Metalheads and Media

[oscar the cat]

Some bands burn out by their lifestyles. It can't be a recommendation.

[Divus_de_Mortuus]

The lifestyles of these bands is essentially a rock lifestyle. Which brings us back to the point metal was destined to fail because of it's rock roots.

[Dylar]

I can't imagine why people would spend much time on TV or movies when there are the classic works of Morbid Angel and Asphyx so readily available. Isn't that like smoking gutter crack when you could be drinking champagne?

Does anyone here really think that Blessed are the Sick is a more coherent or important work of art than Rashomon or The Seventh Seal?  I mean in a thoughtful, not-trying-to-impress-your-online-buddies kind of way?

[Divus_de_Mortuus]

I doubt his comment was really directed at 40 year old movies from Sweden and Japan. If those are the best movies in your mind, wouldn't that prove the over all point about the lack of value from TV in general?

[death metal black metal]

Aside from the insidious effects of formal education on creativity, I am concerned with the effect of television. When one reads a book, one forms a mental image of what is happening. When one listens to the radio (e.g., a baseball game), one also forms a mental image of what is happening (i.e., remember the positions of the players and imagine how they are moving). But television explicitly shows the correct image, so there is nothing left to the imagination. I believe that reading books, and listening to the radio, stimulate the imagination, which is a very valuable skill for creative people. The ubiquitousness of television after the mid-1950's may be depriving children, and adults too, of opportunities to expand their ability to imagine.

The insipid content of television programs in the USA is a separate problem that is not relevant here.

RBS on Creativity

[Dylar]

One could say the same about Shakespeare when experienced as it was intended to be experienced.  While it is true that stage and film drama generally provide the outer plot with less work, they are typically far less explicit and immediately accessible in some areas than written works.  Books generally bare the psychological motivations of characters much more thoroughly and obviously, watching film or drama, one is forced to imagine the inner psychological working of characters from the bare bones of gesture.  

It's just not that cut and dried.

[death metal black metal]

Books generally bare the psychological motivations of characters much more thoroughly and obviously, watching film or drama, one is forced to imagine the inner psychological working of characters from the bare bones of gesture.

I'll disagree here. In order for the audience to understand what goes on in film, or in theatre, the gestures must be rather obvious. In addition, as the quoted bit of text above said, you are seeing literally what is happening -- not imagining it in a convergence of author and audience. Many of the best books especially in the modern style tell you nothing about what the narrator is thinking, only show you his or her actions.

[Dylar]

I'll disagree here. In order for the audience to understand what goes on in film, or in theatre, the gestures must be rather obvious.

Sometimes, though not always.  In most better film and theater, outer gestures give only an ambivalent understanding of a character's interior landscape: there's a reason scholars have spent 400 years debating the real motivations of Hamlet.  

Besides, you're overlooking a pretty pertinent fact.  Expressions and gestures may hint at the psychological interiority, but gestures do not, in fact,  constitute that interiority.  They certainly don't offer the sort of explicit plumbing of the psychological depths of say, Joyce (where the state of mind of characters is often the only thing we really know).  Instead, we are left to interpret, to intuit, to try and grasp the inner nature of character from nothing but the bare bones of gesture.  All artforms give with one hand and take with another - we're talking about symbolic communication, not reality: there are always going to be holes.

In addition, as the quoted bit of text above said, you are seeing literally what is happening

But do you?  There's a whole subculture of film that deals with precisely the question of whether what you see reflects what is true (even in the context of film as film).  Rashomon (which I mentioned earlier), is merely one of several masterworks that engage just this issue (Fellini's 8 1/2 is highly recommended here as well).  I think you significantly underestimate the potential of visual drama.  This isn't a zero sum game where recognizing that film and theater have great artistic value somehow degrades the value we might ascribe to written or oral literature.

[K. Sear]

I would also add that many viewers of film place a rather false restriction on them that they must be realistic.  How often does one hear a film being panned simply because it's plot was unrealistic or too unbelievable?  A film is not bound to being literal any more than poetry.  A characters gestures may mean nothing or everything depending on your interpretation.

I would agree that film by it's nature does not offer the same window into the characters minds as a book does (unless of course they resort to the dreaded voice over), nor does it rob the viewer of having to imagine.  One of my favourite directors is Kim Ki-Duk who has made a name for himself outside of his native Korea mainly based on the fact that his films rarely have any dialogue at all.  The characters communicate solely through gesture and looks alone and one is forced to interpret what their inner realm is like.  His films are also known for twisting reality in such a gentle fashion that what emerges is a beautiful visual poem (his later works at least).

Of course, there are layers of quality in film just as there is in music or any other art form.  The discerning individual will be able to tell the difference and separate the wheat from the chaff, which I believe was the heart of the original post.

[oscar the cat]

In most better film and theater, outer gestures give only an ambivalent understanding of a character's interior landscape: there's a reason scholars have spent 400 years debating the real motivations of Hamlet.  

I have bad news for you. Hamlet was a play, written in the literary style, like the novels of today. It was complete with extended soliloquies where Hamlet expounded upon his motivations. If people are still debating them, it is because they are fucking stupid.

[Dylar]

I have bad news for you. Hamlet was a play, written in the literary style, like the novels of today.

Most theater is 'written in a literary style' - but it is meant to be experienced as THEATER, not as written words on a page.

It was complete with extended soliloquies where Hamlet expounded upon his motivations.

The soliloquies are conflicted and contradictory - there's a level of ambiguity and ambivalence there which you're not acknowledging.

[oscar the cat]

The soliloquies are conflicted and contradictory - there's a level of ambiguity and ambivalence there which you're not acknowledging.

This is what a liberal education gets you. Accept at the same time:

(1) This was a play for groundlings, who are the kind of people that repair our BMWs and Saabs.
(2) It is too complex for anyone but a liberal with a degree from an East or West coast university.

Cut the bullshit. His character is evident and like most people in his situation, he waffles a bit. But he says what he needs to, and that's why people like the play, not for some wank academic theory that cannot reconcile the two points above.

[Dylar]

Cut the bullshit. His character is evident and like most people in his situation, he waffles a bit. But he says what he needs to, and that's why people like the play, not for some wank academic theory that cannot reconcile the two points above.

Step away, for a moment, from your impulse toward reverse snobbery, and think about Shakespeare.  Not the 'Shakespeare' of dry and dusty folios, and concordances, and indices of every kind, nor, certainly, the 'Shakespeare' of English class, the skinny one with a bee-colored jacket, mind you.  I mean the real Shakespeare, the Shakespeare that Shakespeare himself would want you to experience when you experience Shakespeare.  

I mean Shakespeare heard aloud:

in a theater

and seen on a stage

with actors

and costumes

and props and scenery

like in a play?

and stuff

Shakespeare without glosses, or helpful hints in the margin, or even the ability to flip back to Act II.

Shakespeare experienced as direct experience,  and not mediated from word to mind and back again.  

Doing it for real, seeing it performed - with all the subtle nuances of emphasis (aural or visual), interpretation, and memory performance implies -  can very often have the effect of rendering what reads in black an white upon the printed page a good bit greyer in reality.

[Divus_de_Mortuus]

Shakespeare kicks ass. Everyone knows that!

[born for banning]

Shakespeare experienced as direct experience,  and not mediated from word to mind and back again.  

Hah! No piece of art is a direct experience. You are following reality as filtered through the minds of others. the sooner you accept that, the sooner the posing can end.