The power of word and image

The Daily Mail in 1896 became the first newspaper to combine the photographic image with that of the written language. The then innovative mixture of words and pictures, has over subsequent generations, become a familiar part of our cultural landscape.
I can't be without either.

There is an on-going debate about words and whether they actually exist. 
The argument is that the human brain sees them as a series of letter images. Over time we develop a library of rounded corners, horizontal and vertical lines and then mentally, match the features of what we are currently reading with those we have collected from the past.
The sequence gives us the word. 

Letter image or word, what amazes me is how much original material has survived from so long ago. Documents of considerable cultural, historical and political importance, such as the Magna Carta, the Book of Kells, the Declaration of Independence remain intact, and are priceless.  Whilst letters and diaries by key figures as well as ordinary people speak volumes about the issues and social conditions of the day. 

Technological innovation has played an important part in preserving the richness and diversity of our heritage. Without it much would have been lost. Shakespeare has much to thank Gutenberg for. Hardly any of his hand-written documents survive. Gutenberg's press undoubtedly contributed to Shakespeare's global standing as a literary superstar.

For They Shall Not Grow Old, New Zealand Director Peter Jackson, painstakingly restored silent film footage, turned black and white into colour and made life on the front during WW1 a very real and human affair.  

American filmmaker Ken Burns, is renowned for his documentary film work. During the nineties, the BBC showed his award-winning series The American Civil War. For some reason it was aired at midnight on Saturday evenings. The solution was to tape it and then watch it first thing Sunday morning. Eventually we bought the boxed set. A nine-part series, Burns uses contemporary cinematography in addition to thousands of archival photographs, paintings, letters, diaries, film and newspaper images set to music to teach people about the American Civil War. It took five years to produce.

Burns's latest documentary is an 18 hour,10 disc DVD about the Vietnam war. With his long-term collaborator, Lynn Novick, Vietnam took over ten years to make and is a masterclass in documentary film making. I've just finished watching it. 

A massive canvas, this isn't purely boom and bang. Instead, Burns uses his trusted archival style of image, word and music to explore the tumultous arena of American politics and the global unrest that engulfed the Vietnam war. There are interviews with witnesses - Americans who fought, CIA agents, Vietnamese combatants, civilians from the North and the South, journalists, family members.  

Vietnam provides a ground-up view of the every day, and the people who lived through it, 
as well as the stories of some who did not. It is complex. Ken Burns triumph is that his careful use of words and images have made it immediately understandable and powerfully unforgettable.

Seeing in the new year!

A new year, new ideas and resolutions.
First up, Tales from Cravant. Until a few years ago my blog appeared regularly, often daily, sometimes weekly, with shorter reads and longer reads. Then I stopped. Things happen. But the arrival of 2019 has brought with it the realisation that I've missed the process. So I'm resurrecting my blog.

Writing was for a long time part of my working life, speeches, copy for newspapers, magazines, brochures etc. I also enjoyed writing letters, long-hand only, never typed, sometimes with a fountain pen, sometimes a biro. Luckily I had a couple of pen pals who shared the same enthusiasm. The first, Aunt Dolly, lived in San Diego, the other, Helen, lived in Tel Aviv, although she spent a fair bit of time away in Europe. She and I met by chance whilst travelling in Canada and America.

On average we wrote four times a year on single sheet airmail paper. Not for the faint-hearted, because each fattish envelope that arrived in our respective mail boxes, contained 15 or 16 pages. I don't know how the others approached writing their letters or where they liked to write. Mine were always written at home, seated at the dining room table, which had good light coming in from the side. Each took a whole day to complete with time allowed, in between, for the mundane essentials. If the writing took time, so did the reading.

The act of placing a pen on paper is a huge commitment. There isn't the same pressure perhaps as writing commercially or completing an exam paper where the collection of words has the capacity to change your future, realising some dreams, undermining others, if thoughts aren't succinct enough or original enough. Writing a letter nonetheless carries a heavy responsibility of being entertaining as well as interesting. Blogs in this respect are the same.

Aunt Dolly and I were pen pals for at least twenty years. Eventually the arthritus in her hands made anything more than a single-sided letter, impossible, and that was painful enough. I kept writing as always, until finally she wasn't there to write to any longer. Helen and I kept writing to each other for nearly ten years after we met. I learnt much from her. Helen's last letter was long. 1995. She had been to the Rabin rally in Tel Aviv and was standing at the front embracing a young Arab man. Both had been inspired to believe that peace was possible. Minutes later, Rabin was murdered in front of them, by another Israeli, Yigal Amir. Helen walked back to her apartment and started a letter. This wanton act of destruction that she had witnessed, kept Helen writing through the night. I still have it. Twenty pages long.
I treasure it.