Month: November 2019 (Page 10 of 13)

 

‘Cult filmmaker Damon Packard lives off Kickstarter. The fundraising he does on the site finances his films and pays the rent. He also sells Blu-ray discs of obscure films and does the occasional low-paid editing job to survive. Budget limitations inform Packard’s aesthetic: single characters are played by multiple actors, scenes inexplicably switch locations and bizarre plot points are created to explain away inconsistencies. His films slip between the fantasy and reality of Hollywood, often filtered through a pastiche of iconic 70s and 80s cinema.

‘I met Packard online in 2009, when we corresponded about screening his films in Australia. When I moved to Los Angeles from Melbourne in 2015, he was the only person I knew (apart from my wife). I suggested we meet up for coffee. He agreed. We met two more times, coincidentally at some of LA’s most-frequented diners, where we discussed his films, local history, and the decline of late-night culture in LA.

‘Packard is nocturnal. When I attempt to meet him on an afternoon at 12:30pm, he retorts that 12:30am would be better. Eventually, he concedes. He tells me he can probably be awake by noon, so we confirm lunch. He suggests the Coral Café in Burbank.

‘This is the first time I’ve met Packard in person. Having recently moved to LA from Melbourne, I don’t have a car and am still in the public transport mindset—thinking I can get around LA on the Metro and on foot. After an hour and a half on two buses and the Red Line, I arrive at North Hollywood Station. It takes me another 45 minutes to walk the two miles along Burbank Boulevard to the Coral Café. Packard is already seated when I arrive in his signature fishing hat, jeans, and a t-shirt. True to its name, the Coral Café has a calm, pastel vibe. I introduce myself and sit down. He doesn’t remember me specifically—he has hundreds of friends on Facebook and people contact him all the time to organize screenings of his films.

‘Packard wants to hear about the screenings in Australia. He seems interested in the audience responses. A friend and I screened Packard’s Skatebang (2007) at a gallery in Melbourne along with some other video works. (Packard’s work could be considered a distant cousin to Ryan Trecartin’s, whose work we also planned to screen, until his gallerist revoked permission.) Skatebang features a series of teenage skateboarders thrown from their boards after being shot by hidden snipers, while black helicopters circle and Madonna’s Papa Don’t Preach plays in the background. It humorously exaggerates the media’s paranoid fixation on terrorism during the Bush era. The audience was visibly uncomfortable, occasionally breaking out into nervous laughter. The second screening was at the Electrofringe Festival in Newcastle, this time in a theatre, the audience visibly more relaxed and receptive. People were more relaxed and openly enjoyed themselves. Perhaps there is less pressure in a darkened theatre than in an austere white cube.

‘We both order ice tea. Packard orders the Caesar salad and I ask for a cheese quesadilla. He talks about his current project Fatal Pulse AKA Yuppie Fear Thriller. The film’s plot involves Janet Jackson’s manager, an illuminati conspiracy to stop time in 1991, and a pop locker murder plot. Packard managed to shoot scenes at the Less Than Zero mansion in Bel Air, Lautner’s Sheats-Goldstein Residence and a house in the Hollywood Hills. Due to budget limitations, the rest of the shoot will take place outdoors, though—in true Packard fashion—he hasn’t worked out all the details of the plot yet. “To be honest,” he confesses, “I don’t want to finish the film as I’ll have to stop the crowdfunder campaigns”—he’s worried about covering the rent. “But, the film was sold months ago and I have to send it to Fandor.” …

‘LA’s ‘heyday’ for Packard, was the mid-80s when he was working in cinemas in Westwood. Now he considers it a “deadzone”—the only thing out there is UCLA and a few dwindling businesses. The cinemas, music stores, bookstores and newsstands are all gone.

‘When Packard worked in Westwood in the 80s, there were a number of single-house theatres in an enclosed area. Film premieres would take place, with well-known actors, directors, and cinematographers regularly coming through. In 2015, there are only two cinemas remaining, preserved as “national landmarks” by major studios that only use them for the occasional premiere.

‘“I started working [in Westwood] in about ‘84, I was still in high school. I wanted to be around movies and that was the easiest way to do it. I really wanted to work in a studio. I wanted to be like Spielberg. I wanted to sneak into Universal Studios and take over a little office and work on production. That’s what I wanted to do, but you know, it’s a little more difficult. So working at a movie theatre was the easiest way.” In the early 80s, Packard started making super 8 films, pre-empting Spielberg with a low-budget adaptation of Amazing Stories.

‘Reflections of Evil, Packard’s 2002 epic, is set in LA in the early 2000s. At one point the film shifts into a grainy, 70s flashback sequence where the protagonist’s sister sneaks off a Universal Studios tour into the backlot and witnesses a young Spielberg directing Something Evil. Initially, I thought the footage in the sequence was appropriated from a documentary (at least partially), but Packard assures me it’s all fiction. “I had a decent budget for that one,” he says. Though he does admit that he lifted Spielberg’s voice from the audio tracks of several “Making of…” documentaries including Jaws, Empire of the Sun and Jurassic Park. The sequence shows a young Spielberg trying to manage an older crew and failing, resulting in a slapstick disaster.

‘While Packard has produced several feature (or near feature) length films, he has also explored the movie trailer as art form, creating trailers for logistically or financially impossible films. Movie trailers often misrepresent the film they promote, emphasizing minor sub-plots or even presenting a different film entirely in order to appeal to a particular demographic. Packard’s Early 70s Horror Trailer (1999) and Dawn of an Evil Millennium (1988) tease with the possibility of a yet-to-be-made perfect film—something that will never come to pass. …

‘While we’re talking, Packard points out a guy in a John Carpenter’s The Thing t-shirt. “That’s the third guy I’ve seen in a Thing t-shirt tonight. Where were they in 1982? Nobody cared about it then.” Packard recently finished a short titled John Carpenter’s Corpse about a group of special effects students who dig up Carpenter’s body (the film is set just after his death) and drag it to their graduation party. The film is soon to be released on a VHS compilation by Severin Films. “It’s about commercialized nostalgia,” he argues, “everything is commercialized nostalgia now, there’s nothing original being done. It’s all about reaching back into the past for inspiration.”

