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July 1995, Week 2

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Subject:
From:
Mike Frank <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Film and TV Studies Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Tue, 11 Jul 1995 16:02:24 -0400
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of the "visual" element in film, Gene Stavis asks of or about me: "Why does
 Mike consider this to be expendible? From his posts, it appears that
 he is primarily interested in the literary aspects of the films, e.g. their
 stories, words, themes, etc."
 
. . . actually i'm not realy sure if this is what i'm interested in . . . one
of my purposes in thnking about films is to determine just what's so
interesting about them . . . but i DO think that most current discourse about
what i have to continue to call cinematic texts concerns what Gene continues to
call their "literary" aspects, and what i would prefer to call their
signification or meaning or, perhaps better, their ideological posture
 
Gene goes on: "However, I assume that most of us are concerned with the entire
 aesthetic
> experience, in which case the quality of the visuals in their resolution, the
> amount of detail revealed and the kinesthetic impression that only a
> large-screen image of the proper resolution can give, is extremely
important" . . . the only source of disagreement here is in the notion of
important . . . i certainly would rather see a film on a big screen with all
the perks that come along with that mode or presentation . . . and i'm not
uninterested in pleasure . . . but most discourses today talk about films as
cognitive objects, and i suppose, to put my own questin differently, i'm
asking about the epistemic differences between different modes of delivery
>
Gene contiunues and uses a wonderful analogy that may, perhaps, help us
resolve differences that i think may be more apprarent than real . . . he
asks:  "Would Mike suggest that a 78rpm lo-fi record of a symphony is the same
> experience as a modern stereo CD?"  and my answer is certainly not, in fact
the modern stereo cd may well be closer to the 78 than to the experience of
live music which i take to be the best option here . . . but i say that
because i like the experience of music, and i do not think about it or study
it . . . but those of us who have invested the ancestral wealth in outrageoulsy
expensive stereo equipment in order to aproximate the experience of live
music are often amazed to discover that musician friends care very little
about such things [cf. the concluding editorial in the June 95 issue of
Stereophile Magazine] . . . but the reason is simple: many musicians are not
listening to sounds they are listening to the score . . . and ANY music
system that can communicate the score is good enough . . . exactly as any
book that can give me the words of a keats poem is as good as any other, even
if one book sells for hundreds of dollars and the other is being given away
by the library . . .
 
Gene  must recognize this when he concludes by saying:
"Video is handy, yes, but is that any reason to denirgate a far better
> representation, which is film?"   . . . maybe we have common ground here . .
. for i entirely agree that film is a "far better representation" . . .
my only concern is whether it is a better representation of THE SAME THING,
or whether the thing being represented, the signified itself, is somehow
changed in some significant way by the translation to video
 
that is the issue that i believe remains unresolved
 
mike frank
 
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