Comments on: The Music of Chance Explained in Full

By: Dimitri

Dimitri — Thu, 11 Jun 2020 11:49:45 +0000

Thanks so much for the review! It helped do some healing. I watched this movie as a teenager and it seems was traumatized by the futility of it, which went against my values. Finding out the basis was Paul Auster gave some closure, since it’s a certain type of nihilism I found in other books of his. I think you are spot on and the absurdism makes a lot of sense. Rather than a post modern comment only it can be also read as an inescapability of the random little pieces of reality (which do not make sense, but are true – as a challenge for people to cope with or no meaning at all), but it also represents an in-built cruelty and critique of the machinations of capitalism. There is little to do with chance though, the title is as much a seduction, as the opportunity to play in a system that has been designed to exploit the tempted. “Music” is also a euphemism for the ordeal of an experience. The models equally seem to suggest a plan. It’s curious if we assume it asa loop then a moral could be that the next time you are dumb enough to fall for it, it kills you. Jack’s revenge at the caretaker and his son (rather than the millionaires) is his ultimate failure to see through the ruse.
It’s one of my frustrations to work through a novel tediously to find that I disagree with the premises. I.e. you have to be extra dumb to make decisions like the final “survivor”, so that as a cautionary tale it seems unfit for those careful enough to decipher it (although a cautioning against optimistic narcissism for those who think themselves smart is in-built). But the second point to disagree with is that those at the top (i.e. millionaires) are acting in such random ways. They only exist this way in the understanding of their indentured. Flowers and Stone are not real enough (except perhaps if they represented sadistic slave-owners or medieval feudal lords, but then their later absence seems too purposeful in contrast), i.e. they have motives which are not important enough for the narrator to go into them. Their names might signify nature – or a grave. What is this nonsense about Cromwell and the stones, shipped to the U.S.? The symbolism escapes me. The meaningless work does feel like sysiphos’, but it also has an end.

By: Taylor Holmes

Taylor Holmes — Sat, 16 Sep 2017 04:02:45 +0000

In reply to Fraser Secret. My only point at the end was that life today in a 'post truth' world feels more like this movie than ever before. Heheh, my apologies for unsettling your Canadian tummy.

By: Fraser Secret

Fraser Secret — Fri, 15 Sep 2017 23:42:55 +0000

I was digging your commentary until the end when you got ridiculously partisan and political. i wanted to throw up. and i’m canadian. you can’t possibly be that naive and enjoy all these heady movies. i don’t get it.

By: Taylor Holmes

Taylor Holmes — Mon, 28 Aug 2017 00:54:25 +0000

In reply to Geoff.

Oh nice,
Yet another reference back to absurdism, and a fascinating movie in its own right too. It’s interesting that pretty much nobody is talking about this movie. Sure, it’s old, but still!? No one? It is a mind scratcher that is for sure. I’m quite surprised it ever got made seeing as though it comes from such a raw philosophical root.

Thanks again for the recommendation good sir.

Taylor

By: Geoff

Geoff — Mon, 28 Aug 2017 00:34:06 +0000

Great insights Taylor. I had thought of the man vs industrial society angle but you’ve hit the bullseye with Auster’s absurdism fascination I think. I watched this movie back in the pre-internet days and had no way to truly bring it to heel other than to ponder it while it churned in my twentysomething brain.

Given the absurdism connection Spader’s character Pozzi is probably a direct reference to the character Pozzo from “Waiting for Godot”, arguably the beginning of the Theater of the Absurd movement. Kudos to you sir.

Geoff