The Voynich Manuscript’s Hidden Message

The Voynich Manuscript's Hidden Message

Mario Cordina

Ignorance

In the depths of an abandoned music school library, one person found an unsigned and untitled antique music score. The score is reborn as a musical piece named after it’s finder, Michał Habdank-Wojnicz, a tamed revolutionary turned antiquarian. If this were not ironic enough, the Voynich Manuscript has not only been written by an unknown entity but it also contains a score that no musician can play. Picture Voynich, an educated man, conversant in 18 languages, a lover of books, peering through sheets of botanical illustrations and text that he could not read. He paces around his shop in Soho and asks himself ‘What leaf-fring'd legend haunts about thy shape’? 

Now a prize trophy at Yale, ‘Thou foster-child of silence,’ is exhibited as an object of intrinsic value yet it also stands as a stark reminder of our ignorance. The 2 to 8 scribes that experts believed wrote and illustrated the vellum sheets around 600 years ago, have humbled the greatest thinkers of our time. 

‘Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought

As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!’

(Keats) 

Similarly to Keats’ fascination with the unknown story of a Grecian Urn, The Antikythera mechanism, possibly a 205 BCE analogue machine for modeling and predicting astronomical and calendrical patterns, leaves historians dumbfounded. ‘We know what it did, but we don’t know exactly why they wanted it to do that, what it was used for, and the context in which it was used’ (Marchant). The list of such lost and found artifacts includes the Baghdad Battery which seemingly produced electricity around 226 BCE or the cart ruts in Malta whose purpose remains a mystery. Spoons appeared on European tables around the 16th century but 3000 BCE Egyptian spoons have been unearthed. 

The scientists of today would have us believe that ‘Real science is a revision in progress, always. It proceeds in fits and starts of ignorance.’ (Firestein). The use of the term ‘always’ is problematic. When libraries like those of Pisistratus in Athens, the Temple Of Ptah in Memphis, Pergamon’s 200,000 volumes, Carthage and Alexandria were destroyed there was nothing left to revise.

Knowledge was lost. Efforts to rediscover Roman and Greek engineering are still incomplete. History is a futile assembly of a jigsaw puzzle of knowledge that man decided was redundant and irrelevant at certain points in time. ‘Historians study the past not in order to repeat it, but in order to be liberated from it.’ (Harari, 59). Yet the liberation we seek is not one of forsaking the fruit of knowledge harvested by those that came before us. Worryingly, Savonarola’s bonfires of vanities did not start nor end with the dark ages.

‘In the make-up of human beings, intelligence counts for more than our hands, and that is our true strength.’ 

(Ovid, Metamorphoses)

Firestein states that ignorance ‘is the true engine of science’ and economics. On a positive note it is our ignorance of science, our environment, our human self and the cosmos that sparked unrestricted and irrelevant experiment, conjuring theory, stimulation and Ovidian progress. Keywords for businesses involve innovation and optimisation as they seek to advance up the ‘S’ curve. Efficiency is achieved through standardisation and elimination of other complex issues. The downside is that directed and approved experiment leads to accepted and unchallenged proof, resistance to theory, stagnation and regress. The setup of a false dichotomy does not only mean a step back, but a loss of knowledge, most of which may prove irretreviable, as is the case with the Voynich Manuscript. It is one thing to be ignorant of unknown matter in the cosmos, but ignorance of matter that we have unthinkingly dumped, destroyed and forgotten is another. 

Relevance And Redundancy

‘For last year's words belong to last year's language 

And next year's words await another voice.’ 

(T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets)

Christian Palestinian Aramaic language, now a defunct dialect were rediscovered when scripts kept at St Catherine’s Monastery in Egypt were discovered to have multiple texts written on top of each other. This literature stemmed from a large community of people with their own art and spirituality. Early Manuscripts Electronic Library director, Michael Phelps, admits that ‘Almost all of that has been lost, yet their cultural DNA exists in our culture today.’ (Katz.) 

Languages have been and continue to be lost as the number of native speakers of a given language die out. Globalisation has globalised languages by assimilating and integrating alien borrowed words into native languages in a bid to be globally relevant. Although English and American native speakers are outnumbered by the native speakers of Chinese and Indian languages, most people choose the former languages as a lingua franca to communicate. If the Voynich Manuscript was written in an existing language at the time of writing, then that language has been lost with its entanglement of metaphors, idiomatics, culture, history and society. Even if someone will ever manage to read and therefore relearn the language, the entangled components of that language can never be retrieved. The Voynich Manuscript is therefore an example of and a warning that no language should be made redundant or irrelevant. Technology should be applied to saving languages that are naturally dying out. A language dying a natural death is questionable, because in our contemporary world, languages only die out when native speakers opt to use a foreign language instead of their own. Languages do not go extinct, but they may become defunct or obsolete. It is not a matter of evolution, but a matter of dumping baggage that we have decided not to carry. 

Relevance is problematic on many counts as it obliterates the culture, expression and knowledge incorporated in a particular language. The political and economical markers used to determine relevant knowledge for today’s society do not reflect relevance in future and historic worlds. As the global economy ploughs through one ‘S’ curve to the next, it eliminates any redundant and irrelevant skill, craft and knowledge that may hamper current market trends. Current trends do not reflect past or future trends, because they are current. The implication therefore is that current contexts are in no position to decide upon redundancy or irrelevance because trends are temporary, dictatorial and restrictive in the longer span of human strife.

Voynich’s character as an antiquarian is radically a non 2020 scientific, economic, political trend. Venture capitalists would not invest in such a business, Google would be more interested in digitalising such a book whilst auctioners would be more interested in its fetching price than its text. In other words Christie’s might opt to present Leonardo da Vinci’s, Salvator Mundi, (which sold for $450.3 million in 2017), rather than settle for a book or manuscript that might sell for less. Today’s concept of an antiquariat has become a source of financial gain and not of knowledge. This is comparable to the Dark Ages when one would value a basket of eggs higher than an old book. An art collector treats his collection as an investment, choosing art that is a collector’s item like an oenophiliac waiting for the wine to mature in price. Both Napoleon and Hitler were avid collectors of art and valuables. Their work may be appreciated by a visit to the Louvre and the Berlin Museums. Their purpose was a show of power and supremacy, whereas today they serve as a great source of income through ticket sales and exhibitions. The temple of knowledge has been turned into a money making machine, which in turn has restricted access to those who cannot afford it. The temple of knowledge has also restricted the relevance of artifacts that come from different eras and locations by relocating them into modern day Paris and Berlin.

