the belief in the big other as an invisible power structure which exists in the real is the most succinct definition of paranoia.  slavoj zizek this is a review of marathon man and the falcon and the snowman and two films by director john schlesinger. though hitchcock and lang brought the conspiracy thriller to hollywood and the genre only blossomed in the late 60s and 70s and with films like the parallax view and z and marathon man and capricorn one and the manchurian candidate and three days of the condor and all the president men. this was the age of vietnam and watergate and the public deeply suspicious of all political leaders. the genre remained quiet in the 80s and early 90s and until the x files tv series sprung to life. with taglines such as the truth is out there and trust no one and the series posited a world of vast conspiracies and government plots and the common man at the mercy of all manners of ridiculously elaborate schemes. the only way out of the maze. fight the future. as the tagline of the series final season proclaimed. it was apparently our duty to trawl through the labyrinth of information and discovering some elusive truth that ensured our own freedom. this trend ended with the boom of the internet and conspiracy thrillers now giving way to conspiracy documentaries. the internet generation lapped up such independent documentaries as loose change and zeitgeist and whilst in the mainstream michael moore titillated his audience with stuff like fahrenheit 9/11. all these documentaries believed in a secret order and a cabal of wealthy politicians and businessmen who conspire to reduce human rights and enslave the world. they struggle to create a mono myth and linking various conspiracies and hidden agendas into a single and all encompassing narrative that explains the purpose and point and future of everything. this need to streamline narratives and to make them more efficient and is reflected in the scientific community and who battle to create a grand unification theory and ultimately a theory of everything and merging everything from quantum mechanics to special relativity into one giant all encompassing formula. so ultimately and the conspiracy thriller is rooted in man desire to have control. the modern subject is one who displays outright cynicism towards official institutions and yet at the same time believes in the existence of conspiracies (an unseen other pulling the strings). this apparently contradictory coupling of cynicism and belief is strictly related to the demise of the big other. its disappearance causes us to construct an other of the other (conspiracy) in order to escape the unbearable freedom its loss causes. conversely and there is no need to take the big other seriously if we believe in an other of the other. were therefore allowed to display cynicism and belief in equal measures. man thus seeks to assert control over a wayward universe and to create a kind of paternal babysitter (be it god and a mathematical formula and a conspiracy theory and an explanation for violence or conspiracies or murder or war etc) who provides meaning and symbolic order. the big other provides reassurances to the believer. it a lifestyle choice and akin to religion and in which his place in the world is dependent on sheer irrationality. the problem with most conspiracy thrillers and from the innocent days of hitchcock topaz all the way up to modern fare like the da vinci code and are two fold. firstly and they are not incorrect in suggesting that something is wrong amongst the elite or best people and but they are incorrect in individualizing and personalizing processes that are social and collective and systemic and an approach which implies that it is just a question of personal morality rather than social structures. secondly and and most importantly and these conspiracies ignore the fact that the big other simply doesn not exist. there is no symbolic order pulling the strings. some modern conspiracy thrillers (eyes wide shut and existenz etc) acknowledge this and with their untangleable webs of lies and accidents and truths and half truths and nothing ever adding up and nothing ever making sense and the real and the hyperreal and the truth and the desire and all blurred and without any identifiable ground zero and but these are mostly films by intellectual directors. compared to these modern conspiracy thrillers and marathon man and the falcon and the snowman are positively archaic. marathon man is a about a grad student (dustin hoffman) who gets embroiled in his big brother business (roy scheider) and which unfortunately has to do with spies and guns and double agents and diamonds and evil nazi dentists. scheider is suave and hoffman is excellent and schlesinger hits us with some neat visuals (the reveal of the eiffel tower is stunning) and but what most interesting about the film is the way that its various plot lines do not intersect until the 1 hour mark. even then and it takes a further half hour for things to start making sense. unfortunately and the film ends with a clichéd showdown between the villain and the good guy and everything neatly resolved and explained. the falcon and the snowman is a bit more ambitious. sean penn and timothy hutton play two friends who sell government secrets to the soviet union. hutton works at a civil defence contractor and smuggles information out of his office and into the hands of penn and a small time drug dealer who has no qualms selling to the kgb. penn does this strictly for the money and whilst hutton is disillusioned with the american government (particularly its attempt to depose the leader of australia) and so sells the secrets strictly because he hates how his country conducts crimes and games of espionage. in other words and the film is about a conspiracy undertaken as a response to conspiracies. marathon man  7. positive the falcon and the snowman  positive aside from an oddly slapstick car crash and its clichéd ending and marathon man is an effective thriller and with several neat scenes. the falcon and the snowman is even better and penn turning in a memorable performance. 
