Part 3 of 4
7. Ascending and Descending
Storm over Mont Blanc divides neatly into three acts. (more…)
Part 3 of 4
7. Ascending and Descending
Storm over Mont Blanc divides neatly into three acts. (more…)
Part 2 of 4
3. Above the Clouds
Storm over Mont Blanc opens, appropriately, with shots of the mountain itself and of Hannes’s cabin, situated high above the clouds. (Fanck’s working title for the film was Über den Wolken, Above the Clouds.) (more…)
Part 1 of 4
1. Introduction
Stürme über dem Mont Blanc (1930; literally, Storms over Mont Blanc) is my favorite of the Arnold Fanck mountain films. (more…)
Part 2 of 2
“It was only a narrow crevasse in the Palü Glacier,” Johannes Krafft says, “but it reached far down into the darkness.” In a flashback, we see Maria Krafft at the bottom of the crevasse. Is she unconscious, or dead? “There — an urgent cry for help came out from the icy depths — Maria was still alive!” We see Krafft peer over edge, but he can see nothing. He ties his rope to his pick, sticks it deep in the snow, and climbs down into the crevasse. (more…)
Part 1 of 2
1. Introduction
The White Hell of Piz Palü (Die weisse Hölle vom Piz Palü, 1929) is considered by many to be the finest of Arnold Fanck’s mountain films. As pure cinema, this may well be the case. Though the film does not have quite the philosophical richness of Fanck’s The Holy Mountain, there is definitely more here than meets the eye. (more…)
North Face is the English title of the film Nordwand, originally released to theaters in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland in 2008. It is based on the true story of two German mountain climbers, Toni Kurz and Andreas Hinterstoisser, who in 1936 braved the dreaded north face of the Eiger. The only one of the film’s stars who may be familiar to American audiences is Benno Fürmann, who appeared in The Princess and the Warrior (Der Krieger und die Kaiserin, 2000). (more…)
Pentti Linkola
Can Life Prevail? A Radical Approach to the Environmental Crisis
Trans. Eetu Rautio and Olli S.
London: Arktos, 2009
Years ago, “deep ecologist” Andrew McLaughlin (a follower of Arne Naess) produced an essay titled “For a Radical Ecocentrism.” It’s an explicitly political piece, arguing for how the principles of deep ecology are compatible with left wing progressivism. (more…)
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Part 2 of 2
When a people loses a sense of blood-relatedness, what basis is there for community? American community is not based on blood ties, shared history, shared religion, or shared culture: it is based on ideology. He who professes the American creed is an American—he who does not is an outcast.
1,841 words
Part 1 of 2
I have contributed several essays to Counter-Currents dealing with D. H. Lawrence’s critique of modernity. Those essays might lead the reader to believe that Lawrence treats modernity as a universal ideology or worldview that could be found anywhere.
Part 4 of 4. Click here for all four parts.
Gudrun Brangwen, the Modern Woman
Gerald Crich is only one half of Lawrence’s portrait of the “modern individual.” The other half is Gudrun Brangwen. Of course, Birkin and Ursula are modern individuals, though in a different sense. The latter couple are both seeking some fulfilling way to live in, or in spite of, the modern world. (more…)
Part 3 of 4. Click here for all four parts.
Interestingly, perhaps the clearest parallels to Gerald Crich’s philosophy of life, and Lawrence’s treatment of it, are two thinkers Lawrence knew nothing about when he wrote Women in Love: Oswald Spengler and Ernst Jünger, both of whom were strongly influenced by Nietzsche.
Spengler: Faustian Man and Technology