Pam Robertson recently wrote "I may be wrong  but it seems all the examples

have been related to the

visual. "  And Matthew Mah, "we have the camera.  The camera captures

everything,

and we have to assume that it is non-biased.  We have no way of confirming

this, as we do in narration, so we have to accept it."

 

I apologize if this touches on theoretical aspects, but it seems that the

implication of both Robertson's and Mah's statements is that there is a

definite tendency to privileging the visual over and above the verbal,

whether the verbal is textual or oral.  As someone else has already noted,

the camera does not capture everything as Mah argues, but specifically

frames what the director intends.  And the construction of the mis en scene

is comparable, if not synonymous, with the affect achieved by the choice of

narrators.  Mah implies that "the tone of the voice, the relationship

between the narrator and the character," is only acheived through narration.

But we must take into consideration the proxemic patterns, the visual

"texts," which serve as a biased, diegetic devices also sustain a tone as

well as spatial relationships between the character, camera, and viewer.

"Jacob's Ladder" is a film in which we have nothing but the camera, but the

visual text creates a tone and there is a relationship between the camera

and the characters.  As with some novels, we realize that this text, albeit

visual, is unreliable.

 

I agree with MIke Frank remarks that "if it is true that the camera

'captures everything' . . . or if that

what the congregation of Screen-L takes to be the case, then at the very least

we need an account of why or how this should be the case . . . the assertion

itself is hardly an argument."

 

Scott Furtwengler

SIUC

 

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