Identities in the Spaces of Flows

1
Identities in the Spaces of Flows Fragmentations

• Stardom and The English Patient

2
Outline

• Causes for Flows Fragmentations
• Stardom
• The English Patient
• For Next Week

3
Causes for Fragmentations Flows

• The two World Wars and the wars afterwards
• Challenges to traditional beliefs (religion,
  humanity e.g. Darwinism, Freud, Nietzsche)
• Capitalism (from national to international)
  Telecommunication
• Contemporary Flows of people, commodities,
  capitals, information, and virus.
• Global culture,
• The center cannot hold (e.g. nation, family,
  stable sense of identity, etc.)

4
Stardom

• What do we know about Tina Menzhal? How is her
  life different from another model, Toni? What
  makes her famous, media or her beauty? How does
  she get known to the public?
• How are media, and the different kinds of TV
  programs, treated in this film? How are
  artists such as Bruce Taylor and Phillip Gascon
  positioned in relation to media?

5
Tina on videos her words Comments on her

• I cant talk in Gascons interview
• Interviews of her e.g. in front of the
  restaurant (by Michelle), report on Bruce
  Taylors ad project (Fashion I).
• Her sisters the one with the brains.
• Not blonde on the outside
• ? her actions in the fur episode
• and with Blaine

6
The Men around Tina

• From Phillip Gascon to Barry Levine (flirting
  with Steve)
• Fur episode? ambassador Blainde de Gastillon
• Ad ? Steve Bourque
• The agent
• Bruce Taylor

7
Stardom Tina on and off videos

• 1. Her life told on these videos
• e.g. Her first status climbing Getting the award
  of Lions Clubs annual athletic achievement ?
  The photographer interviewed? the model agent
  interviewed
• Tinas association with the men (e.g. Gascon,
  Blaine)
• Tina and her father

8
Stardom Tina and Media

• 2. Trashy TV programs of different types
• Interviews of and Peeping on celebrities
• Celebrity Hunt websites
• Interview of P Gascon -- sexual implications
• Of Barry Levine
• Gossip and Sensational Debates
• Dr Evelyn Loo Coping his mother interviewed
  Tina
• TV forum
• Pyschic shows (healing of Ruth, Barrys wife)
• Surprises

9
Stardom Tina on videos

• Videos used as promotion
• e.g. soft opening of A Model Life
• Portrait of Phillip Gascon
• Pervasive camera
• A man talking to the agent I hate God
• ? Cinema verite (Bruce Taylor) ? What does
  superficiality mean?

10
Issue 1 Reality Video Presentations

• E.g. Tinas visit to Paris TV news of Muslim
  Bomb Cornwalls Dr. Evelyn Loo report
• Bruce Taylor

11
Issue 2 Image

• Tinas images change according to the
  circumstances
• Global image
• Used by multinational industry WCM and Nagashimi
  (involved in different national cultures
• --Canadian ?French ? American ?Japan)

12
Issue 3 Models Lives

• Tina Tony

13
Michael Ondaatje

• Michael Ondaatje was born on September 12, 1943
  in Colombo, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka).
• As a result of his father's alcoholism,
  OndaatjeÕs parents eventually separated in 1954
  and he moved to England with his mother
• 1962-64, Ondaatje attended Bishop's University in
  Lennoxville, Quebec.

• 1965 -- B.A. at University of Toronto

14
Michael Ondaatje

• Criticized for
• criticized for not writing much about Canada and
  Sri Lanka, or writing in a politically correct
  way.
• the use of violence (e.g. the inclusion of atomic
  bomb) ? his response trying to find a balance
  between gentleness and violence (Leckie 29).

15
The English Patient Setting

• Places
• 1.the Villa San Girolamo in Tuscany a nunnery, a
  field hospital, and a besieged fortress e.g. 11,
  12, 29, 43
• 2.South Cairo the desert
• 3.Kip Lahore? the English countryside
• Time
• 1.right after WWII 1945
• 2. 1943 the first Canadian infantry p. 49
• 3.South Cairo1930-1938 1936

16
EP Chaps 1-2

• The Villa Hanas taking care of EP, her reading,
  the villa, the desert, and the desert tribes
• In Near Ruins Hana and Caravaggio in near
  ruins their respective experience of the War and
  its influences on them, their memories, the
  arrival of Kip

17
Questions about Fragmentation and Reconstruction

• How does the War influence the three characters
  we have seen so far?
• Why do you think the desert winds and the tribes
  customs are important? How is the EP related to
  them?
• How do the Bedouins treat the EP, as opposed to
  Hanas way of treating him?
• Reading What is the importance of readingfor
  Hana and for the EP?
• Memory Why is the novels narration fragmentary?
  
• What do the characters memories reveal about
  them?

18
The Wars

• influences on the Villa Pp. 11-12, 29,
• On the characters
• EP
• Hana p. 7 scurry in the mind a nomad
• Caravaggio p. 34,

19
How do they heal themselves

• Mutual support
• Reading
• Memories and reconstruction of memories.

20
Memories

• EPs
• Hanas

21
Next Week

• Chaps III Kips presence in the Villa and his
  past
• Chaps IV VI Katherine and Almasy