I enjoyed the movie.  I mean, it wasn't all that scary, which i believe a true horrow film should be, and it consisted of cheap gore.  Which fine, it sometimes ok, but whatever.  Either way, i like all movies so its hard for me to say that i didn't like it.  After thinking about it, Eleanor and Marie should really become friends.  Neither one know who they are, neither one know if they like girls or boys, and neither can tell when something is reality or not.  The way that Eleanor is with Theo reminds me of how Marie is with Alex.  They are only giving you the idea that Eleanor likes Theo, and its the same way with Marie and Alex.  They never actually say "hey im a lesbian" but they give you that notion.  Also, just like Eleanor, Marie can't tell whats real from whats not.  You would think that if you go around killing people you would know that you're the one doing it.  However, this is not the case for poor Marie.  She's confused, but so is Eleanor.  You only get the story from Eleanors POV so maybe she was the only one experiencing these adnormal conditions and happenings of the house. They are both detached from reality struggling with their identities. 

Some foreshadowing that i caught onto was the beginning, how they show you the end before it even begins.  Well, thats a good clue that someone is crazy in the movie.  Also, the dream that Marie has when she's in the car on the way to Alex's country house.  She says that she was running through the woods, but the person who was chasing her was herself.  Kinda creepy.  But foreshadows the split personality.  When Marie is tidying up the room before Mr. Psycho comes upstairs is also foreshadowing.  Ok, how would you konw that Mr. Psycho is goign to check the bed for warmth, and the sink for water, and the heater for heat, but yet not check under the bed, like the whole bed not just the bottom.  In a way that was foreshadowing the fact that Marie knew what he was going to do when he came into the room. 

The film stereotyped Marie BIG TIME!  The stereotypical lesbian has short hair, a mor muscular/masculine look, and acts like a badass.  Which is Marie in a nutshell.  She also pretty much says to Alex that boys are bad while in the car and discussing Alex's sex life.  I mean come on, stereotypical lesbian.  Mr. Psycho is also stereotyped, i mean not that he really existed or whatever but, why are psycho killers always the ugliest person in the world.  I mean come on, give me a horror film where yes im scared of you, but wow, your pretty good looking.  I think that would be scarying than some creepy ugly old dude.  You know he's not getting any, and he's prolly just frustrated with his own ugliness, but with a cute dude, you'd never see it coming.

The story begins and ends at the same place.  You see crazy ass Marie's feet hanging off a bed talking to herself about how she's "never letting anything come between us."

i thought the movie was very messed up. it was somewhat hard to follow at times, but i had a general idea of what went on. there was some serious dual personality going on w/ marie. I think that this can be compared to Eleanor because she was also a psychotic person. They show two different sides of themselves to others.  When she was w/ Alex she was very friendly and playful. When the 'man' was w/ Alex he joked around about lighting her on fire, but he was generally just being agressive w/ her.  i think there was foreshadowing at the beginning of the movie when she was having the dream that she was running away from herself. Also before she went out for her smoke break, she told Alex that she was happy she finally got to meet her family. I think the foreshadowing also took place in the men's room when she was using the bathroom. I think when Alex was screaming in the back of the truck and marie was trying to keep her quiet that she was screaming because it was marie who was trying to kill her.  The story starts and begins essentially in the same place, so it goes in a complete circle of what happened. Some of the things i'm not sure of what was real and what was just a part of marie's messed up point of view. This movie did remind me of a mix between texas chainsaw massacre and fight club.  The first because of the killing, chainsaw, and creepiness of the isolated farmhouse. The second because of when he says the only way to get rid of brad pitt is to kill him. Which is similar to this movie because marie tries to kill the 'man'. 

Here opens a discussion of the film High Tension (Haute Tension). Focus on the following questions: What did you think of the film? Did it draw
you to think of any discussions we had in class or any of the texts we've read (ahem, maybe, poor Eleanor)? What themes run through the film?
How is symbolism and foreshadowing used in the film (for example, Marie runs into the men's bathroom at the gas station. Why?)? What symbols/
imagery guide Marie on her 'fantastic' journey? Where does the story begin and end? What sort of commentary does this film make on sexuality? 
 

We've decided that our movie analysis/pizza night will be on Tuesday October 17, 2006, at 8:30PM in the third-floor Heavilon Grad. Lounge (right at the top of the middle set of stairs on the third floor). Please RSVP by commenting to this site, and please include what "brand" of pizza/drinks you want and which toppings by Friday October 6.

Everyone seems to concur that Tuesday nights sound best, just after 8:15 or so. Does this work? 
Is there a particular Tuesday night that DOESN'T work? 
 
Hi all,
Since everyone's brains are so taxed by Faulkner, we'll skip the blogging assignment this week (said to great cheers and much rejoicing). Anywho,
yesterday I mentioned holding a pizza/movie night. I will buy the pizzas and crap, and we'll all vote on what movie to watch. Is anyone interested?
 If so, respond to this post a.s.a.p and we'll set up a night that works for everyone. None of this, though:
 

I don't really know that much about Freud or his theories, but I think that Gothicism was relevant to the text. I think the descriptions of the house made it seem Gothic to me right away.  This is one of the only things I really knew about Gothicism.  I do not really believe in object cathexis, so I don't think it was really in the text.  I think it was Eleanor being a psycho.  I do not think the house was haunted, I think that it was all in her crazy head.  For example, I think she was messed up from the beginning by not ever really growing up.  She was very childlike in her actions and thinking.  I think that this had an effect on her mental state.  I think that she also felt very guilty about not being there for mother when she died.  Feeling responsible for something like that, especially towards her mother.   Especially since she was such a prominent person in her life, since she talks about her all the time.  I also think she was crazy because the voice that she was hearing were all telling her about going home, or calling her name, all things associcated with her mother as if her mother was somewhere in the house.  I also think that she was responsible for writing on the walls because she wandered around the tower not really realizing the danger.  I think she did things without realizing that she was doing them.  

