Film vs Literature :: Technology, Film, DVD

Since the beginning of film, technology has played an important role in the evolution of the medium. Film, much more so than literature, relies on the ever-changing nature of technological development to stay relevant. In 1980 when Seymour Chatman wrote â€Å"What Novels Can Do That Films Can’t (And Vice Versa),† there were no such thing as DVD players and the VCR was a newly introduced, and thus non-perfected, product. Today when viewing a film, one has the luxury of returning to previous scenes immediately and effortlessly in order to further soak in and contemplate filmic choices. In his essay, Chatman focuses too heavily on narrative drive and, in saying that film cannot describe, does not give full merit to the idea of returning to and repeating a film for purpose of textual analysis. In direct contrast to Chatman’s views are those of Laura Mulvey. In her book â€Å"Death 24x a Second,† she champions the delay of film as a way to inscribe significance onto the piece. This delay is achieved mostly through the act of rewatching scenes or freezing frames to parse through some of the more subtle details of the shot. Chatman agrees that â€Å"looking at a single frame enables us to examine it at our leisure,† but he does not find a contradiction in this act (448). His argument involves looking at a short story that is also a film of the same name, â€Å"Une Partie de campagne.† He says that films do not allow time to â€Å"dwell on plenteous details,† but only after he dwells on the plenteous details of a shot in the film (448). Details are a point both Chatman and Mulvey spend time discussing. Mulvey says that the mise en scà ¨ne is where â€Å"the ‘unsaid’ and ‘unspeakable’ find cinematic expression† (Mulvey 146). The â€Å"unsaid† and â€Å"unspeakable† are undoubtedly the minute details of the scene that may only become apparent after multiple viewings or through pausing. She goes on to say that the mise en scà ¨ne â€Å"[contributes] a kind of cinematic commentary or description, inscribing into the scene significance that goes beyond the inarticulate consciousness of characters† (Mulvey 147). For Mulvey, the key is for viewers to find meaning in a film through the details of the scene, which may not be evident the first time. But is the â€Å"pressure from the narrative component† that Chatman refers to so insurmountable that details cannot be explored in a film?