Helvetica

Helvetica was in terms of subject matter a rather interesting film. Like most people, I don't pay a whole lot attention to all the different fonts used in advertisements. Not consciously, anyway. I had no idea there was such a universal font used with so many corporate ads, logos, etc. Admittedly, after the film I started noticing the differences throughout the world. Even now that I have somewhat reverted back to my usual state of mind, I still occasionally see differentiating font designs. I feel that the dilemma presented in the film that deals with the lack of new ideas via font design sort of applies to the art world in general. There seems a stop on the progression of style and originality. It's a frantic thought that there may be no more room for progress in art.
As far as the film itself goes, I felt a little bored as time progressed. I personally do not take much interest in graphic design or electronic and digital media in general.

In responce to Decasia

In general, I am a little divided on what I feel about this movie. It was a very powerful film that certainly served its purpose in evoking emotional response, though I do not think I would be able to watch it again for a very long time. The most blatant theme of the film- the decay of film- alone made my feel like balling up inside. There was something about watching something (though not alive in the traditional sense) die for a solid hour that just sucked the life out of me; as the film progressed I felt myself growing cold with perpetual chills.
I do feel that the Morrison drew out some of the sections a little too much, though. The first part of it (from the beginning to the first reappearance of the spinning man) was done perfectly. This is the bit that really engraved itself in my mind. Just the imagery of spinning things (the man, the carnival rides, the school children walking in circles) created a sort of purgatorial feel to it. The fact that cycles never end by definition combined with the decaying mood of the overall film gave me a sense of hopelessness. That somehow the film was never going to end, that the reel would just keep turning and turning and turning, never altering it's speed. I felt that this portion was just pure genius. It was almost as if Morrison created an entirely new emotion. One which I never wish to experience in the way I did, but a new one none-the-less.
The next sequence of events seemed to draw on too much. There where some scenes that where really well done (such as the boxer, the miners or the man climbing the ladder) but otherwise I felt Morrison lost the emotion he and the composer created in the first half. As the film drew to an end it did pick it's pace back up a little bit. Specifically I felt the scene with the airplanes and the parachutes was especially powerful. That feeling of hopelessness returned but in a different manor. The airplanes seemed to simply just be suspended in space, unmoving and lost in some sort of infinite void. When the parachutes approached the ground, I felt not a sense of grounding but a sense of ending. As if while in the air, the objects exist in a meaningful way but once on the ground they were no longer the same objects.
Overall, I do not think anyone should see this film. Artistically, it was one of the best I have ever seen. But I don't think anyone should need to experience the intensity of emotions I felt while seeing it.

In response to Walter Benjamin

This article was fairly interesting in that it opened up some new perspectives with looking at the progression of technology and it's impact on the art world. Namely, the last few sections stood out to me the most. I enjoyed his bit on film opening up new horizons in terms of enhancing our comprehension of time and providing the ability to observe things that would otherwise have been unobservable. It is true that film provides the ability to slow things down to expose realities the public has never seen before. This doesn't seem so impactful, however since being a youth of this generation, I grew up with such technologies. I could only imagine, though, how mind blowing it must have been to witness these things for the first time.

This brings into question, however, the possibility that these "slowed down" worlds never did exist before Film technology and that we only created them with our new technologies. It is almost frightening to contemplate the deeper extent of what we may have created with even the simplest, latest machines.

Another thing I enjoyed of Benjamin's article was his explanation on "Auras". I had a little bit of a conception prior but that was only on a very simple, surface degree. The overall feeling one receives from a work (painting or film) seems to fit the term Aura almost perfectly. I do not necessarily agree with Benjamin, though, when he begins comparing painting against film within all aspects of the two. I feel that the two mediums are almost within different worlds of their own. Especially when considering motion-film. A painting is a still representation of a moment. A film is a representation of multiple moments as they progress through time. It is true that a painting can give way to the possibility of multiple moments, but that includes only theories that apply to each individual viewer. A painting doesn't even represent reality as is perceived by an individual on an every-day basis. Whereas film is a more realistic representation in terms of image matter. True, there can be abstract or surreal film, but it is less than often that one will see a film shot in acrylics. That is not to say it doesn't happen; it just simply isn't the standard mode by which it is used.

Moving away from the concepts Benjamin presented, I would like to make a note on his technical presentation. I felt that he often repeated a lot of his points and his organization was a little off. It seemed that he would present multiple ideas or topics in a single section and then move on to expand on each one in later sections. This would have worked if the introductions to each topic were a little more comprehensible. I felt that the method he chose was simply a little redundant.