NMD 403 Lecture 4 Simulation Narrative and Montage
We know the difference between fantasy and reality, don't we? How does montage function as as a tool in time-based media. Can the use of montage blur the lines between the real and the imagined? Please respond to last weeks lecture.
At the beginning of the lecture, it was said that the difference between good cinema and an epic ballad told thousands of years ago by a skilled bard was the personal experience. The cinema shows us what things should look like: in a war movie, it depicts the battlefield and shows us, basically GIVES us the images, which we accept. However, there was a debate as to whether the epic story would be a different sort of experience because of its nature; that is, the words are describing to you the battlefield, the smell, the horror of the scene. Some people said that the storyteller would have the advantage, because the images would be in the listener's head, and it would draw from his own life experiences, his imagination, what scares him most personally. Others said that the story would have less of an edge, because perhaps the listener has never experienced war - then he has nothing to go by. While I was listening to this lecture, an interesting thing happened - I was also on firstclass, and as we were discussing this, I navigated away from the page to check my mail. When Raph began to describe a battle scene in war, with the burning smell of the naptha, the scent of death on the air, I actually saw images in my head, and it was a powerful moment for me (especially since this was basically the debate). I've seen my share of war movies, and certainly I've never experienced war first-hand, but I think imagination is the most powerful tool a person has, and because words are so potent (someone mentioned that a phrase can be worth a thousand images), the told story may have more weight than the cinematic one in some instances. As to the debate of whether one or the other is more of a simulation - I think it depends how deeply invested in the story an individual is. If I am reading an Honors book, I am totally disconnected from it, and I "think away" as Raph said, and I lose my connection, I go back to my reality. If I am reading a great book, however, I can get completely immersed in the story, so much so that I barely even see the words before me anymore, I see the actual images, the people talking, the vast landscapes, etc. Yes, cinema does hamper the imagination a bit, but I don't think that means that you can be less invested in it. I would probably always agree that books are better (at least better than their movie counterparts), but a great film can manipulate you just as well as a great book can. You can play with time, as was mentioned, with editing and frame rate - as we all know. You can manipulate the audience's emotions and feelings, and so I believe these two different media are actually much more similar than we all think. You can get the same type of experience from both. It just depends on how much of yourself you are willing to give over to their alternate realities.
As a viewer we are subject to the medium that we are enveloped by, in the real world we are to maintain a sense of reality, and we are subject to the “rules” of this world, we are bound by time, gravity and relationships to the objects around us. The real is in fact a fabrication of our minds. This is why it is so easy to become enthralled with a good story, movie, or play. There are triggers that initiate a response yes, but it is more in that we are so capable of substituting what we see as real for the simulated. Cinema is a fair many things, but most of all it is a perspective of the moment, and it is edited to fit a time frame, a film is something that allows the viewer to willingly be suspended in time and become part of that moment. Oral traditions, written word, and film all share the common thread that they are all telling a story, each requires a different amount of imaginative processing, but that does not make one better than another. I feel that we are able to do many things when it comes to how we relate to a story. It’s in our instincts to be concerned with the world, we want to experience everything in life, and we are able to do that through story, and the mediums that allow us to experience them. When we see a movie about war we leave the theater with one understanding of what war may be like, that being said, it is nothing like what it really is. We tend to misunderstand the actual environment of what it would be like to be in that event. The truth is, is that there is no medium that can replace what it would be like to be there in that instance. Secondly, it’s also true that each story, whether it be told from the person who was there or not, it is from the perspective of that person, that camera, that character, and that narrator. There is no way to precipitate the reality of a situation to another human being; it is distinct to each individual, just as the image created by the viewers’ imagination is distinct to them.
Although the lecture veered away from what Raphael had intended it to be (mostly my fault for misunderstanding, sorry) , I think we acknowledged and brought forth things that we don't quite understand and in very philosophical manner.
I think it is important to understand the social impact of cinema as well as the root of cinema and how it has become what it is today; that includes the transition of verbal to written word, books, and photographs. It's a very powerful thing to be able to convey ideas in your mind and being able to articulate that through any means you feel best expresses your idea. It's not a bad thing that someone may perceive your idea differently than what you had intended- but you can argue that it is a bad thing. For example, if you tell a joke and it insulted someone- although you didn't intend for it to be insulting they thought it was and now perceive you negatively. That has been my dilemma.
