A 2Oth CENTURY SAGA:
FILM, TELEVISION, BOOK AND COMPUTER IN THE AGE OF
ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS
OR
THE HIDDEN PURPOSE OF MASS COMMUNICATIONS
Soon as a new book © Fereydoun Hoveyda
In 1917,the French poet Guillaume Apollinaire predicted the "death" of books "in one or two centuries and their replacement by film and sound".In the early sixties, Marshall McLuhan proclaimed the end of the "Gutemberg Galaxy." Neither of these predictions has yet happened. But the development of the computer science and the spread of the "internet" have already changed the landscape of the media and affected the realm of book publishing as well as that of journalism, cinema and television.
In his new book, Hoveyda who was involved with cinema and literature for many years, scrutinizes the relations between the different medias and forms of art. Drawing on his varied experience as well as on his knowledge of the arts and medias, he explains how "cinema" literaly existed before literature and any attempt to promote articulate language. He contends that man is horn with a built-in capacity of telling stories through "animated images" and that all other forms of communications stem from this innate capability Looking at the extraordinary technological developments in the fields of cinema, television and communications. Hoveyda finds a "hidden purpose" behind them; a kind of "common thread" that illustrates and explains, the quest of Humans for communications.
Indeed, as far back as one can go, one finds that humans were always preoccupied with the question of communicating what was going on in their minds..They tried (and found) ways of transmitting to one another the impressions and ideas which were churning in their heads. The prehistoric cave drawings,the hieroglyphs, literature, canvases, gesture-language,etc,were and are part of such attempts. Humans invented language (words and phrases etc.) This progression of inventions seems to pursue a linear path toward "externalization" of their inner thoughts and dreams. The peak would be reached when this "externalization" would become "automatic" and forego the use of more or less hea"'y equipment.Bunuel once told the author and his friends in Paris, in the mid 60s that he dreams of the day when he would sit in a darkened room and project on a wall the film he is concocting in his head! This is exactly the end road of the technological progresses we are witnessing.
This short book also describes the evolution of modern cinema as the author witnessed it and paticipited in one of its episodes which took place in thew 50s and 60s in Paris with the celebrated "Cahiers du Cinema" and people such as Rohmer, Truffaut and Godard. The book also contains some more or less new and "revolutionnary remarks about film appreciation and film making; about television and its basic difference with cinema; about the impact of medias on one another as well as about the influence of the more recent technologies on "narration" styles,etc. It contains many new views on film and the use of image in arts.
The author, among other things, has published ten novels, five essays and many short
stories in French (published in Paris between 1956 and 1992). He was a member of the board
of the "Cahiers du Cinema" that launched in the late fifties the so-called
"Nouvelle Vague;" he was a collaborator of Roberto Rossellini and Francois
Truffaut. He himself produced short films (both fiction and documentaries). In this new
book he exposes the quintessence of his experiences in the fields of literature and film.
The manuscript (almost completed') is approximately 65 thousand worlds long. The
provisional table of contents is: Introduction- Superiority of Literature?- Cinema and
Nightly Dreams - Cinema Photography and Painting - Influence of Literature on Film?
- Other Misunderstandings, Film Shows, Literature Says - The Question of Adaptations -
Cinema and Theater - The Film-Maker as an "Author" - Film-Makers Haunted by
Literature- Cinema and Technology - Different Ways of Looking at and Making Films- Film
Language?- What is "Mise-en-Scène? Pace and Rhythm - Changes in Film Making in the
60s, 70s, 80s and 90s- Cinema and Television- Cyber Cinema? - Are there Books in Our
Future? - Cyber Narration and Total Cinema.
The author has many personal photos of people he met as well as photos of important films.