This is not a comment directed to Ken's posing of the question for his
research or Lisa's helpful bibliographic response, but is a general
question for the group: does the notion that "film (or at least
hollywood film) is an inherently conservative medium because the way it
necessarily focuses on a single protagonist leaves out considerations
of groups or class
backgrounds--American individualism" strike anybody else as very, very
silly? In movies (and novels, paintings, operas, etc etc) the point
surely is that elements, such as characters, can (and usually do) STAND
FOR MORE THAN THEMSELVES - so that, for instance, a character can serve
as a 'figure' for a nation, a class, a gender, a social-status-level, a
psychopathology, a 'form of being', etc etc, whatever the CONTEXT
creates as its significance. The notion that 'because a film centres on
individuals it cannot therefore address communal/collective issues'
seems to me the WORST kind of 'literalism. Any nuanced opinions on
this?
Adrian
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