School of Humanities and Communication of Shanghai Normal University China  Wang Jianjiang is Professor and doctoral supervisor at the College of Humanities and Communication, Head of Aesthetics & Aesthetic Education Institute in Shanghai Normal Universit

Rastislav Dinić

doi:10.25038/am.v0i13.193

Authors

Rastislav Dinić

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.25038/am.v0i13.193

Keywords:

Dušan Makavejev, Stanley Cavell, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ludwig Wittgenstein, everyday, privacy, domesticity, nationalism

Abstract

A substantial strand in the interpretations of the films of Dušan Makavejev foregrounds the juxtaposition between ordinary life and public perfectionist strivings, and argues that the director takes the side of the former against the latter. A reference to Stanley Cavell, the philosopher to whom we owe some canonical interpretations of Makavejev, appears to be crucial in those readings. However, both Cavell’s and Makavejev’s views on the matters of the everyday are far more complex than the prevailing dichotomous readings suggest. It is my view that the critics who came after Cavell significantly diluted the complexity of his arguments on the everyday, which are not limited only to his writings on Makavejev, but also include his interpretations of Emerson and Wittgenstein. Hence I argue that the more nuanced reading of Cavell’s work – and not just his dwellings on Makavejev – paves the way for the more salient interpretations of the former’s work.

Article received: May 2, 2017; Article accepted: May 8, 2017; Published online: September 15, 2017

Original scholarly paper

How to cite this article: Dinić, Rastislav. "Perfectionism, Therapy and the Everyday: on Cavell on Makavejev." AM Journal of Art and Media Studies 13 (2017): 165-175. doi: 10.25038/am.v0i13.193

Author Biography

Rastislav Dinić

Faculty of Philosophy, University of Niš
Serbia

Rastislav Dinić (1978) is a doctoral student at the University of Belgrade, Department of Philosophy, where he is writing a thesis on the political philosophy of Stanley Cavell. He holds an M.A. in Political Science from Central European University, in Budapest. He works as a teaching assistant in the Department of Philosophy at the Faculty of Philosophy in Niš, Serbia.

References

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Cavell, Stanley. “On Makavejev on Bergman.” Critical Inquiry 6, 2 (1979): 305–30. doi: 10.1086/448049 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1086/448049

Cavell, Stanley. Pursuits of Happiness: The Hollywood Comedy of Remariage. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1981.

Cavell, Stanley. In Quest for the Ordinary. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226417288.001.0001

Cavell, Stanley. This New Yet Unapproachable America. Albuquerque, NM: Living Batch Press, 1989.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo. “Experience.” in The Complete Essays and Other Writings. New York: Modern Library, 1950.

Goulding, Daniel J. Five Filmmakers. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1994.

Jovanović, Nebojša. “Breaking the Wave: A commentary on ‘Black Wave polemics: Rhetoric as Aesthetic’ by Greg de Cuir Jr.” Studies in Eastern European Cinema 2, 2 (2011): 161–71. doi: 10.1386/seec.2.2.161_1 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1386/seec.2.2.161_1

Kierkegaard, Søren. Repetition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.

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Mulhall, Stephen. Stanley Cavell: Philosophy’s Recounting of the Ordinary. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994.

School of Humanities and Communication of Shanghai Normal University China Wang Jianjiang is Professor and doctoral supervisor at the College of Humanities and Communication, Head of Aesthetics & Aesthetic Education Institute in Shanghai Normal Universit

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