From: Jaeowens-AT-aol.com
Date: Sat, 27 Feb 1999 00:17:38 EST
Subject: Re: Sociology-Film



In a message dated 2/26/99 1:53:38 PM, garyn-AT-tatteredcover.com writes:

>I would pose a warning, though, when using media to educate on the level
>of the sociological realm.  There is something "unseen" in the mechanism
>of translating real events into documents.  From journalism to film, from
>"news" to entertainment, the "look" of the camera, the "print" of the 
>newspaper, re-interpret what is, for lack of a better term, real.  let
>us say, instead of real, a loaded word if there ever was one, "the camera
>and the typewriter re-interpret, or ask us to interpret, what actually
>happened at a given time, since we were/are not there to "feel" and "see"
>the events documented.

Pardon me for jumping in, especially as I, too, am new to this list, but is
there not an interpretation prior to the "look" of the camera and/or the
"print" of the newspaper?  This may be getting into horribly muddy waters, but
the mechanism seems itself subject to...

Even if we were/are there to feel and see, does that make the event "real" or
do we simply interpret that differently than we do film?  Further, if we
were/are there, each with a video camera, would our films not show radically
different views of the same "reality?"  I guess what I'm getting at, and what
you hinted at towards the end of your post, is that subjectivity (along with
social construction and all that) creep in long before a single frame is shot.

Ed
"I don't like video.  I prefer to remember things {my own way} rather than the
way they really happened."		--Fred, LOST HIGHWAY


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