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Post by deathroe on Jan 25, 2009 14:26:10 GMT -5
I do think that one can train oneself to do that: if not to do that, then to distinguish between an analytic and an emotional reaction. I can recognize the craft of something without particularly liking it (due respect, I think that there is some degree of craft in "Silencers." I think that there's a fair bit of craft elsewhere in the series).
I really do think that the best way to understand what is being done here is to make objective notes of wording and action in a given episode, of larger patterns, then lastly of nuance. Nuance is harder to read, especially with the visual element. I believe that, while an unbiassed interpretation is impossible, a considered interpretation is eminently possible.
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Post by DonnaJo on Jan 25, 2009 15:07:05 GMT -5
I definitely saw something when Eames' met Peter in the dead Doc's office. She was clearly flustered (for her). Check out her expression during their meeting - she looks sorta surprised & also shy. Especially after he says "you need an interpreter" her face is strange. Erbe is so great with subtlety. It's obvious the writers wanted us to notice. I also recall the NBC sites episode description specifically mentioning that Eames meets a possible suitor (something like that) Gee.....I wish I had that blurb. I disagree that the match is bad. Strong willed people do better with easy going mates. Yes, Peter was kind & sweet & not aggressive. But I saw a steel will there, with his dead fast refusal to back down to the ADA. Why Eames' would not accept his interest is another matter. I don't think it has anything to do with how she feels about him.
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leanonme
Silver Shield Investigator
Posts: 166
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Post by leanonme on Jan 25, 2009 15:07:21 GMT -5
(3) You know, even the most "typical" tv is studiable. It could be the evening news, a documentary, or a show like 48 Hours and it will still mirror individual and collective/social patterns in some way. I'm about 100% that everything can be analyzed. Some things are just more difficult to analyze than others. As to the complexity in "Silencer" ... my question tends to be, "is this complexity that contributes to literary effectiveness?" Does it work? I think that, in the writing in CI of late, there is more tendency to throw in random details and complications. Now I am not a great writer myself, but I feel like great writing of any kind, certainly drama, should all connect and unravel itself--with no extraneous detail. DR, great comments. I would agree that about 100% can be analyzed. But, on what level? And do I want to analyze it? I can add all kinds of things from my own experience to a work, and I can make comparisons, etc. , but I don't think that means the work is great, it just might mean my ideas are great. For instance, I think there is a world of difference between the parallels in Silver Lining, FPS and Silencer. There is a depth in Silver Lining , FPS is more obvious, but in Silencer? I can see your points about the comparisons between G/E, and Tommy/Malia, and while you might be right about the writer's intentions, I just don't think it delivered in that way. I think you hit the nail on the head about complexity. Thanks, it clarified some confusion I have been having in my own mind. Your examples were great, and explained your idea well. You are right about the random things that just seem to be thrown in later CI. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the example of Cookie Caspari. I'm afraid if we would have met Cookie after season 5, we just would have seen the "gum-smacking homegirl" trying to get rich, ( the mother in "Wrongful Life") vs. Cookie Caspari, her life, and how Bobby deals with it. For example, I can say to my daughter, "don' t be the girl", or, I can say, "do you see how Cookie became that girl?",- and actually have a character to base it on, rather than having to read a complexity into the script( and acting) that isn't there. The difference in depth of plot and character leads to a difference in discussion. Not even necessarily better or worse, just different. I have said, and will admit, that I prefer the type of analysis that comes from the type of CI that we had in earlier seasons. I guess I need to just stop saying it, and accept the difference.
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leanonme
Silver Shield Investigator
Posts: 166
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Post by leanonme on Jan 25, 2009 15:13:25 GMT -5
I disagree that the match is bad. Strong willed people do better with easy going mates. Yes, Peter was kind & sweet & not aggressive. But I saw a steel will there, with his dead fast refusal to back down to the ADA. I am with you on the match. When they were having the coffee, I was actually hoping to see more happen between them, because I thought it would be possible for them to have a good relationship. I thought Peter was one of the best things about the episode.
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leanonme
Silver Shield Investigator
Posts: 166
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Post by leanonme on Jan 25, 2009 15:35:16 GMT -5
Maybe nitpicking here, but in observation, it wasn't "listening in" on the guy with his lawyer, because if they could speak, they could have just turned the speaker on.... if they were in a holding cell or something, then it would have been an issue, right?
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Post by DonnaJo on Jan 25, 2009 15:49:44 GMT -5
leaoonme, are you referring to when Ross, Goren, Eames, Peter & Red Headed ADA were looking through the two way glass in interrogation?
When a lawyer is speaking with his client alone in interrogation, Major Case would never turn the speaker on, that would be a violation of attorney/client privacy. In this case, it is as if they had an ear to the conversation, since Larry & his attorney were both signing. Seeing them was like hearing them, a violation.
