 01:11:00,557
Basically, ruthlessly exploiting
them in a vampire-like

1114
01:11:00,557 --> 01:11:04,528
way as it were sucking
from them the life energy.

1115
01:11:04,528 --> 01:11:09,032
Revitalized, they can join
their secluded upperclass life.

1116
01:11:09,032 --> 01:11:12,402
- My heart was pounding
the whole time.

1117
01:11:12,402 --> 01:11:16,105
It was the most erotic
moment of my life,

1118
01:11:20,109 --> 01:11:21,778
up until then at least.

1119
01:11:21,778 --> 01:11:26,149
- The ship hits the iceberg,
not immediately after

1120
01:11:27,351 --> 01:11:31,555
sex, but when the
couple goes up to

1121
01:11:31,555 --> 01:11:35,224
the open space and
decide to stay together.

1122
01:11:36,660 --> 01:11:39,563
- [Sailor] Oh yes,
hey, look at this.

1123
01:11:42,366 --> 01:11:45,602
- You know, often in
history, the event

1124
01:11:45,602 --> 01:11:48,638
which may appear
as a catastrophe

1125
01:11:48,638 --> 01:11:53,109
saves persons or an idea,
elevating it into a myth.

1126
01:11:54,478 --> 01:11:57,647
Remember the intervention
of the Soviet army

1127
01:11:57,647 --> 01:12:02,519
and other Warsaw-backed armies
in 1968 in Czechoslovakia

1128
01:12:04,888 --> 01:12:07,691
to strangle the
so-called Prague Spring.

1129
01:12:08,858 --> 01:12:12,596
The attempt of the Czech
democratic communists

1130
01:12:12,596 --> 01:12:16,666
to introduce a more
human-faced socialism.

1131
01:12:18,167 --> 01:12:21,170
Usually, we perceive
this brutal Soviet

1132
01:12:21,170 --> 01:12:24,408
intervention as
something that destroyed

1133
01:12:24,408 --> 01:12:26,876
the brief dream
of Prague Spring.

1134
01:12:26,876 --> 01:12:29,145
I think it saved the dream.

1135
01:12:31,214 --> 01:12:34,117
Either Czechoslovakia
would have turned into an

1136
01:12:34,117 --> 01:12:38,054
ordinary, liberal
capitalist state,

1137
01:12:38,054 --> 01:12:41,157
or at a certain point, which
was usually the fate of

1138
01:12:41,157 --> 01:12:45,094
reformist communists,
the communist in power

1139
01:12:45,094 --> 01:12:47,431
would be obliged to
set a certain limit.

1140
01:12:47,431 --> 01:12:50,867
Okay, you had your fun,
your freedom, that's enough.

1141
01:12:50,867 --> 01:12:55,071
Now, we again define the limits.

1142
01:12:55,071 --> 01:12:59,776
Again, the paradox
is that precisely the
Soviet intervention

1143
01:12:59,776 --> 01:13:02,612
saved the dream of,
the possibility of

1144
01:13:02,612 --> 01:13:04,981
another communism
and so on and so on.

1145
01:13:04,981 --> 01:13:06,149
So, here again--

1146
01:13:06,149 --> 01:13:08,452
(ship crunching)

1147
01:13:08,452 --> 01:13:11,621
through the temporal
catastrophe,

1148
01:13:11,621 --> 01:13:15,925
we have a love story,
which is at it were,

1149
01:13:15,925 --> 01:13:19,228
redeemed in its idea,
saved for eternity.

1150
01:13:19,228 --> 01:13:21,965
(ship crashing)

1151
01:13:21,965 --> 01:13:25,569
We can ultimately read
the catastrophe as a

1152
01:13:25,569 --> 01:13:30,574
desperate maneuver to save
the illusion of eternal love.

1153
01:13:30,574 --> 01:13:33,477
(ship crashing)

1154
01:13:33,477 --> 01:13:35,945
(water roaring)

1155
01:13:35,945 --> 01:13:39,783
We can see how ideology
works effectively here.

1156
01:13:39,783 --> 01:13:42,752
We have two superficial levels,

1157
01:13:42,752 --> 01:13:46,623
all the fascination
of the accident,

1158
01:13:46,623 --> 01:13:51,027
then the love story, but all
this which is quite acceptable

1159
01:13:51,027 --> 01:13:55,765
for our liberal, progressive
minds, all this is just

1160
01:13:55,765 --> 01:14:00,770
a trap, something to
lower our attention

1161
01:14:01,938 --> 01:14:05,108
threshold, as it
were, to open us up,

1162
01:14:05,108 --> 01:14:10,113
to be ready to accept the
true conservative message

1163
01:14:10,113 --> 01:14:14,518
of rich people having
the right to revitalize

1164
01:14:14,518 --> 01:14:18,354
themselves by
ruthlessly appropriating

1165
01:14:18,354 --> 01:14:21,290
the vitality of the poor people.

1166
01:14:21,290 --> 01:14:22,792
- [Voiceover] There's
nothing there, sir.

1167
01:14:22,792 --> 01:14:24,060
- [Voiceover] There
is a wonderful

1168
01:14:24,060 --> 01:14:25,529
detail which tells everything.

1169
01:14:25,529 --> 01:14:26,663
- Come back!

1170
01:14:26,663 --> 01:14:28,798
- [Voiceover] When Kate
Winslet notices that

1171
01:14:28,798 --> 01:14:33,770
Leonardo DiCaprio is dead, she,
of course, starts to shout,

1172
01:14:33,770 --> 01:14:35,872
I will never let go,
I will never let go,

1173
01:14:35,872 --> 01:14:37,440
while at the same moment--

1174
01:14:37,440 --> 01:14:39,809
- I'll never let go, I promise.

1175
01:14:39,809 --> 01:14:41,911
- She pushes him off.

1176
01:14:41,911 --> 01:14:44,247
(mournful flute music)

1177
01:14:44,247 --> 01:14:48,785
He is what we may
call, ironically, a
vanishing mediator.

1178
01:14:48,785 --> 01:14:51,287
(weeping)

1179
01:14:51,287 --> 01:14:53,957
This logic of the
production of a couple

1180
01:14:53,957 --> 01:14:56,993
has a long history in Hollywood.

1181
01:14:56,993 --> 01:14:58,795
Whatever the story
is about, it may

1182
01:14:58,795 --> 01:15:00,564
be about the end of the world,

1183
01:15:00,564 --> 01:15:04,734
an asteroid threatening
the very survival

1184
01:15:04,734 --> 01:15:08,104
of humanity, or a
great war, whatever,

1185
01:15:08,104 --> 01:15:12,842
as a rule, we always
have a couple whose

1186
01:15:12,842 --> 01:15:17,180
link is threatened and
who somehow, through

1187
01:15:17,180 --> 01:15:21,885
this ordeal, at the end,
happily gets together.

1188
01:15:21,885 --> 01:15:24,654
(explosive blasts)

1189
01:15:24,654 --> 01:15:27,991
This logic does not hold
only for Hollywood films.

1190
01:15:27,991 --> 01:15:32,629
(speaking in foreign language)

1191
01:15:36,733 --> 01:15:40,503
- In the late 40s,
in Soviet Union,

1192
01:15:40,503 --> 01:15:43,339
they produced arguably
one of the most expensive

1193
01:15:43,339 --> 01:15:45,809
film of all times,
"The Fall of Berlin,"

1194
01:15:45,809 --> 01:15:47,811
(explosions booming)

1195
01:15:47,811 --> 01:15:50,614
the chronicle of
the Second World

1196
01:15:50,614 --> 01:15:52,816
War from the Soviet standpoint.

1197
01:15:52,816 --> 01:15:55,351
And it's incredible
how closely this film

1198
01:15:55,351 --> 01:15:59,122
also follows the logic of
the production of a couple.

1199
01:15:59,122 --> 01:16:00,423
(piano music)

1200
01:16:00,423 --> 01:16:03,192
The story begins just
before the German attack

1201
01:16:03,192 --> 01:16:07,864
on the Soviet Union, when a
model worker who is in love with

1202
01:16:07,864 --> 01:16:12,869
a local girl but is too
shy to propose to her,

1203
01:16:14,303 --> 01:16:17,874
is called to Moscow to get
a medal from Comrade Stalin.

1204
01:16:18,742 --> 01:16:19,876
(speaking in foreign language)

1205
01:16:19,876 --> 01:16:23,512
There, Stalin notices
his confusion,

1206
01:16:23,512 --> 01:16:26,716
distress, and Stalin
gives him some advice,

1207
01:16:26,716 --> 01:16:29,385
which poetry to quote and so on.

1208
01:16:29,385 --> 01:16:32,656
This part,
unfortunately, was lost

1209
01:16:32,656 --> 01:16:36,392
because in the background of
this scene there was Beria,

1210
01:16:36,392 --> 01:16:39,162
a Soviet politician who
after Stalin's death,

1211
01:16:39,162 --> 01:16:43,900
became a non-person,
was shot as a traitor.

1212
01:16:43,900 --> 01:16:48,037
But we know from the
screenplay what was there.

1213
01:16:48,037 --> 01:16:50,406
If Stalin gives you
love advice, it has to

1214
01:16:50,406 --> 01:16:53,009
succeed so the couple embraces.

1215
01:16:53,009 --> 01:16:58,014
(speaking in foreign language)

1216
01:17:02,986 --> 01:17:06,690
He tells her probably
to make love.

1217
01:17:06,690 --> 01:17:11,695
(laughing)

1218
01:17:11,695 --> 01:17:14,363
At that very moment,
there is the triumphant,

1219
01:17:14,363 --> 01:17:17,333
violent entrance
of the obstacle.

1220
01:17:17,333 --> 01:17:19,468
German planes come,
dropping bombs.

1221
01:17:19,468 --> 01:17:24,473
(explosive blasts)

1222
01:17:31,881 --> 01:17:33,516
- [Voiceover] The girl
is taken prisoner.

1223
01:17:39,789 --> 01:17:41,791
- The boy, of course,
joins the Red Army,

1224
01:17:41,791 --> 01:17:45,895
and we follow him through
all the great battles.

1225
01:17:45,895 --> 01:17:50,366
The idea being that in a
deeper logic of the film,

1226
01:17:50,366 --> 01:17:53,402
what these battles
were about was

1227
01:17:53,402 --> 01:17:56,639
really to recreate the couple.

1228
01:17:56,639 --> 01:17:58,808
The boy has to get his girl.

1229
01:17:58,808 --> 01:18:00,376
(soldiers cheering)

1230
01:18:00,376 --> 01:18:02,645
This is what happens at the end

1231
01:18:02,645 --> 01:18:06,783
but in a very strange
way which reconfirms

1232
01:18:06,783 --> 01:18:10,386
Stalin's role as the
supreme divine matchmaker.

1233
01:18:10,386 --> 01:18:15,391
(singing in foreign language)

1234
01:18:15,391 --> 01:18:19,362
The scene itself, Stalin
emerging himself into

1235
01:18:19,362 --> 01:18:23,900
a crowd of ordinary
people, never happened.

1236
01:18:23,900 --> 01:18:27,503
Stalin was totally
paranoid about flying,

1237
01:18:27,503 --> 01:18:31,407
about taking planes,
but nonetheless,

1238
01:18:31,407 --> 01:18:33,509
when he saw this
scene, he cried.

1239
01:18:33,509 --> 01:18:35,644
(crowd cheering)

1240
01:18:46,022 --> 01:18:49,492
- Of course, he, himself, as
you know, wrote the lines.

1241
01:18:49,492 --> 01:18:51,427
(crowd cheering)

1242
01:18:51,427 --> 01:18:53,296
When the couple encounters each

1243
01:18:53,296 --> 01:18:56,699
other, the girl
first sees Stalin.

