/lit/ - Literature

be truthful are you a housewife

>had film and tv now gotten to a point where it can have just as much depth, insight, commentary and the same level of artistic importance as literature?
Yes
>and with film and tv both being more popular, easily digestible and less time consuming, does this mean that the popularity of books will continue to fall?
Probably

I don't think books will ever become obselete. They can do things that movies and television can't. But movies have been just as goos since the 70's and tv has recently gotten to that point too.

>>3210370

They were such from the very moment of their origin. The continual denial of this is the product of the traditionalist, reactionary worldview that clogs up our surroundings, still claiming the difference between 'high art' and kitsch.

Keep it radical, keep it new.

>2012
>not reaching zen through kitsch overdose

This book might be an interesting read about this subject.

>>3210347

Books were never popular with the masses. . . .

People that still believe books are somehow better than film are the same type of people who will sneer at the guy on the train reading t=his copy of game of thrones while they sweat thier way through Ulysses in the hope that someone will look at them and be impressed.

There are a lot of great books. There are also a lot of really crappy books. Ditto for movies. If you stand up Joyce next to Coppola (70's Coppola a least) they're about equal in thier output

>>3210393
But Ulysses is one of the greatest pieces of literature ever, and Game of Thrones is just another fantasy novel. Get wrecked.

>>3210397
The point is the snobbish attutide of many literary people. Who will just dismiss an entire medium as being lesser

>>3210380
By surroundings I meant the kind of people that frequent /lit/, not the average average Joe.

>less time consuming
Well no, I would say most books are less time consuming than TV. And have much more creative and stimulating content. Movies do take less time, but often cater to casuals and lack good content.

Sure there are exceptions (Kubrick, Wes Anderson, some documentaries), but I doubt a decline in readers is due to other media being superior. It is more likely a decline in intelligence or a cultural devaluing of reading.

>>3210397
The point is the snobbish attitude of many literary people. Who will just dismiss an entire medium as being lesser

>>3210408
I would argue that theres about the same percentage of bad tv and film as there are bad books.

tv really upped its game in the last decade or so. the sopranos, mad men, deadwood. these and others are sublime

>>3210408
> (Kubrick, Wes Anderson, some documentaries)

...its time to stop posting

Serious question here.

Why is it still shameful to prefer film to literature?

>>3210408
>most books are less time consuming than TV

10 hours of book isn't nearly the same as 10 hours of Law and Order

>have much more creative and stimulating content

lol

>but often cater to casuals [...]

well then stop watching those, retard.

>Sure there are exceptions (Kubrick, Wes Anderson, some documentaries),
>exceptions (Kubrick, Wes Anderson, some documentaries)

oh wow sorry i thought /lit/ wasn't entirely uneducated about other artforms my bad yo

>>3210422
Literature has been around for a lot longer so therefore is superior.

>>3210422
Consumption of film is passive.
You can watch the entire creative output of David Lynch in one day, doing that with adequate comprehension for Shakespeare would take a month.

>implying music isnt the superior artform

>>3210420
I feel like you wouldn't know a good director from a bad. Watch some interviews with Wes Anderson, I have the utmost respect for him.

I have the same respect for Kubrick, he had a book written (2001) just so he could make a movie from it.

>>3210393
>same type of people who will sneer at the guy on the train reading t=his copy of game of thrones while they sweat thier way through Ulysses in the hope that someone will look at them and be impressed
I haven't read Ulysses, nor do I plan to for some time, but all that sentence does is show how insecure you are.

>>3210443
>Shakespeare

>>3210420
Wes Anderson is one of the best directors working right now.

>>3210422
film is a really incestuous field. also, marketing drowns out the smaller films, so even if you got a really good independent movie and it gets on all magazines and websites, there's no film equivalent to the new york times that will make it pop into the public eye.

also, it's younger

>>3210449
>I have the same respect for Kubrick, he had a book written (2001) just so he could make a movie from it.

this is incorrect. he collaborated on a story with arthur c clarke (someone who ironically /lit/s snobbier side would look down on as lesser literature). clarke went and wrote the novel and kubrick made the film simultaneously and seperate from each other. the to diverge to some degree. the film is generally seen as the greater artistic achievement.

