on 28/3/03 6:16 PM, Steve Welburn at [log in to unmask] wrote:
>> Why is the fact that it is relatively recent (the mobile
>> phones in _The Matrix_ now seem terribly outdated) significant?
>
> The significance is that most people involved in a discussion will have had
> the chance to see it, as opposed to picking a 1960s film that no-one gets to
> see in the cinema any more...
>
> Steve
In what discussion? In a film class, one only has the limits of one's video
collection, library, or rental store to show films around which to base
discussions of technology. In a book, one can legitimately write about films
from any period without a huge amount of problemss as one as one tries to
maintain a certain academic rigour. Finally, on this list I doubt you'd find
too many listers who'd baulk at you talking about _The Conversation_, _Dial
M for Murder_... or many other 'non' recent films that deal with issues of
telecommunications-related anxieties. There are films from 1909 (Griffith's
Lonely Villa, Lonedale Operator) which show the anxieties brought about by
telecommunication. _Metropolis_, _Logan's Run_ and _THX 1138_, are all films
that deal with worlds ostensibly run by machines, or in which people are
'slaves' to them.
The only discussion I can envisage in which the _The Matrix_ is a valuable
example because it's recent is a conversation down the pub; which is funny,
because that's where I think the level of its philosophical discussion about
"we're all slaves to the machine" belongs.
Damian
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