House of Cards

jagraphics said:
That said the Machiavellian tactics tend to be the same the world over.
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The wife of a - potentially - soon to become head of state of a major nuclear power poisons her foreign lover and financial adviser because he threatened to disclose how she extorted and embezzled tens of millions of USD ..... in the believe she would get away also with murder ..... unless she realizes that this will be used against her to stop the career of her husband ...... House of Cards, Bejing-version.
 
I can't imagine watching anything just for "entertainment" - i'm too busy running my business to just sit down and spend 1h watching a TV show, a documentary or read a book just to relax without the work giving me something else at the same time. If the work is too simplistic, too trivial, too plainly written/produced, dealing with issues on too banal level (the producer/writers not smart enough to enlarge my understanding of the issues i'm curious about because they themselves haven't grasped it deeply) then i simply move on. I presume majority of people here art in the same boat - the few claiming ignorance about the issue aside. Thus i really can't see people doing something just for "entertainment" unless they are stuck in some dead end mind-numbing job. Even then i would have to ask why after 8-10 hours of killing your brain cells you choose something that will kill your brain even more. Thus i posted my question. What is so entertaining about TV shows such as House of Cards? A typical 24/7 coverage of the conflict in Ukraine or Venezuela provides more plot twists, curious images, and shocking video clips that a whole season of HoC can deliver. With one huge advantage - the 24/7 news coverage talks about events that ACTUALLY happened and are not some fictionalized attempt of some writer. Those events have ACTUAL implications on our lives (or at least those who are closely involved with the events).

I also have hard time to swallow the Shakespearian analogy. Shakespeare gave people things they couldn't get any other way, they got to see royal intrigues, were exposed to "celebrities" and in turn let the simple folk without access to world news shape their perception of reality. I have hard time accepting that the viewers of HoC can't access newspapers, or watch documentaries about political or corporate shenanigans. Moreover as the documentary form matures it actually offer as much plot twists as the narratives often with the advantages of certain reality being part of the story.
 
How sad..., so we can assume there is no art or entertainment in any or your work?

BTW Shakespeare wrote things similar to the House of Cards. In the same way the Original House of Cards could describe things in the plot that were "a fiction" and "fictional characters" thus get away with it. Even though many people knew it was about real events and real people who could not be named (though none were called Falstaff).
 
Patryk_Rebisz said:
I can't imagine watching anything just for "entertainment" - i'm too busy running my business to just sit down and spend 1h watching a TV show, a documentary or read a book just to relax without the work giving me something else at the same time. If the work is too simplistic, too trivial, too plainly written/produced, dealing with issues on too banal level (the producer/writers not smart enough to enlarge my understanding of the issues i'm curious about because they themselves haven't grasped it deeply) then i simply move on. I presume majority of people here art in the same boat - the few claiming ignorance about the issue aside. Thus i really can't see people doing something just for "entertainment" unless they are stuck in some dead end mind-numbing job. Even then i would have to ask why after 8-10 hours of killing your brain cells you choose something that will kill your brain even more. Thus i posted my question. What is so entertaining about TV shows such as House of Cards? A typical 24/7 coverage of the conflict in Ukraine or Venezuela provides more plot twists, curious images, and shocking video clips that a whole season of HoC can deliver. With one huge advantage - the 24/7 news coverage talks about events that ACTUALLY happened and are not some fictionalized attempt of some writer. Those events have ACTUAL implications on our lives (or at least those who are closely involved with the events).

I also have hard time to swallow the Shakespearian analogy. Shakespeare gave people things they couldn't get any other way, they got to see royal intrigues, were exposed to "celebrities" and in turn let the simple folk without access to world news shape their perception of reality. I have hard time accepting that the viewers of HoC can't access newspapers, or watch documentaries about political or corporate shenanigans. Moreover as the documentary form matures it actually offer as much plot twists as the narratives often with the advantages of certain reality being part of the story.
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You must be a real hoot at parties.
 
Patryk_Rebisz said:
I also have hard time to swallow the Shakespearian analogy. Shakespeare gave people things they couldn't get any other way, they got to see royal intrigues, were exposed to "celebrities" and in turn let the simple folk without access to world news shape their perception of reality. I have hard time accepting that the viewers of HoC can't access newspapers, or watch documentaries about political or corporate shenanigans. Moreover as the documentary form matures it actually offer as much plot twists as the narratives often with the advantages of certain reality being part of the story.
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I'm absolutely positive that Shakespeare wrote for 'entertainment first', and from various accounts he was successful in that regard, owned a portion of the player's company, the theater, and also invested in real estate as well.

