film vs video

[Abe-Nornes]

Joeseph Murphy wrote:

>Markus,
>Could you elaborate on the pedagogical questions about using one medium to
>talk about a qualitatively different medium?  

You've mentioned important differences already: the difference between
screen and monitor, the clipping of the image to fit the television aspect
ratio (something not always remedied by letter boxing), and the difference
between sitting in a dark theater in front of a large screen as opposed to
a classroom looking at a TV, the vast difference in "information" each
media is capable of storing (resolution/detail problems), the viewing
protocol for each media is also radically different (especially in terms of
attention and audience interaction), etc. etc. 

All sorts of factors mitigate against showing film on film: the world's
16mm prints are disintegrating rapidly (partly because so many schools are
turning to video [and so many professors are willing to show illegal dubs]
that the infrastructure for non-theatrical cinema is degraded), the
universities are going corporate and won't support film rental and
projection, video projectors are making incredible improvements (as are
video sound systems), students could generally care less if you are showing
one or the other, and the like. It's getting to look like a tired debate,
and I almost hate to rehash it. 

However, I still think it's important to show film on film and video on
monitors to whatever degree possible. I wouldn't speak of the film side of
the equation as "genuine." However, if you are interested in films as art
and as an experience of art, I don't see how it is defensible to celebrate
the teaching of film on video. The bulk of film history and theory is about
celluloid, and there is also a body of work that also deals with the
ontological, aesthetic and experiential differences of video. 

There _is_ a politics connected to this as well. Canonical pressures are
particularly sharp on the film distribution network. There is virtually no
non-canonical cinema available on film, especially outside of Japan. There
are commercial pressures as well; if you're in the US context, US films are
quite cheap to rent, but foreign films---especially Asian films---are
particularly expensive. In practice I do show video, simply to get around
the canon problem and show experimental, documentary, and unusual feature
films. However, I make sure my students are cognizant of the differences
between media and the larger issues at stake. I make this part of the
class. 

Markus