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Subject: Re: QUERY: Films and periodical
From: Ken Harrow
<harrow@pilot.msu.edu <mailto:harrow@pilot.msu.edu
<mailto:harrow@pilot.msu.edu> > >
Date: Wed 17 June 1998, 10:33 am
How can anyone really believe that this is the case? Films rented as videos
from California Newsreel, for example, are clearly for groups-usually
college groups. Sembene makes tons more by restricting the rentals of his
films to 16mm, and his popularity insures that there is a market. If he
seriously wanted his films to be available to groups, he would have arranged
a distribution agreement in which the prices were reasonably priced. ken
harrow At 11:50 AM 6/17/98 -0500, you wrote:
From: Cynthia Ward
<cward@hawaii.edu <mailto:cward@hawaii.edu <mailto:cward@hawaii.edu>
> >
Date: Tue 16 June 1998, 12:53 pm
It's my understanding that Sembene doesn't want his films viewed in
isolation but to be viewed, as much as possible, in the context of a group
of people as a shared experience-and prohibiting videos is a way of insuring
group-viewing. It is a position I can understand and respect, given his
reasons for shifting from writing novels to directing movies. At the risk of
overgeneralizing, in Africa, art means little in isolation; its function is
primarily social rather than psychological.
Cynthia Ward
University of Hawai'i Manoa
From: Ken Harrow
<harrow@pilot.msu.edu <mailto:harrow@pilot.msu.edu
<mailto:harrow@pilot.msu.edu> > >
Date: Wed 17 June 1998, 10:29 am
I cannot believe for a moment that a tape in PAL cannot be legally
transformed into NTSC. There may be legal constraints on distribution within
a given country, but the format is not the same thing. It is like saying you
can't play a certain type of record in a given country. That is nonsense.
All that is needed to play a video is a VCR that plays PAL. I have a
multisystem VCR, as do lots of folks, with which I have copied tons of films
into NTSC, the American system, and I intend to continue doing so.
On a different note, I recently purchased my latest Beyala
novel, _La Negresse rousse_, published in September
1997 by J'Ai Lu. To my surprise, I noticed that it began
with the same text as _Seul le diable le savait_, and in fact
was the same novel. Looking inside the cover, one notes a
list of
Beyala novels that includes all the novels published until
1996, except _Seul le diable le savait_. Turning another
page one finds, in small print at the bottom of the page a
note indicating that this is a reprinting of _Seul le diable._
It is amazing that we worry about showing films in PAL format, while a
publisher can change the title of a novel, hide the fact that it had earlier
been published under a different title, repackage it completely and then
sell it. I did not ask to get my money back... I hope this will keep some
of the readers of the list from getting ripped off.
ken harrow
In-Reply-To: 199806191300.GAA18996@abraham.xc.org