I asked you to try to get your head into what life must have been like during the late 1800's, and imagine how the dawn of cinema began to evolve and emerge.
I continue to urge you to keep one eye on the present and future as we trace this evolution-
and try to synthesize the readings, screenings and discussions into an appreciation of the cultural power of moving images. once again- here are the links from the syllabus to read, as well as the link to my youtube favorites where some of the clips we've seen can be found. Please read the essays attached to the links and reflect on them in your responses to the screenings.
Richard Dawkins (1976)
excerpt from The Selfish Gene Memes, the new replicators.
http://www.rubinghscience.org/memetics/dawkinsmemes.html
Walter Benjamin (1936)
The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction
http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/benjamin.htm
Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer (1944)
The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/adorno/1944/culture-industry.htm
Douglas Davis (1995)
The Work of Art in the Age of Digital Reproduction
http://cristine.org/borders/Davis_Essay.html
also clips here
http://www.youtube.com/gordonglover (favorites)
7 comments:
After reading through the material and viewing the presented videos, I was left making a couple basic connections, but also with some theories to compliment the texts. First off, I would like to explore what I really connected with in the Walter Benjamin piece entitled, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” This article explores what is to come from the ability to reproduce art mechanically. More specifically what comes from the art capable of reproduced so readily. We have always been able to reproduce art, but only through the process of replication. The original process of reproduction was still intimate in the sense that it followed the tradition of old. Now in the age where the tradition can be detached from the process, the whole integrity can be turned into crisis. As Benjamin writes on page 4, “By making many reproductions it substitutes a plurality of copies for a unique existence.”
Continuing with Benjamin’s notion of art he incorporates it into the idea of it having an aura. This aura can decay or manifest itself in the same way a meme would. Long periods of time can alter and affect the aura as well. As we as humans play with this aura we have a natural instinct to bring it closer to us and manipulate it to our own. Art up until the point of mechanical reproduction uniqueness was always closely linked to the art and has an embedded tradition. However, this tradition is alive and changeable.
Benjamin mentions that the original contextual integration of art in tradition was expressed through the cult. He writes on page 6, “the earliest works originated in the service of a ritual – first the magical, then the religious kind.” Later in this entry I will explain my view of how I feel the cult and ritual has transitioned to a different role in today’s society, but for now I want to continue to observe this article. Benjamin writes still on page 6, “reproduction emancipates the work of art from its parasitical dependence on ritual. To an ever greater degree the work of art reproduced becomes the work of art designed for reproducibility.” This harkens back to the new role cinema and photography play in art, as art now has a new channel. Instead of uniqueness and tradition in art it has been supplemented for reproducibility. This phenomenon goes hand in hand with the thought of memes. If memes need to reproduce to stay in the meme pool than this whole reproducibility aspect has given memes a chance to foster like they never had the ability to before.
Once the dawn of cinema approached, the exhibition of art became an entirely new function. The first function was to depict and that was what the viewer was conscious of, meanwhile the artistic function could be recognized later as incidental. This brings me to my theory on what the cult of art has become. I think cinema has become the cult of entertainment. This can be seen as early as Edison and Mêlées with their short films. For Edison, his short films were set up where you could pay a penny and view a short clip. As seen in the one, “Chivalry on a Boxcar,” the viewer sees a woman try to sit down and none of the men show their manners. Face value shows nothing really artistic, but merely a depiction of a real life situation a person could find amusing if they came into contact with. This feeds on an individual’s thirst for entertainment. While Edison’s films we simple in nature, Mêlées took the same approach of delivery entertainment with a more intricate and elaborate. He really pioneered including effects and ways to impress the audience.
Whereas, Edison, Porter and Mêlées took the approach to film in the entertainment sense, Griffith used a social commentary advance to move his audiences. For instance, in the film, “A Corner in Wheat,” depicted the hardships of being in the lower-middle class, while the rich become richer and poor become poorer. It has been noted that the Soviets became fond and inspired by Griffith and immediately I wondered if their Communists affiliation was enhanced by Griffith’s works. I’m uncertain if the Soviets were already Communists or not, but it would be an amazing feat if Griffith influenced a nation enough to change their political agenda.
