Playing with Hardy

This video begins in an odd way using black and white film, with a man and an old women. It seems to be skipping but rather seems like a person playing around with the wheel to create odd repetitive motions. Its much like a DJ scratching a record. This type of film often creates a weird techno like music, with repetitive and often seemingly funny scenes. It seems to break free from the bounds of older film and show how modern technology is able to play with time, even reverse and repeat it. Then with a scene quickly switching back and forth confuses me and has a strobing effect that is hallucinating. Then whilst playing with the voice of the girl, it is surprising how harmonious it sounds even though it is odd to see such play on old classic films. To be honest it seems like a short movie that is a product of some fun times for the filmmaker where he is able to be a video DJ and use his humor to satirize old films. Although one theme that could evolve from the film is that we often overlook many aspects of films and movies due to their incredible speed, and yet this film is able to highlight and emphasize certain important parts of the film that may otherwise be forgotten. The filmmaker finds parts of the film he may find important or personally significant and highlight this to the viewer by continually replaying in a slow fashion that is often hysterical. This slow capture of the film shows the subtle inflections in voice and body movements of the actors that show more emotion that at normal film speed. With one scene where the boy in a tuxedo comes to visit the girl, it seems that the filmmaker’s highlights in the scene present a more sexual innuendo, where the boy intends to be suggesting sex to his girl. The flashing of the mother within this scene shows this surprise to the sexual innuendo, an element that is not element in the original film. If anything the filmmaker’s seem to be making fun of the traditional societies, and go against the “happily ever after.”

The bombardment of information

“The Database” by Lev Manovich explains the new perception of time and reality. He looks at this new age of technology and how the functionality of a computer has influenced how we think and act. The traditional view of structured time, where actions must be chronological, has been destroyed by the way new age of database where information is not sequential and instead a pot full of information that can be extracted in any form at any time. Looking at forms of databases such as CD-ROMs and hard drives allow us to realize how different our thought has become. For example, most of us don’t look through each file sequentially and read each part of our computers, rather we just look for the things we want and let the rest remain. Manovich explains this phenomenon, “CD-ROMs that take the user on a tour through a museum collection. A museum becomes a database of images representing its holdings, which can be accessed in different ways–chronologically, by country, or by artist” (pg 219-220). The explanation also looks at the way we have come to interpret our information. With the coming of the new technological age, vast amounts of information have become more accessible to us, so much so that we must somehow organize the information. Although, this organization seems to be a remnant of traditional thinking where information must be searched through sequentially rather than just instantly finding the desired information. Evidence of this can even be seen in search engines such as Google. Manovich may see Google as a representation of how the database is simply a collection of information where the desired information is found instantly. Instead Google also represents a traditional method of searching, as the data is ranked, and most of us still have to look sequentially through many pages to find our desired information.

One element of how Manovich sees the new technological age is the growth of information. Traditionally, books were published and little information was added to these books and has often remained untouched over hundreds of years. But Manovich looks to the technological age as an age of continual growth, as he explains, “The open nature of the Web as a medium (Web pages are computer files that can always be edited_ means that Web sites never have to be complete; and they rarely are. They always grow” (pg 220). Not to mention this growth is often non-sequential and older material can be removed, edited, or forgotten. As the growth of the technological age has progressed, the speed at which change occurs on the Internet has become phenomenal. This relation to speed also correlates to Virilio, where the length of time is not as important as speed in this new world. Information in this age seems to be more of a montage that a sequential story, Manovich look at how Vertov’s “Man with a movie camera” represents this montage and temporality of time. He even provides of modernist example, “One is the modernist MTV montage–two-dimensional juxtaposition of visual elements designed to shock due to its impossibility of reality” (pg 229). Even if we look at many images in media, everything seems to be a montage of information. For example the common screenshot of a news channel will have the reporter, stock tickers, newsreels, time of places around the country, and weather. This bombardment of information is a common characteristic of today’s society with its high expectations on information. Ultimately, the database has become a living reality that affects our lives constantly everyday.

