>
>Date:    Tue, 28 May 2002 19:14:57 +0100
>From:    Dede Teeler <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Re: FILM-PHILOSOPHY Digest - <first ever> to 28 May 2002 (#2002-1)
>
>Making a lot of assumptions Jon, aren't you.
>And seem to have problems reading as well...since the answer to your
>unsubscribe question was in the first group message ever sent to you,
>but copied here below...but maybe you already knew this?
>

Yes, I make lots of assumptions in my life, based usually on experience. I assume my front foot is going to drop by the pull of gravity when I walk and I control the fall.  I assume 4 decades of observing the follies of the educational systems I have frequently seen as an invited guest have some validity.  I assume, as does everyone else on the planet, many things, all the time.  Thank you for reminding me in your pleasant manner.  But thank you more for the information on how to unsub which I will be doing after posting this.  And you are correct, I do have a hard time reading masses of "discourse" of the kind that presumably enlivens academic sorts who imagine they are coping with The Real Thing when writing what I will leave posted below what I am going to now attach, which perhaps obliquely can act as a response.  It however is fitting to this list and its discussion as it is actually about film and I suppose could be said to address "philosophy" as well:



To: Editor, London Review of Books

Belatedly reading the July 2 issue, I came across Michael Wood's film-theory-books review
(Cheerfully Chopping up the World), and ever curious,
though ever dubious of my friends the critics, ran into one of those clunkers which casts nearly
everything said under the conundrum of "theory" into the
deep shades of not doubt, but ignorance - the ignorance from which such theorizing seems nearly
always to spring. The offending section compounds
itself by twice uttering ill-informed nonsense, the second time purporting to correct the first. To wit:
"... as Bordwell informs us, you can't get deep focus
in colour, so you either have to do without it, or manage with figures in and out of focus in the same
image..." We then get a dollop of "information" on
Greg Toland and Welles' Citizen Kane, and Bazin's attached theorizing. Wood then steps up to bat,
to comment "There is quite a bit of confusion here,
as Bordwell lucidly shows. Depth of field, translating profoundeur de champ, 'actually denotes two
significantly different technical options'. One is the
capacity of the camera to render several planes of action in sharp focus', which is what Greg Toland
did. The other is simply 'staging in depth', which is
largely what Renoir was up to, namely 'placing significant objects or figures at distinctly different
distances from the camera, regardless of whether all
those elements are in focus or not."

Yes, indeed, there is quite a bit of confusion here, commencing with Bordwell's assertion that "you
can't get deep focus in color" which Wood seems to
accept as a given truth, being distracted by the theorizing which claims it to be one of two "technical
options", one being to get everything in focus via
the optical mechanism of the camera (lens), and the other the placement in staging of significant
things close and far from the lens in the same shot. The
latter is in fact an aesthetic, not a technical option; the former is a function of lens optics in
conjunction with certain technical limitations in film cameras.
The opening assertion that one can't get deep focus in color is simply false and betrays a complete
lack of technical comprehension of the medium at
hand.

As a veteran do-it-yourself filmmaker who does his own camera work, I offer up the following
technical and historical background for our critics and
theorists.

Depth of field is a mechanical function of an optical system. In a movie camera one is more or less
wedded to a shutter speed of a 50th of a second if
one wants "normal" real-time movement (film running at 24 frames a second, the camerashutter is
closed half the time to allow for the mechanical
movement of the film from frame to frame; hence it is closed half of that 24th of a second, allowing
the other half for exposure, hence around a 50th of a
second.) Thus in a movie camera the light of a 50th of a second is what arrives at the emulsion on
the surface of the film. That light passes through a
lens, usually made of glass, and through a diaphragm, which is adjustable, to let in more or less
light. Diaphragm settings are in f. stops, usually these
days running from 1.4, 2, 2.8, 3.5, 4, 5.6, 8, 11, 16 and 22. 1.4 is most open, letting in the most
light, and each setting upward cuts out half the light of the
previous setting. Owing to the physics of optical systems, the optimal setting for definition (a mode
of optical clarity) in the photographic image is f. 5.6
to 8. The more you open or close the diaphragm from this optimum, the less crisp is the image. If
you open the diaphragm wider, one loses depth of
field, to say the span from the frontal area of focus to the back area of focus; hence at an open setting
a given lens might provide a depth of field from 3
feet to 12 feet; whereas if you close down to f. 22, one might get 2 feet to infinity. The reason one
normally either opens very wide, say to f.1.4, is owing
to the necessity to capture more light as one can't change, as one might on a still camera, the shutter
speed. Or, one may do as most industrial film
productions do, bring in artificial light to boost the level on the set bright enough to allow an f 5.6 or
8 setting (unless you deliberately wish elements of
the image to be out of focus.) The reason one normally closes down is either to cut down excess light
(though this may also be done with neutral density
filters which absorb light equally across the spectrum) or to obtain greater depth of field - though
done at the price of some loss of "definition".