Sacrifice of Knowledge

‘History isn’t a single narrative, but thousands of alternative narratives. 

Whenever we choose to tell one, we are also choosing to silence others.’ 

(Harari, 176). 

Most experts believe that the manuscript was written in code. In Mesapotamia the first forms of writing were used to record information about goods and transactions. (Schmandt-Besserat). Papyrus scrolls and paper made for easier and wider transit and storage of information. This created problems for those who for some reason or other wanted to hide information from one party but share it with others. Code is a type of data protection. Cryptography has been recorded by Herodotus with messages tattooed on a messenger’s shaved head and letting the hair grow back. Sparta’s military used the scytale transposition to communicate with their troops, Julius Ceaser used the Ceaser Cipher for his generals, the Kamasutra of Vātsyāyana records two different kinds of ciphers called Kautiliyam and Mulavediya whilst Ibn al-Nadim recounts the fact that in Sassanid Persia the King’s Script, the šāh-dabīrīya was used for official domestic correspondence and the rāz-saharīya was used for sensitive communication with other kingdoms. (Kahn). So as mathematics, algorithms and computer technology have joined the linguistic and lexographic entry into the Voynich cryptography hunt, the need to hide data seems to be more important than before. Getting access to data on the internet means using a password. A password needs to be protected, often paid for. Data protection is synonymous with privacy, crime protection and the economy. The global economy has changed from ‘a material based economy into a knowledge based economy.’ (Harari, 14). Paying for knowledge means that knowledge is restricted to those with financial backup. Once again current relevance and restrictions are contributing to data loss. 

If the Voynich Manuscript was willfully written in code, the motives that drove the author to cipher the work 600 years ago, are the same motives that drive modern day cryptography. The privacy factor would imply that the information was too sensitive for the author to share with anyone who came upon the book. If the manuscript deals with menstruation, it might have been considered as too private or sensitive for the layman society of the time. The protection factor would imply that the information was too compromising for the author’s safety at the time of writing. The Dark ages were riddled with persecution and torture, especially if the manuscript is about alchemy or magic as some experts believe. The economical factor would imply that the information was more profitable if kept secret and made available to a few. Whatever the reason, the content of the Voynich Manuscript remains a mystery because cryptography stems from censorship whether it is self or state induced. This veiling of information for the purpose of data protection, privacy and economical gain amounts to censorship. It is a censorship that impinges on freedom and right to knowledge in ways that are parallel to the historic censorships imposed by various religions, cultures and governments in mankind’s history and present. Censorship and cryptography make information redundant and irrelevant with the only end result being a sacrifice of knowledge.

'Who are these coming to the sacrifice?

To what green altar, O mysterious priest,'

(John Keats Ode To A Grecian Urn)

As one ponders upon the Voynich figures of naked ladies bathing in a green pool, the ciphered manuscript text hauntingly betrays a sacrifice of knowledge. Censorship in Philosophy centers around Consequentialist moral theorists like Bentham argue that right actions are those that produce good consequences ensuring Epicurean happiness for the greater majority. This is the utilitarian approach which justifies both the author of the Voynich Manuscript and arguments for modern day Data Protection and Privacy, economical gain and defence strategy. However, Deontological theories, as championed by the likes of Kant and W. D. Ross state that right actions depend ‘upon factors other than the consequences of action.’ (Ward). The Voynich Manuscript seems to tell us that happiness for a greater majority is a temporary happiness for a temporary majority and that there are many other factors to consider when applying censorship, especially when restricting knowledge relevant to a future majority. World and Business leaders need to see beyond current relevance and redundancy. 

The Covid19 pandemic showed that saving business is more important than saving humanity. Politicians regard saving credibility and power as more important than justice. Governments argue that saving the status quo is more important than saving the environment. Businesses will restructure, relocate and change anything to protect property, material or information in complete disregard of saving knowledge for the whole of mankind. This is what lies behind the censored, coded manuscript. 

The protection of intellectual rights is based on financial gain and not on the protection of the intellect. Financial and political gain is temporary. Temporary gain seems to be a negative factor and a negative consequence. In fact the author of the Voynich Manuscript sought temporary gain, probably to save a life or lives or intellectual protection but the atemporal consequence is a loss of knowledge for mankind and its future generations. The ethical debate between Kant’s ‘goodwill’ principle and Kamm’s ‘Principles of Permissible harm’ come at loggerheads, but in this case both theories unite in condemning censorship, because the manuscript’s code neither reflects goodwill nor Kamm’s principles whereby a life may be sacrificed for the posterity of mankind. Ezra Pound famously wrote that ‘This is no book. Whoever touches this touches a man.’ However the author of the manuscript remains untouched, whatever he or she stood for is lost.

'With me Died Adonais; till the Future dares 

Forget the Past, his fate and fame shall be 

An echo and a light unto eternity!' 

(Percy Bysshe Shelley Adonais)

Knowledge as a Hoax

Physicist Andreas Schinner, 2007 and 2019, published papers suggesting that the manuscript is but a hoax. Using a mathematical random walking technique his conclusions were that this was no lost language nor code. He strengthens his argument by stating that the provenance of the 15th century script is unknown. Lisa Fagin Davis agrees that today’s computing power has only helped to ‘debunk theories’ with regards to the manuscript. ‘World history is littered with tall tales and those who have fallen for them.’(Tattershall). The list of fakes and forgeries is never ending, from The Turin Shroud, Charles Ponzi schemes, to the Martain Panic in 1938 and the Roswell spaceship crash in 1947 (Bartholemew)

‘Count’ Victor Lustig was known by 47 aliases and became a billionaire by faking money, selling gadgets, cheating at cards and most famously pretending to be a French Official selling the Eiffel Tower to the highest bidder. Profit inspires hoaxes. The question is what profit was the Voyenich author seeking?