I think that using other's theories in literary text is both good and bad.  I think it's good because it does give you somewhat of a framework to think about when you are reading the text.  I think that this adds to the text knowing that you can apply other things you know about it throught the reading.  Some parts of the theory that are not stated in the book, could make you look differently at parts in the text.  I think that it's bad because what if the author did not intend for it to be interpreted that way? I think that you might read into something in a way that the author did not want it to be seen, and therefore would be missing the message that the author was trying to get across.  I think this could possibly even take away from what they are saying. Or they might just be writing for the enjoyment of reading without any deep meaning behind the text.   

first of all, when we did discuss freud and gothicism, i think that we didn't go deep enoguh n freud to have gained a real understanding of his theories, however we did talk much more about gothicism, which i thought was nice because i didn't know much about it and learned a lot. one thing that helped me picture what we were talking about was that we compared it so hill house, and the fact that the descriptions in the booka re extremely vivid and easy to imagine. i believe that when there is a banging on the doors(the first spiritual thing that happens) it really may just be an object cathexis of thier minds wondering and thinking about something like that happening, so it gives the house the power to actually do it. it's lkinda like freddy krueger, if you don't believe in him, he couldn't attack you in your dreams. i believe that ojext cathexis may be possible, it may simply be out of the realm of our current understanding of how our brains work, heck, we don't even truely understand sleep. examples of cathexis in the text are when the door is being banged on, the cold spot by the entrance to the nursery.

i thnk that we need to stop analyzing literary text tto thoroughly anyways, especially by not applying theories to them. we should jsut take them as they are, and what ever thoughts they evke, think about those, don't strain to come up with somehting aboutt he text that may not have even been meant in the first place by the author. there are pros and cons to overlapping too many writings, some bad that comes of it is that you may come up with something that neither author menat int he first place; this is strangely also the pro, if you do start to come up with ideas that neither author menat in the first place then you are starting to come up with your own origianl ideas and that is always good.so i guess i should stop complainging about so much analysis.

To begin, Freudians theory of the conscious, preconscious and unconscious mind is applied greatly here.  The house is obviously feeding off of Eleanor's unconsious mind.  She doesn't realize whats going which gives you this idea.

Secondly, the house is not normal.  From the beginning the house is set far from the standards of a "normal" house.  It's built funny, it's ugly, it's a bunch of circles that, well, circle and inner circle, and is just plain strange.  The builder of the house wasn't normal either and that impression is given in the very beginning of the text.  AFter the death of his first wife it says he was a "sad and bitter man", which i would be too i guess.  However, with all of Hill House's oddities how can you expect it to be normal.  Either way, I partly believe both, that Eleanor is feeding the house, and the house itself is haunted.  It may not have been haunted in the beginning but i think that that first wife was the "hauntess" of the haunted masion. 

The reason i say that it feeds off of Eleanor is b/c she's the only one out of the guests that is anit-social, or really anti-everything having to do with a normal life.  She's naive about people and the real world, thus giving the house the idea that should would be the easiest target if it was truly haunted.  However, the idea that there are children that haunt this place, with the nusery being the "heart" of the house, and Eleanor having a messed up childhood connect in some way.  Not to mention that Eleanor eventually starts acting like a child, but really, in reality Eleanor is really a child.  She hasn't had the opportunity to grow up.  She's always had to take care of her mother and never socialize with other grown ups.  With this said, i think it is both, Eleanor feeding the house, and the house feeding Eleanor.  So i would say yes, there is person cathexis going on in this story.  The house is said to call to Eleanor.  With the writing on the wall with Eleanors name in it and the fact that Eleanor seems to be the only one that it calls to while it goes bump in the night.

Thirdly, I think it is a good thing that other people theories are applied to reading texts.  I may think this only b/c i dont have any theories to go off of on my own without using other people as the basis for my analysis.  I could also see how it could be detrimental.  It gives me my basis, but it may lead other people to believe something when they dont' really believe it, or it may lead them in a direction that, when applied to that particular reader, is way off.  So, i persoally like having other theories to go off of, but i coudl see where others woudlnt.

Lastly, i do believe in the haunting of things.  I believe that people haunt the places of either great love or meaning to them, or the places of trauma.  Since, Eleanor's childhood was the trauma of her life, its easy for her to go back to her childhood and feed off of something, a house for instance, that also had a rough childhood if you will. 

I have included a picture i found that represents the front door of Hill House.  I can't draw, so im not turning in a drawing, but this front door is cool and scary.

Hi guys,

I know you're all going to cry, but I need to cancel class tomorrow, and since
half of you are deathly ill, get your rest. We'll finish up Hill House on
Friday, and I'll also assign the first paper. The blog is due, as usual. Also,
if you're in the drawing mood, bring your pictures to class on Friday.

Happy reading,

Alice