1244
01:18:58,401 --> 01:19:01,905
Then, she turns
around and, surprised,

1245
01:19:01,905 --> 01:19:04,207
sees her lover for whom she was

1246
01:19:04,207 --> 01:19:06,675
waiting all the time of the war.

1247
01:19:06,675 --> 01:19:09,178
(dramatic orchestral music)

1248
01:19:09,178 --> 01:19:11,815
So it's only through
the presence of Stalin

1249
01:19:11,815 --> 01:19:14,050
that the couple gets reunited.

1250
01:19:15,018 --> 01:19:20,023
(speaking in foreign language)

1251
01:19:28,397 --> 01:19:30,834
This is how ideology works.

1252
01:19:30,834 --> 01:19:33,402
Not the explicit
ideology of the film,

1253
01:19:33,402 --> 01:19:35,438
which we hear at the
end Stalin saying,

1254
01:19:35,438 --> 01:19:37,706
now, all the free
people will enjoy

1255
01:19:37,706 --> 01:19:40,877
peace and so on and
so on, but precisely,

1256
01:19:40,877 --> 01:19:44,247
ideology at its
more fundamental.

1257
01:19:44,247 --> 01:19:46,916
(singing in a foreign language)

1258
01:19:46,916 --> 01:19:50,854
This apparently totally
subordinated motive,

1259
01:19:51,988 --> 01:19:55,358
unimportant in itself,
the story of a couple,

1260
01:19:55,358 --> 01:19:59,262
this is what is the key element

1261
01:19:59,262 --> 01:20:03,032
which holds the
entire film together,

1262
01:20:03,032 --> 01:20:08,037
that small surplus
element which attracts us,

1263
01:20:08,037 --> 01:20:11,040
which maintains our attention.

1264
01:20:11,040 --> 01:20:13,176
This is how ideology works.

1265
01:20:13,176 --> 01:20:15,945
(metal clicking)

1266
01:20:15,945 --> 01:20:16,980
- Nice.

1267
01:20:19,482 --> 01:20:23,519
Everything clean, oiled

1268
01:20:26,555 --> 01:20:28,524
so that your action
is beautiful.

1269
01:20:30,359 --> 01:20:33,262
(metal clacking)

1270
01:20:33,262 --> 01:20:34,497
Smooth, Charlene.

1271
01:20:34,497 --> 01:20:36,632
- We usually think that
military discipline

1272
01:20:36,632 --> 01:20:39,468
is just a matter of mindlessly

1273
01:20:39,468 --> 01:20:43,072
following orders,
obeying the rules.

1274
01:20:43,072 --> 01:20:46,142
You don't think, you
do what is your duty.

1275
01:20:46,142 --> 01:20:47,776
It's not as simple as that.

1276
01:20:47,776 --> 01:20:51,847
If we do this, we
just become machines.

1277
01:20:53,116 --> 01:20:55,618
There has to be something more.

1278
01:20:55,618 --> 01:20:59,889
This more can have
two basic forms.

1279
01:20:59,889 --> 01:21:04,928
The first more benign form
is an ironic distance,

1280
01:21:06,062 --> 01:21:08,397
best epitomized
by the well-known

1281
01:21:08,397 --> 01:21:10,466
movie and TV series, "M.A.S.H."

1282
01:21:10,466 --> 01:21:11,534
(knocks)

1283
01:21:11,534 --> 01:21:12,936
- Hawkeye?

1284
01:21:12,936 --> 01:21:15,504
- [Voiceover] Where the
military doctors are involved in

1285
01:21:15,504 --> 01:21:20,243
sexual escapades, make
jokes all the time.

1286
01:21:21,677 --> 01:21:24,547
Some people took Robert
Altman's movie "M.A.S.H."

1287
01:21:24,547 --> 01:21:27,483
even as a kind of an
anti-militaristic,

1288
01:21:27,483 --> 01:21:30,954
satiric product, but it's not.

1289
01:21:30,954 --> 01:21:33,689
We should always bear
in mind that these

1290
01:21:33,689 --> 01:21:36,292
soldiers with all
their practical jokes,

1291
01:21:36,292 --> 01:21:39,028
making fun of their
superiors and so on,

1292
01:21:39,028 --> 01:21:42,631
operated perfectly as soldiers.

1293
01:21:42,631 --> 01:21:44,733
They did their duty.

1294
01:21:44,733 --> 01:21:46,335
- [Voiceover] Trapper,
this one's for you, babe.

1295
01:21:46,335 --> 01:21:47,603
- [Voiceover] Nice.

1296
01:21:47,603 --> 01:21:51,874
- Much more ominous
is a kind of obscene

1297
01:21:51,874 --> 01:21:55,844
supplement to pure
military discipline.

1298
01:21:55,844 --> 01:21:57,613
- The Marine Corps,
one, two, three--

1299
01:21:57,613 --> 01:22:01,284
In practically all movies
about the U.S. Marines,

1300
01:22:01,284 --> 01:22:05,454
the best-known embodiment
of this obscenity are

1301
01:22:05,454 --> 01:22:10,326
marching chants, a
mixture of nonsense--

1302
01:22:10,326 --> 01:22:11,995
* But I've been told

1303
01:22:11,995 --> 01:22:14,797
* Eskimo pussy is mighty cold

1304
01:22:14,797 --> 01:22:16,199
- [Voiceover] And obscenity.

1305
01:22:16,199 --> 01:22:18,867
* Is mighty cold, mmm good

1306
01:22:18,867 --> 01:22:21,137
- [Voiceover] This
is not undermining,

1307
01:22:21,137 --> 01:22:23,806
making fun of
military discipline.

1308
01:22:23,806 --> 01:22:25,241
* Tastes good, tastes good

1309
01:22:25,241 --> 01:22:28,011
- [Voiceover] It is its
inner most constituent.

1310
01:22:28,011 --> 01:22:29,278
* Good for you, good for me

1311
01:22:29,278 --> 01:22:33,416
- You take this
obscene supplement away

1312
01:22:33,416 --> 01:22:38,154
and military machine
stops working.

1313
01:22:38,154 --> 01:22:42,858
- Well, no shit, what have we
got here, a fucking comedian?

1314
01:22:42,858 --> 01:22:46,362
Private Joker, I
admire your honesty.

1315
01:22:46,362 --> 01:22:47,863
Hell, I like you.

1316
01:22:47,863 --> 01:22:49,832
You can come over to my
house and fuck my sister.

1317
01:22:49,832 --> 01:22:51,534
(groans)

1318
01:22:51,534 --> 01:22:54,170
You little scum bag,
I've got your name.

1319
01:22:54,170 --> 01:22:55,838
I've got your ass!

1320
01:22:55,838 --> 01:22:58,074
You will not laugh,
you will not cry.

1321
01:22:58,074 --> 01:22:59,442
You will learn by the numbers.

1322
01:22:59,442 --> 01:23:00,709
I will teach you.

1323
01:23:00,709 --> 01:23:03,212
Now, get up, get on your feet!

1324
01:23:03,212 --> 01:23:06,049
You had best unfuck
yourself or I will unscrew

1325
01:23:06,049 --> 01:23:08,217
your head and shit
down your neck.

1326
01:23:08,217 --> 01:23:09,718
- Sir, yes, sir!

1327
01:23:09,718 --> 01:23:12,321
- Private Joker, why did
you join my beloved corps?

1328
01:23:12,321 --> 01:23:15,158
- I think that the
drill sergeant,

1329
01:23:15,158 --> 01:23:20,163
the way it is played
in an exemplary way

1330
01:23:20,163 --> 01:23:24,200
in Stanley Kubrick's
"Full Metal Jacket,"

1331
01:23:24,200 --> 01:23:28,104
that the drill sergeant
is rather a tragic figure.

1332
01:23:28,104 --> 01:23:31,274
I always like to imagine
him as the person who

1333
01:23:31,274 --> 01:23:35,378
after his work, returns home,
is quite decent, and so on.

1334
01:23:35,378 --> 01:23:38,114
* Here's my rifle,
this is my gun *

1335
01:23:38,114 --> 01:23:40,483
- [Voiceover] All this
obscene shouting is just

1336
01:23:40,483 --> 01:23:43,552
a show put on not
so much to impress

1337
01:23:43,552 --> 01:23:46,522
ordinary soldiers
whom he is training,

1338
01:23:46,522 --> 01:23:49,958
as to bribe them with
bits of enjoyment.

1339
01:23:49,958 --> 01:23:53,229
* This is for fun, this is
my rifle, this is my gun *

1340
01:23:53,229 --> 01:23:56,299
- It's not just a question
of these obscenities,

1341
01:23:56,299 --> 01:23:58,334
which sustains the
military machinery.

1342
01:23:58,334 --> 01:24:02,171
It's another more general
rule which holds for

1343
01:24:02,171 --> 01:24:05,874
military communities,
but even more

1344
01:24:05,874 --> 01:24:09,612
I would say, for all
human communities,

1345
01:24:09,612 --> 01:24:13,416
from the largest
nations, ethnic groups,

1346
01:24:13,416 --> 01:24:16,952
up to small university
departments and so on.

1347
01:24:16,952 --> 01:24:21,457
You don't only have
explicit rules.

1348
01:24:21,457 --> 01:24:26,429
You always, in order to
become part of a community,

1349
01:24:26,429 --> 01:24:30,333
you need some implicit,
unwritten rules

1350
01:24:30,333 --> 01:24:33,469
which are never
publicly recognized

1351
01:24:33,469 --> 01:24:36,705
but are absolutely
crucial as the point of

1352
01:24:36,705 --> 01:24:38,474
the identification of a group.

1353
01:24:38,474 --> 01:24:42,010
(frantic organ music)

1354
01:24:42,010 --> 01:24:44,913
In the U.K.,
everyone knows about

1355
01:24:44,913 --> 01:24:47,250
the obscene, unwritten rituals,

1356
01:24:47,250 --> 01:24:51,754
which regulate life
in public schools.

1357
01:24:53,021 --> 01:24:54,490
- That'll be all,
thank you, Finchley.

1358
01:24:54,490 --> 01:24:56,659
I want to see all whips
in my study after break.

1359
01:24:56,659 --> 01:24:57,593
- Right, sir.

1360
01:24:57,593 --> 01:24:59,228
- Oh, how was India, enjoy it?

1361
01:24:59,228 --> 01:25:00,496
- Jolly good.
- Bridges!

1362
01:25:00,496 --> 01:25:02,931
* I'll labor night and day

1363
01:25:02,931 --> 01:25:07,035
- Just think about Lindsay
Anderson's classic, "If...."

1364
01:25:09,172 --> 01:25:11,174
The public life is democratic.

1365
01:25:11,174 --> 01:25:13,008
We have professors who interact

1366
01:25:13,008 --> 01:25:16,078
with their pupils,
nice atmosphere,

1367
01:25:16,078 --> 01:25:20,048
teaching friendship,
spirit of cooperation,

1368
01:25:20,048 --> 01:25:25,053
but then we all know what
happens beneath the surface,

1369
01:25:25,788 --> 01:25:27,190
(footsteps echoing)

1370
01:25:27,190 --> 01:25:30,193
(wood booms and creaks)

1371
01:25:30,193 --> 01:25:34,197
older pupils torturing,
sexually abusing the younger.

1372
01:25:34,197 --> 01:25:39,202
This same mixture of obscenity
and sadistic violence.

1373
01:25:39,768 --> 01:25:41,204
(wood booms)

1374
01:25:41,204 --> 01:25:43,872
And again, what
is crucial here is

1375
01:25:43,872 --> 01:25:46,775
we should not simply
put all the blame

1376
01:25:46,775 --> 01:25:50,979
or all the enjoyment
on the older pupils.