‘There are signs that the world is speedily coming to an end, bribery and corruption are common; children no longer obey their parents; every man wants to write a book and the end of the world is evidently approaching.’ This citation comes from one of the most ancient scripts that mankind has saved, the tale of Gilgamesh from 2800BCE. The amount of prophetic literature concerning the apocalypse is disconcerting and includes great minds like Isaac Newton, Nostradamus and Martin Luther. It is obviously impossible to discern fact from twisted fact. When Galileo and Swammerdam used lenses to study the cosmos, the public was suspicious because lenses had often been used to trick audiences at 16th century fairs. Mimicking is used by female photuris fireflies to bait male fireflies for food, the cuckoo lays its eggs in other birds’ nests and less dominant chimpanzees woo females by faking dominance. Trickery is knowledge. It is a Macchiavellian tool employed by propaganda, politicians and competitors in all fields. Trickery is a double edged knife. Authorities also use it to dub inconvenient ideas as conspiracy theories, fake news or slander. In such a light the Voynich Manuscript presents us with the ultimate Houdini act.

A lost key to Knowledge

The attraction to the Voynich mystery is similar to an unsolved crime case, where experts are under pressure to find answers. This pressure has so far proven counterproductive. The forensic team on the Voyenich case, has included William Friedman’s team of NSA cryptographers who treated it as an algorithm in the 1950s, Joseph Martin Freely who concluded that it was a shorthand scientific diary written by Roger Bacon, Johannes Trithemius as stenatography, Robert Brumbaugh as a forgery and John Wilkins as a constructed language amongst others. Linguists have proposed languages that include Latin (D’Imperio), a proto-Romance language (Dr. Gerard Cheshire) of Asian origin (Jacques Guy) and Semitic, (Egyptologist Prof Dr Rainer Hannig). AI technology has joined the ranks to study ‘paleographic, forensic, and artistic evidence’ (Vincent).

A museum displaying pre-text human artifacts makes one muse upon an artifact, and read what the archaelogists believed that the artifact was used for. How is one to understand the knowledge of the human that created it? The display does not explain what was relevant for the community that its creator lived in. The environment and trends of a bygone era have disappeared. The difference is that the Voynich Manuscript comes from a post text era and yet it is as elusive. The truth is the that author of the Voynich Manuscript has got away with murder. The criminal has disappeared into thin air, not a whiff of a clue as to his name, motive or crime.

The key to knowledge follows irrelevant paths and experiment because current trends are temporary affairs that are liable to change. Every effort should be made to protect the atemporality of knowledge as a foundation stone for further knowledge. If any brick of knowledge is deemed unimportant and therefore taken out, it will leave a gaping hole of lost data, a hapax legomenon in a corpus of human endaevour. It might even result in the crumbling down of the whole edifice. History is a debate about the lack of records and information about lost cultures, technologies, languages and knowledge. The current trend to focus and invest in relevant data will result in an unretrievable loss of knowledge. Protecting the knowledge that we have amassed should become a priority contrary to what feasibility and statistical reports tell us.     

Bibliography

Bartholomew, R. E., & Radford, B. (2003). Hoaxes, myths, and manias: Why we need critical thinking. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books.

Firestein, Stuart. (2012). Ignorance how it drives science. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Harari, Noah Juval (2017) Homo Deus. A Brief History of Tomorrow. Harper Collins Publishers

Kahn, D. (1997) The codebreakers: The comprehensive history of secret communication from ancient times to the Internet. New York: Scribner's and Sons.

Katz, B. (2017, September 05). Lost Languages Discovered in One of the World's Oldest Continuously Run Libraries. Retrieved July 17, 2020, from https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/long-lost-languages-found-manuscripts-egyptian-monastery-180964698/

Marchant, J. (2010). Decoding the heavens: A 2,000-year-old-computer--and the century-long search to discover Its secrets. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press.

Schmandt-Besserat, D. (1992) Before Writing, Vol. 1. University of Texas Press. 

Tattersall, I., & Névraumont, P. (2018). Hoax: A history of deception: 5,000 years of fakes, forgeries, and fallacies. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal.

Vincent, J. (2018, February 01). AI didn't decode the cryptic Voynich manuscript - it just added to the mystery. Retrieved July 29, 2020, from https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/1/16959454/voynich-manuscript-mystery-ai-decoded-debunked

Ward, D. (1991, January 01). Philosophical Issues in Censorship and Intellectual Freedom. Retrieved July 10, 2020, from https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/handle/2142/7716

More Information

As a curious afterthought: As a Maltese citizen, I can easily confirm the Strickland surname being connected to Malta. Sir Gerald Strickland was Malta's 4th prime minister, a Baron from the aristocratic Strickland family of Sizergh. 

The Short Family Tree Of The Counts of The Catena listed here, show a record of rev Joseph Strickland. 

Introduction : Music for Film (Part 1)

Music for Film
An essay written and compiled by
Mario Cordina 2016

Part 1: Introduction

My Involvement with Music in Film

The Genesis 

The Marriage of Music in Film

Questions for the Soul 

Part 2: From Theory To Practice

How Music Can Change a Film

How Music Plays with Our Brains

Video Games

Characteristics of Music in Film

What is Actual and Captured Source?

Part 3 : The Role Of Music in Film 1-10 

Part 4: The Role of Music in Film 11- 30

Part 5 : Final Reflections

My Involvement with Music in Film

I got dragged into film making because films need music and filmmakers needed me so I was quite upset when a certain film maker who needed my music told me that film is the supreme art form because it combines literature, images, engineering, art, music, nature and acting into one composition.

I found myself questioning and fighting this statement. A painting is born from an empty canvas, literature starts with a blank sheet and music is built on silence. Film is built on what the camera finds or what is set in front of it and is but a montage, a mosaic, a collage powered to life by previous art forms.

Film is a medium of communication and artistic value just as all other media and the artist chooses which media to use to confront his audience. It obviously follows that an artist must be sensitive and knowledgeable about other media, especially if he wants to incorporate it into his art form. This implies that no film producer will be successful if he is not sensitive and knowledgeable about the other artistic media he incorporates. A good producer must therefore be artistic in nature, knowledgeable, sensitive and intuitive to and about acting, literature, art and music together with the mechanics of film making, like editing, montage, lighting and effects. Indeed anyone in film making must respect all elements that go into a film and that is why I decided that I could not make music for film if I did not immerse myself into all the elements that go into film making. So I got hold of a camera and got to grips with this incredibly engrossing medium.

