tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7610074516299275060.post6269481597232346941..comments2024-01-21T11:18:54.087-05:00Comments on Lost in the Movies: The Prisoner - "Once Upon a Time"Joel Bockohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11238338958380683893noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7610074516299275060.post-791484357997167272016-04-03T18:02:15.100-04:002016-04-03T18:02:15.100-04:00Great points, especially about Six's victory b...Great points, especially about Six's victory being cumulative. If you are interested in participating in a discussion in the show (for a couple months, I'm publishing different discussions each week, let me know. My gmail is movieman0283.Joel Bockohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11238338958380683893noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7610074516299275060.post-47983630435763942912016-03-30T11:54:46.203-04:002016-03-30T11:54:46.203-04:00I think "greater confusion" may be what ...I think "greater confusion" may be what awaits you, at least initially. As to this episode, well, there is indeed much to say about it individually and as a lead in to the end. But it is very difficult for me to separate it or disentangle it from that final episode; they just seem so utterly inextricable from one another, regardless of when this was shot or what was originally intended. It's hard to imagine this coming anywhere else. I guess at this point I will limit myself to noting just a couple of details. First, the bulk of this episode never fails to remain amazing to me and I've sen it many, many times--the level of intensity reached via an absurdity taken very seriously (and that's key, transforming it into the serious rather than the purely absurd) is remarkable. And admittedly utterly exhausting too. But that's part of its unique and particular greatness I think as it earns that response from us (we're not simply just exasperated with it). You really do feel as though you've come out on the other end of something so intensive that it deserves to be called Degree Absolute as so much is at stake (including Two's symbolic death). As for your question as to how Six manages to triumph, well, all I can tell you is that I can't point to any specific moment myself. I suppose it's cumulative but really it seems to me primarily in that sense about his resistance, his sheer endurance; he holds fast to the very end and his titanic strength of will is the reality we are left with. After all, we see a humbled Two right from the start unable to fathom why Six should care (presumably about holding out) when it is very much an issue of the purity of his strength of will, his identity, his constitutive character (this incomprehension on Two's part may very well be why he ultimately fails as he cannot accept or believe that what Six finally tells him about why he resigned is actually the real answer, the answer they've sought all along--and yet we see in that scene Six confess this possible truth and yet move on beyond it, ultimately minimizing its larger relevance, in a way the Village authorities cannot).<br /><br />I also wanted to note another detail regarding the position of this episode toward the end. Part of my own pleasure with it certainly comes from the contrast with the preceding episode's extreme lightness of tone. The Village has simply had enough. And there's a way in which The Village seems at this point itself to be expendable, irrelevant now (just consider the scarcity of inhabitants we see in wide shots of what would otherwise normally be bustling images of community life and Six's seemingly arbitrary, taunting confrontation/provocation of a random seeming inhabitant). A question that lingers throughout emerges and will become very pronounced: how much of The Village is only about, and has always only been about, Number Six, breaking him or not? Nathaniel Drake Carlsonnoreply@blogger.com