1377
01:25:50,979 --> 01:25:54,250
- No, no! (screaming)

1378
01:25:54,250 --> 01:25:56,485
- The victims even are part of

1379
01:25:56,485 --> 01:25:59,688
this infernal
cycle of obscenity.

1380
01:26:01,089 --> 01:26:04,793
It is as if in order to really
be a member of a community

1381
01:26:04,793 --> 01:26:07,230
you have to render
your hands dirty.

1382
01:26:07,230 --> 01:26:11,800
And I think that even
the Abu Ghraib scandal

1383
01:26:11,800 --> 01:26:15,538
of American soldiers torturing

1384
01:26:15,538 --> 01:26:18,574
and especially humiliating Iraqi

1385
01:26:18,574 --> 01:26:21,477
prisoners is to be
read in this way.

1386
01:26:21,477 --> 01:26:24,480
It's not simply we, the arrogant

1387
01:26:24,480 --> 01:26:27,283
Americans, are
humiliating others.

1388
01:26:27,283 --> 01:26:30,819
What Iraqi soldiers
experienced there

1389
01:26:30,819 --> 01:26:34,790
was the staging of
the obscene underside

1390
01:26:34,790 --> 01:26:37,493
of the American
military culture.

1391
01:26:40,696 --> 01:26:43,566
In "Full Metal Jacket,"
it's the character of

1392
01:26:43,566 --> 01:26:46,134
Joker, played by Matthew Modine,

1393
01:26:46,134 --> 01:26:48,103
who is close to
what we would call

1394
01:26:48,103 --> 01:26:52,575
a normal soldier, a
"M.A.S.H." type of soldier.

1395
01:26:52,575 --> 01:26:55,077
He has a proper ironic distance.

1396
01:26:55,077 --> 01:26:57,846
He proves at the
end, militarily,

1397
01:26:57,846 --> 01:26:59,915
the most efficient soldier.

1398
01:27:07,723 --> 01:27:12,528
Returning back to me, why
then will I soon shoot myself?

1399
01:27:12,528 --> 01:27:15,431
Something went wrong
there, but what?

1400
01:27:15,431 --> 01:27:17,032
- [Voiceover] Lock and load!

1401
01:27:17,032 --> 01:27:19,968
- [Voiceover] I did
not just run amok.

1402
01:27:19,968 --> 01:27:21,504
(gun clicks)

1403
01:27:21,504 --> 01:27:23,939
- Order, huh!

1404
01:27:25,641 --> 01:27:27,610
This is my rifle!

1405
01:27:27,610 --> 01:27:31,347
There are many like it,
but this one is mine!

1406
01:27:31,347 --> 01:27:34,650
- [Voiceover] But I got
too directly identified

1407
01:27:34,650 --> 01:27:36,852
with these obscene rituals.

1408
01:27:36,852 --> 01:27:38,754
I lost the distance.

1409
01:27:38,754 --> 01:27:40,356
I took them seriously.

1410
01:27:40,356 --> 01:27:42,190
- What in the name
of Jesus H. Christ

1411
01:27:42,190 --> 01:27:45,127
are you animals
doing in my head?

1412
01:27:45,127 --> 01:27:48,664
- If you get too
close to it, if you

1413
01:27:48,664 --> 01:27:52,401
over-identify with
it, if you really

1414
01:27:52,401 --> 01:27:54,637
immediately become the voice of

1415
01:27:54,637 --> 01:27:58,707
this super ego, it's
self destructive.

1416
01:27:58,707 --> 01:28:00,376
You kill people around you.

1417
01:28:00,376 --> 01:28:03,145
You end up killing yourself.

1418
01:28:03,145 --> 01:28:08,150
(dramatic strings music)

1419
01:28:09,017 --> 01:28:09,718
- No!

1420
01:28:09,718 --> 01:28:11,153
(gun fires)

1421
01:28:11,153 --> 01:28:16,158
(dramatic strings music)

1422
01:28:26,769 --> 01:28:29,605
- Oh, shh, shh,
shh, so you think

1423
01:28:29,605 --> 01:28:33,141
Batman's made Gotham
a better place, hmm?

1424
01:28:33,141 --> 01:28:36,379
Look at me, look at me!

1425
01:28:36,379 --> 01:28:40,916
(camera crackling)

1426
01:28:40,916 --> 01:28:44,653
You see, this is how crazy
Batman's made Gotham.

1427
01:28:44,653 --> 01:28:47,255
You want order in Gotham?

1428
01:28:47,255 --> 01:28:51,894
Batman must take off his
mask and turn himself in.

1429
01:28:51,894 --> 01:28:53,396
Oh, and every day he doesn't,

1430
01:28:53,396 --> 01:28:57,165
people will die,
starting tonight.

1431
01:28:58,501 --> 01:28:59,902
I'm a man of my word.

1432
01:28:59,902 --> 01:29:02,037
- [Voiceover] So who is Joker?

1433
01:29:02,037 --> 01:29:04,440
(maniacal laughing)

1434
01:29:04,440 --> 01:29:05,974
- If we're gonna play games--

1435
01:29:05,974 --> 01:29:08,944
- [Voiceover] Which is
the lie he is opposing?

1436
01:29:08,944 --> 01:29:10,546
(handcuffs clatter)

1437
01:29:10,546 --> 01:29:12,748
- I'm gonna need
a cup of coffee.

1438
01:29:12,748 --> 01:29:17,420
- Ah, the good cop, bad
cop routine? (clicks teeth)

1439
01:29:17,420 --> 01:29:18,454
- Not exactly.

1440
01:29:18,454 --> 01:29:19,922
(buzzing)

1441
01:29:19,922 --> 01:29:23,459
- The truly disturbing thing
about "The Dark Knight"

1442
01:29:24,627 --> 01:29:29,432
is that it elevates lie

1443
01:29:29,432 --> 01:29:34,302
into a general social
principal, into the principal

1444
01:29:34,302 --> 01:29:37,773
of organization of our
social political life.

1445
01:29:37,773 --> 01:29:42,244
As if our societies
can remain stable,

1446
01:29:42,244 --> 01:29:44,947
can function, only
if based on a lie.

1447
01:29:44,947 --> 01:29:48,083
As if telling the truth,
and this telling the truth

1448
01:29:48,083 --> 01:29:52,821
is embodied in Joker,
means distraction,

1449
01:29:54,022 --> 01:29:55,758
disintegration of
the social order.

1450
01:29:55,758 --> 01:29:56,959
- Never start with the head.

1451
01:29:56,959 --> 01:29:58,694
The victim gets all fuzzy.

1452
01:29:58,694 --> 01:29:59,862
He can't feel the next--

1453
01:29:59,862 --> 01:30:01,129
(fist bangs)

1454
01:30:01,129 --> 01:30:04,266
- Towards the end, it
is as if lie functions

1455
01:30:04,266 --> 01:30:07,603
as a hot potato passing from one

1456
01:30:07,603 --> 01:30:10,238
person's hand to
another person's hand.

1457
01:30:10,238 --> 01:30:11,907
First, there is Harvey Dent.

1458
01:30:11,907 --> 01:30:14,443
(crowd arguing)

1459
01:30:14,443 --> 01:30:16,311
- So be it, take the
Batman into custody.

1460
01:30:16,311 --> 01:30:19,848
- [Voiceover] The public
prosecutor who lies.

1461
01:30:19,848 --> 01:30:21,116
- I am the Batman.

1462
01:30:21,116 --> 01:30:23,852
- Claiming that he
is the real person

1463
01:30:23,852 --> 01:30:27,055
behind Batman's mask,
that he is Batman.

1464
01:30:28,824 --> 01:30:31,960
Then, we have Gordon,
honest policeman,

1465
01:30:31,960 --> 01:30:36,965
Batman's friend, who fakes,
stages his own death.

1466
01:30:37,700 --> 01:30:40,335
(distant guns fire)

1467
01:30:40,335 --> 01:30:42,270
- [Harvey] I'll see you later!
- Wait, are you going back?

1468
01:30:42,270 --> 01:30:45,874
(people shouting)

1469
01:30:45,874 --> 01:30:50,879
- Five dead, two of them cops,
you can't sweep that off.

1470
01:30:51,847 --> 01:30:52,815
- [Voiceover] At
the end, Batman,

1471
01:30:52,815 --> 01:30:56,485
himself, takes upon himself--

1472
01:30:56,485 --> 01:30:58,353
- But the Joker cannot win.

1473
01:30:58,353 --> 01:31:01,389
- [Voiceover] The
crimes, murders
committed by Harvey Dent,

1474
01:31:01,389 --> 01:31:04,459
the public prosecutor
turned criminal.

1475
01:31:04,459 --> 01:31:06,962
- [Batman] Gotham
needs its true hero.

1476
01:31:08,797 --> 01:31:12,535
- In order to
maintain the trust of

1477
01:31:12,535 --> 01:31:16,338
the public into
the legal system,

1478
01:31:16,338 --> 01:31:19,808
the idea is if the ordinary
public were to learn

1479
01:31:19,808 --> 01:31:23,846
how corrupt it was or
is, the very core of our

1480
01:31:23,846 --> 01:31:27,115
legal system, then everything
would have collapsed,

1481
01:31:27,115 --> 01:31:30,385
so we need a lie
to maintain order.

1482
01:31:31,587 --> 01:31:35,190
- A hero, not the
hero we deserved,

1483
01:31:35,190 --> 01:31:37,125
but the hero we needed,

1484
01:31:37,125 --> 01:31:41,429
Nothing less than
a knight, shining.

1485
01:31:41,429 --> 01:31:43,065
- There is nothing new in this.

1486
01:31:43,065 --> 01:31:46,569
This is an old,
conservative wisdom

1487
01:31:46,569 --> 01:31:51,039
asserted long ago by
philosophers from Plato,

1488
01:31:51,039 --> 01:31:53,842
but especially, and
then Immanuel Kant,

1489
01:31:53,842 --> 01:31:56,078
Edmond Burke, and
so on and so on.

1490
01:31:56,078 --> 01:31:59,582
This idea that the
truth is too strong.

1491
01:31:59,582 --> 01:32:03,719
That a politician should
be a cynicist who,

1492
01:32:03,719 --> 01:32:07,422
although he knows what is true,

1493
01:32:07,422 --> 01:32:10,458
tells to ordinary
people what Plato

1494
01:32:10,458 --> 01:32:13,095
called a noble fable, a lie.

1495
01:32:16,064 --> 01:32:19,001
- The United States
knows that Iraq

1496
01:32:19,001 --> 01:32:21,604
has weapons of mass destruction.

1497
01:32:21,604 --> 01:32:25,140
The U.K. knows that they have
weapons of mass destruction.

1498
01:32:25,140 --> 01:32:27,042
Any country on the
face of the earth

1499
01:32:27,042 --> 01:32:29,244
with an active
intelligence program

1500
01:32:29,244 --> 01:32:32,948
knows that Iraq has weapons
of mass destruction.

1501
01:32:32,948 --> 01:32:36,084
- Which could be activated
within 45 minutes,

1502
01:32:36,084 --> 01:32:38,887
including against his
own Shia population.

1503
01:32:38,887 --> 01:32:42,457
- The choice is his and
if he does not disarm,

1504
01:32:42,457 --> 01:32:46,294
the United States of America
will lead a coalition

1505
01:32:46,294 --> 01:32:48,263
and disarm him in
the name of peace.

1506
01:32:48,263 --> 01:32:49,832
(crowd cheering)

1507
01:32:49,832 --> 01:32:53,235
- Let's be frank,
we can have a state

1508
01:32:53,235 --> 01:32:56,805
public system of
power as legitimate

1509
01:32:56,805 --> 01:32:59,675
as you want submitted
to critical press,

1510
01:32:59,675 --> 01:33:01,710
democratic elections, and so on

1511
01:33:01,710 --> 01:33:06,514
and so on, apparently
it just serves us.

