Look Out! Train!
(26.01.2003 - 3:26 p.m.)

I didn't quite manage to keep my goal of writing in here every day for the rough equivalent of three pages. But I did spend almost the entire day yesterday out and about, which is a relatively new thing for me, so at least I am doing something to change the things I don't like about my life.

oOo oOo oOo

I'm not usually one to take any notice of horoscopes. I'm always fairly sceptical when it comes to believing anything that I read in them. But there is a certain morbid curiosity that keeps me coming back. Who wouldn't like to have some idea of what lies in store for them?

All of the "Year Ahead" horoscopes that I clamped eyes upon around Christmas said that 2003 would be a year in which my perceptions would change significantly. That's a pretty sweeping generalisation I realise, as which year isn't one in which your perceptions change? But I did reasess one of them last night.

Whenever something has broken down or come to an end in my personal life, I've always made the implicit assumption that it must have been something that I had done to cause it. I would always get out my shovel and heap the guilt upon myself. But I'm not going to keep doing that any more.

Don't get me wrong, I shan't be walking around with arrogance and bravado, absolving myself of any blame, but I'll try and think through any given situation in a rational manner. So here's to altering perceptions.

oOo oOo oOo

Do you consider film to be art? Or at least an art form? I was talking to someone yesterday who, whilst talking, kept making a distinction between art and film. I don't think that it was a concious decision on their part, but it irked me somewhat. In so much examination, dicussion and investigation of art, there is the implication that film is somehow not worthy of the same status as painting, say, or literature. My question is why?

Film uses narrative in similar ways to literature, albeit with a visual language all of it's own. Film is a visual medium, in a very similar way to drawing and painting. Film involves the same careful thinking, layering and construction as any of those other mediums, and can stand up to similar intellectual investigation. Film, as with any other art, is a form of exploration and communication. So why is there this difficulty of acceptance?

Film has a much shorter history, but is that any reason to look down upon it? Film often reaches a 'mass' audience, but so do books and music. Film is often seen as lacking substance and depth because, in it's most mainstream and popular form, it isn't always taxing. But then neither is pop music, and we already know that pop music doesn't have to be distinct from 'art'. The Beatles anyone?

So what is it with film? If you bother to look, there is an incredible depth and diversity of film out there. I wish people didn't seem so ready to write it off.

oOo oOo oOo

Currently spinning: The Jurassic 5 EP, Jurassic 5.

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