Pmun,
I always remember the picture of the flag raising on Iwo Jima. The image is known by everyone. Even people who cant tell you what year the war started, are familiar with this image. The iconic meaning of it has become greater over the years as time passes, but it was recognised immediately by the editors when they first saw it in Joe Rosenthal's film. (So I read.)
The guy standing next to the photographer was a newsreel guy who filmed a shot of the men raising the pole on his movie camera. Its played sometimes as a historical curiosity. (Now, heres what the flag raising looked like on film...)
Its interesting to note that, one, the still image immediately became greater that the sum of all its parts,
and Two, that the film segment is considered to be more "real" - its played to show what the flag raising "really" looked like.
Both were created from teh same subject, virtually same viewpoint, and the same light, by Marines doing no more than their job.
In the film segment, the moment is stripped of its granduer, its pathos and its gravity. It becomes some men merely achieving a logistal effort. Even if the men were indeed feeling what the still photo gives to the viewers, the newreel cameraman was unable to impress that inbetween his frames or even hint at it.
Although both cinema and still photos are both created by and for directing a viewers attention a certain way (only show them what you want them to see) it seems to be implied that still photography achieves that more concisely, right down to which particular moment you want the viewer to regard.
Another one is HCB's shot of the woman sneering at the traitor being interviewed on the liberatiopn of Paris. The photo sums up the feeling of a nation towards some of its own at the end of a war, a moment and an interpretation that the movie segment is blind to.
And yet some of the most powerful moments in our culture have been depicted in the (fictional) cinema.
hang on , lunch is burning.
Okay, I ve lost my train of thought now...
But when you say at the end of your post that still photo's from a movie lack what still photographs have, could an explanation be that in a still from a movie, the viewer is aware that what he is looking at not the finished product - not the actual 'work' at all, and so the whole time they are aware that they are missing the full intent and impact.
So even though the subject is the same - the picture is the same - the veiwers knoweldge of the background of what they are looking at changes their perception of its value, lowering it. Whereas with a still photograph they are looking at the full completed 'work', so they dont regard it as shadow of something greater.
