Peter Benson
4.8K posts
Peter Benson
@bensonpeter20
Gender neutral, watches films, reads books, writes for 'Philosophy Now', works in a library.
London, England Katılım Temmuz 2016
26 Takip Edilen85 Takipçiler
I don’t object to articles being behind paywalls: I don’t expect professional writers to write for free. But it’s not realistic to subscribe to everything. Why can’t we have a pay-per-read system, so we don’t have to pay for a full subscription just to read a single article?
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@yangcuddygf If I find a novel is mostly made up of dialogue, I usually won't read it.
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reading bleak house rn and LOVING the pages and pages of descriptions of anything dickens likes absolutely not for people who only consider dialogues as 'reading'
MARS@moonbeamsmaria
one bad thing about reading classics is now im so strict about prose 😭 sometimes i just wanna read slop but i physically CAN’T
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@JoyceCarolOates I find the most worrying thing about AI writing is how many humans WANT to write like that - to imitate our imitators. Everyone wants to be a bot!
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apropos AI: recall how in the film "Adaptation" the (serious, neurotic) screenwriter played by Nick Cage is blocked in his writing while the (inexperienced, untalented) amateur screenwriter played by Nick Cage has no difficulty writing his screenplay using a formulaic method? presented as comedy, & indeed "Adaptation" is very funny, the film presages the ease with which AI & its equivalence can do the work of experienced professionals who are blocked or balked by human limitations.
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@Greg_Gerke The problem is that, because of the cultural cachet of literature, it never occurs to them that they have an underdeveloped understanding of cinema, nor that films such as these need to be watched more than once.
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Some fiction writers (or poets or essayists) know so little about cinema...of course, it's not a literary art (she's right about the faces...).
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@MartinCothran tbh I've always preferred 'A Portrait of the Artist', which in any case is a necessary prelude to reading 'Ulysses'.
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"I found Dubliners so inventive in its construction and use of language, so beautiful in its depiction of people; I loved it more as an adult than as a young man. But Ulysses proved to be the opposite experience. While I was fascinated by it as a youth, I found it almost insufferable as an adult."—Amor Towles theguardian.com/books/2024/apr… I found it unsufferable the first (and last) time I read it.
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@petrmisan @m966021 D & G need to be regarded as a different author from D solo. The extensive writings of Guattari are a more useful background than anything by D.
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@m966021 Needs to be understood through a disciplined reading group, not alone. But scholars often call it his worst book..
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@erasedangelface Just re-read 'Eroticism' - his idea of eroticism is very different from mine, but he seems to think it is universal. I'm surprised by his lack of knowledge of Freud's theory of sexuality. The book was intended as Vol 2 of 'The Accursed Share', but doesn't equal Vol 1.
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Four books that massively impacted my orientation towards life.
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@hairygit I didn't realize you hadn't seen it. It's worth watching, provided you are not expecting a masterpiece. It's intelligent filmmaking.
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@bensonpeter20 I hadn’t realised the director was Robert Wise. He has made some quite terrofic films - this one may be worth seeking out.
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There was a 1956 Euro production based (fairly loosely, I seem to remember) on The Iliad, called “Helen of Troy”. Helen was played by an actress named Rossana Podesta, but in a bit part, as a handmaiden, was a newcomer named Brigitte Bardot.
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@IlCarmi73 @JoyceCarolOates And they were, of course, more popular with an international audience than in Italy.
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@bensonpeter20 @JoyceCarolOates comedies are usually much more popular, Antonioni's movies are mainly enjoyed by an elite
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yes, this is the near-identical mood of "La Notte" in which Jeanne Moreau, like Monica Vitti, seems to wander aimlessly in city & suburban scenes just staring at things. it is interesting that the (male) director chooses a female optical lens with which to peruse the mysterious world.
however, I did feel that the device, or mood, or whatever you want to call it, became perfunctory after a point. more inclined to Shakespeare's sense of needing to provide a dramatic embodiment of whatever it is you are trying to say than simply hinting at it.
David Sharpe@david_h_sharpe
@JoyceCarolOates I love the first 20 minutes or so of L’Eclisse. Really captures, I think, a person’s relationship with their surroundings when they’re going through a profound change. The world feels as strange as you do.
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@JoyceCarolOates A scene which "goes on too long" is one you haven't paid enough attention to, haven't registered all its nuances. These films require multiple viewings.
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on the whole, retrospectively, Antonioni's films improve in the memory, in which we tighten scenes that, in fact, go on much too long; one's recall of the search in "L'Avventura" is more forceful than the cinematic experience.
not unlike recalling a great novel in which just the major scenes emerge in memory & less urgent passages fade; my experience in rereading much 19th century literature, skimming slow passages & focusing upon/admiring the brilliant passages.
just as we remember the highlights of our friends' conversations with us & forget the uninspired or banal.
Joyce Carol Oates@JoyceCarolOates
as a great admirer of Alain Delon, I kept waiting for this to coalesce. just not sure of the point of the long slow scenes. & what to make of the lovers (?) near the end of the film suddenly giggling like teenagers as if aping more normal individuals? what was that all about? their relationship felt totally superficial, fleeting. it is possible that Antonioni has been so often imitated, seeing the original is not what it would have been in the 1960's. on the other hand, "Red Desert" feels more engaging now, & "La Dolce Vita" gets better with time.
