andie nachgeborenen wrote:
>
> Apparently the loony right is big into
> The Return of The King, but the elements of the story
> are only rather loosely Christian.
This makes sense. Films, novels, et cetera work as propaganda but not as agitation. (Kautsky's definitions.) That is, a film will essentially have the significance that the audience brings to it. E. D. Hirsch, who mostly gives me a pain in the neck, did draw a useful distinction between meaning and significance. Meaning is the intention of the writer; significance is whatever use anyone anywhere puts the work to. For example -- I don't really know what the _meaning_ of _Lost in Translation_ is, but Joanna and I differed sharply on the significance we found in it. She saw an attack on commodification;* I saw a celebration of isolated individuals escaping capitalist alienation through their own willed action. That is also, incidentally, the significance I find in the last three books of PL. And it may also be close to Milton's intention.
Carrol
*I'm not at all sure this is a fair reduction of Joanna's fine post on the film.