‘I ask him if he means film specifically, “I mean with everything. Film… music… fashion. Especially cinema, though. It seems like what I was saying in Foxfur, we’re living in a deadzone now, a sort of empty period where life did really end but we’re just schizm’ed off into some other dimension. We’re just looking at the past from this deadzone.”

‘Packard admits that all his films deal with this strange turn of events in some way. “It’s like the film I’m making now, Yuppie Fear Thriller, it’s set in the early 90s but time has frozen. I don’t see a lot of changes that have taken place since the late 80s. I mean we have cellphone technology and internet but all that stuff was around, it was just in its infancy—but the vibe is the same. Fear, punishment, rules, restrictions.” During the 70s and 80s he argues, there was an era of experimentation, “There were a lot of risks being taken. They didn’t know where the hell it was going, you could do anything.” But as soon as the markets were established, playing-it-safe was the lone strategy. “There was a big hardcore corporate takeover in the late 80s. Suddenly it was all about money and these yuppies and corporations were telling you to join the program or else get left behind. And nothing much has changed since then.”’— Matthew O’Shannessy, Fanzine

 

___
Stills

 

____
Further

Damon Packard @ IMDb
The True Disco Inferno: The Films of Damon Packard
Damon Packard @ Twitter
Damon Packard’s films @ fandor
Lost In The 70’s: The Art Of Damon Packard
Après avoir vécu plusieurs années de petits boulots humiliants …
Damon Packard @ MUBI
Damon Packard: Has Gone Completely Insane!!!
THE DIGITAL NIGHTMARES OF DAMON PACKARD
The Worldwide Celluloid Massacre: Damon Packard
“I can’t help you, Friedkin!” Damon Packard’s Untitled Yuppie Fear Thriller
Comments from Damon Packard
Damon Packard, reluctant YouTube-mashup genius, is looking for a budget now
DAMON PACKARD, O GÊNIO UNDERGROUND
MONDO BIZARRO FILMMAKER DAMON PACKARD
Five Questions with Damon Packard
Damon Packard Uses His Insanity to Direct Nightmarish “Creature” Music Video
DAMON PACKARD NEEDS YOUR HELP!
Interview with Damon Packard in Silverlake, Los Angeles, CA January 25, 2010

 

_____
Extras

Packard Teaches a Masterclass

The Making of Reflections of Evil

SkateBang (2007)

Grizzly Redux clip one

 

____
Interview
from The Adam Wingard Interviews

What was the most disturbing moment of your life?

DP: Honestly i can’t think of anything specific offhand, I was pretty upset when they threw me out of Universal Studios for unauthorized filming and nearly confiscated my camera/footage.

The dark shadow of authority, big brother and control structures we live under are the most disturbing things. Punishment and fear, rules, restrictions, fines and fee’s, they ruin lives. The fact that freedom can be taken away at any moment just by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Law enforcement, courts, judges, prisons, jails, etc, these to me are the most disturbing things, they spoil the fun of life and many of the cold emotionally devoid people who work in these fields are equally disturbing.

My favorite scene from reflections of evil is the part where your character is being harassed by an endless drove of barking dogs. This scene seems to go on forever, always building in its intensity and madness. I can’t even start to tell you how brilliant I find that particular sequence’s use of sound and and editing. What was the inspiration there and are you afraid of animals?

DP: No i love animals, all animals especially dogs & cats.

When I watch Reflections of Evil I can’t help but feel the movie is a sort of insane horror film. To me it gives the impression of how overwhelming and terrifying a large city like Los Angeles can be. Was that your intention?

DP: It was a simple statement about anger, fear, hostility ramped up to exaggerated levels. But it rings true for everyone everywhere, especially large cities full of frustrated angry people who want to kill each other at a moments notice for no reason. It’s like that more than ever now, just as Orson Welles once stated. The dragon is unleashed. Your going to see more of it at alarming numbers including businessmen in suits, people are just ready to flip out and commit murder without any hesitation.

Your films are often a sensory overload of sounds, colors and visual effects. One could describe your work, in particular Reflection of Evil, as feeling like a bad acid trip. Have you had any bad acid trips?

DP: Nope, never done drugs.

You seem to have a love hate relationship with Steven Spielberg. From watching your films its sometimes hard to say if you admire him greatly or you want to kill him.

DP: I want to kill him..just kidding. I’ve stated many times I was greatly inspired by Spielberg in the early days (late 70’s early 80’s) His visual choreography was what really got me into filmmaking

Lately you’ve shown a great deal of interest in Japanese animation, specifically Hayao Miyazaki. Have you always been a fan or did you just recently get into that world.

DP: Been a mega-buff of Miyazaki for many years, going back to the original mid 80’s VHS release of “Nausicaa” (Warriors of the Wind”) He’s amazing in more ways that can be described and his success is well deserved.

What was your worst fear as a child and as an adult?

DP: Going bald and not reaching certain goals by age 22, both of which happened.

I’ve often read that your favorite show is Mash. Can you explain why and do you like the movie?

DP: I’m a MASH-AHOLIC, what more can be said. It’s a great show, great characters, good writing, etc Did you know Larry Gelbart just passed away today?

If you had to pick ten of your favorite films what would they be?

DP:
Our Mothers House (1967)
Night Terror (1977)
Secret Ceremony (1968)
The Innocents (1961)
The Pumpkin Eater (1964)
The Hospital (1971)
Cold Night’s Death (1973)
That Cold Day in the Park (1969)
Lost Horizon (1973)
Night of the Iguana (1967)

What are five films you think that any film student should see?

DP:
All the Kind Strangers (1974)
Home for the Holidays (1972)
Sarah T Portrait of an Alcoholic (1975)
Addio zio Tom (1971)
The Visitor (1978)

What in your opinion is consciousness?

DP: It is contained within Miyazaki films

Do you believe in life after death? Reincarnation?

DP: Yes and life during death as well.

