Potent Capote and Other Ramblings...

So I came up with some interesting questions the other night after watching the movie Capote. That Semour Hoffman did an excellent job? Well, he gave an amazing performance but no. And no, not the tragedy of a life being taken, or that "violent underbelly" that Capote wants to expose to conservative, archeotype Americans, or even the betrayal one human being can bestow, can stab into, can poison another with. No. No. Me? It got me thinking about writers and writing in general. The climate of writing, the process, the cultural significance, the movements. Or lack thereof.

Capote, I believe, still lived at the waning edge of the golden age of the writer. Yes, the cinema was dawning, that new story-telling form that dwarfs the original in scale, but television had not yet hypnotised us with it's commercial-ed brilliance. Writers were still celebrities of sorts. Take Capote's life cavorting at parties, spewing opinions that everyone cares about, telling stories about Humphrey Bogart and George Peppard as they filmed Breakfast at Tiffany's. Capote is even granted a public reading before his new book is published--a public, press-covered reading. This made news. I don't think I've ever been to a reading outside a smoky coffee shop or a college campus. Plus, Capote seemed to be part of a writer's mileau. Geez, wouldn't it be cool to be part of a "mileau?" Not just a classroom, not a casual group, not a chat room. But a real mileau. A community. Capote seemed to be surrounded by other writers, talented writers, writers who made full-time and notable careers out of their talent.

I suppose I am trying to say that the business and practice of writing had changed significantly over the last decade. A writer can no longer be a famous personality as easily as it once was. Even gigantic writers that any member of the general populace would know--let's say Stephen King--can get away with walking in the street without the paparatzi. And I bet you anything that Toni Morrison could never go to some small rural town and get her way, work her way into things, just be dropping her name. Our society now idolizes different people/occupations. Also, writing is less often a "profession" and more often a "hobby." Writing is now directed at a smaller market. Have you ever had someone comment, or comment yourself, about being a "big reader?" Some people read books only with Oprah's express written consent. Some people don't read books. Some only read magazines. Some only read online. Nothing wrong with that. It is just yet another symbol of the decline of written culture. No, not the decline. Let us say, the waning. To everything, turn, turn, turn. There is a season...

It doesn't change what I want to do with my life--you guessed it! Write books! But what was brought up in conversation with The Boyfriend after the movie was this... Okay, we just watched a movie about a guy writing a book. What is the difference between the medium of the book and the medium of the movie? Why could one be considered more appealling than the other? What are each one's strengths and weaknesses? This, then, is what I have been pondering and I have come up with the following:

1. The process of reading is a personal and solitary experience. Even if two people read the same book, they gain different things, visualize the story differently. They take away a unique and personal experience, even after discussion with other readers.
2. The process of watching a movie is a communal one. Yes, you can watch a movie alone but one rarely does and, even then, you can easily find others with whom to recap and share the experience. Usually, a crowd shares the viewing of it and what is the first thing you do when you leave a dark theater or eject that DVD? Talk about it. And, personally, I believe that as a movie is more present (more in your face, interactive, using more of your senses), people often share a similar experience.
3. The process of creating both mediums mimicks this personal/communal quality. An author, while utilizing research materials and editors and publishers, is basically giving birth to a story in private. One person, one story, in the privacy of one head. A movie, however, involves a huge group of specialized individuals, each leaving their small stamp upon the finished product. A director, who could be considered the head of the snake, delgates creative control in certain areas, technical control in others, is subject to the winds of financiers and such. The writer, come on, had little influence on the final product. He provides the skeleton upon which is smeared layers of Oscar-nominated talent and silicone, special effects latex, camera angle and air-brush post editing.
   
4. Where then, in this fictional philosophic model, does television fall? Hmm.

To all you readers out there, don't get me wrong. I am not lamenting the waning of print media, of the good old-fashioned break-its-spine-and-smell-the-page-musk-odor brick and mortar book industry. Okay, not much. I know it will always be there. The experience is too powerful for it ever to fade out of existence like a sun setting behind the digital hills. And the surfeit of authors in today's world only proves that. There are so many of us that are inspired by words, by holding a book in our loving hands in an over-stuffed chair or a bath tub on a rainy day or on a beach. It will never disappear. Never.

What I am interested in is this. Once upon a time, there was a group of humans in a cave and they told stories. They painted on the walls. They made music. Each of these activities provided a different, important inspiration, a different entertainment, a different part of the human experience. At certain times in our social evolution, there are fertile climates for certain sections of this artistic population. Certain golden eras. Now I'm not saying that I wish I had interviewed two murder suspects in rural Kansas, befriended them, betrayed them, and made millions by selling their story. But parts of that writer's existence... flying off to Spain to focus, the whirl of an active and talented intellectual community... part of it makes me jealous. Yes, jealous. After all, we currently live in a world where Toni Morrison, winner of the Nobel and Pulitzer prizes, can go unrecognized. Where when I speak her name to a layman (a non-reader), they often say, "Who?"