Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/09/17
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On 17 Sep 99, Johnny Deadman wrote, at least in part:
> That's my gut opinion, anyway. I hope I have muddied the waters a
> little... in my opinion, anyone who pretends they aren't muddy hasn't
> drunk deep enough of them.
Only problem I have with re-enacting something, Johnny, is when
it is presented as the real thing. You and others on this list have
the ability to ferret out the staged from the real, and that's good,
but the overwhelming bulk of the public doesn't! And, the industry
knows that, and it was still presented as real. Real because it was
not stated to be not real. The public has the right to believe until
given reason not to believe. At least that's the way I would wish.
If that's a naive point of view, so be it. Even today, with what we
think is an image hip public, I bet that the staged aspect wouldn't
be noted by the viewers.
I believe that the viewing public would have accepted, with
equanimity, the purpose of the WWI staged footage IF it was
bannered with something like, "The following footage is presented
as close to the actual conditions as possible, but is staged. The
actual scene could not be photographed since the photographer's
life would have been severely threatened". They did accept it,
only to learn later that it was staged. Damn, I hate having to be
on my toes every moment of my life, and, that's what it is coming
to. Make a place for another one, Barnum, here I come!
- --
Roger
mailto:roger@beamon.org
Thought for the day:
The hardness of butter is proportional
to the softness of the bread.