1512
01:33:06,514 --> 01:33:10,118
But nonetheless, if
you look closely into

1513
01:33:10,118 --> 01:33:14,657
how even the most
democratic state power

1514
01:33:14,657 --> 01:33:19,361
functions in order for it
to display true authority,

1515
01:33:19,361 --> 01:33:22,364
and power needs authority,
there has to be,

1516
01:33:22,364 --> 01:33:27,235
as it were between
the lines all the time

1517
01:33:27,235 --> 01:33:29,672
this message of,
yeah, yeah, yeah,

1518
01:33:29,672 --> 01:33:31,674
we are legalized
through elections,

1519
01:33:31,674 --> 01:33:35,177
but basically, we can do
with you whatever we want.

1520
01:33:35,177 --> 01:33:37,179
(glass shatters)

1521
01:33:37,179 --> 01:33:40,683
- [Voiceover] Because
that's what needs to happen.

1522
01:33:40,683 --> 01:33:44,119
Because sometimes,
truth isn't good enough.

1523
01:33:45,721 --> 01:33:47,690
Sometimes people deserve more.

1524
01:33:51,426 --> 01:33:55,297
Sometimes people deserve to
have their faith rewarded.

1525
01:33:55,297 --> 01:33:58,934
- One of the great platitudes,
which are popular today

1526
01:33:58,934 --> 01:34:03,939
when we are confronted
with acts of violence,

1527
01:34:05,073 --> 01:34:08,777
is to refer to
Fyodor Dostoyevsky's

1528
01:34:08,777 --> 01:34:11,847
famous statement from
"Brothers Karamazov,"

1529
01:34:11,847 --> 01:34:16,551
"If there is no God, then
everything is permitted."

1530
01:34:16,551 --> 01:34:19,621
Well, the first problem
with this statement is that

1531
01:34:19,621 --> 01:34:23,591
Dostoyevsky, of
course, never made it.

1532
01:34:23,591 --> 01:34:25,728
The first one who
used this phrase,

1533
01:34:25,728 --> 01:34:28,396
as allegedly made
by Dostoyevsky,

1534
01:34:28,396 --> 01:34:33,401
was Jean-Paul Sartre in '43,
but the main point is that

1535
01:34:33,401 --> 01:34:38,406
this statement is simply wrong.

1536
01:34:38,406 --> 01:34:41,744
Even a brief look
at our predicament

1537
01:34:41,744 --> 01:34:44,546
today clearly tells us this.

1538
01:34:44,546 --> 01:34:48,450
(speaking in foreign language)

1539
01:34:48,450 --> 01:34:53,155
It is precisely if there is God,

1540
01:34:53,155 --> 01:34:55,590
that everything is permitted to

1541
01:34:55,590 --> 01:34:58,526
those who not only
believe in God,

1542
01:34:58,526 --> 01:35:02,097
but who perceive
themselves as instruments,

1543
01:35:02,097 --> 01:35:05,167
direct instruments,
of the divine will.

1544
01:35:06,902 --> 01:35:10,873
If you posit or perceive
or legitimize yourself

1545
01:35:10,873 --> 01:35:14,009
as a direct instrument
of the divine will,

1546
01:35:14,009 --> 01:35:17,145
then of course
all narrow, petty,

1547
01:35:17,145 --> 01:35:20,082
moral considerations disappear.

1548
01:35:20,082 --> 01:35:24,252
(people screaming)

1549
01:35:24,252 --> 01:35:26,955
How can you even think
in such narrow terms

1550
01:35:26,955 --> 01:35:30,458
when you are a direct
instrument of God?

1551
01:35:31,693 --> 01:35:33,896
This is how so-called religious

1552
01:35:33,896 --> 01:35:37,966
fundamentalists work,
but not only them.

1553
01:35:37,966 --> 01:35:42,004
Every form of so-called
totalitarianism

1554
01:35:42,004 --> 01:35:45,974
works like that even
if it is presented,

1555
01:35:45,974 --> 01:35:49,945
or if it presents
itself, as atheist.

1556
01:35:49,945 --> 01:35:51,814
Let's take Stalinism.

1557
01:35:51,814 --> 01:35:54,950
Officially, Stalinism
was based on

1558
01:35:54,950 --> 01:35:59,621
atheist Marxist
theory, but if we look

1559
01:35:59,621 --> 01:36:03,258
closely at the
subjective experience

1560
01:36:03,258 --> 01:36:07,863
of a Stalinist political agent,

1561
01:36:07,863 --> 01:36:11,699
leader, we see that
it's not a position of

1562
01:36:11,699 --> 01:36:14,837
an arrogant master who
can do whatever he wants.

1563
01:36:14,837 --> 01:36:19,274
It's, on the contrary, the
position of a perfect servant.

1564
01:36:19,274 --> 01:36:23,511
In the Stalinist universe,
there definitely is

1565
01:36:23,511 --> 01:36:27,682
what in psychoanalytic
theory we call the Big Other.

1566
01:36:27,682 --> 01:36:32,687
("Farewell Of Slavianka"
by Victor Fedorov)

1567
01:37:39,554 --> 01:37:44,126
This Big Other in the Stalinist
universe has many names.

1568
01:37:46,761 --> 01:37:49,932
The best known of them are
the necessity of historical

1569
01:37:49,932 --> 01:37:54,769
progress towards communism,
or simply history.

1570
01:37:54,769 --> 01:37:56,939
History itself is the Big Other,

1571
01:37:56,939 --> 01:38:01,009
history as the necessary
succession of historical stages.

1572
01:38:01,009 --> 01:38:06,081
("Farewell Of Slavianka"
by Victor Fedorov)

1573
01:38:25,833 --> 01:38:29,237
A communist experiences
himself as simply

1574
01:38:29,237 --> 01:38:32,507
an instrument whose
function is to

1575
01:38:32,507 --> 01:38:35,743
actualize a
historical necessity.

1576
01:38:35,743 --> 01:38:40,748
("Farewell Of Slavianka"
by Victor Fedorov)

1577
01:38:41,883 --> 01:38:44,052
The people, the
mythic people whose

1578
01:38:44,052 --> 01:38:47,822
instrument that the
totalitarian leader is,

1579
01:38:47,822 --> 01:38:51,726
are never simply the
actually existing

1580
01:38:51,726 --> 01:38:54,796
individuals, groups
of people and so on.

1581
01:38:54,796 --> 01:38:59,801
It's some kind of imagined,
idealized point of reference

1582
01:38:59,801 --> 01:39:03,371
which works even
when, for example,

1583
01:39:03,371 --> 01:39:07,609
in rebellions against
the communist rule,

1584
01:39:07,609 --> 01:39:12,480
like in Hungary '56, when the
large majority of actually

1585
01:39:12,480 --> 01:39:16,451
resisting people raises up,
is opposed to the regime.

1586
01:39:18,320 --> 01:39:21,789
They can still say, no,
these are just individuals.

1587
01:39:21,789 --> 01:39:24,926
They are not the true people.

1588
01:39:24,926 --> 01:39:26,628
When you are accused of, my God,

1589
01:39:26,628 --> 01:39:29,197
how could you have been doing
all these horrible things,

1590
01:39:29,197 --> 01:39:30,532
you could have said, and this is

1591
01:39:30,532 --> 01:39:33,301
the standard Stalinist excuse,

1592
01:39:33,301 --> 01:39:36,871
of course, my heart bleeds
for all the poor victims.

1593
01:39:36,871 --> 01:39:39,874
I am not fully
responsible for it.

1594
01:39:39,874 --> 01:39:43,478
I was only acting on
behalf of the Big Other.

1595
01:39:43,478 --> 01:39:48,450
(man singing in
foreign language)

1596
01:39:50,952 --> 01:39:55,323
As for myself, I like cats,
small children, whatever.

1597
01:39:55,323 --> 01:39:57,425
This is always part
of the iconography

1598
01:39:57,425 --> 01:40:01,063
of a Stalinist leader.

1599
01:40:01,063 --> 01:40:04,066
Lenin, in Stalinism,
is always presented as

1600
01:40:04,066 --> 01:40:07,802
someone who likes small
children and cats.

1601
01:40:07,802 --> 01:40:10,238
The implication
being Lenin had to

1602
01:40:10,238 --> 01:40:12,040
order many killings and so on,

1603
01:40:12,040 --> 01:40:14,309
but his heart was not there.

1604
01:40:14,309 --> 01:40:16,644
This was his duty
as instrument of

1605
01:40:16,644 --> 01:40:19,181
historical progress
and so on and so on.

1606
01:40:21,049 --> 01:40:23,918
The way to undermine
Stalinism is not simply

1607
01:40:23,918 --> 01:40:26,288
to make fun of the
leader, which can be,

1608
01:40:26,288 --> 01:40:28,323
up to a point, even tolerated.

1609
01:40:28,323 --> 01:40:33,027
It is to undermine
this very reference,

1610
01:40:33,027 --> 01:40:35,763
mythic reference,
which legitimizes

1611
01:40:35,763 --> 01:40:37,699
the Stalinist
leader, the people.

1612
01:40:37,699 --> 01:40:42,704
(choir singing)

1613
01:40:59,821 --> 01:41:04,192
This is how I read
the by far best work

1614
01:41:04,192 --> 01:41:09,131
of Milos Forman, his
early Czech films,

1615
01:41:09,131 --> 01:41:14,136
(lively saxophone music)

1616
01:41:23,145 --> 01:41:25,347
"Black Peter," the
"Loves of a Blond,"

1617
01:41:25,347 --> 01:41:29,184
and "Firemen's
Ball," where he mocks

1618
01:41:29,184 --> 01:41:31,853
precisely the ordinary people...

1619
01:41:35,190 --> 01:41:38,893
in their daily
conformission, stupidity,

1620
01:41:38,893 --> 01:41:42,164
egotistic lust, and
so on and so on.

1621
01:41:53,375 --> 01:41:55,243
- [Voiceover] It may appear
that this is something

1622
01:41:55,243 --> 01:42:00,014
very arrogant, but no, I
think that this is the way to

1623
01:42:00,014 --> 01:42:03,785
undermine the entire structure
of the Stalinist universe,

1624
01:42:03,785 --> 01:42:07,088
to demonstrate not that
leaders are not leaders.

1625
01:42:07,088 --> 01:42:08,856
They are always ready
to say, oh, but we are

1626
01:42:08,856 --> 01:42:10,325
just ordinary people like you.

1627
01:42:10,325 --> 01:42:14,262
No, that there is
no mythic people

1628
01:42:14,262 --> 01:42:17,265
which serves as the
ultimate legitimization.

1629
01:42:19,801 --> 01:42:24,806
(train clacking)

1630
01:42:29,211 --> 01:42:33,648
- So what is the Big
Other, this basic

1631
01:42:33,648 --> 01:42:37,485
element of every
ideological edifice?

1632
01:42:37,485 --> 01:42:41,423
It has two quite
contradictory aspects.

1633
01:42:41,423 --> 01:42:44,526
On the one hand, of
course, the Big Other

1634
01:42:44,526 --> 01:42:47,429
is the secret order
of things like

1635
01:42:47,429 --> 01:42:50,698
divine reason, fate or whatever,

1636
01:42:50,698 --> 01:42:53,568
which is controlling
our destiny.

1637
01:42:53,568 --> 01:42:55,937
But it is maybe the
least interesting aspect

1638
01:42:55,937 --> 01:42:58,773
of the Big Other as the agents,

1639
01:42:58,773 --> 01:43:01,243
which guarantees meaning
of what we are doing.

1640
01:43:03,110 --> 01:43:04,512
- [Voiceover] Much
more interesting is

1641
01:43:04,512 --> 01:43:08,149
the Big Other as the
order of appearances.

