EconTech

Andrew Gelman seems to be writing a lot about these kinds of things lately. But that’s ok:

Is a 65-hour story better than a 3-hour story?

Jane Dark writes here about movies taking only 100 minutes whereas, on TV, “The Wire is about 65 hours long, divided graciously into five location-based chapters. Movies are now the short form, television the long form.” I’ve never seen The Wire (we live on the 7th floor, no reception) so I can’t comment on this example, but the discussion reminds me of the fractal nature of soap operas: in any couple of episodes, so much is happening, but then if you tune in a year or two later, everything’s still at the same place. Presumably this is to make things interesting to people who watch every day, while still allowing people to miss an episode.

I’d also comment, regarding length, that single novels are generally agreed to be better than series novels. There are exceptions, sure, and you could argue that some sets of novels (for example, Charles Dickens or Anne Tyler) have enough common themes that they function as series. But Dark is specifically talking about the ability to develop character over the long form. For some reason, you don’t usually see novelists doing this (again, you have exceptions such as Richard Ford, John Updike, and Philip Roth). One reason, perhaps, is that part of the fun of a work of literature is the chance to meet new characters. Much as we’d like to see our favorites reappear in future books, there’s something that seems to be missing in a mere continuation. So I think there is something missing in Dark’s argument.

We live in an age of literary abundance. There are so many great storytellers out there, we don’t need to rely on a few characters over and over again, as we have to do in a bedtime-story world in which one’s limited power of invention invariably results in the same few characters and formulations shuffled around like a deck of cards.

P.S. It appears that in 1997 Jane Dark apparently saw 52 movies more than I did, so I defer to her expertise.

P.P.S. She also amusingly analogizes Dubai to Michael Jackson, loosely adapting the economic theory that free money corrupts the soul (to which I generally agree, but it doesn’t stop me from taking government grants, on the theory (which I sincerely believe to be true in this case) that I’ll do thing differently).

P.P.P.S. Hey, I like bread and water. If it’s good bread, that is.

I have said before that I see a brighter future for the TV format as people make more explicit choices with more advanced digital distribution technologies. DVD sales may be doing the same thing now. Anyway, my point is that that was disclosure of previous opinions on the subject.

Gelman gets the analogy wrong. Anyone who has read a book and then seen the movie will tell you that the movie misses so much of this, that, and the other. No one ever says that a book-turned-movie is better on film than on paper back. Why is this? A movie script is only 90 pages or so. You aren’t watching a novel. At best you are watching a novella, with all the speedy transitions and missing character development that accompanies so much of the format.

So, what is a TV show. I don’t think anyone spends 65 hours reading a book; so maybe each season would be better described as a book, and the series as a whole as a set of books. This makes sense, as the mini-series can do a pretty good job of starting a story, having a complex storyline with substantial character development, and a final conclusion. The American style of TV production, producing as many episodes with as many hangers for as long as possible to eek out every dollar of advertising revenue they can, inflates the length of the show beyond the natural storyline. Shows produced elsewhere, e.g. “Rome“, do not always suffer this problem.

Also, good shows do not suffer this fractal problem. Any given episode may have a slight degree of similarity to a number of others, but I dare you to try to follow “The Wire”, “Rome”, or several others mentioned at the link above by watching, say, every other episode. I pretty much stop watching a show if it does suffer this problem, though I am not likely to start such a show either.

This then brings up the issue of why in the world I want to wait 6-9 months to read a novel. Just release the whole thing for me to purchase someplace, and I’ll decide at what pace to watch it (said on a Monday morning after “Battlestar Galactica“)!