Why are words starting to drip down my computer screen?
The Following Entry Inspired by The Events of March 1-2, 2005, Between The Hours of 5:30pm and 8:00am
_My most esteemed viewers, today, for your reading and viewing pleasure, I bring you this, another glimpse into my exciting, intriguing, and in all ways fascinating world of *Intro to Film*!
_Today’s source of adventure and illumination is the ingenious writing of one André Bazin.
_While I realize what follows may be a tad lengthy, I promise you, it is well worth your time. For the entertainment and yes, enlightenment which follows will most certainly justify the time you spend here, reading my humble proclamation. And now, having delayed enough, I begin:
Dear Misseur Bazin,
_As I have written once before to your studious colleague of film, Mr. Dudley Andrew, on the topic of his masterfully constructed work of verbal art entitled Valuation (of Genres and Auteurs), I would like to now address you concerning your equally impressive, nay awe-inspiring essays The Ontology of The Photographic Image and The Myth of Total Cinema (focusing primarily on the former.)
_To begin, I would like to praise a few of your most inspiring statements; those which I feel embody your overall ingenuity with both the language and the topic to which you apply your skill: (the images I include are to assist in the contextualization of the following comments)
1. “It is not for me to separate off, in the complex fabric of the objective world, here a reflection on a damp sidewalk, there the gesture of a child. Only the impassive lens, stripping its object of all those ways of seeing it, those piled-up preconceptions, that spiritual dust and grim with which my eyes have concerned it, is able to present it in all its virginal purity to my attention and consequently to my love” (Ontology, 15). ----> These words leave me speechless every time I read them. Every time I read it I think, “Ooo, pretty.” In fact, as you may note in the previous image, I even have the comment penned beside those 7 lines of lovely, unnecessarily poetic description of photography’s relationship to reality and realism. (At least I think that’s what you’re talking about.)
2. “If color had not yet appeared it was because the first experiments with the three color process were slower in coming” (Myth, 36). ----> This is perhaps the most profound statement I have ever read. I bow before your mighty intellect.
3. On page 37 of Myth, you mention the birth of cinema from the myth of total cinema, I would like to express my absolute admiration of this statement, especially because it follows (by twelve and a half lines of intervening text) the statement “In short, cinema has not yet been invented” (Myth, 36). At this point, as I eagerly read through and reveled in each one of your magnificent statements, I paused, momentarily, to make a note in the margin which reads: FUCK YOU!
4. In addition to your truly magnificent manipulations of the English language, I must commend you, too, on your assuredness demonstrated in the statement: “So, photography is clearly the most important event in the history of plastic arts” (Ontology, 16). Oh yes, Bazin, clearly.
5.Footnotes have never been more awesome.
6. Finally, I would like to provide for you a summary of The Ontology of the Photographic Image. It reads, more or less, as follows:
>Photography and Realism: 5 pages
>What this means for Film: 9 LINES (the emphasis upon the brevity of this passage will be made clear shortly)
>Photography and Surrealism: 2 pages
And then, in conclusion, you leave us, your admiring readers, in a something akin to a state of awe at profundity of your final words, this golden jewel of glowing enlightenment:
"On the other hand, of course, cinema is also a language" (Ontology, 16).
All I can say is: WHAT?!
And then offer you this final image, which I believe embodies the very essence of how this experience has made me feel:
That said, I tip my imaginary hat to you, good sir, and thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
Sarah Wertheimer
And now, for those of you who stuck with me this far, (and I hope you found my letter to the amazing André Bazin entertaining and not overly tedious), I now present to you the evidence of the toll taken on one’s sanity by the task of reading too many film articles.
Keep in mind that what follows was written after 4 hours of mind numbing dissection of texts ranging boring to torturous, 10 hours writing about Marilyn Monroe, and at least 20 minutes wondering why the words were slowly dripping down my screen (apparently a lack of sleep will do some weird things to your vision), and the Process = space out and type whatever.
I give you now:
The Effects of Bazin on a Mind Lacking Nourishment and Sleep (a selection of two quotes)
1. Ive been not productive too long. I must return to middle terms of extended lengths and double spaced lithographic metaphors and expulsions on the sentient behavior of cinematic progress as it relates to the spiritual development of nations and memory and sentimental value of the beautifying aesthetic process (which is far from psychological but not as far from religious icons.