1642
01:43:10,985 --> 01:43:15,457
Many things which are prohibited
are not simply prohibited,

1643
01:43:15,457 --> 01:43:19,827
but they should not
happen for the Big Other.

1644
01:43:22,163 --> 01:43:25,667
- A supreme example
of this agency of

1645
01:43:25,667 --> 01:43:28,803
the Big Other as the agency of

1646
01:43:28,803 --> 01:43:32,874
appearance is the
prattling busybody

1647
01:43:34,276 --> 01:43:39,281
in David Lean's masterpiece,
the "Brief Encounter."

1648
01:43:40,282 --> 01:43:41,749
At the very beginning
of the film,

1649
01:43:41,749 --> 01:43:45,086
the two lovers, Celia
Johnson and Trevor Howard,

1650
01:43:45,086 --> 01:43:47,422
arrange for their
last meeting in

1651
01:43:47,422 --> 01:43:49,924
a cafeteria of a
small train station.

1652
01:43:49,924 --> 01:43:52,294
- Laura, what a lovely surprise.

1653
01:43:52,294 --> 01:43:53,661
- [Laura] Oh, Dolly.

1654
01:43:53,661 --> 01:43:55,297
- My dear, I've been
shopping till I'm dropping.

1655
01:43:55,297 --> 01:43:57,465
My feet are nearly off,
and my throat's parched.

1656
01:43:57,465 --> 01:43:58,900
I thought of having
tea at Spindle's,

1657
01:43:58,900 --> 01:44:01,836
but I was terrified of
losing the train, oh, dear.

1658
01:44:01,836 --> 01:44:03,738
- Oh, this is Dr. Harvey.

1659
01:44:03,738 --> 01:44:05,206
- How do you do?

1660
01:44:05,206 --> 01:44:06,474
- Would you be a perfect dear
and get me my cup of tea?

1661
01:44:06,474 --> 01:44:07,709
I really don't
think I could drag

1662
01:44:07,709 --> 01:44:09,043
my poor old bones
over to the counter.

1663
01:44:09,043 --> 01:44:11,779
- Why is this situation
so interesting?

1664
01:44:11,779 --> 01:44:16,451
Because on the one hand,
we cannot but experience

1665
01:44:16,451 --> 01:44:20,588
this annoying lady
as a brutal intruder.

1666
01:44:20,588 --> 01:44:22,156
- [Laura] There's your train.
- Yes, I know.

1667
01:44:22,156 --> 01:44:23,525
- [Dolly] Oh, aren't
you coming with us?

1668
01:44:23,525 --> 01:44:24,692
No, I go in the
opposite direction.

1669
01:44:24,692 --> 01:44:25,827
- My practice is in Churley.

1670
01:44:25,827 --> 01:44:27,161
- [Dolly] Oh, I see.

1671
01:44:27,161 --> 01:44:28,363
- I'm a general
practitioner at the moment.

1672
01:44:28,363 --> 01:44:30,164
- Dr. Harvey's going
out to Africa next week.

1673
01:44:30,164 --> 01:44:31,666
- [Dolly] Oh, how thrilling.

1674
01:44:31,666 --> 01:44:34,802
- [Voiceover] Instead of the
two lovers being allowed,

1675
01:44:34,802 --> 01:44:37,872
at least, their
final moments alone,

1676
01:44:37,872 --> 01:44:40,041
they have to maintain
the appearances

1677
01:44:40,041 --> 01:44:42,243
that nothing is
happening between them,

1678
01:44:42,243 --> 01:44:45,347
that they are just acquaintances
and so on and so on.

1679
01:44:51,118 --> 01:44:52,954
- He'll have to run,
or he'll miss it.

1680
01:44:52,954 --> 01:44:55,690
He's got to get right over
to the other platform--

1681
01:44:55,690 --> 01:44:57,124
- [Voiceover] This precisely is

1682
01:44:57,124 --> 01:44:58,960
the function of the Big Other.

1683
01:44:58,960 --> 01:45:03,130
We need, for our stability,
a figure of Big Other

1684
01:45:03,130 --> 01:45:06,468
for whom we maintain
appearances.

1685
01:45:06,468 --> 01:45:09,070
- And I arrived at the
station with exactly half

1686
01:45:09,070 --> 01:45:11,673
a minute to spare,
my dear, I flew.

1687
01:45:11,673 --> 01:45:15,242
- But are things really
as simple as that?

1688
01:45:15,242 --> 01:45:17,645
The next scene, the
scene of Celia Johnson,

1689
01:45:17,645 --> 01:45:19,814
totally desperate,
she knows that

1690
01:45:19,814 --> 01:45:22,484
she will never
again see her lover.

1691
01:45:22,484 --> 01:45:24,386
- Yes, he's a nice creature.

1692
01:45:24,386 --> 01:45:25,753
- [Dolly] You known him long?

1693
01:45:25,753 --> 01:45:28,255
- No, not very long.

1694
01:45:28,255 --> 01:45:29,824
I hardly know him
at all, really.

1695
01:45:29,824 --> 01:45:31,393
- [Dolly] Well, my
dear, I've always

1696
01:45:31,393 --> 01:45:32,760
had a passion for doctors.

1697
01:45:32,760 --> 01:45:34,128
- [Voiceover] Then, we hear the

1698
01:45:34,128 --> 01:45:37,532
line of Celia Johnson's thought.

1699
01:45:37,532 --> 01:45:40,402
- [Voiceover] I wish
I could trust you.

1700
01:45:40,402 --> 01:45:43,538
I wish you were a
wise, kind friend

1701
01:45:43,538 --> 01:45:45,473
instead of a gossiping
acquaintance I've known

1702
01:45:45,473 --> 01:45:48,242
casually for years and never
particularly cared for.

1703
01:45:48,242 --> 01:45:51,579
- What is the nature of this
deadlock of Celia Johnson?

1704
01:45:51,579 --> 01:45:54,849
She is split between
the two figures

1705
01:45:54,849 --> 01:45:57,184
in the film of the Big Other.

1706
01:45:58,720 --> 01:46:03,725
On the one hand, it's her
husband, the ideal listener,

1707
01:46:04,826 --> 01:46:06,628
but it's out of question
to confess to him.

1708
01:46:06,628 --> 01:46:11,599
(gloomy piano music)

1709
01:46:16,638 --> 01:46:21,242
- [Voiceover] Fred, Fred,

1710
01:46:21,242 --> 01:46:25,847
dear Fred, there's so much
that I want to say to you.

1711
01:46:27,515 --> 01:46:29,283
You're the only one in
the world with enough

1712
01:46:29,283 --> 01:46:31,586
wisdom and gentleness
to understand.

1713
01:46:31,586 --> 01:46:34,922
- (chuckles) Wild
horses wouldn't drag
me away from England

1714
01:46:34,922 --> 01:46:36,591
and home and all the
things I'm used to.

1715
01:46:36,591 --> 01:46:39,894
I mean, one has one's roots
after all, hasn't one?

1716
01:46:39,894 --> 01:46:41,829
- Oh, yes, one has one's roots.

1717
01:46:41,829 --> 01:46:45,332
- [Voiceover] On the other
hand, you have here this stupid

1718
01:46:45,332 --> 01:46:48,570
person who is available
as a confessor,

1719
01:46:48,570 --> 01:46:51,305
but there is not even
an elementary trust.

1720
01:46:51,305 --> 01:46:52,574
- [Dolly] For months and months.

1721
01:46:52,574 --> 01:46:55,042
- [Voiceover] I wish
you'd stop talking.

1722
01:46:55,042 --> 01:46:58,245
I wish you'd stop prying and
trying to find things out.

1723
01:46:58,245 --> 01:46:59,046
I wish you were dead.

1724
01:46:59,046 --> 01:47:00,515
No, I don't mean that.

1725
01:47:00,515 --> 01:47:04,351
That was silly and unkind,
but I wish you'd stop talking.

1726
01:47:04,351 --> 01:47:06,187
- [Dolly] My dear,
all her hair came out,

1727
01:47:06,187 --> 01:47:08,890
and she said the social life
was quite, quite horrid.

1728
01:47:08,890 --> 01:47:10,958
Provincial, you know,
and very nouveau riche.

1729
01:47:10,958 --> 01:47:11,893
- Oh, Dolly.

1730
01:47:11,893 --> 01:47:12,827
- What's the matter, dear?

1731
01:47:12,827 --> 01:47:14,028
Are you feeling ill again?

1732
01:47:14,028 --> 01:47:16,330
- So that's the tragedy
of our predicament.

1733
01:47:16,330 --> 01:47:19,734
In order to fully
exist as individuals,

1734
01:47:19,734 --> 01:47:23,037
we need the fiction
of a Big Other.

1735
01:47:23,037 --> 01:47:26,373
There must be an agency which,

1736
01:47:26,373 --> 01:47:29,977
as it were, registers
our predicament,

1737
01:47:29,977 --> 01:47:33,748
an agency where the
truth of ourselves

1738
01:47:33,748 --> 01:47:36,651
will be inscribed, accepted,

1739
01:47:36,651 --> 01:47:38,853
an agency to which to confess.

1740
01:47:38,853 --> 01:47:42,189
But what if there
is no such agency?

1741
01:47:42,189 --> 01:47:46,994
This was the utmost
despair of many

1742
01:47:46,994 --> 01:47:50,097
women raped in the post-Yugoslav

1743
01:47:50,097 --> 01:47:53,134
war in Bosnia in the early 90s.

1744
01:47:53,134 --> 01:47:56,804
They survived their
terrible predicament,

1745
01:47:56,804 --> 01:47:59,040
and what kept them
alive was the idea,

1746
01:47:59,040 --> 01:48:02,009
I must survive to
tell the truth.

1747
01:48:02,009 --> 01:48:05,246
If, when if, they survived,

1748
01:48:05,246 --> 01:48:07,549
they made a terrible discovery.

1749
01:48:07,549 --> 01:48:10,151
There is no one to
really to listen to them,

1750
01:48:10,151 --> 01:48:13,287
either some totally
ignorant bored social worker

1751
01:48:13,287 --> 01:48:18,292
or some relative who usually
made obscene insinuations like,

1752
01:48:18,292 --> 01:48:20,261
are you sure you were
not even enjoying

1753
01:48:20,261 --> 01:48:22,296
a little bit the rape
and so on and so on.

1754
01:48:22,296 --> 01:48:26,000
They discovered
the truth of what

1755
01:48:26,000 --> 01:48:30,004
Jacques Lacan claims,
there is no Big Other.

1756
01:48:30,004 --> 01:48:34,876
There may be a virtual Big Other
to whom you cannot confess.

1757
01:48:34,876 --> 01:48:38,445
There may be a Real Other,

1758
01:48:38,445 --> 01:48:40,582
but it's never the virtual one.

1759
01:48:40,582 --> 01:48:42,016
We are alone.

1760
01:48:42,016 --> 01:48:46,921
(brakes squealing)

1761
01:48:52,994 --> 01:48:57,999
(mysterious oboe music)

1762
01:49:01,068 --> 01:49:04,606
I think Kafka was
right when he said that

1763
01:49:04,606 --> 01:49:08,610
for a modern secular,
non-religious man,

1764
01:49:10,511 --> 01:49:14,982
bureaucracy, state bureaucracy
is the only remaining

1765
01:49:14,982 --> 01:49:18,052
contact with the
dimension of the divine.

1766
01:49:18,052 --> 01:49:23,024
(mysterious orchestral music)

1767
01:49:23,024 --> 01:49:27,461
It is in this scene
from "Brazil" that
we see the intimate

1768
01:49:27,461 --> 01:49:31,265
link between bureaucracy
and enjoyment.

1769
01:49:32,700 --> 01:49:35,402
What the impenetrable
omnipotence of

1770
01:49:35,402 --> 01:49:40,041
bureaucracy harbors
is divine enjoyment.