Back to some things said in the lecture: The real question was how does montage function as a tool in time-based media? Now, I am paraphrasing from "The Silent Eye And The Eye In Time" which addresses this very question: Montage allows us to create complex levels of meaning and it also allows for time to be shown in a non-linear way, i.e., running back and forth, skipping from present to past and future.
I believe it acts the same way chapters do in a book.
Elana- I agree with your statement on how cinema does hamper the imagination (to a degree) and I also agree that it doesn't mean that you can be less invested in it. But I do think that we do not read because we have lost that imagination. That is why we are fascinated with film- it's someone elses imagination that we feel we could never have thought of ourselves.
Here are some things I mentioned in the lecture (or tried to) but my absent mindedness got the best of me.
Strange Days: fantastic film that mixes hyper-real with electro-real. People in the future can record POV's with new technology and share those experienes by tricking their brain into thinking they are actually their. Brian had blogged that the real is merely a fabrication of our mind. Well what if we could tap into those senses and trick our bodies with our minds into experiencing what other experience?
The reading - Stephen - Nothing new in cinema. Response to cinema hasn't changed. Brian - Haven't enhanced the way we view cinema. Willing suspension of disbelief Is there a difference between the effects of cinema and storytelling? Cinema has actual pictures, where as you create the images in your head through storytelling. Passive when watching cinema - Intellect, Eyes and Ears Time in written vs cinema Do you have a choice about how you experience time? You can re read what you need to. You can pause a dvd. You can slow the reading down.
The storytelling about when you lose yourself in a good book or movie was never more apparent to me then reading Diary by Chuck Palahniuk (as i mentioned in one of the first lectures), or watching Lost. I get so wrapped up in the stories that Hurley, Jack, Locke, Sawyer and Charlie all become real people and their problems and the mystery of the story take over my thoughts during my free time. I even talk with my friends about theories about Lost. When I watch it, my room becomes quiet, no one is allowed to talk till the commercial break and then the room erupts in theories and questions of, what just happened!? When I read Diary, I had a physical reaction to it. My heart rate increased, and I couldn't read fast enough to understand the story and to know what happened.
Brian said "Cinema is a fair many things, but most of all it is a perspective of the moment, and it is edited to fit a time frame, a film is something that allows the viewer to willingly be suspended in time and become part of that moment." I couldn't agree more. Some of the best movies don't go on long enough and some go on too long, in the case of Coppola's movies, I can never wait till the end. I guess I just don't appreciate them like I should. I don't necessarily think that cinema should always fit a time frame. The movies today are more worried about making back their money as opposed to making something unforgettable with an amazing story line. I know I'd love to see a 5 hour version of Sin City. Brian is right about getting lost in the moment. In Sin City I would have loved to see the back stories for all the characters and get to know them past the 2 hours that the film runs for. During the second section of Sin City, the one with Jackie Boy and Dwight, I would have loved to see that whole section as a whole movie, as opposed to editing it all down to fit within the time frame.
This was a great lecture. I am a huge Alfred Hitchcock fan and anyone who is interested in his work must appreciate the power and importance of a montage. The shower scene from Psycho for example (one of the most highly acclaimed moments in horror film) is comprised of over 75 separate "cuts" of short clips of footage. This is amazing considering the entire scene is only 45 seconds long. Hitchcock was a master of these montages and he did not use them willy nilly. Each angle, each shot was planned out and had a metaphorical meaning to it. Every single clip (whether it was for five minutes or 5 seconds) was designed to provide the full amount of suspense and impact.
In an interview Hitchcock once said he does not like the term "cuts". He says it implies that something is being removed. Instead he would rather call it "assembly". The idea that a montage is a mosaic of small clips is a much better way of describing what Hitchcock did. It is the putting together of tiny slices of reality in to a 4 dimensional collage of sorts. I have always been interested in this and I think its great that we are talking about it in this class.
