Cinema killed vaudeville deader than dead however.
Poor Al.
um, dude, havent u worked in academia like your whole life? trust me holmes, literature is dead. there are basically 2 major publishing houses in the states. random house and harper collins. they own all them smaller publishing joints. the reason? lit is dead.
For solidifiying the Superhero genre/era that we are currently in.
Eh - you could have said that about the Tim Burton Batman movies back in the '90s. Or the Chris Reeves' I>Superman[/i] movies of the '80s. The frequency may have picked up with improvements in FX technology but for the most part, I think it's hard to draw a clear line as to when the superhero era really began.
And in any case, I don't know how many people would NOW consider the I>Batman[/i] films a definitive statement of the '90s so I'm not certain even something as relatively "good" as I>Spiderman 2[/i] is going to hold up for the 00s.
I did say "Solidifiying" the genre. Batman in the 90's killed itself. The Mask and The Crow were hits but not by the standard of Spiderman. Blade really ushered in this the current resurgence.
Batmon: do you think most of the people who went to see "Blade" went b/c they knew it was a comic book adapation? I think the whole "Wesley Snipes = vampiric vampire killer" was a pretty good sell on its own.
But yeah, you're definitely right about how Batman suicided itself. Ugh, I feel nauseus just thinking about it.
but lets just stop and think for a moment. we are discussing cinema. a deviant artform in itself. im trying to say its prolly the single most reason for the beginning of the end of literature. and i'll bet the farm that them book dudes from way back were crying the same poo except about films. that cinema was a progressive dumbing down of humanity. that by literally portraying a story, it bounds the imagination. so i ask u, do you feel dumb, punk? well...do ya?
For solidifiying the Superhero genre/era that we are currently in.
Eh - you could have said that about the Tim Burton Batman movies back in the '90s. Or the Chris Reeves' I>Superman[/i] movies of the '80s. The frequency may have picked up with improvements in FX technology but for the most part, I think it's hard to draw a clear line as to when the superhero era really began.
And in any case, I don't know how many people would NOW consider the I>Batman[/i] films a definitive statement of the '90s so I'm not certain even something as relatively "good" as I>Spiderman 2[/i] is going to hold up for the 00s.
I did say "Solidifiying" the genre. Batman in the 90's killed itself. The Mask and The Crow were hits but not by the standard of Spiderman. Blade really ushered in this the current resurgence.
I think Batman was a huge thing for the 90's. You still see people in those black t-shirts with the yellow bat signal. That was the smiley face tee of the 90's. Batman did ruin itself. The 00's are gonna be remembered for youtube!
For solidifiying the Superhero genre/era that we are currently in.
Eh - you could have said that about the Tim Burton Batman movies back in the '90s. Or the Chris Reeves' I>Superman[/i] movies of the '80s. The frequency may have picked up with improvements in FX technology but for the most part, I think it's hard to draw a clear line as to when the superhero era really began.
And in any case, I don't know how many people would NOW consider the I>Batman[/i] films a definitive statement of the '90s so I'm not certain even something as relatively "good" as I>Spiderman 2[/i] is going to hold up for the 00s.
I did say "Solidifiying" the genre. Batman in the 90's killed itself. The Mask and The Crow were hits but not by the standard of Spiderman. Blade really ushered in this the current resurgence.
Batmon: do you think most of the people who went to see "Blade" went b/c they knew it was a comic book adapation? I think the whole "Wesley Snipes = vampiric vampire killer" was a pretty good sell on its own.
But yeah, you're definitely right about how Batman suicided itself. Ugh, I feel nauseus just thinking about it.
Blade's impact was from within the comic book communnity. The genre had stabbed itself like Pretty Toney. The studios realized w/ Blade, takin a chance on a C-Level "Black" hero, reaping the rewards w/ regular movie goers and the "Wizard" readers, that the Superhero thing wasnt a craproll anymore.
Cinema killed vaudeville deader than dead however.
