Week 6
- Adjedmaa Ali
- May 17, 2020
- 1 min read
This week it was really interesting for me to find out the some more history about how different diverse groups have expressed themselves through film. I was unaware of the history of black actors and producers during this time. It's crazy to understand that we have declined in the inclusion of racially diverse people in the film industry. I would think we would have many racially diverse people own film companies and producing their own films, especially women.
In the zoom meeting we talked about what we preferred in regards to length of films and how a person can typically pay attention to something for about 20 mins and that made me think if that had to do with the idea of serials and how now sitcoms are average 20 ish minutes. I preferred the shorter films because they felt like they had better story lines and got straight to the point, also I think it's harder to pay attention to something with no sound because you can't multi task and still understand and if you have to do that in a 2+ hours movie you loose interest faster.
I think that we've lost the idea of film as a singular event that was present in much of the history of early cinema. We are so image saturated in the present moment that it is hard to imagine a time when the mere site of something like a train coming into the station could provoke awe. However, I still think that these films offer contemporary viewers the chance to unlock why images now saturate contemporary culture.
I definitely agree that it can be hard to keep focused on a silent film, or any film for that matter, that is over 2 hours long. Especially with a film like The Birth of a Nation that is just so disgusting to watch.
yeah I agree, I definitely have that problem when I'm watching the longer films with no sound. I often like to multitask while having a show or movie on and being unable to do that with a silent film is challenging.