    Genesis

Music seems to thrive all around us. It is not simply a man's idle creation. It can be found all around us on earth, in the cosmos, under the sea and within molecules and cells. Our perceptions of what is music and why man is so attracted by it is unfathomable. Some will call it a universal language, others a science whilst many will refute either claim. Below is a list of indisputable facts, that I have compiled after some intensive reading into the matter.

• Music is a universal medium of communication.  
• Music may not always be comprehended but it 'talks' to our emotions, feelings, conscious and unconscious spirit.
• Music came before film. 
• Music has always been incorporated into other artistic media and is the artistic medium that accompanies or enhances all forms of art.
• Biologically the sense of hearing is the first sense to be developed by any mammal embryo.
• Medically music has been proved to have positive and negative effects on all forms of life and can heal a variety of mental disorders. (Apa.Org)
• In the Bible God said, “Let there be light” but there seems to have been music before that. Before man ever learnt to speak or to communicate, he could hear sound. He could distinguish that sound and he could produce any sounds that he fancied.
• Music is the control of waves which apply important principles of physics. (How Stuff Works)
• Music is a mathematical formula, an interaction of sounds, tempo and pitch. (BNB Music Lessons)
• Planets produce music in the cosmos, molecules and atoms produce sounds when they react.
• Music is a science that has still to be revealed. There are a lot of theories and a lot of experiments that have been put forward but it remains a largely unknown and un-mastered field.

The Marriage of Music in Film

First moving pictures were silent or were they? Where they not accompanied by some sort of orchestra as the crowds thronged to see this new fantastic medium?

• As silent movies grew in popularity a musician was employed to play live music as the film rolled.
• Score sheets were written for the performing musician. These set the way modern cinema still makes use of music: e.g. Negative chord is a low and diminished chord – uplifting anthems for heroes, fast tempo for chase scenes, slow and somber tunes for sad scenes.
• The ‘talkies’ appeared with the advances in audio recording introducing speech and sound effects together with the music. 
• The advent of audio in film meant that directors could have more access to different kinds of music. The single live pianist was replaced by whole orchestras and later by electronic and band music.
• Film scores were written specifically for the film. However directors started getting more adventurous with their musical choices and started looking at ready-made music. This was the birth of the Soundtrack.
• Today’s films mainly make use of a combination of soundtrack and film score music. Very often the soundtrack itself performed very well in the music industry often enjoying a second life of its own in the music charts.
• 1930 saw the first nominees and winners for Oscars in Music Scoring. 
• There has been an Oscar for best Film Score or Soundtrack ever since. 

Questions for the Soul 

• How do directors and composers determine where music is needed? 
• Is good film music truly that which is not perceived by the listener, as many filmmakers believe? 
• At what volume level is music most emotionally effective? 
• Does the perceptibility of the music actually take away from its effectiveness? 
• What other aspects of the music make it more perceptible besides volume levels? 
• Does typecasting result in generic and interchangeable scores within a genre? 
• Does making some aspect of a film "familiar" matter? 
• Does it aid in identification? 
• Is it more effective to use cliches that will elicit specific emotional responses from the listener or to use authentic music? 
• Does precisely researched music performed on authentic instruments add as much to a score as the prevalent but incorrect perception of the music? 
• Can music ever really be "neutral"? 
• Does no music make the movie version appear more or less real? 
• Most of the research in the psychology of music has dealt with the perception and cognition of music. What about the listeners' emotional response to music and the emotional effectiveness of film scores? 

Part 2: From Theory To Practice

Part 3 : The Role Of Music in Film 1-10 

Part 4: The Role of Music in Film 11- 30

Part 5 : Final Reflections

Mario Cordina on Film Literary Adaptations Part 1

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1 Facts 
Film adaptations include novels, autobiographies, journalism, comic books, scriptures, plays and even other films. Between 1994 -2013 58% films were film book adaptations. Other film adaptations are based on plays, musicals, theatre performances, documentaries, T.V. shows and even video games.
The Harry Potter Series and Lord of the Rings trilogy are amongst the most successful films of the past decade. Some adaptations have lasted throughout from the very birth of cinema till today. These include the many adaptations of Frankenstein, Dracula, Shakespeare's Plays, James Bond etc.

There have been instances of novelists who have worked from their own screenplays to create novels at nearly the same time as a film. Both Arthur C. Clarke, with 2001: A Space Odyssey and Graham Greene, with The Third Man, have worked from their own film ideas to a novel form (although the novel version of The Third Man was written more to aid in the development of the screenplay than for the purposes of being released as a novel). Both John Sayles and Ingmar Bergman write their film ideas as novels before they begin producing them as films, although neither director has allowed these prose treatments to be published. "Wikipedia."

2 Differences. 

Visualisation
The major difference between books and film is that visual images stimulate our perceptions directly, while written words can do this indirectly. Reading the word chair requires a kind of mental "translation" that viewing a picture of a chair does not. Film is a more sensory experience than reading -besides verbal language there is also colour, movement, and sound.

Yet film is also limited because a book is text where we have to construct all images, characters and events in our minds. A film is the director’s interpretation of all images, characters and events. A book stimulates a reader to create these images, characters and events according to his individual background.

This is the original description of a character: an 8-foot-tall (2.4 m), hideously ugly creation, with translucent yellowish skin pulled so taut over the body that it "barely disguised the workings of the arteries and muscles underneath"; watery, glowing eyes, flowing black hair, black lips, and prominent white teeth.

Try to picture this character for some time.

Think of an 8 foot tall creation - ugly and hideous - yellow skin so thin that one can see all the veins, arteries and muscles. A lot of black hair, black lips, watery glowing eyes and prominent white teeth.
Got the picture?

