The Image versus The Word

This essay is dedicated to my beloved Sarah who has been an unfailing inspiration in the creation of it...

When I was assigned my faculty adviser (Professor William R Robinson) at the

University of Florida where I had begun studies for an MA (1973-1975) in
English, a friend informed me that WRR was a very “big gun” in English
Literature, and was a truly pleasant individual. Still today, I only wish I could
have enjoyed more of his friendship, but because I worked in the north-
central area of Florida during the day—once selling insurance for The
Equitable then dealing paper products for copy machines and then trading
whisky and wine for the Fulton Distributors in Jacksonville—my time was so
limited, and when I did have some, I had to read and read and read.

WWR and I had some things in common: he had a degree in philosophy, had
served in the US Army (paratrooper), and we both enjoyed cigars. In the
evenings when I attended his literary criticism course, instead of bringing him
a shiny apple, I brought for him a cigar from the box I had ordered every two
months from a Tampa, Florida cigar club.

WWR was a formidable literary critic. He authored Edwin Arlington Robinson:

A Poetry of the Act considered to be the best criticism of Robinson ever
written, and as the book's jacket proclaims, “it traces Robinson's quest for
truth within an intellectual context as defned by such contemporary
philosophers as William James, Whitehead, Mead, Santayana, and Dewey.”
The book was published in 1967, and after its publication, WRR experienced
a philosophical metamorphosis, perhaps a mid-life crisis, and abandoned
literary criticism altogether to devote his intellectual energies to promoting
the art of the Film (Movies) and “making sense of the movies.” It must also be
noted that WWR was one of the pioneering professors of English who
lobbied to have Film incorporated into United States' university English
Departments' curricula, and many many unemployed English graduate
students hopped on the Film bandwagon where job offerings were
unrelenting. Professor Robinson staunchly defended the concept of Film, and
attempted to create a “Philosophy of the Film” about which we will now
consider some of his most prominent notions taken from Seeing Beyond:
Movies, Visions, & Values: 26 Essays by William R Robinson & Friends (Golden
String Press, New York, 2001):

“...We study the value spectrum so that we may become more precise about our specifc
good, with tolerance, it is hoped, as a side effect. Because the arts are habitually used to
teach history, it is customary to emphasize their temporal aspect, whereas science, a body
of constantly verifable knowledge about nature, is taught independently of history. Yet the
movies no less than science are devoted to the discovery establishment of timeless truth.
The movies, like the other art works created in the past and accumulated as our heritage,
pass on moral knowledge from one generation to another; they thereby allow us to possess
now the possibilities of good discovered by our forebears. As a body of work on the books,
they, like the sciences, constitute an encyclopedia of knowledge. That heritage is not
suffcient, however. Movies must be constantly in the making; old stories must be forever
told anew; to remain living options, values must be continually validated within ever-
changing reality—every moment requiring a new synthesis of Beauty, Truth and the Good.
Thus the movies, when art, explore on the frontiers of knowledge, refurbishing old values,
refning discrimination in areas already chartered, and producing new insight in areas of
the moral spectrum previously ignored....”

“...Thus a movie as art objectively and vividly displays man's good. It brings moral truth
into the world. Psychologically, by being out there, it confrms us, assuring us that our
good is real. We go to a movie, certainly in our most serious moods, but probably on all
occasions, in search of our moral truth; and when we fnd it, for the moment we dwell
spiritually or meditatively in it, it is our fulfllment, our fullness of being....”

“...From these differences, it is clear that literature testifes, while the movies witness. As a
verbal medium, literature gives voice to the mind's lust for meaning. In seeking to commit
the mind to what is not at once evident to the senses, literature demands belief; it insists
that its report, always an interpretation, be trusted. The movies (flm), on the other hand, a
visual art, are immersed in the sensory, physical world, viewing it from within as a passing
parade ceaselessly coming and going. They have no way, except for words, to gain a vantage
point outside it...Whereas the word is mysterious, the image is evident; everything it has is
showing....”

