"The diary film, like the home movie with which it is aligned, presumes an act of documentation, if only through the preservation of the fragments of everyday life that envelopes the self."

This quote seems to parallel the video's of Sadie Benning's films that were viewed in the early sessions of this class. Much like the idea of "easy" home movies, her Sony cam thing was often directed not at the filmmaker herself but at the things that surround her and her material belongings. If I may, the camera caught the fragments of her every day life as a means of preserving as well as exhibition.

- Renov suggests the idea that the is a difference between a home video, a video diary, and an autobiographic film, I would argue that while there may be a distinguishing point of exhibition perceived, the idea of self analysis is the same for all. Does not any film act as a self documentary/video diary considering the subject is based on personal beliefs or ideas?

On "New Autobiography"

While the idea of autobiographical films are not new to this class, the techniques and visual effects of Tuesdays film seemed rather on topic, introducing a collage of manipulated, flowing images and video. Even the audio seemed rather new age and experimental which aided in producing a video that as an autobiography and as a video in general set new heights towards an viewing effectiveness.
On the other hand, the video, which seemed like an autobiography through family and history, completely numbed my mind with it's level of boredom. The filmmaker's family and historical history came through distroted and somewhat dull which brought a thought to mind: "with the idea of the necessity to confess, to what extent can one exagerate life and still proclaim it an autobiography?" While this film is not so much an exageration the visual effects are what comes across as interesting to me as the viewer and not necessarily his autobiography or any shred of an understandable story.

Panopticism

108 year old blogger

I find it quite interesting that someone at Olive Riley's age is interested in blogging or, truth be told, telling her stories to someone who will post them on the web. Mrs. Riley confesses during a filmed story that she is completely computer illiterate, but later she says that blogging has helped her cope in a world that may seem very advanced for her. The fact that the world knows about Olive Riley can be accreditted to a journalist Mike Rubbo who was at the the time of their meeting studying centurions. He has since become her blogging assistant and has taken care of actually post their conversations, her stories, and the video footage to the web.

The idea that her blog has gotten so much attention says several things for our culture today. I'll have to confess that the idea of an 108 year old woman using a computer seemed a bit far fetched to me, some kind of digital divide nonsense creapt through my head. It is interesting that someone with such a wealth of information and history has taken the time to make sure that the world knows about her own life.

The History of Sexuality

This particular section of text found fairly early in this weeks reading of Foucault's History of Sexuality struck me as interesting considering the film that we viewed this week. The father seemed to be forced into telling his story, while the son/filmmaker pried for more information. The passage explicitly say that when a confession is not spontaneous or dictated by some interval the confession is wrung out by another. Even in a peaceful society between family members this statement holds true. Are not we constantly asking the whereabouts or actions of the people around us if it hasn't already been told. Is that not how we start most conversations now? It seems rather odd that even on a basic level simple actions and ideals are always questioned, as if since the human has a mouth to speak with he should always use it to say his business.
Most of the time we don't even think of self analysis anymore since the idea of confession is so self inherent.

Nobody's Business

One thing that we as a class have not discussed yet is forced autobiographies. After watching "Nobody's Business" I thought of the earlier class discussions which covered Foucault's lectures on self analyzation and it's origins. After watching this film I understand that the filmmaker and subjects son is interested in "confessing" his origins and telling the story of his family, mostly his father's, but how could one justify a self analyzation which doesn't come from within? It does seem like this borders on the confessions of Christian faith, which were forced by the church in return for a chance at salvation. although these confessions come as more of a forced converstion between father and son. The interview acts more of a son's inquest to have a heart to heart talk with his father about his origins and life, albiet I say forced due to the nature of the father's exclaimations.
Getting back to the issue though, while I believe this borders on a biographical film, the father's telling of his own story is not an autonomous self analysis. He does not look at his past or his family's history for the sake of bringing himself closer to God or as a way to learn from past mistakes. I say that it stems from his son's search for his own history through his father. His search for a chance at self confession through his father's self analysis.

the Foucault text

Rene Descartes

PG. 3 - "various considerations about the branches of knowledge..." got it.

PG. 4 - Descartes starts his book with an ideology of what common sense, or the idea of knowledge, means to man and their opinions of themselves. It is interesting that he accepts the fact he is not the smartest man on earth and has just as much sense as every other person in the world, which makes him stand out as even more of an intellectual. At the end of the page... here comes his childhood.

PG. 6 - Dodged childhood. This book seems to be more preaching of ideology or a mthod to success via, "this is the way I did it," than anything. instead of recounting his life story so far he is recounting his ideals and opinions of life.
I like the whole "I read it all and it only made me doubt more," stuff. Seems that early on he realized a higher meaning to life.

PG. 9 - After recounting his opinions of theology, mathematics, philosophy, and other school works, he finally gets to the most autobiographic part yet... he leave school with an education. He wants to live in a world that will educate him further than another mans words... funny he then ends up writing to educate and philosophize to us... what a paradox.

PG. 28 - After skipping a couple of chapters we come to a place where Descartes is analyzing mind over body. His doubt of modern knowledge is still very present even though he himself throws his worldly education out to be absorbed.

PG. 33 - Descartes' truths are a philosophized proof of the existence of God. I'll admit that I skimmed through it loosing most of what he probably truly meant but the idea of arguing for something is pushing his thoughts towards a person in general. This is something that at the very beginning Descartes said doesn't work for true knowledge, taking the claims of another person as absolute fact. So I'll just sit on the fence for now.

The subject of Autobiography

David E. James' review of Hershman's film is interesting o he point that he attempts to explain her every decision and chioce to his audience. The is no question about the subject matter of Hershman's piece considering she elaborates her own story enough. James seems to be interested on the psychological choice in style and content of the piece. His dtails of what happened in the third portion of the film interest me, sho did not get a chance to see the third section. Refering back to my previous post and the autobiographism of telling her own story as well as displaying her growth in talent with video editing equiptment, James tells us that Hershman gets upset when the camera discontinues to work in a depressive moment for the filmmaker. This protion seems the most interesting to me considering that her two seprate storylines collide during an emotional moment for her. Not only does it show her advancing knowledge of technology and her downfalls with the film but also a.n emotional state due to the recollections of her past.

Film

Tuesday's portion of a film was most likely the most literal autobiography we have witnessed in this class. Hershman's documentation of her struggle to lose weight was an interesting, albiet somewhat bland and outdated, look into the life of the film maker. Unlike Sadie Benning, This filmmaker chose to feature herself and tell her own story which I believe is a choice based on the fact that her was a stoy almost completely based on appearances.
I tended to get lost in the outdated fades and visual effects that she used while seemingly learning about the video editing machine capabilities. This is also an autobiographical series in based on the idea that she is learning this as she works and goes through her life processing this film. This idea came to me as the screen began to spread and show multiple images of the filmmaker. She was giving more information about herself than just the dialogue that was taking place.

Autobiographics

I apreciate Leigh Gilmore's look into the autobiography itself and her insight into how sex plys a role in an auto-biographic style. Gimore points out plainly the fact that autobiography is a choice of definition to the reader, which is what I usually, at least for the course of this class, like to argue. While making a heavy point about feminism in and sex based issues in an autobiography, she clearly and concisely defines what she is refering to, autobiography. She then plunges into psycho-analyzing feminist texts and comparing them to the likes of St. Augustine's Confessions and the background of femine texts as compared to that of their male counterparts. Of course historically female texts weren't widely accepted so the art of autobiography is somewhat new in a sense which helps this text make a little more sense to me.