> A major form of bourgeois art is devoted (how self-consciously I do not
> know) to dramatizing the ease with which the "superior part" of society
> can rise above the rest by transcending capitalism in their private
> life. That is the essential thrust, for example, of _Lost in
> Translation_, in which the central protagonists float easily above the
> "alienated" world about them,
What the fuck are you talking about? Sure, the Bill Murray and Scarlet Johannsen (sp?) characters are presented as ueberfolk (I'd guess that this is what you're objecting to), but they're not easily floating above a sea of alienation--they're drowning in it. In each other's company, they're able to to steal a few breaths, but that's it.
-- Luke