Now here's the film version of the character:

 The above description comes from Mary Shelley's classic novel "Frankenstein." The picture on the left is from James Whale's film adaptation of the book 1931, featuring Boris Karloff as the monster. Below left is Peter Boyle in Mel Brook's "Young Frankenstein"1974. Below is Robert De Niro in Kenneth Brannagh's "Mary Shelley's Frankenstein" 1994. What has happened to the monster's long black hair? Where are the prominent white teeth? The truth is that a director’s interpretation is taken for granted and is often not faithful to the text. How many viewers who have never read the novel actually realize that Frankenstein is not the monster, but his creator, the doctor Victor Frankenstein? How many viewers will grapple with the infinite questions the monster gives about creation and man's condition on earth?

This does not only happen in film, but it also occurs when we allow an image to become the true face of the character involved. All Catholic Holy pictures portray Jesus Christ as a long haired bearded blonde, a pale skinned blue eyed young man. Almost a hippie or a viking. How often has one considered the fact that he came from an region where most men are dark haired, brown eyed and dark skinned?The same can be said for each and every element in the film. This includes locations, settings, costumes, props, furniture, surroundings, behavior etc.

The Essence of the book in Film.
The meaning or essence, of a novel is controlled by only one person - the one and only author,  while the meaning we get from a film is the result of a collaborative effort by a large number of people. Film also does not allow us the same freedom that novel does. It does not allow us to interact with the plot or characters by imagining them in our minds. For some viewers, this is often the most frustrating aspect of turning a novel into a film.

Descriptions. 
A book needs more time to describe character, appearance, locations, architecture, settings, events, action than a film and a film often offers us a clearer vivid image. Character description is often built step by step, filling up our picture little by little, often lending to a richer experience than a film's immediate 100% shot of a character. However film can also work like a book in this way, for example by keeping certain aspects of a character's appearance hidden from the camera. Imagine a crime film, where the murderer is seen at work, but his face remains off camera, till the detective solves the mystery.

3 Limitations.

The film is a movie – a talkie: The film medium implies the use of images, action, shots, motion. When compared to the literary medium there are some limitations which a filmmaker has to tackle. All media forms have their limitations and it is a master of the craft that successfully overcomes these limitations that are discussed below,

Time.
A book has no time limit. The book can be as long as the author wishes it to be and the reader can read it for as long as he needs it to be. The film, on the other hand is bound by a time limit. Most films come around the 90 minute mark. The longest films can run for 3 hours or cut into series or parts. The first literary adaptation that comes to mind takes us to 1924 when Erich Von Stroheim's film "Greed" (a faithful rendering of Frank Norris' novel 'McTeague') ran for 8 hours. Greed was edited against von Stroheim's wishes to about two-and-a-half hours. Only twelve people have watched the full-length 42-reel version, now lost. Since then filmmakers have adapted the motto that 'Elision is mandatory."

A book is time consuming whereas a film is about 90min. One’s experience with a book is a longer and deeper experience than that of a film but a film is a faster medium, sometimes more effective, does not demand literary knowledge, is more direct, more vivid and can afford a deeper insight or a different point of view.

Speech
Books often make use of long dialogues and monologues, which is not often appreciated by film directors. Dialogues involve more acting and an actor's involvement with learning the lines instead of focusing on action. They are also often impractical. Imagine a scene where an actor has to give a soliloquy whilst various buildings are being blown off in the background, and the whole scene has to be repeated because the actor missed out on a line. Dialogue can also prove to be monotone in a film. Dialogues in books tend to meander away from the main plot, they may talk about past experiences, about dreams, wishes, ambitions, regrets etc. Film as a medium uses other means of communicating such details through flashbacks and other montage techniques.

Space
The concept of space in a book is fluid, fictional and only evoked in a reader's mind. A film is restricted to the space that is offered by the studio, the set or location. Modern techniques allow the filmmaker to create space offscreen through the use of computer graphics and green or blue box techniques. Still the actors are confined to the space within camera range, a space they can never escape. Space in a film is like a theatrical stage, only with a wider area. A book has no limit or dimensions of space within its cover.

Audience.
Both books and film are limited by their audience. Both books and films are made with the end user in mind. The consumer market puts pressure on both literary and film publishers to offer the market what it craves. If it is adventure and thrilling crime stories, then that is what they will tell their authors and directors to produce. However both authors and film directors often gamble their career with the audience and produce works which go against the current. Some of these very same artists often develop a love hate relationship with the audience and within the industry. Charles Dickens was asked to give what we may call a Hollywood good ending to his novel 'Great Expectations,' but he flatly refused. His compromise, his ending line has earned critical praise for its ambiguity and is widely considered as a stroke of genius.

"We are friends,” said I, rising and bending over her…..
“And will continue friends apart, ” said Estella.
I took her hand in mine, and we went out of the ruined place; and, as the morning mists had risen long ago when I first left the forge, so the evening mists were rising now, and in all the broad expanse of tranquil light they showed to me, I saw no shadow of another parting from her."

Budget.
Films are costly to make. The Bollywood record budget for a film is at 35 million dollars, 'Robot'a 2010 Indian science fiction action film, co-written and directed by Shankar. Spiderman 3 is probably the world's most expensive film at 258 million dollars. A book merely needs some paper and a pen, or a computer and word processing program.

Cast.
Films are dependent on the cast that they feature. It is obvious that a celebrity or star should be given a more prominent role in the film. Such an actor or actress will help the box office hits to rise and their talent should give more life to the film. This means that directors tend to blow up, extend, expand, even invent roles for the more attractive members of their cast. This can be illustrated through Hector Babenco's Ironweed 1987, based on the Purltzer Prize winning book of the same title, by author William Kennedy. It featured Meryl Streep as Helen, Jack Nicholson and Tom Waits. The film is basically an account of one Francis Phelan. Once a talented major league baseball player, husband, and father of three, he has fallen so far from grace that his home for the past twenty-two years has been the street. Babenco turned Helen, Phelan's wife into the main character, including a scene with Meryl Streep singing "He's Me Pal."



Technology
Technology obviously has changed the way films are filmed and edited. It offers new possibilities and will continue to evolve. One may argue that technology has also influenced books both in the subject matter and manner of their presentation. E-books, audio books, more imagery, more interactivity is now possible. However books rely on the creative writing skills and expression of an author with technology only used as an aid to illustrate or share print in electronic, audio visual formats. Technology has completely revolutionized filmmaking and seems to have a stronger impact on the end result.
The Lost World is the first film adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's classic novel about a land where prehistoric creatures still roam. Here is Harry O. Hoyt's 1925 silent film.  




