Bataille lovers of the world, untie

[anne mcknight]

 *I sent this earlier this week but I don't think it ever appeared.
Apologies for possible double posting.

I was glad to see Heon Seo's speculation on the relation between Georges

Bataille's prose and pink directors.

    I've wondered around the same thing, but have a hunch there is a
whole set
of mediating texts circulating around ideas about abjection, fascism,
the
sacred and profane which are equally indebted to tracking the relations
between modes of sociology and affective relations (occasionally seen in
pink
films, ha ha) which Bataille explores in his essays about
post-enlightenment
philosophy, the Popular Front and revolution, and fascism in the pre-WW2

years.   I imagine Shibusawa is an important figure here, not least
because he
was the decadent translator (you can tell cause he always wears
sunglasses,
even on an indoor chaise lounge) of the first such enlightenment writer
that
many people grooved on, Sade.

    That said, I find myself hard pressed to imagine Wakamatsu Koji (and
why
not?) cozying up with a nice volume of either Sade or Bataille, the
librarian
of the 'primitive.'  At least this is the impression I get from his
lowbrow
"aw shucks" self-presentation in his autobio and in his taidans that
I've
seen, which I see also as a kind of kryptonite against the kinds of
questions
about the role of sex in the conditions of production both on and off
the
set.  Anyway.  However, it seems fascinating to me, particularly in
terms of
the *action* movie, to think about how action (cf Nietzsche, productive
expenditure) ennobles the abject figure and turns him sovereign, as
Bataille
does, or Kitano, or any of a number of other thugs.  The idea of
sacrifice, so
present at the level of both narrative and character, in Wakamatsu's
films,
may play in here.  The connections between fraternity, revolution, and
sacrifice as seen in these transgressive (???) directors, with their
idea of
sacrifice, seem highly interesting and most likely entertaining in the
realm
of gendered sacrifice.

    Many 60s-70s directors, which I am hazarding are the object of your
speculation, seem to me resolutely modern figures, though, in ways that
Bataille is not.  I don't think he believes in 'invented traditions,'
giving
much more credence to the legacies of negativity provided for in
double-edged
ways (i.e. heterogeneity as something which can go down the road of
fascism as
well as  one of excess).

    Anyway, now that you've brought this topic up, which makes me quite
happy,
what works/directors/themes were you thinking of?

Sincerely,
Anne McKnight
Comp Lit, UC Berkeley