tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7461948747659071092.post7158101407768534640..comments2023-09-29T02:49:02.989-07:00Comments on An Emphatic Umph: The Horror of the Image: On The RingDaniel Coffeenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03912050391869734890noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7461948747659071092.post-40037232356911658472007-09-25T00:29:00.001-07:002007-09-25T00:29:00.001-07:00Thanks for assigning nightmares.Thanks for assigning nightmares.Ryland Walker Knighthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09233954424885027837noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7461948747659071092.post-2356189368366392072007-09-25T00:29:00.000-07:002007-09-25T00:29:00.000-07:00Smart but ugly, _The Ring_ is most frightening in ...Smart but ugly, _The Ring_ is most frightening in the encounters with visual-images, not aural-images, although the phone becomes feared. Perhaps this is why David Lynch is so successful: he ties visual and aural together. _The Ring_ subordinates the aural, oddly. But then again it is not your typical horror film, as you said in your introductory graf. <BR/><BR/>Its best feature may be its visual sense but the architecture of its plotting, circular (or even spiral) to the end, is a subtle coup. Events repeat themselves in the tape, in the mind; the film itself is a repeat, a remake, a copy. It's as if its makers saw the original Japanese version as an order to hit play and record again. However, I have not seen the original film (nor does this matter, really), so I cannot say for sure this is a plain copy. In fact, it bears the stamp of its director rather boldly in its fascination with filming water and its strong sense of genre (how horror's history, and its subsequent inherited tropes, informs this film). Gore Verbinski knows what he's doing when he's shooting a horse running loose on a ferry or Naomi Watts pulling a cord of wire from her throat.<BR/><BR/>One note, though: perhaps the image does not simply wish to be copied. Rather it <I>wants</I> to be watched -- of its own accord. It seeks a voyeur. It's kinda slutty. But its appetite for eyes is also an appetite for life. Being seen is being alive. Maybe it's angry cuz nobody wants to watch it as much as it wants to be watched. What's funny about that is the film itself is handsomely produced and polished, if riddled with ugly sights. Even the terror of the tape-images are good looking. Except, of course, that girl-image. She's worse than homely: she's plain filthy scary. No wonder she can't find a willing suitor. No wonder she forces herself on people. No wonder she stops hearts: she is not simply a horrific image, she is a horror personified.Ryland Walker Knighthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09233954424885027837noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7461948747659071092.post-87355681728182022212007-03-07T09:04:00.000-08:002007-03-07T09:04:00.000-08:00Cool blog, man. Erudite without pomp, although you...Cool blog, man. Erudite without pomp, although your writing is always a bit too tart, too sweet for me, like biting into an apple after which you get that *zing* in the back of your jaw. Confectionary, like 'woah' (how Tintin's dog barks). Keep on *zingin'* em. I think they (those managers who have their ears to the ground) installed the whole j-pop section in Amoeba in SF in anticipation or consequence of you 'doing' yourself via text. Well, that's what I first thought of anyway.<BR/><BR/>I liked the blog. I liked the whole 'phantom toll booth' About Me part where you rattle off a series of things and write 'please,' like ordering off a menu. Well spoken.<BR/><BR/>-fgAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com