Poor Al.
um, dude, havent u worked in academia like your whole life? trust me holmes, literature is dead. there are basically 2 major publishing houses in the states. random house and harper collins. they own all them smaller publishing joints. the reason? lit is dead.
Shigster:
You might be surprised to learn that not all academics study literature. Some study, you know, exploding stars and sea cucumbers and shit. Not that I study those either.
While I don't discount the consolidation of the publishing industry as being of concern, the same trend has occurred in other cultural industries and I don't know if any of this spells the 'death' of said forms.
Seriously, there's no good books being written anymore? Maybe I'm confused since most of the academics I do know, who study literature, usually study 20th century lit. Is that scholarly necrophilia?
to me your just saying its alright to accept stupidity and cheap laughs or cheesy overdone cgi bs, in exchange for movies that make you really think or challenge your imagination, emotions, etc..., just because thats the way it is and no use doing anything about it. Im not to cool with that idea. I dont understand why the further we move into the future there is this need to sacrifice quality to just hit people on the most basic of feelings. Like "HE GOT HIT IN HEAD WIT DA SHOVEL! HE HE HE! ME THINKS IT FUNNY!". Movies still sell and dvds make tons of money so why does it have to be so badly executed? Is it the fact that people who are in the industry just think everyone is retarded and just "give em what they want and they will be happy", instead of trying something new and experimenting, or actually applying passion instead of greed into the equation?
Sounds a lot like the music biz to me.
But hey if your cool with this its gonna be a brave new world.
oh and i know i've recommended this book here before, but i can't stress how engrossing & entertaining it is. completely fast read
Very fun, light read. Filled with lots of trashy gossip that provides some insight at the same time.
There's no doubt that Hollywood underwent a big change at the dawn of the 80s. I feel very strongly that it was a change for the worse. Not to detract from the great films of that era, of which there were many, but the industry as a whole became embarrassingly bloated on the one hand, and artistically very cautious and rigidly controlled. I think Vincent Camby summed up the problem pretty well in his review of "Jaws": "What is Jaws but a big budget Roger Corman film?"
Cinema killed vaudeville deader than dead however.
Poor Al.
um, dude, havent u worked in academia like your whole life? trust me holmes, literature is dead. there are basically 2 major publishing houses in the states. random house and harper collins. they own all them smaller publishing joints. the reason? lit is dead.
Shigster:
You might be surprised to learn that not all academics study literature. Some study, you know, exploding stars and sea cucumbers and shit. Not that I study those either.
While I don't discount the consolidation of the publishing industry as being of concern, the same trend has occurred in other cultural industries and I don't know if any of this spells the 'death' of said forms.
Seriously, there's no good books being written anymore? Maybe I'm confused since most of the academics I do know, who study literature, usually study 20th century lit. Is that scholarly necrophilia?
not what im saying. im saying its the industry of secondary education that basically props up the publishing business. sure good books are written. but lets not kid ourselves. davinci code or whatever oprah book is hot is easily more accessible to people as a movie than a book. everything from books to magazines to newspapers are feeling the crunch. im not saying cinema is the sole reason. but it did get the ball rolling. innernet will finish off the job.
Blade's impact was from within the comic book communnity. The genre had stabbed itself like Pretty Toney. The studios realized w/ Blade, takin a chance on a C-Level "Black" hero, reaping the rewards w/ regular movie goers and the "Wizard" readers, that the Superhero thing wasnt a craproll anymore.
Speaking of series that killed themselves though. I>Blade 3[/i]. Yikes.
everything from books to magazines to newspapers are feeling the crunch. im not saying cinema is the sole reason. but it did get the ball rolling. innernet will finish off the job.
to me your just saying its alright to accept stupidity and cheap laughs or cheesy overdone cgi bs, in exchange for movies that make you really think or challenge your imagination, emotions, etc..., just because thats the way it is and no use doing anything about it. Im not to cool with that idea. I dont understand why the further we move into the future there is this need to sacrifice quality to just hit people on the most basic of feelings. Like "HE GOT HIT IN HEAD WIT DA SHOVEL! HE HE HE! ME THINKS IT FUNNY!". Movies still sell and dvds make tons of money so why does it have to be so badly executed? Is it the fact that people who are in the industry just think everyone is retarded and just "give em what they want and they will be happy", instead of trying something new and experimenting, or actually applying passion instead of greed into the equation?
