The Absolute of Pure Difference (2013)

About

This is a film I've been working on for a few months now, inspired by Zizek's film THE PERVERT'S GUIDE TO CINEMA (2006). Basically I show clips of movies and talk about them from a Jungian-Lacanian (and a little bit Deleuzian) perspective. I also draw heavily from Richard Tarnas' work on archetypal cosmology.

The title is "The Absolute of Pure Difference" and it is split between two parts: "The Archetypal" and "The Sacred and the Profane." The first section explores the archetypal dimension of film and how films capture the haecceity, feeling-tone or spirit-of-the-moment of a "quality of time." This qualitative time is a different level of temporality than chronological time -- it's what Deleuze calls ainological time (following Jung's work on Aion). The second half of the film follows Deleuze's definition of art as resistance to the separation of the sacred and the profane, incorporating Jung's work on alchemy, gnosticism and Christian mysticism.

Regarding ainological time, it's easy to conceive of with the example Deleuze uses of great philosophers or artists who live a normal 1-directional life in chronological time, but whose contributions send ripples backwards and forwards in ainological time (reinscribing all that came before and informing what comes after). When we refer to a philosopher by a patronym we are using ainological time, the idea that the philosopher "says" this or that even after perishing in chronological time.

As for the latter half of the film, I go into the idea of the sacred and the profane, including how advertising uses spirit to sell (not just sex), Freud's concept of "Fatersehnsuct" (yearning for the return of the absent father or God-the-Father), Zizek's use of "the sacred" when referring to e.g. Gangnam Style and Deleuze's conception of art as resistance to a Victorian/puritanical rejection of the immanent divine.

Films discussed: PAPRIKA (2006) JOHN DIES AT THE END (2012) APOCALYPSE NOW (1979) IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER (1993) AGUIRRE, WRATH OF GOD (1972) 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968) 8½ (1969) EASY RIDER (1969) 127 HOURS (2011) FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS (1998) THE BICYCLE THIEF (1949) COSMOPOLIS (2012) MY DINNER WITH ANDRE (1980) GHOST IN THE SHELL 2: INNOCENCE (2004) THE WIZARD OF OZ (1939) Television commercials by Coca Cola, Verizon, Java and GoPro.

Archive

Internet Archive, in Vintage commercials

Licence or status

CC BY-NC 3.0, as the Internet Archive states it.

Rights statement

Copyright Jonah Dempcy.

Credit

Jonah Dempcy

Language

English

Who can watch

The archive gives no rating. Invisible Network shows it to Tweens profiles and older, judged from its collection and subjects. How films are placed