Subject: Re: Sociology-Film
Date: Sat, 27 Feb 1999 11:19:50 -0700 (MST)
From: Gary Norris <garyn-AT-tatteredcover.com>


> 
> 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...


ed, it's all about the leap, so no pardon necessary, let's at it...

you are absolutely right:  the mecanism is subject *too*.


> 
> 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.
> 


yes,  which is why we need to develop a rigorous theory of the Subject, 
rather than deconstructing the myriad viewpoints of subjects.  Being at 
the event, in effect participating, is much different than watching it an 
then reporting it.  Participation holds within its mechanism, to use a 
common terminology, an act with thought, while interpretation holds 
within its mechanism the birth of discourse about the act--  it has 
nothing to with the act and requires a critique for itself, calls out for 
a critique, actually.

your points are well taken, though.  I am overcome by the image, yet I 
overcome the act in interpreting it.  Maybe, it is *this* theorizing 
which gives my idea a fishy sense.  However, I am looking for a sense of 
the pure act.  Technological proficience cannot be looked to as a 
substitute for realism.  This is my gripe with Spielberg.  Listmembers 
who have been around for awhile will remember my bile ridden rant after 
watching Saving Private Ryan.  Yet, the film moved me.  Catharsis can be 
subversive.  There's an obscure statement!


This is what Godard's statement "How is *it* *going*?"  is getting at--  
the mechanism.  Thanks for bringing that out better than I had.


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


Hey, take a look at Wender's NOTEBOOKS ON CITIES AND CLOTHES.  I think 
you'll enjoy it.



gary norris


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