{"id":414,"date":"2013-10-23T17:32:34","date_gmt":"2013-10-23T17:32:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/listheory.prattsils.org\/?p=414"},"modified":"2013-10-23T17:32:34","modified_gmt":"2013-10-23T17:32:34","slug":"seeing-and-hearing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/studentwork.prattsi.org\/foundations\/2013\/10\/23\/seeing-and-hearing\/","title":{"rendered":"Seen and Heard\u2014a mini film festival."},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Citizen-Kane-Microphone\"<\/a>
Screenshot of the microphone representing narrator Orson Welles from the trailer from Citizen Kane<\/i>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThe primacy of the written word went into abeyance. And that uniform layer, in which the <\/i>seen and the <\/i>read, the visible and the expressible, were endlessly interwoven, vanished too. Things and words were to be separated from one another. The eye was thenceforth destined to see and only to see, the ear to hear and only to hear.\u201d
\n<\/i>\u2014<\/i>Foucault,<\/span>\u00a0The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences <\/i><\/i>(1966)<\/span><\/p>\n

Foucault was writing about the \u201cbeing of language\u201d and the reorganization of culture in the classical world but he could have been describing the transition from silent to talking pictures, (or further, the ongoing change from analog to digital and the impact on accessing and assimilating information). There\u2019s no doubt the written word is alive and well\u2014just look at the amount of writing online\u2014though it’s dwarfed by the amount and availability of still and moving images.<\/p>\n

With a Foucauldian\u00a0transitional moment in mind, (utilizing both eyes and ears), I’ve picked a few commercially produced movies from the 1950s to today\u00a0which touch on political and social issues such as the gathering and disseminating\u00a0of information, the need and relevance for books, libraries, and archives, free access of information,\u00a0the power of the state, (and individuals who challenge it), the needs of society versus the individual, totalitarianism and the toll on those in it,\u00a0and the nature of privacy and surveillance and the costs to society.<\/p>\n

Storm Center<\/i> (1956), a bit of a pot-boiler, is nonetheless an interesting look into McCarthy era America. As one of the first movies, (albeit post-McCarthy), to examine it overtly, it\u2019s the story of a small town librarian standing up against the banning of books in her library. Though somewhat simplistic it puts forth a powerful argument against censorship and state control of information. In the scene below the librarian argues before the city council that there are a number of books on the shelves that she doesn\u2019t agree with, (she uses Mein Kampf<\/i> as her example), and the council is almost swayed until one of them uses information, (one assumes from illegal government surveillance), that she once belonged to organizations that were found to be Communist fronts to destroy her. Though not subtle, the issues of individual rights in a democratic society, the role of libraries, the needs of access of information are all touched upon.<\/p>\n