Cinema," he lays down "five fundamental challenges for historical
inquiry" (101). Most of which seem innocuous and agreeable in theory.
However, when Musser offers examples of how he put his rules to work,
they often verge on the fallacious.
The third challenge regards "the nature of historical change,
causality, and the transformation of film practice." In short, what
led to what? For Musser, the problem of determining historical
sequence can be solved with an "in-depth interrogation of the full
sequence of events relevant to a film's production, distribution, and
reception" (104). This guideline seems self-evident. However, Musser
provides an example from his research that fulfills Fischer's fallacy
of precondition.
Musser questions the historical sequencing of whether nickelodeons
were a precondition for acted/staged films or vice versa. He
determines, "American companies (in particular Edison) were selling at
least six times more footage of acted/staged films than of actualities
in 1904-6…The fundamental shift to story films had occurred by 1903-4
and was undoubtedly a precondition for the nickelodeon boom, not a
consequence of it" (104). This conclusion is fallacious in at least a
couple ways: the reductive fallacy and the fallacy of absolute
priority. In conclusion, Musser gives too much priority to his
historical sequencing.
Jim Bittl
No comments:
Post a Comment