Philosopher Jay
24th April 2011, 22:34
On the director's commentary of the DVD "I'm Not There," the director, Todd Haynes, announces that this film is anti-fascist. It is at a point where Richard Gere playing Billy the Kid finds a guitar with the words "This Machine Kills Fascists" on it. This is the slogan that Woody Guthrie had written on his guitars in the 1930's. The director suggests that his film and Bob Dylan are anti-fascist because it/he refuses identity. It refuses to identify any identity as being the real Bob Dylan and attributes this attitude to Dylan himself.
It seems to suggest that identifying with an identity is fascism. This seems to totally remove the specific historical identity of movements and regimes that clearly identified themselves as anti-communist, anti-Marxist, anti-liberal and anti-union, and promoted nationalist capitalism under the banner of "nationalist socialism." These movements attacked enlightenment concepts of political rights and engendered hated against women, gays and specific social minorities.
The director apparently denies this historical specificity to fascism and instead promotes the idea that having a fixed identity is fascist, whereas rejecting an identity is anti-fascist. Call yourself a fascist, you're a fascist. Call yourself a liberal, you're a fascist, call yourself an anarchist, you're a fascist, call yourself a communist, you're a fascist. Dylan rejected his identities and was therefore a real and great anti-fascist.
Ironically, it would be more correct I think to argue that rejection of identity is fascist. The fascists refused to have any written program. They just promoted the ideas of unity under a nebulous common nationalist spirit. Faith in the great and talented leader (Mussolini, Hitler, Franco, etc.) was the program to combat false and treacherous political ideologies like liberalism, socialism or communism. Fascism was the spirit of the nation, nature and modern times.
Substitute the word "ideology" for "identity" and we have the fascist program. It rejected all modern ideology -- liberalism, conservatism, socialism and communism, for a purer, old fashioned spiritualism and community. This was simply a cover for industrial capitalism run amuck, returning to its lassez-faire roots without unions or socialist organizations around to hinder it.
Is this film really about liberation or is it closer to Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will?" That film also refuses to identify its protagonist and hides his identity behind a lot of masks/symbols. Operation Barbarosa and the Final Solution also involved masks to hide what was really happening and going to happen.
Which is not to suggest that Dylan ever became a fascist. He just didn't have the desire to be Lonesome Rhodes. He simply became a rich bourgeois artist, free and having fun with his music and entertaining an ever dwindling number of fans. Nothing wrong with that, or is there?
It seems to suggest that identifying with an identity is fascism. This seems to totally remove the specific historical identity of movements and regimes that clearly identified themselves as anti-communist, anti-Marxist, anti-liberal and anti-union, and promoted nationalist capitalism under the banner of "nationalist socialism." These movements attacked enlightenment concepts of political rights and engendered hated against women, gays and specific social minorities.
The director apparently denies this historical specificity to fascism and instead promotes the idea that having a fixed identity is fascist, whereas rejecting an identity is anti-fascist. Call yourself a fascist, you're a fascist. Call yourself a liberal, you're a fascist, call yourself an anarchist, you're a fascist, call yourself a communist, you're a fascist. Dylan rejected his identities and was therefore a real and great anti-fascist.
Ironically, it would be more correct I think to argue that rejection of identity is fascist. The fascists refused to have any written program. They just promoted the ideas of unity under a nebulous common nationalist spirit. Faith in the great and talented leader (Mussolini, Hitler, Franco, etc.) was the program to combat false and treacherous political ideologies like liberalism, socialism or communism. Fascism was the spirit of the nation, nature and modern times.
Substitute the word "ideology" for "identity" and we have the fascist program. It rejected all modern ideology -- liberalism, conservatism, socialism and communism, for a purer, old fashioned spiritualism and community. This was simply a cover for industrial capitalism run amuck, returning to its lassez-faire roots without unions or socialist organizations around to hinder it.
Is this film really about liberation or is it closer to Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will?" That film also refuses to identify its protagonist and hides his identity behind a lot of masks/symbols. Operation Barbarosa and the Final Solution also involved masks to hide what was really happening and going to happen.
Which is not to suggest that Dylan ever became a fascist. He just didn't have the desire to be Lonesome Rhodes. He simply became a rich bourgeois artist, free and having fun with his music and entertaining an ever dwindling number of fans. Nothing wrong with that, or is there?