William Gibson on Movies, Music, Media

automatic_jack writes "William Gibson gave a talk at the Directors' Guild of America's Digital Day last week. The text of it is up in his 'blog, and in it he says some intriguing things about the nature of the entertainment and media industries. There's a bit of a surprise conclusion at the end!"

Comments

Re:I don't know...

[The Only Druid]

Thats funny since the Bible was never enscribed in stone, at least typically (i.e. it was never the standard form of enscription). Neither was the Torah/Old Testament. Both were originally scribed on fabrics/papers.

Since you mention centuries, you obviously missed Gibson's reference to the fact that "books" have only existed as they do today since the Printing Press was invented by Guttenberg. This of course occured in 1436. Prior to that, books were hand-duplicated by religious scribes, and so their content was almost entirely unrelated to modern books due to their intense cost and limited audience. The post-moving-type book is dramatically different: the ability of the hoi-paloi to both read and write but also to own their own copies of text meant massive changes in content and style.

THAT, is the "centuries" Gibson is talking about.

Re:more on books and change

[Pseudonym]

Well, if you want to be punctilious - I believe the bible has been originally been on parchment (i.e. processed horse-skin). I don't know if people are aware of this, but paper was invented in china many centuries later (600-900CE, i forgot), and not introduced to the west until even later.

You mean vellum, not parchment. Even then it's only partly true. The first copies of the New Testament, for example (certainly the oldest fragments that we have), were probably written on papyrus, which while not paper as we know it today, is close enough.

Times they are a changin'

[Chuck Chunder]

I think theatre going is changing and the theatres know it and are changing to accomodate. I'm certainly more inclined to wait for most movies to come out on DVD and see less at the theatre because of it. I'm sure the average (rather than avid) filmgoer is the same. On the other hand when I do go to the cinema it is usually for a special movie and I'm happy to pay twice the price for a gold class seat and buy a couple of glasses of wine while I'm at it.

Re:Oooh

[Mac Degger]

Which isn't neccesarily true: iirc, 2001 was a bust at the box office. Only years later was it recognised as a real masterpiece.

Re:Oooh

[cens0r]

I would care to wager that the amount of good movies made outside hollywood is probably about equivalent to the movies made in hollywood. Especially if you discount the foreign movies (the ring, 7 samuri, etc) that hollywood just remakes.

Just off the top of my head I'm going list movies that have come out in the last 5 years from overseas that I think were equal to or better than anything in hollywood: Run Lola Run, The Princess and the Warrior, Amelie, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Y tu mamá también, The Devil's Backbone, Hero, Infernal Affairs, Talk to Her, Spirited Away, The Pianist, Ringu, Rabbit Proof Fence, City of God. I'm sure I could name more if I actually thought about it.