questions for April 10th

Posted on April 3, 2007

First, a note on the reading / viewing for Thursday and Tuesday (this is a repeat of what I sent as an email message ... sorry for duplication).

A reminder that I will be away from campus all day Thursday, so NO CLASS. During class time, though, you can watch the film that we'll be discussing on Tuesday (Angel Heart). The Thursday screening is in Bailey-Howe (Media-Resources Projection Room), and will run until about 4 pm. So if you have an obligation (e.g. class) between 3:15 and 4, then you won't be able to watch it then, at least not the whole thing.

But you can also watch it over at Media Resources anytime before Tuesday's class (it's on reserve now); AND, there's a MONDAY night screening: 427 Waterman (that's a lecture classroom), 7:30 - 9:30.

Also: reading for Tuesday. We're working with ideas from Rene Girard's Violence and the Sacred ... those in class today know that we certainly didn't exhaust the topic; and, indeed, we never got to the material from the chapter called "Oedipus and the Surrogate Victim" (which is an e-reserve reading). So, for next Tuesday, just read (or re-read) that. Do NOT read what is listed on the syllabus for Tuesday ("The Gods, the Dead, the Sacred, and Sacrificial Substitution") I might bring in an idea from that reading, but we'll have plenty enough on our plates without adding more.

Angel Heart is a spooky film, and it is violent. But there's not a lot of violence shown on screen; the main character is a detective (surprise!), so he sees dead bodies but we don't necessarily see people being killed. Still, there is a certain gruesomeness to the violence (even if much is inferred) and, in general, it's a film that might weird you out a bit. In a sense, it may capture for a modern audience the emotional/pscyhological resonance that Macbeth might have had in its original context. Anyway, that's part of my hope.

So, the questions; do ONE:

1. Discuss the nature of the violence in the film. (This will make more specific sense for those who were in class on Thursday, but you can address it any way you like.) For example, is this what Girard might call "sacred violence?"

2. Girard's "Oedipus and the Surrogate Victim" addresses the notion of "sacrifice" as a kind of substitution. Is that relevant to the substitution that is at the "heart" of Angel Heart? (When you see the film you'll know why I put heart in quotation marks.)