the belief in the big other as an invisible power structure which exists in the real is the most succinct definition of paranoia.  slavoj zizek this is a review of marathon man and the falcon and the snowman and two films by director john schlesinger. though hitchcock and lang brought the conspiracy thriller to hollywood and the genre only blossomed in the late 60s and 70s and with films like the parallax view and z and marathon man and capricorn one and the manchurian candidate and three days of the condor and all the president men. this was the age of vietnam and watergate and the public deeply suspicious of all political leaders. the genre remained quiet in the 80s and early 90s and until the x files tv series sprung to life. with taglines such as the truth is out there and trust no one and the series posited a world of vast conspiracies and government plots and the common man at the mercy of all manners of ridiculously elaborate schemes. the only way out of the maze. fight the future. as the tagline of the series final season proclaimed. it was apparently our duty to trawl through the labyrinth of information and discovering some elusive truth that ensured our own freedom. this trend ended with the boom of the internet and conspiracy thrillers now giving way to conspiracy documentaries. the internet generation lapped up such independent documentaries as loose change and zeitgeist and whilst in the mainstream michael moore titillated his audience with stuff like fahrenheit 9/11. all these documentaries believed in a secret order and a cabal of wealthy politicians and businessmen who conspire to reduce human rights and enslave the world. they struggle to create a mono myth and linking various conspiracies and hidden agendas into a single and all encompassing narrative that explains the purpose and point and future of everything. this need to streamline narratives and to make them more efficient and is reflected in the scientific community and who battle to create a grand unification theory and ultimately a theory of everything and merging everything from quantum mechanics to special relativity into one giant all encompassing formula. so ultimately and the conspiracy thriller is rooted in man desire to have control. the modern subject is one who displays outright cynicism towards official institutions and yet at the same time believes in the existence of conspiracies (an unseen other pulling the strings). this apparently contradictory coupling of cynicism and belief is strictly related to the demise of the big other. its disappearance causes us to construct an other of the other (conspiracy) in order to escape the unbearable freedom its loss causes. conversely and there is no need to take the big other seriously if we believe in an other of the other. were therefore allowed to display cynicism and belief in equal measures. man thus seeks to assert control over a wayward universe and to create a kind of paternal babysitter (be it god and a mathematical formula and a conspiracy theory and an explanation for violence or conspiracies or murder or war etc) who provides meaning and symbolic order. the big other provides reassurances to the believer. it a lifestyle choice and akin to religion and in which his place in the world is dependent on sheer irrationality. the problem with most conspiracy thrillers and from the innocent days of hitchcock topaz all the way up to modern fare like the da vinci code and are two fold. firstly and they are not incorrect in suggesting that something is wrong amongst the elite or best people and but they are incorrect in individualizing and personalizing processes that are social and collective and systemic and an approach which implies that it is just a question of personal morality rather than social structures. secondly and and most importantly and these conspiracies ignore the fact that the big other simply doesn not exist. there is no symbolic order pulling the strings. some modern conspiracy thrillers (eyes wide shut and existenz etc) acknowledge this and with their untangleable webs of lies and accidents and truths and half truths and nothing ever adding up and nothing ever making sense and the real and the hyperreal and the truth and the desire and all blurred and without any identifiable ground zero and but these are mostly films by intellectual directors. compared to these modern conspiracy thrillers and marathon man and the falcon and the snowman are positively archaic. marathon man is a about a grad student (dustin hoffman) who gets embroiled in his big brother business (roy scheider) and which unfortunately has to do with spies and guns and double agents and diamonds and evil nazi dentists. scheider is suave and hoffman is excellent and schlesinger hits us with some neat visuals (the reveal of the eiffel tower is stunning) and but what most interesting about the film is the way that its various plot lines do not intersect until the 1 hour mark. even then and it takes a further half hour for things to start making sense. unfortunately and the film ends with a clichéd showdown between the villain and the good guy and everything neatly resolved and explained. the falcon and the snowman is a bit more ambitious. sean penn and timothy hutton play two friends who sell government secrets to the soviet union. hutton works at a civil defence contractor and smuggles information out of his office and into the hands of penn and a small time drug dealer who has no qualms selling to the kgb. penn does this strictly for the money and whilst hutton is disillusioned with the american government (particularly its attempt to depose the leader of australia) and so sells the secrets strictly because he hates how his country conducts crimes and games of espionage. in other words and the film is about a conspiracy undertaken as a response to conspiracies. marathon man  7. positive the falcon and the snowman  positive aside from an oddly slapstick car crash and its clichéd ending and marathon man is an effective thriller and with several neat scenes. the falcon and the snowman is even better and penn turning in a memorable performance. ---------------------------------Answer Question Below----------------------------------

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