This lost world of dinosaurs screened in 1925 can be compared to Steven Spielberg's 1993 film "Jurassic Park" based on Michael Cichton's 1990 novel. After paying 1.5million for authorship rights. The dinosaurs were created through groundbreaking computer-generated imagery by Industrial Light & Magic in conjunction with life-sized animatronic dinosaurs built by Stan Winston's team. To showcase the film's sound design, which included a mixture of various animal noises for the dinosaur roars, Spielberg invested in the creation of DTS, a company specializing in digital surround sound formats.


Reality
A film has to feel real and authentic. Even though it is a work of fiction, just like any good old novel, a film is subjected to the norms of public life. Akira Kurosawa was faced with many a problem of this type when he wanted to screen "Ran" his rendition of Skakespeare's 'King Lear.' In the original play the king split his kingdom between his three daughters. The samurai arena that Kurosawa used to portray the tale would not allow any property to be handed down to women, so his Ran saw the kingdom being split amongst three brothers.

CONTINUED in Part 2

A Note for Future Generations by Mario Cordina

Taken from Il- Kelma 
Mario Cordina

A note for Future Generations.

This work is not intended to be taken as a holy piece of work. It could easily be the work of fantasy and fiction. Indeed it definitely is the work of man and what a wonderful piece of work it is. It is a testament to man’s creativity and perseverance in the face of all odds that are a fact of life. What if the Bible, the Koran, The Holy Books of all religions were created by man? A metaphor, a fable? Does it take away their merit? Does it make a fool of those who follow the ways of the characters in the book? Does it make religions irrelevant?

My opinion is that I would rather like to believe that it actually enriches their followers. I would suggest that such writings enhance our fears, our dreams, our hopes and our beliefs and that these seem to have been relevant for past generations in the same way as they are for the present and will be for future populations. My personal concept of religion is that all beliefs are complimentary to each other, they evolve out of each other and learn and mature through the acceptance and understanding of the other. We all want to go to heaven if we could get there. We would all want to be immortal if we could and we all want to know what lies in wait for our lot. We all love peace and we all love sharing, need love, acceptance, friendship, sympathy, dignity and respect. We are all the same, with a skeleton that is crouching inside shivering about the unknown on this fragile spaceship called earth floating in a hostile environment.

This book encapsules and has gathered the fear of mankind, and this small ant colony can only scatter away from the foot that is poised to stamp out its existance at a moment’s notice, at an unexpected place and time. It is our courage and our bravery to seek and our creative brain that asks questions, always looking for solutions and alternatives, just like a great calculator continually counting, adding and analysing. This calculator is not the ideal machine. Like our computers it tends to break down, get hacked or just stops working unexplainably from time to time. Yet like all new technology these shortcomings and defects are progressively corrected and evolution follows similar lines, learning from past setbacks and mistakes. This is what makes the tranmission of tradition vital. We are not born into a tabula rasa world, but into one which is full of data, data which needs to be relearnt, corrected, respected and expanded.

This book is full of such data and it has been expanded upon by people from different lands and times and should lay the foundations for the future progress of a unified race. We are a unified race, although we construct and shift our geographical and racial borders as we please. However, although the roads are many and our differences are unreconcileable, our goal is one and the same.

Perfection? Truth? Is there such a thing or is it a man made concept, or is it the child of a terrified brain begot of nothing but vain fantasty?

My final warning comes as follows: if generations lose touch with the fantasies of the previous one, then they would be setting the clock back instead of forward. So I urge you to seek knowledge in all corners. What is, what was and what can be.

Read. Watch. Listen. Then Speak. Qibima.   

Il-Kelma was written as an ending sequel to the Mario By Mario trilogy by Mario Cordina.

Some Views on Writing Classes at WSJO Szczecin by Mario Cordina

Some Views on Writing Classes at WSJO Szczecin

Mario Cordina

It is a fact that some students tackle language like math, a system of grammatical rules and written laws with a spattering of idiioms, hand picked and learnt by heart for Use of English lessons. It naturally follows that such students produce stilted, unimaginative writing and if an essay title is given which involves skills beyond their limited vocabulary and idiomatic range, then they feel loest and out of their depth.

They should approach language in a more natural way and start to look forward to making their target language their own. This can only be achieved by opening up to the culture behind the language. Students must aspire to be as close to native speakers and writer as possible.

One frequent comment is that unfortunately students do not have the possibility to physically be in the country and experience the customs and geography of the language they want to master. Actually this is no excuse, primarily because life is unfair and students with the means to go abroad mix and compete with those who cannot afford such means. Both are assessed on the same grounds. Furthermore there is no reason why students cannot assimilate a given language by staying at home.

The key lies in reading material which is of interest and comes from all walks of life and topics. The wider the range of topics, the wider the range of vocabulary and their grasp of an idion’s or word’s meaning in a different context. T.V. with its news, documentaries, adverts, humour, jokes, action films containing a lot of everyday vernacular language, slang and jargon, apart from the more formal language forms also presents us with a fast way of opening an unexpected number of new doors and windows onto the target language. Students seem to be only too happy to wander around the internet online looking for specific material, however it is the element of surprise, the fact that you do not know what’s coming up next in films and books that is closer to real life situations. Yet all the possible media available to us offer us with an unlimited exposure time to the language and are vital towards achieving natural and simple language fluency.

There are three steps to learing a language. The first one is to understand it, the second one is to use it by giving answers and asking questions and the third is to manipulate it, to be able to twist the language around your finger, to create puns the way that Shakespeare did and ramble off in a Dickens lenghty manner or to be as witty as any Woody Allen text. In practice this means, a step from trying to write a correct error free text to an interesting flowing passage which could be included in a long essay or international journal. A passage which breathes and lives and which is the essence of the writer that penned it and not a mere shy shadow that does no justice to its author.

