Hello from an Althusserian Marxist

[D-A-C]

Hi everyone.

Where to start?

Well, I'm a 25yo Northern Irish PhD Student entering my final year of study, and I am writing my thesis on the work of Louis Althusser in relation to film (that means I'm one of those 'lazy, good for nothing, unemployable' Media Studies students that are always talked about in newspapers :)).

My primary interests are the work of Althusser, film, history and Marxism, and I've been lucky enough to spend my time since I was an undergraduate studying all four of those things.

I guess my primary motivation for joining this forum is due to the fact that there is practically no discussion of Marxism/Althusser where I live and amongst my friends and I would like to start to actually enagage in discussions and debates about the things I'm genuinely passionate about.

With that in mind, I have pretty much been studying Althusser in isolation (bar a few excellent University supervisors) for years now, and I was also hoping that I could maybe post up some of my ideas on those topics and get some feedback/constructive criticism?

I'm also hoping to generally expand my knowledge of Marxism, which so far, relies heavily on Althusser and then contains a hodgepodge of competing ideas and beliefs.

Finally, in my PhD (and this is something I hope to maybe discuss and debate here) I undertake readings of some classic and some contemporary films via Althusserian theory and then renarrate the story so as to expose the ideologies at play within the text, in a manner similar to how a psychiatrist would interpret a persons dreams to expose the underlying psychosis causing them.

I currently have 10+ of these readings in note form focusing on particular scenes or the dominant message of the film and was hoping that I could maybe post these up and get some feedback on how they sound to people outside of myself and my University professors.

I've done films like Christoper Nolan's Batman Trilogy, Man of Steel, Alien, Toy Story 3, Leaving Las Vegas and a whole bunch of others and everytime I try discussing it with friends I get ... "Its just a film". Which I guess is part of the reason why I tend to side with Lenin and others that Marxism has to be imported into the Working Classes, with a bit of a Stalinist suspicion that people don't care about or understand Marxism.

But all that's me getting way ahead of myself. I just wanted to say hi to everyone and give you guys a sense of how I came to joining the forum.

So, hello :)

[Q]

Welcome :)

If you have political questions, you can ask them in the Learning forum. That's why it's there after all!

If you have questions about your account, don't hesitate to send me a PM or ask here.

I know of few Althusserians. CPGB's Paul Demarty (http://cpgb.org.uk/home/authors/paul-demarty) is one that is at least knowledgeble, you might want to contact him?

[Nevsky]

Hello and welcome to revleft!

I'd like to read some of your film analysis. Nolan's Batman films interest me in terms of ideology. I made a thread about TDKR a while ago, referring to it as "mythology of bourgeois propaganda". Maybe a bit extreme but there are clear anti-revolutionary messages in the film...

[D-A-C]

Hello and welcome to revleft!

I'd like to read some of your film analysis. Nolan's Batman films interest me in terms of ideology. I made a thread about TDKR a while ago, referring to it as "mythology of bourgeois propaganda". Maybe a bit extreme but there are clear anti-revolutionary messages in the film...

Hi, thanks :)

Yeah, I'd be happy to share me readings.

With regard to Dark Knght Rises, its not as clear cut as it being a Left or Right film (although both things were argued around the time of its release).

Just quickly (I can start a dedicated thread sometime if anyone is interested), you don't gain knowledge of a film via the film itself but prior to your watching of it.

So basically, what this means is that your taught or better yet conditioned on how to read films through society. Nobody is born with the knowledge of how to read (this includes reading films as yo u watch them).

How you are taught will inform the problematic/paradigm that you bring to your viewing of the film, which means the types of questions that you will or won't ask subconsciously when following the story of the film.

So, with Batman TDKR if your a Communist , a Capitalist, a Feminist etc that will immediately influence how you read various scenes of the film, but it will also account for the silences that are left within the film as well ... basically the questions you won't have asked that will have all kinds of implications.

I'd like to go deeper into that discussion, but this is an introduction thread and that would be off topic. But, basically, the film could be said to contain:

A. Leftist Elements

B. Rightist Elements

C. Is determined by the circumstances in which is was produced which is Capitalism

D. The tension between Left and Right elements is always resolved in favour of the Right and Capitalism.

So even when the film seems critical of Capitalism (and there are various scenes that are critical of Capitalism) the logic of the film always returns to the side of Capitalism.

One quick example:

Catwoman in the film says that 'There is a storm coming...' and that she is 'adaptable' when it comes to the changing social circumstances in Gotham brought about by Bane.