 

______________
14 of Damon Packard’s 15 films

_____________
Dawn of an Evil Millennium (1988)
‘An epic, 20-minute, completely fabricated theatrical trailer for a crypto-Vestron Video cheapie (by way of Willow-era Ron Howard)—a supposedly 18-hour movie about a Jeff Daniels lookalike demon sent to destroy the planet (and possibly the universe) with his “Turbo-power!” Olds dragster. There are shades of John Carpenter’s They Live, caffeinated Evil Dead speed-freakery, a cameo by Miles O’Keeffe, and uncanny movie preview clichés, such as sentence prepositions that never reach a resolution: “On an alien planet…the beauty and wisdom of a sorceress….” Sometimes the liner note blurbs speak for themselves: “Damon Packard is to Stephen Spielberg what George Kuchar is to Douglas Sirk.”’ — letterboxd

the entirety

 

___________
Apple (1992)
‘This is Damon Packard’s early Elfquest (!) inspired short film, shot in Hawaii while living in a tent (!!), and while I know next to nothing about Elfquest, and I’m admittedly not a huge fantasy film fan, there’s something about this that totally hooked me. It might be the nostalgic 80’s fantasy film music, it might be those sweeping camera movements, it might be Damon’s signature sound design and innovative editing techniques, hell it’s probably all of those things. This admittedly works much better in it’s edited down trailer form, which is around 9 minutes, and Damon has said he prefers that to the full 27 minutes. Overall if you’re into Elfquest or Damon’s other works, this is on YouTube in three parts (the expanded revamped trailer is there too, watch that first).’ — Justin W.

Trailer

 

_____________
The Early 70’s Horror Trailer (1999)
‘Groovy short film homage to tripped-out early ’70s horror fare.’ — letterboxd

the entirety

 

_____________
Reflections of Evil (2002)
‘After being caught while filming REFLECTIONS OF EVIL inside Universal Studios, filmmaker Damon Packard was banned for life from the theme park. He made the right choice.

‘One fine day in Los Angeles, Bobby (Damon Packard) materializes. Bobby is a behemoth who looks like a walking Salvation Army, with layers of tattered clothes, a somnambulistic gait, and dozens of broken headphones hanging from his neck. Like a mutated analog of SALESMAN, Bobby wanders the streets and attempts to sell discount watches. He loses his shit every time he misses the bus, makes eye contact with other humans, or encounters a dog. Everyone that Bobby meets is mean and aggressive, including a real-life cop who is disgustingly racist and homophobic — a true reflection of evil. During a flashback, it’s revealed that Julie, Bobby’s sister, ran away and joined a supernatural drug cult. Is Julie alive or undead? And will Bobby ever be able to fill the void of her absence?

‘REFLECTIONS OF EVIL is like seeing an astral projection of someone’s mental breakdown through the prism of low-budget horror aesthetics. Produced and self-distributed by Packard thanks to an unexpected inheritance, this is a highly personal psychedelic collage that utilizes 16mm film, video, and found footage to comment on the hopelessness of society. Packard’s stream-of-consciousness style is built on visual manipulations, breakneck editing, renegade plagiarism, mismatched audio effects, and the juxtaposition of tones. This is true genre anarchy: a rage-filled, 137-minute outsider manifesto that toes the line between artsy triumph and genre pastiche. Imagine Steven Spielberg smoking peyote for the first time while watching Peter Jackson’s BAD TASTE at Kenneth Anger’s house and you’re halfway there.

‘Unsettling, fascinating, sad, and hilarious, REFLECTIONS OF EVIL offers a glimpse into a secret dimension that the vast majority of the world’s population would violently reject. For the rest of us, it’s a dream come true. After watching this movie, you’ll never look at E.T., The Carpenters, or food the same way again.’ — JOSEPH A. ZIEMBA

the entirety

 

______________
The Untitled Star Wars Mockumentary (2003)
‘Damon Packard attained a level of notoriety for his epic Reflections of Evil, so where was he to go next? Where so many amateur film makers had gone before, not to a galaxy far far away but to one that’s all too familiar, yes, the Star Wars spoof. However, this is no loving tribute, but a savage parody of the franchise, dedicated to Lucas with the dates “1944-1977” added which should give you an idea of where Packard’s allegiances lie. If his previous film skewered Steven Spielberg, then this time it’s the turn of the creator of R2-D2 and Packard pulls no punches. By editing in footage from a variety of sources, not only the Star Wars franchise, a frequently hilarious landscape of a director gone mad with power emerges; whether that’s Lucas or Packard is unclear. It also creates a well-overdue satire of all those tedious featurettes on the DVDs of Hollywood blockbusters, you know the ones where everything is numbingly marvellous and everyone is having a great time and what a cinematic masterpiece they have wrought! Except you haven’t been as impressed as you would have wanted – but they got your money anyway.’ — The Spinning Image

the entirety

 

_____________
Chemtrails: An Investigative Report (2004)
‘A gonzo, surreal mocumentary about chemtrails, conspiracy theories, mass hysteria, HAARP, Art Bell, 9/11, and other sundry bizarro elements.’ — letterboxd

the entirety

 

______________
Rollerboogie III (2005)
‘Edit-revamp client project. This was an unfinished amateur short film someone brought to me for “re-shaping” back in 2005.’ — DP

the entirety

 

______________
Lost in the Thinking (2005)
‘American underground filmmaker Damon Packard has long been carrying out a pitiless and very funny assault on the movie business, especially in the person of Hollywood’s blockbuster triumvirate: Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. The saga continues in the form of this 2005 short that embraces its own presumed failure in the most expressive and cunning of terms. In the end, the movie industry is a ready foil to explore a larger poverty amid abundance as the formulaic doom clouds of some sci-fi apocalypse give way to a sense of general, slow-moving decay.’ — Robert Avila

the entirety

 

______________
SpaceDisco One (2007)
‘Clocking in at just under 45 minutes, SpaceDisco One is still an epic, weaving together a deliriously entangled thread of sci-fi concepts, plus commentary on the whole nature of filmmaking and the juggernaut that is the Hollywood promotional industry.

‘The film is essentially two separate movies jammed together. Packard has taken two separate ideas, stuffed them into the bodies of crash test dummies, seated them unbuckled into two different automobiles, then set the vehicles at each other at 200 mph so he could film the resulting sculpture of twisted metal and broken glass entwined with plastic dummy limbs.

