30th January 2005, 6:03 PM
This is the exact same argument I've heard a million times before, one that usually comes from people who simply don't watch good movies. I bet both of you consider The Lord of the Rings to be some of the best films ever, right?
Your reasons: reading is harder to do than watching a movie, movie adaptations of books are often poor, and length, are all signs of people who have never seen a good, thought-provoking movie in their entire life. Or, if you have, then you have completely failed to understand it.
First off, the difficulty argument is the sign of a pseudo-intellectual. What you're saying is that since it's harder to process the literal information of a book, that means it's more ”deep”. If you're really at that stage where the complexity of a book comes largely from the processing of its data, then you more than likely fail to understand the meaning of the data itself. The difficulty does not come from understanding meaning and true depth, but from imaging the things that are described in the book. If the depth for you comes from trying to imagine what a room looks like or how a person is taking a sip from his mug, then you my friend might want to take a step back and read something more appropriate for you reading level.
About the length issue. Yes it is true that movies really can't be as long as books unless they stretch on to sequels and the like, but you are mistaken if you think that you need a five-hour long movie to have real depth. I've seen short films that last thirty minutes and contain more depth than all of the Lord of the Rings movies combined. Length means nothing. What matters are your goals and what you do with the time you have. Different lengths serve different purposes, and books inherently need more time than movies do.
A good movie is like a dream. I've had dreams that seem to last only a dozen minutes long, yet it could take me an hour to accurately describe them, to get the entire meaning across to someone else. I've written down dreams that took dozens of pages to write. Dozens of pages for a very short dream. And why is that? Because dreams are usually metaphorical. They use images to symbolize complex feelings and messages, and that is a similar principle upon which a good movie is based upon. Symbolism. There are things you can accomplish with the movie that would be impossible to describe with a book. A picture speaks a thousand words, remember. There is wisdom to that saying. Last Life In The Universe, a recent Thai movie, could not be a book. The movie is under two hours long yet possesses an extraordinary amount of depth. In many ways understanding the movie is like trying to understand a dream. You have the first layer, the literal layer, which is easy to understand. That is the layer everyone understands. Most Hollywood movies only contain that layer. But beyond that layer are the many metaphorical layers which tell a story and give insight to the intelligent viewer that can only be understood by watching the film. Last Life In The Universe is a dream, The Rules of the Game is a dream, M is a dream. It takes great imagination and thinking to really understand these movies-- in fact, more than your average book because of how much more difficult it can be to understand a metaphor than a really complex sentence that literally spells out everything for you. Some people decide to pay attention only to the literal layer of a movie, and turn their brains off as you put it.
You're right about one thing, Ryan, that most movies and tv IS crap, and that is because of how accessible the visual medium is. I'm certain that the ratio of bad to good movies and tv is much more out of balance than it is for books, and that is absolutely because of how easy to watch movies are. But that does not mean that the medium is inherently shallow, as many examples of incredible depth can be found if you just care enough to look. Just because most games made today are crap does not mean that the medium is inherently crappy. Even if there were just two good games made for every thousand, that fact would still remain. The same goes for movies, though with movies there is plenty good to be found. You're just going to have to look harder than you normally do. It looks like your argument is based upon the fact that most of the movies you see are crap, so what you need to do is stop watching crappy movies. That's what I did. Anybody can do that if they really care enough. If you want some suggestions just let me know.
Your reasons: reading is harder to do than watching a movie, movie adaptations of books are often poor, and length, are all signs of people who have never seen a good, thought-provoking movie in their entire life. Or, if you have, then you have completely failed to understand it.
First off, the difficulty argument is the sign of a pseudo-intellectual. What you're saying is that since it's harder to process the literal information of a book, that means it's more ”deep”. If you're really at that stage where the complexity of a book comes largely from the processing of its data, then you more than likely fail to understand the meaning of the data itself. The difficulty does not come from understanding meaning and true depth, but from imaging the things that are described in the book. If the depth for you comes from trying to imagine what a room looks like or how a person is taking a sip from his mug, then you my friend might want to take a step back and read something more appropriate for you reading level.
About the length issue. Yes it is true that movies really can't be as long as books unless they stretch on to sequels and the like, but you are mistaken if you think that you need a five-hour long movie to have real depth. I've seen short films that last thirty minutes and contain more depth than all of the Lord of the Rings movies combined. Length means nothing. What matters are your goals and what you do with the time you have. Different lengths serve different purposes, and books inherently need more time than movies do.
A good movie is like a dream. I've had dreams that seem to last only a dozen minutes long, yet it could take me an hour to accurately describe them, to get the entire meaning across to someone else. I've written down dreams that took dozens of pages to write. Dozens of pages for a very short dream. And why is that? Because dreams are usually metaphorical. They use images to symbolize complex feelings and messages, and that is a similar principle upon which a good movie is based upon. Symbolism. There are things you can accomplish with the movie that would be impossible to describe with a book. A picture speaks a thousand words, remember. There is wisdom to that saying. Last Life In The Universe, a recent Thai movie, could not be a book. The movie is under two hours long yet possesses an extraordinary amount of depth. In many ways understanding the movie is like trying to understand a dream. You have the first layer, the literal layer, which is easy to understand. That is the layer everyone understands. Most Hollywood movies only contain that layer. But beyond that layer are the many metaphorical layers which tell a story and give insight to the intelligent viewer that can only be understood by watching the film. Last Life In The Universe is a dream, The Rules of the Game is a dream, M is a dream. It takes great imagination and thinking to really understand these movies-- in fact, more than your average book because of how much more difficult it can be to understand a metaphor than a really complex sentence that literally spells out everything for you. Some people decide to pay attention only to the literal layer of a movie, and turn their brains off as you put it.
You're right about one thing, Ryan, that most movies and tv IS crap, and that is because of how accessible the visual medium is. I'm certain that the ratio of bad to good movies and tv is much more out of balance than it is for books, and that is absolutely because of how easy to watch movies are. But that does not mean that the medium is inherently shallow, as many examples of incredible depth can be found if you just care enough to look. Just because most games made today are crap does not mean that the medium is inherently crappy. Even if there were just two good games made for every thousand, that fact would still remain. The same goes for movies, though with movies there is plenty good to be found. You're just going to have to look harder than you normally do. It looks like your argument is based upon the fact that most of the movies you see are crap, so what you need to do is stop watching crappy movies. That's what I did. Anybody can do that if they really care enough. If you want some suggestions just let me know.