August 3, 1947
Alma-Ata
The closer we get
to the [dialectical] schema, the stronger the effect.
([Dialectics]
presented in a formal and static way.)
My favorite Marx
Brothers gag.
“They throw
themselves at one door—snowstorm, blizzard, rain, and wind.
They don’t like
it.
The rush to the
other door.
There—the sun is
shining, the birds are singing, perfect seasonal weather.”
(The scene can be
scene in Animal Crackers. I was
present at the shooting of this film at the Long Island Studio in New York.)
A pure appearance
of the unity of opposites—contrary to understanding and against the logic of
natural elements!
Analogous to
a favorite drawing by Steinberg: [“Exit”]
Equating the
unequal and vice versa.
Another good
example.
These days there is a popular anecdote circulating around Moscow:
“Teacher: Kogan!
How much is 2 x 2?
Kogan: Four, Mr.
Teacher!
Teacher: And how
much is 3 + 1?
Kogan: Also four. But
this is not the same…”
A powerful
anecdote.
Completely devoid
of meaning, but very effective, because here the mechanism appears clearly: desequalization of the equal—3 + 1 is
presented as unequal to 2 x 2. This is the basic Sprungfeder. Mitschwingend:
probably also pars pro toto.
Because 2 x 2 and
3 + 1 are equal as wholes (as the
result of operations) and unequal in
their parts (as processes: multiplication
and addition, as well as in their
components—2 and 2, 3 and 1).
Claiming that they
are unequal (“one is not the same as the other”), Kogan in fact operates
according to parts pro toto in its
prelogical aspect: the whole is its
parts. And since the parts are not equal, so the entities or wholes cannot be
equal either.
It is interesting
that both fours are “the same” from the point of view of the static and
resulting totality. But from the perspective of the dynamics of the process
they are effectively different. Just as they are different from the perspective of the quality
of the content of these two fours.
One of them: 22;
the other: 1 + 1 + 1 + 1.
Considered
geometrically, these two fours are completely different and belong to distinct
measurements!
The comic usually proceeds in the opposite way: it
presents a dynamic regularity in a static way. (An adult speaking with the voice of a child means: an adult
= a child. In its static simultaneity this appears as comical. In the
process—the adult is actually one with the child as are two phases of a single
line of development.)
Here, the contrary
is the case. The static result—“the impersonal” four that appears as
“result”—is from the perspective of “everyday logic”, of everyday “common
sense”, genuinely true and real.
From this
perspective a certain disparity of the result appears as absurd (nelepost’, non-sense).
Hence the odd,
embarrassing Zwitter (hybrid, dual) effect
of such acuity. The roots of its effectiveness are not immediately graspable
(as we see, they are quite complex), and thus the “embarrassing” taste of
“incomprehension”, which makes something comical—funny!
A
common—national—characteristic of a nation of Kogans.
Precisely
because of this Zwitter—typical of the
Jewish dialectic in its metaphysical abstraction and talmudistic casuistry (on
Saturday one should not be separated from one’s land—so, when leaving, take
some of your land with you in a bag).
[From: Sergei Eisenstein, Metod, Vol. 2 (Moscow: Muzei kino, 2002), 390-2.]
No comments:
Post a Comment