Eric Bogosian
Bogosian in Israel (and other assorted topics)
April 11, 1997.
Special thanks to those people who took the time to write their thoughts about the film, "subUrbia." Of course, the film was a labor of love for all of us and it's nice to get such a strong response. I will be bundling up copies of the e-mail "reviews" and shipping them down to Richard Linklater shortly.
This web site gets occasional queries from students and journalists who have some questions. Unfortunately, I'm a slow and befuddled worker (I probably shouldn't have the Soundgarden blasting while I'm trying to write.) and my time management is for shit. So I don't have the time to respond to these queries. But Amanda and I did make this site for the purpose of being a kind of information clearing-house for my work. Close examination of all the relevant material contained herein should answer most questions. Even questions that lay outside the realm of my work. Perhaps even secrets of the universe.
I do read all e-mail that comes in and I like getting it. As the radical right gets stronger every year, it's important to have this option. (They're getting ready to shut down the NEA for ideological reasons. Right-wingers don't make art, only war.) In fact, I'm thinking of starting a new website to deal with broader issues of censorship and radical editorials. Until it gets shut off, the internet is the only place where real freedom of speech, outside the corporate shadow, reigns.
I just got back from Israel (Tel Aviv, Jerusalem) and as with most excursions outside the borders of the United States, I return with fresh ideas about what it means to be American. Israel is a physically beautiful country. It is a democracy. But is very poor and locked in what seems to an intractable and tragic problem. (It's not just Jews versus Arabs, but Jews versus Ultra- Orthodox Jews versus Arabs versus Palestinians).
Beauty abounds in the architecture of the place, in the most common wall, pathway, mosque, orchard. This is one thing that seems to separate us from Europe. There they understand that beauty is a paramount aspect of our lives.
On the other hand, the poverty is so persuasive, only the most well-off people live the way the average middle-class family lives here. I come back thinking (again) that Americans are way too concerned with how much money they have, what they can or cannot buy while we collectively let the really good things in life (art, children, sex) float past. In Europe, life comes first, things second.
I visited Jerusalem. Within a few city blocks are the holiest spots of three world religions. Some of it is cheesy, but the fervency of the Jews, Arabs and Christians there gave me pause. I definitely return feeling more spiritual. So fasten your seatbelts, here comes some spiritual meditating.
As in the bardos of the Tibetan Book of the Dead, to reach the higher plane it is necessary to pass both those things that frighten and those that tempt.
Television? Why? More money? Bigger audience? Why are those good things? Actually the problem is more complex. Most writers, musicians, actors, dancers are poor. Poor people dream of getting rich, not so that they can have fancy cars and big houses, but just so they can eat. In this country, for an artist, there is no middle ground. You're either starving or you're (if only briefly) making big bucks. So bona-fide, excellent artists need corporate art (like TV) to subsidize their aesthetic lives. We all know the argument. Problem is, for all of us, especially me, the deal is corrupting. It gets harder and harder to go back to the "art" part, the part that's about expression as opposed to entertainment. And this is bad for the artist, even worse for the society at large. Ezra Pound was wrong, the artist is not the antennae of the race. The artist is the soul of the race, digesting and confronting the madness of everyday life. Art is a bridge between the very nasty universe and our very isolated selves. Art allows us to live. It is part of our ecology as humans.
Corporate art is about something else altogether. It's about a giant machine making as much money as it can. It does this by looking for lowest common denominators amongst ourselves. It moves away from the subtle, to the coarse. It encourages us to revel in bloodshed and pornography and gossip and hatred.
So how come I indulge? Well I'm no saint, obviously. But I don't pursue it. And when I do, I regret it. The funny thing about pragmatism (i.e. "get real you have to make a living!") is that most of the time it doesn't work. The times I have tried to get something off the ground to make money, I've failed. As Lenny Bruce said "I'd sell out if I could figure out how." (or something like that.)
Even the "serious" media is about bloodshed and money. (New York Times, "Sixty Minutes") Even the "serious" filmmaking is about bloodshed and money. (Coppolla, Scorcese, Stone) Did Tennessee Williams win the Pulitzer because it's so much fun to watch a play about cancer, alcoholism, suicide and hidden homosexuality?
Was Godard about Brigitte Bardot? About tits and ass?
Why do you have to be crazy to leave the media? Shouldn't it be that you have to be crazy to stay in it?
This is a time for poets and playwrights. These are really hard fields to corrupt. What's uncorrupted? An effort that is spiritual, not material. When the goal is bringing an audience together. (A Frank Sinatra Concert? Sure.) Anything that goes beyond my material self is spiritual.
