On 9/20 Ellen McCracken wrote: > > Let's remember that this montage can work both ways. An accompanying > verbal text can anchor the visual image in a different way. Case in > point, the Rodney King video viewed in montage with the defense team's > "voiceover" which argues that the beaten King was really struggling to > fight back. Claims about the "objectivity" of a given visual image are > at the heart of the struggle for ideological dominance and closure over > interpretation that we all engage in. More important than the image's > actual "objectivity," it seems to me is its widespread perceived > objectivity. Barthes discusses the problem of the photograph's appearing > to be a message without a code. > > That said, I would still argue that visual images can provide a whole > series of clues about reality that verbal utterances can't. A couple of > days ago I saw a new documentary video with lengthy footage of the > Chicano high school "blowouts" of the late 1960s in LA. No matter how > many history lectures students listen to or articles they read about > these walkouts, there's no question that "re-seeing" these events even > through the non-objective video footage will provide them with a wealth > of previously unavailable information with which to understand these past > events. this is a compelling example, but i wonder whether the force of the documentary did not come as much from the fact that it was a DOCUMENTARY film as from the fact that it was a documentary FILM . . . that is, documents, which are if not unmediated at least commonly read as less mediated than other texts provide a kind of evidence that more manipulated or "creative" texts do not . . . and i suspect that a documentary [audio] tape recording would have more clotu to most audiences in establihsing "truth" than a non-documentary film > > mike frank [[log in to unmask]] > > > ---- To signoff SCREEN-L, e-mail [log in to unmask] and put SIGNOFF SCREEN-L in the message. Problems? Contact [log in to unmask]