Why Nothing Matters | The Art of JOHN CAGE and SAMUEL BECKETT

Рет қаралды 16,338

Жыл бұрын

What does nothing sound like? For John Cage and Samuel Beckett, it became a mission of their careers to find out. Cage's composition '4' 33"' and Beckett's 'Waiting for Godot' are two of the most significant works of the twentieth century, known for their explorations of silence. In this video, we'll examine the philosophy behind them, and how nothing can actually mean something.
FURTHER READING/VIEWING
Samuel Beckett's 'Waiting for Godot' (2001 production): • Waiting for Godot with...
John Cage's '4' 33", performed by Kyle Shaw: • John Cage: 4'33"
Samuel Beckett documentary, 'Silence to Silence': • Samuel Beckett: Silenc...
John Cage interviewed about silence: • John Cage about silence
MUSIC
'Dream' - John Cage
'In a Landscape' - John Cage
'Phaedra' - Tangerine Dream
'Transmigration Species' - AllDaySleep
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I do not own any of the clips used.
This video is a review for critical and educational purposes and is protected under article 15 and 105 in the United States Fair Use code, as well as Fair Dealing in UK copyright law. My use of both the footage and music from this work is for the sake of analysis. This video is NOT an infringement on copyright.

Пікірлер: 52

@SoundRoshi Жыл бұрын

This has to be one of the best video essays I've come across on KZfaq. Thank you for your insight!

@ReframedYT Жыл бұрын

Thanks so much for watching!

@subhendukarmakar2767 Жыл бұрын

Amazing analysis of both the giants. Couldn't help but notice how the concept of "a purposeful purposelessness" is similar to the Leela performed by Lord Krishna in Hinduism, that is, how the universe is merely a purposeless play for the Lord.

@Lorangie Ай бұрын

Deux des artistes qui ont le plus d'influence pour moi.

@richardjarrell3585 8 ай бұрын

0:15 Tudor CLOSED the keyboard lid to begin the piece, reopening it to mark the movement divisions and at the end.

@jonathanmelendez7489 Жыл бұрын

Genius work, criminally underated content 👌

@barbaradavidson142 Жыл бұрын

Brilliant! I really enjoyed this.

@daycoot2290 11 ай бұрын

AMAZING MAN!

@mikejohnston7740 7 ай бұрын

This a great summation . So succinct. And spot on.... as they say...

@CHi-le1qc 2 ай бұрын

Great video, been wanting to dive into Beckett and this helped a lot

@cikisti Жыл бұрын

Love your work, keep it up 💗

@ReframedYT Жыл бұрын

Thanks so much!

@ScaleParasitoid 4 ай бұрын

super video, thank you

@gogigaga1677 Жыл бұрын

Great Vid thx

@rapier1954 2 ай бұрын

well done enjoyed it

@honeyinglune8957 5 ай бұрын

beckett is THE artist of our age (for me)

@enriquerael9290 Жыл бұрын

good stuff!

@numbersix8919 Ай бұрын

Thanks! How you did this within 13 minutes is beyond me. Very illuminating, thank you. Why all the mystification and misunderstanding around these men and their work?

@sumanrijal8006 Жыл бұрын

Great video! Would love to see you do a video on Andrei Tarkovsky.

@ReframedYT Жыл бұрын

Thank you! I'm seriously considering it... in the meantime here's an article I wrote about a couple of his films if you're curious! www.studentfilmjournal.co.uk/springcolumn22/andreitarkovsky

@croiners4166 8 ай бұрын

❤

@Outsider214 Жыл бұрын

silence sometimes a path to an easy truth or layer on layer of sound to mask uneasy

@martingran7947 Ай бұрын

as you could have compared it to negative space in photos

@wernervanham8760 Жыл бұрын

Nothing =>no "thing" =>no "object" => "empty space "=> "dark energy.."

@andrewsmcintosh 9 ай бұрын

Nothing isn't everything.

@MV-vv7sg Жыл бұрын

Brilliant video. Though my philosophical preference was harmed when you mentioned Camus and not Cioran. Cioran was a great friend of Beckett and a better philosopher writing of the same content as Cage and Beckett. Camus instead is superficial and harmfully not pessimistic. An interview with Ciroan on Beckett and Camus is telling of the order I prefer.

@ReframedYT Жыл бұрын

Thanks for watching, and for bringing Cioran to my attention. I had no idea there was that link!

@MV-vv7sg Жыл бұрын

@@ReframedYT thanks for replying! Check out the interview if your curious. Would love a video of your calibre on Cioran or Pessoa (linked to another expressive art or not). Thanks again.

@Johnconno 3 ай бұрын

Nothing would certainly have mattered if neither of them had been successful.

@MrFreshbreeze50EnjoyLife 5 ай бұрын

0-0=0

@ericmalone3213 9 ай бұрын

Samuel Beckett was not an existentialist. Beckett was non-ideological. Waiting For Godot was Beckett's best known work, but he didn't think it was his best work. The writing of it was based on his experience, with his partner Suzanne Dechevaux-Dumesnil, of traveling by foot, at night, to the village of Roussillon, where they hid from the Nazis, and where Beckett worked with the French Resistance. This notion that life has no inherent meaning is ridiculous, Being is meaning. In Vendantic philosophy, nothingness is the substance, and the things, objects, matter, radiant energies, etc, are, by varying degrees, the absence of substance. Cage's silent piece was a response to Robert Rauschenberg's white paintings. There is no reason to conflate 4'33 with existentialism or any other nonsense.

