The Performing Arts in Western Civilization

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The Performing Arts in Western Civilization

• New York University

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Quote of the day

• The Zen-philosopher Basho once wrote
• A flute without holes is not a flute,
• And a doughnut with no hole
• Is a danish.
• He was a funny guy.
• - Ty Webb

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Agenda (3/8/05)

• Heidegger the Pre-Socratics
• Bagger Vance - Talking Points
• Eclectic Analysis One True Authentic Swing

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Martin Heidegger (1889-1976)KANT ? HEGEL ?
BRENTANO ? HUSSERL ? HEIDEGGER

• After studying with Husserl, Martin Heidegger
  undertook an academic career in Germany,
  lecturing with great success both in Marburg and
  at the University of Freiburg.
• Heidegger's Sein und Zeit (Being and Time) (1927)
  applied the methods of phenomenology to ontology,
  in an effort to comprehend the meaning of "Being"
  both in general and as it appears concretely.
  This led him to a conception of human existence
  as active participation in the world,
  "being-there" Ger. Dasein.
• Heidegger contends that this active participation
  is what has been forgotten in Western Philosophy.
• Being and Time became the philosophical
  foundation for the French existentialist school.
  (Deconstruction)

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Heideggers Hermeneutic Phenomenology

• Builds on the foundations established by Husserl.
• Moves away from the Husserlian concept of
  Transcendental Ego.
• His addition of Historical Relativism creates a
  radical change in Phenomenology.
• relativism - Belief that human judgments are
  always conditioned by the specific social
  environment of a particular person, time, or
  place. Cognitive relativists hold that there can
  be no universal knowledge of the world, but only
  diverse interpretations of it. Moral relativists
  hold that there are no universal standards of
  moral value, but only the cultural norms of
  particular societies.
• Descriptions are never pure, but rather, are
  marked by an interpretation rooted in the
  analysts historic tradition.

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Heidegger (contd)

• For Heidegger, the question, What is Being?
  must be prefaced by an analysis of human
  existence.
• This question becomes the centerpiece of his
  never completed study of Being. Heidegger
  ultimately concludes that a philosophical
  resolution of this question is not possible.
• Influenced by Husserl, Heidegger begins to look
  back to Aristotle and the Greek thinkers in their
  understanding of aletheia - the unconcealedness
  of what is present.

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Heidegger and Being

• Being
• Cannot be defined - indeterminate immediate
  (Hegel)
• The most universal and the emptiest of
  conceptsfor everyone uses it constantly and
  already understands what he means by it.
  (Gadamer).
• For Heidegger, the search for Being is tantamount
  to a search for the a priori conditions of human
  existence.
• Every inquiry is, to some degree, already
  formulated beforehand and all inquiry is marked
  by an orientation towards what is sought.
• The object of inquiry, however, provides an a
  priori guidance for how to question it.

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Heidegger and Being (contd)

• In order to engage an object ontologically, one
  must project a pre-understanding toward it.
• This process places an object into the context
  that is its Being.
• Heideggers hermeneutic phenomenology thus posits
  a pre-theoretical understanding in order to open
  up the Being of the phenomenon under question.

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Da-sein

• Term provided by Heidegger to characterize mans
  existence, and to establish the fact that man
  alone can pose the question of Being.
• Literally means, Being-there
• For Heidegger, a hermeneutic analysis of Da-sein
  establishes mans existence in the world as an
  ontological fact.
• Facticity - A term introduced by Heidegger to
  describe mans existence as both physical and
  ontological.
• Daseins character in the world is always
  unfinished. It is always what it can and might
  bealways on its way to completion. (ex. Junnuh)
• A phenomenology centered on Dasein is
  fundamentally hermeneutic.
• But what is Phenomenology?

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Phenomenology (term)

• Origin in the Greek language
• Phainomenon logos
• Phainomenon - to show itself, that which is
  manifest in the light of day.
• The early Greek understood a phainomenon in its
  immediacy and not through intermediary concepts
  or symbols.

