When it comes to media, print, radio, television, film etc., Marshall McLuhan is a good place to start. McLuhan is one of the giants of this realm, writing a plethora of influential books and articles on the subject. We take many of his ideas for granted today, because they have reached the mainstream and are so ingrained in our understanding of media, it just seems to be a part of the ether that always existed. In the piece Movies: the Reel World, which is and excerpt from the larger volume Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, McLuhan begins by establishing this idea that movies, like literature, are a fantasy world based on real life, transporting the audience from their own personal sphere to another place that might well be unfamiliar to them. Film and literature share this modus operandi of transporting its audience in a very specific way. Both are concerned with details, though their means of description are quite different. Film is a visual medium where things are described by what we see, and also by what we hear, whereas literature must describe things so that they can be visualized in our mind's eye. We imagine Shakespeare's Hamlet not just by the descriptions of his character in print, but by a certain amount of conjecture on our part, our own experiences that we bring to that visualization. Film must be concerned with detail in the same way, but because in is more concretely placed before us on the screen, it has to be presented in a believable way.
McLuhan suggests as an example that costumes in a period piece would have to be created in the same way they were made during the period they depict, in order to maintain the look of authenticity that a camera is capable of recording. While I think at times this is taken too far, some filmmakers would agree. Stanley Kubrick for one was known for the lengths he would go to in order to create a particular look in his films. It's widely noted that in the period piece Barry Lyndon, which Kubrick directed in 1975, special optics had to be made for the cameras in order to capture enough light from the scenes because Kubrick insisted they be lit only by candlelight, the only lighting source available during the 18th century time period depicted in the film.
Keeping in mind that this article was written in the 1960's, there are certain points which are dated by the period in which they were written. It's hard to imagine an audience today who is unfamiliar with film or television technology, which seems pervasive even in poorer parts of the world. We need only to hear the statistics of people watching World Cup soccer around the globe to realize that in this modern age, nearly everyone's life is touched in some way by the technology of the moving image. Of course there are still undoubtedly some pockets of primitive culture left scattered in certain corners, isolated from these modern things, either by choice, or by the fact of their remoteness in relation to "civilized" society. McLuhan lumps together African culture, presumably the tribes that still live in isolated rural settings where electricity and modern technology is either eschewed or unheard of. His example is not specific to that continent, but in general describes a phenomenon of visual illiteracy in an age where for most of us, things like film and television are a staple of growth from our earliest stages of development. The same lack of familiarity with visual culture might well exist among the Amish in our own country, or any other culture that lack this exposure.
It's an interesting idea, that we must be trained to understand that there is a difference between a car driving toward us in real life and one that we see in a film or on TV. We think of it as innate and universally understood that when a character is off screen, they have not disappeared, but the camera has simply cut away from them, or they have walked out of frame. We suspend our disbelief and accept certain illusions as true for the sake of story, but we understand that they are fabricated, though we may not be completely aware of how the effect is accomplished. If we see a character hurtling through space, propelled by an enormous fiery explosion, we can surmise that in reality this not only is not possible, it also wasn't accomplished as a film stunt in the way it is seen. It's done by computer graphics or some other form of trickery, but ultimately we are not concerned with how something is done, but how it fits with the storyline. The untrained eye according to McLuhan, would be traumatized and perplexed by this, just as if he or she witnessed it in real life. This can most readily be understood by considering our own reactions to things in movies and on TV from when we were children versus now. As children, certain movies were frightening beyond belief, giving us nightmares, but going back to view them now, they would seem quite tame.
It's amusing to read McLuhan's view of the advancing of technology at the time he wrote this piece considering the mobile, digital age we now live in. "Soon everyone will be able to have a small, inexpensive film projector that plays an 8mm sound cartridge as if on a TV screen" he writes. His reaction to this is that it represents an implosion of technology, a sort of regression rather than advance spurred by convenience and cost. Movies to him, are nothing more than an advertising tool, an arm of big business designed to direct our consumption. I can only imagine how he'd react to today's world of the internet and the ubiquity of mobile smartphones and other pocket-sized media devices. I can't imagine he'd be pleased with the development, but I'm sure he'd offer some reasoned reflection on how it has affected the culture in a larger way, and our ability to read and comprehend the images and sound we are constantly bombarded with. I think he'd have quite a bit to say about the current state of media. Perhaps he'd actually embrace some of it as positive in terms of opening up doors to new forms of communication, though he might question the quality of the content. I suppose in that respect, I tend to agree.
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