Another major element in determining depth of field is the focal length (measured as "millimeter") of
the lens - whether it is a wide angle lens (say 20mm
in 35mm film), a mid-level so called "normal" (alleged incorrectly to be equivalent to the human
eye) 50mm lens, or a telephoto - 80mm and on up.
Wide-angle lenses inherently have greater depth of field and conversely telephoto lenses have a
shorter depth of field: i.e., the depth of the plane which
can be held in focus in a wide-angle can be, as was Welles' and Toland in Citizen Kane, from a foot
or less to infinity. Blast in enough light, use a fast
film stock, use a 20mm lens, and/or close down to f.22 at the price of a bit of definition and you can
get it. A telephoto lens (aside from other optical
properties) cannot do this, never mind the light or the f.stop setting: with a 120 mm lens, you might
get the area from 10 feet to 12 feet from the camera
in focus, and everything in front and behind falls increasingly out of focus.

The next element is the film stock itself, and the chemistry of its emulsion, and whether it is designed
to absorb more or less light, and the chemistry and
physics involved, which in crude (though increasingly less applicable with modern emulsions)
rule-of-thumb runs a slow speed film will have a finer
grain structure, and a faster speed will get grainier. In contemporary black and white and color
emulsions this is hardly visible anymore except under
extreme circumstances or unless you want such qualities as graininess, in which the recourse would
be to use older film emulsions if available or to
deliberately chemically alter the recommended processing of the stock.

Thus the assertion that "you can't get deep focus in color" is presumably tied into these restrictions,
and certainly, in historical terms there is a minor
logical reason for imagining such a claim, but it is rooted in ignorance of the technical stuff of film.
When color emulsions first appeared for cinema (just
as when black and white ones did), they were chemically very slow. At the same time the lenses
available were also "slow". The shutter speed was then,
as now, fixed to around a 50th of a second. To get deep focus one would need to use a wide-angle
lens, close down to f.22 and blast the hell out of the
set with light. Rather than go to this hassle and perhaps for other aesthetic reasons, it seems
filmmakers chose not to do so. These days, extreme fine
grain color film emulsions have ASA ratings of 500, can be pushed in processing to the thousands,
and certainly can provide far more deep focus with
less hassle than Welles used in his films. It has nothing to do with "color" or not color.

Just as many film professionals who should know better but don't (since they also don't really know
what filmmaking is) imagine that to shoot in 35mm
one must drag along a few trucks of lighting and illuminate bright sun-lit streets, so do our critics
lack the technical and historical ground from which to
make informed judgments.
Unfortunately their follies are passed on as received wisdoms and multiplied until they take on the
appearance of medieval priests debating
angels-on-the-head-of-a-pin. The spate of pseudo-scientific criticism of the 70's-80's only
compounded the sins of this, passing off uninformed opinions
as verifiable "truths".

Once upon a time films and lenses were "slow" and film producers moved to hospitable brightly
sunny locations - like Hollywood - and in order to satisfy
the technical limitations of the technology of the time, they often had to use bright lighting,
wide-angle lenses if deep focus was desired, and along the
way these strictures developed into various styles which denoted "film," and, coupled with an
institutionalized encrustation of financial interests,
became corrupt such that in these days of fast stocks and fast lenses, one of the many "signifiers" of
"film" is a line of trucks from which come thick
cables and banks of lights in places where it is utterly unnecessary except that the lighting union
would cripple the production if they weren't dragged
along; likewise a theatrical lighting which is utterly unnatural is used in "realistic" settings because
the director and/or cinematographer know nothing
else and this fraudulent light, as the entire fraudulent enterprise, signifies "cinema." Along the way
of these accumulating matters, the time for production
gets longer, the budgets get bigger, and from the grip at the bottom making $300 a day to move a
box once or twice, while twiddling his thumbs the rest
of the day, on up to the producer scraping his 10% of the $60,000,000 budget off the top before a
frame has been exposed, and the star taking 10 mil
here, 15 there, the whole matter has been hijacked by interests far from art, though our critics, with
increasingly less "art" to review or critique,
themselves curdle into corruption, and anoint manifest garbage as worthy of a look, and having
some correlation to "art".

On the theoretical-critical side, it is a bit odd to see Welles and Toland shoved aside in the
distinction made between depth-of-focus and "staging in
depth" in favor of Renoir, when for sure Welles used both, and quite deliberately and effectively.
This kind of hair-splitting twaddle though can secure a
nice $70,000 academic chair, where one is certain never to meet a soul knowledgeable enough to
knock the hot air out of one's sails, and one can
always find some reason - aesthetic, political, fiscal, social - to sit on your fat ass and watch another
movie claiming it is "work." Nevermind the entire
edifice is usually firmly anchored in a bedrock of complete ignorance about the medium at hand.

Sincerely,
Jon Jost
>Date:    Tue, 28 May 2002 14:24:00 EDT
>From:    Jon Baldwin <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Re: FILM-PHILOSOPHY Digest - <first ever> to 28 May 2002 (#2002-1)
>
>Gosh Doyle, there aint half some misunderstandings in your post about
>so-called Post Modernist claims.