‘The first movie is a low-budget remake of George Orwell’s 1984, or more accurately I guess Michael Radford and Michael Anderson’s 1984 film adaptations. An emotionally unfulfilled Winston Smith (Robert Myers) aimlessly wanders the hollow shell that is Universal City’s CityWalk — a brilliant use of location on Packard’s part, mimicking those odd “space mall” outdoor spaces you’d see on Galactica and shows of that ilk — until he’s sent in for mental re-conditioning by Arthur Frain (James Mathers).

‘Meanwhile, a movie called “SpaceDisco One” is being filmed that features Stargirl 7 (Amanda Mullins), the daughter of Logan of Logan’s Run (the movie), being pursued by Francis 8 (Donnamarie Recco), the daughter of Logan’s pursuer Francis. The “SpaceDisco One” within the overall SpaceDisco One is presented as a mish-mash of movie clips and behind-the-scenes making-of footage, including incessant whining by the fake director (Patrick Thomas) about how he’s unable to fulfill his vision.’ — Mike Everleth

Teaser

Excerpt

 

_____________
Tales of the Valley of the Wind (2009)
‘Tales of the Valley of the Wind composes an experimental love-letter to the spiritual world of Hayao Miyazaki, re-figuring [Nausicaa] into lush live-action scenes with period costumes, horses, swordplay, and, er…puppets. All on a tiny budget, Packard implements his signature experimental touch to create a very unique fan-film indeed.’ — letterboxd

Trailer

Featurette

 

___________
Foxfur (2012)
‘Foxfur, Packard’s latest offering, revolves around a heretofore unconfessed obsession of his: UFO conspiracies. Well, who’s to say if it’s an “interest” or an “obsession,” but either way the film is jam-packed with well-known hot button topics and individuals involved in the field. However, one doesn’t need to know any arcane UFO abduction theories to enjoy the film. (This reviewer didn’t and only discovered that many of the names and events referenced in the film actually exist through post-viewing research.)

‘Anyway, trying to explain a Damon Packard film and to describe the enjoyment of it, is quite the difficult task. There are so many side ideas and plotlines sprinkled, stitched into and strewn about Foxfur, it’s a nigh impossible task to document it all. Like his previous films, Foxfur is best thought of as a total sensory overload of unbridled cinematic and narrative creativity.

‘Instead of trying to limit his imagination by his budgetary constraints, instead Packard throws in a little bit of everything he’s got and swirls it around with a steroid-injected soundtrack and blinding special effects. So, when the blonde Foxfur finds herself a brunette in a Robin Hood-eque costume in 1982 being pursued by obese bus drivers and bow-and-arrow slinging fuzz monsters, you either go with the flow or not at your own peril.’ — Underground Film Journal

the entirety

 

______________
Fatal Pulse (2018)
‘Damon Packard’s four-year in the making epic follows the exploits of husband/wife moguls trapped with a deadbeat couch potato brother in a hallucinogenic 1-900 world of 1991. Everyone is plotting the kill everyone else including themselves and ultimately do. Inspired by the corporate take-over era of the late 80s/early 90s and all the dark, atmospheric, neo-noir thrillers that came along with it.’ — Pit of Infinite Shadows

Trailer

Excerpt

 

_____________
Tales Beyond Madness (2018)
‘Basically nothing, but even minor Packard has its charms. Damon himself shows up to play Dario Argento for like 10 seconds and in that moment I absolutely lost my mind.’ — Evan Pincus

Trailer

 

 

*

p.s. Hey. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi. Interesting about ‘A Man Escaped’. It’s up there among my favorite Bressons, for sure. ** Sypha, Hi, James. Yeah, that makes sense. You have a point. Could well be. Happy my suggestions helped, and, yeah, I have to learn to read the books piled up by my computer before grabbing and starting even newer ones. ** Steve Erickson, Ah, now that’s a happy coincidence: your review. Everyone, By sheer coincidence, Mr. Erickson has just reviewed one of the Damon Packard films in the post today, so you can go right here and read his thoughts on one of Packard’s best films, in my opinion anyway: ‘Fatal Pulse’. Lucky us! I basically agree with you about the Eggers, although I thought the cinematography was very academic and throw-back. And the symbolic baggage, I mean … mermaids?! Really?! Anyway, the wool seems to have been pulled, and now onwards and upwards, I hope. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi. I would start with Blanchot’s fiction. I did. I think you know his ‘Death Sentence’ in my all-time favorite novel. And it’s short! Wow, that was fast! Cool! Excited to read your piece! Everyone, the mighty Ben ‘_Black_Acrylic’ Robinson has written a no doubt fascinating piece in The Skinny about Scotland’s thriving zine scene, an exciting topic in and of itself, and you can so very easily read it here, and surely do. Have a giant blast at the zine fest today. Wish I could be there to wander through it myself and hang out at your table and bug you, ha ha. ** KeatonEscaped, Hey, bud. Lee said that? He had a way, that’s for sure. Like I’ve no doubt said repeatedly, I’ve only read two King novels — I know, I know — ‘Cujo’ and … I forget the other one. It’s been forever. I’m in the camp that thinks the second Tim Burton ‘Batman’ film is by far the best ‘Batman’, other than the TV series. Danny Elfman will never live down the blight on humanity that was Oingo Boingo for me. Huh, okay, I’m in for ‘Dr. Sleep’. I mean why the hell not? It must be playing here. It might even have the same English title here, although I wouldn’t put it past the French to have retitled it ‘Le Shining, Parte Deux’. Thank you! ** Okay. Do you guys know the films of the maverick, borderline no-budget director Damon Packard, maybe the most one-of-a-kind filmmaker in the USA? If you don’t, now you do. Or now you will, if you take the opportunity. Big fun. Should add a little positive, if not even enlightening, something or other to your weekends. So have at it? And I’ll see you back here on Monday.

 

‘The first thing to say is that ‘criticism’ isn’t the right word for The Space of Literature, and, despite the many philosophical terms, allusions and adoptions, most notably from Heidegger, ‘philosophy’ isn’t either. What sets Blanchot apart from any definable genre is that his writing exposes itself to its own analysis, or, rather, the analysis exposes itself to writing lacking such a possessive pronoun.

‘The opening chapter asserts the ‘solitude’ of the written work: To write is to break the bond that unites the word with myself. The work is even separate from the book, which we might see as a vessel borne on the surface of a submarine current: Writing is the interminable, the incessant. This means that the space of the title is not a privileged realm for a few “great writers”; it does not have borders or features with rules to be learned but is at a remove from such power. Mallarmé felt the very disquieting symptoms caused by the sole act of writing.

