> At 12:06 PM -0400 4/21/99, Carl Remick wrote:
> >The art of special effects has advanced at the expense of
> >characterization and plot development. Movies have contributed vastly
> >to the domination of imagery over the written word and to the
> >stupefaction of people in general. That's one reason I'm so
> >enthusiastic about the rise of the Web -- the revenge of the literate!
> >
> >Carl Remick
>
> I'm sorry, I know there's a war on and I've learned a lot just hanging out
> and reading all the kosovo stuff coming through this list. You all should
> be commended. But I have to respond to this foolery.
>
> Dear Carl,
>
> 3. When in human history has the written word dominated imagery except
> for the smallest fraction of people (like academics, for instance)? Why
> should writing dominate images in moving pictures?
>
> 2. On what grounds can you argue that the web is more word and less
> image friendly? Sure, streaming video isn't here yet and all, but all the
> orthodoxies of web design I know about enphasize lots of images and visual
> design, and keeping words to a minimum.
>
> 1. What's necessary about linear plot and character development in
> creative art anyway? Frankly, I think this kind of aesthetic bombast is
> completely elitist, ethnocentric, and incredibly reactionary because it
> privileges the creative aesthetics of 19th century European elites (joined
> later by American elites) over all other possible alternatives.
>
> Flame off.
>
> --Jonathan
>
> P.S. Catherine's right. It was years before there was narrative and
> character development in film.
It was years before books had chapters, indices, chapters, paragraphs, etc. In fact, it took about 50 years from the Guttenberg's invention of the printing press to the full development of the book as we know it. EVERY medium takes quite some to develop its maturity. Are you REALLY arguing against this? On what possible grounds?
As for your faux populism, the immigrant communities that were the first mass audience for movies in America were FAR more interested in narratives that validated their lives than in the primitive spectacles that preceded them. The former are what really began to draw people into the movies in droves during the teens.
As for "What's necessary about linear plot and character development in creative art anyway?" Gosh, I don't think ANYONE thinks its necessary in a string quartet, a raga or the art and architecture of a Mosque.
But when it comes to story-type arts you can look at folk tales from all over the world and find these in one form or another. Not 19th Century bourgoise character development, to be sure, but who says that's the only kind of character there is? Furthermore, for all its episodic character, the long arch of the Oddessy provides a classic example of what I'm talking about, and it has its parallels in various forms all around the world.
-- Paul Rosenberg Reason and Democracy rad at gte.net
"Let's put the information BACK into the information age!"