Speaking of The Captain, allow me to take Billy Beck to task a little, on a comment made about the Captain’s writings on THE PASSION.
Says the Captain, regarding the Aramaic dialogue and Subtitles:
“Unfortunately, it means that the First Mate won’t be able to see it in the theater, as she is blind and wouldn’t be able to follow along.”
Billy responds:
“Far be it from me to determine where others find their values. However: it’s early yet, but that could very well work out as the silliest thing I will read this week. I’m not quite sure how to make this clear to a person like that, but when we’re talking about a blind person, we are also necessarily talking about a person whose requirements call for a completely different medium from film.”
Not really, Billy.
I speak from a very personal experience, here. I dated a blind girl for years…and among other things, she was a devotee of various TV shows, including Trek TNG (which was new, at the time) Yes, film is very visual, but no less is life itself.
No, don’t misunderstand me; I’m by no means suggesting that the film should have been altered to accommodate such people. (I can see, though where the blind might be helped out some in the DVD version by means of an narrowband English audio track mixed in for the subtitle read.)
But I AM suggesting that your assessment of film as an invalid media for the blind, as a whole, may be a bit offbase, and by extension, you assessment of the Captain, as well. In my former girlfriend’s case, she found it very entertaining, as a rule. Particularly after the audio started getting better… 5 channel sound and all that. She said it made her feel like she was IN the story. In most cases she was able to follow the story with very minimal promptings from me.
Tags: BitsBlog