>>3210452
Do you have a problem with that?

>>3210452
What does that even mean? What are your intentions with that combination of picture and greentext?

Are you seriously implying Shakespeare wasn't a great writer? That's the only interpretation I can draw from your post so far but we all know that that's just plainly and objectively false.

>>3210449
lel

anderson and kubrick are pleb shit

they are the coelho and dan brown tier

watch some real movies plebby

>>3210458
wes anderson makes hipster porn

>>3210458
ahahahah

>that's what plebs actually believe

>>3210470
I don't deny he was a great writer. For his time.

>>3210458
maybe top 50. he's the film equivalent of jonathan lethem, but the field is smaller in film.


>>3210449
if you think kubrick wasn't 'catering to casuals' you have little understanding of his oeuvre

>>3210478
Name a living contemporary author you think is better than Shakespeare.

>>3210443
>David Lynch
Try doing the same with Bergman or Malle or Fassbinder.

Besides, Shakespeare was a writer/director (de-facto, since there wasn't such thing as stage-director back then formally) himself. Theatre is a different medium to literature and is much closer to film actually.

Shakespeare's plays are as much literature and Anderson's screenplays.

>>3210492
Joss Whedon.

>>3210492
What's the point? Modern authors are all terrible. Everyone knows the longer you're dead the better an author you are.

>>3210492
tao lin

>>3210501
>>3210504
>>3210506

>>3210495
*and -> as

>>3210443
>passive

So? Same goes for every other visual medium. Literature is the odd one with the abstraction layer of language. This isn't an answer to that question.

>>3210495
Most of Shakespeare's dialogue was verse.

>>3210464
I am 9/10 sure he got copies of most chapters from Clarke before making the script. Clarke is even listed as a script writer. However, yes he did diverge at times, like going to Jupiter instead of Neptune I think is the common example.

And everyone else, please list some non-pleb directors. Enlighten us with your oh so superior tastes.

>>3210514
You do realise there are screenplays written in verse nowadays?

>>3210519
Yes, and I'd consider those screenplays to be literature.

>>3210513
The question was-
>Why is it still shameful to prefer film to literature?
Being well-read requires a greater commitment to the art-form. I'm not saying it's wrong to prefer film to literature, I'm answering why some people feel it is.

>>3210516
Ingmar Bergman
Yasujiro Ozu
Federico Fellini
Jean Renoir
Michelangelo Antonioni
Vittorio De Sica
Ernst Lubitsch
Satyajit Ray
Eric Rohmer
Robert Altman

Contemporary:
Mike Leigh
Guy Maddin
Kelly Reichardt
Lucrecia Martel
Edward Yang
Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Olivier Assayas
Hirokazu Koreeda
Claire Denis

I selected some very well-known ones, so that you don't accuse me of listing "obscure" directors.

>>3210516
>Clarke is even listed as a script writer.
yes the plan was to have the movie credited to kubrick and clarke and the book credited to clarke and kubrick but there were evidently some problems in doing this. the point is the movie is not an adaptation of the book they are both different branchings of the same initial idea. the movie also diverged by doing things like removiing almost all of the dialogue

as for non pleb directors, the guy who's saying kubrick is pleb is a troll. but other great directors include the coen brothers, scorsese, coppola, lynch, leone, gilliam etc

>>3210516
>some non-pleb directors

kubrick is not pleb, just entry level.

compare to lolita, everyone reads it the second they go like "i should read more", they read it, go like, well that was cool. fast forward two or three years, they revisit, they go HOLY SHIT.

unlike nabokov though, he's formalist to the point of dissociation with what he's filming.

>>3210539
>I selected some very well-known ones, so that you don't accuse me of listing "obscure" directors.
>very well-known ones
bergman and altman are about the only ones who could be accused of being very well known on that list

>>3210522
So Gorky's The Lower Depths or Chekhov's Uncle Vanya are not literature?