Peter called it "a reasonable expectation of privacy."
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Post by deathroe on Jan 25, 2009 16:58:27 GMT -5
Thanks, leanonme I am suggesting that one should avoid this, or that it is a different process than reading the static text in front of one. Agreed--one's experiential reaction may invest a given text with more weight than it has. I thought that Peter's references to his home as "our own little Eden,"--the implication being, I think, that E and G also shared their own little world--was relatively subtle. I thought that the business about Tommy pretending that he didn't care if Malia changed the dynamic, it was her life, which could also be read as something that Goren would feel about Eames, was also relatively subtle. However, I think that you are feeling it as less successful because it is less ingrained--more "tacked on"--than it was in "Silver Lining" or "F.P.S." In "F.P.S." in particular the story seems almost designed to show up the Eames-Goren dynamic. The whole Eames pregnancy motive strikes me as having been incredibly carefully written. No more. I'd like to go back to the way things were, in many ways, too. Sadly, we cannot. We have to interpret the totality of the text, even if they do pull a Dallas Bobby in the shower number or worse (much as I'd like to see VDO in the shower ... um ... NO. I just hope against hope that they'll stop tinkering with the darn thing.)
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Post by maherjunkie on Jan 25, 2009 21:28:33 GMT -5
Yes you would..
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Post by tjara on Jan 26, 2009 4:49:02 GMT -5
I agree to some extent, but you can't do that 100% I think. Also, I was thinking about that on a more unconcious level. Like to me, and episode might feel "whole" just because I'm more or less informed about a subject. At the same time, I might be thinking "jeez, what did they make up this time" because I'm particularily well informed about a subject... I think these are things that are hard to block out. I'm not saying you can't, though.
And I really think that they did get the feel of the deaf community in that episode. It was extremes of course, but it mirrors what I've experienced from dealing with them. Now I can shut out these experiences and say "well they didn't explain that enough" or whatever, but that doesn't change the fact that at the base, I think they hit the right tunes in this ep.
I admit that I hadn't thought about the similiarity between "the two triangles" in that episode, but now that I think about it, I'm sure it was intentional to some extent. I, too, was under them impression that Eames at least liked the attention she got from Peter, and that Goren was reacting on that as well. Not in a way that it overpowered how they acted and that it overpowered the show, but it was there. Just as they walked down the street, Goren between Eames and Peter, but a little behind... that said a lot.
Now as for the details and their use in the eps - I agree. Much of the L&O premise has always been to leave out the unnecessary details. This is why we only slowly learned who the characters were, because it would only be brought up if it was "relevant" in a case, or at least related to a case. I don't appreciate this random stuff either.
On a lighter note - I'll try to keep in mind what you said when I'll see "Endgame" tonight - I've never seen it before.
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Post by deathroe on Jan 26, 2009 6:30:15 GMT -5
You can collect evidence, and you can be honest about what it proves, even if the result doesn't make you happy. A preponderance of evidence will prove a case. If something happens once, it's random. If something happens more than once (G stares at E's desk. G stares at E's desk. E stares at G's desk), it is a motif, sometimes even regardless of authorial or thespian intentionality. If something happens over and over and over again (references to Mama Goren, eg.), it forms what I take it lawyers call a "fact pattern" (that's an analogy, obviously, but a useful one). I might like or dislike whatever that pattern is, but it's present, to be interpreted by any viewer, casual or non, slippage or non. Further--and this is the sticking point between us, I think--there is a relatively short range of how a fact pattern in a literary text can be interpreted. Ideally, personal preference or bias should not come in to it. That may be an ideal, but IMHO that ideal must be acknowledged for any sort of textual analysis to be disciplinarily valid. Garbling likely happens in an informal context such as the present one (this is not one's life work), but that ideal should still be present, at some level. Sorry for replying briefly, and in this abstract way, but this is something I feel a little strongly about
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Post by Patcat on Jan 26, 2009 9:29:42 GMT -5
You know, I never thought about the similarities between Tommy and Malia's relationship and that of Goren and Eames. And now that I do, I can see them.
I still don't see any interest in Peter on Alex's part. Yes, he's a "nice" guy, but I think Alex prefers guys with some more steel in them.
I found myself annoyed by what I saw as Ross' attempt to interest Alex in Peter. I could be reading way too much in that scene in the cafeteria where Ross says Peter seems to be a nice guy, but it seemed Ross was trying to play matchmaker or something. I do like Alex's reaction, which seems to be something along the lines of "Just what do you think you're doing, Buster?"