‘Blanchot cites Kafka’s comment that he has entered literature when he replaces ‘I’ with ‘He’, but adds that this metamorphosis is more profound: In doing this, the writer belongs to a language which no one speaks, which is addressed to no one, which has no center, and which reveals nothing. Mastery over words puts the writer in contact with a fundamental passivity that cannot be grasped: To write is to make oneself the echo of what cannot cease speaking. Instead, in a stirring paradox, mastery consists in the power to stop writing, to interrupt what is being written. This a curious formulation. When we admire the tone of a particular writer, he says, it is not the writer’s voice we admire but the intimacy of the silence he imposes on the word. He compares this to classicism in which the calm of the regular form guarantees a language free from idiosyncrasy, where impersonal generality speaks and secures the writer a relation with truth. But such calm requires the stability of an aristocratic society in which a part of society concentrates the whole within itself by isolating itself well above what sustains it. We might say that genre fiction is an aristocratic form.

‘The imposition of silence is necessary because writing is an exposure to an outside – what might have been called the divine, the sublime or the infinite, and which Blanchot refers to the other night or the other of all worlds. And it is in incantatory prose and such hyperbolic phrases, otherwise unthinkable in literary criticism, that exposes us to how strange literature is in itself. Once you become accustomed to what at first appears as anachronistic and even absurd (certainly to English eyes – I remember a friend giggling as he read the opening pages), you might also recognise such excess defines us as human: in excess of body, in excess of world, akin to the internal perspective of language that Noam Chomsky has described and the excess of consciousness Mallarmé called this drop of nothingness. And if we are drawn to poetry and to the poets Blanchot writes about, it is their strange excess that sets their work apart and deserves to be addressed without being neutralised within the stability of a regular form. This is also why The Space of Literature appeared so vital to me upon re-reading; it does not stand aside from its subject.

‘The risk taken by such prose is in stark contrast to scholarly method that corrals prose into pens of reason isolated from the distress of the infinite. While it resists the temptations of fascination, which is necessary for its purpose, it does not assume the guarantees it expects. As Blanchot writes in a later book:

Reason … does not begin in the light of an evidency by which it would seize itself, but rather in an obscurity that itself is not manifest and whose discovery, seizure, and affirmation alone put thought to work, causing it to find and to extend its own light.

‘Blanchot turns the light off to reveal such obscurity. In a disconcerting move, reaffirming the unaccountability of literary space, he rejects the familiar priority of real-world over literature in which artistic activity is often portrayed as unrealistic, escapist and even in denial of the world, gaining acceptance only if it submits to the superiority of the physical world. For Blanchot, while the artist often seems a weak being who cringes within the closed sphere of his work where…he can take revenge for his failures in society, it is instead the artist who is exposed to the greatest threat: the loss of self and world in the space of literature:

It is then that Rimbaud flees into the desert from the responsibilities of the poetic decision. He buries his imagination and his glory. He says “adieu” to “the impossible” in the same way that Leonardo da Vinci does and almost in the same terms. He does not come back to the world; he takes refuge in it; and bit by bit his days, devoted henceforth to the aridity of gold, make a shelter for him of protective forgetfulness.

In later life, Rimbaud is said to have denounced his past work, refusing any further mention of it, which, for Blanchot, “shows the terror which he still felt and the force of the upheaval which he could not undergo to the limit. He is reproached with having sold out and deserted, but the reproach is easy for those who have not run the risk”. The bottomless abyss belongs to art.

‘So much for escapism.

‘Re-reading The Space of Literature has reminded me why so much fiction leaves me confused by indifference and why criticism and reviewing often seems beside the point. While a novel’s subject matter might be powerful and important, its story compelling, the prose style especially seductive and its sentences beautifully formed, such wealth often seems beside the point. The same goes for its social and political relevance, for a survey of its formal structures and for revelations provided by psychological analysis. They might seem very insightful and pressing, but essentially beside the point, which is itself unlocatable. But what other reasons can there be for reading a novel?

‘Blanchot recognises how such a question is ironed out in book culture, with the general reader who makes a livelihood in a world where the clear daytime truth is a necessity [and] believes that the work holds the moment of truth within it constantly translating the work into ordinary language, effective formulae, useful values while, on the other hand, the dilettante and the critic devote themselves to the ‘beauties’ of the work, to its aesthetic value. Everyone, it seems, is happy. And with the advent of the internet, these groups have become indistinguishable. Witness the routine use of the word ‘experimental’ to champion, mitigate or patronise anything that doesn’t quite meet either process, without any question of what ‘experimental’ might mean in in the first place.

‘To give an idea, Blanchot returns instead to the experience of writing before any of these ideas come into play. If the writer is devoted to the work, they are drawn by it toward the point where it undergoes impossibility. That is, when writing empties itself of the world and appears to writer as empty, without value. It is an experience Blanchot calls the very experience of night:

In the night, everything has disappeared. This is the first night. Here absence approaches – silence, repose, night. Here … the sleeper does not know he sleeps, and he who dies goes to meet real dying. Here language completes and fulfills itself in the silent profundity which vouches for it as its meaning.

‘This is not a negative however, as it is where craft and determination gets the writer through the night in order to produce books. We can recognise how night maintains itself in the popularity of, for example, Horror or Gothic fantasy, in which we are exposed to the darkness in human life and to the black-hole of a non-human world. Except, we all know it is only the thrill of a fairground ghost train. It is in this context that Blanchot divides night in two: When everything has disappeared in the night, ‘everything has disappeared’ appears. This is the other night.

We enter into the night and we rest there, sleeping and dying. But the other night does not welcome, does not open. In it one is still outside. It does not close either; it is not the great Castle, near but unapproachable, impenetrable because the door is guarded. Night is inaccessible because to have access to it is to accede to the outside, to remain outside the night and to lose forever the possibility of emerging from it.

