SCREEN-L Archives

July 1995, Week 2

SCREEN-L@LISTSERV.UA.EDU

Options: Use Monospaced Font
Show Text Part by Default
Show All Mail Headers

Message: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]
Topic: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]
Author: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]

Print Reply
Subject:
From:
Gene Stavis <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Film and TV Studies Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Fri, 7 Jul 1995 09:28:07 -0700
Content-Type:
text/plain
Parts/Attachments:
text/plain (50 lines)
----------------------------- Begin Original Text
-----------------------------
 
almost everyone who gets into these
conversations seems to have agreed that a text is simply the name we give to
a set [any set] of signs of signals that we can understand  . . . neither i
nor anyone else is claiming that cinematic texts are read exactly the same
way
as verbal [or "literary"--though that word should just go away] texts, but
they certainly are read . . . in these terms the question becomes, and i hope
this will point the issue in a way that makes it possible to move beyond this
sticking point with those who champion cinema: are cinematic texts read the
same way as video texts (or, alternatively, are movies read the same way when
they are projected off film as when they are projected of a video storage
medium?)
 
----------------------------- End Original Text -----------------------------
 
I apologize for answering an earlier query before I saw Mike's response
above.
 
The disagreement comes from the use of the word "text". Evidently,
 deconstructionists, whose studies spring from semiology and lingusitics,
give a far broader meaning to the word than I do. I am not yet prepared to
accept that broad definition of the word. To me, text means words. If we are
to study film, is there not to be a distinction to be made between the
"literary" (for lack of a better word) values of a "work" (which seems to me
a far better and far less loaded word than "text") and its visual values? It
was inevitable that this controversy would come to pass when dogmatic
semiotics became the lingua franca of the academic community.
 
I welcome the insights that semioticists have brought to the field. But when
that brand of discourse becomes the ONLY method of discussing the cinema,
questions like Mike's become understandable.
When one says "read" and talks about "texts", where is the picture aspect of
the discussion? It clearly becomes secondary and, in the case of video vs.
film, it practically disappears.
 
There should not be a "video vs. film" controversy. Both media are useful in
the study of the art form. And circumstances have evolved to the point at
which film is inconvenient and expensive compared to electronic reproduction.
But, to imply, indeed to say, that there is no practical difference between
the two, is incomprehensible to me.
 
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]

ATOM RSS1 RSS2