The Talkies
Buckley, Christopher
history has a cutoff point: in their case it is the liberal-democratic society to which nothing more can be expected than "additions" and "elaborations." Indeed, it is one of Voegelin's great merits...
...Yeah...
...The result is a philosophical profession of faith, with vast consequences for our dialogue with the author...
...a Latin American revolutionary, after stealing seven hundred pounds of cole slaw to feed his guerrillas, will ask himself, quite seriously, Is stealing justified as a means toward a political end...
...If only God would show me a sign," he sighs, "then I could believe...
...36 The Alternative: An American Spectator December 197 history has a cutoff point: in their case it is the liberal-democratic society to which nothing more can be expected than "additions" and "elaborations...
...These secular ideologies are really the result of what Voegelin calls "pneuma-pathology," a disease which reads the ideologue's personal vision into the whole of human experience...
...But Love and Death is a film which would succeed were it not for excess absurdity, and in that light, Boris' question poses a troubling problem for the author...
...The Village Idiots' Convention, where town idiots from all over Russia meet to discuss new techniques of idiocy, derives from Monty Python's Flying Circus...
...Prudently remaining within his historicophilosophical framework, Professor Voegelin gives no answer...
...Yet man cannot live without meaning, so the great question is whether the next civilizational phase will result in a more congealed condition of mass-totalism, with the overwhelming consequence that men will be further stripped of any loyalties to traditional institutions...
...A big answer to the biggest question, but earlier Boris poses a more relevant question where he pauses in the middle of another existential monologue to wonder, "What if we're just a bunch of absurd people doing things with no rhyme or reason...
...A big answer to the biggest question, but earlier Boris poses a more relevant question where he pauses in the middle of another existential monologue to wonder, "What if we're just a bunch of absurd people doing things with no rhyme or reason...
...But now, many films later, Allen's existentialist dilemmas are making it harder and harder to laugh at his movies, and if the trend of his current film, Love and Death, continues, audiences will have to start asking their own existentialist questions...
...Keeping both of Voegelin's recent books in focus, we may be helped by his description of the ecumenic age (from Alexander to St...
...Voegelin does not pursue these reflections into the future...
...Hence it is agitated by an indefinite series of revolutions through which the ideologue, afflicted by pneuma-pathology, mono-maniacally insists on impregnating the masses with his spirit...
...36 The Alternative: An American Spectator December 197 history has a cutoff point: in their case it is the liberal-democratic society to which nothing more can be expected than "additions" and "elaborations...
...Here Voegelin abstains from religious speculation and makes of Christianity a mere historical force, with Paul rather than Christ at its center...
...And sure enough, enter an angel of the Lord to tell him Napoleon will grant pardon in time...
...Prudently remaining within his historicophilosophical framework, Professor Voegelin gives no answer...
...Enter antihero, a nice Jewish kid from Brooklyn, a Russian conscientious objector with no qualms about his lack of chutzpah.--) The Alternative: An American Spectator December 1975 35 Boris Grushenko, a young Russian living during the time of the Napoleonic wars, is a horny intellectual, a coward, a frustrated mystic...
...And sure enough, enter an angel of the Lord to tell him Napoleon will grant pardon in time...
...The conspiracy miscarries (of course...
...Through a trick of fate, he marries the girl of his dreams, the herring merchant having accidentally shot himself...
...And when Allen hides in a cannon during the battle with the French, we expect Buster Keaton to come soaring out when the cannon is (of course) fired...
...The result is a philosophical profession of faith, with vast consequences for our dialogue with the author...
...Sonja escapes, and Boris is left to await the firing squad...
...He understands that the two key notions of our age, "total mass" and "spiritual power," have no transcendent source and are basically organizational principles...
...The crucial question to which such speculations lead is always: is there a way out within history...
...Paul) to understand our own...
...Prokofiev plays in the background...
...Voegelin joins the most sharp-sighted historians, who answer with Polybius: the very mechanisms which supply nations or civilizations with elements of their greatness, work also to their downfall...
...Indeed, it is one of Voegelin's great merits that he shows how the accumulation of subtle shifts within a civilization bring about major changes of orientation...
