Dostoyevsky

[406blue]

People accuse me of being depressed because i read dostoyevsky, orwell and watch 'depressing films' like tarkovsky and tarr instead of hollywood drivel. i accept that it can be a circular thing but it has always seemed real to me. 'The horror, the horror. Make horror your friend' struck a chord with me. To me the horror is the factory farming of consumer sheep that western society breeds and the cattle that wander aimlessly around shops with eyes of glass. I feel like an alien here and the conformity of people scares me into isolation.

Dostoyevsky is a potential cure, not a problem, like schumann. He requires me to think about suicide rationally whereas disney makes me want to get to the nearest train track asap in a blind panic.

 

[Circles]

Dostoevsky, Nietzsche and Schopenhauer are my idols. Their writings carries a voice beckoning to be heard. I can't wait to wake up and listen to some podcasts of theirs.

 

[wezel]

People accuse me of being depressed because i read dostoyevsky, orwell and watch 'depressing films' like tarkovsky and tarr instead of hollywood drivel. i accept that it can be a circular thing but it has always seemed real to me. 'The horror, the horror. Make horror your friend' struck a chord with me. To me the horror is the factory farming of consumer sheep that western society breeds and the cattle that wander aimlessly around shops with eyes of glass. I feel like an alien here and the conformity of people scares me into isolation.

Dostoyevsky is a potential cure, not a problem, like schumann. He requires me to think about suicide rationally whereas disney makes me want to get to the nearest train track asap in a blind panic.

I am with you. The sheep out there also have driven me far away...what's left is music and books, but that won't save me.
... Bela Tarr is one of my all time favourite film directors, and he is a true humanist, showing that every human being has
some dignity, no matter how low down he is. He has explained that beautifully in this interview.

With Schumann I feel - apart from all the wild running imagination he has - a deep, often bottomless sense of sadness,
incurable really...even in his Children pieces opus 68...

 

[406blue]

I'm listening to the schumann you posted, it's been a while since i heard this. Such tender sadness. His pieces for children are sublime. The symphonies he wrote lack this kind of melancholy beauty but all of his piano works reflect a unique sense of yearning for something elusive that i have never discovered elsewhere. The first piano piece i heard by him 20 years ago had me hooked on a level where i found i had known this man in a previous life.

 

[406blue]

As for bela tarr, a similar feeling. I can watch his films over and over again, i must have seen satantango 20 times. Werkmeister Harmonies the same. This is life as it is and not how we would like it to be.

 

[wezel]

This is life as it is and not how we would like it to be.

You nailed it and must be a Satantango expert by now ! My favourite is 'Damnation' ( ...that opening scene and the bar song are haunting...)
I also started reading the novels by Krasznahorkai, which were the basis for some Tarr films, that added another aspect to it.
I find the most unforgiving Tarr 'The Turin Horse', that one I cannot watch that often, it is a manic and brutal exercise in what life can be.

You are right about the Schumann symphonies ( though there are exceptions ), but his songs make up for that . A personal favourite of mine always has been the ending of the 'Kerner Lieder', Opus 35 e.g., those last 3 songs are simply incredible in their expressiveness and then increased intimacy ( the last 2 songs are basically the same music played again, just quieter ).

 

[CJM]

I doubt you'll find many film buffs who will talk smack about liking tarkovsky, didn't he do Stalker and Solaris? Damn amazing.