Legacy of 24fps

[Michael Bailey]

Bekah wrote:
>Paul Mackin wrote:
>> If you could watch the Peoples Republic of Rock'n'Roll vs. the State as
>> produced by 24fps, would it be "truer," "less true," or "equally true" as
>> compared with the same confrontation as written by Thomas Pynchon,?
>

not OCDish so much as anally, I have this notion that it would be helpful to
enumerate the points of difference:

a) basic imaginary vs real, the prose of Vineland exists in objective
reality for all but the most determined quibblers, whereas the footage
of 24fps, its personnel and PR3 itself are airy phantoms conjured by
that prose in the capable crania of readers

b) McLuhanly difference of media, pix vs words

c) since the collective's footage is destined for a Vondian
auto-da-fe, whereas the prose of Vineland will accompany mannish
settlers to Alpha Centauri (one cherishes the hope), there's an
implication of a torch being passed

> In and of itself,  I  think it would be less "true"  (depending on your
> definition of that, of course)   because it would be from only one
> perspective.  Pynchon tries to get behind the action and view it from a
> third person omniscient (or at least semi-omniscient) pov.  So he's bringing
> the info of who's holding the camera, who's just getting there,  who's
> thinking about what.   -
>

exactly...as Nabokov occasionally gloated, writers can do things
moviemakers could not dream of

> Of course this is not to say that the first person camera view is not "more
> true."  It's just to say I think you have a better perspective on the whole
> in Pynchon than with a camera lens.   -  And then,  too,  in hands less
> capable than those of OBA the wider perspective could distort everything.
>

whereas as he has told us himself, life's one way ride informs mature
fiction, and this is seen here - these fragments from 24fps lovingly
assembled and presented to Prairie are a surer and more moving
preservation than any imaginable safe house or vault, yet the sic
transit aspect is key to the experience too...just as when Prairie
finally sees Frenesi she's seeing somebody further along the one way
trip and somebody burned (sun damage) like the films - or like those
cells of the epidermis mentioned in Gravity'sＲａｉｎｂｏｗ


> oh well -  I tried.... (g)
>
> Bekah
>



-- 
 - "yep, he'd murmur, still making stupid mistakes and how about
yerself?" - Zoyd, p 24