Year 2 Semester 1 Lecture 1 - Modernism

Modernism in the 19^th and 20^th was a new concept claiming that everything occurred in relation to something else and there were no definite answers. The most useful example to explain this is the idea of time; time is seen as relative, we have no real understanding of when it began or when time will end. This new perception of time in modernism contradicted the previous ideas presented dring the enlightenment and renaissance. Modernism’s roots were changing the technology and the theories of the past; there were some key personalities during this period which brought new ideas and revolutionized the way of thinking.

Sigmund Freud revolutionized the way the western world’s understand the way they identify the mind and human behaviour. Freud simplified human individuality to an animalistic sex drive. Freud’s 1899 book The Interpretation of Dreams highlighted how dreams are a way of understanding true thoughts and emotions. He believed in the unconscious and tried to prove that humans have no control over their thoughts and behaviours. We will look more heavily into Freud’s theories in later lectures….

Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer from the 19^th Century; Wagner was famous for using sexual and erotic music in order to create emotion from his audiences during his operas. The way he composed his music was revolutionary; music before modernism was created to express happiness and love, Wagner’s music was completely incredible. Wagner’s operas were performed in Germany at the theatre Bayreuth Festspielhaus; his most famous opera Tristan and Isolde comprised of harmonies which expressed sexual pleasures and fantasies but also tragedy and death.

Friedrich Nietzsche, a composer from the 19^th century also had a huge influence on the concept of modernism. Nietzsche also studied theology looking at how mankind evolved from being primitive creatures to civilised human beings within a constantly changing society. Nietzsche strongly believed that by keeping weaker people alive, mankind was destroying itself as in concurrence with Darwin’s theory of evolution it should be a case of survival of the fittest. As the evolutionary theory had been stopped by the introduction of medicine; Nietzsche showed that mankind had to evolve in other ways through technology and education, breeding a new generation of super people and killing disabled and seriously ill children (ergonic breeding). Nietzsche spent the final years of his life staring at a blank wall as he became mentally unstable.

Lecture 1 Screening - Citizen Kane

The first screening of the semester was Orson Welles’ 1941 film; Citizen Kane. The film is about an American newspaper tycoon Charles Foster Kane, who creates his own newspaper empire to gain wealth and power. His aspirations lead him into 3 divorces and his final ended marriage to Susan Alexander, leads his to a life of misery until he finally dies a rich lonely old man. Below is the original clip of the trailer for the film: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyv19bg0scg