>Do you mind if I offer my two-penny's worth?
>I have entered your discussion half-way through and without appropriate
>context - (therefore expect a public apology from me soon!)
>
>You wrote...[and I will intrude]
>
>though not germane to the question I raise about how emotions are
>communicated I'll contrast some Post Modernists claims to an embodied
>realism.
>
>There are four Post Modernists claims I have in mind;
>
>1.  The complete arbitrariness of signs.  The pairing of a signifier (sign)
>and signified (concepts) is utterly arbitrary.
>
>[Jon: Signs are not arbitrary! The pairing of a sr and sd is not arbitrary!
>However the relationship between a particular sr and sd is arbitrary. Hence
>we can have different languages. This is according to Saussure. (Not all Post
>Modernists subscribe to Saussure's notion of the sign. In fact all Post
>Modernists I know (or think I know, and I sense you mean Baudrillard,
>Derridad, Lyotard...) in some whay re-write or re-think Saussure.)]
>
>2.   The 'centre' (locus) of meaning is among free floating binary
>oppositions (difference).
>
>[Jon: Well there is no centre of meaning. I thought you had that? What would
>a centre of meaning be anyway, and why do you mourn it's loss, or crave a
>centre?]
>
>3.   The purely historical contingency of meaning.
>
>[Again, this comment is like from Postmodernism for Beginners read in five
>minutes on the bus.]
>
>4.   The strong relativity of concepts.
>
>[Jon: What would be a weak relativity of concepts?]
>
>I disagree.
>
>1 In a movie the order of the movie is not arbitrary.  An uncut segment of a
>scene represents a non arbitrary pairing of the symbol (the scene fragment)
>and the scene.  Violating that order would destroy the sense of motion
>integral to the whole sense of motion.
>
>[Jon: This really doesn't link up to your first point regarding Post
>Modernists. Maybe I am missing something but you only seem to talk about
>arbitrariness. Who has ever claimed that 'In a movie the order of the movie
>is not arbitrary"??? That you feel that this is being proposed and that you
>draw this from your reading of the Post Modernists says all we need to know
>about your reading and nothing about Post Modernists.]
>
>2  Meaning to a scene in a movie is given directly not by opposing two clips
>to gain meaning.   I get a meaning without seeing another clip.  I get a
>meaning the first time I see the movie.  There is a direct meaning in any
>given scene.   The issue of embodied memory and association is not arbitrary
>but a result of direct connection of the body to the world.
>
>[Jon: How we understand what is going on in the movie clip would be
>facilitated by a conception of 'meaning as differance'. I think you do not
>understand what is meant by 'biary oppositions' because your point misses its
>target by a mile. Also, actually Eisenstein did try to generate meaning by
>opposing two 'clips' or shots. We call it 'montage' and it concerns form
>rather than content (not that I am happy with such a distinction). He was a
>Marxist and influenced by dialectical materialism. He belived in Marx's
>working of Hegel - Thesis v Antithesis = Synthesis. For Marx this would be
>Bourgeoisie v Proletariate = Socialism. Eisenstein wanted to perform a
>similar proposition in film. E.g. one edit is contrasted with another to
>produce a synthesis in the vieiwer. This is why he is considered an
>interesting editor. Frankly I like his films but abhore faith in Hegel.]
>
>3   The silent footage that I shoot would mean the same thing to whoever saw
>the movie.  X gets up out of the chair and walks through the open door.  X
>talks to the camera I see their mouth move.  The same information would be
>communicated to other people.
>
>[Jon: How does this challenge 'the purely historical contingency of meaning'?
>Neverthelss... Meaning is contingent on a context. The historical context is
>part of a general context. Meaning can be contigent on a historical context.
>What's wrong with this? If I see the chair you've filmed, it is not the same
>chair as you or anybody else sees. It will have a specific set of
>connotations available to me and me only. It may be a red chair. To me that
>may connote or remind me of a red dress I saw on an atrractive girl
>yesterday, and that may make me think of something else and before I know it
>I'm in unlimited semiosis with a hard on. Or if it is green it may connote
>grass, and my mind is adrift with other meanings, before I have even seen
>someone get out of the chair and walk. How do they walk? I may interpret it
>as a mincy strut. Someone else may perceive ballet. Someone else may get the
>meaning 'skip'...etc ad infinitum. I really could go on and on. In principle,
>no one shares the meaning of the chair, etc with you. No one gets the meaning
>you get. You say "The same information would be communicated to other
>people." I say "No, not the same information." We all bring different things
>to the generation of meaning. And for you, your meaning of the scene is not
>even secure for you. It is not just "X gets up out of the chair and walks
>through the open door.  X talks to the camera I see their mouth move." It
>would forever be polluted with "This was the clip that I filmed to try to
>counter the valiant efforts of Post Modernists and their irrational crusade."
