Subject
[THOUGHTS] Associations related to a TV series: compassion and
pity?
pity?
From
Date
Body
When Lito (episode 5, Art and Religion in Sense8, a Netflix series)
forgetting his role as a rude character in a Mexican movie began to shed
tears, he explained to the director that his grief was caused by the
realization that all beauty is temporary. *
This is a common enough sentence: mourning about the transience of life and
beauty has been expressed by countless poets and writers over the centuries.
Why was I reminded of Nabokov just then? The scene belongs to a set of
little comic mishaps contrasting with the directors search for realism,
something that he believed could be reached by filming the wanton
destruction of an enormous collection of priceless archeological sculptures.
Everything seemed to be disjointed and ludicrous in it. Why Nabokov?
The lines that I had in mind, from his Lecture on Kafka, are: Beauty plus
pity-that is the closest we can get to a definition of art. Where there
is beauty there is pity for the simple reason that beauty must die: beauty
always dies, the manner dies with the matter, the world dies with the
individual. Today I was able to accept that I felt uncomfortable by it and
that I could never fully understand its meaning. After all, VN was not
indicating human compassion, was he?
In VNs afterword to Lolita we find: For me a work of fiction exists only
insofar as it affords me what I shall bluntly call aesthetic bliss, that is
a sense of being somehow, somewhere, connected with other states of being
where art (curiosity, tenderness, kindness, ecstasy) is the norm .
Tenderness, kindness, pity? Towards whom?**
.
*-director: And action! (sobs) Cut! Lito, what are you doing? Tears are not
hot. Tears are not sexy.
Lito: Sorry. My fault. Um... I'm just feeling a little emotional today.
(whispers) I was suddenly struck by her beauty and the knowledge that... all
beauty is temporary. Decay and death haunt every breath we take.
director: Lito, are you kidding me? Lighten up. "Decay and death"? This is a
movie, for f*ck's sake. OK, people. Come on. Nachito! We don't have all day!
Come on! man: Take your positions, everyone! We're going again!
Read more at:
<http://transcripts.foreverdreaming.org/viewtopic.php?f=317&t=18697>
http://transcripts.foreverdreaming.org/viewtopic.php?f=317&t=18697
commentaries: Lito is "part of the episodes most outwardly comedic story
line.... [He] breaks down crying ...telling the director that in the moment
he realized the fleeting nature of beauty...The whole scene is played for
laughs, and while a man going through hormonal swings brought on by a period
could be very base humor, it works here, mostly due to how evocative and
unhinged Miguel Ángel Silvestres performance is."
<http://www.ew.com/recap/sense8-season-1-episode-5>
http://www.ew.com/recap/sense8-season-1-episode-5
**- VN had no access to the comforts of religion, such as the Jesuit poets
G.M.Hopkins (now I have in mind Spring and Fall that ends with It ís the
blight man was born for. It is Margaret you mourn for, cf.
http://www.bartleby.com/122/31.html ). In his annotated copy of Kafkas The
Metamorphosis we read: The soul has died with Gregor; the healthy young
animal takes over. The parasites have fattened themselves on Gregor.
However, this personal lamentation doesnt show in the body of his lecture,
which he ends with a very objective paragraph: You will mark Kafka's style.
Its clarity, its precise and formal intonation in such striking contrast to
the nightmare matter of his tale. No poetical metaphors ornament his stark
black-and-white story. The limpidity of his style stresses the dark richness
of his fantasy. Contrast and unity, style and matter, manner and plot are
most perfectly integrated.
Search archive with Google:
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Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
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Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
AdaOnline: "http://www.ada.auckland.ac.nz/
The Nabokov Society of Japan's Annotations to Ada: http://vnjapan.org/main/ada/index.html
The VN Bibliography Blog: http://vnbiblio.com/
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forgetting his role as a rude character in a Mexican movie began to shed
tears, he explained to the director that his grief was caused by the
realization that all beauty is temporary. *
This is a common enough sentence: mourning about the transience of life and
beauty has been expressed by countless poets and writers over the centuries.
Why was I reminded of Nabokov just then? The scene belongs to a set of
little comic mishaps contrasting with the directors search for realism,
something that he believed could be reached by filming the wanton
destruction of an enormous collection of priceless archeological sculptures.
Everything seemed to be disjointed and ludicrous in it. Why Nabokov?
The lines that I had in mind, from his Lecture on Kafka, are: Beauty plus
pity-that is the closest we can get to a definition of art. Where there
is beauty there is pity for the simple reason that beauty must die: beauty
always dies, the manner dies with the matter, the world dies with the
individual. Today I was able to accept that I felt uncomfortable by it and
that I could never fully understand its meaning. After all, VN was not
indicating human compassion, was he?
In VNs afterword to Lolita we find: For me a work of fiction exists only
insofar as it affords me what I shall bluntly call aesthetic bliss, that is
a sense of being somehow, somewhere, connected with other states of being
where art (curiosity, tenderness, kindness, ecstasy) is the norm .
Tenderness, kindness, pity? Towards whom?**
.
*-director: And action! (sobs) Cut! Lito, what are you doing? Tears are not
hot. Tears are not sexy.
Lito: Sorry. My fault. Um... I'm just feeling a little emotional today.
(whispers) I was suddenly struck by her beauty and the knowledge that... all
beauty is temporary. Decay and death haunt every breath we take.
director: Lito, are you kidding me? Lighten up. "Decay and death"? This is a
movie, for f*ck's sake. OK, people. Come on. Nachito! We don't have all day!
Come on! man: Take your positions, everyone! We're going again!
Read more at:
<http://transcripts.foreverdreaming.org/viewtopic.php?f=317&t=18697>
http://transcripts.foreverdreaming.org/viewtopic.php?f=317&t=18697
commentaries: Lito is "part of the episodes most outwardly comedic story
line.... [He] breaks down crying ...telling the director that in the moment
he realized the fleeting nature of beauty...The whole scene is played for
laughs, and while a man going through hormonal swings brought on by a period
could be very base humor, it works here, mostly due to how evocative and
unhinged Miguel Ángel Silvestres performance is."
<http://www.ew.com/recap/sense8-season-1-episode-5>
http://www.ew.com/recap/sense8-season-1-episode-5
**- VN had no access to the comforts of religion, such as the Jesuit poets
G.M.Hopkins (now I have in mind Spring and Fall that ends with It ís the
blight man was born for. It is Margaret you mourn for, cf.
http://www.bartleby.com/122/31.html ). In his annotated copy of Kafkas The
Metamorphosis we read: The soul has died with Gregor; the healthy young
animal takes over. The parasites have fattened themselves on Gregor.
However, this personal lamentation doesnt show in the body of his lecture,
which he ends with a very objective paragraph: You will mark Kafka's style.
Its clarity, its precise and formal intonation in such striking contrast to
the nightmare matter of his tale. No poetical metaphors ornament his stark
black-and-white story. The limpidity of his style stresses the dark richness
of his fantasy. Contrast and unity, style and matter, manner and plot are
most perfectly integrated.
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
AdaOnline: "http://www.ada.auckland.ac.nz/
The Nabokov Society of Japan's Annotations to Ada: http://vnjapan.org/main/ada/index.html
The VN Bibliography Blog: http://vnbiblio.com/
Search the archive with L-Soft: https://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?A0=NABOKV-L
Manage subscription options :http://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=NABOKV-L