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fades, and mixes cannot exist in their own right, being relations between shots, but they are well known to be real parts of the film, although they are entities of higher logical order (i.e., of a higher degree of abstraction) than the original visual impressions. Incidentally the use of very lengthy mixes in otherwise representational scenes, a habit with J. v. Sternberg, can be criticised in that they introduce relations of the wrong logical order, besides causing "visual confusion.
All this is obvious when stated directly, but it is rather surprising to find obviously compound relations between the material discussed as if they were the material itself. Much tangled analysis has been wasted on " moving camera " and " slow motion " shots. All shots are movingcamera and slow-motion (and at the same time, fast-motion) shots, unless every component of the image is stationary. Evidently a moving-camera shot is meaningless in an abstract film, while slow motion can only be introduced by repeating the same shot at different rates. This consideration gives a clue to the nature of these devices. They are not shots, but the relations between the shots and the visual experience of the audience. The experience and memory of the audience are essential parts of a film. Moving cameras and slow motion are of the same tvpe of entitv as the shape of the screen, mixes, fades, cuts and other geometrical and temporal interrelations between shots and parts of shots. They only differ in that they are related to events outside the screen. In anv case thev are, as has been shown, limited to material that is representational. The immense practical importance of representational images to the cinema, resulting from the predominance of sight over other senses, should not blind us to the possibilities that lie outside this comparatively small field.
Digressing slightly attention should be given to the limitations of the camera even with representational shots. The camera gives a perspective rendering of three dimensional space on a surface.* Perspective representation as a " true " representation of reality is a convention of quite recent growth, mainly confined to the Western civilizations. Even there it is bv no means universal, as raav be seen in advertisements and art galleries. The most " straight " of documentary films is absurdly conventional and symbolic when looked at without preconceived notions.
Returning to the search for the raw material of the film, it is now clear that this material consists of the units whose interrelations make the film, not of the interrelations themselves. This does not cut out all possible errors, another is frequently made in the opposite direction. This is the assumption, the worse for being implicit, that the " frame " or single still picture is the fundamental film unit. The cause of the error is the unmerited theoretical importance given to fortuitous technical methods. From the point of view of the film cutter the frame is certainly the unit, being the
* Cameras can only give an image deformation by rotation, translation, and homographic (affine) transformation. Devices for what is cacophonously and inaccurately called Optical Anamorphosis have the same limits, but can separate the types of deformation.