While there have been fine films that explore aspects of the existential in cinema without relying on the illegal, there are numerous others that see in the existential the criminal, the notion that being for oneself in the world often manifests itself as being opposed to that world so fundamentally the lives of others are insignificant next to one’s own. In what we will call the malign form…
“In the case of novels and films which are explicitly political,” Jack Zips says, “the necessity to begin with a specific social reality as the basis for comprehending the narrative techniques and thematic conceptions developed in the works is obvious. Two good examples are Heinrich Boll's novel The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum and [Margarethe von Trotta and] Volker Schlondor…
1 I hadn’t seen Ben for about five years when I was sitting in a cafe reading my book and, raising my eyes, noticed a couple arriving who looked like they may have entered the wrong place. The cafe was for students at the art college, and for the sort of worker, like myself, who liked reading, writing, or researching in public places. The cafe was around the corner from the film centre nearb…
Raymond Carver, was born in Oregon in 1938 and died fifty years later. He was a heavy drinker and much of his writing life had been a precarious one, working in various odd jobs and relying on grants before becoming established and very successful nearer the end of his shortish life, so much so that he became known as a father-figure to a new generation of writers. “I'm only the father o…