On the topic of whether a book is better then a movie (or more to the point, whether it delivers the same amount of imagery to the reader/viewer) I think that really depends on the person. If you are a creative, imaginative type of person and can easily conjure up images of what you are reading, then a movie will not be able to provide the same level of images that a your own mind can (no matter how big their Hollywood budget is). On the other hand if your a complete mental midget and you could not imagine your way out of a paper bag, then you are probably better spoon fed your imagery from a movie. Personally I like audio books. They allow you to view the movie in your head but still give you the voice of the author and characters. Angela's Ashes (the audio book version) was a great example of this. It was actually read by the author, Frank McCourt. What better voice to capture the true spirit of that book then the person who lived it?
I agreed with what Raph said in class however. No book or movie could ever capture the true experience of something like war. In order for a movie to put you there, it would have to no longer be "entertainment". It would have to cross over in to a painful experience. You ears would hurt, your eyes would water from the smells and you would have to truly be afraid for your life. I dont see that happening any time soon and unfortunately, when the technology to do this comes, it would most likely take the form of a roller coaster, Disney theme park experience for about another 25 years before it was used in any kind of serious story telling way. Perhaps when we are all old a feeble, we will be able to go to the holo theater and experience a fully realized first person experience like this. Then, and only then, can we say that the medium is anything more then a moving picture book. Shadows on the cave wall of our spoon fed imaginations.
Mr. Monahan, I debated arguing the time constraint argument you presented vaguely, but then realized you were onto something. While we are constrained by time, we are allowed to break that through the use of imagination. What is this "imagination" thing I speak of? well, its something the world has seemingly forgotten about.
Imagination allows us to create time based media, and enjoy every last moment of it. As Brian mentioned, we can get lost in time while viewing a film, which is the beauty of it in all actuality.
As far as I am concerned, we cannot compare a single medium to that of cinema. Through cinema we have captured important moments in time that we would never have been capable of doing with just photography. The fact that we can relive, and RECREATE things is simply, as cliche as it sounds, orgasmic. I love knowing that anything is possible to create through the use of cinema.
To answer a very complex in the most simplistic manner I can manage: how does montage affect cinema? It allows the creator to produce art in my eyes. I feel that montage is beautiful, and at times film is not. When you combine two forms of not beautiful film, sometimes you create beauty, which I will claim is art. Because everyone knows that "art is beautiful..." right?
Building off of what Elana said, I feel that words are incredibly powerful, but through the use of cinema, we have words on top of moving images, practically the same experience we live first hand every day. Cinema, cinema, cinema, I love you.
I am a film fanatic, so I know a lot of variation in the film world, but what makes things interesting on a different level is learning about the past methods of "cinema". Of course, back in ancient days cinema was really just single frames (images) or single lines (text) that told stories. These eventually became fluid in what we now consider movies. Over thousands of years, humans have found new ways to tell stories in a different social paradigm. As Elana mentioned, the bards told stories because in that culture at that time, that is what was popular. There was a social view of the way stories were told, but today we live much more busy and private lives, so DVD's seem to be the current best way to tell "epics" (though many films today fall flat on their face to be called such a thing). Who knows, with the social paradigms of new media and the concentration on networks, maybe in the future we will be telling stories through different ways. Blogging is already a way people are telling personal stories with a way for people to talk back. These are personal narratives, but they do not stop with the ability for people to keep posting comments on a new story.
The one thing I find so interesting about narrative structures is that the same narrative structure (for example a book or a movie) will NEVER be the same for any one person at any one time. If I read lord of the rings (a complete fantasy novel) I will take away differently than a friend of mine would because of my perceptions of fantasy, my ability to read, and other factors that will help me relate to such a fantasy. Also, if I go back and read the book 2 years later, I am going to build a different relationship with the story because parts of it I already know, so there may be other parts I did not focus on as much that will embed themselves in my mind. Narratives will always be dynamic, and we often do not think of stories in this way, but I think it is important to, otherwise why would we still be reading stories like "Tom Sawyer" or watching films like "Casablanca" - because though nothing changes on their end, our minds will always perceive things differently. It just depends where we are in our life. If I am an Iraq veteran and I watch the film "Jacob's Ladder" I am going to relate to that film more than if I was a child, so narratives are relative, which makes then infinitely amazing.
