WILL SELF ON THE DEATH OF FILM 

What Will Self is referencing here is 22-24 frames per second is the lower limit allowed for us to percieve it as constant motion, not a collage of still images flashing before our eyes. We dont see in 24 frames per second, we dont percieve things visually in frames at all. We can observe an image in a 200th of a second, that's 200 frames per second. They did this test in the airforce where pilots were asked to not only identify if there was an image, but also managed to identify the object (in this case, fighter jet types and builds) within 160th of a second. There is no "upper limit" to how we percieve visual information. We percieve time slower when adrenaline pumps through our veins as anyone who has been in a car accident or taken a nose dive off the top step of a staircase can testify. That "oh shit this is it, I am going to die, this will hurt so much" momment. A technicality, but I am so tired of hearing it repeated.

I fucking love Will Self. I must try reading one of his books one day

For someone who's favourite film is 'Solaris', he seems to be unaware of modern filmmakers working primarily with sustained shots - Bela Tarr and Nuri Bilge Ceylan spring to mind.

24 frames per second is the film standard. The brain needs 16 fps to trick it into perceiving motion instead of stills. Anyway, a few salient points although he totally omits the topic of VOD services like Netflix et al producing content based on algorithmic analysis of viewer habits. To me that is truly "post-film" where the auteur is omitted from the process entirely, following such a trend to its final conclusion where film content is tailor made for individuals based on their browsing habits is quite a frightening prospect.

The Sacks essay is: 'In the River of Consciousness' not 'time'.

The reason why films are so annoying is the reason why much of youtube is annoying to watch compared to this video. Self stands up and talks for 20 minutes in one coherent monologue. Many popular youtubers can't really talk coherently for more than 2 seconds so they fix it in "the edit" by having jump cuts 10 times per sentence the say. The "democratization" of technology means that everyone can heavily edit what that they share with the world.

Will has used words I’ve never heard in 35 years of BBC Radio 4., “ The Singularity “ is a tune by KillingJoke - Plus about 30 yers back , thrashmetal music combo ‘ Anthrax ‘ had a number called “ kill the superheroes “ - at 20 I thought that rather rebellious and now it sounds like a jolly good idea..Thankyou Will & all concerned with this production.

His problems with film remind me of a film called Holy Motors (2012) that dealt with similar problems regarding film.

this is great on so many levels, and as a french guy did not know this guy at all, my bad.

I’m puzzled as to how professor self can assert that the different types of film shots have disappeared when he says that he doesn’t watch film any more?

Was this an open mic event?

Some interesting points, especially the part about the technology outpacing our imaginations. But on the subject of the ubiquity of screens, he fails to mention that no one is likely to watch Solaris (or indeed Inception) on a 5-inch cell phone.

I have no idea what he's talking about, but I like it.

Thank you Will for reminding me of the methods of jumping out of reality. The film used to be one of these methods, but it soon became part of reality from which it is now harder to escape. You are right - fiction is also dead, just as much as film, and so is literature... What is next?

I'm 8 ins in and he telling us that the `wagon wheel effect' can be seen without the use of camera or projector. I know this is untrue. So why should I go further?

Outstanding ☮☯

Not to pile on the criticism, but it would be light years from here, not light years from now. A light year is a unit of distance not time. I did find moments of this talk insightful.

Would have been better if he'd done a cover of the old Rod Stewart Song, "Do You Think I 'm Skeksi?" as an outro.

J ai du respect pour will self. Ceux qui vivent en dehors des films et de la tele depuis plusieurs annees ont acquis une prise de conscience differentes sur les evenements. Ils sont la generations qui vient a s eteindre, nos ailleuls entre autres. Si les films etaient aussi bien produit avec la notion de narration et de capacite a utiliser la lenteur prendre le temps plutot que courir apres lui pour la construction nous n en serions pas la, a lire des commentaires de nous interroger et de nous chamailler pour des videos des starlettes des personnes doues d aucuns sens Humains a L Art et sa metaphysique. Mais malheureusement, l argent appartient a la masse et nous nous astreignons a souffrir de nos betises et de notre devoir a observer pour se nourrir se vetir et compter nos jours...

Self is a showman first of all,, stringing a lot of words together loosely related to film theory, jump cutting with Luc Goddard and his personal preferences. He is good at overpowering his audience with long worded sentences, inducing a mental fug. IMHO Films are in retreat because the 120 minute format does not allow enough time to develop characters. People prefer Netflix series in 7 parts watched at home on large telies. Simples.

A lightyear is a unit of distance, not time. C'mon Will, this is entry-level.