Personally I have learnt Polish, well not properly, for I have never attended any lessons. My knowledge of teh language is much better than my French, which I learnt at school for an 8 year period. My written French is much better than my written Polish, which I must admit, I keep for my eyes only. On the other hand, however I find myself grappling with the infinite meanings and collocations of Polish words and phrases. It fascinates me and I find myself trying to find ways of remembering new words. I use no dictionary, no translations, no textbook. Test me. It works. I am sure that if I turned my hands to writing in Polish by sitting for Polish Grammar lessons and literature lectures, I would make the grade. Already although my writing in Polish is fraught with errors it sounds Polish. And this is the point. Grammatical skills aside, whether one is a native speaker of the language or not a degree of crediting one’s knowledge should be a testament to the graduate’s sounding right.

It follows, therefore that I find myself concentrating more on errors that if corrected will make a student sound more English / American. For example, native writers make mistakes with prepositions, verb conjugations etc. They never, never omit the ‘the’ or any article for that matter. They never get a sentence construction muddled up either. My first lesson always starts with a funny sentence like this:

“The sexy girl loves the sexy boy.”

There are 6 positions in this sentence. Position number 1 and 4 are articles and they are compulsory. Even in a phrase, “The girl loves,’ there is an article present too. In class I normally go into more grammatical detail, honing in on the use of adverbials, prepositional phrases, sentence structure and so on. I will not tarry longer on this particular subject here, except to say that this was the first thing that struck me in Poland. That is the fact that students were unaware of the fact that they were writing or speaking in English without using articles. It was not a mere slip of the tongue. It was a huge misunderstanding.

I was trained never to use first language during classes, an EFL long term dispute, but it is here that my knowledge of the Polish tongue comes to my rescue. There are no articles in Polish. Does this mean that my students are translating from Polish to English and thus ommitting articles? It definitely means that they are not thinking in English. There is a big different between ‘a girl,’ or ‘the girl,’ in my life.

There are other implications. One of the main differences between Polish and English is the determining factor. The English language probably because of its history and people needs to determine everything, which person, what time, which place etc. This is probably why we use the preposition ‘at’ in English, a preposition that is non-existant in Polish. The same goes for ‘by,’ which baffles Polish students who have a hard time understanding the difference between ‘next to,’ ‘near,’ ‘close,’ and ‘by’. Polish expressions do not fuss around ownership or time. ‘Car is outside,’ and not ‘The (my) car is outside.’ Consider the term ‘Jutro o 9’ which could translate into ‘Tomorrow around 9,” compared to ‘Tomorrow at 9 am.sharp!’ The ‘o’ in Polish gives one the feeling that a few minutes before or after 9 would be okay, just like the Spanish Manana is an abstract tomorrow when in English we would use ‘We’re meeting tomorrow,’ a continous tense that is also to determine exact time and place. I believe that language betrays the very people that speak it (a generally more relaxed attitude to time and deadlines compared to a community where there is a stricter attitude)  and this is what makes languages interesting and challenging.

It is said that people who are able to think in more than one language are more intelligent than others who do not. I have no idea about my IQ yet I do feel confident about expressing myself and tend to switch from language to language when I feel that a certain expression is better than that of my own. It makes me feel more open, more at ease to say exactly what I want to say and in the long run, languages are fun, once you can manipulate them.

To end on a positive note, although a language to express oneself may look like a grissly task for a beginner, languages have been made by man for man, a tool to help and not hinder communication.

I believe that it is the co-ordinator’s task to provide the students with the appropriate tools. Students must understand that all courses offered are part of the whole : UK and US life / culture courses, literature, linguistics, methodology etc are as much a part of the practical exam as Use of English, reading, writing, listening, speaking and translation. Finally, it is my job to provide the students with the motivation to read more, write more and pursue new challenges. When I look back to my days as a university student, it is with longing and nostalgia. I would love my students to say the same.             

The Weaponless Watch Anidroc

The Weaponless Watch
Mario Cordina

Set in the idyllic Norwegian Swanfjord, fringed by forests and the gigantic Huldrefolk Mountains above, this is old Elli’s gripping account of her guests and the events that will change their lives forever. Harlokken is green eyed and dark, Svanehvit is blue-eyed and blonde. Olaf another visitor to Swanfjord finds it hard to choose between the two. Elli, as a weaponless watcher and seeker of the runes of life together with the guests she comes to love as her own children, finds herself wrapped up in a tale where the constant Norse battles of old come to life. A battle for the survival of man against the odds and elements of this vast and tough Norse country steeped in the tales of the skards, their beliefs and their word strifes.

The Weaponless Watch offers a new vision on man’s position in the cosmos, his creator and the genesis of the world he lives in. Who sees the future as far as Elli? A future based on the spoken word of yore can sometimes be closer to the truth than modern day science.

A mystery surrounds the characters and their reasons for coming to stay at Swanfjord. At the end there are no real heroes and no real villains in this story. Life in the tales of the skards is merciless and ruthless and life at Swanfjord is no different.

Il-Kelma Mario Cordina

Il-Kelma

The Holy Book of the 5 Races of the Human Race

&

The Legacy of Mario Vinczenzo

Mario Cordina

The Book of Marju of Ghasafar

Or

The Book of Marju The 1^st Ruler of the Land of The Pyramids.

Il-Gabra

(The Collection/The Harvest)

The following is a set of accounts which were given to me by the Higher members of the Bird society which are most dear to me and by the members from our brothers from the Black Earth region.

These are the accounts which I Mghallem, the humble servant of the late Marju of Ghasafar will hitherto present to future generations.

The emotional bond between a parent and a son and the mother of that very son and his father – a father in absentia as I proved to be is one that I cannot explain. To one so full of words as myself, such a feeling of regret and remorse leaves me empty, the words turn into complex logarithms I cannot decipher and are replaced by an inexhaustible grief. An irretrievable grief, something that went wrong and cannot be put right.

I must confess that in quest of bravery and self sacrifice, however holy and heroic it might seem, I failed as a father. There are few doting fathers who can say that they never knew their sons and few sons, however rebellious they may be, for whom their father is but a name.

