Waking Life: Thoughts on Pomo

[Anonymous No.4918462]

Has anyone ever seen this film directed by Richard Linklater? It can be at times a lot of posturing and name-dropping qua name-dropping, but there's a great quote from one of its professor-characters that I always marveled at, somewhere within the first quarter of the film (plus I loved the use of the rotoscoping technique as a means of animating the unbound and physically impossible world of a surreal lucid dream).

"[...] I've read the post-modernists with some interest, even admiration, but when I read them I always have this awful nagging feeling that something absolutely essential is getting left out. The more that you talk about a person as a social construction, or as a confluence of forces, or as fragmented or marginalized, what you do is you open up a whole new world of excuses."

>discuss

[Anonymous No.4918475]

laughed out loud at this movie

they'll watch it in 40 years and think it was brilliant satire

[Anonymous No.4918484]

>>>/tv/

[Anonymous No.4918500]

>>4918462
Post-modernism is culture for the lowered. Aspirants with no power. Case closed.

[Anonymous No.4918523]

That's a matter of opinion. That film pissed me off, such utter pseudo-philosophical bullshit.

[Anonymous No.4918527]

>>4918475
yes a laughable movie

but this quote in exclusion is actually discussion-worthy

[Anonymous No.4918532]

>>4918462
>name-dropping qua name-dropping
Kill yourself.

[Anonymous No.4918546]

>>4918462
Very pretty movie.

[Anonymous No.4918552]

>>4918532
i came to this thread to say this. upboat

[Anonymous No.4918561]

I've tried to watch Waking Life multiple times. I love Richard Linklater's other films (Slacker, the Before trilogy) but this one is cringe-inducing.

The quote about postmodernism is something that sounds good and important, but it doesn't really constitute any real critique. It's just stating some gut-level aversion the speaker has toward postmodernism.

[Anonymous No.4918565]

>>4918462
who the hell cares about a world of excuses who the fuck reads post-modern books and picks up on that why do you do this to yourself

[Anonymous No.4918570]

>>4918565
this "world of excuses" turned out to be dead-accurate

[Anonymous No.4918582]

>>4918462

>Waking Life
>>discuss

This board is 18+.

[Anonymous No.4918596]

>>4918570
of course vague pathos laden statements will ring as dead-accurate but it doesnt mean it makes any more sense

[Anonymous No.4918606]

I enjoyed the movie. I like the rotoscoping a lot - it's not done just for the sake of looking cool, it adds to the dream-like quality of the movie.

As for the quote, yeah, I see what he's saying, and I feel the same way, even though it's just a vague quote and obviously doesn't give any hard critique.

As for the movie overall, I think the point (and the point in many of Linklater's films) is to be psuedo-intellectual. I'm not saying it's "ironic" or "postmodern" by being psuedo-intellectual on purpose. I mean that the movie is meant to capture that type of person, that wannabe intellectual rambler, (the person who /lit/ relates to, hence the huge number of butthurts in this thread). The people are presented as more or less average people. The movie gives you a taste for what a non-intellectual has to say about intellectual things. It's not like Linklater released this movie and was like, Oh look how smart I am, this is so intellectual. It's just a fun movie for somewhat educated people to watch and think about and drink beer and have late-night discussions. It's not a big deal. It's just cool. Yeah, it's "dorm-room philosophy" but what's the harm in that?

[Anonymous No.4918622]

>>4918606
>It's not like Linklater released this movie and was like, Oh look how smart I am, this is so intellectual. It's just a fun movie for somewhat educated people to watch and think about and drink beer and have late-night discussions. It's not a big deal. It's just cool. Yeah, it's "dorm-room philosophy" but what's the harm in that?
yeah exactly. linklater relishes in dorm-room philosophy. but that has a place too, just like everything else. almost all his films indulge in it, and they replicate it extremely well.

[Anonymous No.4918630]

>>4918606
None of that makes it worth watching. Add to that the fact that many people take it seriously and seriously consider it a good "intellectual" film

[Anonymous No.4918664]

>>4918606
nicely put. dorm-room philosophy is fun. y'all /lit/eratis so often seem like you hate fun.

[Anonymous No.4918668]

>>4918630
It's worth watching if it exposes you to new ideas, albeit "psuedo-intellectual" or "pretentious" or "hipster" ideas. If you take it too seriously, oh well. Most people will grow out of it.

[Anonymous No.4918673]

>>4918622
>>4918664
Waking Life is bad even for dorm room philosophy. The dorm room philosophy is much better in Before Sunrise