Sounds a lot like the music biz to me.
But hey if your cool with this its gonna be a brave new world.
not at all what im saying. im saying take a harder look at them fart flicks instead of passing it off as low-brow retardo garbage. i dont accept them on those terms. they are reflective of not only current political trends, but also a sort of return to the beginning of cinema. i am not saying that is their intention. it prolly isnt. but i wouldnt go so far as to say it is a dumbing down of culture.
i mean, isnt it more retarded to point at some old shit from the 70s and say "why cant we make movies like this anymore?" that is not progress. the jackass films are far superior in their media savvy. sure theyre a lot more brute in their execution, but cinema is more complex now than it was in the 70s or whatever. now, aside from making a good product, you must also have the know how to navigate through corporate america. marketing. etc.
I haven't read the whole thread, but it didn't look like anyone said a decade prior to the 60's? Maybe they did and I missed it among the Porkys & Spider-man JPEGs ...
30's rule, okey? Especially pre-code, but even post-code they were bringing it. Special shout-out to the "poetic realism" cinema of late-1930's France - viva le Jean Gabin!
everything from books to magazines to newspapers are feeling the crunch. im not saying cinema is the sole reason. but it did get the ball rolling. innernet will finish off the job.
You're talking about declining interest in a medium but not necessarily the loss of the idea informing it. Things still aspire to be literary - they just don't always happen to be in physical books.
Even something like I>The Birth of a Nation[/i] - morally reprehensible as it was - would have been an excellent example of the transfer of storytelling from literature to cinema (assuming one would deign to call Dixon's "The Clansmen" as "literature").
Similarly, cinema didn't kill vaudeville in terms of ending the basic appeal of the form. It folded it into a new medium, just as vaudeville absorbed the minstrel show.
Newspapers and magazines are feeling the crunch in terms of declining readership for print publications - and yeah, I mourn that too - but the interest in reading and consumption of news/information has not disappeared; it's jumped mediums. Something is lost in that, obviously, but in another sense, the content hasn't really been lost even if the form has transformed.
The OOs will no doubt be remembered as a further progression on the relaxing of censorship in mainstream cinema with the surge of studio horror movies getting more and more gory and the release of a number of films that feature, but are not entirely focused around, hardcore sex. I'll be interested to see if this continues or another backlash develops.
Also, as mentioned, the ever growing rise of the epic action movie and the overkill of cgi. Seems that, outside the superhero genre, not a lot of high concept action films are being made anymore - their place in the market seems to have been filled by the neverending stream of fratpack comedies.
Now everyone has a DVD player it seems that people who may not have explored films outside the big studio releases are more open to foreign language films so I would expect/hope the public continue to expand their horizons.
Oh yeah, back to the original question - for me it would probably have to be 69-79 but noone should sleep on the brilliance of many eighties films as well.
i said teens and 20s. the most wildly experimental decades in cinema. before rules of any sort of narrative.
Yeah, I should have known you would represent.
I left them alone just because I consider the silent era so completely different from the sound era that they can't really be viewed in the same light.
everything from books to magazines to newspapers are feeling the crunch. im not saying cinema is the sole reason. but it did get the ball rolling. innernet will finish off the job.
You're talking about declining interest in a medium but not necessarily the loss of the idea informing it. Things still aspire to be literary - they just don't always happen to be in physical books.
Even something like I>The Birth of a Nation[/i] - morally reprehensible as it was - would have been an excellent example of the transfer of storytelling from literature to cinema (assuming one would deign to call Dixon's "The Clansmen" as "literature").