>Because only you filmed this, only you will have this thought communicated to
>yourself. No-one understands what you understand. Not even you. No-one gets
>your intention. No one knows what you mean. Gee buddy, aint you heard - the
>author's dead!!!]
>
>4   That footage seen a thousand years from now would have the same meaning
>as now.  (A stable long lasting concept).   Same examples as number 3.
>thanks,
>
>[Jon: Oh and hieroglyphics have the same meaning today as a few thousand
>years ago? In a thousand years your chair will mean 'antique'. Social
>anthropologists will be studying the walk, the movement of the body, the
>clothes, decor, carpet, etc, etc. It wont have the same meaning. And how does
>your statement refute the 'strong relativity of concepts'?]
>
>Doyle Saylor
>
>[Jon: Thanks, and yes, I have been drinking too much coffee.]
>
>------------------------------
>
>Date:    Tue, 28 May 2002 12:05:13 -0700
>From:    Doyle Saylor <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Re: FILM-PHILOSOPHY Digest - <first ever> to 28 May 2002 (#2002-1 )
>
>Reply to Jon Baldwin Tuesday, May 28, 2002 11:24 AM
>
>Hello Jon,
>Timing is everything.  I have to go out of town through next Monday.  I
>won't try a quick response to your comments.  Perfectly fine by my lights to
>come in half way into the conversation.  I always find it an interesting
>problem how to keep informed.  I don't think it necessary to have read
>everything in a thread.  But the structure of how collaborative processes
>are made is quite interesting to the same context.  That isn't directed to
>your comment below.  But since I won't be able to reply until next week I am
>afraid my comments will grow cold in terms of your remarks.
>
>I will try to answer when I can in some sort of interesting way.
>Thanks,
>Doyle
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Jon Baldwin [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
>Sent: Tuesday, May 28, 2002 11:24 AM
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: FILM-PHILOSOPHY Digest - <first ever> to 28 May 2002 (#2002-1)
>
>Gosh Doyle, there aint half some misunderstandings in your post about
>so-called Post Modernist claims.
>Do you mind if I offer my two-penny's worth?
>I have entered your discussion half-way through and without appropriate
>context - (therefore expect a public apology from me soon!)
>
>You wrote...[and I will intrude]
>
>though not germane to the question I raise about how emotions are
>communicated I'll contrast some Post Modernists claims to an embodied
>realism.
>
>There are four Post Modernists claims I have in mind;
>
>1.  The complete arbitrariness of signs.  The pairing of a signifier (sign)
>and signified (concepts) is utterly arbitrary.
>
>[Jon: Signs are not arbitrary! The pairing of a sr and sd is not arbitrary!
>However the relationship between a particular sr and sd is arbitrary. Hence
>we can have different languages. This is according to Saussure. (Not all
>Post
>Modernists subscribe to Saussure's notion of the sign. In fact all Post
>Modernists I know (or think I know, and I sense you mean Baudrillard,
>Derridad, Lyotard...) in some whay re-write or re-think Saussure.)]
>
>2.   The 'centre' (locus) of meaning is among free floating binary
>oppositions (difference).
>
>[Jon: Well there is no centre of meaning. I thought you had that? What would
>a centre of meaning be anyway, and why do you mourn it's loss, or crave a
>centre?]
>
>3.   The purely historical contingency of meaning.
>
>[Again, this comment is like from Postmodernism for Beginners read in five
>minutes on the bus.]
>
>4.   The strong relativity of concepts.
>
>[Jon: What would be a weak relativity of concepts?]
>
>I disagree.
>
>1 In a movie the order of the movie is not arbitrary.  An uncut segment of a
>scene represents a non arbitrary pairing of the symbol (the scene fragment)
>and the scene.  Violating that order would destroy the sense of motion
>integral to the whole sense of motion.
>
>[Jon: This really doesn't link up to your first point regarding Post
>Modernists. Maybe I am missing something but you only seem to talk about
>arbitrariness. Who has ever claimed that 'In a movie the order of the movie
>is not arbitrary"??? That you feel that this is being proposed and that you
>draw this from your reading of the Post Modernists says all we need to know
>about your reading and nothing about Post Modernists.]
>
>2  Meaning to a scene in a movie is given directly not by opposing two clips
>to gain meaning.   I get a meaning without seeing another clip.  I get a
>meaning the first time I see the movie.  There is a direct meaning in any
>given scene.   The issue of embodied memory and association is not arbitrary
>but a result of direct connection of the body to the world.
>
>[Jon: How we understand what is going on in the movie clip would be
>facilitated by a conception of 'meaning as differance'. I think you do not
>understand what is meant by 'biary oppositions' because your point misses
>its
>target by a mile. Also, actually Eisenstein did try to generate meaning by
>opposing two 'clips' or shots. We call it 'montage' and it concerns form
>rather than content (not that I am happy with such a distinction). He was a
>Marxist and influenced by dialectical materialism. He belived in Marx's
>working of Hegel - Thesis v Antithesis = Synthesis. For Marx this would be
>Bourgeoisie v Proletariate = Socialism. Eisenstein wanted to perform a
>similar proposition in film. E.g. one edit is contrasted with another to
>produce a synthesis in the vieiwer. This is why he is considered an
>interesting editor. Frankly I like his films but abhore faith in Hegel.]