1771
01:49:40,041 --> 01:49:45,046
(businessmen blabbering)

1772
01:49:46,180 --> 01:49:47,548
- My name's Lowry,
Mr. Warren, Sam Lowry.

1773
01:49:47,548 --> 01:49:49,083
- [Voiceover] The
intense rush of

1774
01:49:49,083 --> 01:49:52,654
bureaucratic engagement
serves nothing.

1775
01:49:52,654 --> 01:49:54,088
- Glad to have you on board.

1776
01:49:54,088 --> 01:49:56,390
(businessmen blabbering)

1777
01:49:56,390 --> 01:49:58,159
- [Voiceover] It
is the performance

1778
01:49:58,159 --> 01:50:00,695
of its very purposelessness--

1779
01:50:00,695 --> 01:50:02,664
- You like it up here?

1780
01:50:02,664 --> 01:50:05,366
- [Voiceover] That generates
an intense enjoyment,

1781
01:50:05,366 --> 01:50:08,035
ready to reproduce
itself forever.

1782
01:50:08,035 --> 01:50:10,604
- Expecting big things,
too complex to finance.

1783
01:50:10,604 --> 01:50:13,207
(frantic classical music)

1784
01:50:13,207 --> 01:50:14,976
Ah, don't let
progress see those.

1785
01:50:14,976 --> 01:50:16,711
Between you and me,
Lowry, this, no no,

1786
01:50:16,711 --> 01:50:18,680
department, tell
records to get stuffed,

1787
01:50:18,680 --> 01:50:23,317
is about to be
upgraded and the, ah!

1788
01:50:23,317 --> 01:50:27,755
Here we are, your very own
number on your very own door,

1789
01:50:27,755 --> 01:50:30,658
and behind that door,
your very own office.

1790
01:50:30,658 --> 01:50:35,162
Congratulations, DZ-015,
welcome to the team.

1791
01:50:35,162 --> 01:50:36,630
(knocking)

1792
01:50:36,630 --> 01:50:39,834
Yes, no, cancel that, send
two copies to finance.

1793
01:50:39,834 --> 01:50:42,704
- [Voiceover] The adverse
of this is a wonderful scene

1794
01:50:42,704 --> 01:50:45,807
more towards the
beginning of the film.

1795
01:50:45,807 --> 01:50:47,909
- Harry Tuttle, heating
engineer, at your service.

1796
01:50:47,909 --> 01:50:50,812
- [Voiceover] The hero who
has a problem in his apartment

1797
01:50:50,812 --> 01:50:55,049
with plumbing tries to get
the State agency to fix it.

1798
01:50:55,950 --> 01:50:58,419
- Are you from Central Services?

1799
01:50:58,419 --> 01:51:00,922
- [Voiceover] Of course, two
guys come, they just want

1800
01:51:00,922 --> 01:51:03,791
forms to fill in,
they do nothing.

1801
01:51:03,791 --> 01:51:05,526
- I called Central Services.

1802
01:51:05,526 --> 01:51:09,831
- [Voiceover] And
then the ultimate
subversive figure comes,

1803
01:51:09,831 --> 01:51:14,068
a kind of clandestine plumber,
played by Robert De Niro.

1804
01:51:14,068 --> 01:51:17,604
- Just a minute, what was
that business with the gun?

1805
01:51:17,604 --> 01:51:20,574
- Just a precaution,
sir, just a precaution.

1806
01:51:20,574 --> 01:51:22,944
- [Voiceover] Who tells
him, just tell me what is

1807
01:51:22,944 --> 01:51:26,547
the problem and promises
quickly to fix it.

1808
01:51:26,547 --> 01:51:31,418
This, of course, is the
ultimate offense to bureaucracy.

1809
01:51:31,418 --> 01:51:33,554
- Are you telling me
that this is illegal?

1810
01:51:33,554 --> 01:51:38,559
(electrical booming
and whirring)

1811
01:51:40,427 --> 01:51:41,929
Thanks.

1812
01:51:41,929 --> 01:51:45,767
- Listen, kid, we're all
in it together, go on.

1813
01:51:45,767 --> 01:51:49,036
- In the ordinary
theological universe,

1814
01:51:49,036 --> 01:51:51,773
your duty is imposed
onto you by God

1815
01:51:51,773 --> 01:51:54,341
or society, another
higher authority,

1816
01:51:54,341 --> 01:51:56,778
and your responsibility
is to do it.

1817
01:51:56,778 --> 01:51:59,280
(inspirational orchestral music)

1818
01:51:59,280 --> 01:52:02,583
But in a radically
atheist universe,

1819
01:52:02,583 --> 01:52:05,219
you are not only responsible for

1820
01:52:05,219 --> 01:52:09,891
doing your duty, you
are also responsible

1821
01:52:09,891 --> 01:52:13,094
for deciding what is your duty.

1822
01:52:13,094 --> 01:52:16,831
(inspirational orchestral music)

1823
01:52:16,831 --> 01:52:21,235
There is always in our
subjectivity, in the way we

1824
01:52:21,235 --> 01:52:26,240
experience ourselves,
a minimum of hysteria.

1825
01:52:27,408 --> 01:52:30,577
Hysteria is what,
hysteria is the way

1826
01:52:30,577 --> 01:52:34,581
we question our social,
symbolic identity.

1827
01:52:34,581 --> 01:52:36,217
- You're sure it's God?

1828
01:52:36,217 --> 01:52:38,419
You're sure it's not the devil?

1829
01:52:38,419 --> 01:52:41,155
- I'm not sure, I'm
not sure of anything.

1830
01:52:41,155 --> 01:52:43,825
- If it's the devil, the
devil can be cast out.

1831
01:52:43,825 --> 01:52:45,827
- But what if it's God?

1832
01:52:45,827 --> 01:52:49,030
You can't cast out God, can you?

1833
01:52:49,030 --> 01:52:53,300
- [Voiceover] What is hysteria
at it's most elementary?

1834
01:52:53,300 --> 01:52:56,203
It's a question addressed at the

1835
01:52:56,203 --> 01:52:59,640
authority which
defines my identity.

1836
01:52:59,640 --> 01:53:04,511
It's why am I what you
are telling me that I am?

1837
01:53:06,347 --> 01:53:09,383
In psychoanalytic
theory, hysteria is much

1838
01:53:09,383 --> 01:53:12,119
more subversive than perversion.

1839
01:53:12,119 --> 01:53:14,956
A pervert has no
uncertainties while again,

1840
01:53:14,956 --> 01:53:18,025
the hysterical position
is that of a doubt,

1841
01:53:18,025 --> 01:53:21,362
which is an extremely
productive position.

1842
01:53:21,362 --> 01:53:26,267
All new inventions come
from hysterical questioning,

1843
01:53:26,267 --> 01:53:30,337
and the unique character
of Christianity is that

1844
01:53:30,337 --> 01:53:34,108
it transposes this
hysterical questioning

1845
01:53:34,108 --> 01:53:37,144
onto God himself as a subject.

1846
01:53:37,144 --> 01:53:41,648
(suspenseful percussion music)

1847
01:53:43,017 --> 01:53:45,019
- [Voiceover] Who's that, who's
following me, is that you?

1848
01:53:45,019 --> 01:53:48,322
(suspenseful percussion music)

1849
01:53:48,322 --> 01:53:51,692
- This is the ingenious idea of

1850
01:53:51,692 --> 01:53:53,160
"The Last Temptation of Christ,"

1851
01:53:53,160 --> 01:53:53,895
(eagle screeches)

1852
01:53:53,895 --> 01:53:58,199
(yelps in pain)

1853
01:53:58,199 --> 01:54:01,268
as in Kazantzakis' novel
and Scorsese's film,

1854
01:54:01,268 --> 01:54:05,106
namely the idea that
when Jesus Christ,

1855
01:54:05,106 --> 01:54:09,543
in his youth, is told that he is

1856
01:54:09,543 --> 01:54:12,146
not only the Son of
God, but basically,

1857
01:54:12,146 --> 01:54:16,317
God himself, he doesn't
simply accept it.

1858
01:54:16,317 --> 01:54:19,921
This is for Jesus Christ, boy,

1859
01:54:19,921 --> 01:54:22,723
traumatic news like,
my God, why am I dead?

1860
01:54:22,723 --> 01:54:24,091
Am I really dead?

1861
01:54:24,091 --> 01:54:28,062
(singing in foreign language)

1862
01:54:28,062 --> 01:54:30,797
How did we come to
that unique point,

1863
01:54:30,797 --> 01:54:34,435
which I think, makes
Christianity an exception?

1864
01:54:36,303 --> 01:54:40,007
It all began with
the "Book of Job."

1865
01:54:40,007 --> 01:54:43,744
As we all know, things
turn out bad for Job.

1866
01:54:43,744 --> 01:54:46,747
He loses everything, his house,

1867
01:54:46,747 --> 01:54:50,517
his family, his
possessions and so on.

1868
01:54:50,517 --> 01:54:54,221
Three friends visit
him and each of them

1869
01:54:54,221 --> 01:54:58,025
tries to justify
Job's misfortunes.

1870
01:54:59,493 --> 01:55:02,429
The greatness of Job is that he

1871
01:55:02,429 --> 01:55:06,267
does not accept
this deeper meaning.

1872
01:55:08,369 --> 01:55:10,972
When, towards the end
of the Book of Job,

1873
01:55:10,972 --> 01:55:13,107
God himself appears,

1874
01:55:14,641 --> 01:55:18,145
God gives right to Job.

1875
01:55:18,145 --> 01:55:20,581
He says everything
that the theological

1876
01:55:20,581 --> 01:55:24,051
friends were telling
Job is false.

1877
01:55:24,051 --> 01:55:27,021
Everything job was
saying is true,

1878
01:55:27,021 --> 01:55:29,123
no meaning in catastrophes.

1879
01:55:29,123 --> 01:55:31,825
(slow-paced flute music)

1880
01:55:31,825 --> 01:55:34,996
Here, we have the first step in

1881
01:55:34,996 --> 01:55:39,366
the direction of
delegitimizing suffering.

1882
01:55:39,366 --> 01:55:42,903
(slow-paced flute music)

1883
01:55:42,903 --> 01:55:45,706
- [Voiceover] Father, stay
with me, don't leave me.

1884
01:55:47,241 --> 01:55:48,175
(metal clangs)

1885
01:55:48,175 --> 01:55:50,877
(yelping)

1886
01:55:50,877 --> 01:55:54,715
- [Voiceover] The contrast
between Judaism and Christianity

1887
01:55:54,715 --> 01:55:59,120
is the contrast between
anxiety and love.

1888
01:55:59,120 --> 01:56:04,125
(crowd arguing)

1889
01:56:05,526 --> 01:56:08,662
The idea is that
the Jewish God is

1890
01:56:08,662 --> 01:56:12,666
the God of the abyss
of the other's desire.

1891
01:56:12,666 --> 01:56:16,603
Terrible things happen,
God is in charge,

1892
01:56:16,603 --> 01:56:20,741
but we do not know
what the Big Other,

1893
01:56:20,741 --> 01:56:23,310
God, wants from us.

1894
01:56:23,310 --> 01:56:25,846
What is the divine desire?

1895
01:56:25,846 --> 01:56:29,550
(crowd arguing)

1896
01:56:29,550 --> 01:56:32,519
To designate this
traumatic experience,

1897
01:56:32,519 --> 01:56:36,857
Lacan used the Italian
phrase, che voglio,

1898
01:56:36,857 --> 01:56:39,926
what do you want, this
terrifying question,

1899
01:56:39,926 --> 01:56:41,628
but what do you want from me?

1900
01:56:41,628 --> 01:56:46,633
(crowd arguing)

1901
01:56:48,069 --> 01:56:51,538
The idea is that Judaism
persists in this anxiety,

1902
01:56:51,538 --> 01:56:56,543
like God remains this
enigmatic, terrifying other.