However, these seemingly leftist spirited opinions are undone by the fact that, when Bane's revolution comes, she is walking around looking clum and unhappy that Gotham's residents are raiding the homes of the privilaged and then at the end of the film actively engages in counter revolutionary activity by aiding the reinstallation of the Capitalist order symbolised by the Police Assault at the films conclusion.

Catwoman may wear the appearence of a Leftist, but she is clearly supporting the social status quo when examined closely.

That's just a single example, quite literally off the top of my head (I've done work on it obviously, but that's just an isolated example that needs deeper analysis and better quotes/clips and proper theoretical explanation etc). Its also an example take in isolation, but Catwoman's actions relate and play off of other narrative elements that culminate in TDKR being a film which serves the social status quo that is Capitalism.

But by renarrating it, pointing out how it does this, we actually turn it into a revolutionary work, because it can be used to expose the workings of Capitalism and open peoples eyes to the realities of their exploitation that the face everyday.


I'm still working on the theory, so there will be the odd contradiction here and there (Philosophy is alot like maths, you may know the answer, but the journey to get to that answer can be complex and you have to make sure to show your working out! lol).

Wow ... that was a way longer response than I intended sorry about that lol.

:grin:

[d3crypt]

Welcome comrade.

[Nevsky]

You seem like a nice person, I'm sure you'll bring interesting and valuable ideas to this forum :)

I see your point in being conditioned before watching a film. A few days ago I rewatched Inglorious Basterds and noted how differently people could react to it. Some are offended by supposed simple minded anti-german violence, others are offended by the portrayal of the allies as ignorant brutes. Obviously both can't be the case and it depends entirely on the spectator's own bias.

[GiantMonkeyMan]

It's great to see another film student coming into marxism through that discipline of study! I have the very same problem when discussing film in regards to friends. Too many of them are willing to see film as just entertainment and not the wider cultural implications and influences. I'm a little rusty on my film theory, to be honest, because I graduated a few years ago and have basically sunk into the soul-destroying life of minimum wage work that so many media students end up living but I really do look forward to future discussions on film! I really got into further study of marxism via reading Adorno and Althusser so it's great to see something similar happening for other people. Welcome to the forums!

[Hit The North]

Welcome :thumbup1:

There have been a number of interesting threads on Althusser on RevLeft. Among them:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/althusser-and-structural-t177876/index.html

http://www.revleft.com/vb/althussers-later-writings-t176068/index.html?t=176068

Regular poster, Paul Cockshott, has a good knowledge of Althusser's writings.

If you want to post your analyses of movies we have a Literature and Film forum.

[D-A-C]

It's great to see another film student coming into marxism through that discipline of study! I have the very same problem when discussing film in regards to friends. Too many of them are willing to see film as just entertainment and not the wider cultural implications and influences. I'm a little rusty on my film theory, to be honest, because I graduated a few years ago and have basically sunk into the soul-destroying life of minimum wage work that so many media students end up living but I really do look forward to future discussions on film! I really got into further study of marxism via reading Adorno and Althusser so it's great to see something similar happening for other people. Welcome to the forums!

Hi, great to hear from another film student (well former student lol).

Yeah, I hate sitting explaining the structural relations that determine films and how they are sites of social struggle only to recieve blank stares and the odd "Yeah, thats, ah, great ... so anyway" lol.

Most of my friends think what I do is stupid at best, yet when you think about how important a role the Media plays in society its crazy that anyone would complain about undertaking the study of how it affects us.

Then again, alot of Media Students are pretty bad and do think the subject is about becoming the next Spielberg or just giving 'their' opinions on a film. One of the reasons I study Althusser is to try and come up with a scientific method of film analysis so the subject will be taken a bit more seriously. Heck, even I sometimes think the curriculum is a bit easy or soft.

With regards to Adorno, I'm primarily familiar with his work through Simon Jarvis' Adorno: A Critical Introduction and indeed I've quoted Adorno a couple of times for my PhD.

But unfortunately, despite being the ball park of having some interesting ideas, he's a bit too much of a Hegelian Marxist due to his being influenced by Lukacs. He's just got a whiff of Idealism about his writings that is unsettling for an Anti-Humanist, Anti-Hegelian Althusserian such as myself :).

He still has some nice ideas though that are good jumping off points for a more scientific explanation of culture.

