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ESP
Member Elite
since 2000-01-25
Posts 2556
Floating gently on a cloud....

0 posted 2004-12-09 09:01 AM



The Influence of Motion Pictures

There are more people who have heard about the first motion pictures than people who remember them. You know, the figures moving too quickly across the screen; while the bespectacled lady hammers at the keys of an old piano, trying to keep up. Such excitement! And then? Some clever person got those hilarious-looking screen people talking!

Thus it progressed. They were brought into our homes through the invention of television. This invention was hailed as the beginning of the end of books. Those pesky collections of words requred us to create our own pictures, why would they remain in use when there was a way of showing us the images that the words were always searching to form? This fear died down, it would be revived again with the emergence of the Internet; but that’s another story.

We saw an explosion of invention. Every motion picture maker wanted to do something new, capture everybody’s attention by going beyond what had been done before. With the development of camera technology, the possibilities were endless. Films and programmes, like books, can encompass just about anything. To begin with, it was an escape into a fantasy world, an agreement to suspend disbelief and enter the land on screen. Nowadays, a shift has been made toward the pursuit of reality. Programmes like Big Brother and I’m a celebrity, get me out of here! have captured the minds of millions.

Capture. We are a captive audience. Every day, millions of people turn on the television to watch the news. We see war, earthquakes, fire, flood, corruption, you name it, it’s on the news. Except, of course, for the mundane, which is taken care of by Reality TV. What is this obsession with reality? Do we not get enough of it by living? Or is this just another kind of escape mechanism, escape from your reality into somebody else’s?

I think it’s interesting that more people are likely to cry at the end of a soppy love story than during a news bulletin. Reality has become mere entertainment. The television brings us Days of our  Lives, and then a news bulletin…can you blame your brain for being skeptical?! Unless the news touches you directly, your brain categorises it under “Television—handle with suspicion” If you not only saw but felt all the emotions thrown at you on screen, you would be terminally exhausted.

Nobody can imagine a world without motion pictures. However, maybe if there weren’t any, people would be less blind to their own reality and the wealth of images and action of their every day. Forms of entertainment change and adapt to demands, but some are perennial: nobody gets bored of watching the sun set over a lake. It’s not quite the same if you watch it on television, and maybe that is why Reality T.V. will never be reality: its boundary is the screen and we are in control of the “off” button.

Ok, somebody turn me off, I’m done!
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**I know, it's a bit rambly. Sorry!**

"Time has told me not to ask for more, one day our ocean will find its shore" ~Nick Drake

© Copyright 2004 ESP - All Rights Reserved
Larry C
Deputy Moderator 1 Tour
Member Patricius
since 2001-09-10
Posts 10286
United States
1 posted 2004-12-09 10:02 AM


Lizzie,
Lose the apology! That was great. Had some thoughts that I hadn't considered and I liked the progression of the piece. Well done. I don't think you'll ever get less than an A. What fun, thanks.

If tears could build a stairway and memories a lane, I'd walk right up to heaven and bring you home again.

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