As for the talk on oration versus stagnation (pretty much), I agree that a lot can be gained from the signals of a human telling a story. Even when I watch a DVD, I feel more connected than if I read a book because I don't have to imagine a person, they are there , the way it was intended to be saying things in a way that my mind is not interpreting differently (this is not a BAD thing, just more authentic). The same argument for a play, when you can see a physical person moving and they are right in front of you, there is a deeper connection because you are closer to the human. Humans are creations of relations, and the more we connect with someone on a level, the more we can gain. That is why the greatest narrative of all time is our own lives because it is a unique and genuine experience based on the characters (friends and family) of ourselves. Everything is authentic, and the emotions felt are not one of simulacra (or even simulation), so we may forget that the best story ever told (or at least the truest to our own hearts) is the very one we are creating RIGHT NOW.
In my opinion, narratives are one of the strongest paradigms our culture will ever have, and narratives will always exist. They existed before humans (we have narratives ABOUT dinosaurs, therefore the narratives were always there) so in essences as long as time has existed, the potential for narratives (maybe not the output, but at least the source) has always existed.
In regards to what Stephen said about the evolution of cinema. I agree with Kory and disagree. Cinema has changed the way people perceive for the sheer fact that film is a form of desensitization. It's true though, that the basic structures and dealing have not done a complete overhaul, but societally, I would argue there have been dramatic changes.
For example. Wes Craven's first film "Last House on the Left", featured a rape and humiliation scene (i believe this was around '72) . The movie was cut to shit and banned at most places, but if we look at the current trend there have been at least 10 - 15 releases in the torture horror genre (saw, gag, captivity, hostel, are you afraid, etc. etc.). I think this shows that just what is acceptable in a 30 year time period. Of course this is content, and not the kind of shift that Elana was talking about with bards -> cinema. I wouldn't say there has been a paradigm shift for quite a while. Regardless, I think it's important to see how the content of narrative is structured as well, and how that has changed.
8 comments:
At the beginning of the lecture, it was said that the difference between good cinema and an epic ballad told thousands of years ago by a skilled bard was the personal experience. The cinema shows us what things should look like: in a war movie, it depicts the battlefield and shows us, basically GIVES us the images, which we accept. However, there was a debate as to whether the epic story would be a different sort of experience because of its nature; that is, the words are describing to you the battlefield, the smell, the horror of the scene.
Some people said that the storyteller would have the advantage, because the images would be in the listener's head, and it would draw from his own life experiences, his imagination, what scares him most personally. Others said that the story would have less of an edge, because perhaps the listener has never experienced war - then he has nothing to go by.
While I was listening to this lecture, an interesting thing happened - I was also on firstclass, and as we were discussing this, I navigated away from the page to check my mail. When Raph began to describe a battle scene in war, with the burning smell of the naptha, the scent of death on the air, I actually saw images in my head, and it was a powerful moment for me (especially since this was basically the debate). I've seen my share of war movies, and certainly I've never experienced war first-hand, but I think imagination is the most powerful tool a person has, and because words are so potent (someone mentioned that a phrase can be worth a thousand images), the told story may have more weight than the cinematic one in some instances. As to the debate of whether one or the other is more of a simulation - I think it depends how deeply invested in the story an individual is. If I am reading an Honors book, I am totally disconnected from it, and I "think away" as Raph said, and I lose my connection, I go back to my reality. If I am reading a great book, however, I can get completely immersed in the story, so much so that I barely even see the words before me anymore, I see the actual images, the people talking, the vast landscapes, etc.
Yes, cinema does hamper the imagination a bit, but I don't think that means that you can be less invested in it. I would probably always agree that books are better (at least better than their movie counterparts), but a great film can manipulate you just as well as a great book can. You can play with time, as was mentioned, with editing and frame rate - as we all know. You can manipulate the audience's emotions and feelings, and so I believe these two different media are actually much more similar than we all think. You can get the same type of experience from both. It just depends on how much of yourself you are willing to give over to their alternate realities.
