Desire and MacGuffins
August 23rd 2006 03:53
The MacGuffin is a whatchamaycallit that a Hitchcockian plot is supposed to revolve around: the letters of transit in "Casablanca", the necklace in a crime story, the secret documents in a spy story. Basically, the grail, the motivation -- the single object (usually small and portable) that can save the universe (or at least your portion of it).
From the scriptwriter's point of view, the less said the better. What the MacGuffin is isn't relevant. You ideally hypnotize or sleight-of-hand the audience: “Don't ask questions. Everyone in the movie desires the MacGuffin. Just accept it.”
With most desires, consciousness is directed at something real. I really want the promotion or the prom queen.
But when you win the race, complete the card collection, eat the éclair -- don’t you usually find that it's not what you wanted, or isn’t what you now want, or isn't as much as you wished for?
And doesn’t the desired object leave everything the same? “I’ve got it. Now what?” -- Dry taste of anticlimax. If you wrote a list of things to do with your life, and you achieved all those items… Now what?
Perhaps you misjudged reality -- that dream job isn't a dream job, that girl doesn't complete you, that knowledge yields no enlightenment.
Perhaps you misjudged yourself -- you weren’t in touch with your true desires.
Or perhaps the desire itself, or, more particularly, the object of desire, is unclear.
What I mean, on the last point, is this.
In mating season, animals migrate about, make strange noises, attack each other, etc. They are impelled by forces they know not. Their actions are about sex; sex is the object of desire; it's just that (let's assume) the animals don't realize it.
Well, what if it were the case that we were in the same boat? There might be urgency in your body, you might be impelled, driven, but why should you know what you're driving at -- or, in fact, be driving at anything identifiable at all?
(1) The desired object might be vague or contradictory.
(2) The desired object might not exist, in whole or in part. The place is set for it, but no one comes to the table. And you can never be satisfied, because you'll never find.
Consider the myths of happiness that are the bread and butter of advertising. Consider the use of legal fictions, like the reasonable man on the street. Consider Patrick White's metaphor of the Australian desert -- the hole in the heart -- the hollowness of Australian culture, identity.
Such postulated objects are often quite productive: once advertising has set up the unreachable, it has already given itself permission to interject an infinite number of checkpoints along the way.
In similar fashion, it's the open-endedness of "terrorism" that enables arbitrary power.
(3) Or one’s desire might be for the “essential”. And of course Tarantino can’t show you what’s inside the fucking briefcase. You’ll never experience the essence; you can only be pointed towards it. You can’t be shown perfection. You can’t be shown infinity.
And so we come to the ultimate MacGuffin. Anselm thinks that since God is perfect, he must exist. But what would the largest or most beautiful or wisest thing look like? -- If God exists, perhaps we’re not able to recognize him. Or if God is perfect, perhaps he can’t exist for us.
From the scriptwriter's point of view, the less said the better. What the MacGuffin is isn't relevant. You ideally hypnotize or sleight-of-hand the audience: “Don't ask questions. Everyone in the movie desires the MacGuffin. Just accept it.”
***
With most desires, consciousness is directed at something real. I really want the promotion or the prom queen.
But when you win the race, complete the card collection, eat the éclair -- don’t you usually find that it's not what you wanted, or isn’t what you now want, or isn't as much as you wished for?
And doesn’t the desired object leave everything the same? “I’ve got it. Now what?” -- Dry taste of anticlimax. If you wrote a list of things to do with your life, and you achieved all those items… Now what?
Perhaps you misjudged reality -- that dream job isn't a dream job, that girl doesn't complete you, that knowledge yields no enlightenment.
Perhaps you misjudged yourself -- you weren’t in touch with your true desires.
Or perhaps the desire itself, or, more particularly, the object of desire, is unclear.
***
What I mean, on the last point, is this.
In mating season, animals migrate about, make strange noises, attack each other, etc. They are impelled by forces they know not. Their actions are about sex; sex is the object of desire; it's just that (let's assume) the animals don't realize it.
Well, what if it were the case that we were in the same boat? There might be urgency in your body, you might be impelled, driven, but why should you know what you're driving at -- or, in fact, be driving at anything identifiable at all?
(1) The desired object might be vague or contradictory.
(2) The desired object might not exist, in whole or in part. The place is set for it, but no one comes to the table. And you can never be satisfied, because you'll never find.
Consider the myths of happiness that are the bread and butter of advertising. Consider the use of legal fictions, like the reasonable man on the street. Consider Patrick White's metaphor of the Australian desert -- the hole in the heart -- the hollowness of Australian culture, identity.
Such postulated objects are often quite productive: once advertising has set up the unreachable, it has already given itself permission to interject an infinite number of checkpoints along the way.
In similar fashion, it's the open-endedness of "terrorism" that enables arbitrary power.
(3) Or one’s desire might be for the “essential”. And of course Tarantino can’t show you what’s inside the fucking briefcase. You’ll never experience the essence; you can only be pointed towards it. You can’t be shown perfection. You can’t be shown infinity.
And so we come to the ultimate MacGuffin. Anselm thinks that since God is perfect, he must exist. But what would the largest or most beautiful or wisest thing look like? -- If God exists, perhaps we’re not able to recognize him. Or if God is perfect, perhaps he can’t exist for us.
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Comment by Prom Queen
Comment by Adrian
Philosophy Blog
Well, there was a cagey "Perhaps" at the beginning of that paragraph, so maybe you do complete me after all.