Ways of Reading Third Edition - Martin Montgomery, Alan Durant, Nigel Fabb, Tom Furniss, Sara Mills 2007

24.2 Differences in media: film versus prose
Unit 24 Film and prose fiction
Section 6 Media: from text to performance

The commercial film has evolved as a self-contained event, for public screening, lasting about two hours, with a strong emphasis on it being widely intelligible at a single viewing. Originally, as a visual text it was based upon the continuous projection of light through moving frames onto a screen, thereby providing a high-definition image later to be accompanied by high-quality sound. As a result, it evolved as something to be viewed in semi-darkness, with direct appeal to the senses of hearing and vision; but also, typically, for public screenings projection is continuous and without interruption for the course of the film. As a public event there is therefore no possibility, under normal cinematic conditions, for control by the viewer. Spectators in the cinema are in no position to vary or control the rate of viewing. Neither interruption nor review is permitted. The spectator is caught up by the event in a continuous process. Two key points emerge from this. First, the spectator’s condition - viewing images in darkness - is similar to that of someone dreaming; this favours a high degree of projection of the self into the film, or identification with particular aspects of it. Second, as a self-contained but continuously projected event, film in mainstream cinema has evolved under a regime that values easy intelligibility.

With the growing potential for digitally recording, editing and remastering film, a range of different distribution platforms, outside cinema, have become available. Accordingly, fiction films are no longer restricted to screenings in public auditoria but are widely available through broadcast television, online on the Internet, and on DVD. No doubt the proliferation of formats through which film is available will have long-term consequences for its formal techniques. For the moment, however, these seem to remain strongly rooted in the traditional techniques of (Hollywood) commercial cinema and in habits of collective consumption.

The novel, by contrast, presents its stories in the medium of prose writing. This favours an individual mode of consumption. Reading a prose novel is usually a solitary act, which apparently allows greater degrees of discretion and control to the individual reader. Variable levels of attention are possible, as are differing rates of reading. It is possible to skip and to review. Readers, unlike cinema-goers, can set their own pace and choose to reread at their own convenience; and, while this approach is increasingly available for film spectatorship in DVD formats, it has not yet begun generally to affect the film form.