Interesting, Warren and Mike. I 'm in a discipline where the use of
'reading' phenomena as text is problematic. The linguistic convention
of 'reading' doesn't solve the problem, rather it indicates how the
disciplinary common-sensical enables one to get on with the job for
which its practitioners have been prepared.
Film necessarily escapes its directors (as text escapes its authors),
regardless of the infinite care a director gives to a film. A
completed film exists in a meta-relationship to the director (and to
all the others) who created it, and to its viewers (when there are
any). This is so because a film is a totality that can be
deconstructed, fragmented, destroyed but not encompassed from outside
itself - complete, the film escapes its authors and analysts
(regardless of what they do to it; regardless of whether it
disappears). So there is no final authoritative voice on a film. The
difference then between extracting structures and imposing structures
is not only nuanced but more so, delicate and fragile.
Don
>Don writes:
>
>So, Warren, do you consider 'seeing' or 'perceiving' shot-by-shot
>the equivalent or the same as 'reading'?
>
>The key distinction is between watching a film and analyzing it;
>whether one calls analysis a reading or not is of secondary
>importance.
>
>A far more interesting distinction is proposed by Michael Rabiger in
>his manual of film directing: 'Read from the film rather than read
>into it'. This brings us back to the main point of discussion ?
>whether we extract structures and meanings from a film or impose
>them on the film (God's truth vs hocus pocus).
>
>Reference: Michael Rabiger, (1996), *Directing: Film Techniques and
>Aesthetics*, second edition (London, Focal Press), p. 58.
>
>Warren Buckland
>Editor, New Review of Film and Television Studies:
>http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/17400309.asp
>
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