As a viewer we are subject to the medium that we are enveloped by, in the real world we are to maintain a sense of reality, and we are subject to the “rules” of this world, we are bound by time, gravity and relationships to the objects around us. The real is in fact a fabrication of our minds. This is why it is so easy to become enthralled with a good story, movie, or play. There are triggers that initiate a response yes, but it is more in that we are so capable of substituting what we see as real for the simulated.
Cinema is a fair many things, but most of all it is a perspective of the moment, and it is edited to fit a time frame, a film is something that allows the viewer to willingly be suspended in time and become part of that moment. Oral traditions, written word, and film all share the common thread that they are all telling a story, each requires a different amount of imaginative processing, but that does not make one better than another.
I feel that we are able to do many things when it comes to how we relate to a story. It’s in our instincts to be concerned with the world, we want to experience everything in life, and we are able to do that through story, and the mediums that allow us to experience them. When we see a movie about war we leave the theater with one understanding of what war may be like, that being said, it is nothing like what it really is. We tend to misunderstand the actual environment of what it would be like to be in that event. The truth is, is that there is no medium that can replace what it would be like to be there in that instance. Secondly, it’s also true that each story, whether it be told from the person who was there or not, it is from the perspective of that person, that camera, that character, and that narrator. There is no way to precipitate the reality of a situation to another human being; it is distinct to each individual, just as the image created by the viewers’ imagination is distinct to them.
Although the lecture veered away from what Raphael had intended it to be (mostly my fault for misunderstanding, sorry) , I think we acknowledged and brought forth things that we don't quite understand and in very philosophical manner.
I think it is important to understand the social impact of cinema as well as the root of cinema and how it has become what it is today; that includes the transition of verbal to written word, books, and photographs. It's a very powerful thing to be able to convey ideas in your mind and being able to articulate that through any means you feel best expresses your idea. It's not a bad thing that someone may perceive your idea differently than what you had intended- but you can argue that it is a bad thing. For example, if you tell a joke and it insulted someone- although you didn't intend for it to be insulting they thought it was and now perceive you negatively.
That has been my dilemma.
Back to some things said in the lecture:
The real question was how does montage function as a tool in time-based media? Now, I am paraphrasing from "The Silent Eye And The Eye In Time" which addresses this very question: Montage allows us to create complex levels of meaning and it also allows for time to be shown in a non-linear way, i.e., running back and forth, skipping from present to past and future.
I believe it acts the same way chapters do in a book.
Elana- I agree with your statement on how cinema does hamper the imagination (to a degree) and I also agree that it doesn't mean that you can be less invested in it. But I do think that we do not read because we have lost that imagination. That is why we are fascinated with film- it's someone elses imagination that we feel we could never have thought of ourselves.
Here are some things I mentioned in the lecture (or tried to) but my absent mindedness got the best of me.
Strange Days: fantastic film that mixes hyper-real with electro-real. People in the future can record POV's with new technology and share those experienes by tricking their brain into thinking they are actually their.
Brian had blogged that the real is merely a fabrication of our mind. Well what if we could tap into those senses and trick our bodies with our minds into experiencing what other experience?
http://www.amazon.com/Strange-Days-Ralph-Fiennes/dp/B00000JSJC/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1203285533&sr=8-1
http://www.amazon.com/Strange-Days-Ralph-Fiennes/dp/B00000JSJC/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1203285533&sr=8-1f
And now, some friendly words from Director/Writer/Painter David Lynch on the cinematic experience with new technology.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKiIroiCvZ0
The reading -
Stephen - Nothing new in cinema. Response to cinema hasn't changed.
Brian - Haven't enhanced the way we view cinema.
Willing suspension of disbelief
Is there a difference between the effects of cinema and storytelling?
Cinema has actual pictures, where as you create the images in your head through storytelling.
Passive when watching cinema - Intellect, Eyes and Ears
Time in written vs cinema
Do you have a choice about how you experience time?
You can re read what you need to. You can pause a dvd. You can slow the reading down.
