Can a book capture 'epic'?
I'm not /lit/erate, I've read but not widely or particularly well. It looks like I'm going to get into the film industry, and something has been bugging me for a while.
I spend a lot of my time thinking about ideas, themes and imagery that I would like to explore in a visual form. Since I was a kid, I've daydreamed about these 'epic' scenes, invariably accompanied by some 'Requim for a Dream' style soundtrack.
These images are vivid and compelling. Far more so than anything filmed and presented to an audience. I've notebooks full of such 'ideas'.
Some are camera movements, some are interesting phrases. Some are simply feelings and atmospheres. To exemplify, I've been keenly interested in capturing the following feeling:
>when you're in a place you haven't been before/rarely visit, and there are very few people around. It's quiet and you feel strangely alone and depressed.
I get this feeling in very quiet, darker parts of hospitals and weird towns I visit. I get it when walking down a street far from where I live. There's anxiety in being removed from the crowd, and what you know.
Film is limited heavily and these almost idiosyncratic ideas seldom translate clearly to the medium. The aristry is often rendered visually 'cheap' by the realities of life.
So, can it be done in a book?
Most films I watch do not compell me. Compell is the key word, because these huge, complex ideas in my head do.
Thoughts? Can anyone point me to any works that explore the chasing of these huge, incredible, perfect ideas that cannot exist in the tangible world?
Yes. Its called "Epic Poetry".
>>7735709
isn't that jesus in piss?
>going to get into the film industry
so, you're jewish..
epic huh? go back to the old shit. old as you can go.
>>7735709
>Can a book capture 'epic'?
Can a movie capture 'drama'?
Can a music capture 'sonata'?
Can a painting capture 'red'?
Can a perfume capture 'musk'?
Can a restaurant capture 'french cuisine'?
Books are where epic comes from you utter pleb
>>7735742
you can't expect jews to know that, bruh.
>>7735732
it's name is 'piss christ.'
i kinda like it actually.
>>7735792
it's the definition of edgy art that's entirely devoid of anything beyond shock value
>>7735709
Dante.
>I've daydreamed about these 'epic' scenes, invariably accompanied by some 'Requim for a Dream' style soundtrack.
You're joking right?
Your whole post makes me sick.
>>7735888 disregarding the /pol/ trips
now, 'piss christ' refers to the above image, as I know it, not whatever physical manifestation that had to be created in order for this picture to be taken. i think you're too much diminishing this piece in particular, as I know of the kind of art of which you speak, such as the very sculpture that is simply a large representation of human shit, or those pictures of human assholes, i.e. is shallow, worthless, says absolutely nothing meaningful, etc, etc, but I think PC is not that. sure, it may be obscene, and have some obvious genital relation to the others, but the similarities end there.
>>7735709
The Odyssey
The Iliad
Moby Dick
The Aeneid
The Divine Comedy
Notre-Dame de Paris
All I can think of for now. Try those I guess.
>>7735709
It absolutely can, but not in the same way as film.
Nor should it try to, I should add, they're entirely different mediums. The same as a book shouldn't try to convey emotion like a song, or create an image like a painting would.
Neither is necessarily better, but the absolute top levels of film generally have an easier time portraying that "epic" feeling than a book does. Books have a far easier time showing extreme detail, and conveying complex themes though, in my opinion.
>>7735709
As someone who loved being a Christian, and still tries to be a 'good Christian' in my actions, I think that picture is actually quite gorgeous in a way, and even moreso in a poetic sense out of the creator's apparent pettiness. To me, it shows Christ, or at least the idea of self sacrifice or virtue in general, thriving and expressing beauty in the most disgusting of environments, as it always does. It reminds me of Donatello's Mary Magdalene.
As for your question op, yes. Literature is very well suited for what you want. It's the least limited of all art forms.
