Post-Duras Fun

After the discussions we've had in class about "Moderato Cantabile," I am reminded of the video for "Beethoven" by the Eurythmics (1987) which puts into visual format the "bored housewife syndrome" and that desire "for something else" that has come up in our conversations.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbuMXyzouJQ

Reading Schedule for "Like Water for Chocolate / Como agua para chocolate"

Day One: January - April (Chapters 1 - 4)

Day Two: May - August (Chapters 5 - 8)

Day Three: September - December (Chapters 9 - 12)

Marguerite Duras - "Moderato Cantabile" (Day Three)

Please read chapters 6 - 8 for today.

This part of the novel marks a shift in tone from what has come before.

Choose three comments from these chapters that you think foreshadow, signal, or mark this transition and do a close reading of them.

Marguerite Duras - "Moderato Cantabile" (Day Two)

Please read chapters 3 - 5 of the novel.

As you read, locate three quotations that spark your interest and do a "close reading" of them (place them within the larger context of the scene / chapter / novel, analyze the symbolism here, how do you interpret these quotations, etc.).

Marguerite Duras - "Moderato Cantabile" (Day One)

Please answer two questions or come up with your own topics for discussion.

1. Describe the piano lesson that we find in the first chapter. What role do these three people take (the child, the teacher, and Anne)? How does Duras’ style help in creating this first scene? Try to give precise examples from the text.

2. The scream interrupts the lesson – what role does this scream play? Is there a link between the scream (or screaming) and music? Speak about the scream as it is interpreted in this first chapter – describe the reaction of Anne and the others.

3. After discovering the source of this scream (the murder of a woman), try to analyze it. Why do you think it is from a woman who has been killed and is now dead? What is Anne’s reaction to this? Why?

4. After finishing Chapter 2, why do you think Duras begins the novel by giving us a “musical opening”? In what sense is this musical opening a “primal scene” (scene of initial trauma)?

Reading Schedule for Duras' "Moderato Cantabile"

Day One - Chapters 1 - 2

Day Two - Chapters 3 - 5

Day Three - Chapters 6 - 8

François Ozon - "Under the Sand"

1. What exactly would you say is the “traumatic event” in the film? Why do you think the director (François Ozon) chooses to present the event as he does in the film?

2. What is Marie’s reaction to this event? How does she cope with the aftermath (or does she)? Does she have a “working through” process in order to come to an understanding of the event? Include some specific scenes / images from the film to support your answer.

3. It seems that we have strong evidence to support the fact Jean did drown. Why do you think Marie refuses to accept the fact that this is Jean’s body in the morgue?

4. How do you read the end of the film?

Post-Freud Fun

Hello everyone - I invite you to check out this quite funny web-based show (very short episodes - around five minutes) that I just discovered called "Web Therapy." Lisa Kurdrow plays the worst therapist imaginable, dislikes her patients, and has reduced the 50-minute session to only three minutes.

http://www.lstudio.com/web-therapy/

Freud's "Dora" - Day Two

1. Where do you see Freud blurring fact and fiction? Why do you think he does this? How is it necessary to his creation of an "overall story"? What might this have to say about Freud? About psychoanalysis?

2. Transference plays a main role in the interpretation of both dream. Where do you see transference occurring (on both Freud's and Dora's part)? (Freud's transference may be harder to discern, for some of his transference is unconscious - it reveals itself in his writing, but rarely does he state it bluntly.)

3. In what ways do you think Freud's dream analyses are validated and / or fall apart? How does he justify what he does in the dream analyses?