Terry Gilliam enlightens us, through opera, about corruption and the Nazis
What is astounding to me is that no one has linked the old German high culture of
Goethe and
Schiller with Nazism more often and more directly before. Not only in the sense of culpability, but in relation to the themes explored.
It's interesting how high culture and racial superiority are so closely linked.You can almost hear the Nazis and their vast German following, not all of whom are dead yet say:
But we are superior. German culture is superior. We produced Beethoven and Beethoven produced the 9th Symphony and that really good bit by Schiller, what was it?
Alle Menschen werden Brüder, - ale menshen verden brider..
Hmm. Now. The inferior races and cultures couldn't produce that could they?'
Not since the musical
Spring Time for Hitler and Germany has anyone put Nazism into song in such a big way. And who is the more profound comic and who has more 'gravitas' when it comes to linking music and performance with Nazism.
Mel Brooks I think. And The Producers is more profound than the aspirational
The Damnation of Faust.
But of course Faust is a perfect match.
Ones artistic aspirations should never attempt to encompass the horrors of the Second World War.
Primo Levi's books, where he deals with the experience of the holocaust were not books, not the wank objects of the bourgoise of a former imperial power, they were historical documents. Art
trivialises in this instance.
Holocaust exploitation literature and films, where these events are fictionalised by people who were never there or have no direct connection with events are the most disgusting and shameful manifestation of our literary and artistic culture.There is no metaphorical account of the holocaust because no metaphors are more striking than the plain and unvarnished description of the events that took place.
If people who were there or were close to these events do not like to talk about them and only do so because they feel their responsibility is to do so and if whole generations have been struck dumb by the horror of what happened and prefer not to think about it then who is Terry Gilliam or some such, to make sense of the holocaust to us.
Any attempt to make sense of the holocaust has already been done by the survivors and their relatives,
Anna Arendt, Primo levi and many others. Is there any greater insult or offense than to have a facetious post modernist patch together his account. Post modernism, not in the French sense, but in the materialist social Darwinist way culture is deconstructed now, is a a foul leaving. It dehumanizes everything it touches and offers no insights.
Certainly, I hope to have no insights into Germany or Nazism or Faust from a modern materialist. How is a modern materialist qualified to pontificate and draw lessons on the holocaust or on hell and damnation. There is a sort of horrible soft philistine hubris to the middle class consumption of culture. It disgusts me. For them the holocaust is just a reference point. For them Gilliam is profound. It revolts me.
'Always look on the bright side of life.' not quite
Die Moorsoldaten.
Did it end on that evocative song. Full of respect. How can someone who has the form of a sarcastic clown, associated with a sarcastic bunch of
Cambridge Footlights establishment clowns expect trust in his work.
And yet Mel Brooks in The Producers. My respect to that man - to Mel.
The truth is that art does not define experience.
Gilliam might say:
'No, I did not witness the holocaust, but I have read about it, and seen pictures and newsreels of it and I've met a few survivors.'
'Now listen to this operatic account of my reactions to this.'
Think. For some people the reactions of Terry Gilliam in operatic form will be the most 'emotionally powerful' (weren't those the words used) version of events.
In a sense then the artist usurps and Gilliam is a usurper.
He stands between you and the sun, the darkness. He puts his offering out there and if the 'critics' and the 'public' respond well to him then to understand the holocaust and Faust we wait until Gilliam's fat lady sings and...
- Hey presto! Gilliam is the holocaust.
Or in the spirit of Lois the Sun King he can say - not that he ever would the sensitive venerable old gentleman:
Le Holocaust c'est moi.
What is astounding to me is that no one has linked the old German high culture of Goethe and Schiller with Nazism more often and more directly before. Not only in the sense of culpability, but in relation to the themes explored.
But we are superior. German culture is superior. We produced Beethoven and Beethoven produced the 9th Symphony and that really good bit by Schiller, what was it?
Alle Menschen werden Brüder, - ale menshen verden brider..
Hmm. Now. The inferior races and cultures couldn't produce that could they?'
Not since the musical Spring Time for Hitler and Germany has anyone put Nazism into song in such a big way. And who is the more profound comic and who has more 'gravitas' when it comes to linking music and performance with Nazism. Mel Brooks I think. And The Producers is more profound than the aspirational The Damnation of Faust.
But of course Faust is a perfect match.
Ones artistic aspirations should never attempt to encompass the horrors of the Second World War. Primo Levi's books, where he deals with the experience of the holocaust were not books, not the wank objects of the bourgoise of a former imperial power, they were historical documents. Art trivialises in this instance.
Holocaust exploitation literature and films, where these events are fictionalised by people who were never there or have no direct connection with events are the most disgusting and shameful manifestation of our literary and artistic culture.There is no metaphorical account of the holocaust because no metaphors are more striking than the plain and unvarnished description of the events that took place.
If people who were there or were close to these events do not like to talk about them and only do so because they feel their responsibility is to do so and if whole generations have been struck dumb by the horror of what happened and prefer not to think about it then who is Terry Gilliam or some such, to make sense of the holocaust to us.
Any attempt to make sense of the holocaust has already been done by the survivors and their relatives, Anna Arendt, Primo levi and many others. Is there any greater insult or offense than to have a facetious post modernist patch together his account. Post modernism, not in the French sense, but in the materialist social Darwinist way culture is deconstructed now, is a a foul leaving. It dehumanizes everything it touches and offers no insights.
Certainly, I hope to have no insights into Germany or Nazism or Faust from a modern materialist. How is a modern materialist qualified to pontificate and draw lessons on the holocaust or on hell and damnation. There is a sort of horrible soft philistine hubris to the middle class consumption of culture. It disgusts me. For them the holocaust is just a reference point. For them Gilliam is profound. It revolts me.
'Always look on the bright side of life.' not quite Die Moorsoldaten.
Did it end on that evocative song. Full of respect. How can someone who has the form of a sarcastic clown, associated with a sarcastic bunch of Cambridge Footlights establishment clowns expect trust in his work.
And yet Mel Brooks in The Producers. My respect to that man - to Mel.
The truth is that art does not define experience.
'No, I did not witness the holocaust, but I have read about it, and seen pictures and newsreels of it and I've met a few survivors.'
'Now listen to this operatic account of my reactions to this.'
Think. For some people the reactions of Terry Gilliam in operatic form will be the most 'emotionally powerful' (weren't those the words used) version of events.
In a sense then the artist usurps and Gilliam is a usurper.
He stands between you and the sun, the darkness. He puts his offering out there and if the 'critics' and the 'public' respond well to him then to understand the holocaust and Faust we wait until Gilliam's fat lady sings and...
- Hey presto! Gilliam is the holocaust.
Or in the spirit of Lois the Sun King he can say - not that he ever would the sensitive venerable old gentleman:
Le Holocaust c'est moi.