Similarly, cinema didn't kill vaudeville in terms of ending the basic appeal of the form. It folded it into a new medium, just as vaudeville absorbed the minstrel show.
Newspapers and magazines are feeling the crunch in terms of declining readership for print publications - and yeah, I mourn that too - but the interest in reading and consumption of news/information has not disappeared; it's jumped mediums. Something is lost in that, obviously, but in another sense, the content hasn't really been lost even if the form has transformed.
well odub, then we agree. vaudeville didnt die. it just changed names. ever hear of TV?
Newspapers and magazines are feeling the crunch in terms of declining readership for print publications - and yeah, I mourn that too - but the interest in reading and consumption of news/information has not disappeared; it's jumped mediums. Something is lost in that, obviously, but in another sense, the content hasn't really been lost even if the form has transformed.
I gotta disagree with this. Sometimes the "form" means everything. There's pros and cons to everything, and for the internet, it's pros would be instant accessibility. It's instantly disposable as well. It's like gaining greater meaning and enjoyment from a compact disc with lyrics rather than an mp3. Change is good, but too much is not good. It's like where do you draw the line? I'd rather someone be subjective and passionate about something reading the newspaper, than some know-it-all who just knows facts off the internet.
Is it this easily attainable, that the next dude who just started listening to Thievery Corporation and goes to a Stonesthrow event can start claiming what's good music and what isn't.
I'm down with elitism, and I'll keep my mouth shut til then.
well odub, then we agree. vaudeville didnt die. it just changed names. ever hear of TV?
Exactly. So where exactly has literature died? In form? In content? Both?
well. i guess im thinking comparatively. there was a time when fools would sit around and discuss books. there were movements based around literature. it was more or less the sole vessel for relaying information. however, now, literature is less important in all those regards. there are no major movements surrounding any type of literature. outside of a few crazed housewives and faux_intellectualzz, there isnt really a culture surrounding books. information is relayed through newer and quicker forms of technology. thusly, lit is dead. yes?
Newspapers and magazines are feeling the crunch in terms of declining readership for print publications - and yeah, I mourn that too - but the interest in reading and consumption of news/information has not disappeared; it's jumped mediums. Something is lost in that, obviously, but in another sense, the content hasn't really been lost even if the form has transformed.
I gotta disagree with this. Sometimes the "form" means everything. There's pros and cons to everything, and for the internet, it's pros would be instant accessibility. It's instantly disposable as well. It's like gaining greater meaning and enjoyment from a compact disc with lyrics rather than an mp3. Change is good, but too much is not good. It's like where do you draw the line? I'd rather someone be subjective and passionate about something reading the newspaper, than some know-it-all who just knows facts off the internet.
I'm not saying "it's all the same." But I think Shig's original post has considerable wisdom: mediums transform and there's things lost and things gained and there's always things to mourn in what gets lost. YET, the conversation can seem eerily similar. If fans of books wrung their hands over cinema's rise, we'll be doing the same now as MP3s push out physical musical media, etc. But that doesn't mean these transitions are inherently "bad" or "good."
But I think some perspective is needed here. Is reading news off a web page any more "temporary" than a newspaper that gets throw away once you've reached your subway stop?
The difference in a newspaper and the internet that you outline above is actually not even one of form - it's one of fact-checking. If websites were vetted to the same degree where you can "trust" its facts as some newspapers (and shit, even newspapers are hella suspect in some cases), then what's been lost?
I mean, my students cite wikipedia. Shit makes me nervous but then I pause and think, "was I>The World Book[/i] of my youth that much more reliable?"
Newspapers and magazines are feeling the crunch in terms of declining readership for print publications - and yeah, I mourn that too - but the interest in reading and consumption of news/information has not disappeared; it's jumped mediums. Something is lost in that, obviously, but in another sense, the content hasn't really been lost even if the form has transformed.
