----------------------------- Begin Original Text ----------------------------- . . . but more important [i think] . . . is the claim that images are SOMEHOW more objective than speakers . . . is this always true? . . . is it true in cinema specifically or is it a generalization about all images vis a vis words? ----------------------------- End Original Text ----------------------------- One of the great fallacies connected to the development of motion pictures is this one. Images are, in fact, illusions. Motion picture images are doubly illusory. Even the phenomenon of motion in films is an illusion: the product of "presistence of vision" by which our eyes and brain trick us into believing that we are witnessing true motion, rather than the serial registration of still pictures. The optical metaphor is mirrored by the distortions of reality with which motion pictures present us. At the very beginning, the die was cast between the Lumiere Brothers and George Melies. Lumiere gave us the illusion of reality, Melies the illusions of fantasy. We have steadily tried to capture that elusive "reality" rather than seek the "truth" which is far more elusive and often comes, not through slavish striving for an ersatz realism, but from an skillful and artistic fabrication. My students are ignorant of such things by and large. They expect realism every way they turn. They reject musicals because they are not "real". They reject black-and-white. They reject silent films. They reject process work and obvious miniatures and seize upon them to attack older films. They swallow the commercial illusions of today because they look "real" in a formulaic way. My favorite experience in class is when I showed the '50's sci-fi film "This Island Earth". One student protested that the film was terrible. When I asked him why, he said that the aliens in the film did not look like "real" aliens! I never turned my back on him after that. :-) Gene Stavis, School of Visual Arts - NYC ---- To signoff SCREEN-L, e-mail [log in to unmask] and put SIGNOFF SCREEN-L in the message. Problems? Contact [log in to unmask]