>
>3   The silent footage that I shoot would mean the same thing to whoever saw
>the movie.  X gets up out of the chair and walks through the open door.  X
>talks to the camera I see their mouth move.  The same information would be
>communicated to other people.
>
>[Jon: How does this challenge 'the purely historical contingency of
>meaning'?
>Neverthelss... Meaning is contingent on a context. The historical context is
>part of a general context. Meaning can be contigent on a historical context.
>What's wrong with this? If I see the chair you've filmed, it is not the same
>chair as you or anybody else sees. It will have a specific set of
>connotations available to me and me only. It may be a red chair. To me that
>may connote or remind me of a red dress I saw on an atrractive girl
>yesterday, and that may make me think of something else and before I know it
>I'm in unlimited semiosis with a hard on. Or if it is green it may connote
>grass, and my mind is adrift with other meanings, before I have even seen
>someone get out of the chair and walk. How do they walk? I may interpret it
>as a mincy strut. Someone else may perceive ballet. Someone else may get the
>meaning 'skip'...etc ad infinitum. I really could go on and on. In
>principle,
>no one shares the meaning of the chair, etc with you. No one gets the
>meaning
>you get. You say "The same information would be communicated to other
>people." I say "No, not the same information." We all bring different things
>to the generation of meaning. And for you, your meaning of the scene is not
>even secure for you. It is not just "X gets up out of the chair and walks
>through the open door.  X talks to the camera I see their mouth move." It
>would forever be polluted with "This was the clip that I filmed to try to
>counter the valiant efforts of Post Modernists and their irrational
>crusade."
>Because only you filmed this, only you will have this thought communicated
>to
>yourself. No-one understands what you understand. Not even you. No-one gets
>your intention. No one knows what you mean. Gee buddy, aint you heard - the
>author's dead!!!]
>
>4   That footage seen a thousand years from now would have the same meaning
>as now.  (A stable long lasting concept).   Same examples as number 3.
>thanks,
>
>[Jon: Oh and hieroglyphics have the same meaning today as a few thousand
>years ago? In a thousand years your chair will mean 'antique'. Social
>anthropologists will be studying the walk, the movement of the body, the
>clothes, decor, carpet, etc, etc. It wont have the same meaning. And how
>does
>your statement refute the 'strong relativity of concepts'?]
>
>Doyle Saylor
>
>[Jon: Thanks, and yes, I have been drinking too much coffee.]
>
>------------------------------
>
>Date:    Tue, 28 May 2002 13:12:52 -0600
>From:    Clark Goble <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Re: FILM-PHILOSOPHY Digest - <first ever> to 28 May 2002 (#2002-1)
>
> ___ Jon ___
>| Signs are not arbitrary! The pairing of a sr and sd is not
>| arbitrary! However the relationship between a particular sr
>| and sd is arbitrary. Hence we can have different languages.
>| This is according to Saussure.
> ___
>
>Just to add to Jon's comments to Doyle.
>
>When we speak of the arbitrariness of the sign, we have something particular
>in mind.  It is the idea that a sign isn't intrinsically tied to the object
>it represents.  So the word "dog" has no inherent connection to dogs.  There
>are two other senses of arbitrary in which the sign isn't arbitrary.  The
>first is Peirce's objection that because signs are signified and thus
>intrinsically tied to *thinking* that the thinking grounds them.  Thus they
>aren't arbitrary.  (The fact they are tied to an interpreter keeps them from
>being arbitrary)  That, however, is quite different from how it is typically
>used.
>
>Next is the issue of causality.  So the sign "smoke -> fire" isn't arbitrary
>because it relates to a causality.  However most would look at that as two
>issues.  The first would be the mental rule or Code that smoke implies fire.
>That would be different from the causal relationship between fire and smoke.
>Thus the rule is in a sense arbitrary.  However this point is debated and
>Peirce's semiotics certainly takes a different route with it.  For Peirce
>neither Icons nor Indexes are fully arbitrary.  (Icons signify based on
>resemblance while Indexes signify based on a causal relation.  Both
>resemblance and causality were, for Peirce, objective facts)
>
>One final point is that the classic example of postmodern semiotics is
>Derrida and he certainly makes the whole issue of the arbitrariness of the
>sign complex.  Signs become Traces and Reference become Differance.  However
>the complexities of Derrida's thought on the matter are probably beyond the
>topic here.  In some ways Derrida is looking to unify the Peirce and
>Saussure conceptions of the sign.  He references both although his work in
>_On Grammatology_ is primarily dealing with Saussure.  Through Heidegger and
>Levinas he finds a way of dealing with the fundamental issues of both
>thinkers.