I gotta disagree with this. Sometimes the "form" means everything. There's pros and cons to everything, and for the internet, it's pros would be instant accessibility. It's instantly disposable as well. It's like gaining greater meaning and enjoyment from a compact disc with lyrics rather than an mp3. Change is good, but too much is not good. It's like where do you draw the line? I'd rather someone be subjective and passionate about something reading the newspaper, than some know-it-all who just knows facts off the internet.
I'm not saying "it's all the same." But I think Shig's original post has considerable wisdom: mediums transform and there's things lost and things gained and there's always things to mourn in what gets lost. YET, the conversation can seem eerily similar. If fans of books wrung their hands over cinema's rise, we'll be doing the same now as MP3s push out physical musical media, etc. But that doesn't mean these transitions are inherently "bad" or "good."
But I think some perspective is needed here. Is reading news off a web page any more "temporary" than a newspaper that gets throw away once you've reached your subway stop?
The difference in a newspaper and the internet that you outline above is actually not even one of form - it's one of fact-checking. If websites were vetted to the same degree where you can "trust" its facts as some newspapers (and shit, even newspapers are hella suspect in some cases), then what's been lost?
I mean, my students cite wikipedia. Shit makes me nervous but then I pause and think, "was I>The World Book[/i] of my youth that much more reliable?"
I don't think the question is one of reliability of facts. More of meaning and weight of words thrown around on the internet as opposed to the newspaper, more concrete and permanent forms of media. Sure Magazines and Newspapers are just as disposable, but I would like to think that they impact people on a more individual level. That's what I mean by "soul" of the culture.
Actually, most of the time it's not even facts that we are looking for. It's some sort of story empowering us, inspiring us, or giving us insight. This internet thing is heartless and emotionless. I'd rather much read an editorial by JA Adande about Kobe Bryant in the LA times.
For me, that's more important than factual details. Besides nobody cares about facts anyway. That ain't where the soul is.
well odub, then we agree. vaudeville didnt die. it just changed names. ever hear of TV?
Exactly. So where exactly has literature died? In form? In content? Both?
well. i guess im thinking comparatively. there was a time when fools would sit around and discuss books. there were movements based around literature. it was more or less the sole vessel for relaying information. however, now, literature is less important in all those regards. there are no major movements surrounding any type of literature. outside of a few crazed housewives and faux_intellectualzz, there isnt really a culture surrounding books. information is relayed through newer and quicker forms of technology. thusly, lit is dead. yes?
Well, for one thing, I'd say there there's more than "a few" of those crazed housewives. I think the resurgent interest in things like reading groups and book clubs represents an attempted return to centering a domestic cultural life around literature but sure - it can't compete to be the sole/majority form relative to t.v., movies, internet, music, etc.
However, if being "the sole vessel for relaying information" is the necessary quality for a cultural form to be considered "alive," what ISN'T dead? Media hasn't just transformed but it's splintered and diversified. There's multiple avenues to accessing information but that doesn't - to me - spell the death of pre-existing forms simply b/c their monopoly has been lost.
This said, I don't study lit or lit trends so I can't counter your arguments with any quantitative evidence to the contrary. But, as a whole, I tend to mistrust statements that say, "[cultural form here] is dead" unless there's no one actively invested in participating or producing it. So from that point of view, literature still thrives insofar as there's millions of people actively reading and thousands writing. In contrast, the sheet music industry is dead.
well odub, then we agree. vaudeville didnt die. it just changed names. ever hear of TV?
Exactly. So where exactly has literature died? In form? In content? Both?
well. i guess im thinking comparatively. there was a time when fools would sit around and discuss books. there were movements based around literature. it was more or less the sole vessel for relaying information. however, now, literature is less important in all those regards. there are no major movements surrounding any type of literature. outside of a few crazed housewives and faux_intellectualzz, there isnt really a culture surrounding books. information is relayed through newer and quicker forms of technology. thusly, lit is dead. yes?
I'm not coming at your aggressively here so don't mistake my tone when I say this:
You sound old.
