Film/Books and Speed

[S J Pate]

Jim W wrote:
>ManataRay claimed that 
>
>"The pace of the reading might be dictated by the reader i.e.
>s/he might decide to read three lines then sleep but the pace
>of the novel is written by the author".
>
>To which Patrick S. replies 
>
>"The slowness i was talking about is the actual time it takes
>to read or see a scene. Suppose we have a passage in a book
>that is quite dense and has a rather weird narrative, this
>means that the reader will probably read it quite slow. But he
>can, if he wishes, or is used to these kind of passages,
>read it quickly".
>
>Patrick them goes onto note, the finite playing time of a film.
>
>However both views are flawed in their concept of time. Linear time
>is a concept which has no bearing upon an individuals definition of
>speed i.e. a film or book being fast or slow. Terms such as fast and
>slow are drawn from the individuals own concept of time, the feeling
>of time elapsed (a some what Proustian concept). Even in reading books
>such as GR or Ulysses by Joyce the linear concept of time maybe long
>i.e. the actual reading speed of the book is slow but the readers speed maybe
>fast. This is because the reader is following the old adage that 
>'time flies when you having fun'. 

But still, the author does have a great deal of control over the speed of a
novel. The earlier example of _On the Road_  vs. _Ulysses_ is a pretty good
example: very, very few people would say, I think, that time passes slowly
in the first or that it passes quickly in the latter, even if they somehow
took longer to read the latter than the former. I don't think readers
confuse pacing with actual speed of comprehension. I good writer does have
a commanding use of tempo and pacing, and uses these techniques to effect
the slow passage of time or time flying by, etc.

>
>This idea is not so easy when converted to films but the basic concept
>applies. Unlike books the film viewer has only a limited viewing time (not
>taking into account the use of video or multiple trips to the cinema) however
>to claim that this is the end of the viewer contemplation of what he/she has
>seen is incorrect. I for one have spent many days contemplating what happened
>in a film, stretching the viewing time as well as the concept of time
needed to 
>understand the film. The speed of a book/film is dependent upon the
enjoyment 
>derived by the reader not by the skills of the author. A good book
stretches the
>time taken to understand, because it is stretching the reader, while at
the same
>time shortening the time the the reader feels he/she is spending reading.  
>
>Jim W.   
>
I think the point of difference between the media is one analogous to the
one made in Lessing's Laocoon: film (_because_ it takes place in time) can
depict time, while fiction can only effect it. (Of course, Lessing would
conclude that this makes literature inferior as long as it tries to depict
the passage of time). Again I refer to the example of Warhol's _Empire_:
seven hours of the exact same frame, with only the occasional light going
on or off, makes the viewer acutely aware of time's passage in an
admittedly exaggerated way, but still proves the point. Literature can only
approach that kind of depiction through the intervention of a
phenomenological approach, e.g. Proust or Ulysses.


SJ Pate