>
>Just to provide a final bit of background, the issue of the arbitrariness of
>the sign which Saussure brings up arises out of the 19th century thinking
>about linguistics and signs.  A lot of it was a reaction against the
>medieval views of sign systems.  In medieval thought signs were not
>arbitrary at all.  This was probably due to the original platonic view of
>Forms with signs referencing the forms.  Even with the rise of Aristotle in
>medieval thought, the problem of scriptural interpretation tended to keep
>signs from being viewed as arbitrary.  The issue of the arbitrariness of the
>sign really gets to the heart of the medieval realist - nominalist debate.
>
>Anyway, as Jon points out, thought has matured since Saussure.  He was in
>most ways the father of modern linguistics.  But like most "fathers" of a
>movement, the movement has to fill in many gaps and correct many errors.
>
> ___ Doyle ___
>| The 'centre' (locus) of meaning is among free floating binary
>| oppositions (difference).
>|
> ___ Jon ___
>| Well there is no centre of meaning. I thought you had that?
>| What would a centre of meaning be anyway, and why do you
>| mourn it's loss, or crave a centre?
> ___
>
>I think that Doyle is unfamiliar with the heavy critiques of Saussure's
>'center.' I'd suggested, for different reasons, he study _On Grammatology_.
>However this problem of the origin is also one of the focuses of Derrida in
>that work.  So Doyle, if you are reading this post, you have one more reason
>to check on that book.  <grin>  Pretty much most of the assumptions you
>present he critiqued rather devastatingly.  (IMO)
>
>A few more directly film oriented comments.
>
> ___ Doyle ___
>| Violating that order would destroy the sense of motion
>| integral to the whole sense of motion.
> ___
>
>This assumes that the director wants a realist sense of motion.  However
>that assumption implies an ordering in which the realist presentation is
>higher than any other way of doing film.  Yet many directors break with this
>presentation.  For that matter the very movement of editing and scene
>changes is a break with the natural realist structure of film as
>representation.  You say that violating this order is to make arbitrary,
>implying that this is wrong.  Yet implicitly the act of editing is the move
>towards a more arbitrary sense of film.
>
>To adopt the language of Peirce - the initial filming has a more iconic play
>of sign.  During editing we move more towards the indexical (signs
>determined by the causal play of narrative) and then the symbolic (signs
>more fully under control by the director as artist)
>
>Even looking at subsets of the film as realist (non-arbitrary) is
>problematic. After all what is being filmed is more like a stage show than
>real life.  It is the memisis of a memisis.  So the question of whether the
>initial filming is iconic depends upon whether you are filming to show
>acting or filming to show what is acted.  While all film is iconic to some
>degree, it is just that: degree.
>
> ___ Jon ___
>| Meaning can be contigent on a historical context. What's wrong
>| with this? If I see the chair you've filmed, it is not the same
>| chair as you or anybody else sees. It will have a specific set
>| of connotations available to me and me only.
> ___
>
>This is certainly true.  However at the same time we often wish to
>distinguish what the film means in a public setting with more private
>readings of the film.  Further there is then the question of attempting to
>discern authorial intent.  While we can make any text mean anything we wish
>(to open text), justifying such readings is not open to unlimited semiosis
>(the closed text).
>
>(Meaning in this sense unlimited semiosis as having no limits not in the
>sense of having no end.  Even with certain views of the closed text there is
>still a kind of unlimited semiosis.)
>
>
>-- Clark Goble --- [log in to unmask] -----------------------------
>
>------------------------------
>
>Date:    Tue, 28 May 2002 13:55:01 -0600
>From:    Clark Goble <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Re: killer star wars debunking article
>
> ___ Doyle ___
>| The article describes the duel visual pathways now called
>| ventral and dorsal vision.  This particular embodiment
>| knowledge has a lot of practical insight about movies.
> ___
>
>I think a useful distinction might be between how we are given what we are
>given and what we are given.  To explain, we see via quantum effects in
>which photons are emitted by various substances with certain energies,
>interact with out eye and then are pre-structured by the brain.  However to
>focus too much on the structure of the brain is akin to focusing in too much
>on the physics of light.  Certainly there is a place for that.  (And heavens
>knows that's why cinematographers make the big bucks)  However to subsume
>the entire film project until neural structures is akin to subsuming the
>entire project under optics.  It excludes far more than it includes.
>
>So, don't get me wrong.  I recognize that knowing *how* the brain processes
>scenes is important.  It can be helpful to a director.
>
>You seem, however, to be moving past this and treating it as the ground of
>all film philosophy.  I'm not sure that is possible.
>
>I'd also take some exception to the use of "perception" in the paper.  There
>are two senses.  The first (and to me most important) is perception as what
>is given by reality to us as an object *of* consciousness.  This object is
>given a pre-structured object.  That pre-structuring takes place because of
>*how* we encounter the object we "see."  That is because of the effects of
>physics, neuro-biology, but also because we have other concepts with which
>we interpret what is given.  The givenness comes in terms of those other
>concepts.  For instance we don't simply see a tree.  We see the tree in
>terms of other trees we've seen before.  That occurs prior to any conscious
>interpretation.  (i.e. forming explicit connotations)
>
>The paper focuses more on the second sense of perception which is more the
>"how" of our perception in terms of stimuli.