The idea that the internet "lacks soul" sounds suspiciously like people who've said this about, well, EVERY NEW FORM OF POPULAR CULTURE ever.
Just saying.
I'm grumpy, getting old, and currently sick.
And I have some time on my hands right now.
I'm down with elitism too. I'm not down with rapid changes, and jumping onto whatever's hot at the moment.
And I can relate to the old Japanese people that say "internet and text msging" are killing traditional, more refined modes of expression. Now everything's "buy now, $% hearts, Cya". It's about instant gratification, instant rewards, instant feedback. Our values are being lost in the mix, wouldn't you say?
well, i think its pretty clear that i dont really study lit trends or anything. however, i do take issue with the throngs of housewives u claim read books. at best, i would speculate that they OWN those books. but i hardly think your average american actually takes the time to read them. but i honestly dont know so whatever.
i do know that there isnt any major movement in/around literature. the last major one was prolly the beats, over 50 years ago. and that was poetry, a truncated form of literature at that.
art and literature always seemed to be married to me. however, now, if u go to art galleries or whatever, its predominantly a bunch a tshirt maken fools doing wheat pastes and cute cartoons. purely visual joints. which i theorize has widened the gap between any sort of lit/art bond.
Comments
um, dude, havent u worked in academia like your whole life? trust me holmes, literature is dead. there are basically 2 major publishing houses in the states. random house and harper collins. they own all them smaller publishing joints. the reason? lit is dead.
Batmon: do you think most of the people who went to see "Blade" went b/c they knew it was a comic book adapation? I think the whole "Wesley Snipes = vampiric vampire killer" was a pretty good sell on its own.
But yeah, you're definitely right about how Batman suicided itself. Ugh, I feel nauseus just thinking about it.
You ain't that fly son.
I think Batman was a huge thing for the 90's. You still see people in those black t-shirts with the yellow bat signal. That was the smiley face tee of the 90's. Batman did ruin itself. The 00's are gonna be remembered for youtube!
Blade's impact was from within the comic book communnity. The genre had stabbed itself like Pretty Toney.
The studios realized w/ Blade, takin a chance on a C-Level "Black" hero, reaping the rewards w/ regular movie goers and the "Wizard" readers, that the Superhero thing wasnt a craproll anymore.
Shigster:
You might be surprised to learn that not all academics study literature. Some study, you know, exploding stars and sea cucumbers and shit. Not that I study those either.
While I don't discount the consolidation of the publishing industry as being of concern, the same trend has occurred in other cultural industries and I don't know if any of this spells the 'death' of said forms.
Seriously, there's no good books being written anymore? Maybe I'm confused since most of the academics I do know, who study literature, usually study 20th century lit. Is that scholarly necrophilia?
to me your just saying its alright to accept stupidity and cheap laughs or cheesy overdone cgi bs, in exchange for movies that make you really think or challenge your imagination, emotions, etc..., just because thats the way it is and no use doing anything about it. Im not to cool with that idea. I dont understand why the further we move into the future there is this need to sacrifice quality to just hit people on the most basic of feelings. Like "HE GOT HIT IN HEAD WIT DA SHOVEL! HE HE HE! ME THINKS IT FUNNY!". Movies still sell and dvds make tons of money so why does it have to be so badly executed? Is it the fact that people who are in the industry just think everyone is retarded and just "give em what they want and they will be happy", instead of trying something new and experimenting, or actually applying passion instead of greed into the equation?
Sounds a lot like the music biz to me.
But hey if your cool with this its gonna be a brave new world.
Very fun, light read. Filled with lots of trashy gossip that provides some insight at the same time.