...Love and Death is a tale of misadventure set in Tolstoy's Russia...
...But more intrigued by the fair Sonja, his cousin (Diane Keaton...
...One of Voegelin's most important statements is that in the present ideological climate history has no meaning for man, it has meaning only for the total mass...
...Yet man cannot live without meaning, so the great question is whether the next civilizational phase will result in a more congealed condition of mass-totalism, with the overwhelming consequence that men will be further stripped of any loyalties to traditional institutions...
...The conspiracy miscarries (of course...
...An accident makes him a war hero,when the cannon he hides in is fired and he lands on a tent full of Napoleon's generals, causing the French to surrender...
...this is unfortunate, because such discussion is generally left today to the mostly foolish elucubrations of "futurologists," whose future resembles the present as one egg resembles another...
...But we can gain conceptually from Voegelin's insight...
...You know the chicken at Kreski's restaurant...
...Hence, such ideologues must deny any existential validity or meaning to the times preceding their own...
...Through a trick of fate, he marries the girl of his dreams, the herring merchant having accidentally shot himself...
...Hence, such ideologues must deny any existential validity or meaning to the times preceding their own...
...But more intrigued by the fair Sonja, his cousin (Diane Keaton...
...Hence it is agitated by an indefinite series of revolutions through which the ideologue, afflicted by pneuma-pathology, mono-maniacally insists on impregnating the masses with his spirit...
...Indeed, it is one of Voegelin's great merits that he shows how the accumulation of subtle shifts within a civilization bring about major changes of orientation...
...He is also in the business of asking big questions, mixing existentialism with melodrama...
...I'm an admirer of Mr...
...On the eve of war, Sonja marries a herring merchant and the unwilling Boris is packed off to fight...
...Or Death...
...Voegelin's view cautions us against taking this prospect, or any other prospect, as inevitable, but present circumstances do seem to propel us toward more of the same...
...He understands that the two key notions of our age, "total mass" and "spiritual power," have no transcendent source and are basically organizational principles...
...Why fight a war when it's so easy to become a refugee...
...What can we say about the future...
...this is unfortunate, because such discussion is generally left today to the mostly foolish elucubrations of "futurologists," whose future resembles the present as one egg resembles another...
...His family is a collection of upper-middle-class idiots and psychopaths...
...by Christopher Buckley / Woody Allen is in the business of making funny movies and writing funny pieces for the New Yorker...
...It's worse...
...Democracy and industrialism continue to drive the planet toward an "ecumenic age," whichwill have long since shed itself of the validation of individual vision...
...she asks...
...Why duel over a woman when there's enough of her to go around...
...The crucial question to which such speculations lead is always: is there a way out within history...
...Love and Death opens with a shot of clouds spreading across a brilliant, blue sky...
...What gets in the way of the humor is the author/director/ actor's persistent hammering away at the Big Questions, which is funny for ten minutes, amusing the next ten minutes, and boring the rest of the time...
...For a while, they share an idyllic cottage romance, living, as the times are hard, on a diet of sleet and snow...
...One of Voegelin's most important statements is that in the present ideological climate history has no meaning for man, it has meaning only for the total mass...
...The black drill instructor in the Czar's Imperial Army is a touch from Blazing Saddles...
...Why, the movie asks, did man do such stupidthings back in the nineteenth century...
...More troubling, at the moment, than Love...
...The Village Idiots' Convention, where town idiots from all over Russia meet to discuss new techniques of idiocy, derives from Monty Python's Flying Circus...
...Boris is ecstatic, but the Lord pulls a fastone, and in the penultimate scene, we find him standing outside Sonja's window, Father Death at his side...
...And when Allen hides in a cannon during the battle with the French, we expect Buster Keaton to come soaring out when the cannon is (of course) fired...
...she asks...
...It's worse...
...These secular ideologies are really the result of what Voegelin calls "pneuma-pathology," a disease which reads the ideologue's personal vision into the whole of human experience...
...We cannot make such predictions about our ecumene as Paul made about his...
...What I do have an argument with are repetitious, unfunny soliloquies...
...Voegelin does not pursue these reflections into the future...
