Aufhebunga Bunga
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/364/ The Eternal Sunshine of the Bourgeoisie
🕑 Added 2023-09-26 06:00:02 +0000 UTCOn satire of the bourgeoisie.
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We discuss Luis Buñuel's "deranged masterpiece" from 1972, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, and debate the social ritual of dinner, and why the guests in the film never get to eat theirs.
How does this early 70s surrealist film – which in many ways set the template for cinematic satires of the bourgeoisie – compare to more recent portrayals such as The Menu or Triangle of Sadness? Ultimately, who are the bourgeoisie and do they still exist, in a world of distributed ownership and managerialism?
Readings:
- ‘A deranged masterpiece’: why you should watch The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, Luke Buckmaster, The Guardian
- What Have the Bourgeoisie Done for us Lately?, Stephan Bertram-Lee, Sublation
- A Brief History of the Bourgeoisie, or We Are All Bourgeois Now, David Polansky, Strange Frequencies
- The Bourgeois(ie) as Concept and Reality, Immanuel Wallerstein, New Left Review
Comments
Elias Braun
Phil's point about a certain type of self-conscious European bourgeois not existing anymore is true overall, but I think it varies a lot by country. Eg it's dissolved much more in Germany (where they never liked to acknowledge their social status that much anyway) than in France, where the Parisians bourgeoisie is still quite coherent as a powerful and tightly-knit social group.
Paris Nicholls
Martin Eden (2019) would be a great one for the pod - 20th century Italian history through an adaptation of the Jack London novel
