Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television

Article Tools

Image Gallery

Print

E-mail

Comments

RSS

What about warmth? Well, you could illustrate warmth with hugging or tender smiles. It's not that it can't be done, it's just not as easy to show on television as coldness is. The behavior of the Bionic Man, for example- coldness, determination, efficiency, domination is easy to see because it can be demonstrated with nearly no facial expression at all. Therefore, this sort of behavior communicates more efficiently on TV.

Even if a given subtle emotion can be conveyed from time to time, you could never build an entire program on it as you could on violent emotions. In signal-to-noise terms the entire program would become indistinct in comparison with the background of more aggressive, expressive and efficient action shows.

What I am discussing here are tendencies of the medium. These are biases, not absolute restrictions. Though extremely rare, there are occasional examples of television programs that overcome the bias. Bergman's Scenes From A Marriage was one such example. It succeeded only because of the rare skill and sensitivity of the (Erector and the performers. Their deep understanding of the medium allowed them to use it efficiently. Scenes qualifies as the exception that proves the rule.

Many Americans saw this production in movie houses, but it was originally created for television. This A why Bergman devoted so much of the production to facial close-ups. In a theater two and one-half hours of facial close-up became oppressive. When one is sitting in a movie house, one wants something beyond closeup imagery. However, on television, nothing other than closeup image-way could convey the subtle themes of a plot that concerned the excruciating shifts of feeling within a disintegrating marriage.

Bergman had to convey tenderness, af fection, caring, concern and intimacy, together with ambiguity, and then violence, rage, sorrow. These latter scenes, the violent ones, were among the very few in which he allowed the camera to pull back from the action, because the physical movement could convey the meaning.

In demonstrating the best that is possible on television if you honor the medium's limits absolutely, Bergman also illuminated the absoluteness of the limits. He took television as far as one could and succeeded well enough. There is a tendency to forget that one cannot go further.

Bergman is one of the rarest talents in the history of moving—image media, and given even his difficulty in communicating subtle feeling, the inherent resistance of television becomes clearer. Lesser talents, not daring to try what Bergman did, have to work against the medium, as it were, choosing more confined, easier-to-handle imagery, and emotional content that fits the narrowed scope of TV. Most directors will not even attempt to deal with subtle realms of information and they are wise not to. Producers and sponsors will also tend to avoid such subtlety because it is so unlikely to get high ratings.

RSS | Comments | E-mail | Print