‘Blanchot’s essay on Beckett’s trilogy is the most famous expression of this condition. Not even the best creative writing course can help. This might be why indifference stands before me and devouring novel after novel. Many might be impressively wrested from night but they are also recognisably resistant to the other; even the latest ‘experimental’ hit reaches for the same gifts of silent profundity. Despite this, I am still drawn to novels, many of which are not in the least avant garde, as my enthusiasm for In a Hotel Garden demonstrates. So what is going on there; have I fallen for sentimentality? My response would be that this also shows how novels might dwell in what Blanchot calls the torn intimacy of an alliance between the activity of book making and the passivity of writing, as the characters seek to bring to life what haunts them and yet do so only in the dissimulation of speech and stories. And not only the characters.

‘It is for this reason I am drawn to what is often called metafiction and invariably disparaged as writing about writing, which might still be a turning away from the world, yet only in search of an origin, for what haunts writing. Blanchot offers a genealogy of what has passed in literature:

The work was once the language of the gods, their absence’s speech; subsequently it was the just, the balanced language of men, and then the language of men in their diversity. Then again it was the language of disinherited men, of those who do not speak. And then it was the language of what does not speak in men, of the secret, of despair or ravishment.

What, he asks, does such a list tell us? Only this: that art is constantly invisible to us. What is invisible demands to be seen, and if this suggests a demand separate from literary criticism, it is entirely in keeping with our times, in which origins are strictly taboo. What is left now for the work to say? What has always eluded its language? Blanchot asks. Seventy years after its publication, the answer and challenge proposed by The Space of Literature remains: Itself.’ — Stephen Mitchelmore

 

________
Typescript of The Space of Literature

 

____
Further

Espace Maurice Blanchot
‘The Space of Literature’ @ goodreads
Contradictory Passion: Inspiration in Blanchot’s “The Space of Literature”
‘Everything and Nothing’: Blanchot in the Space of Shakespeare”
Introduction: Blanchot’s Spaces
Analysis of the Space of Literature by Maurice Blanchot
Blanchot on the analogy between writing and suicide
I’m too dead to tell you: withdrawing rooms and other breathing spaces.
BLANCHOT AND THE RESONANT SPACES OF LITERATURE, SOUND, ART AND THOUGHT
Reading The Space of Literature (iii)
Nothing doing: Maurice Blanchot and the irreal
Introduction: Against Praise of Maurice Blanchot
(Re)Writing, (Re)Reading: Maurice Blanchot and The Space of Literature
The Negative Eschatology of Maurice Blanchot
Read the entirety for free online
Buy ‘The Space of Literature’

 

___
Extra

Christopher Fynsk. Blanchot, Language, Negation, Dialectics and Signification. 2012

 

___
Extra

Partially Removing the Remove of Literature. Kristen Mueller. & So.

“A book, even a fragmentary one, has a center which attracts it. This center is not fixed, but is displaced by the pressure of the book and circumstances of its composition. Yet it is also a fixed center which, if it is genuine, displaces itself, while remaining the same and becoming always more central, more hidden, more uncertain and more imperious. He who writes the book writes it out of desire for this center and out of ignorance. The feeling of having touched it can very well be only the illusion of having reached it.” -Maurice Blanchot, The Space of Literature

In Reading the Remove of Literature (Information as Material, 2006), Nick Thurston has erased the text of the English translation of Maurice Blanchot’s L’espace littéraire (The Space of Literature), while at the same time preserving his own marginalia, resetting them in almost the exact typeface of Blanchot’s text.

In Partially Removing the Remove of Literature, Thurston’s marginalia have been partially erased. Only the non-verbal, diagrammatic traces – the underlinings and arrows, circles and asterisks – remain, printed one atop another, collapsing each chapter into the space of a single page. The chapters’ running titles, reprinted at the top of each page, offer the sole clue as to what Blanchot once wrote, and Thurston once read and annotated.

 

____
Extra

Four letters from Maurice Blanchot to his American translator Paul Auster

 

___
Book

Maurice Blanchot The Space of Literature
University of Nebraska Press

‘Maurice Blanchot, the eminent literary and cultural critic, has had a vast influence on contemporary French writers—among them Jean Paul Sartre and Jacques Derrida. From the 1930s through the present day, his writings have been shaping the international literary consciousness.

‘The Space of Literature, first published in France in 1955, is central to the development of Blanchot’s thought. In it he reflects on literature and the unique demand it makes upon our attention. Thus he explores the process of reading as well as the nature of artistic creativity, all the while considering the relation of the literary work to time, to history, and to death. This book consists not so much in the application of a critical method or the demonstration of a theory of literature as in a patiently deliberate meditation upon the literary experience, informed most notably by studies of Mallarmé, Kafka, Rilke, and Hölderlin. Blanchot’s discussions of those writers are among the finest in any language.’ — UoNP

 

___
Excerpt

Tyrannical Prehension

Sometimes, when a man is holding a pencil, his hand won’t release it no matter how badly he wants to let it go. Instead, the hand tightens rather than open. The other hand intervenes more successfully, but then the hand which one might call sick makes a slow, tentative movement and tries to catch the departing object. The strange thing is the slowness of this movement. The hand moves in a tempo which is scarcely human: not that of viable action, not that of hope either, but rather the shadow of time, the hand being itself the shadow of a hand slipping ghostlike toward an object that has become its own shadow. This hand experiences, at certain moments, a very great need to seize: it must grasp the pencil, it has to. It receives an order, an imperious command. This phenomenon is known as “tyrannical prehension.”

The writer seems to be the master of his pen; he can become capable of great mastery over words and over what he wants to make them express. But his mastery only succeeds in putting him, keeping him in contact with the fundamental passivity where the word, no longer anything but its appearance — the shadow of a word — never can be mastered or even grasped. It remains the ungraspable which is also unreleasable: the indecisive moment of fascination.

The writer’s mastery is not in the hand that writes, the “sick” hand that never lets the pencil go — that can’t let it go because what it holds it doesn’t really hold; what it holds belongs to the realm of shadows, and it is itself a shade. Mastery always characterizes the other hand, the one that doesn’t write and is capable of intervening at the right moment to seize the pencil and put it aside. Thus mastery consists in the power to stop writing, to interrupt what is being written, thereby restoring to the present instant its rights, its decisive trenchancy.