Its also great to hear somebody else read Althusser through studying film ... no other Media students I know even seem to know who he is, and even if they do, they just don't care and kind of glaze over when he's talked about, which is a shame.

But yeah, I'd love to get into some good film discussions.



Welcome comrade.

Thank you comrade.


Welcome :thumbup1:

There have been a number of interesting threads on Althusser on RevLeft. Among them:

Regular poster, Paul Cockshott, has a good knowledge of Althusser's writings.

If you want to post your analyses of movies we have a Literature and Film forum.

Thanks for the links! I was thinking of starting a thread just to see if there were any other Althusserian's active here, so those are a great start.

[Fourth Internationalist]

Welcome to RevLeft! :D

[SonofRage]

I'm also hoping to generally expand my knowledge of Marxism, which so far, relies heavily on Althusser and then contains a hodgepodge of competing ideas and beliefs.



The best way to understand Marx is to read Marx.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 4 Beta

[Paul Cockshott]

The best way to understand Marx is to read Marx.


That is certainly true, but one has then to deal with different interpretations of what Marx wrote. For my part I find Althusser more useful than for example Heinrich.

[Karlorax]

I think Althusser's concept of overdetermination is a useful one. I am not sure about the rest of his work.

[blake 3:17]

Welcome! Leaving Las Vegas -- cool. Very interesting film.

[Admiral Swagmeister G-Funk]

i love althusser - he saved marxism for me after i became disillusioned with the mainstream, leninist and trotskyist left.

would love to hear you talk about film from an althusserean perspective. ever seen/read zizek's stuff on film? not particularly marxist but from a theoretical point of view, its always nice to see films in the context of particular theoretical models (intellectual porn lol).

[D-A-C]

That is certainly true, but one has then to deal with different interpretations of what Marx wrote. For my part I find Althusser more useful than for example Heinrich.

But Althusser provides a method for reading Marx and exposing the 'silences' in his work.

Plus, there is a whole thing about starting Das Kapital at Part 2 first.

For me, he just provides a nice summary of what is useful and what isn't within Marx. Admittedly he isn't always correct.

But his interpretation of Marx allows me to easier understand Marx and make (sometime dull text) interesting and significant for the analysis of the modern media.


I think Althusser's concept of overdetermination is a useful one. I am not sure about the rest of his work.

Well there is certainly alot more than that! Lol.

Yes his concept of overdetermination is still very useful.

I suppose if I was recommending one of his works I would go with the standard:

Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses, notes toward an investigation

I'd say that just because it is easily his most accesible work as it is written quite plainly and requires very little reading around the subject to understand what he is talking about.


Welcome! Leaving Las Vegas -- cool. Very interesting film.

Yeah, I saw it about two months ago. Why its such a great film to analyse it that its central relationship shows how Capitalism destroys a relationship unlike traditional romcoms that have the central couple overcome a man's problems and thus allow him to function better within capitalism.

Basically, its kind of like how in some films there is (no offence) a 'magical negro' that solves a white man's problems, and in alot of contemporary romcoms like 500 days of summer there is what is known as a 'manic pixie fairy girl' who allows the male protagonist to revitalise himself under capitalist relations of production.

Leaving Las Vegas is revolutionary because the film shows how couples are destroyed not saved under contemporary capitalist relations.

Well, thats sort of an introduction the the full analysis anyway lol.


i love althusser - he saved marxism for me after i became disillusioned with the mainstream, leninist and trotskyist left.

would love to hear you talk about film from an althusserean perspective. ever seen/read zizek's stuff on film? not particularly marxist but from a theoretical point of view, its always nice to see films in the context of particular theoretical models (intellectual porn lol).

Yeah, I'm going to post some of my film theory shortly.

I love Althusser aswell, I'm championing for his return to intellectual respectability after the tragic events of his personal life combined with the rise of post-structuralism and post-modernism led to his consignment to the dustbin of intellectual history.

I have read bits and pieces of Zizek, and he is great as a media studies student for quotes lol :grin:.

The problem I have with him though is that, he has some great ideas but not actual system to his arguments.

He is great at picking apart capitalism, particularly postindustrial capitalism, but he provides no logocal alternative.

Plus, he is almost too jokey and you can never tell when he is taking the p*ss so to speak. He also writes too many books too fast lol.

[blake 3:17]

Leaving Las Vegas is revolutionary because the film shows how couples are destroyed not saved under contemporary capitalist relations.



Where's the scene where the Cage character is seeing The Whole Year Inn as The Hole You're In?