From: Chuck Kleinhans (email suppressed)
Date: Wed Jan 14 2009 - 18:41:55 PST
On Jan 14, 2009, at 5:09 PM, Fred Camper wrote:
> Chuck Kleinhans wrote:
>
>> But surely Fred would agree that photography and cinema can
>> provide documents that change history and the comprehension of
>> historical events....
>
> Yes, of course. My post was a polemic meant for a particular context.
> How do you convey the real truth about all wars in a film, except
> with voiceover and text, in which case, wouldn't an essay on the
> subject be better and clearer?
>
I think Fred and I are actually in pretty close agreement here, and
if we could sit down together (like when I get back to Chicago this
Spring) we could hash it out.
But dispassionate rationality (an essay) has its own problems: it can
remove agency, personal engagement, and end up with the clinical
distance that allows real living humans to be "collateral damage"
etc. The irony that dominates our time, be that in casual snark or
bitter critique, cuts off a more sensuous or emotional dimension of
moral thought. There should be a place in political media for the
cry, the scream, the laugh, the angry outburst.
Maybe another way to think of this is that if someone actually made a
film or video that on its own changed people's minds (certainly the
dream of advertisers and propagandists) would we really be happy
about that? Instead of the day-by-day work of political organizing,
you could just show a film and everyone would agree. Nice fantasy.
CHUCK KLEINHANS
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For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.