Woody Allen's Love and Death and the repressed Dostoevsky

As told 5

“"What happened with that idiot?" "Ah you mean the guy who committed the crime and got the punishment?" "Yeah that Karamazov brother, oh he became a gambler"”
1:39:14 Figures of Post-Humanity2018-11-07 · 1:54:00

“it is as if this absence of the name Dostoevsky returns in an exploding plurality... 'Did you meet that idiot?' 'Ah, you mean one of the Brothers Karamazov?'”
20:32 Being and Subjectivity: Act and Evental Enthusiasm2012 · 1:22:32

“Where is Dostoevsky?... There is no Dostoevsky, so what happens in the movie as a kind of a return of the repressed is that in one wonderful short scene... all the big titles of Dostoevsky novels emerge.”
~11:47 Slavoj Zizek: Kant, Modernity and Anti-Semitism | Video Lecture Series (2/3)pub. 2020-02-02 · 20:50

What it carries

one story, many jobs: the ideas this anecdote is deployed to argue, one tally mark per use (an idea page shows the same relation from the other end, as its shelf of stories)

contents · one story, 3 jobsuses

binary signifier primordially repressed ×3 return of the repressed ×2 pure difference ×2

Its cast and sources

populated by

Woody Allen5 Leo Tolstoy3 Daniel Paul Schreber1 Jean Clavreul1 Thomas More1 Nora Barnacle1 Grigori Tokaty1 Marcello Mastroianni1

alongside works

Love and Death5 War and Peace2 What is an Author?1 Saving Private Ryan1 L'ordre médical1 Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity1 Utopia1 Philosophy in the Boudoir1

Told together with

22% Tarkovsky as most materialist and most spiritualist filmmaker 2 shared talks 22% Asiatic Mode of Production 2 shared talks

Every retelling 5

1:39:14 Figures of Post-Humanity2018-11-07 · 1:54:00

Woody Allen's film parodies Tolstoy (War and Peace) but never names Dostoevsky, the repressed binary signifier. Yet Dostoevsky returns through all his novel titles embedded in dialogue ('that idiot… committed the crime and got the punishment… that Karamazov brother…'). Illustrates Lacanian primordial repression and how the repressed returns., illustrating primordially repressed binary signifier,sexual difference,return of the repressed

20:32 Being and Subjectivity: Act and Evental Enthusiasm2012 · 1:22:32

In Allen's parody of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky is missing as a named character but his absence returns as an explosion of Dostoevsky titles in one conversation, illustrating how the impossible binary signifier returns as excessive multiplicity., illustrating barred one,Urverdrängung,binary signifier repression

~11:47 Slavoj Zizek: Kant, Modernity and Anti-Semitism | Video Lecture Series (2/3)pub. 2020-02-02 · 20:50

In Allen's Tolstoy parody Love and Death, Dostoevsky is absent, so all of Dostoevsky's titles (The Idiot, Karamazov Brothers, Crime and Punishment, The Gambler, The Double, etc.) erupt in one scene as a return of the repressed, illustrating that one cannot coincide with itself and multiplicity explodes as a secondary effect of pure difference., illustrating pure difference,return of the repressed,pure self-difference

24:49 Markets without Substance2003 · 1:00:22

In Allen's Love and Death all the Dostoevsky titles pour out in a single dialogue scene precisely because 'Dostoevsky' as the binary signifier opposite Tolstoy is missing, illustrating how the absence of the binary signifier generates a multitude., illustrating primordial repression,signifier of the lack of the signifier

43:52 The Reality of the Virtual2004 · 1:13:15

In Allen's parody of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky is conspicuously absent as the expected binary counterpart; this absence returns as a 'symptom' in a brief scene where every Dostoevsky title is crammed into one conversation about Tolstoy characters. Illustrates that the missing binary element generates a symptomatic explosion of the repressed., illustrating pure difference,the Real,binary signifier is primordially repressed