We must start questioning again. We have said that the writer belongs to the work, but that what belongs to him, what he finishes by himself, is only a book: “by himself” corresponds to the restriction “only.” The writer is never face to face with the work, and when there is a work, he doesn’t know it; or, more precisely, even this ignorance is unknown to him, is only granted him in the impossibility of reading, the ambiguous experience that puts him back to work.

The writer goes back to work. Why doesn’t he cease writing? Why, if he breaks with the work, as Rimbaud did, does this break strike us as a mysterious impossibility? Does he just desire a perfect product, and if he does not cease to work at it, is it simply because perfection is never perfect enough? Does he even write in the expectation of a work? Does he bear it always in mind as that which would put an end to his task, as the goal worthy of so much effort? Not at all. The work is never that in anticipation of which one can write (in prospect of which one would relate to the process of writing as to the exercise of some power).
The fact that the writer’s task ends with his life hides another fact: that, through this task, his life slides into the distress of the infinite.

 

The Interminable, the Incessant

The solitude which the work visits on the writer reveals itself in this: that writing is now the interminable, the incessant. The writer no longer belongs to the magisterial realm where to express oneself means to express the exactitude and the certainty of things and values according to the sense of their limits. What he is to write delivers the one who has to write to an affirmation over which he has no authority, which is itself without substance, which affirms nothing, and yet is not repose, not the dignity of silence, for it is what still speaks when everything has been said. This affirmation doesn’t precede speech, because it prevents speech from beginning, just as it takes away from language the right and the power to interrupt itself. To write is to break the bond that unites the word with myself. It is to destroy the relation which, determining that I speak toward “you,” gives me room to speak within the understanding which my word receives from you (for my word summons you, and is the summons that begins in me because it finishes in you). To write is to break this bond. To write is, moreover, to withdraw language from the world, to detach it from what makes it a power according to which, when I speak, it is the world that declares itself, the clear light of day that develops through tasks undertaken, through action and time.

Writing is the interminable, the incessant. The writer, it is said, gives up saying “I.” Kafka remarks, with surprise, with enchantment, that he has entered into literature as soon as he can substitute “He” for “I.” This is true, but the transformation is much more profound. The writer belongs to a language which no one speaks, which is addressed to no one, which has no center, and which reveals nothing. He may believe that he affirms himself in this language, but what he affirms is altogether deprived of self. To the extent that, being a writer, he does justice to what requires writing, he can never again express himself, any more than he can appeal to you, or even introduce another’s speech. Where he is, only being speaks — which means that language doesn’t speak any more, but is. It devotes itself to the pure passivity of being.

If to write is to surrender to the interminable, the writer who consents to sustain writing’s essence loses the power to say “I.” And so he loses the power to make others say “I.” Thus he can by no means give life to characters whose liberty would be guaranteed by his creative power. The notion of characters, as the traditional form of the novel, is only one of the compromises by which the writer, drawn out of himself by literature in search of its essence, tries to salvage his relations with the world and himself.

To write is to make oneself the echo of what cannot cease speaking — and since it cannot, in order to become its echo I have, in a way, to silence it. I bring to this incessant speech the decisiveness, the authority of my own silence. I make perceptible, by my silent mediation, the uninterrupted affirmation, the giant murmuring upon which language opens and thus becomes image, becomes imaginary, becomes a speaking depth, an indistinct plenitude which is empty. This silence has its source in the effacement toward which the writer is drawn. Or else, it is the resource of his mastery, the right of intervention which the hand that doesn’t write retains — the part of the writer which can always say no and, when necessary, appeal to time, restore the future.

When we admire the tone of a work, when we respond to its tone as to its most authentic aspect, what are we referring to? Not to style, or to the interest and virtues of the language, but to this silence precisely, this vigorous force by which the writer, having been deprived of himself, having renounced himself, has in this effacement nevertheless maintained the authority of a certain power: the power decisively to be still, so that in this silence what speaks without beginning of end might take on form, coherence, and sense.

The tone is not the writer’s voice, but the intimacy of the silence he imposes upon the word. This implies that the silence is still his — what remains of him in the discretion that sets him aside. The tone makes great writers, but perhaps the work is indifferent to what makes them great.

In the effacement toward which he is summoned, the “great writer” still holds back; what speaks is no longer he himself, but neither is it the sheer slipping away of no one’s word. For he maintains the authoritative though silent affirmation of the effaced “I.” He keeps the cutting edge, the violent swiftness of active time, of the instant.

Thus he preserves himself within the work; where there is no more restraint, he contains himself. But the work also retains, because of this, a content. It is not altogether its own interior.

The writer we call classic — at least in France — sacrifices within himself the idiom which is proper to him, but he does so in order to give voice to the universal. The calm of a regular form, the certainty of a language free from idiosyncrasy, where impersonal generality speaks, secures him a relation with truth — with truth which is beyond the person and purports to be beyond time. Then literature has the glorious solitude of reason, that rarefied life at the heart of the whole which would require resolution and courage if this reason were not in fact the stability of an ordered aristocratic society; that is, the noble satisfaction of a part of society which concentrates the whole within itself by isolating itself well above what sustains it.

When to write is to discover the interminable, the writer who enters this region does not leave himself behind in order to approach the universal. He does not move toward a surer world, a finer or better justified world where everything would be ordered according to the clarity of the impartial light of day. He does not discover the admirable language which speaks honorably for all. What speaks in him is the fact that, in one way or another, he is no longer himself; he isn’t anyone any more. The third person substituting for the “I”: such is the solitude that comes to the writer on account of the work. It does not denote objective disinterestedness, creative detachment. It does not glorify consciousness in someone other than myself or the evolution of a human vitality which, in the imaginary space of the work of art, would retain the freedom to say “I.” The third person is myself become no one, my interlocutor turned alien; it is my no longer being able, where I am, to address myself and the inability of whoever addresses me to say “I”; it is his not being himself.

