Too Read Or To Watch That Is The Question..
"To be or not to be, that is the question..." Everyone remembers that well-known line from William Shakespeare famous tragedy Hamlet. However, in this day of technical advantages we can now change the wording of that famous monologue to, "Too read or to watch, that is the question." Shall we read the book or shall we rent the movie? In this decade, we have infinite possibilities, reading print, whether in books, newspaper; magazine or encyclopedia is the oldest and the first form of mass communication. Cinemas, viewing movies, music videos, news, and yes-even encyclopedias are relatively new, not quite 100 years old. However, these two mediums flourish most when sharing and putting forth information whether fictional of non-fictional.
A book as stated before is the oldest produce of communication. We use books for work, school, and leisure. Books can be shared. Books can maintain records of events and books are relied upon as written rules for government.
The history of communication began with drawing and eventually writing. Early forms of civilization were revealed when caves of Neanderthals were discovered with pictures of animals on them. Communication has always been a vital part of our existence and when we evolved from drawing pictures on caves and grounds to writing on papyrus to paper we reflexively aspired to communicate better. The need to know and understand led to record keeping and storing. The development of writing information down on paper for others to see and ultimately read led to the escalation of books.
The advancement of books began in the 15th century when Johannes Gutenberg invented movable type. The movable type was a hand press with large pieces of wood shaped into letters, ink is spread on the press, and it is pressed onto paper or cloth. The movable type was re-invented many times after Gutenberg and eventually ended the task of handwriting books. Ultimately, this led to the production of printing shops and books. This new mass distributed commodity changed our diagram of thinking. We actually started to think and voice our ideas and of course fraction them with others. Our sovereign leaders did not like that we could be influenced by printed opinions from other people. Their remedy was to control the printing through licensing and restraining books.
Books that were thought to be too political and religious were burned along with the distributor's equipment and the distributors were prosecuted convicted of blasphemy and sentenced to various intervals of prison. "One such example occurred in 1818 when publisher Richard Carlile was imprisoned for re-publishing author Thomas Paine's well-known book The Age of Reason." Bald, The Age Of Reason (173-176). According to Margaret Bald, "the history of censorship is one of inhumanity, of lives and livelihoods lost, talent or genius snuffed out, work unfinished, withheld, deleted, or destroyed" (171).
. "Books are precious, yet just in 1966, the Vatican abolished the Index of Forbidden Books." Bald, Literature Suppressed on Religious Ground" (170). Presently, publishing companies are still flourishing with the production of books and will undoubtedly continue this pattern. Americans have more access to technology than ever before with a wide array of choices and yet we unruffled choose the option to read. Mass communication through newspapers, magazines, journals, fiction and non-fiction will always be read in one of the above forms or another. However, getting support to what I stated earlier, "to read or to watch, that is the question", another popular medium books contend with is movies.
Movies are by far the most highly profitable form of communication. It has altered our lives greatly by its objective views of fiction and documentaries.
The birth of moving pictures came about from another medium, photography. In the mid 1827's still photography was being frail to capture images on light sensitive, chemically treated metal and or glass plates, which then had to be exposed for a lengthy amount of time for an image to form. In the 1885's after many attempts to improve exposure time, George Eastman created film. He coated the rolls of paper with the light sensitive chemical and they were named celluloid film. With the invention of the celluloid film Thomas Edison and William Dickson created a toy with the cut images of film places into a wheel with slits and a wheel. A person could then turn the handle and watch the film winding through the wheel giving a titillating quality to the toy. This toy was named the Kinetoscope. In 1895, the Kinestoscope gave birth to a unusual technical advancement the cinematographe (projector). This diagram was created by the Lumiere brothers (Auguste and Louis) in France. We could now record and demonstrate moving images on a screen. Although, the films that were produced then would be considered painfully dull to us, Auguste and Louis profited by inviting paying audiences to view the film in their basement. This began the age of filmmaking. Since the birth of the filmmaking, many improvements have came about to enhance the audiences imagination. Movies began to tell stories, actors were used, sound was added, trick photography was utilized and films durations were augmented from 10 minutes to 3 hours. Eventually color was added to films and new inventions allowed filming in color. Wider screens became the rage allowing the audiences to be surrounded by the film. Presently, robotics and special effects are now being digitized by computer graphics. Like the Virginia Slims cigarette ad states, "We've come a long way baby"!
Movies how brilliant! We can view images and scenes while being fed with dialogue, music, and background noise from places we may never ever travel to. But then again, with books we can imagine our own scenes and plan our own dialogue whilst adding music and background noise to places we travel to only in our mind's notice.
Too read or to notice? Books and movies are both in their acquire right a revolutionary industrialized culture. They can both help and hinder our views with their styles. Books give us a written view, from which we form more thought provoked opinions upon what honest influenced us. Movies give us a definite description that we can actually see with added effects.
"Ideally, future research in film history will proceed along three different lines, and in the following order."
"First, the consolidation and appraisal of studies which have already been conducted. This requires the preparation of up-to-date international bibliographies, the translation of foreign texts, and the republication, in convenient form, of information which is widely scattered in time and dwelling."
"Second, the execution of exhaustive, well-documented studies into particular aspects of film history. The need is for studies in depth rather than breadth."
"Third, the production of broadly based international histories of the cinema which cut across geographical boundaries and different periods of time, and which embrace all of the differing artistic, economic, technological, and sociological factors which have shaped the medium." Fielding (introduction).
Books and movies rely heavily upon each other to put forth and allotment information. However, neither source of information can be heavily relied upon since it is always someone else's viewpoint that you choose to trust or not.
The fact of the matter is, that these two mediums are widely available to us. We can either go to the library and/or bookstore or read a book. We can read the book on the Internet and we can listen to the book via cassette or compact disc (cd). We also have an option of attending a movie theatre, library school or church and viewing a movie, or renting from neighborhood rental stores. We can also watch the movie from the Internet. As stated above there is so many options to enhance our experience that it is hard to believe how controversial these two mediums are.
To read a book void of the unnecessary additives a movie and/or television presents may please some audiences more than others. However, condensing and adding the special effects from someone else's imagination seem to satisfy the non-readers. Presently, there isn't a right or wrong way to share information or entertainment; with technology we can suit our occupy fancy. In addition, there really isn't too much of a contrast in cost between the two contenders. A price of a book can afford the family to attend an early matinee minus the refreshments. In the same token with that price could just purchase a book and supply your fill refreshments, free of charge. But then again, you can always leave out the refreshments and head over to the local library and do both.
In conclusion, whether your need calls for entertainment or information, books and movies can ultimately satisfy anyone's id. Imagination is never lost and truthfulness is never fully gained. Books and movies only teach what the audience wants to read, watch and hear. Our opinions will continue to be forever influenced by the two mediums.
To read or to watch will always be a debatable question. Thus in the end it all comes down to if we really care, after all the choice of the two will always be there.
The History Channel. "Motion Pictures" Internet. (2000) Available: http://www.historychannel.com/index2.html, December 8, 2002
One Hundred years of Cinema. London: Kingfisher Kaleidoscopes 1994
Bald, Margaret, Karolides, Nicholas J., Sova, Dawn B. 100 Banned Books Censorship Histories of World Literature. New York: Checkmark Books, 1999.
Questia The Online Library. "The Oxford History of World Cinema." General Introduction. Internet. (1996) Available: http://www.questia.com/PageManagerHTMLMediator.qst? action=openPageViewer&docId=97708137, December 8, 2002
Rickitt, Richard. Special Effects: The History and Technique. New York: Billboard Books, 2000
Fielding, Raymond. A Technological History of Motion Pictures. Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1967
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