The storytelling about when you lose yourself in a good book or movie was never more apparent to me then reading Diary by Chuck Palahniuk (as i mentioned in one of the first lectures), or watching Lost. I get so wrapped up in the stories that Hurley, Jack, Locke, Sawyer and Charlie all become real people and their problems and the mystery of the story take over my thoughts during my free time. I even talk with my friends about theories about Lost. When I watch it, my room becomes quiet, no one is allowed to talk till the commercial break and then the room erupts in theories and questions of, what just happened!? When I read Diary, I had a physical reaction to it. My heart rate increased, and I couldn't read fast enough to understand the story and to know what happened.
Brian said "Cinema is a fair many things, but most of all it is a perspective of the moment, and it is edited to fit a time frame, a film is something that allows the viewer to willingly be suspended in time and become part of that moment." I couldn't agree more. Some of the best movies don't go on long enough and some go on too long, in the case of Coppola's movies, I can never wait till the end. I guess I just don't appreciate them like I should. I don't necessarily think that cinema should always fit a time frame. The movies today are more worried about making back their money as opposed to making something unforgettable with an amazing story line. I know I'd love to see a 5 hour version of Sin City. Brian is right about getting lost in the moment. In Sin City I would have loved to see the back stories for all the characters and get to know them past the 2 hours that the film runs for. During the second section of Sin City, the one with Jackie Boy and Dwight, I would have loved to see that whole section as a whole movie, as opposed to editing it all down to fit within the time frame.
This was a great lecture. I am a huge Alfred Hitchcock fan and anyone who is interested in his work must appreciate the power and importance of a montage. The shower scene from Psycho for example (one of the most highly acclaimed moments in horror film) is comprised of over 75 separate "cuts" of short clips of footage. This is amazing considering the entire scene is only 45 seconds long. Hitchcock was a master of these montages and he did not use them willy nilly. Each angle, each shot was planned out and had a metaphorical meaning to it. Every single clip (whether it was for five minutes or 5 seconds) was designed to provide the full amount of suspense and impact.
In an interview Hitchcock once said he does not like the term "cuts". He says it implies that something is being removed. Instead he would rather call it "assembly". The idea that a montage is a mosaic of small clips is a much better way of describing what Hitchcock did. It is the putting together of tiny slices of reality in to a 4 dimensional collage of sorts. I have always been interested in this and I think its great that we are talking about it in this class.
On the topic of whether a book is better then a movie (or more to the point, whether it delivers the same amount of imagery to the reader/viewer) I think that really depends on the person. If you are a creative, imaginative type of person and can easily conjure up images of what you are reading, then a movie will not be able to provide the same level of images that a your own mind can (no matter how big their Hollywood budget is). On the other hand if your a complete mental midget and you could not imagine your way out of a paper bag, then you are probably better spoon fed your imagery from a movie. Personally I like audio books. They allow you to view the movie in your head but still give you the voice of the author and characters. Angela's Ashes (the audio book version) was a great example of this. It was actually read by the author, Frank McCourt. What better voice to capture the true spirit of that book then the person who lived it?
I agreed with what Raph said in class however. No book or movie could ever capture the true experience of something like war. In order for a movie to put you there, it would have to no longer be "entertainment". It would have to cross over in to a painful experience. You ears would hurt, your eyes would water from the smells and you would have to truly be afraid for your life. I dont see that happening any time soon and unfortunately, when the technology to do this comes, it would most likely take the form of a roller coaster, Disney theme park experience for about another 25 years before it was used in any kind of serious story telling way. Perhaps when we are all old a feeble, we will be able to go to the holo theater and experience a fully realized first person experience like this. Then, and only then, can we say that the medium is anything more then a moving picture book. Shadows on the cave wall of our spoon fed imaginations.
Mr. Monahan, I debated arguing the time constraint argument you presented vaguely, but then realized you were onto something. While we are constrained by time, we are allowed to break that through the use of imagination. What is this "imagination" thing I speak of? well, its something the world has seemingly forgotten about.
Imagination allows us to create time based media, and enjoy every last moment of it. As Brian mentioned, we can get lost in time while viewing a film, which is the beauty of it in all actuality.
As far as I am concerned, we cannot compare a single medium to that of cinema. Through cinema we have captured important moments in time that we would never have been capable of doing with just photography. The fact that we can relive, and RECREATE things is simply, as cliche as it sounds, orgasmic. I love knowing that anything is possible to create through the use of cinema.