1903
01:56:57,944 --> 01:57:01,948
And then Christianity resolves
the tension through love.

1904
01:57:03,384 --> 01:57:08,189
By sacrificing his son, God
demonstrates that he loves us.

1905
01:57:08,189 --> 01:57:10,524
So it's a kind of a imaginary,

1906
01:57:10,524 --> 01:57:13,627
sentimental even, resolution of

1907
01:57:13,627 --> 01:57:16,597
a situation of radical anxiety.

1908
01:57:16,597 --> 01:57:21,602
(crowd arguing)

1909
01:57:37,984 --> 01:57:41,422
- Father, forgive them.

1910
01:57:41,422 --> 01:57:43,957
- [Voiceover] If this were to
be the case, then Christianity

1911
01:57:43,957 --> 01:57:46,627
would have been a
kind of ideological

1912
01:57:46,627 --> 01:57:50,264
reversal or pacification
of the deep,

1913
01:57:50,264 --> 01:57:53,734
much more shattering
Jewish insight.

1914
01:57:53,734 --> 01:57:56,403
But I think one can
read the Christian

1915
01:57:56,403 --> 01:57:59,206
gesture in a much
more radical way.

1916
01:57:59,206 --> 01:58:02,276
(wind whistling)

1917
01:58:02,276 --> 01:58:05,045
This is what the
sequence of crucifixion

1918
01:58:05,045 --> 01:58:08,149
in Scorsese's film shows us.

1919
01:58:08,149 --> 01:58:12,286
What dies on the
cross is precisely

1920
01:58:12,286 --> 01:58:15,556
this guarantee of the Big Other.

1921
01:58:15,556 --> 01:58:19,893
The message of Christianity
is here radically atheist.

1922
01:58:19,893 --> 01:58:23,364
It's the death of Christ
is not any kind of

1923
01:58:23,364 --> 01:58:26,667
redemption or commercial
affair in the sense of

1924
01:58:26,667 --> 01:58:29,170
Christ suffers to
pay for our sins,

1925
01:58:29,170 --> 01:58:31,638
pay to whom, for
what, and so on.

1926
01:58:31,638 --> 01:58:36,177
It's simply the disintegration
of the God which

1927
01:58:36,177 --> 01:58:40,581
guarantees the
meaning of our lives.

1928
01:58:40,581 --> 01:58:43,517
And that's the meaning
of that famous phrase,

1929
01:58:43,517 --> 01:58:45,619
(speaking in foreign language)

1930
01:58:45,619 --> 01:58:48,189
Father, why have
you forsaken me?

1931
01:58:48,189 --> 01:58:51,592
(storm brewing)

1932
01:58:51,592 --> 01:58:56,597
- Father, why have
you forsaken me?

1933
01:58:56,597 --> 01:59:01,602
(thunder rumbles)

1934
01:59:06,240 --> 01:59:09,210
- Just before Christ's
death, we get what,

1935
01:59:09,210 --> 01:59:14,215
in psychoanalytic terms, we
call subjective destitution,

1936
01:59:17,083 --> 01:59:19,520
stepping out totally
of the domain

1937
01:59:19,520 --> 01:59:22,389
of symbolic identification,

1938
01:59:24,691 --> 01:59:29,062
cancelling or suspending
the entire field of

1939
01:59:29,062 --> 01:59:33,066
symbolic authority, the
entire field of the Big Other.

1940
01:59:40,274 --> 01:59:42,776
Of course, we cannot know what

1941
01:59:42,776 --> 01:59:46,713
God wants from us
because there is no God.

1942
01:59:52,653 --> 01:59:55,389
This is the Jesus
Christ who says,

1943
01:59:55,389 --> 01:59:59,893
among other things, I
bring to Earth not peace.

1944
01:59:59,893 --> 02:00:01,328
If you don't hate your father,

1945
02:00:01,328 --> 02:00:03,764
your mother, you
are not my follower.

1946
02:00:03,764 --> 02:00:06,367
Of course, this doesn't
mean that you should

1947
02:00:06,367 --> 02:00:08,969
actively hate or
kill your parents.

1948
02:00:08,969 --> 02:00:12,005
I think that family
relations stand here

1949
02:00:12,005 --> 02:00:15,709
for hierarchic social relations.

1950
02:00:15,709 --> 02:00:19,079
The message of
Christ is, I'm dying,

1951
02:00:19,079 --> 02:00:22,449
but my death,
itself, is good news.

1952
02:00:22,449 --> 02:00:26,287
It means you are alone,
left to your freedom,

1953
02:00:26,287 --> 02:00:30,657
be in the Holy
Ghost, Holy Spirit,

1954
02:00:30,657 --> 02:00:33,494
which is just the
community of believers.

1955
02:00:33,494 --> 02:00:36,697
It's wrong to think
that the second coming

1956
02:00:36,697 --> 02:00:41,668
will be that Christ as a
figure will return somehow.

1957
02:00:42,836 --> 02:00:46,573
Christ is already
here when believers

1958
02:00:46,573 --> 02:00:49,576
form an emancipatory collective.

1959
02:00:49,576 --> 02:00:54,581
This is why I claim that
the only way, really,

1960
02:00:55,782 --> 02:00:59,586
to be an atheist is to
go through Christianity.

1961
02:00:59,586 --> 02:01:03,757
Christianity is much
more atheist than

1962
02:01:03,757 --> 02:01:08,161
the usual atheism,
which can claim

1963
02:01:08,161 --> 02:01:11,131
there is no God and so
on, but nonetheless,

1964
02:01:11,131 --> 02:01:15,135
it retains a certain
trust into the Big Other.

1965
02:01:15,135 --> 02:01:17,471
This Big Other can
be called natural

1966
02:01:17,471 --> 02:01:20,140
necessity, evolution,
or whatever.

1967
02:01:20,140 --> 02:01:23,477
We humans are,
nonetheless, reduced to a

1968
02:01:24,978 --> 02:01:29,816
position within a harmonious
whole of evolution, whatever,

1969
02:01:29,816 --> 02:01:32,453
but the difficult
thing to accept is,

1970
02:01:32,453 --> 02:01:35,188
again, that there
is no Big Other,

1971
02:01:35,188 --> 02:01:39,660
no point of reference
which guarantees meaning.

1972
02:01:39,660 --> 02:01:44,665
(slow-paced strings music)

1973
02:01:55,676 --> 02:02:00,647
We are in John
Frankenheimer's "Seconds,"

1974
02:02:00,647 --> 02:02:04,951
a neglected Hollywood
masterpiece from 1966,

1975
02:02:04,951 --> 02:02:08,389
from the very heart
of the hippy era,

1976
02:02:08,389 --> 02:02:11,592
which preached
unrestrained hedonism.

1977
02:02:11,592 --> 02:02:15,596
Realize your dreams,
enjoy life fully.

1978
02:02:15,596 --> 02:02:19,866
The film is the story of a
late, middle-age businessman

1979
02:02:19,866 --> 02:02:23,437
leading a gray,
totally-alienated life,

1980
02:02:23,437 --> 02:02:28,442
and then he decides at some
point that he has enough of it.

1981
02:02:29,610 --> 02:02:31,945
Through one of his
friends, he contacts

1982
02:02:31,945 --> 02:02:36,049
a mysterious agency
which offers him a deal.

1983
02:02:36,049 --> 02:02:40,987
They will reorganize his life
so that he will be reborn.

1984
02:02:40,987 --> 02:02:45,992
(dramatic strings music)

1985
02:02:49,763 --> 02:02:53,233
- The cost runs in the
neighborhood of $30,000.

1986
02:02:53,233 --> 02:02:55,502
I know this seems rather high,

1987
02:02:55,502 --> 02:02:59,940
but in addition to the
rather extensive cosmetic

1988
02:02:59,940 --> 02:03:02,976
renovation by way of
plastic surgery for you,

1989
02:03:02,976 --> 02:03:05,345
CPS has to provide
a fresh corpse

1990
02:03:05,345 --> 02:03:08,248
that perfectly
matches your physical

1991
02:03:08,248 --> 02:03:10,917
dimensions and medical
specifications.

1992
02:03:10,917 --> 02:03:12,185
- CPS?

1993
02:03:12,185 --> 02:03:15,321
- Oh, Cadaver
Procurement Section.

1994
02:03:15,321 --> 02:03:17,591
- [Voiceover] They
use some corpse.

1995
02:03:17,591 --> 02:03:22,028
They change it to look
like his own body.

1996
02:03:22,028 --> 02:03:24,898
They plant this corpse,
stage a pseudo-accident

1997
02:03:24,898 --> 02:03:27,468
so that police
thinks he is dead.

1998
02:03:27,468 --> 02:03:28,935
- [Voiceover] You
know, Mister Wilson,

1999
02:03:28,935 --> 02:03:31,705
you represent something of
a milestone around here.

2000
02:03:33,339 --> 02:03:35,208
- [Voiceover] And
then, the agency

2001
02:03:35,208 --> 02:03:38,044
organizes an ultimate life

2002
02:03:38,044 --> 02:03:41,815
(slow-paced strings music)

2003
02:03:41,815 --> 02:03:44,985
in a nice villa
somewhere around L.A.

2004
02:03:44,985 --> 02:03:49,055
They even organize a nice
lady who conveniently

2005
02:03:49,055 --> 02:03:52,793
stumbles upon him when he is
taking a walk along the beach.

2006
02:03:52,793 --> 02:03:55,729
(slow-paced strings music)

2007
02:03:56,897 --> 02:04:00,934
He is thus reborn no
longer as a boring

2008
02:04:00,934 --> 02:04:05,205
businessman but as
a modernist painter.

2009
02:04:05,205 --> 02:04:06,372
- Tony Wilson.

2010
02:04:06,372 --> 02:04:08,842
- [Voiceover]
Called Tony Wilson,

2011
02:04:08,842 --> 02:04:12,579
played by none other
than Rock Hudson.

2012
02:04:12,579 --> 02:04:13,680
- [Tony] Sure.

2013
02:04:13,680 --> 02:04:16,517
(waves crashing)

2014
02:04:16,517 --> 02:04:18,251
(lively salsa music)

2015
02:04:18,251 --> 02:04:21,888
- [Voiceover] So, the
woman, Nora, his new love,

2016
02:04:21,888 --> 02:04:25,559
tries to engage him in
life, even takes him to some

2017
02:04:27,193 --> 02:04:32,198
wine orgy where people get
drunk, dance naked and so on.

2018
02:04:32,933 --> 02:04:33,834
Everything seems okay.

2019
02:04:33,834 --> 02:04:36,302
- [Tony] Yes, yes, yes!

2020
02:04:37,738 --> 02:04:42,275
- [Voiceover] But Tony Wilson
starts to miss his old life.

2021
02:04:42,275 --> 02:04:44,845
(somber piano music)

2022
02:04:44,845 --> 02:04:48,915
More and more, he is
haunted by his past.

2023
02:04:50,016 --> 02:04:53,820
Finally, he breaks
down, approaches, again,

2024
02:04:53,820 --> 02:04:56,757
the agency, telling them that he

2025
02:04:56,757 --> 02:05:00,293
wants to return to his old life.

2026
02:05:00,293 --> 02:05:02,729
(somber piano music)

2027
02:05:02,729 --> 02:05:03,930
(light clicks)

2028
02:05:03,930 --> 02:05:06,733
The boss of this
mysterious company,

2029
02:05:06,733 --> 02:05:08,769
a kind of kindly cruel--

2030
02:05:08,769 --> 02:05:10,236
- Hello, son.

2031
02:05:10,236 --> 02:05:14,307
- [Voiceover] Superego paternal
figure tells him the truth.