Patcat
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Post by DonnaJo on Jan 26, 2009 10:16:58 GMT -5
Awwww.....and see, I thought it was sweet that Ross was (awkwardly) trying to encourage Eames' interest in Peter. Deep down Ross is a sweetie, I think, and felt that Eames would benefit from being with a nice guy. ;D What bothers me is that the writers had this "maybe" relationship thing going, and then never did anything with it. A follow through would have been in order and appreciated. Even a comment in a later episode like "things didn't work out with Peter" or "he wasn't my type."Why can't we have some ongoing personal stuff with Eames, like we do with Goren? Maybe we will this season. There was some script info a few months ago regarding the season opener, which had Eames talking with her sister Liz......a "heart to heart" so it was described.....
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Post by tjara on Jan 26, 2009 12:33:07 GMT -5
@dr I just came back from a doggiewalk, my thoughts preocupied by your post. (Hello, my name is Tjara and I'm addicted to the proboards CI Forum ) I'm not so sure we're talking about the same stuff anymore. But it sure is an interesting discussion and your last post alone taught me two new words... Anyway - I'm not that much a fan of very "abstract theories" or "generalizations", because I think they can rarely be upheld when applied on small scale problems. Agreed. But still I wonder how many people missed many of Bobby Gorens early comments about his mother/schizophrenia, because they didn't seem to be of importance. There was no context that allowed viewers to really digest that information. In retrospect these comments are a lot more important and I think one notices them much more, too. I disagree. It's a matter of how much we get to know. The more we get to know the more interpretations will be similiar - but if we now very little or if it's just subtle, there will be varying perceptions. Peter/Alex is a wonderful example (to at least pretend we're staying on topic *g*). Also I think the word "interpretation" itself indicates that what follows is not very objective. I'm a firm believer in the notion that 100% objectivity is not attainable just as much as no single person knows what "reality" is. In my view, it's different for each and every one of us - maybe if we could add all of them up we'd get there. But, staying on the topic of interpretation - of course sometimes one interpretation can be more likely than another, but that doesn't mean that either of them is true. Usually it also depends on how many facts are there to support either interpretation and when there's a high density of facts (I guess I could say a "fact pattern") than interpretations may be similar or even the same. Sometimes simple facts can spur many different interpretations - just pick up 4-5 biographies on a famous person, preferably someone that polarizes people. And I think that when facts are interpreted, one's own experience sometimes is important. To put it in the context of TV-shows, we each have our own view of a character - and we'll interpret their behavior based on that - and I think it's unconscious. (Some of it is sometimes neatly revealed in fanfiction) Now I think you can try to "squeeze" that out, sometimes more successfully than at other times - which probably depends on how important something is for you. I think it's much more important to recognize why you may perceive something to be a certain way than to claim objectivity. But recognizing your own bias may provide the best way to working around it as best you can. For example, I stay away from many Lassie-like dog movies. I own dogs, I train them and we compete in dogsports and I just know that some of the behaviors show in movies are just "way out there" - virtually no dog would do that. Now I may even enjoy such a movie, but the thought that such behavior is just ficition will still stick with me. Even as I write here, I cannot refrain from having my perception taint what you wrote. As mentioned elsewhere, I'm a history student, and I've spent some time on what we call "Oral History" (interviewing witnesses). And much of your critique of Oral History has to be applied where fact are interpreted, whether by the interviewee, or worse, by the interviewer. And we've had some of the nicest arguements in class about where and when we should or shouldn't read to much in an interview... of course, everybody had their valid, more conscious and unconscious reasons to pick up on certain parts. Ok, I think that's all for now. I hope my thoughts havn't been to confusing, but they are dancing tango in my head! PatcatFunny, I thought Ross was testing to see whether she was interested, not suggesting him as a partner. @donnajo Please, let that not be an "I love Bobby Goren"-statement. Other than that - I'd like them to flesh out Eames background a little.
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Post by DonnaJo on Jan 26, 2009 14:01:11 GMT -5
Don't worry, tjara. My take is that this conversation between Eames & her sister would be more about Eames' NOT spending so much time with Bobby, not that she's in love with him, LOL. When sister's have a "heart to heart" conversation, usually one is telling the other that she is worried about them. I think Eames' sister Liz is worried about Alex's happiness. So, as is my fashion, I will conjecture big time that Liz will tell Alex to either leave Major Case OR get a new partner. **ducks Patcat's bat**
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Post by deathroe on Jan 26, 2009 15:21:37 GMT -5
Tjara,
I take what you're saying about oral interviews, but my field is actually literature. To me, the search would be less for the true than for the interpretible or feasibly true. An oral interview, with its range of problems, would nonetheless be an interpretible text. A cohesive interpretation would be possible; the limitations would be built into a given study. (The interpreter's objectivity would be a separate issue--I am not saying that "total objectivity" is ever possible).
(Mods & al my apologies--I realize that this is taking us a ways from "Silencer," but I think that it relates intimately to how we (we-all) interpret LOCI. We are closer to getting at meaning if we study pattern from within than if we impose meaning from without.)
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