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June 1996, Week 4

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Subject:
From:
Mark Allen <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Film and TV Studies Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Tue, 25 Jun 1996 09:23:52 -0800
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>2) Can anybody think of films which center around TV, as in
>Lumet/Chayefsky Network or Nichols' Kosinski adapt. 'Being There'?
>
 
Almost all of Atom Egoyen's films prior to the Adjuster focus on people and
TV, but more in the Sex, Lies, and Videotape way.  Then, of course, you
have a slew of sci-fi films like Videodrome.  Then there are many films
about making TV like Network, Broadcast News, etc.   Then there are films
that have heavy TV undertones like Avalon which follows the lineage of a
family and includes TV as its main reference point for history.
 
>Is my imprssion correct that TV is not as hot an issue in film as it
>used to be in the late seventies or early eighties?
 
Television is inherintly innactive and makes for a bad dramatic device.
Being there was about passivity and so it worked.  Since Being There,
videotape has redefined people's relationships with televisions and made
them more of an interactive experience which is why you probably have the
Atom Egoyen films and the Soderberg projects as well as the Videodrome
--all of which usually emphasize people's choice of how to use videotape.
 
Prior to videotape it would be difficult to make a character have an active
relationship with this appliance unless they were creating the material
which I suspect is not what you're looking for.
 
I'm curious to hear what others say about this subject.
 
Sincerely,
 
Mark Allen
Xantherboy
 
****XANTHER
****http://www.directnet.com/~xanther/
 
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