>>3210539
>>3210516
My favorite directors are Fei Mu, Tian Zhuangzhuang, Li Shaohong, Peter Chan, Lu Yue, Jia Zhangke, Hou Hsiao-Hsien, Edward Yang, I-Chen Ko, Tsai Ming-liang, Yim Ho, Clarence Fok Yiu-leung, Wong Kar-wai, Stanley Kwan, Im Kwon-taek, Teinosuke Kinugasa, Yasujiro Ozu, Kenji Mizoguchi, Yasuzo Masumura, Nagisa Oshima, Shinsuke Ogawa, Juzo Itami, Takeshi Kitano, Seijun Suzuki, Pen-Ek Ratanaruang, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak, Forugh Farrokhzad, Ebrahim Golestan, Parviz Kimiavi, Abbas Kiarostami, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Samira Makhmalbaf, Reza Mirkarimi, Marziyeh Meshkini, Jafar Panahi, Yaky Yosha, Amos Gitai, Ziad Doueiri and Youssef Chahine.
Who are yours?

this is a good list >>3210539

not enough frenchmen though.

>>3210552
You clearly don't know much about film.
That list is entry-level as fuck.

For real movies see pic related.

>>3210560
>Rohmer
>Renoir
>Assayas
>Denis
Just enough in my opinion.

Film has been great for a long time. Its stupid too compare the too because they are too vastly different mediums.

How come film grew up fairly quickly but video games are still child's play?

>>3210552
come on. both ozu and renoir are in the sight and sound thing, everyone knows antonioni, fellini, lubitsch and rohmer.

>>3210561

Im just going to assume thats a troll post`

>>3210566
there's never enough frenchmen

>>3210571
Clearly, you don't know much about video games either.

Play Braid or something.

(I agree that it's still early days. But in a way, video games is the ultimate medium, as it combines all other mediums and adds interactivity, which is hugely revolutional.)

Also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_game

>>3210561

definitely some very good films in that image

>>3210571
Because videogames can never be art.

>>3210577
I didn't mean to present that as some kind of a complete list. Just a few eclectic examples.

>>3210571
because cameras and microphones are alot easier to advance than computers. also games have had a tendency to be subject to corporate cock due to them being hella expensive to make.

>>3210582
Go to bed, Roger.

>>3210592
What are indie games.

See >>3210580 and don't embarrass yourself grandpa.

>>3210593
No seriously, they can't.

Ever.

>>3210605
Do you even realise how narrowminded you sound.

>>3210605
Give one good reason.

>>3210605
Obvious troll.

Video games have stories and art, the only thing preventing them from being high art are the creators.

>>3210609
Interactivity.
Objectives.

>>3210617
Are you being serious?

Go play Planescape: Torment, come back and say it's not art.

>>3210580

Braid? You mean that puzzle game with text every hour or so to make it seem deep? I love Braid as a puzzle game but I feel like the story aspects of it where take on and don't take advantage of the medium. Making me read a short story every hour that has nothing to do with the gameplay isn't the best way to take advantage of the medium. I think Shadow of the Colossus is the best of the 'art' games but I don't think its particularly deep or insightful. I think its a great game but people just call it art because its minimalistic and they just assume its deep

>>3210593

He is kinda right though. Video games have some inherit flaws that make it difficult to make any meaningful games. If you make a game too open ended its not really the creators vision and its more of just a playground. If you make a game too linear you risk being just a movie with gameplay every once in a while(see FFXIII). I also think its difficult to tell any sort of story in video games. For example look at FFT. Most people say it has a good story but to get to the story you have to sit through 40 minute battles. Those battles add nothing to the story and are just there so they can call it a game. I think developers need to go either the adventure game route with just story or all game play with minimal story(SoTC,Portal,ICO).

No. It's all propagandist symbolism made to delight the Jews and redpill the goyim.

>>3210630
>a videogame
>art

They never have been, they're not now and they never will be art.

They're entertaining sure and there's nothing wrong with that. I was enjoying some videogames last night.

But they're not art and I can accept that. I don't need to call them that to feel like they mean something.

>>3210630

Its a book

>>3210640
I take it you haven't played PS:T, then.

>>3210643
It's a video game.

>>3210635
Braid's gameplay is a clever commentary on stuff like the video games medium itself and the human memory (which is expanded by the text inserts).

