nekochan says: 2006-03-09 16:05:53
Now here's a topic I could go on for a while about... First off, as someone whose created both literature and film, writing so much easier. There's something pure about just a person creating an entire world with just a pen and piece of paper. You don't have to worry about budgets, your actors, props, costumes, sets and all the rest of the crap. Just you creating your world. The only thing that can cause any problems is your own imgination and mastery over the language. But, as a filmmaker, there's nothing more exciting as seeing your characters and your world come to life. Being a power-hungry person I am, I could probably never write scripts and then let some other director take over. When I write something, I wanna see it through. I want my vision to be shown on the screen. Like you said Bigsby, literature is always open to interpretations. Right now, as you, the reader, reads each sentence, you have no idea how I want them to be read, or how I was feeling when I wrote them. Any sentence could be taken in many different contexts. Which is where any writer needs to be careful with the choosing of the words, like how a painter needs to choose their colors just right. Now don't think that all movies can't be as deep as any piece of literature. It's frightfully true that most hollywood movies are just popcorn, but there's some amazing movies out there that force you to rethink the world around you. Documentaries are starting to get more play time and the really good ones start such fires in a persons soul that you can hear the fire in their voice when they debate on the subject. Movies like "What the Bleep do we know," "Suburban," "Supersize me," and any doc done by Micheal Moore. Then there's the hollywood blockbusters like "Matrix," and "The Terminal." The few art house movie theatres we have in the city are always playing compelling movies that people are missing out on. "Water," "Capote," and "Last Night" that are so great at what they do that people sit in the theatre, stunned to silence, unable to move, their souls shaken at what they just experienced. But don't think that the hollywoods hits are horrible. They may not have the effect that the aforementioned movies had, but all movies play to so many more of your senses then a piece of literature can. Sight, sound, certian movies make your heart race faster, make you flinch in pain (like when the mentioning of castration with a razor in Mississippi's burning) and can play up to your other senses. But the really good movies have this moment, when sound, light and everything about it just mingles perfectly and it sends shivers down your spine. I don't think I could ever say which I like to work on more, film or literature, but there are just some stories that have to be told on the screen, and others that can only be told in the mind on my reader.

BalthazaarRamrod says: 2006-03-23 14:42:07
Forgot to Add something. Newsmedia is far better by print than by television. Television only provides you with crappy soundbites and 3 min glimpses at the issue. To really understand the issues you'll need to go to Print.

Anonymous says: 2006-09-08 16:23:04
Well I really connected with this piece because I myself find the best proof that literature is better than movies or television, are films based on books. I usually read a book before I watch the film based on it and most of the time I am completely disappointed by the movies inability to tell the whole story or in the imaginative way I had read it. Now don’t get me wrong, often times movies based on novels or short stories are great works of cinematic achievement, but you can never truly tell the entire story due to films length limitations and there is also a certain amount of subjective ness based on the writer of the screenplays idea of the original work and the directors vision of it. I myself was always grateful that my parents taught me a sense of enjoyment from reading and expanding my thoughts and ideas from it. A very select few movies have done this but I do believe far more books can take that prize. Most of my major epiphanies have come from reading a great work of literature. It is something that should never be lost, and I fear in the days of soaring illiteracy rates we may be at risk of losing our need to read. Secondary note, I agree with Balthazaar, to understand a news story you should get all the information possible from as many sources as possible. Thirdly always question televisions motives, they are not always apt to be telling you anything of any value, what you are getting often times is senseless propaganda with intermittent entertainment. In Canada we have the largest available external media feed from the US we must really try to think about the messages being sent to us via this media and make sound judgements.

paydirtgirl says: 2007-01-21 07:07:57
I am a book reader. Always have been, always will be. But in recent months I have been invited to provide music for a few short films and it has given me a new perspective on media "watching". In university theory classes we learned about "programmatic music", and the fact that there are countless universal motives or scales or tones that can stir predictable emotion. And I'm not talking about a cold, mathematical calculation either. I'm talking about a human response to timeless sounds. My point is just that film and television, coupled with music, can incite a subconscious sensation that can underline an action or a word; a feature unavailable when reading. Also, frames move quickly and are intended to blur together. It was quite an exercise attempting to match with music each nuance in voice, facial expression and pause. It might be a good experiment to watch a film in slow-motion.

SOLMoFo says: 2008-07-24 17:43:05
I would tend to lean more towards books, like most of the crowd. For example, a film vs, book for "Deepthroat Sluts 2"; the film really captured the splendor and awe of the golden showers scene, but the book lent much more character development and depth, thus endearing one more to the plot, characters, and spiritual undercurrent. Sorry, had to be done.