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Understanding McLuhan
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Understanding McLuhan (1996)(Voyager)[Mac-PC].iso
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07108_Field_TCUM T673.txt
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1996-04-10
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903b
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16 lines
The new film form was perfectly adapted to this composite
image, since film is itself a jerky mechanical ballet of flicks that
yields a sheer dream world of romantic illusions. But the film
form is not just a puppetlike dance of arrested still shots, for it
manages to approximate and even to surpass real life by
means of illusion. That is why Chaplin, in his silent pictures at
least, was never tempted to abandon the Cyrano role of the
puppet who could never really be a lover. In this stereotype
Chaplin discovered the heart of the film illusion, and he
manipulated that heart with easy mastery, as the key to the
pathos of a mechanized civilization. A mechanized world is
always in the process of getting ready to live, and to this end it
brings to bear the most appalling pomp of skill and method and
resourcefulness.
The film pushed this mechanism to the utmost