Subject: Re: American Beauty
AntiUtopia@aol.com
Date: Tue Feb 22 2000 - 12:04:46 EST
In a message dated 2/22/00 9:42:49 AM Eastern Standard Time,
jjv@caesun.msd.ray.com writes:
> Ooooh, a paradigm that transcends culture? Let's here what that is.
I said AMERICAN culture. Mattis works within a paradigm thousands of years
older than American culture, so is able to live within it yet still adopt an
outside point of view.
BUT, I think this is important when we try to look at what it means for a
movie to be "cliched." Tennyson has this famous line, "Tis better to have
loved and lost, than never to have loved at all." I've always hated it, even
though after thinking about it I realized that this judgment is probably the
only way to really be able to bear with grief.
But then I read the poem it came from -- In Memoriam -- which is actually
about 130 shorter poems all strung together. By the time I first came to
that line, it was powerful, effective, and moving, as it should be. The
difference between cliche and elevated poetry in this case was context - the
broader the context, in this case, the less cliched.
I think that may be what's happening to those approaching American Beauty
from a POV outside mainstream American culture. We that are in it read all
the lines within a lot of background that may be missing to an outside point
of view. Not misunderstood or ignored by an outside POV, but just not
immediately accessible.
So what sounds powerful and moving to us may sound cliched to them for that
reason.
Jim
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