Last year my religion professor told me that he taught a Philosophy of Film course at another college. He told me that he assigned no books for the class. He believed that film could teach students more about philosophy in culture than any book could in such a short amount of time. To put it another way, students soak in a message better when it's coming from a film. He did this with a couple other non film courses of his. Other colleagues of his ridiculed his teaching methods.

I also read a headline yesterday on MSNBC that books sales, or something to that nature, have dipped in the last year.

Now, on occasion I'll read a book. I believe books will always be here to stay, and that they are a good teaching tool. But I also feel that film doesn't receive the same respect in return. I agree with my professor's way, and I believe film can do a lot for kids and adults alike. I'll say this, if it wasn't for film I wouldn't be a deep conversationalist.

They're equally valid in terms of scholastic value.

I hate the old cliche of "the book is always better than the movie." That's horseshit. First, just because they deal with the same subject matter, it's two entirely different mediums. With books, all you have is one person's words and your imagination. With film, it's multi-sensory; there is so much going on for the ears and the eyes that your imagination and brain has to work extra hard. I think both are equally valid as scholastic tools, but neither is better than the other. They work best when in tandem with each other.

The problem with adapting books into movies is that good readers produce a movie of their own as they read, but it's the most incredibly interactive and awesome movie ever, so it's difficult for the movie to live up.

Readership will continue to diminish as, more and more, reading is seen as a "difficult" pleasure.

Strong readers are, as Orpheus implies, active readers and, when done properly, reading is a more demanding cognitive activity than watching a movie.

I love both.

This may seem an odd analogy that other may disagree with or think the exact opposite of, but when I read I feel like I'm being surrounded by the book, whereas I surround a movie. I mean this in a figurative way, of course. They're both great feelings if the material is good, just very different.

I believe film to be the best medium. All the other art forms have their place but I believe the only real competitor is Video games at this point. Though I think video games are going to be superior to some degree in the way we retain information.

When it comes down to it though books survived radio, radio survived film, all of which survived tv, and all of which will survive video games, all of which will survive internet video

they all have their place, even.. ugh theater. sorry good writing in theater, but i've had all bad experiences with theater.

Having a theater background, I have to say that theater writing is usually better than film writing, because it has to be. I too have seen some really awful performances though, even of good plays. That really will make you dislike theater.

The difference between learning from books/movies, I believe, comes down to whether the individual is a visual or auditory learner. You would probably not learn anything worthwhile from a movie if their was no sound/words. People adept at flying through books and absorbing information will obviously have an easier time than trying to listen/watch a movie for the same information.

Lots of people (me for example) are adept at both though. I pretty much love both equally.

Yeah but it's probably not completely equal.

Remember Syme in Orwell's 1984? How jazzed he was about the new (smaller) edition of the Newspeak dictionary?

Could fewer readers be dangerous to a society? threaten democracy?

I love both, but if I had to give one up then I would definitely give up movies. I get much more satisfaction from books. I do like non-fiction, but I mostly read for fun and read fiction. I'm one of those readers who runs a movie in their mind while reading.

I think that's a definite possibility, simply due to the fact that less readers means less newspaper readers as well, and we all know that tv news is pretty much crap. Reading also exposes people to ideas that would normally be outside of their comfort zone, and I think that's extremely important.

yeah, i respect it and a lot of great filmmakers worked in theater... definitely writers, but at the same time, for me i'd take a well done film over a well done play... just because i feel its the ultimate combination of so many forms of art.