>
>In my view of mind, no structuralist account of mind will ever be able to
>explain this first sense of perception.  It can only deal with the second
>sense.
>
>I can explain a little further some of the issues I see. However I think
>fundamentally that distinction rests at the heart of our conversation.
>
> ___ Doyle ___
>| Embodiment then leads one to understand movies as potentially
>| exchangeable like every day speech acts.
> ___
>
>Well I think we can understand film as a speech act without needing to go to
>the complexities of the paper.  Simply distinguish in film perlocutionary
>acts from illocutionary acts.  Illocutionary acts are what you do in an act.
>(i.e. ask a question, give an order, make a statement of fact).  Perlocution
>is completing the task.  (i.e. it includes effects as well as how)  Speech
>act theory distinguishes content (propositions) from these "doings" from
>these "effects."  Such a tripartite division of acts work relatively well
>for a general theory of action.
>
>Having said that though, there are many problems in my mind with Speech Act
>theory.  One is that I think mimesis is more complex than Searle allows.
>Derrida argues that even within Austin's original presentation of Speech
>Acts there are complexities that avoid this threefold taxonomy.  Further
>Speech Acts require a certain sense of "seriousness" which Derrida sees as
>flawed.  A full critique of Speech Acts can be found in _Limited Inc._  For
>a more analytic critique of the usual Searle approach to Speech Acts check
>out some of Grice's writings.  Grice, as I understand him, sees
>perlocutionary acts and illocutionary acts as being much more intertwined
>than Searle does.
>
>The big problem with Speech Acts in general is that they focus on speech (or
>by extension communication in general) as primarily conveying *information*.
>However this avoids many other functions of communication, such as
>aesthetics.  Further it doesn't deal well with the function of art, such as
>poetry, where the intent of the author isn't always to communicate an idea
>they have, but to foster the creation of ideas in the audience.  Thus
>communication isn't just for sharing a common idea but for creating ideas.
>
>Searle and even to a degree Grice consider those secondary effects from
>information.  Many, mainly in the continental tradition, disagree.  The
>issue of clarity or seriousness that Derrida raises against Searle actually
>ends up being a critique of this sense that communication is to clearly
>communicate a given set of propositions.  By making propositions the highest
>value in communication, I think they make a mistake.  Given the role of
>film, I'm not sure speech acts theory ends up being that helpful.  I say
>that because speech act would make even the emotional communication of a
>straight forward adventure narrative secondary.  (It would be a
>perlocutionary force, but would depend upon music's content being described
>in terms of propositions.  People have tried this, but not too successfully
>in my view)
>
>
>-- Clark Goble --- [log in to unmask] -----------------------------
>
>------------------------------
>
>Date:    Tue, 28 May 2002 14:19:11 -0600
>From:    Clark Goble <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Re: killer star wars debunking article
>
> ___ Doyle ___
>| Emotions arise in parallel to words through the body.  So I
>| get more meaning when I see a person speak than I get when I
>| read their words.
> ___
>
>This confuses clarity with content.  I don't get *more* meaning.  Rather I
>can discern meaning (potentially) easier.  However the ease with which I can
>understand a communication doesn't entail there being more meaning.
>
>Certainly I agree that it often is easier to communicate some things in a
>face to face meeting than with text.  The problems with email are an example
>of this.  Often people perceive a message as having an emotional content
>(i.e. attack) that it doesn't.  This sort of misunderstanding happens far
>less in other forms of communication.
>
>However my point basically is that while it may be easier to communicate
>with face to face speaking with body language it can be done with texts.
>Now writing is harder.  That's why we all are in awe of good writers.  We
>recognize that we don't have the skill they do.  The same is with film.  We
>might all wish to be Kurosawas, Spielbergs, Scorseses or whomever.  Yet we
>recognize we're not.
>
>Yet paradoxically the issue isn't just the ease of communication.  This gets
>back to the message I wrote this morning.  Communication isn't just about
>transferring messages.  It is also about the way in which we do this.  We
>recognize that a poem's value is in excess of its content.  So a poem by say
>Robert Browning isn't just about the propositions he intended it to
>communicate.  It is also about how he used the medium and more importantly
>how the poem functions as I read it.  By that "how the poem functions" I
>don't simply mean perlocutionary force, in the sense Searle uses that word.
>I mean that it engenders an unique act of creation in us the readers.  That
>creation is not determinative.
>
>So, to return to "embodiment," you are speaking of a potential tool for film
>makers.  And certainly an awareness of psychology can always be helpful.
>Yet part of why we go to movies isn't just the clarity of message.  It is
>the artistry of making that message.  To a degree, that artistry would be
>limited were clarity to be put first.