We 'appreciate' Shakespeare today in ways that he was not in his time... any more than the greek playwrights were somehow producing something other than 'entertainment'. Ok, maybe tragedies were for 'edification', which is why women were occasionally allowed to view them... but definitely comedies and satyr plays were for 'entertainment'... of course, those were the ones that certain 'moralizers' dispatched to the oblivion of forgottenness. Rome also had a 'bawdy' theater history, until the moralizers came to the fore.
 
jagraphics said:
How sad..., so we can assume there is no art or entertainment in any or your work?

BTW Shakespeare wrote things similar to the House of Cards. In the same way the Original House of Cards could describe things in the plot that were "a fiction" and "fictional characters" thus get away with it. Even though many people knew it was about real events and real people who could not be named (though none were called Falstaff).
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Art and entertainment are NOT the same things. Nowhere do i bring those two together.
 
j1clark@ucsd.edu said:
I'm absolutely positive that Shakespeare wrote for 'entertainment first', and from various accounts he was successful in that regard, owned a portion of the player's company, the theater, and also invested in real estate as well.

We 'appreciate' Shakespeare today in ways that he was not in his time... any more than the greek playwrights were somehow producing something other than 'entertainment'. Ok, maybe tragedies were for 'edification', which is why women were occasionally allowed to view them... but definitely comedies and satyr plays were for 'entertainment'... of course, those were the ones that certain 'moralizers' dispatched to the oblivion of forgottenness. Rome also had a 'bawdy' theater history, until the moralizers came to the fore.
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I'm also convinced that Shek's work was entertaining AND enriching at the same time. Thus unless one is simple minded about politics (as one of the above posters admitted himself) then HoC definitely will not enrich one's understanding about world affairs on that level.
 
jagraphics said:
I am note sure if it is worth US audiences watching the original unless you understand British politics and culture of the 1980's
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fwiw, i lived in the UK in the '80's, and i couldn't be less interested in an '80's representation of a bunch of grown up public school boys who still haven't grown up. i mean, maybe government really is run by a bunch of adolescents, but that doesn't make them more interesting to me.

having said that, i did like the first season of the US version....
 
Patryk_Rebisz said:
Art and entertainment are NOT the same things. Nowhere do i bring those two together.
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Wagner operas are art and entertainment, Mozart was both an artist and an entertainer and my most beloved of the classical playwrights, Moliere, was adamant that his plays needed to be both - art and entertainment - and that those two are intertwined. And I think Mark Twain would agree. And a couple of others..... :-)

House of Cards is an excellent crafted simulation of possible realities. Exaggerated, yes. But that is part of the art. Any art. If its not for you - okay. Makes me happy to hear you have such a full work life that such a series is only a distraction (why did you watch it then?) and you prefer reading books. I hope you find enough non-entertaining ones to fit your statement.

postscriptum: my Bejing example should tell you something about the structures of real life politics as this is a true case.
 
Rolf Silber said:
Wagner operas are art and entertainment, Mozart was both an artist and an entertainer and my most beloved of the classical playwrights, Moliere, was adamant that his plays needed to be both - art and entertainment - and that those two are intertwined. And I think Mark Twain would agree. And a couple of others..... :-)
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When I was young I did have a coffeehouse disdain for 'common fare'... none of the friends I had at the time, who shared this disdain... have never shown up on IMDB... and I did only a few years ago for a short film that I submitted via 'withoutabox' for a fest, that was accepted...

So, clearly their 'high morals' on this sort of thing apparently prevented them from engaging in the 'art' at all...
 
j1clark@ucsd.edu said:
So, clearly their 'high morals' on this sort of thing apparently prevented them from engaging in the 'art' at all...
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You can have high morales as much as you want but in the end you need to be brave enough to make yourseve a bit dirty. I think especially the dramatic arts - and I see film being a dramatic art first and a visual one only a close second - need that mix: One foot in the academy, the other on the fairground. Clearly Tarkovsky was more "arty" than "entertainy" but he is also the latter - only to a lesser degree. And even a stupid high school comedy contains elements of art. Well, very sparse and hidden ones often.... ;-)

What I loved with "House of Cards", for instance, was the short scene when Robin Wright comes back to the house after she just has destroyed the life of this young woman soldier and she sits on the stairs to the upper floor and - completely unexpected for the character she plays - suddenly starts to cry because of what she has done .... and then becomes in an instance calm and collected again and walks up the stairs (black shoes with dagger like red stripes at the heels... not bad) like a queen of ice.

Not only was this incredibly good acting plus directing - and writing without one word of dialogue - it is a clear and very realistic short analyses of a sociopath's mindset and inner mechanics. I will never ever break up - but when I do I need to "unbreak" myself in a second. This is, imho, a sign of true art - even more so as it shows a characters complexity and weirdness in such a short scene....... reduced to the max.
 
Just finished Season 4. Great season, much improved from season 3.

So much moire in Robin Wright's dress in the last episode, though. Not sure if that was just because I was watching in 1080p or what, but you'd think the production design wouldn't have let that happen.
 
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