PHL 710 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Nelson Goodman
Document Summary
When we see something realistic, we are not talking about how similar it is to what it depicting, but they are a reflection of social conventions about how things should be or are depicted. Realism not determined by comparison of object to depiction. Film production companies would pay revolutionaries for right to the story to tell it the way they want. What we take from film as realistic is based on how we apply conventions we have learned. Audience makes judgement on whether something is real or not (ie. what is shown on news) based on what we have learned to be the way it should look. Not trying to copy real life as a film has to tell a story over days in an hour and a half. Both storytelling (narration) and watching events unfold are both aspects of realism and one could seem more realistic than the other depending on social conventions known/accepted by individual.