Saturday Night Movie: Don DeLillo Documentary
by Steve
This documentary was broadcast over 20 years ago, yet a lot of it still feels relevant and true. Don DeLillo worked on the documentary alongside the BBC, touching on the themes of a lot of his novels and explores the interplay between the media, public violence and conspiracy. It is fascinating stuff and more imaginative in presentation than your usual author profile. I just wish they had commissioned a whole series.
Wait until next year 
http://postmoderndeconstructionmadhouse.blogspot.com/2014/03/biting-dead-skin-off-your-thumb-in.html#.Uzh86ahdXxA
Biting Dead Skin off Your Thumb in DeLillo.Players: “He went to the smoking area, where he saw Frank McKechnie standing at the edge of a noisy group, biting skin from his thumb.”The Names (about Frank Volterra): “He wore dark glasses and kept biting skin from the edge of his thumb.”
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This novel is probably more rewarding and more intellectually profitable to a reader than all the books on most of today’s bestseller lists combined. This being a quick blog, I’ll just point out a few reasons why I say this below, then I’ll make one criticism that is applicable not only to this novel in particular but to almost every piece of fiction I’ve ever been able to find that has abortion as one of its major themes.
http://postmoderndeconstructionmadhouse.blogspot.com/2013/11/new-release-death-of-black-haired-girl.html#.UyN4FT9dXxA
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In the early twentieth century, in his series of lectures entitled Pragmatism, the philosopher and psychologist William James advanced the thesis that, broadly speaking, people can be separated into two general categories of personality – tough minded and tender minded.
http://postmoderndeconstructionmadhouse.blogspot.com/2013/11/bellow-deans-december.html#.UyN3Wj9dXxA
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He kneels to comply. Annoyed at such ready compliance, which implies pleasure, she stiffens her feet and kicks so her toenails stab his cheek, dangerously near his eyes.He pins her ankles to continue his kissing. Slightly doughy, matronly ankles.
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Players: “He went to the smoking area, where he saw Frank McKechnie standing at the edge of a noisy group, biting skin from his thumb.”
The Names (about Frank Volterra): “He wore dark glasses and kept biting skin from the edge of his thumb.”
http://postmoderndeconstructionmadhouse.blogspot.com/2014/03/biting-dead-skin-off-your-thumb-in.html#.Uzh86ahdXxA
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Allow me a brief comment on the examples just above. DeLillo is concerned with language and words with an obsession that borders on insanity. Obviously it matters very greatly where the quotation marks go. In all his work DeLillo tries as hard as any writer can to put the ineffable into words. In paragraph 4.1212 of theTractatus Logico Philosophicus Ludwig Wittegenstein wrote “What can be shown, cannot be said.” DeLillo is manifestly concerned with this idea in all his work; the most lighthearted, obvious treatment of it occurs in End Zone where Billy Mast is actually taking a course in “the untellable.”
http://postmoderndeconstructionmadhouse.blogspot.com/2013/09/remarks-on-don-delillo-at-ala.html#.UyN3Gz9dXxA
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POSTMODERN DECONSTRUCTION MADHOUSE Our main focus is on Saul Bellow, John Updike, and Don DeLillo, but we wander off the reservation frequently. NOTE Any quotes from copyrighted works on this blog are for scholarly purposes only and quoted under the Fair Use Act
http://postmoderndeconstructionmadhouse.blogspot.com/2013/11/new-release-death-of-black-haired-girl.html#.UyN4FT9dXxA
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NOTE Any quotes from copyrighted works on this blog are for scholarly purposes only and quoted under the Fair Use Act.
http://postmoderndeconstructionmadhouse.blogspot.com/2013/09/remarks-on-don-delillo-at-ala.html#.UyN3Gz9dXxA
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We seek originality in new presentations of Shakespeare (I suppose) in order to confirm our belief that, somehow, there is more flexibility built into his plays than into the work of most other dramatists. So when we see Lady Macbeth take a chocolate cake out of a refrigerator to serve it to Duncan, or see Macbeth blow a kiss at Ross after scolding him at dinner, we allow ourselves both a smile and a period of reflection.
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“The man alongside studies the fingernails of his right hand…In time he begins making the sound either or both of them make when troubled by anxiety, critical choices, nameless dread…It’s a prolonged hum, the speech sound m.”
http://postmoderndeconstructionmadhouse.blogspot.com/2013/09/remarks-on-don-delillo-at-ala.html#.UyN3Gz9dXxA
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These are more or less the remarks I made at the American Literature Association conference in Boston in May, 2013 with the exception of some improvisation I injected concerning Bosley Crowther, Manny Farber, and Sam Peckinpah and what I believe their works can contribute to understanding DeLillo. I also used graphic examples from the films of Tarnatino and Kubrick to illustrate how auteurs repeat images from film to film.
http://postmoderndeconstructionmadhouse.blogspot.com/2013/09/remarks-on-don-delillo-at-ala.html#.UyN3Gz9dXxA
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