Theory of film : the redemption of physical reality (1960)

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56 I. GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS admirers mean by that epithet, we shall find that it is generally applied to some unusual picture of a familar object, a picture different from those that we are accustomed to see, unusual and yet true to nature, and for that reason doubly impressive because it startles us, makes us emerge from our habits, and at the same time brings us back to ourselves by recalling to us an earlier impression." And to concretize this definition, he refers to the picture of a cathedral which does not render it as it is normally seen— namely, in the middle of the town— but is taken from a point of view from which the building "will appear thirty times the height of the houses."84 It has been observed that a little change in make-up suffices to alter the appearance of a man completely; slight deviations from the conventional perspective are likely to be of similar consequence. In a review of Jean Epstein's Coeur fidele, which indulges in unusual camera angles, Rene Clair therefore wonders why so many film directors resort to all kinds of photographic tricks when they "might arouse so much curiosity by a simple inclination of their camera."35 Because of their metamorphosing power, shots from unusual angles are frequently exploited for propaganda purposes. There is always the possibility that such shots may turn into contrived-reality pictures. The confrontation with objects which are familiar to us for having been part and parcel of our early life is particularly stirring. Hence the peculiar, often traumatic effect of films resuscitating that period. It need not be the period of our own childhood, for in the child real experiences mingle indiscriminately with imagined ones based on picture books and grandmother tales. Such retrospects as The Golden Twenties, 50 Years Before Your Eyes, and Paris 1900— documentaries of 1950 assembled from authentic newsreels, contemporary feature films, and photographs— explore patterns of custom and fashion which we once accepted unquestioningly. Now that they resume life on the screen, the spectator cannot help laughing at the ridiculous hats, overstuffed rooms, and obtrusive gestures impressed upon him by the veracious camera. As he laughs at them, however, he is bound to realize, shudderingly, that he has been spirited away into the lumber room of his private self. He himself has dwelt, without knowing it, in those interiors; he himself has blindly adopted conventions which now seem naive or cramped to him. In a flash the camera exposes the paraphernalia of our former existence, stripping them of the significance which originally transfigured them so that they changed from things in their own right into invisible conduits. Unlike paintings, film images encourage such a decomposition because of their emphatic concern with raw material not yet consumed. The thrill of these old films is that they bring us face to face with the inchoate, cocoon-like world whence we come— all the objects, or rather sediments of