La Jetée: A clouded view from the observation deck

In the odd and somewhat creepy movie “La Jetée” many elements of time travel and the enslavement of human freedom through technology was presented. The film’s structure through moving through still shots represents an important part of how humans tend to structure their thoughts and imaginations. Most of us usually see our memories as photos in our mind, rather than a video of our memories, and “La Jetée” seems to take into account how the human mind works. One frequent image in the initial parts of the film is the evil looking scientist with his dark eye goggles. This seems as the filmmaker intends to show a representation of how technology has become an invasive all-seeing eye, as in big brother from Orwell’s 1984. The metaphor seems to continue as this evil scientist conducts inhumane experiments on people as he scopes into the dreams and memories of humans that seem to make them turn insane. The filmmaker also seems to be making many suggestions to future generations as to be watchful of the growing technology, as it eventually seems to destroy humanity, as it did with all of Paris in the film. One striking shot from the destruction of Paris is the destroyed Arc de Triomphe, which is shown broken in two. This represents how such magnificent edifices of older years where Napoleon created a new French society seem to be destroyed by the age of modernity. Beyond the destruction of humanity by technology, one striking scene stands as an important contrast to the entire film. There is one scene where the girl is shown breathing, with her mouth and chest slowly moving, and it is the only part of the entire film where video is used instead of still shots. The girl breathing is an important symbol throughout the entire film as it represents an action so pure and free from any bounds of society or modernity that it is free from the bounds of still frames and moves vividly in video. The filmmaker sees the girl as a symbol of purity and she also is shown in plain clothes, again, representing this purity and freedom from society. Also another striking shot is where the people of the future are shown as having a third eye, often a symbol of all seeing power. In many cultures the third eye represents the soul or an organ that possess the power to look deeper into humans and peer into their soul, and this symbol carries onto the images of people from the future. Additionally, humans today are showed as blind to certain spiritual elements, as the man is shown with dark glasses that seem to prohibit him from seeing things that these advanced creatures can. Ultimately, the beings from the future are able to see what the man could not; his ultimate death from the same evil-looking scientist at the Orly airport beside the woman he thought would be his savior.

Modernization Through The Eye Of A Camera

Unlike mainstream films today, Dziga Vertov’s Man With A Movie Camera provides a unique perspective on film in an era of rapid industrialization and modernization. One main difference for this film was its theme, where most movies concentrate on external themes, and Vertov centers around the camera itself. The camera represents a new theory of the Cine-eye, where it observes society through an objective lens. An interesting take on this film is that the film follows the lives of a man filming around a town and a film editor, both whom work as “Cine-eye pilots” in producing this alternate view on the dawning of movies.

The first striking scene is the opening scene with an empty theatre, representing an end to classical theatre where there are no theatrics and only a pure objective form of film. Also the mechanical seats contrasts with the chaotic entering crowd shows a dawning era of mechanized industrialism that will conflict with our chaotic society. Also the orchestra stayed silent until certain parts of the film, which also shows this control that the mechanical film has over a multifaceted chaotic orchestra.

Aside from the opening scene, the following scene of sleeping people seemed to show a time before industrialization and film where the world stayed dormant and lacked communication. But the stillness in industrial areas, such as cogs and machines, show the beginnings of a rapidly industrializing world, namely Russia with its rapid 5-year plans that aimed to bring the Soviet Union to the modern world in record time. Later with the awakening, the film showed birds, speeding trains, and people rapidly getting ready. Also in this moment the man with the movie camera began to roll his film, signifying a new era of modernization and growth. Even conflicts between old and new are shown with the clash between a train stopping for a horse carriage. And yet with all the growing chaos around society with rapid industrialization, the cameraman and his camera seem isolated from these changes.

A division occurs in the film when time stops, as the film’s ability to control time takes over. The film editor is seen looking at each individual frame, representing not only the controlled time of film, but also presents the many facets of human life & society. Also the film looks at opposite parts of human society with a marriage registration, then a divorce registration, a death, and a birth. These all show how the camera is all-seeing and with each frame it sees so much, especially when a blinking eye (like different frames) showed many different images.

An important recurring theme is the camera continually rolling alongside the cameraman, also the changing of the stop sign by a policeman all represent a continual changing environment with the Cine-eye as a constant and objective onlooker. This overlooking theme is exemplified with the huge camera superimposed on the city landscape looking over all the movement of society.

All these moments show many parts of the camera and its function as a creator of a new era where mechanized industry takes over society. Finally, film functions as a storyteller and storywriter for the future with its new a revolutionary technique of objectivism.