Doug writes:
>>Here's the Chicago Reader, the free weekly here, on the movie The Matrix:
>>http://www.chireader.com/movies/archives/1999/0499/04169.html
>
>Gotta see this damn thing. How does the movie riff on Marx, as the review
>claims?
well I think it's an interesting film for several reasons. at very least it produced a major argument about film, politics, science fiction and philosophy in my family after we saw it. anything that can do that seems worthwhile to me.
how does it do Marx? well the people who are saying it produces an idea of ideology are quite right, i think. it might be a very Marxist version of ideology, but it's definitely populist, both ways because it's quite literal. the 'ideology' here is not consciousness at all but concealed but actual material/social conditions. Althusser would have questions. so do I. for instance i hate the 'you can't be told what the matrix is' sales pitch, which disallows knowledge as anything other than survival tactics. i think such questions matter, but that doesn't mean talking about the relationship between society and its images isn't very important. so i'm for the matrix. i think it's worthwhile.
Catherine