>
>(Which isn't to say clarity doesn't have its role)
>
> ___ Doyle ___
>| That footage seen a thousand years from now would have the
>| same meaning as now.
> ___
>
>I disagree.  First the meaning, even in Speech Act theory, is in terms of a
>community.  A thousand years from now the community the film was composed
>for will be long gone.  Now we could say that it "means" in terms of the
>community when it was composed.  But if we say that, then it means as now
>only when we move it back to now.  But, for any future audience, that can't
>be done.
>
>This issue is really the same issue that arose in the development of
>hermeneutics in general.  Modern hermeneutics arose in parallel with
>Protestantism.  Since the Protestants rejected the role of tradition in
>reading the Bible, they had to come up with a different way of reading.
>That was the notion of original intent.  Yet they also had the problem that
>the Bible was supposed to be readable.  i.e. it wasn't of "private
>interpretation."  So in theory a regular Joe ought to get the same meaning
>as some scholar who is a specialist in 1st century archaeology and
>anthropology.  Of course that doesn't happen.  So there are huge issues of
>how the Bible is publicly readable.  (I'll skip the discussion of the
>various solutions for this and how they tended to polarize and sometimes
>radicalize the various movements within Protestantism)
>
>What you are suggesting is that every film is like the ideal Protestant
>Bible.  Not only is its meaning in terms of the original community it was
>given to, but that it retains a meaning so that it is readable in the same
>basic way for any community.
>
>Allow me an example of where this fails.  (I can't take credit for this
>one - it comes from Alter's semiotics of Biblical narrative)  Consider the
>following scene.  A man is with a woman out on a porch.  It's a beautiful
>evening with a full moon.  There are a few candles in the background.  He
>gets down on one knee, reaches into his pocket and pulls out a box.  Inside
>the box is a ring.  The camera cuts to the woman's face where it registers
>excitement.  <CUT>  The rest of the scene is left out.
>
>Now put that back into 12th century Japan and show that segment to a bunch
>of Japanese.  Will it mean the same thing it does to us?  This marriage
>proposal is a classic example of what is called a type setting.  Type
>settings act as almost semantic units.  What you describe as "embodiment"
>really is a more general notion that includes many kinds of type settings.
>
>The problem is that these, like any semantic unit, depends upon context.  To
>understand this message you must understand English.  Thus for any text, to
>gain its meaning, you must have access to a kind of extra text which is
>about the context.  The problem is that those aren't the text.  They are
>external to the text.  Change the context and you change the meaning.
>
>There are more problems than just that.  But I've written far too much so
>far.
>
>
>
>-- Clark Goble --- [log in to unmask] -----------------------------
>
>------------------------------
>
>Date:    Tue, 28 May 2002 13:10:48 -0700
>From:    Doyle Saylor <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Re: killer star wars debunking article
>
>Reply to Clark Goble Tuesday, May 28, 2002 12:55 PM
>
>Hello Clark,
>As I wrote to Jon earlier I will be gone through Monday.  I think making a
>quick reply as I did before doesn't help move the discussion forward.  On
>the other hand things will grow cold when I don't reply fairly soon.  I hope
>that I can pursue this conversation without the loss time seems to wreck
>upon thought.  I will reply in a few days.
>Thanks,
>Doyle Saylor
>
>------------------------------
>
>Date:    Tue, 28 May 2002 14:30:08 -0600
>From:    Clark Goble <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Re: Speech, writing, film, philosophy
>
> ___ Sarah ___
>| What, in your opinion, was Sartre lacking as a philosopher?
> ___
>
>Well, he didn't really push philosophy forward much, IMO.  Further he didn't
>really make arguments.  He was more a person who used philosophy to generate
>new ideas which he then wrote about.  I see him more as a creative polemist
>than a philosopher.  But I admit I'm biased.  He seemed more a political
>activist than a philosopher in my book.  Even his philosophical positions
>now seem, in hindsight, a little superficial.  He was an important figure in
>French philosophy.  However I think that others were better thinkers.  He
>just was a better writer.
>
>The main complaints on philosophical grounds tend to be that he didn't fully
>grasp the Heidegger he was largely reacting to.  Further Heidegger's aim
>was, like Kant's, to overcome nilhilism.  Sartre in many ways returns
>towards that nihilism.  (Although once again not everyone agrees)
>
>Better philosophers from the same general period are Levinas, Ricouer, and
>Gadamer.  Levinas himself tends not to make many arguments and what
>arguments he makes often are flawed.  However he has some good discussions
>about how we encounter other people.  He was ostensibly trying to fix what
>was wrong in Heidegger, especially given his Jewishness and Heidegger's
>Nazism.  I think most concede though that he misread Heidegger and his
>"corrections" were actually what was in Heidegger already.  (Which isn't to
>downplay what he contributed to philosophy)
>
>
>-- Clark Goble --- [log in to unmask] -----------------------------
>
>------------------------------
>
>End of FILM-PHILOSOPHY Digest - 28 May 2002 - Special issue (#2002-2)
>*********************************************************************
>


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