Don't treat it like merely literature.

Clearly, Braid was 2deep4u.

>>3210658

Apparently it was. Please explain how it was a commentary on the video game medium and human memory

>>3210640
Videogames are art by any definition of art in existence.

>>3210640
I don't even play video games anymore, but I acknowledge they can be art. They are creative mediums.

It is like saying a chair can't be art because you sit on it. (Which my high school art teacher said, I dropped that class so fast)

>>3210658
>gameplay

So a game must be played in order to extract it's artistic merit? One must input into it in order to gain it's content?

Would you call sports art?

>>3210670
That's retarded. You must read a book, so by your logic books can't be art.

Also >it's

>>3210664
Let Jonathan Blow speak for himself.

http://www.avclub.com/articles/game-designer-jonathan-blow-what-we-all-missed-abo,8626/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqFu5O-oPmU

>>3210670

Not that guy but I could guess you could say becuase its a puzzle game and there is only 1 way to complete puzzles you dont really have any freedom thus its up to the designer what you do. Its not really like sport

>>3210673
Except reading doesn't require any input from the person reading it.

You're simply extracting.

>>3210675

I am not watching a 2 hour video. Just tell me.

>>3210680
Would you call someone who only memorizes a reader? Reading is more than extracting, so are video games. You must interpret both, sometimes you interpret it beyond the authors intention. The creator doesn't have to have the intent that his video game will be art.

>>3210680
>can't into hermeneutics

>>3210681
Read the AV Club article, it's short enough for your ADD.

>>3210675
John Blow is a pretentious hack that makes sub-par video games.

For the people who say that videogames are art, can you tell me what you find artistic about them?

>>3210699

Is it this one?
http://www.avclub.com/articles/braid,6917/

Also I have watched that video you posted before and he doesnt say anything about his game

>>3210705

SOTC IS SO DEEP THERE ISNT DIALOG TELLING ME EVERY SINGLE DETAIL SO IT MUST BE SO DEEP

>>3210708
No. The one I linked in the post you replied to.

>>3210704
Fuck off.

sup john blow

whens the witness coming out

>>3210705
You have to put in thought and be creative. Just like a bridge is art, or even a chair.

I used to be a very proficient programmer, and have made a few games from the ground up. While they were pretty shitty, they were creative and comical. Something doesn't have to be oh so deep to be art, for example, I think comedy is art.

>>3210714
The expected response from widya gayman manchild

>>3210720
thats johnny blow himself lel

hes extremely notorious for monitoring his google alerts

when braid came out he commented on every blog post about it

hes always going on about how nobody gets his shitty little game

>>3210574
entry level impies the average person on the street. ask someone outside wh smith who lubitsch is and watch thier eyes glaze over

>>3210735
who said the list was entry-level
it just says "well-known"

>>3210736
my point still applies if you use the phrase well known

>>3210658

I read the article now. I want to hear your interpretation. How is Braids gameplay a clever commentary on video games and human memory?

>>3210464
The film takes the simplistic plot and setting from the book and then heaps tons and tons of meta stuff on top, not to mention the visuals and the sheer technical achievement. Of course the film is regarded as the greater artistic achievement.

>>3210748
>on video games
It subverts the various cliches of the medium and respects the player by not making him do the same stuff twice.

The game is determinist, every puzzle has only one solution.

Johnathan Blow truly speaks throught the game design with the player.

>human memory
The gameplay constantly makes you re-evaluate your interpretations of the past levels and the previously learned mechanics. The gameplay involves a lot of deja-vu moments.

For example, the whole "time-travelling and still failing" aspect is a metaphor about how you cannot change your memories much.

Essentially the game is about the materialist vs idealist conflict.

Another thread about the containers stories come in.

>>3210797

That first one sounds like a lot of games

As for the second one I guess it makes sense. I guess its just not particularly interesting or insightful. "You cant change your memories" isnt exactly mind blowing and its not presented in a interesting fashion

I appreciate Blow for what he is trying but I just don't think he has what it takes

Well this turned out to be a shitty thread.