There's no doubt that Hollywood underwent a big change at the dawn of the 80s. I feel very strongly that it was a change for the worse. Not to detract from the great films of that era, of which there were many, but the industry as a whole became embarrassingly bloated on the one hand, and artistically very cautious and rigidly controlled. I think Vincent Camby summed up the problem pretty well in his review of "Jaws": "What is Jaws but a big budget Roger Corman film?"
not what im saying. im saying its the industry of secondary education that basically props up the publishing business. sure good books are written. but lets not kid ourselves. davinci code or whatever oprah book is hot is easily more accessible to people as a movie than a book. everything from books to magazines to newspapers are feeling the crunch. im not saying cinema is the sole reason. but it did get the ball rolling. innernet will finish off the job.
Speaking of series that killed themselves though. I>Blade 3[/i]. Yikes.
This is a good point.
not at all what im saying. im saying take a harder look at them fart flicks instead of passing it off as low-brow retardo garbage. i dont accept them on those terms. they are reflective of not only current political trends, but also a sort of return to the beginning of cinema. i am not saying that is their intention. it prolly isnt. but i wouldnt go so far as to say it is a dumbing down of culture.
i mean, isnt it more retarded to point at some old shit from the 70s and say "why cant we make movies like this anymore?" that is not progress. the jackass films are far superior in their media savvy. sure theyre a lot more brute in their execution, but cinema is more complex now than it was in the 70s or whatever. now, aside from making a good product, you must also have the know how to navigate through corporate america. marketing. etc.
like anyone said a decade prior to the 60's? Maybe they
did and I missed it among the Porkys & Spider-man JPEGs ...
Anyway, my favorite decades for film, in order:
1. 1930's
2. 1950's
3. 1940's
4. 1970's
5. 1960's
6. 1980's
7. 1990's
30's rule, okey? Especially pre-code, but even post-code
they were bringing it. Special shout-out to the "poetic realism"
cinema of late-1930's France - viva le Jean Gabin!
You're talking about declining interest in a medium but not necessarily the loss of the idea informing it. Things still aspire to be literary - they just don't always happen to be in physical books.
Even something like I>The Birth of a Nation[/i] - morally reprehensible as it was - would have been an excellent example of the transfer of storytelling from literature to cinema (assuming one would deign to call Dixon's "The Clansmen" as "literature").
Similarly, cinema didn't kill vaudeville in terms of ending the basic appeal of the form. It folded it into a new medium, just as vaudeville absorbed the minstrel show.
Newspapers and magazines are feeling the crunch in terms of declining readership for print publications - and yeah, I mourn that too - but the interest in reading and consumption of news/information has not disappeared; it's jumped mediums. Something is lost in that, obviously, but in another sense, the content hasn't really been lost even if the form has transformed.
Also, as mentioned, the ever growing rise of the epic action movie and the overkill of cgi. Seems that, outside the superhero genre, not a lot of high concept action films are being made anymore - their place in the market seems to have been filled by the neverending stream of fratpack comedies.
Now everyone has a DVD player it seems that people who may not have explored films outside the big studio releases are more open to foreign language films so I would expect/hope the public continue to expand their horizons.
Oh yeah, back to the original question - for me it would probably have to be 69-79 but noone should sleep on the brilliance of many eighties films as well.
Yeah, I should have known you would represent.
I left them alone just because I consider the silent
era so completely different from the sound era that
they can't really be viewed in the same light.
well odub, then we agree. vaudeville didnt die. it just changed names. ever hear of TV?
I gotta disagree with this. Sometimes the "form" means everything. There's pros and cons to everything, and for the internet, it's pros would be instant accessibility. It's instantly disposable as well. It's like gaining greater meaning and enjoyment from a compact disc with lyrics rather than an mp3. Change is good, but too much is not good. It's like where do you draw the line? I'd rather someone be subjective and passionate about something reading the newspaper, than some know-it-all who just knows facts off the internet.
Exactly. So where exactly has literature died? In form? In content? Both?
Is it this easily attainable, that the next dude who just started listening to Thievery Corporation and goes to a Stonesthrow event can start claiming what's good music and what isn't.