I grew up as orphan, but my parents were dead. My son grew up unfathered and yet I live. It is my guilt and shame that wipe the floor of letters and logical sentences, so I will let these papers throw some light on Mario, my son, who I shall affectionately and rightly dub ‘ Marju, the Bird Man, son of Cindy from the Land of Ghasafar and Mario, Lord of the Light, from Huta, son of Pitru of Anda and Cleofa from Ala, the last knight and prince of the Rix of Gold, Blue and Green, the human who had gambled and lost the struggle for the future of mankind on a game of Senet

Accounts from Ghasafar

Following the Lord of the Light’s stay in the village, which in those days lay around the Ghasafar Oasis at the edge of the Sahara, the Bird people our citizens changed their way of life. A child was born unto Cindy from the family of the Great Bird Spirit Qaws, daughter of King Gawwi the Scarlet and Queen Ajkla, son to Mario Lord of the Light, the human who became our protector spirit. The son will hereafter be referred to as Marju, a diminutive of the name Mario, a name by which he was affectionately known.

Naomi, a princess directly from the line of the spirit Qaws, suffered the title of the Betrayer who sold the Lord of the Light to the Dogs of Zama when The Lord of the Light was still a human. She tried to bury her grief and shame by declining to wear any feathers. Most of the citizens followed her example.

One day, The Lord of The Light graced the Land of Ghasafar with a second visit. He was received as an honourable guest. Songs, displays and gifts were bestowed on their most distinguished visitor. The Lord of the Light in return publicly forgave Queen Naomi who later dedicated her whole life to the human question, arguing and defending the fate and survival of the human race and helping to set up a human colony at Memfes which later grew into a powerful empire in The Land of The Pyramids. The Lord of the Light also used this occasion to publicly christen his son and left his offspring and the mother of his child under the care of the citizens of Ghasafar till his return.

All future generations waited for his return, which however infrequent and unannounced was known to occur. The village, especially the one by the Oasis of Ghasafar would light up candles at night and lit up a road from the tunnels to the Oasis, for he was known to come by night. Rumours had it that he sometimes visited Cindy by night and left before dawn.

Many of the citizens of Ghasafar followed Cindy’s example and accepted humans. Intermarriage became common. Many shed their wings and either lost their power of flight or regarded it as undesirable. Feathers were deemed unclean and in extremist circles were hidden or shaved off. Men and women proudly portrayed their human form and tried to hide their feathery features. In fact the youth were more human than fowl. They dreamt of going to Memfes where Bird people were highly cherished and lived with and as humans.

According to the statutes laid down by our great Queen, “We owe a lot to humans. The human race will turn this world upside down and we will turn with it. What is more, we will help them in their path. We are in spirit closer to the Human Race than to any other race on this earth.”

These words and other such beliefs upheld by the citizens around the Land of Ghasafar broke relations with other bird races and strengthened the bonds with the people at Memfes.

This was a forseable circumstance once Marju became the rightful ruler of Memfes. During his rule, The Land of Ghasafar and Memfes merged into one. It was the beginning of The Land of the Pyramids, an empire that would outlast time.

Marju was born human in form. Only a pinkish crest ran along his dark hair on his head. Cindy, his proud mother was never far away from her son’s side. She never uttered anything but loving words for her son.

“He was a normal kid, fond of games and fun, with a talent to sing like a bird and speak like a human. He was known for his ability to learn the languages of other creatures and races in a very short space of time.”

“There is nothing much to say about his childhood for he was like every other kid in the village. The first account that we have is that we have of him is that of his fifteenth birthday when the great Lord of all Fowl, Qaws came and carried him away. His mother Cindy never revealed her son’s whereabouts. The village waited in trepidation and impatience for great things were expected of him.

A letter was found after his death. “A few words about myself. I have left this note at my mother’s Katlema, the cavern that was our dwelling, the only home, I will forever carry in my heart. I have left this note in the vain hope that my father will read it one day.”

“I have never known you, just as all creatures will never get to know their creator. I know what my mother and all the villagers here know about you. All that you have done for the right of a race to survive. I am proud to be your son. It has been explained to me over and over again that you are a man with a mission, the most noble mission of all, that you sacrificed everything you had in your life to achieve your goal and your goal is the good of the human race. I have been brought up to respect your choice. My mother has only words of praise and she misses you dearly. I await the day to see her in your arms and I await the day to meet you my dear father. However life is short and I have been called upon to help your cause. Any kid would openly and readily enter the role that I have been asked to fill. I will do you proud father. I promise that I will do so not for myself or for my pride or for my honour but to carry on your example of self sacrifice, diligence and honesty. I will keep your eye of Osiris to give me strength whenever it falters, courage whenever it dims, to show love where there is hate and to put wise words into my tongue when they are needed. Speak for me, act for me. I am but an instrument in the mechanism that will save mankind. Tomorrow Qaws, an acquaintance of yours will take me away from everything I know to a vast unknown. My mother told me that you too were carried off into the unknown and that I am only naturally following the trail you have already taken.”

Your Son.

Queen Naomi announced that Marju would return for his 18th birthday. There were many preperations for his return in the manner of the citizens of Ghasafar. A platform was decked with pink flowers which was the colour he came to be known by, as Cindy’s pink feathery head had stamped such a tell-tale streak through the middle of his hair. The picture of Zaren, the most important painting at Ghasafar was placed in a prominent position on the main stage. Dances and parades were rehearsed with much enthusiasm and the village was flooded with many citizens from neighbouring villages, as the great day neared.

And he came, his pink streak flaming in the sun, carried airborne by a fleet of birds that clouded the sky. The villagers and those present were excited to see how much Marju had grown, a man of promise. The festivities went far into the night showering the guest with gifts as he embraced his mother with moving tears of joy in her eyes. Cindy delared that when a woman has two men in her life, two men assigned for great things, it is a great honour and yet a burden to bear. “There is nothing that a woman in such a position dreams of more but to see her men return home. It is my love for my son that speaks and it is a love above any other.”

Marju’s stay however was brief. After a couple of days, a large regiment of men, dark and strong came to the village from the south and took him away. The birds who had brought him followed suit. Queen Naomi and her entourage also joined them. It became commen knowledge that they had gone to Memfes to establish a human settlement there under the hand of a powerful ruler, Marju of Ghasafar. Cindy remained at home.