It's tergiversation, not tergiservation. 🙂

What he said about beheading videos is ridiculous. If you show someone a video they are obviously going to have a more visceral reaction than if you tell them someone had been beheaded. If anything people being shocked by videos is a good thing, as public executions used to be seen as a form of entertainment by some only 200 years ago. Unless our society became truly pacifist, you cannot expect people to be shocked every time they are told someone has been murdered when it is so common in our society.

Will Self has few insights. he confuses striking an attitude with genuine criticism; however, on the subject of the death of film, he is spot on. Why? That is because western culture is exhausted, as George Steiner's book Grammars of Creation brilliantly demonstrates.

Modern theatrical film runs at 24 frames a second. Not 22 as he claims.

Being bombarded with images 24/7 has limited our ability to imagine, hence problem solving skills that we took for granted, are not as available now days. I mean why figure something out when google, youtube or tv can do it for you? Movies at least can bring awareness because the art-form is powerful on multiple levels, but unless the story has artistic merit the images are just special effects guaranteed to numb your mind. Telling children stories without pictures, using natural expression ( Will Self must be good at yoga) may be the best way to remedy the situation.

what did he say about jews in front of the tv ?

But does he still watch 'old films'?....For the best part of the last 25 years or more, I haven't viewed anything beyond the speed of Lost In Translation.......And in the film 'A Hundred-Year-Old Man Climbed Out of His Bedroom Window and Went Missing'......there is no CGI or special effects only excellent editing at its most pleasing...and in my many years of existence, experience and observation, learning and understanding and a most well-healed opinion ...the short Brechtian setups and a comedic conduit that doesn't break at all and above all is re-watchable is an uplifting piece of pure cinema storytelling that lasts..... Love always....

Bravo

Interesting. In my ignorance I've never heard of Mr. Self. I found him in a debate with Zizek. His voice, tone and demeanor is very different in the debate, he sounds very presumptuos, sarcastic and not very humble. I found it distasteful and thought he was like that always. Well, here he sounds like a professional and intelectual adult and not a jealous child.

Humen persistence of vision operates at 17 frames per second of higher, not 22 exactly. Films run at 24, 25,30 or 60 fps, not 22. High-res TV screens do not exceed the resolution of the human eye. Som every concrete fact Self states is wrong. This is normal.

I will add at 6:30 - when he's talking about the horrendous level of jump cuts in contemporary action films today there are a lot of videos on this explaining why it's done and when it started to come about. It's cheaper to do these thing and it is there to cover up mistakes or even inability in choreography post-editing and what makes it worse is that film is screened at 25 fps and when you're watching these fast scenes it makes them almost unwatchable and it appears as a blur because of the limited frame rate. RU-vid thankfully has adopted 60 fps viewing now and it does make a huge difference when watching high level competitive gaming which is probably the best example of where high frame rates are required especially for viewing and I'd love to see this applied to cinema and not just one film from Peter Jackson. And don't try to say the human eye cannot see beyond 30 fps or 60 fps - it's total bullshit. And then Self even comes out with the bullshit statistic that the human eye processes 22 frames a second. This is completely wrong.

when we are old we are filled with wonder, then when we get old we are filled with whatever this is called, tergiservation perhaps

I saw the beheading video...one of them, didnt want to but it was the full thing. If you want to see the wagon wheel moving in the right direction...change the shutter speed, or frame rate, want the Solaris look get some Lomo Anamorphic lenses, russian glass formulations difficult to reproduce.

seems silly not to mention video games. infinitely less passive and you have to understand the systems at play to progress. No film halts its progress until the viewer understands how its being directed. Granted most games haven't really made use of the space they provide to say anything poignant. But we're getting there... Well until its all VR goggles and haptic feedback suits... Also when he said we see in 22 frames per second thats not strictly true. Its more like we can see the differences between two frames though how fast a frame is hasnt really been defined. There have been people recorded being able to percieve in hundreds of frames per second

Susan Hiller, once said that TV's have taken the place of the fire, where the family now gathers round the flickering screens...in subconsciousness seeking that which belonged to an ancient inheritance the position of the story teller in our midst... (only it's a shame.. hey..all the commercials!..ha, ha..)

What is the part of Solaris’ title sequence which he is referring?

to trick the eye you require 44 frame per second ... that is why the projector flashes the image twice and 60 Htz is used etc... .. and to quote "The human eye can physiologically detect up to 1000 frames per second. The trick is can it detect the difference when run in sequence .... " otherwise interesting stuff

@1:05 that's a subtle reference to Martin's story (one of his "invert the common premise" riffs) "Career Move"

Will Self is the modern self-appointed Bernard Berenson. An arrogant snob-but in a good way. At least he’s not down to forcing his students to cover their eyes in passing the Rubenses on their way to the Raphaels. I must say “The death of film” or anything else is only imagined. Doesn’t mean a thing. Great art continues to emerge despite anything Will Self says. Has anyone seen Stan Brakhage films recently? It’s like saying painting’s over. Then you see a late Cezanne Bathers and the body immediately relaxes-aaahhh. Doesn’t need to be figured out.Or Ozu. Or Kon Ichikawa-Alone Across the Pacific. Good is good. Even some Will Self sentences. Smug or humble, sophisticated or simple, don’t mean a thing.

