Understanding Stalinism

I have been thinking about turning this into an "academic blog," although I have been worrying that if I did, I would thus be confronted with my lack of interesting or meaningful things to say. I suppose that without an audience, this matters little in any case, and I can in fact meander along posting pretty much what I want. Freedom.

This week I've been reading Jochen Hellbeck's Revolution on My Mind: Writing a Diary Under Stalin which is probably the most interesting book I've read on Soviet history in the last year. The main reason I wanted to write about it here is that it seems to me that this is the kind of book which people who are not historians but who want to know something about Stalinism ought to be reading. It is something of a shame that if you go into a (nonspecialist) bookshop or public library looking for books on the Stalin period that are not school or undergraduate textbooks, you will have the choice of buying a general history of the Soviet Union (these aren't bad on the whole), a biography of Stalin (these are also pretty good for what they are) and perhaps some kind of social history (Sheila Fitzpatrick's 'Everyday Stalinism' would be an example on the better side). It seems to me that Hellbeck's book offers an insight into the individual experience of life under Stalin which is unparalleled. This is slightly different from the approach of Catriona Kelly in 'Comrade Pavlick' which is more an interrogation of a famous case and how it played out in an effort to give an insight into Stalinist society. The difference with Hellbeck's book is that he is able to integrate the story of individuals into the story of the whole society in a rather different way - to show that for at least a considerable number of people living in the 1930s Soviet Union, the struggle to make sense of their lives became inextricable from the revolution - the struggle to reach consciousness permeated (it it did not necessarily consume) every element of their lives. And this kind of study gives a much better idea of what it was like for people to live in such a society than yet another investigation of the regime's arbitrariness or the pervasive presence of the NKVD.
In terms of interrogating 'modern subjectivity,' in the Soviet context, the book makes a genuine leap forward, opening up questions which simply have never been asked by historians of this period. In the process, Hellbeck has produced what I believe is one of the most readable and engaging histories of the 1930s published in recent years. It deserves to find a readership far beyond university history departments, and replace books like Sebag-Montefiore's "Stalin: in the court of the Red Tsar" and Anne Appelbaum's "Gulag" as the texts to which people turn when they decide they'd like to know something about Stalinism. (I pick on these two not because they are bad books - they are both ok, in fact - but because they have been extremely popular in recent years). I hope paperback publication is not far off.

Inland Empire

David Lynch's new film Inland Empire is a totally unique piece of film-making. Much has been made in reviews and media coverage of the switch to filming on Digital Video instead of on film, but it is difficult to gain any appreciation of the effect of this without actually seeing the film itself - the way Lynch has used these DV cameras has produced a totally new cinematic experience. The self-referentiality of the film (on the surface, it's a film about the production of a film) is only one of the elements served by the employment of DV. Perhaps more important is the possibility of fluid, unstable, often fuzzy and unfocused shots (particularly close-ups) which seem to me to be able to imitate the human gaze in a manner which has never been achieved on film, or with the bulky cameras needed to shoot on film. It also destabilises the image sufficiently to make leaps into abstract imagery seem natural - as a result, it is not only the appearance of unexpected, abstract imagery which can unsettle the viewer, but (because of the blurring of the boundaries) the entire film.
Lynch is not the first to use digital videos to generate visual abstraction in film (video artists have been doing it for years), but I have never seen it done is such a sustained and coherent (and thus, affecting) way. What is unique and original about Inland Empire is that it is not something which should be playing on a loop in an art gallery - it is cinema, but not cinema as I have ever seen it.
Finally, Laura Dern's performance is absolutely phenomenal - a plurality of roles, with blurred boundaries between them, playing into one another, which she plays so convincingly that it totally conceals how demanding the film must have been.

On opening night at the only West End cinema which is showing the film (the Odeon Covent Garden, who have happily placed it in their biggest screen - which was 3/4 full - this is important, as on a smaller screen the impact of the film would surely be greatly diminished) the mixture of reactions was on balance largely positive. In a 3 hour film, many will need a toilet break, so walkouts could potentially go unnoticed, but if there were any at all, it was very few. It was particularly heartening to see groups of teenagers of about 14 or 15 so excited about the film (although I seriously wonder about the 15 certificate for what is at times a deeply unsettling film). On the way out, expressions of bewilderment prevailed, but happily, few seemed to regret the experience for this reason. Hopefully the film will stick around for a while and enjoy some success. It is truly something which can only really be experienced in the cinema - where it is possible to be really drawn into the film. I have a feeling it is also necessary to surrender oneself to it completely in order to appreciate what is happening. Having said this, much of the second half of the film is extremely unsettling, with an intensity which may simply be too great for some to cope with (I began to imagine I was seeing things off-screen in my peripheral vision which were not there, and at times felt deeply uncomfortable, but unable to leave).

Inland Empire is a uniquely powerful piece of art, which should be approached with openness, and a willingness to accept that much of its beauty lies precisely in the unsettling confusion produced by narrative developments which make little or no logical sense. Each moment should be experienced for itself. Surrender yourself to the film, and it will give you a totally original experience.

Baudrillard

Jean Baudrillard has died. The result is newspaper journalists trying to explain why he was important. I have a feeling he would have enjoyed this, I hope so at least. On a more serious level, these moments when the academic world collides with the media can be interesting, and a little bit unsettling. You would expect journalists, who ought at least to have spent 3 years at a half-decent university, to have at least SOME idea of what academics are doing (or trying to do). I wonder if obituaries of figures like Baudrillard, and similar pieces of journalism, were any better in the pre-Wikipedia universe.
The worst piece I have come across so far is, predictably enough, from The Guardian. Most newspaper journalists would be happy enough admitting they have no idea what Baudrillard was on about - but the Guardian seems to be exactly the sort of place to foster journalists who feel that people expect them to know about things like this, and try to live up to the expectation. The result: utter nonsense.
Edward Said died the week I began university, which I remember producing a strange feeling - aside from some sadness - that the previously rigid distinction between 'dead thinkers' (who did not exist, except for the traces they left behind) and 'living thinkers' (real human subjects, people with whom one can engage) had been totally disrupted.
I've always liked this snippet from a 1993 interview with Said, and it seems, in a sense, to be a nice way to remember these two:
A:"[The 1991 Gulf War] was a television war."
Q:"In Baudrillard's terms?"
A:"What did he say? Probably not."
Q:"Baudrillard said it was a hyper-real non-event"
A: "Good old Baudrillard! For that I think he should be sent there. WIth a toothbrush and a can of Evian or whatever it is he drinks."
(Power, Politics and Culture: Interviews with Edward W. Said ed. Gauri Viswanthan, 2001) p. 232.