RE: "The (Zen) Buddhist Heart of I ♥ Huckabees", By Edwin Ng

Here’s an interesting read on a movie I thought was too showy and superficial with its existentialist “battles”. You can read the full text here.

The (Zen) Buddhist Heart of I ♥ Huckabees
By Edwin Ng
Abstract
This paper offers a Buddhist reading of I ♥ Huckabees (2004). I begin with an overview of director David O. Russell’s Zen influence to reveal how he weaves the Buddhist metaphor of Indra’s net (a metaphor for the doctrine of pratitya-samutpada) and the principles of meditation into the narrative. The main objective, however, is to demonstrate that Russell doesn’t merely re-present Buddhist ideals but also attempts to “practice” Buddhism by using the visual vernacular of contemporary media culture to rework film as meditation and meditation as film. In weaving Buddhist ideals into his satire on contemporary culture, I argue that Russell is engaging us in religious and ethico-political reflection.

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