...His first "mystical experience" occurs at age nine, when Death, a striking figure resplendent in white robes, meets him in the woods and tells him, "We will meet again...
...Like, Are they worth $3.50...
...Enter antihero, a nice Jewish kid from Brooklyn, a Russian conscientious objector with no qualms about his lack of chutzpah.--) The Alternative: An American Spectator December 1975 35 Boris Grushenko, a young Russian living during the time of the Napoleonic wars, is a horny intellectual, a coward, a frustrated mystic...
...The voice-over heightens the expectant tensions: "...but isn't all mankind ultimately convicted and executed for a crime it never committed...
...This raises the further question: is a new "revelation" and its corresponding human experience necessary for our ecumenic age—or is the Christian revelation durable enough to rescue us from failure...
...Lining up for the chopping block in Love and Death are war, chivalry, God, romance, philosophy, and politics...
...again, they must also stop history with the imminent accomplishment of their own design...
...Boris rightly senses he is different from the others...
...But along comes another French invasion, and the scatterbrained, equally existentialist, Sonja leads Boris into a plot to assassinate Napoleon...
...by Christopher Buckley / Woody Allen is in the business of making funny movies and writing funny pieces for the New Yorker...
...Allen, and in the past he has been brilliantly absurd...
...Sonja eventually learns to love Boris, though at first when he reaches out to touch her in bed she says, "No, not here...
...Why fight a war when it's so easy to become a refugee...
...A man in one of his films will pause before buying a pastrami sandwich at the deli to wonder if there is a moral imperative involved...
...Love and Death is a tale of misadventure set in Tolstoy's Russia...
...Why, the movie asks, did man do such stupidthings back in the nineteenth century...
...What's it like being dead...
...More troubling, at the moment, than Love...
...On the surface, this underlying movement manifests itself as a "state of crisis," so that, as Voegelin writes in From Enlightenment to Revolution, "remedial forces, while perhaps present, are socially ineffective": "the spiritual and moral strength for the task is lacking in the ruling group...
...An accident makes him a war hero,when the cannon he hides in is fired and he lands on a tent full of Napoleon's generals, causing the French to surrender...
...Love and Death opens with a shot of clouds spreading across a brilliant, blue sky...
...What I do have an argument with are repetitious, unfunny soliloquies...
...Why duel over a woman when there's enough of her to go around...
...Here Voegelin abstains from religious speculation and makes of Christianity a mere historical force, with Paul rather than Christ at its center...
...Why believe in God when He shows us no visible signs except suffering, and "the best thing you can say about Him is that He's a tremendous underachiever" ? I have no argument with these painful queries...
...The voice-over heightens the expectant tensions: "...but isn't all mankind ultimately convicted and executed for a crime it never committed...
...But now, many films later, Allen's existentialist dilemmas are making it harder and harder to laugh at his movies, and if the trend of his current film, Love and Death, continues, audiences will have to start asking their own existentialist questions...
...What gets in the way of the humor is the author/director/ actor's persistent hammering away at the Big Questions, which is funny for ten minutes, amusing the next ten minutes, and boring the rest of the time...
...But Love and Death is a film which would succeed were it not for excess absurdity, and in that light, Boris' question poses a troubling problem for the author...
...For a while, they share an idyllic cottage romance, living, as the times are hard, on a diet of sleet and snow...
...The little philosopher becomes intrigued by Death and God...
...The first age ended in failure, rescued only by the Apostle when he transposed the mundane expectations onto the plane of eschatology...
...He is also in the business of asking big questions, mixing existentialism with melodrama...
...Why believe in God when He shows us no visible signs except suffering, and "the best thing you can say about Him is that He's a tremendous underachiever" ? I have no argument with these painful queries...
...His family is a collection of upper-middle-class idiots and psychopaths...
...His first "mystical experience" occurs at age nine, when Death, a striking figure resplendent in white robes, meets him in the woods and tells him, "We will meet again...
...again, they must also stop history with the imminent accomplishment of their own design...
...Democracy and industrialism continue to drive the planet toward an "ecumenic age," whichwill have long since shed itself of the validation of individual vision...
