I was intrigued by Prof. O’Malley’s comments in class today about the parallels between movies and music recording.  It struck me that I’d never really considered why a close-mic’ed drum kit sounds more “real” to my ear than one recorded with one microphone, even though I’d never expect drums to sound that way if I was standing in a room with a drummer.  I had also seen Saving Private Ryan before and agreed with many critics who praised its realism, and it was slightly shocking to have it pointed out, cut by cut, that modern movie editing techniques are inherently unrealistic.  So, I decided to re-watch Saving Private Ryan with an eye to discerning what effect Spielberg’s directing and the movie’s cinematography have on me as a viewer, and whether the movie is truly “realistic” or just vivid.  I came away without a clear answer, I think.  However, I can say that while the movie’s portrayal of the events is quite true-to-life, and while the writing and acting is eminently believable, the movie is not presented realistically–had I taken part in the WWII story it’s telling, that’s not at all how I would have experienced it.  However, I think that this preference for an omniscient perspective is inextricable from the medium of film, at least as it’s developed over the last several decades.  However, the counterexample of the silent movie we watched in class proves that film doesn’t HAVE to be that way, and yet it nearly always is. Is the early film merely a product of technical limitations and a nascent medium whose creative potential had not yet been realized? Is this inherently unnatural omniscience in movies somehow ingrained in the human psyche? Or does the fact that movies developed this way represent some shift in human understanding, conscious or unconscious? I’m not sure I know the answer to this yet, but my interest has certainly been piqued. I will be seeking out more information on this topic in the weeks to come as I try to understand why I, like most people, prefer vividness to realism. I think I may need to start listening to music differently for a little while, too.