Response to "What is Cinema?" - Anna Garrett

I agree with the idea that the plastic arts preserve the history of a culture and its people. However, it is a tad extreme to have the belief that statues as seen in ancient egyptian cultures preserve life, but it is accurate that an image or statue could aid in the remembrance of a person or thing. For plastic art is a constant reminder of the preexisting life or time period and when it is continually mentioned it is technically still alive. As many say, one does not really die until the last time they are spoken of. One thing the novel claims is that photographs cannot replicate color the same way painters can bring life and realism to a painting with more accurate colorization. I agree this may have been accurate at the time the novel was written, however as photographic technology has improved photographs now more accurately represent color as seen with the naked eye in real time. Every type of plastic art is uniquely its own, so I would not state painting as inferior to photography. He is accurate in how the particular angle a photographer takes can change how the viewer would take in a scene in real life, but the photographer still contains the bare realities and subjectivity that can not be overlooked. Meanwhile paintings are abstract enough to draw attention to and encapsulate viewers in totally different ways. Cinema, a moving picture, may be able to include a greater part of the reality of a story over an extended amount of time, however it is still told from a particularized standpoint that the viewer is unable to see beyond and outside the lens and therefore still faces the same biases as other plastic arts.