Around 2010, I saw the movie, “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps.” Having enjoyed it’s predecessor, I’d looked forward to the sequel. Big surprise, though: In the years since the 1987 release of “Wall Street,” cinematography had changed. Story line had become secondary to visual stimuli, the intrinsically analog plot line now chopped into innumerable discrete segments planted amidst a barrage of ever-changing images. Afterwards, I remember only tension, a relaxing escape having been anything but…
This cinematographic technique, grown ever more intense and rapid, has become ubiquitous. I see it in almost everything produced for a screen today: movies and television, music videos, product ads, tutorials, even some sporting events and news programs. I suspect that it’s drawn from a video game mentality: designed by, produced by, and targeted at the generations who have grown up in this visual environment. I was most recently reminded of it watching the Justin Timberlake halftime show for the 2018 Super Bowl. It wasn’t enough for the singers to sing and dancers to dance. Between constantly shifting camera angles and pulsating strobes, visual images often changed multiple times per second. It was enough to induce an epileptic seizure.
I’m confident that, like purveyors of kinky sex or addictive drugs, producers of visual entertainment are vying to outdo one another. They have to, to feed the brains of viewers inured to anything but ever increasing stimuli. Lamentably, they are also destroying the peace of a quiet mind, the grace of a simple melody, the salvation to be found in the art of silence.
The origin of that shifting camera angle was M TV back in the 80s. A deplorable development, it caters to the need for incessantly renewed experience—measured in micro seconds; moreover the prolonged barrage actually instills the need for same. Those habituated to this scourge have no attention span worthy the name. It is a good example of American popular culture’s leaving many of us behind. It makes me dizzy and I refuse to view it.
Good dating. I, too, remember the arrival of MTV, wondering at the time (as I also short-sightedly did with YouTube) how that could possibly interest anyone. The shifting angles and constant chang s make sense as a way to fill an otherwise boring three minutes. I remember the technique also, though I’m some Sesame Street shows, and I’m confident that video games played a part.
I don’t mind being left behind by popular culture. That has probably happened to every generation since the Industrial Revolution. My concern is that the trend has shortened the attention span of the present generation, and more importantly, deprived them of ever experiencing the beauty and sanctity of inner stillness.