Tim Romano wrote:
The challenge I have for Billy is this: can you tell us where in an
Eisenstein film such JUXTAPOSITIONS occur with that kind of high-definition?
Your mission, Mr Stoneking, should you decide to accept it, is to
demonstrate the clarity and definition of the relation, since every image or
scene that comes before or after another one in a film is, by default, "in
relation". Without definition, we have blur. I do not know his films well
at all, but if they do operate on this juxtapositional/relational principle,
I will find time for them.
Dear Tim et al...
I could easily do this as I remember (vaguely) several Eisenstein texts in
which he outlines his shots and talks about the different kinds of
compositions emloyed... and to what purpose... though this may well be very
well AFTER the fact.... unfortunately I am still in Woodstock, NY, and
travelling without portfolio as it were, though this will change soon. I
will be returning to Australia on the 30th and will endeavour to locate the
necessary texts... mongst the dross of my past lives. In the meantime, let
me offer a simple observation which I am sure many on this list have made
for themselves. There is, in the creative arts and sciences, a kind of
invisible critical mass that is reached at various times in history in which
"new" ideas burst forth similtaneously from seemingly unrelated regions of
the planet, from entirely unrelated peoples and historical backgrounds.
There is at least one researcher (Shelldrake??? I can't recall his name) who
tried to account for this by inventing a concept he refers to as "morphic
resonance". Morphic or not, there is a kind of resonance that exists among
the obsessive ones... I could offer countless examples of this from my own
experiences... Pound himself talks about it in a poem when he talks about
how the lives of all great men pass through him, or some such (again, I have
no relevant texts here in the Catskills). I believe, as a poet, that we -
poets, artists, alchemists of the unconscious - are always drawing from the
same pool. The pool has different depths perhaps, but it is always the same
pool. That a filmmaker reached into the pool and pulled out something that
in filmmaking terms can be described as Montage, and a poet reached in and
pulled out something that he described as ideogrammtic method is not a
shock, nor is it meant to explain away the discovery of either. I,
personally, do not find Pound so very difficult, though his contradictions
are intriguing. They are what drew me to him in the first place. Nor do I -
or would I - use Eisenstein to explain Pound, or Pound to explain
Eisenstein. It is enough to explain either man in terms of himself. I just
notice there is a kinship here, and I am pleased to acknowledge it.
By the way, I also acknowledge that a "trip to the pool" is not necessary
for "success". There are many socalled poets and artists out there who have
never been to the pool, let alone dipped their paws in it.
Sincerely
Billy Marshall Stoneking
http://ezrapound.cjb.net
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