Favorites Of 1993

[oscar jubis]

Caravaggio is great, no doubt. There is a long and fecund tradition of self-conscious use of stylization and theatricality in cinema and Jarman is a major exponent.

I think Chris is absolutely right about Russell and Wittgenstein.

Wittgenstein is easy to discuss because there are only two very different major works, colloquially referred as "the Tractatus" and "the Investigations" released decades apart. It's Investigations that has had a monumental impact on our culture. I have been hugely affected by it. It has changed my understanding of the kind of truth and knowledge we derive from non-scientific methods (like criticism), and the way I view the concept of "genre" which is so important to a film enthusiast. One of his major ideas is that there is no essence to things like words and actions, that the meaning of a word is its usages in ordinary language, and that there are no rules that can help us understand the meaning of an action, that each instance is unique because of context, circumstance, etc. so that everything must be interpreted. Everybody who is involved in any kind of "criticism" owes him a lot because no one has argued with such conviction and authority about its importance and significance.