None of us has ever seen Moses descending from Mount Sinai.If there had been television in his day and we could look at the video, would we know him any better as we think we now know a Barack Obama or Angela Merkel when we see their reported comings and goings? None of us has ever hear Plato speak. But if there had been radio in his day, and we could listen to the recording, would we know him any better? The answer is far from clear. Of all historical evidence, the public presence of voice or of physical appearance is the most revealing but can also be the most misleading. Yet the problem of historical evidence is raised daily, especially on television news programs: Can we believe what we see flickering in front of us?
—The Palestinian issue must now be Israel’s first order of business, if it doesn’t want to deal with another intifada, says today’s Haaretz Editorial. http://bit.ly/Wl5WzA Photo by AP—
The evidence of the eyes. But that is precisely what is not available. What is available is the evidence, first, of the camera, making its on selection, dictating its own terms; and it is the evidence then, of the small screen, TV, which in turn dictates to the camera. Can television by nature, ever tell the truth? Amid all the pretentiousness of his theorizing,Marshall McLuhan was correct to the extent that the medium is the message. Television does not merely create news. Television creates its own events, something even the most imaginative newspaper reporter cannot do. How does one retain perspective when from the security of our living room we can witness assassinations, wars in progress and natural disasters?
—Based on true events the movie chronicles the life-or-death covert operation to rescue six Americans, which unfolded behind the scenes of the Iran hostage crisis – the truth of which was unknown by the public for decades.
Affleck (The Town, Good Will Hunting) directs and stars in the film, which also stars Alan Arkin, Bryan Cranston, John Goodman,—click image for source…
It is because television happens in this way that people begin to think that the small excerpts from life which they see on the screen are more “real” than the life which they experience around them.There is a vital margin of difference is reading about some event and seeing it on television; the latter implies that one has seen the event itself. However carefully television is used, or cinema for that ,matter, it cannot avoid this deception. The true meaning of an event depends on all of its known and unknown causes, on all of the known and unknown incidents that contribute to it, and in the process, ceae to be isolated, and on all of its known and unkonwn repercussions. The whoel of an incidents can easily be described; the whole of an event is almost impossible to capture. ( to be continued)…
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