It's not his fault. But he doesn't know enough good films. What about Ciro Geurra's 'The Wind Journeys' or Hou Hsiao-Hsien's 'The Assassin?

He's basically following or departing from Hauser on this film decline or tyranny, whether he knows it or not. Obviously, McLuhan. Easy. But he misses the point - dominant ideology ("free subjectivity") can read cross-cuts and any kind of shot. The question is: can this supposedly "critical" approach to "the medium an the message" read itself as just another contradiction within dominant ideology?

Coronacation 2020 has me thinking of a career in writing. I now say to myself, "Not so fast McFly." Oh...what to do when our lives travel at the speed of light? We buy books and more books, but have only time to read the covers. Where is adventure, where is romance? We have only drama of violence...and that becomes horrifically boring. Careful as we will, careful as we go.

All hail the god of pretension.

Borges imagined a map the same size as the territory it depicted ( not Korzybski)

Exactly!

Yes, but if the lectern was better positioned those unsightly electric cables could have been concealed in its housing.

seems pretty obvious humanity is going to merge with the I phone

So if I read some Baudrillard and inflame my ego, can I too get paid as much as this guy?

solaris of Tarkovsky is a 1972 film

opaque, confused and tired

Self is self on self.

But there are techniques in prose that are just as attention grabbing and information-lite as short shots. It isn’t the medium, is the techniques. I watch very few action and horror films, because most of the are irritatingly absent of any content. The only car chase scene I have ever put up with and maybe even enjoyed is the one in badlands. If there is a film that keeps hogging my attention because it is annoying I just turn it off.

The map is the territory

So many good films though.

What an insufferably pretentious creep this man is. He is constantly trying to impress an audience with the use of obscure long words and 'facts' that turn out to be demonstrably incorrect, as lots of comments here have pointed out. He is like a slightly more sophisticated version of Russell Brand, a middle-aged rebellious adolescent trying desperately hard to impress.

Nostalghia

*Too much tergiversation in this video clip for my liking*

Onyly three minutes in and I like Will Self, but this is bullshit. He seems to accept a reality defined by propogandists.He has set me up, hopefully..

new ceremonies, less priests. Same dark ritual areas...

The polish linguist he is talking about is Korzybski, not korzbyski. Name-dropper. I bet he's never read a word of that promiscuous linguist. Probably only Robert Anton Wilson ever read it to completion.

Every boffin has been talking about the death of this, the death of that for centuries - and nothing has changed.

film is 24 fps

Better not show him a Michael Bay film, then. Those Transformers films, amiright? What a waste of CGI, they might just as well flash lights in our face.

I like Will and his droopy drollery but he is talking absolute arse gravy here.

we need more robots

It is incomprehensible how Will Self could be so bothered by a 20 billion pound expenditure for a British naval base in Bahrain. Projecting naval power of a civilized nation into a lawless violent region is a stabilizing, humanizing investment.

It's a good thing Self's books are shite or his opinions might be taken seriously.

This guy is Lurch from The Adams Family right?

Can't wait until some kid makes a sick arse indie and just posts it online for it to become a hit. Film isn't dying there are a million kids who are picking up cameras aged 11 and going out trying to copy Casey Neistat. It's the democratisation of technology, tools, learning. There will be a New Wave soon we need one. The big studios are resembling those in the 50's now, but I think where as before the New Wave came from film school kids and critics, the new wave will be video makers who have learnt the technical aspects by doing and repeating.

Utterly one sides bollocks! He's just looking at the most negative sides of film and capitalising on that! I've seen loads or really incredible films over the last few years. It's about art and entertainment, and there are many films which are exactly that! Not all films are Marvel blockbusters FFS. Seriously who is buying this guys books??? What the he'll has a beheading video got to do with not wanting to watch any other artistic film again???

Ten years ago I sat with my 16 yr old son at The Odeon in Bournemouth, watching James Bond get caught in North Korea whilst doing something I’d never seen him achieve before .- he looked like Jesus Christ Superstar . -. Unfortunately itt soon became business as usual as another 30 minutes or years of continuous Explosions gave me the excuse to never watch such nonsense again. I could never call myself intellectual but Action Movies make me feel smarter by the second 🏴😇😁love from wessexshire PS without bbc R4 I’d never heard of this guy so they aren’t all bad.

This is all well and good but this guy is an awful writer - if lit fiction is dead it's thanks to him and his North London chums. In the 60's the working class made great work, they will again.