RTV Theory and Practice - Special Issue

Tlius, they say that television is ”communication’', ”direct broadcasting”, ”a service”, ”information” and they do not accept television as a way of thinking. 2 We mention all these assertions in order to point out that a priori predilection of a viewer for television is limited. Numerous articles written by our critics basically argue in favour of such attitudes. Special explanations referring to television drama direct us to discuss characteristics of this television art form in more detaii. The experience of JRT obtained during the last few years in the field of analysis of this television genre must be taken into account When television drama is involved, at least as far as drama in the Belgrade studio is concerned, it should be said that it has gained both tradition and continuitv. This is especiallv obvious from 28th August 1959 when the drama by Miodrag Đurđevič SLUČAJ U TRAMVAJU (Incident in the Tram) was broadcast Since that time, television drama has been constantly finding its own intrinsic ways of development and has been developing along the line dominant in European television drama writing. The circumstances denoting the tendencies of European television dramatic development were determined to some extentby the experience gained in large television centres. Thev were also determined according to the theoretical implications of some television writers from Europe and the USA. The characteristics of this research period in the field of television drama as well as the characteristics of of general research in the field of television are to be found in the domain of analvsis of the relationship of words and pictures, their interpenetration and conditioning, It seems that two aspects are important in drama writing during this early development of television; the aesthetic and technical aspects. The aesthetic aspect is defined by means of some basic theses referring to principles on the basis of which a ”story” is invented, i.e. the subject of a television

2 This certainlv does not mean that these opinions should be accepted

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