I'm down with elitism, and I'll keep my mouth shut til then.
p.s. I can do this all day....i'm sick.
well. i guess im thinking comparatively. there was a time when fools would sit around and discuss books. there were movements based around literature. it was more or less the sole vessel for relaying information. however, now, literature is less important in all those regards. there are no major movements surrounding any type of literature. outside of a few crazed housewives and faux_intellectualzz, there isnt really a culture surrounding books. information is relayed through newer and quicker forms of technology. thusly, lit is dead. yes?
I'm not saying "it's all the same." But I think Shig's original post has considerable wisdom: mediums transform and there's things lost and things gained and there's always things to mourn in what gets lost. YET, the conversation can seem eerily similar. If fans of books wrung their hands over cinema's rise, we'll be doing the same now as MP3s push out physical musical media, etc. But that doesn't mean these transitions are inherently "bad" or "good."
But I think some perspective is needed here. Is reading news off a web page any more "temporary" than a newspaper that gets throw away once you've reached your subway stop?
The difference in a newspaper and the internet that you outline above is actually not even one of form - it's one of fact-checking. If websites were vetted to the same degree where you can "trust" its facts as some newspapers (and shit, even newspapers are hella suspect in some cases), then what's been lost?
I mean, my students cite wikipedia. Shit makes me nervous but then I pause and think, "was I>The World Book[/i] of my youth that much more reliable?"
I don't think the question is one of reliability of facts. More of meaning and weight of words thrown around on the internet as opposed to the newspaper, more concrete and permanent forms of media. Sure Magazines and Newspapers are just as disposable, but I would like to think that they impact people on a more individual level. That's what I mean by "soul" of the culture.
Actually, most of the time it's not even facts that we are looking for. It's some sort of story empowering us, inspiring us, or giving us insight. This internet thing is heartless and emotionless. I'd rather much read an editorial by JA Adande about Kobe Bryant in the LA times.
For me, that's more important than factual details. Besides nobody cares about facts anyway. That ain't where the soul is.
Well, for one thing, I'd say there there's more than "a few" of those crazed housewives. I think the resurgent interest in things like reading groups and book clubs represents an attempted return to centering a domestic cultural life around literature but sure - it can't compete to be the sole/majority form relative to t.v., movies, internet, music, etc.
However, if being "the sole vessel for relaying information" is the necessary quality for a cultural form to be considered "alive," what ISN'T dead? Media hasn't just transformed but it's splintered and diversified. There's multiple avenues to accessing information but that doesn't - to me - spell the death of pre-existing forms simply b/c their monopoly has been lost.
This said, I don't study lit or lit trends so I can't counter your arguments with any quantitative evidence to the contrary. But, as a whole, I tend to mistrust statements that say, "[cultural form here] is dead" unless there's no one actively invested in participating or producing it. So from that point of view, literature still thrives insofar as there's millions of people actively reading and thousands writing. In contrast, the sheet music industry is dead.
see my old and irrelevant thread?
I'm not coming at your aggressively here so don't mistake my tone when I say this:
You sound old.
The idea that the internet "lacks soul" sounds suspiciously like people who've said this about, well, EVERY NEW FORM OF POPULAR CULTURE ever.
Just saying.
I'm grumpy, getting old, and currently sick.
And I have some time on my hands right now.
I'm down with elitism too. I'm not down with rapid changes, and jumping onto whatever's hot at the moment.
And I can relate to the old Japanese people that say "internet and text msging" are killing traditional, more refined modes of expression. Now everything's "buy now, $% hearts, Cya". It's about instant gratification, instant rewards, instant feedback. Our values are being lost in the mix, wouldn't you say?
i do know that there isnt any major movement in/around literature. the last major one was prolly the beats, over 50 years ago. and that was poetry, a truncated form of literature at that.
art and literature always seemed to be married to me. however, now, if u go to art galleries or whatever, its predominantly a bunch a tshirt maken fools doing wheat pastes and cute cartoons. purely visual joints. which i theorize has widened the gap between any sort of lit/art bond.