What is funny is that the shot can be true (and every shot is true on one
level), but it's still lying. Shot of Zelig is true to a man that stood
before camere, but it's still lying - it is talking, not about that man,
i.e. Woody Allen, but of Zelig, imaginary character.
I took the concept of trace and testimony, which I found in G. Currie, and
combined it with Corner's (The Art of Record) idea of truth as referential
(indexical) or discursive.
Trace is indexical truth of the shot: on this idexical level you see a man
in Zapruder's footage and you see that this men is beeing killed. On this
level the shot is true. But in the moment, when you ask: "What is it, that
the shot shows?", you are on the level of testimony, discursive truth. A
shot is muted in itself, it can not speak. And although the truth of
Zapruder's footage is limited with its indexical truth (you can not deny
that there is a man beeing shot, for example, not a woman), its meaning, its
discoursive truth can vary and is not guaranted by this indexical truth.
Barbara
-----Original Message-----
From: Film-Philosophy Salon [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Ross Macleay
Sent: 24. marec 2009 7:59
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Digest - 21 Mar 2009 to 23 Mar 2009 -
Henry
I think the truth is clear. It clearly shows apparently Kennedy being
apparently shot. Who fired it and from where, and even whether he is being
murdered are inferences to be made beyond the truth of the footage.
Further to this:
I made my initial inquiry because I was curious about film and truth in the
context of considering the significance of film as both a document and
medium of historiography.
Mike and other's questions about whether films assert have an interesting
affinity with a theory of the 'document' that I think is well put by the
English philosopher Michael Oakeshott. He sees documents as performances and
vestiges of the past which, even if they are assertions, are not as
documents, primarily assertions or primarily true or false. What historical
inquiry makes of them, infers from them, comes next.
From the viewpoint of historical inquiry, which is concerned with truth,
such a primary attitude to documents is precisely what the Zapruder footage,
and all shots demand.
Ross
> The interesting thing about the Zapruder film is that it clearly and
> undisputably shows Kennedy being murdered, yet it is a typically
> undecidable postmodern artifact in that it requires interpretation and
> contextualisation in order to be seen as presenting 'the truth.' We
> can see the fatal head shot, but we cannot tell where it really came
> from or whether there was a conspiracy or not. The Zapruder footage
> therefore is at its most powerful when we already believe in one
> version of the events. Which in some way relates to Bazin's notion of
> realism - we have to believe before we can truly see.
>
> Henry
>
>
>
>
>
>
>>> 7 Tarski. And what about Tarski's in/famous formulation of truth
>>> conditions, the 'disquotational theory' which goes something like
>>> this: The sentence 'Kennedy was shot in Dallas in 1963' is true if
>>> and only if Kennedy was shot in Dallas in 1963.
>>>
>>> Is there anything like a video formulation of this truth condition.
>>> Consider a video that shows: The shot (e.g. the Zapruder footage)
>>> 'Kennedy is shot in Dallas in 1963' is true if and only if Kennedy
>>> is shot in Dallas in 1963? IE is there a Tarskian version of film/
>>> video truth? I don't think so. I don't know. But can we do this if
>>> we use a voiceover (ie audio and video)?
>>
>> Ross - I don't get this last section. Can you say a bit more about
>> it?
>> Erica Sheen
>> *
>>
>
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