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i’ve always been interested in the beat writers as people, and i’m intrigued by their whole creative mantra, but unfortunately truman capote’s insult that “that’s not writing, that’s typing” is always how i feel abt kerouac whenever i try to get into him. good piece though.
The New Yorker@NewYorker
In 1957, Allen Ginsberg set his friends Jack Kerouac and Joyce Johnson up on a blind date. Nearly half a century after their relationship—and the publication of “On the Road”— Johnson reflects on the objects Kerouac left behind. newyorkermag.visitlink.me/_T8rey
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@JoyceCarolOates He will hold the image after the characters have left the frame. The final sequence of The Eclipse is a culmination of this.
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Antonioni's work is slow, stately, highly visual, does not rely much upon dialogue or coherent plot; in each film it is the visual world that fascinates the camera, often rendered in open fields or squares into which human figures move as if accidentally. in a rare crowded interior in the stock exchange, in "The Eclipse," men in suits rush about like molecules colliding & recoiling in lengthy scenes that seem chaotic though by degrees one individual, played by Alain Delon, emerges. we will never know this character much more than we know him in the crowd scenes but he becomes central to the story & then fades away again as a long day sinks into night.
Joyce Carol Oates@JoyceCarolOates
finally saw the complete Antonioni trilogy, "L'Avventura," "La Notte," & "L'Eclisse." (1960. 1961, 1962) Highly atmospheric, mysterious & (seemingly) directionless, often beautiful to observe but probably, for viewers in 2026, too possessed of a European/existentialist languor to be emotionally engaging. in each self-consciously stylized film a female figure moving about in a landscape or cityscape as if mesmerized by what she sees would seem to be Antonioni's homage to the ineffable power of the visual no doubt shared by all filmmakers; Fellini does this also, & notably in the US Scorsese, but it is human faces that most mesmerize these directors while for Antonioni & Bertolucci it is cityscapes--walls, shadows, windows, rooftops, high-rise apartment buildings & the spaces between them, street lights, windblown leaves & clouds.
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@ZIssenberg I'd add 'Mrs Dalloway' - another one day urban novel, with a different approach to stream-of-consciousness.
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One of my students wanted to join the Ulysses reading group, but tapped out because of its difficulty. That's completely okay! We have entire lifetimes to return to art and engage ourselves once again.
Instead, they asked for a list of books influenced by Ulysses. Try them too!
Zach Issenberg@ZIssenberg
This month, I'm re-reading Ulysses with some friends! Even if some parts can be tough, it's such a joyous, playful, and heartfelt novel. James Joyce wrote a big, bright book about humanity for dark times. Re-reading now, I can't help but see its influence in everything I love...
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@roisinmurphy 'Titus Groan' is the first book in the trilogy, which is mostly a description of the castle & the Dickensian characters who inhabit it, with barely any plot. It is nothing remotely like Tolkien. I adore it, but many people wouldn't. He drew illustrations for numerous books.
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I bought this ace drawing by Mervin Peake years ago. Has anyone read Gormenghast? Any good?
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@JoyceCarolOates Antonioni devised a completely original approach to cinema, in which psychology is externalized into the relations between people & the spaces they inhabit. Shifts in camera angles depict the intermittences of changing thought & mood. He has no successor.
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finally saw the complete Antonioni trilogy, "L'Avventura," "La Notte," & "L'Eclisse." (1960. 1961, 1962) Highly atmospheric, mysterious & (seemingly) directionless, often beautiful to observe but probably, for viewers in 2026, too possessed of a European/existentialist languor to be emotionally engaging. in each self-consciously stylized film a female figure moving about in a landscape or cityscape as if mesmerized by what she sees would seem to be Antonioni's homage to the ineffable power of the visual no doubt shared by all filmmakers; Fellini does this also, & notably in the US Scorsese, but it is human faces that most mesmerize these directors while for Antonioni & Bertolucci it is cityscapes--walls, shadows, windows, rooftops, high-rise apartment buildings & the spaces between them, street lights, windblown leaves & clouds.
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Peter Benson retweetledi
beautiful words from a fan who attended last nights show in huntington 🤍
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@JoyceCarolOates The systems that decide whether to remove a book from stock do not have a 'good book' override - if it hasn't been taken out for a while, it is likely to go.
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I recall checking out books that had not been checked out in 20 years. (good books!)
rqbookish🟧@rkubie
@Freyy_is @JoyceCarolOates It felt good to find a great book that hadn’t been checked out in years, like it was a secret you shared with someone from a long time ago. That can’t happen now because there are automated systems that tell libraries to get rid of books that haven’t been checked out recently.
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@iconoclast502 D & G are always good guides! I recommend 'The Beast in the Jungle', 'The Private Life', 'The Figure in the Carpet', & others.
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@bensonpeter20 deleuze and guattari put me onto his short novella In The Cage which is quite good
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