“...Little wonder, then, that the literary sensibility is not at home in the cinematic world
and suspects movies of being superfcial—without soul, intellectually impotent, and morally
frivolous. One devoted to ideas, the other to particulars, one committed to transcendental
truth, the other to ever-present reality, the verbal and visual modes are fated to eternal
hostility. Yet despite this inherent hostility, the movies have their inevitable literary aspect
—in their title and dialogues, and in the property or scenario from which they are derived.
(Perhaps this literary origin raises major obstacles to successful flmmaking, since the flm
is in effect a translation and the viewer is invited—or does so out of habit—to translate it
back into its original, and truer, literary prototype. The flm functions, in this case, as
literature did in classic theory, as a decorative illustration for a truth known through a prior
and more authoritative faculty.)....”

“...For the movies are the most powerful visionary instrument at man's disposal today.
More than any other gadget of the Electronic Technological Revolution they are helping to
overthrow the old morality and replace it with the new....”

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The “battle” between words and images is somewhat akin to the “battle” of the
sexes. Both “struggles” have been with us since men and women evolved; and,
reams of texts have for ages tried to qualify them. They are perennial debating
points that have been expounded upon in psychological, literary, and
philosophical circles—and will continue to be endless topics of discussion
whether in bar rooms or academic settings. The varieties of words and images,
the varieties of men and women, are infnite in scope, and, in general attest to
the vulgarity and ignorance of the human race including, often, its horrible
propensity for violence and self-abnegation.

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) observed that his time was “an age of
phrases without meaning.” That music possessed no melody; that form was
without object. He complained that the power of discrimination was lacking,
and people could not distinguish the “genuine from the spurious, or the
wheat from the chaff.” He believed people were seeking information more
than they were attempting to endeavor to bring insight into what they were
thinking. The mania to be right at all cost so conspicuous in modern times,
blocks freedom of thought and dissuades intelligent argumentation. Worse, it
is an effective means to debauch truthfulness, and is often the prelude to a
state of lawlessness or political disorder due to the absence of governmental
conviction—that what is so vital to an effcacious government trying to
monitor and direct people's actions—hopefully for the Good.
Today we are inundated with facts and statistics and instant reporting of the
news whether it be fake or not. Journalism, an exaggeration of an
exaggeration, frequently befuddles the minds of individuals who are not
capable of discriminating within the jungle of rapid-fre information.
American journalists, enslaved by their Big Brothers, have best perfected the
prowess of saying nothing with the fnest aplomb. There are no better than
them. Before we know it, Americans will have become so dumb, they will be
going to the movies/cinema to learn how to read! Journalism, “Hollywood,”
also oftentimes panders to the most base sentiments of its subscribers who are
in need of capsulated notices about what is occurring in the world and/or,
more often, what is happening in their spheres of interest and competence.
There is an overstimulation of knowledge that tends to inhibit thinking and
arouse passions especially in people who do not think! Words are constant.
Images are feeting and more compatible to those rushing in their hectic life
styles. Words can act as breakwater. Images are like a food that has no dike to
contain its voraciousness.

It is often said that a “a picture says a thousand words.” Really? That depends
on the picture/photo! A medieval painting, famously preserved in some art
gallery/museum, has generated endless commentary concerning its creation,
history, and the psychological motivation of its artist. Yet, do we know any one
who reads university dissertations or art criticism pertaining to, for instance,
the enormous, often trivial, details surrounding Sandro Botticelli's (1445-1510)
Primavera? What happens when someone sends you a photo of their cat or
dog? Do we sit down and think, experience thousands of words about our
reactions to the image? Even when the photography refers to some beautiful
beach, sunset, mountainous region—or, even an exceptionally beautiful
woman we are not in love with yet wish we were (Where are the exceptionally
beautiful/handsome men!)—do we have enough words to describe her or even
make comments upon her unknown being?

With all due respect to Professor Robinson, regrettably it is not the time to
envisage the reality of an ethical renaissance brought home to us by means of
the extravagance of celluloid fgures of vision that today fail to bring us
towards a moral revolution. Modern flmmaking gratifes men and women's
most lowborn passions. It rarely exercises the muscles between the ears of
men and women, nor does it, most times, offer the feeling of some
denouement in keeping with the price of the entrance ticket we have put out
to pay for it. Those feelings that suck moviegoers into the swirl of greed,
corruption, and narcissism, fall fat in any consideration of the “what we ought
to do” mantra we all keep repeating in an attempt to assuage our unresolved
despair.

Authored by Anthony St. John

1 September MMXVIII
Calenzano, Italy
www.scribd.com/thewordwarrior
@thewordwarrior

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