To answer a very complex in the most simplistic manner I can manage: how does montage affect cinema? It allows the creator to produce art in my eyes. I feel that montage is beautiful, and at times film is not. When you combine two forms of not beautiful film, sometimes you create beauty, which I will claim is art. Because everyone knows that "art is beautiful..." right?
Building off of what Elana said, I feel that words are incredibly powerful, but through the use of cinema, we have words on top of moving images, practically the same experience we live first hand every day. Cinema, cinema, cinema, I love you.
I am a film fanatic, so I know a lot of variation in the film world, but what makes things interesting on a different level is learning about the past methods of "cinema". Of course, back in ancient days cinema was really just single frames (images) or single lines (text) that told stories. These eventually became fluid in what we now consider movies. Over thousands of years, humans have found new ways to tell stories in a different social paradigm. As Elana mentioned, the bards told stories because in that culture at that time, that is what was popular. There was a social view of the way stories were told, but today we live much more busy and private lives, so DVD's seem to be the current best way to tell "epics" (though many films today fall flat on their face to be called such a thing). Who knows, with the social paradigms of new media and the concentration on networks, maybe in the future we will be telling stories through different ways. Blogging is already a way people are telling personal stories with a way for people to talk back. These are personal narratives, but they do not stop with the ability for people to keep posting comments on a new story.
The one thing I find so interesting about narrative structures is that the same narrative structure (for example a book or a movie) will NEVER be the same for any one person at any one time. If I read lord of the rings (a complete fantasy novel) I will take away differently than a friend of mine would because of my perceptions of fantasy, my ability to read, and other factors that will help me relate to such a fantasy. Also, if I go back and read the book 2 years later, I am going to build a different relationship with the story because parts of it I already know, so there may be other parts I did not focus on as much that will embed themselves in my mind. Narratives will always be dynamic, and we often do not think of stories in this way, but I think it is important to, otherwise why would we still be reading stories like "Tom Sawyer" or watching films like "Casablanca" - because though nothing changes on their end, our minds will always perceive things differently. It just depends where we are in our life. If I am an Iraq veteran and I watch the film "Jacob's Ladder" I am going to relate to that film more than if I was a child, so narratives are relative, which makes then infinitely amazing.
As for the talk on oration versus stagnation (pretty much), I agree that a lot can be gained from the signals of a human telling a story. Even when I watch a DVD, I feel more connected than if I read a book because I don't have to imagine a person, they are there , the way it was intended to be saying things in a way that my mind is not interpreting differently (this is not a BAD thing, just more authentic). The same argument for a play, when you can see a physical person moving and they are right in front of you, there is a deeper connection because you are closer to the human. Humans are creations of relations, and the more we connect with someone on a level, the more we can gain. That is why the greatest narrative of all time is our own lives because it is a unique and genuine experience based on the characters (friends and family) of ourselves. Everything is authentic, and the emotions felt are not one of simulacra (or even simulation), so we may forget that the best story ever told (or at least the truest to our own hearts) is the very one we are creating RIGHT NOW.
In my opinion, narratives are one of the strongest paradigms our culture will ever have, and narratives will always exist. They existed before humans (we have narratives ABOUT dinosaurs, therefore the narratives were always there) so in essences as long as time has existed, the potential for narratives (maybe not the output, but at least the source) has always existed.
In regards to what Stephen said about the evolution of cinema. I agree with Kory and disagree. Cinema has changed the way people perceive for the sheer fact that film is a form of desensitization. It's true though, that the basic structures and dealing have not done a complete overhaul, but societally, I would argue there have been dramatic changes.
For example. Wes Craven's first film "Last House on the Left", featured a rape and humiliation scene (i believe this was around '72) . The movie was cut to shit and banned at most places, but if we look at the current trend there have been at least 10 - 15 releases in the torture horror genre (saw, gag, captivity, hostel, are you afraid, etc. etc.). I think this shows that just what is acceptable in a 30 year time period. Of course this is content, and not the kind of shift that Elana was talking about with bards -> cinema. I wouldn't say there has been a paradigm shift for quite a while. Regardless, I think it's important to see how the content of narrative is structured as well, and how that has changed.
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