What I really came away with from watching these primitive, early cinematic productions is how they took any new found tactic and milked it for all it is worth, but not in an uncreative way. They were always trying to improve and bolster their abilities. This seems to be lacking in today’s stale cinematic world on the whole. It seems movie companies nowadays are making a trailer, to market instead of the movie. Overall, I feel like I can be influenced by these early creations and be able to render them into my own memes if you will and hopefully expose their qualities so they remain timeless.
Despite the early nature of the films that were shown, I was still impressed at the ability of the filmmakers, most notably Melies. His pioneering of editing techniques and special effects stunned me. Not only was he able to achieve a whole new perspective on film and how to entertain people, but his movies can still amaze people to this day.
The works of these trailblazers of cinema have given me a lot of insight into the ideas that were being expressed at the dawn of filmmaking. Edison, Melies, Porter, Griffith, and Leonard all had something in common; they saw the great potential that this new medium of art had, and they took full advantage of it.
Melies’ most notable contributions to film were his experiments with the many possible special effects with film and how to distort reality for entertainment. His ideas and experiments were major influences on the special effects seen in films today.
Edison and Porter can be held responsible for the technological growth of film. They designed and created cameras and projectors that made cinema a reality for the rest of the world.
Griffith was a pioneer of filmic storytelling. He was one of the few filmmakers of his time who concentrated on stories and messages as opposed to the advancement of the medium technologically. Right off he set the bar for all filmmakers to come.
Sadly, since i have a lousy habit of waiting till the last minute to get anything done I have kinda missed the opportunity to say anything new or original. However I still feel that my input on these films would be valuable all the same.
To start, I had already seen "A Corner in Wheat" once prior in a history class in high school. The sad thing is that we watched a full length version that dragged on for a couple classes too many. All the same, i took solice in the fact that the beauty of this film slightly more bearable. At first, the duration of the film may be daunting to many but due to being raised in a "film house" where all my father and I did was watch movies, this didn't come as a shock to me.
All the same I endured, and was astonished with what D.W. Griffith was capable of. To be able to just conquer this medium so early and to make it known that we was able to do so much more and project a clear message that anyone could comprehend.
Then there was Edison, Melies, Porter, and Leonard, who were all their own thing, all equally as important as the next. In particular though I would like to take a second to focus on Melies. The man made some of the most famous silent films of his age. Even though they were entirely different in style, duration, and time Griffith, Melies shared so much.
I am just in awe of everything that happened and all that they accomplished throughout their lifetimes. I don't even really know what else to say in regards to them. I just hope that we can continue to see examples of their work and learn more and more about their styles.
by the way, CFKane is geoff...just incase that wasn't clear
After viewing the content provided I can begin to see the basic side of filmmaking, before the special effects and outrageous plot lines, even before sound was introduced into cinema. In these films it is sometimes hard to understand exactly what the producer intended us to see and including the generation gap many references are to things rarely seen in today's modern world. From these movies you get a clear sense of right vs wrong and can easily identify comedic scenes from a purely visual standpoint.
The Great Train Robbery is an epic movie if you take away the fact that you've already seen movies like "Fight Club", "Star Wars", or any other movie that we grew up watching. Why? Because Porter & Edison set a lot of precedents with that movie. For one thing, it was the first western flick created and you can understand that the western genre owes some debt to The Great Train Robbery. Although the plot not being as intricate as something like "The Dark Knight", it was still the first major motion picture with a plot. There were props, panning of the camera, costumes, shots on moving vehicles, overdubbing video, hand drawn color, etc., etc. So as you can imagine, this movie was very popular for its time. If Richard Dawkins were in our film class he would say that the movie transmitted a lot of its "memes" to future productions. Once this standard was set, imitation was not difficult and more techniques would be built off of the foundations that Edison & Porter laid down. If you must know, my opinion of the movie is that it rocks. I especially liked the moral at the end which was that if you steal money from trains, you will get caught.
-Nick-
I posted this in the first blog but I think I was supposed to post it here so here it is again.
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