Carrol Cox wrote:
>
>
>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, engendering similar illusions (or
>delusions) in the audience.
>
"Floats easily" is not an accurate description at all. How about "stays
up all night very uneasily" and are completely unable to express or
consummate a very real attraction. It seems that if anything the movie
is an argument about the impossiblity of "rising above" in any actual
way. Sort of like "Lady and the Dog" (Chekhov), but a hundred years
later and even more pessimistic.
Joanna