Another comment McDowell makes on the dvd is that Lindsay at the end scene has an expression of "cruelty". LA came from an Indian military family, and McDowell likens his appearance to a Roman, with the senator-type hair.
It's certainly true to say that the force of rebellion LA conjures is quite harsh. As I said somewhere before, rebellion is a type of feud, and in the days of ancient Rome there was continual feuding (within families even). Senators were ethically in charge, but military prowess could easily win the next caesar (till stabbed in the back, natch.)
The 'cruelty' of LA is really a way of not accepting things in an easy, cavalier way. The film is a physical struggle (for the perfectly cast McDowell) and the reward is a moral strength that modernity appears to lack.
The real problem with modernity is that information is accepted as 'fact' because it IS information. There is the Cyclan of EC Tubb's Dumarest saga, and towards the end of the series there are indications that the cybers are gradually going mad.
Is reality distorted by information - and how? It's the hermetic argument of phenomenology that all data can be illusory - the ending to the classic sci-fi trip Dark Star (Carpenter 1973.)
If we live in a phenomenological world, is that tantamount to an illusion? It's not that things aren't true, it's that electromagnetism is itself illusory. Calculated and hyper-accurate (relative time.) The world of machines (see The Airtight Garage.)
Where there are large-scale similarities (spirals, galaxies, see What the F***?5) there has to be invariable time since that's the nature of a spin. In that sense, perhaps the universe is paradoxical as the UVS website contends? The more measured the less real it is, the more convincing to the acolytes.
The universe of spin is the one of proportionate balance and primordial truth. Any knowledge lacking this is lacking the vital ingredient - understanding (O Lucky Man.) This also links to Dumarest, who has a 'cruel mouth', his determination to find the primordial Earth of his birth.
His dalliances with women are another aspect of proportion; the troughs and niches of the female form, the milk-bearing breasts, sirens of fertility. A body which is proportionate has leverage and is mechanically fit
The proportions of the body are fitted to cyclical activities, whether it's circulation of blood or expulsion of waste. The cyclical situation is the one where life leads to death and decay leads to revival.
On the larger scale, dirt in fields is fertile, livestock in rotation with crops and fallow. Weeds and nettles supplying space for insect larvae, birds drifting by. Physical reality, dirt, germs and nature's prophylactics. The calmness of psyche imbued by strength of body.
This is the (ancient) world of desire and personal reaction, rather than the one of information. If the universe is primordially proportionate (spin) then the leverage and balance we have as humans is a mechanical attribute of that primordial truth. If you read Homer, there are rhythmic repetitions and refrains such as the 'eternal dawn over the sea' which carry the impetus of the journey on the minstrel's lyre.
The spin of the Earth is one of the divine rhythms that simplify living as a physical act (waking, bathing.) Phenomenology sows confusion because it seeks to do without large-scale similarities that are mechanically true, such as the wheel of the zodiac (Earthspin.)
The mechanical truth of the joints of the body speaks of large-scale similarities that act in the world. Essentially, a phenomenological future is one without psyche, one where numbers alone dominate the ego, where brain-implants equal 'health'.
The Cyclan future in Dumarest, the madness of the bomb in Dark Star. An illusion of illusory words (the dragon of news, prev) where desire and personal reaction are distorted.
The rhythmic dance of life has its decadence and melancholy. Desire is teamed with death and it's real. Rather than wither in a bizarre universe of facts in distorted confusion, reality is fruitful and facile. If you look at this Granada tile, there are 4 dabs of sky blue and several score of smudges in green, yellow, brown. The large-scale similarities are there to see.
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