From: Amara Graps (amara@amara.com)
Date: Sat Apr 13 2002 - 00:24:21 MDT
CurtAdams@aol.com
spike66@ATTBI.com writes:
>Perhaps we could arrange for robots to wander around in a
>battle zone carrying cameras, transmitting in real time for
>anyone to see. Then it not only takes human reporters out
>of harm's way, but it also would project a balanced view
>by its inherent randomness.
>Robocams would be a great idea. Post mortems on the Rwanda
>massacre commented on how the mass murderers were unwilling
>to do much if there was the slightest presence of foreigners.
I think Robocams are a great idea. For any situation where fairness
is in question. Cameras have an interesting psychological effect on
the person who is being filmed, though. Here, I show an interesting
twist.
Have folks here heard the story of the documentary that Kieslowski
wanted to make about martial law in Poland? Since the 'crimes'
committed during that time of martial law were nonsense, Kieslowski
wanted to bring a camera into the courtroom to record the judge's
face and the condemned person's face, as the condemned person was
told his/her sentence for that particular inconsequential crime
(grafitti, things like that).
But then a very strange thing happened in court. When the cameraman
turned the camera onto the judge imposing the sentence, the judge
didn't sentence the accused. That is, he passed some kind of
deferred sentences which weren't, in fact at all painful. Kieslowski
said in his biography (1) that he caught on quickly what was
happening: the judges didn't want to be recorded at the moment of
passing unjust sentences, because they knew that if K.'s cameraman
turned on the camera, then some time in the future, after three, ten
or twenty years, somebody would find this film, see themselves. Of
course, they appeared in all of the documents, they signed papers;
but it's one thing to sign a piece of paper and quite another
physically to appear on screen at the moment of passing an unjust
sentence.
The next thing that occurred in this story is that lawyers and
defendants were all begging K. to film their case in the courtroom,
because then the judge would not pass an unjust sentence.
Well K. was there in the courtroom to film an unjust sentence being
passed, and he didn't get *any* on film! In fact, after a short
time, he didn't even have his cameraman load the camera with film
because there wasn't any need. They became 'dummy cameras', which
were only there so that through plain human fear, the judges
wouldn't pass unjust sentences.
Kieslowski spent about a month or so moving from courtroom to
courtroom with his dummy camera, attending perhaps 80 trials. Not a
single meter of film was recorded.
So that's the story. K. had some unpleasant business afterwards with
the Minister of Arts and Culture because he went through great
effort to get the permits and money to record in the courtroom, and
then ended with nothing, so he had to justify it somehow. He didn't
say what he really did with the camera in the courtroom, though, and
that is: turning *off* the camera.
(1) _Kieslowski on Kieslowski_, edited by Danusia Stok, 1993 by
Faber and Faber publ.
-- ******************************************************************** Amara Graps, PhD email: amara@amara.com Computational Physics vita: ftp://ftp.amara.com/pub/resume.txt Multiplex Answers URL: http://www.amara.com/ ******************************************************************** "Take time to consider. The smallest point may be the most essential." Sherlock Holmes (The Adventure of the Red Circle)
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