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Phenomenology (contd)

• logos - usually translated as word and refers
  to mans ability to communicate through
  discourse
• For Heidegger, logos
• Allows objects to appear as they are.
• Makes it possible to place something in its
  immediacy.
• Is not a linguistic power that man has over
  phenomena.
• In the early Greek view, the word phenomenology
  means allowing objects to show or reveal
  themselves without the domination inherent in
  linguistic categorization.
• Heidegger pinpoints the The Allegory of the Cave,
  from Platos The Republic as the moment at which
  the West moves away from the early Greek
  definition of logos.

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After Being and Time

• In Being and Time, Heideggers attempt to frame
  Da-sein within the context of a philosophical
  system that was consistent with Western thought
  was not entirely successful.
• The philosophical community did not recognize the
  radical shift in Heideggers conception of
  Da-sein.
• For Heidegger, Da-sein was not simply a new take
  on an old idea, rather, it was a concept that was
  prior to any existing philosophical view of the
  transcendental subject.
• Heidegger concluded that only a radical leap out
  of Western metaphysics was required in order to
  clarify the concept of Da-sein.

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After Being and Time (contd)

• Heidegger claims that through meditative
  thinking, one can be truly open to Being.
• Heidegger introduces the concept of waiting
  upon phenomena in order to allow them to lie
  before us and show themselves.
• This process grants phenomena the freedom to
  question the viewer.
• For Heidegger, this is precisely what the Western
  mind has forgotten how to do.

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Pre-Socratics Revisited

• Lived in Asia Minor and various Greek Islands
• Usually described as poets rather than
  philosophers.
• Parmenides (b. 510 BCE) - reality is a single,
  unchanging substance.
• Anaximander (611-547 BCE), Anaximander speculated
  that all matter is an infinite, intelligent,
  living whole.
• Heraclitus (540-475 B.C.E.) (One can never step
  in the same river twice.) the world is
  constantly changing.

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Pre-Socratics (contd)

• Unfettered by a post-Platonic paradigm (dichotomy
  between subject and object), Early Greek thinking
  is characterized by gathering or apprehension
  and collection.
• Heideggers concept of meditative thinking
  attempts to release the will, in order to
  ensure a responsiveness to things. This creates
  the possibility of waiting upon an object and
  allowing it to reveal itself.
• One does not experience a thing by re-presenting
  it through a concept but instead remains directed
  to it.
• Heidegger explores these ideas in greater depth
  in the essay, The Origin of the Work of Art.

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Bagger Vance

• The film is characterized by a mythic rendering
  of its thematic content
• Golf is portrayed with regard to its ritualistic
  function in society
• The onto-historical focus can be described in
  terms of the yearning for a pre-industrial
  definition of human society.
• MythologySportsGolf
• Athletes as figures of Modern Heroism
• Golf Course - connection to the farmgreen field,
  pre-technological

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Bagger Vance (contd)

• Heidegger
• The Artist and the Art are in the Artwork
• The Force The Allegory of the Faun (Hindu)
• Moments of ecstatic experience for the
  artist/craftsman are equated with the
  performer/athletes descriptions of being in the
  zone. Can also correspond to an empathetic
  response in the viewer/listener.

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Bagger Vance (contd)

• The Allegory of the FaunJunnuh must remember
  what hes forgotten.
• Connection with Heideggers notion of waiting
  upon rather than waiting for.
• Allowing the Artwork to reveal itself
• Elemental forces Light dark
• Discuss Golf with regards to its ritualistic
  functions

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Eclectic Analysis One True Authentic Swing

• Open Viewing
• Historical Background
• Syntax
• Phenomenological Description
• Image
• Use of Light
• Color Scheme
• Sound
• F/X
• Music
• Dialogue
• Textual Representation
• Virtual Feeling
• Onto-historical Worlds
• Open Viewing
• Meta-Critique

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Open Viewings

• Series of viewings guided by Husserls principle
  of epoche (the suspension of the natural
  attitude).
• In this step, one attempts to bracket out all
  pre-existing judgments (positive or negative)
  related to the work in question

