Film Technology Altering Perception

In class we compared early silent films to those of more modern cinema. In the silent film shown, the director only shows scenes of separate action creating a static perspective for the viewer. We then contrasted this with a more recent film, Saving Private Ryan, where the perspective of The D Day scene seemed to be constantly changing. This provided the viewer with the feeling that they are omniscient and provided a sense of realness while at the same time illustrating the impossible. The constant change in perspective is something that I had never noticed when watching movies until this class. The constant changing of camera angles and perspective always made me feel like the movie was more realistic and I never figured that the changing perspectives provided an unrealistic feeling. The change in perspectives of films today, compared to films in the early 1900’s may illustrate societies short attention span, but I believe it also illustrates outside the box thinking. Today, society is more distracted than ever and film presents the perfect metaphor for that, but we also live in a society of incredible ingenuity. The stagnant perspective of early films may present a lack of distraction, but I also believe it presents a lack of ingenuity. Yes, there is no denying that there were still incredible men and women that pushed society forward, but I think these figures were less abundant than today. I think our cluttered society filled with distractions has encouraged alternative thinking and produced an abundance of entrepreneurs.

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