> Without this kind of mindless religious "faith," which is
> characterized by an identification of oneself with the creator of the
> universe and one's opponents with the "Satan" who is locked in eternal
> combat with that creator, one cannot deal out death day by day and stay
> sane, because one day, in the end,, one will have to face the truth: it
> is just one bunch of human beings murdering another.
> This world view sees life as a constant struggle with imminent death --
> kill or be killed is the only way to live. The more US soldiers killed
> in Iraq, the more these people are confirmed in their belief.
Jon, I take issue with the idea that people in Iraq are murdering each other in theological/ideological/absurdist struggles, a la the mystified realms of mass culture (whether religion, TV news or arthouse cinema). IMO --- to extend the metaphor --- they are murdering each other in Iraq for "buried treasure" (and not all of it oil) or its corollary, political power and the eventual successor of both, capitalist accumulation.
> The great success of the film "Kill Bill" is an example of how this
murderous
> attitude can show up among the most refined, sophisticated esthetes as
> well as the "common masses."
I saw _Kill_Bill_Vol_1_ last night. IMO it is not much more significant than an uneven, Pythonesque parody of the martial arts genre, in which the spectacular dimension is undermined by black humour and gallons of spurting claret, both of these being things which one does _not_ tend to see in the mainstream representatives of the genre (e.g. the much hyped and IMO highly-overrated Crouching Tiger...). I think it is probably the worst movie Tarantino has directed, but that is not saying much, because he is both so technically-gifted and so cinema-literate. I also found it cathartic, after a terrible day at work, and it did not intensify the violent impulses I was already experiencing *lol*.
regards,
Grant.