...Voegelin's view cautions us against taking this prospect, or any other prospect, as inevitable, but present circumstances do seem to propel us toward more of the same...
...This raises the further question: is a new "revelation" and its corresponding human experience necessary for our ecumenic age—or is the Christian revelation durable enough to rescue us from failure...
...Voegelin does not pursue these reflections...
...You know the chicken at Kreski's restaurant...
...We cannot make such predictions about our ecumene as Paul made about his...
...On the eve of war, Sonja marries a herring merchant and the unwilling Boris is packed off to fight...
...What remains is a formless and endless now into which all history is compressed...
...What can we say about the future...
...Boris rightly senses he is different from the others...
...Lining up for the chopping block in Love and Death are war, chivalry, God, romance, philosophy, and politics...
...His father has realized great wealth by "buying a small plot of land," a six-by-six-inch piece of turf he carries around in his cloak, swearing, "Someday I will build on it...
...He always reminds us of his latent genius, philosophy...
...What's it like being dead...
...What remains is a formless and endless now into which all history is compressed...
...The little philosopher becomes intrigued by Death and God...
...Keeping both of Voegelin's recent books in focus, we may be helped by his description of the ecumenic age (from Alexander to St...
...Or, as Diane Keaton, Allen's leading lady, says to him at the end of one four-minute monologue, "Oh Boris, you aren't going to quote Aquinas again, are you...
...Voegelin joins the most sharp-sighted historians, who answer with Polybius: the very mechanisms which supply nations or civilizations with elements of their greatness, work also to their downfall...
...If only God would show me a sign," he sighs, "then I could believe...
...He always reminds us of his latent genius, philosophy...
...Allen's genius makes these scenes eclectic and not plagiaristic...
...Or, as Diane Keaton, Allen's leading lady, says to him at the end of one four-minute monologue, "Oh Boris, you aren't going to quote Aquinas again, are you...
...Indeed, it is one of Voegelin's great merits that he shows how the accumulation of subtle shifts within a civilization bring about major changes of orientation...
...The pace is fast, some of the gags are terribly funny,"Love and Death" and Allen moves beyond his own conventions to include scenes worthy of Monty Python, Buster Keaton, Mel Brooks, or even the great Chaplin...
...Paul) to understand our own...
...But we can gain conceptually from Voegelin's insight...
...Yeah...
...His father has realized great wealth by "buying a small plot of land," a six-by-six-inch piece of turf he carries around in his cloak, swearing, "Someday I will build on it...
...Allen, and in the past he has been brilliantly absurd...
...Sonja eventually learns to love Boris, though at first when he reaches out to touch her in bed she says, "No, not here...
...Sonja escapes, and Boris is left to await the firing squad...
...Or Death...
...The black drill instructor in the Czar's Imperial Army is a touch from Blazing Saddles...
...Allen's genius makes these scenes eclectic and not plagiaristic...
...The first age ended in failure, rescued only by the Apostle when he transposed the mundane expectations onto the plane of eschatology...
...A man in one of his films will pause before buying a pastrami sandwich at the deli to wonder if there is a moral imperative involved...
...On the surface, this underlying movement manifests itself as a "state of crisis," so that, as Voegelin writes in From Enlightenment to Revolution, "remedial forces, while perhaps present, are socially ineffective": "the spiritual and moral strength for the task is lacking in the ruling group...
...Boris is ecstatic, but the Lord pulls a fastone, and in the penultimate scene, we find him standing outside Sonja's window, Father Death at his side...
...The pace is fast, some of the gags are terribly funny,"Love and Death" and Allen moves beyond his own conventions to include scenes worthy of Monty Python, Buster Keaton, Mel Brooks, or even the great Chaplin...
...But along comes another French invasion, and the scatterbrained, equally existentialist, Sonja leads Boris into a plot to assassinate Napoleon...
...Prokofiev plays in the background...
...a Latin American revolutionary, after stealing seven hundred pounds of cole slaw to feed his guerrillas, will ask himself, quite seriously, Is stealing justified as a means toward a political end...
...I'm an admirer of Mr...
...Like, Are they worth $3.50...
Vol. 9 • December 1975 • No. 3