 

Recourse to the “Journal”

It is perhaps striking that from the moment the work becomes the search for art, from the moment it becomes literature, the writer increasingly feels the need to maintain a relation to himself. His feeling is one of extreme repugnance at losing his grasp upon himself in the interests of that neutral force, formless and bereft of any destiny, which is behind everything that gets written. This repugnance, or apprehension, is revealed by the concern, characteristic of so many authors, to compose what they call their “journal.” Such a preoccupation is far removed from the complacent attitudes usually described as Romantic. The journal is not essentially confessional; it is not one’s own story. It is a memorial. What must the writer remember? Himself: who he is when he isn’t writing, when he lives daily life, when he is alive and true, not dying and bereft of truth. But the tool he uses in order to recollect himself is, strangely, the very element of forgetfulness: writing. That is why, however, the truth of the journal lies not in the interesting, literary remarks to be found there, but in the insignificant details which attach it to daily reality. The journal represents the series of reference points which a writer establishes in order to keep track of himself when he begins to suspect the dangerous metamorphosis to which he is exposed. It is a route that remains viable; it is something like a watchman’s walkway upon ramparts: parallel to, overlooking, and sometimes skirting around the other path — the one where to stray is the endless task. Here true things are still spoken of. Here, whoever speaks retains his name and speaks in this name, and the dates he notes down belong in a shared time where what happens really happens. The journal — this book which is apparently altogether solitary — is often written out of fear and anguish at the solitude which comes to the writer on account of the work.

The recourse to the journal indicates that he who writes doesn’t want to break with contentment. He doesn’t want to interrupt the propriety of days which really are days and which really follow one upon the other. The journal roots the movement of writing in time, in the humble succession of days whose dates preserve this routine. Perhaps what is written there is already nothing but insincerity; perhaps it is said without regard for truth. But it is said in the security of the event. It belongs to occupations, incidents, the affairs of the world — to our active present. This continuity is nil and insignificant, but at least it is irreversible. It is a pursuit that goes beyond itself toward tomorrow, and proceeds there definitively.

The journal indicates that already the writer is no longer capable of belonging to time through the ordinary certainty of action, through the shared concerns of common tasks, of an occupation, through the simplicity of intimate speech, the force of unreflecting habit. He is no longer truly historical; but he doesn’t want to waste time either, and since he doesn’t know anymore how to do anything but write, at least he writes in response to his everyday history and in accord with the preoccupations of daily life. It happens that writers who keep a journal are the most literary of all, but perhaps this is precisely because they avoid, thus, the extreme of literature, if literature is ultimately the fascinating realm of time’s absence.

 

 

*

p.s. Hey. ** Armando, Hi. Hm, well, here are my 20 favorite LA home haunts/mazes/haunted attractions of my recent visit that I posted on Facebook: Stoney Pointe Haunt (Santa Clarita), Twisted Minds Productions … Salem: Escape the Coven (San Gabriel), Reign of Terror (Thousand Oaks), Shiver (Valencia), Rotten Apple 907 presents … Death Triangle (Burbank), Club Fear presents … Twisted Manor (Santa Clarita), Gothic Hills Cemetery (Sylmar), Holidayz in Hell (Universal Studios), Agoura Horror Story (Agoura Hills), Pumpkin Jacks Haunted House (Santa Clarita), Pirate’s Cave Haunt (Orange), The 17th Door (Fullerton), Trick or Treat (@ Los Angeles Haunted Hayride), The Fleshyard (Anaheim), Forbidden Woods Cemetery (North Hollywood), The Best Halloween Store Ever! (Interactive Experience) (Thousand Oaks), Wax Works (Knott Scary Farm), Dark Entities (Knott Scary Farm), Dark Ride (Knott Scary Farm), Origins: The Curse of Calico (Knott Scary Farm). Yes, I’ve been to Winchester Mystery House many times. It’s great. Very, very lucky you to have seen ‘A Hidden Life’. Can’t wait. I’m not a fan of Joni Mitchell whatsoever, but it’s good she’s still ticking. Today: Try to finish the first funding application docs for Zac’s and my new film as they’re due on Tuesday, try to stay alert (jet lag), see Gisele. You? ** David Ehrenstein, I heard about ‘The Souvenir’. I can’t remember. I won’t rush if it gets here. ** Sypha, Thanks. Yeah, I thought the Tarantino was kind of loose and fun. I really like his writing generally, but it wasn’t as sharp in the new film, I didn’t think. But, yeah, it was nice. Great use of that Paul Revere and the Raiders track. Oh, interesting. About the Bresson/Waters recommendations. Okay. I think that, with both of them, you should start by seeing one earlier and one later film, since the eras are pretty distinct. With Waters, I would start with ‘Female Trouble’ (early) and ‘Serial Mom’ (later). With Bresson, I would start with ‘Pickpocket’ (early), and, so as not to be so predictable as to recommend ‘The Devil, Probably’, I would say ‘Lancelot du Lac’ (later), which is the first Bresson film I saw and the one that made me fall in love with his work and changed my life. Thank you for asking, James! ** _Black_Acrylic, Hey, Ben. Thanks for liking the post and for thanking Anne. ** JM, Cool, glad you dug the post. Oh, yeah, right, duh, the lucy ellmann novel. I was going on 3 hours sleep yesterday, and my brain was toast. I really want to check that out. I’m already planning to pick up a copy when I go to London next week. I really, really like your ideas/plans for the TCSM a lot. It got my sleepy brain sparking. Exciting! Did you already do the performance based on your Amphetamine Sulphate book? Sorry if that’s a dumb question. Again, my brain ain’t what it usually is, whatever it usually is. ** Steve Erickson, Hi. Well, rain and bad shoes are pretty sane excuse not to go out strolling. I do know Neurocam, and I’ve watched the doc. on Youtube. It’s been a while, but I remember being fairly riveted? Look forward to your ‘FP’ review. ** KeatonCup, In a cup! Or is a cup! How was ‘Dr. Sleep’? I’m wary. Ooh, unexpected turns, the spice of life if not its substance. Excellent. ** Bill, Hi, B. People seem to be liking ‘The Lighthouse’ a lot, which depresses me since I thought it was artsy fartsy, borrowed, vapid, badly written, hammily performed, and superficially directed bleh, but I seem to be in minority. So who knows? I wanted to see ‘Parasite’ in LA, but missed it. Boy, everyone sure seems to like it a lot. Curious. ** Right. Today I spotlight a great book by my man, my favorite writer and thinker, the one and only Mr. Maurice Blanchot. No pressure though. But do give it a bit of your eyesight and brain power, if you will. See you tomorrow.