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Pastimes : A CENTURY OF LIONS/THE 20TH CENTURY TOP 100 -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: jbe who wrote (687)	10/24/1999 12:21:00 AM
From: RTev	Respond to of 3246

And if I were going to pick the most influential photographer, I might go for Alfred Stieglitz. You're right. I was surprised to look back at my list and see that I had Weston's name on there. I was thinking Stieglitz, but typed in Weston. The names Stieglitz, Steichen, and Weston are three that I came to know years ago at about the same time. I fear that a switch didn't close correctly as I wrote the names and although I know very well the difference between a sensuous vegatable and a ship's steerage compartment, I didn't put in the one that I had intended. I've replaced the two names in my list. Although Steiglitz's work is a continuation of 19th Century traditions, it played a vital role in defining photography as art through his "Camera Work" quarterly. Since photojournalists played a vital role in showing us the century, I figured it was appropriate to choose one of dozens of great candidates. I cheated by picking a non-American to balance the list and so that I wouldn't have to decide among the wealth of choices from Life or from the WPA photogs. Smith would certainly percolate toward the top of that list. Through his notion of the "decisive moment", Cartier Bresson expressed a concept of the task that applies not only to his work, but to that of most other photojournalists of the century. You're right about the paucity of novelists. It's another of those list-making things. (It's much more difficult than I would have guessed.) I just couldn't decide between several other candidates, so left that part incomplete. My tendency is to add Franz Kafka and at least one or two others. Movies played a unique and important part in the culture of the century. There are actually four directors on the list if you count Chaplin as a director. Are they the right four? Hmm. It tough. Welles and Renoir defined the art. One still sees shots and plot devices from Citizen Kane emulated in movies. I haven't seen anything by Renoir since college, but his is one of those names that is so often mentioned that it seems a worthy addition, but I look forward to other suggestions. Ford is one of many popular American directors who could be chosen. His myth-making exerted a powerful influence on American self-definition and helped shape notions about this country abroad. Oh. Transistor. Invented by Shockley (who's on the list) and John Bardeen and Walter H. Brattain. All of them worked for AT&T at Bell Labs. All three of them deserve place on the list for that, but I was avoiding multiple names (other than the Wrights). After Bell Labs, Shockley went back home to the Stanford area and started a company of engineers. Among those he invited to join him was Robert Noyce who eventually went on to co-found Intel and who was vital in defining the way of doing business that's common there today. (I'd forgotten about the obnoxious "studies" on race authored by Shockley late in his career. I certainly didn't add him to the list because of that.)