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Historical Background

• The Legend of Bagger Vance (2000)
• Cast Matt Damon, Will Smith, Charlize Theron,
  Bruce McGill, Wilbur Fitzgerald
• Direction Robert Redford
• Screenplay Jeremy Leven (adapted from the novel
  by Steven Pressfield)
• Original Music Rachel Portman
• Cinematography Michael Ballhaus
• Studio 20th Century Fox
• Genre Drama / Comedy / Romance
• Release Date November 3, 2000

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Syntax One True Authentic Swing

• Length 345
• 63 individual shots (or cuts)
• Two-character scene with minimal narration by one
  of the characters (Hardy) at a later age.
• Exterior
• Setting Putting green
• Time night
• Mise-en-scene, i.e., the setting, surroundings,
  or background of any event or action
• Pre-dominantly realistic with expressionistic
  departures that relate to the thematic content of
  the scene.

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Phenomenological Description

• Image
• Use of Light
• Color Scheme
• Sound
• F/X
• Music
• Dialogue

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Textual Representation

• (Bagger) Inside each and everyone of us is one
  true authentic swing. Something we was born with.
  Something is ours and ours alone. Something cant
  be taught to you or learned. Something got to be
  remembered. Over time this world can rob us of
  that swing. It can get burned inside us and all
  our wouldas, couldas, and shouldas. Some folk
  even forget what their swing was like. Keep
  swingin.
• (Hardy) But I dont have any balls.
• (Bagger) Dont worry about hitting the ball or
  where its gonna go, just swing the club. Feel the
  club.

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Virtual Feeling

• A sense of awe.
• Initial anxiety which gives way to a sense of
  awareness that might be described as bliss.
• A sense of stillness in motion that is
  accompanied by the knowledge that one is safe.

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Onto-historical Worlds

• ontology n
• 1. the most general branch of metaphysics,
  concerned with the nature of being
• a particular theory of being
• 
  
• We live in a stream of history that connects the
  past and future.
• The historical life-world that surrounds an
  artist of the past is connected to contemporary
  listeners-viewers and their present through the
  historical tradition that encompasses both.
• The contemporary listener-viewer experiences art
  through the stylistic and expressive norms that
  have developed in the historical tradition in
  which his past and present are conjoined.
• Ones historical tradition acts as a filter
  through which a contemporary person engages an
  artwork. A tradition provides the initial stance
  for aesthetic understanding.
• Ones present context continually causes the one
  to modify the original significance of past
  works.
• The time and place in which an analysis occurs
  impacts on what an art work can mean.

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Onto-Historical Worlds

• The onto-historical focus can be described in
  terms of the yearning for a pre-modern definition
  of human society.
• Golf Coursegreen fieldpre-technological
• A clash of cultural worlds is noted. Hardy seems
  to represent the modernist, mechanistic view of
  human experience, while Bagger stresses an
  outlook that is decidedly pre-Socratic.

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Open Viewings

• A return to step two in which the several levels
  of significance are engaged within a dynamic
  tapestry.

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Meta-Critique

• Although our approach seemed to gain a great deal
  from delimiting the analysis to a single scene,
  we unquestionably ran the risk of losing focus
  regarding the entire film.
• Additionally, we once again faced the difficulty
  of assessing an art form (cinema) that is
  pluralistic in nature. Are we analyzing the
  score/sound, scene, image, or all three? The
  plurality of meanings that results when one reads
  between each of these mediums engenders decidedly
  postmodern overtones. One is ultimately obliged
  to ask, Where is the text?
• Perhaps one could one say that the text resides
  in a dynamic interaction between each of these
  mediums
• Future analysts would do well to take these
  relationships into consideration when attempting
  to assess cinematic works.

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Upcoming Assignments

• Heidegger, On the Origin of the Work of Art
  two full pages (minimum) summary due Thursday,
  3/10/05
• Goodman, The Ways of Worldmaking one full page
  summary due Tuesday 3/22/05