First and foremost I have successfully transitioned into Uni mode. With my MA due to start in September and having received a provisional timetable and everything I've wated to get back in the swing of in depth academic aalysis. Not only did this get my head into some books, it injected some life into my contribution to the Kubrick Project over at Hopelies at 24 Frames Per Second. Guy Debord and the whole situationst movement was high on my hit-list of ‘stuff to read up on’, in a similar way to A Clockwork Orange being on my ‘films I’ve never seen but really should have’ list. So how delighted could I have been to watch A Clockwork Orange and already, with my limited concept of what Debord was all about, see some room for application of situationist ideals. After some preliminary Wikipedia action I got down to’ Bradford Library and booked out Debord’s seminal text/manifesto Society of the Spectacle. The result - 'Hegemonic Readjustment of Prefernce and desire - A Clockwork Orange'
More casual library browsing in the sociology section brought me to Raboy and Deganeis' edited book Media, Crisis and Democracy: Mass Communication and the Disruption of Social Order . Currently only read through the intro, Media and the Politics of Crisis, and Douglas Kellner’s chapter Television, the Crisis of Democracy and the Persian Gulf War (I can’t get away from the man, which you’ll notice if you read the A Clockwork Orange link). The book doesn’t say anything I didn’t know (eighties neo-liberalism ruined any sort of sensible, unbiased and trustworthy North American media landscape), but it says it in an interesting way and with thoroughly illustrated examples rather than a Sunday newspaper opinion-rant (which is also fine sometimes). What is probably most interesting is reading about the first Gulf war, written prior to knowing what was to come; how it would all repeat itself (with respect to the media’s image of the Arab and the region in general). Although in contrast to the similarities that we have seen in the mainstream media it is really interesting to read about this prior to the current possibility of new media disrupting the dominance of mainstream media, being a key factor in last year’s Arab Spring.
I also had the opportunity to use an interview conducted at the Leeds International Film Festival, that I never had the opportunity to print anywhere at the time. This was due to The Dead playing at Bradford’s Fantastic Films Weekend. You can find my review of The Dead, along with an interview with the writer/director/producer brothers here.
Finally, I have been making some progress on the most interesting development. Something due to kick-off in August, that I will write more about when I have sorted out some more details.
