“the ideal often clashes violently with the truth”
October 20, 2015 10:05 AM Subscribe
Visual Literacy in the Age of Open Content by Allana Mayer [JSTOR]
We have similar stories all throughout history: the moment when a perception—whether a literal way of seeing or a figurative mode of thinking—is assaulted and fundamentally shifts, a non-reversible alteration, a displacement from one’s old ways. Western society has seen plenty of moments like these, moments where a perceptive or critical threshold has been crossed.
So much to dive into with this, but the quote from Joy McEntee's research " It marked the birth of a fear that cultivating the kind of analytic detachment required to succeed in the course might entail a loss of pleasure in going to the movies" has a good bit of truth in it from my own experience. My college did not have a dedicated film department, but the head of the English department taught several incredible film analysis classes, and stuck a nice balance of combining the tools of literary criticism and exploring visual narrative, experiences, and meaning.
He warned us on the first day that these classes will most likely fundamentally change how you experience films for a long time, and if you really get into the class, it will take a lot of effort to get close to how you experienced films in the past. Those classes, combined with my video production, engineering, and related classes has resulted in the situation that even 20 years later, I still often have difficulty turning off the part of my brain that is noticing the not just the "whys and hows" of visual media production, but all the tools and methods that are chosen to enhance the telling of a story visually.
It's not that it has 'ruined' watching films for me - overall it's enriched it. There are some lasting side effects though that occasionally bug me and wreck my immersion. Dramatic music and soundtracks, especially orchestral pieces, occasionally are so over-the-top in a "YOU SHOULD FEEL THIS WAY NOW" that they would feel insultingly patronizing if they weren't so comically blatant, even for films I watched long before I had the classes (Momentary rant: I refuse to be your puppet, John Williams, maybe you should go dig up Gustav Holst and see if he has any new ideas for you). The only other one that comes to mind is for films by 'master' directors, that it is very difficult not to have part of my brain always on the lookout for all the little details and shot choices that are hidden amongst the 'main action.' I often wonder what it would be like to see them as they are, and not always be aware of 'the man behind the curtain.'
Overall, one of the biggest marks of a quality film for me afterwards became simply was if the story was good enough to draw me in that the criticism/production part of my brain doesn't get triggered until after the movie is over. While that's impossible with many of the classic films, I've found that the less I know about a film before I watch it, the better. It's the most reliable way I've found to protect that 'fresh eyes/unencumbered' experience.
A great deal of the pitfalls with film or most other media criticism seem to come when the criticism comes before the firsthand experience, and not only does it color your interpretation from the start, it can be a distraction throughout.
posted by chambers at 1:07 PM on October 20, 2015 [3 favorites]
He warned us on the first day that these classes will most likely fundamentally change how you experience films for a long time, and if you really get into the class, it will take a lot of effort to get close to how you experienced films in the past. Those classes, combined with my video production, engineering, and related classes has resulted in the situation that even 20 years later, I still often have difficulty turning off the part of my brain that is noticing the not just the "whys and hows" of visual media production, but all the tools and methods that are chosen to enhance the telling of a story visually.
It's not that it has 'ruined' watching films for me - overall it's enriched it. There are some lasting side effects though that occasionally bug me and wreck my immersion. Dramatic music and soundtracks, especially orchestral pieces, occasionally are so over-the-top in a "YOU SHOULD FEEL THIS WAY NOW" that they would feel insultingly patronizing if they weren't so comically blatant, even for films I watched long before I had the classes (Momentary rant: I refuse to be your puppet, John Williams, maybe you should go dig up Gustav Holst and see if he has any new ideas for you). The only other one that comes to mind is for films by 'master' directors, that it is very difficult not to have part of my brain always on the lookout for all the little details and shot choices that are hidden amongst the 'main action.' I often wonder what it would be like to see them as they are, and not always be aware of 'the man behind the curtain.'
Overall, one of the biggest marks of a quality film for me afterwards became simply was if the story was good enough to draw me in that the criticism/production part of my brain doesn't get triggered until after the movie is over. While that's impossible with many of the classic films, I've found that the less I know about a film before I watch it, the better. It's the most reliable way I've found to protect that 'fresh eyes/unencumbered' experience.
A great deal of the pitfalls with film or most other media criticism seem to come when the criticism comes before the firsthand experience, and not only does it color your interpretation from the start, it can be a distraction throughout.
posted by chambers at 1:07 PM on October 20, 2015 [3 favorites]
Right smack in the middle of this article I see the message, "This slideshow requires JavaScript." Which is kind of funny given the themes explored.
posted by XMLicious at 1:16 PM on October 20, 2015
posted by XMLicious at 1:16 PM on October 20, 2015
I guess I don't see why this is a new thing arising from digitization of visual media? Isn't this fundamentally how most people, in practice, find and interact with text-text?
I'm surprised that Google's image search doesn't yet have a feature that would act in a similar manner to Apple iPhoto's "Faces, Places, and Events" feature, that would attempt to identify and provide metadata containing attribution and other information for at least the paintings stored in galleries around the world, as well as "known" or "historically significant" paintings in private collections.
Of course, an automated system would sometimes get it wrong (consider the problems of an automated system trying to deal with stuff like this) and would have to be presented as a "best guess" or "probable origin," but at least it may be a start.
Now that may be a possible solution for dealing with "the classics," but trying to expand that out and do it with the mountains of digital artwork we have today is going to be a monumental task. Picture yourself in 2060, trying to figure out correct attribution for a piece of artwork that was created and posted on Deviantart back in 2010, but the company went out of business in 2025 and there are virtually no records that reliably link the account to a person.
posted by chambers at 4:56 PM on October 20, 2015
I'm surprised that Google's image search doesn't yet have a feature that would act in a similar manner to Apple iPhoto's "Faces, Places, and Events" feature, that would attempt to identify and provide metadata containing attribution and other information for at least the paintings stored in galleries around the world, as well as "known" or "historically significant" paintings in private collections.
Of course, an automated system would sometimes get it wrong (consider the problems of an automated system trying to deal with stuff like this) and would have to be presented as a "best guess" or "probable origin," but at least it may be a start.
Now that may be a possible solution for dealing with "the classics," but trying to expand that out and do it with the mountains of digital artwork we have today is going to be a monumental task. Picture yourself in 2060, trying to figure out correct attribution for a piece of artwork that was created and posted on Deviantart back in 2010, but the company went out of business in 2025 and there are virtually no records that reliably link the account to a person.
posted by chambers at 4:56 PM on October 20, 2015
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Or am I being a total snake person here?
posted by PMdixon at 11:51 AM on October 20, 2015