@ReframedYT 9 ай бұрын

'Non-ideological' is an interesting one. For sure many of his works seem to be void of reference to a real, political universe, but there were times where he certainly did express his beliefs, particularly towards the end of his career with plays like 'Catastrophe' and 'That Time'. I'd like to reiterate that I don't call Beckett an existentialist (or link Cage to that movement) -- existentialism is certainly an important context to acknowledge, however, and in this case it provides a useful reference point for people (at least it did for me) in trying to understand what Beckett is trying to do. Your reference to vedantism is really interesting: I'm looking into certain areas of Beckett with regard to eastern thought, so I'd be curious to know where you're coming at that from. Rauschenberg is certainly an influence, but I think with all art it's reductive to narrow things down to a single inspiration. I appreciate your thoughts on the video, thanks for expressing them :)

@ericmalone3213 9 ай бұрын

@@ReframedYT "Rauschenberg is certainly an influence, but I think with all art it's reductive to narrow things down to a single inspiration." Cage repeatedly pointed to Robert Rauschenberg's white paintings over the decades, when questioned about his 4'33. I saw Cage at a retrospective at The New England Conservatory not long before he died. Some students there used 4'33 as an example of why Cage "was not really a composer." Cage pointed out that his "silent piece" was a direct response to Robert Rauschenberg's white paintings, but this was lost on the students, who not only knew nothing about Rauschenberg's work, but were quite clueless about most of Cage's work. I wouldn't say that Existentialism is a useful reference point for Samuel Beckett's work. You don't need reference points, just engage with Beckett's work.

@ReframedYT 9 ай бұрын

@ericmalone3213 Again, not disputing the Rauschenberg influence, but here I think the anechoic chamber anecdote (pardon the clumsy repetition) is more pertinent for my discussion. Really jealous that you got to hear from Cage himself! As regards reference points, with my channel I try to make connections between my topics as a way of elucidating things for newcomers -- when I first encountered Beckett, existentialism certainly helped me form a rough idea of his thinking, at least in relation (or contrast) to that movement. Of course for academic studies such references are often unnecessary, but I know of many people who find it hard to get into authors like Beckett without guiding materials. My videos are designed to analyse as well as introduce people to these works in the clearest and most accessible way possible, so I find these kinds of connections helpful to my cause. Again, grateful for your perspective.

@acompletelynormalhuman6392 7 ай бұрын

0 dollars is the same amount of money as 0 rubles, 0 inches is the same as 0 meaters, 0 leaters is the same as 0cc. what 1 is changes in these systems what 0 is, does not. therefore it can be argued that 0 has more meaning than any other number. 0 is in a way a representation of nothing as a number so I argue with nothing is more meaningful than something

@stanley668 11 ай бұрын

It's 100% not a musical peice

@lourak613 Жыл бұрын

Would any astute critic place Beckett and Cage in the same universe? Beckett was a literary figure of transcendent genius - Cage was, in Arnold Schonberg's own words: "an inventor of genius". Note that Schonberg did not even consider Cage to be a musical composer.

@ReframedYT Жыл бұрын

Many have made the comparison; anyway, I hope my video shows that their approaches to silence and materiality within their work are comparable in their own right. It's also worth noting that Beckett collaborated with Morton Feldman, a close associate of John Cage. I can send some further reading if you'd like.

@JootsyMann Жыл бұрын

Too many words.

@ReframedYT Жыл бұрын

Just wait till you read one of Beckett's monologues...

@Ann-sj4pt 10 ай бұрын

@@ReframedYTwell at least they are interesting in their nothingness

@dimkilago2958 Жыл бұрын

You can't compare someone who wrote that "The air is full of our cries. But habit is a great deadener" with a guy who liked the sounds of the traffic,lol. Beckett' s silent walks with his father were his utopia. The silence takes the form of the utopia in general in his work . A world redeemed from unjust pain, a world that will not reproduce dark fine arts like Beckett's. Cage's banal naturalistic sounds are in the service of barbarism.

@ReframedYT Жыл бұрын

I'm sorry you see Cage that way. His experiments with 'naturalistic sounds' are incredibly interesting, but by no means define him as a composer. In terms of his work's relationship with Beckett's, I personally feel their meditative and, in my opinion, energising approach to silence opens up so many possibilities not only in their respective arts but also their ways of seeing existence. Philip Glass is an example of someone who recognised and continued to play with these ideas. But this is by no means to say they're saying the same thing, or to the same level of accomplishment.

@jturner874 5 ай бұрын

- and having sounds created by nature - where man was removed almost entirely - was Cage’s utopia. Several scholars have suggested that Cage’s works challenge the performer/audience dynamic, thereby challenging the hierarchy inherent in classical music. To say that he “liked the sounds of traffic”, while true, is largely missing the point he’s trying to make.

@SergeantPancake 4 ай бұрын

I think Cage's music is very positive. Seeing all sound as music kind of thing.

@somekidwithacomputer2939 4 ай бұрын

to reduce discourse surrounding the meaning of either artists’ work to a mere comparison of feats is the work of barbarism.

@numbersix8919 Ай бұрын

If you say so, buddy.