I think that the only way for cinematics is up as they can add more interactive experiences in the future (smells, touch, surround theater) whilst books can't really advance much, if at all. The came the Kindle but that's pretty much it.

Though i think that books will always have this bigger sense of immersion than movies. And you don't have to worry about actors because you're making them up on your own.

since you guys are on the subject of art, what do you think of the medium of comics/manga? Sequential art in general? Has it reached the quality of film or lit? examples?

>>3211001

I am not well versed in comics but Watchmen is pretty great. I think it holds up well with other works of art of other mediums

>>3210810
>he thinks artforms are vehicles for narratives

so you live in bizarro world huh

>>3211001
Harvey Pekar is the best comic book writer who's ever lived.

bump

>>3211001

Oh definitely.

Comics and Manga like Watchmen, Naoki Urasawa's Monster/20th Century Boys/Pluto, Berserk (in its prime),The Sandman, Lucifer, Akira, Vinland Saga and more show a degree of artistic expression and profundity on par with the best works of other mediums (though obviously for different reasons).

>>3211157
Suehiro Maruo is the best manga writer who's ever lived.

>>3210347
no


>>>/tv/

Most TV these days is absolutely banal. Well, most of it has been since TV first began and stole people's imagination away from film.

But it's sickening when fake-smart TV dramas like Mad Men, The Wire, Breaking Bad, countless others are considered great achievements and "smart TV". With their never-ending stories they have destroyed popular understanding of narrative complexity. Not to mention most of them are visually banal and inexpressive, with just dialogue as "content".

>>3211181

Does anyone take tv shows seriouslyExcept /tv/ but thats the worst board on 4cahn I cant say I have ever seen a great tv show

>>3211181
>Breaking Bad
>visually banal

if most movies were half as cinematic as this shit...

>The Wire
>fake smart

While we're on the subject, recommend me some graphic novels. I have loved and read Maus, ghost town, wilson, watchmen and I kill giants.
I recently purchased black hole, lost at sea, spent and a drifting life.

>>3211198
asterios polyp

have you read the odyssey?

>>3211189

Berlin Alexanderplatz

>>3211189
The Office UK is one of the greatest works of art of the 21st century, in my opinion.

Also,
Scenes from a Marriage
Enlightened
Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!

>>3211198
Anything by Harvey Pekar
Anything by Suehiro Maruo

>>3211212

dekalog also

TV has barely started putting out shows with actual insight and commentary so i'm gonna say no it hasn't.

I hope it moves forward but America needs laxer restrictions on what TV and TV is not allowed to represent. It does so little right now that I find it genuinely perplexing that anything other than The Wire can be considered a social commentary on anything meaningful rather than tenuous/tedious. I'm a little bit reserved about TV but I have a friend who tells me Breaking Bad is a good social commentary on family problems and really if it is, I find it badly constructed and shallow.

RE: Film. It moves with the time and always has. Unless you have a very narrow-minded view of what film represents then you'll find your point absurd. Film is constantly making social and political commentary as things progress. There's even some philosophical commentary too - though it's not as in-depth as literature is (and no I don't mean Ze Matrix).

Having scrolled through this thread; Why is it that people don't understand that being art doesn't equate to being of high-worth? It's annoying. It's exactly what all the retarded 'video games are art' articles wrote by overly excited undergraduates overlook. They think being art = being of high worth. It's like they've never heard of lowbrow and highbrow.

The Sopranos is as deep, insightful, profound and powerful as any literature. The thing is I doubt there will ever be something as good, even though there will continue to be beautiful stuff like Deadwood, The Wire, Rome to a slightly less extent etc.

Film has achieved the same level of the highest literature for a long time, but god knows what the future will be like for the medium, considering the fluctuating quality of different countries over time.

The fact that humans have been creating literature for a much longer time than cinema or television is partly why there's a stronger track record of quality examples of literature than tv or film. Like I said, this hasn't stopped both mediums matching the best books; it just doesn't happen often.

>>3211324
Exactly.

Like I said, video games are art by any existing definition of art. Quality is irrelevant.

>>3211324
It's not that people don't realize it, it's just that we mean a different thing.

Same goes with the word, 'literature'.