2032
02:05:14,307 --> 02:05:17,578
He disappointed them
by not being able to

2033
02:05:17,578 --> 02:05:21,081
adapt himself to his new life.

2034
02:05:21,081 --> 02:05:22,382
- You know, I sure hoped you'd

2035
02:05:22,382 --> 02:05:25,886
make it, find your
dream come true.

2036
02:05:25,886 --> 02:05:26,887
- What?

2037
02:05:26,887 --> 02:05:28,221
- I said, I sure
hoped that you'd

2038
02:05:28,221 --> 02:05:32,158
make it, find your
dream come true.

2039
02:05:32,158 --> 02:05:34,227
Oh, you can call it
wishful thinking,

2040
02:05:34,227 --> 02:05:37,831
son, but life is
built on wishing,

2041
02:05:37,831 --> 02:05:40,400
and you gotta just keep
plugging away at 'em.

2042
02:05:40,400 --> 02:05:44,838
You can't give up, and we can't

2043
02:05:44,838 --> 02:05:47,507
let the mistakes
jeopardize the dream.

2044
02:05:47,507 --> 02:05:49,242
- [Voiceover] So
what went wrong here?

2045
02:05:49,242 --> 02:05:52,178
The problem was that
his past, in its

2046
02:05:52,178 --> 02:05:54,748
material existence, was erased.

2047
02:05:54,748 --> 02:05:57,117
- Well, here's your
transportation.

2048
02:05:57,117 --> 02:05:58,619
- What?
- [Voiceover] Surgery, sir.

2049
02:05:58,619 --> 02:06:01,354
- He lived in a totally
new environment,

2050
02:06:01,354 --> 02:06:05,391
new job, new friends, and so on.

2051
02:06:05,391 --> 02:06:09,529
What remained the
same were his dreams

2052
02:06:09,529 --> 02:06:13,700
because when the company
organized his rebirth,

2053
02:06:13,700 --> 02:06:18,271
when the company provided
new existence for him,

2054
02:06:18,271 --> 02:06:21,174
they simply followed his dreams.

2055
02:06:21,174 --> 02:06:25,879
His dreams were wrong
dreams, and this is quite

2056
02:06:25,879 --> 02:06:29,549
a deep lesson for the
theory of ideology.

2057
02:06:29,549 --> 02:06:30,751
- Just remember, son, we gotta

2058
02:06:30,751 --> 02:06:32,452
keep plugging away at the dream.

2059
02:06:32,452 --> 02:06:33,787
The mistakes teach us how.

2060
02:06:33,787 --> 02:06:35,989
It wasn't wasted, remember that.

2061
02:06:35,989 --> 02:06:38,191
- On the way to
the operation hall,

2062
02:06:38,191 --> 02:06:41,928
he discovers the horrible truth.

2063
02:06:41,928 --> 02:06:45,365
He will not be
reborn but he will

2064
02:06:45,365 --> 02:06:49,102
be used as a cadaver for another

2065
02:06:49,102 --> 02:06:52,873
person who wants to be reborn.

2066
02:06:52,873 --> 02:06:56,710
(muffled screaming)

2067
02:06:56,710 --> 02:06:59,179
We should draw a
line of distinction

2068
02:06:59,179 --> 02:07:01,682
within the very
field of our dreams,

2069
02:07:01,682 --> 02:07:04,250
(muffled screaming)

2070
02:07:04,250 --> 02:07:07,954
between those who
are the right dreams,

2071
02:07:07,954 --> 02:07:11,925
pointing towards a
dimension effectively beyond

2072
02:07:11,925 --> 02:07:15,862
our existing society,
and the wrong dreams,

2073
02:07:15,862 --> 02:07:20,100
the dreams which are just
an idealized consumerist

2074
02:07:21,467 --> 02:07:25,038
reflection, mirror
image of our society.

2075
02:07:28,508 --> 02:07:31,577
We are not simply
submitted to our dreams.

2076
02:07:31,577 --> 02:07:35,415
They just come from some
unfathomable depths,

2077
02:07:35,415 --> 02:07:38,218
and we can't do
anything about it.

2078
02:07:38,218 --> 02:07:41,487
This is the basic
lesson of psychoanalysis

2079
02:07:41,487 --> 02:07:43,356
and fiction cinema.

2080
02:07:43,356 --> 02:07:46,827
We are responsible
for our dreams.

2081
02:07:46,827 --> 02:07:50,196
Our dreams stage
our desires, and

2082
02:07:50,196 --> 02:07:53,800
our desires are not
objective facts.

2083
02:07:53,800 --> 02:07:56,770
We created them,
we sustained them,

2084
02:07:56,770 --> 02:07:58,939
we are responsible for them.

2085
02:07:58,939 --> 02:08:01,207
- This is an area
of ancient lake beds

2086
02:08:01,207 --> 02:08:03,844
deposited five to 10
million years ago.

2087
02:08:03,844 --> 02:08:07,981
(lighthearted guitar music)

2088
02:08:07,981 --> 02:08:11,985
- The scene of mass orgy
in "Zabriskie Point"

2089
02:08:11,985 --> 02:08:15,221
is a nice metaphor
of what went wrong

2090
02:08:15,221 --> 02:08:18,124
with the 1960s hippy revolution.

2091
02:08:18,124 --> 02:08:21,394
(lighthearted guitar music)

2092
02:08:21,394 --> 02:08:26,399
It's crucial that "Zabriskie
Point" was made in 1970

2093
02:08:26,399 --> 02:08:29,970
when the authentic
revolutionary energy

2094
02:08:29,970 --> 02:08:34,074
of the '60s was already
losing its strength.

2095
02:08:34,074 --> 02:08:36,509
(lighthearted guitar music)

2096
02:08:36,509 --> 02:08:39,012
This orgy is somewhere between

2097
02:08:39,012 --> 02:08:42,615
subversion of the
existing social order

2098
02:08:42,615 --> 02:08:46,452
and already the
full estheticized

2099
02:08:46,452 --> 02:08:49,289
reincorporation
of this allegedly

2100
02:08:49,289 --> 02:08:54,127
transgressive activities
into the hegemonic ideology.

2101
02:08:56,229 --> 02:08:59,332
Although Antonioni meant this as

2102
02:08:59,332 --> 02:09:03,669
a kind of transcendence of
the existing constraints,

2103
02:09:03,669 --> 02:09:08,674
we can easily imagine this shot
in some publicity campaign.

2104
02:09:11,477 --> 02:09:14,480
The first step to
freedom is not just to

2105
02:09:14,480 --> 02:09:17,984
change reality to
fit your dreams.

2106
02:09:17,984 --> 02:09:20,520
It's to change
the way you dream.

2107
02:09:20,520 --> 02:09:24,690
And again, this hurts
because all satisfactions

2108
02:09:24,690 --> 02:09:28,862
we have, come from our dreams.

2109
02:09:28,862 --> 02:09:31,131
- [Voiceover] The Great
Supreme Commander, Chairman Mao

2110
02:09:31,131 --> 02:09:33,934
issued a world
shaking call to us.

2111
02:09:33,934 --> 02:09:36,837
You should pay attention
to state affairs

2112
02:09:36,837 --> 02:09:38,671
and carry the great proletarian

2113
02:09:38,671 --> 02:09:41,007
Cultural Revolution
through to the end.

2114
02:09:41,007 --> 02:09:44,845
(patriotic symphony music)

2115
02:09:44,845 --> 02:09:47,347
- One of the big
problems of all great

2116
02:09:47,347 --> 02:09:51,451
revolutionary movements
of the 20th century,

2117
02:09:51,451 --> 02:09:54,654
such as Russia, Cuba, or China,

2118
02:09:54,654 --> 02:09:57,357
is that they did
change the social body,

2119
02:09:57,357 --> 02:10:00,894
(crowd singing and clapping)

2120
02:10:00,894 --> 02:10:05,631
but the egalitarian communist
society was never realized.

2121
02:10:05,631 --> 02:10:08,768
The dreams remained
the old dreams,

2122
02:10:08,768 --> 02:10:12,005
and they turned into
the ultimate nightmare.

2123
02:10:13,907 --> 02:10:18,678
Now, what remains of the
radical left waits for a magical

2124
02:10:18,678 --> 02:10:23,683
event when the true
revolutionary agent
will finally awaken

2125
02:10:25,151 --> 02:10:28,288
while the depressing lesson
of the last decades is that

2126
02:10:28,288 --> 02:10:32,692
capitalism has been the
true revolutionizing force,

2127
02:10:32,692 --> 02:10:35,128
even as it serves only itself.

2128
02:10:35,128 --> 02:10:39,665
(eerie strings music)

2129
02:10:39,665 --> 02:10:43,736
How come it is easier for
us to imagine the end of

2130
02:10:43,736 --> 02:10:47,673
all life on earth, an
asteroid hitting the planet,

2131
02:10:47,673 --> 02:10:50,911
than a modest change
in our economic order?

2132
02:10:52,545 --> 02:10:57,550
Perhaps, the time has come to
set our possibilities straight

2133
02:10:57,550 --> 02:11:01,654
and to become realists
by way of demanding

2134
02:11:01,654 --> 02:11:05,691
what appears as impossible
in the economic domain.

2135
02:11:08,161 --> 02:11:12,698
The surprising explosion of
Occupy Wall Street protests,

2136
02:11:12,698 --> 02:11:15,735
the mass mobilization in Greece,

2137
02:11:15,735 --> 02:11:19,172
the crowds on Tahrir
square, they all bear

2138
02:11:19,172 --> 02:11:23,143
witness to the hidden potential
for a different future.

2139
02:11:24,577 --> 02:11:27,813
There is no guarantee that
this future will arrive.

2140
02:11:27,813 --> 02:11:32,052
No train of history on which
we simply have to take a ride.

2141
02:11:32,052 --> 02:11:36,589
It depends on us, on our will.

2142
02:11:36,589 --> 02:11:41,594
(eerie organ music)

2143
02:11:44,497 --> 02:11:49,102
In revolutionary
upheavals, some energy,

2144
02:11:49,102 --> 02:11:53,006
or rather, some utopian
dreams take place.

2145
02:11:53,006 --> 02:11:57,843
They explode, and even
if the actual result of

2146
02:11:57,843 --> 02:12:02,448
a social upheaval is
just a commercialized

2147
02:12:02,448 --> 02:12:07,420
every day life, this
excess of energy,

2148
02:12:07,420 --> 02:12:11,557
what's get, what gets
lost in the result,

2149
02:12:11,557 --> 02:12:15,996
persists not in
reality, but as a dream

2150
02:12:15,996 --> 02:12:20,000
haunting us, waiting
to be redeemed.

2151
02:12:20,000 --> 02:12:23,003
In this sense,
whenever we are engaged

2152
02:12:23,003 --> 02:12:28,008
in radical, emancipatory
politics, we should
never forget,

2153
02:12:29,109 --> 02:12:33,013
as Walter Benjamin put
it almost a century ago

2154
02:12:33,013 --> 02:12:36,082
that every revolution
is not only,

2155
02:12:36,082 --> 02:12:38,184
if it is an
authentic revolution,

2156
02:12:38,184 --> 02:12:43,123
is not only directed
towards the future but it

2157
02:12:43,123 --> 02:12:48,094
redeems also the past
failed revolutions,

2158
02:12:48,094 --> 02:12:50,696
all the ghosts, as if we're the

2159
02:12:50,696 --> 02:12:53,199
living dead of the
past revolution

2160
02:12:53,199 --> 02:12:58,038
which are roaming around,
unsatisfied will finally

2161
02:12:58,038 --> 02:13:01,407
find their home in
the new freedom.

2162
02:13:05,545 --> 02:13:10,550
("Boldly, Comrades,
In Step" by L. Radin)

2163
02:15:22,548 --> 02:15:27,553
(eerie music)