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Kevin McMahon McLuhans Wake 2002 DVDRip XviD

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Filename: Kevin.McMahon.McLuhans.Wake.2002.DVDRip.XviD.avi
Filesize: 732891136 Bytes (698.94 MB)
Streams (i.e. Video, Audio): 2
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Avg. Bitrate: 914.91 kbit/s
Resolution: 480x272
Color Depth: 12 bits
Running Time: 5631.53 s (1h 33m 51s)
Framerate: 29.9700 fps
Microseconds Per Frame: 33367 ms
Frames: 168777
Keyframes: 1118 (Every 150)
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Avg. Bitrate: 112.33 kbit/s
Sample Rate: 48000 Hz
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Channels: 2
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http://onf-nfb.gc.ca/eng/collection/film/?id=51483


Fascinated by the role technology played in transforming our lives, one of the twentieth centurys most famous intellectuals realized, with stunning accuracy, the impact the digital age would have on our social, spiritual, economic and ideological selves.

The global village and the medium is the message are among the most quoted phrases of our time. Now, twenty years after his death, in the midst of an era of Internet, virtual and wired technologies, McLuhans Wake explores the enduring hold of McLuhans message. Blending all forms of media, including animation and special effects, McLuhans Wake features narration by renowned performance artist Laurie Anderson, and commentary by scholars Eric McLuhan, Neil Postman and Lewis Lapham, and award-winning journalist Patrick Watson.

Includes the original feature-length documentary, along with exclusive supplemental interviews and features for McLuhan scholars and enthusiasts, assembled especially for this Collectors Edition DVD.

2002, 70 min

* Directed by
Kevin McMahon

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http://www.acjournal.org/holdings/vol6/iss4/reviews/mcluhan.htm

The opening sequence of McLuhans Wake foreshadows the aesthetic quality of the rest of the film. It begins with a montage of video images crashing seas, a dancing ballerina, the Challenger shuttle edited together with audio from Marshall McLuhan and original New Age music. This rapid succession of heterogeneous images fades into a retelling of Edgar Allen Poes The Descent into the Maelstrom, complete with animation, special effects and narration by Eric McLuhan. As did so much of the literature that Marshall McLuhan read, The Descent into the Maelstrom impacted his thinking. However, the 1840 Poe short story is even more significant according to McLuhans Wake; the film suggests the mariners struggle in the story provides a metaphor for McLuhans own attempt to make sense of the swirling, whirling culture of media that could have swept him away so easily had he not identified the laws regarding them.

McLuhans Wake is organized around McLuhans last scholarly book, Laws of Media, which was published posthumously by his son. In this lesser-known publication of McLuhans, he and his son argued that there are four laws of media: any medium amplifies or intensifies some situation; any medium makes part of the environment obsolete; any medium recreates or revives any older structure or environment; and any medium, when pushed to its limit, can reverse to create the opposite of its intended function. McLuhans Wake explores this tetrad of enhancement, obsolescence, retrieval and reversal with examples from places so varied as an elementary school classroom, the kitchen of a Chinese restaurant, and a Jaguar car dealership.

The film assumes that viewers have at least a rudimentary understanding of McLuhans theories. With its abundance of examples illustrating the laws of media, McLuhans Wake makes the meaning of the tetrad extremely clear. The film also highlights McLuhans better known theories on the effects of technology, including its numbing effect, its potential for creating a global village, its retribalization of man, and its incompatibility with a passive model of education. Excerpts of McLuhans lectures and interviews illustrate these theories, edited together with interviews from scholars like Neil Postman and Lewis Lapham and narration from performance artist Laurie Anderson. However, the viewer rarely sees the people speaking, causing them to become disembodied. While McLuhan would likely be quite comfortable with this haunting quality of the film, it has the potential to overwhelm an audience of students unfamiliar with McLuhans work.

McLuhans Wake does acknowledge criticisms of McLuhans theories, but it provides no specific explanation, and attributes them mostly to jealousy or lack of full comprehension. The film, which also loosely follows McLuhans life chronologically, portrays McLuhan as having died without ever fully being heard. In this way, McLuhan was the real-life mariner who made sense of and escaped the vortex, only to be dismissed by his peers. The film does highlight the resurgence of McLuhan since the computer revolution, but does not acknowledge that much of this resurgence, at least in popular culture, may be a result of peoples misunderstanding of McLuhan. However, the film does make clear that McLuhan himself believed that computers enabled authorities to exert more control over society. It also highlights McLuhans strong objection to technological change on the basis of the resultant unpleasant effects on the human body.

Ultimately, McLuhans Wake succeeds as a film. Although it is slow-moving at times, it captures the ideas and aesthetic style of McLuhan. However, because of the McLuhanesque qualities of the film, it falls short as an instructional video to introduce students to McLuhan. However, for students who already have some familiarity with McLuhans work, the film can provide insights into McLuhans thinking. Additionally, the web-based tools accompanying the video include Understanding McLuhan, a brief but useful biography of McLuhan, and an educators resource guide filled with discussion-provoking questions and possible assignments. McLuhans Wake fills a long-time void for a film about Marshall McLuhan, whose relevance to our contemporary culture cannot be denied. Viewers should just be prepared to experience the film as they might any of his writings, as a psychedelic intellectual journey.

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