Marilyn Monroe was another kind of icon. She swept the carpet under the rug, don’t open the closet or all my skeletons will fall out and I cant have you seeing those, my secrets. I don’t have a carpet here and the closet is wall to wall my floor.
2. Nonsense makes no sense and no scent for one cent is decent. Forget the math I like it but my formulas are off.
Language is a cheap trick
Cinematic really thought I had something there, lost it before it had a chance
The answer lies in circles
_My most esteemed viewers, today, for your reading and viewing pleasure, I bring you this, another glimpse into my exciting, intriguing, and in all ways fascinating world of *Intro to Film*!
_Today’s source of adventure and illumination is the ingenious writing of one André Bazin.
_While I realize what follows may be a tad lengthy, I promise you, it is well worth your time. For the entertainment and yes, enlightenment which follows will most certainly justify the time you spend here, reading my humble proclamation. And now, having delayed enough, I begin:
Dear Misseur Bazin,
_As I have written once before to your studious colleague of film, Mr. Dudley Andrew, on the topic of his masterfully constructed work of verbal art entitled Valuation (of Genres and Auteurs), I would like to now address you concerning your equally impressive, nay awe-inspiring essays The Ontology of The Photographic Image and The Myth of Total Cinema (focusing primarily on the former.)
_To begin, I would like to praise a few of your most inspiring statements; those which I feel embody your overall ingenuity with both the language and the topic to which you apply your skill: (the images I include are to assist in the contextualization of the following comments)
1. “It is not for me to separate off, in the complex fabric of the objective world, here a reflection on a damp sidewalk, there the gesture of a child. Only the impassive lens, stripping its object of all those ways of seeing it, those piled-up preconceptions, that spiritual dust and grim with which my eyes have concerned it, is able to present it in all its virginal purity to my attention and consequently to my love” (Ontology, 15). ----> These words leave me speechless every time I read them. Every time I read it I think, “Ooo, pretty.” In fact, as you may note in the previous image, I even have the comment penned beside those 7 lines of lovely, unnecessarily poetic description of photography’s relationship to reality and realism. (At least I think that’s what you’re talking about.)
2. “If color had not yet appeared it was because the first experiments with the three color process were slower in coming” (Myth, 36). ----> This is perhaps the most profound statement I have ever read. I bow before your mighty intellect.
3. On page 37 of Myth, you mention the birth of cinema from the myth of total cinema, I would like to express my absolute admiration of this statement, especially because it follows (by twelve and a half lines of intervening text) the statement “In short, cinema has not yet been invented” (Myth, 36). At this point, as I eagerly read through and reveled in each one of your magnificent statements, I paused, momentarily, to make a note in the margin which reads: FUCK YOU!
4. In addition to your truly magnificent manipulations of the English language, I must commend you, too, on your assuredness demonstrated in the statement: “So, photography is clearly the most important event in the history of plastic arts” (Ontology, 16). Oh yes, Bazin, clearly.
5.Footnotes have never been more awesome.
6. Finally, I would like to provide for you a summary of The Ontology of the Photographic Image. It reads, more or less, as follows:
>Photography and Realism: 5 pages
>What this means for Film: 9 LINES (the emphasis upon the brevity of this passage will be made clear shortly)
>Photography and Surrealism: 2 pages
And then, in conclusion, you leave us, your admiring readers, in a something akin to a state of awe at profundity of your final words, this golden jewel of glowing enlightenment:
"On the other hand, of course, cinema is also a language" (Ontology, 16).
All I can say is: WHAT?!
And then offer you this final image, which I believe embodies the very essence of how this experience has made me feel:
That said, I tip my imaginary hat to you, good sir, and thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
Sarah Wertheimer
And now, for those of you who stuck with me this far, (and I hope you found my letter to the amazing André Bazin entertaining and not overly tedious), I now present to you the evidence of the toll taken on one’s sanity by the task of reading too many film articles.
Keep in mind that what follows was written after 4 hours of mind numbing dissection of texts ranging boring to torturous, 10 hours writing about Marilyn Monroe, and at least 20 minutes wondering why the words were slowly dripping down my screen (apparently a lack of sleep will do some weird things to your vision), and the Process = space out and type whatever.
I give you now:
The Effects of Bazin on a Mind Lacking Nourishment and Sleep (a selection of two quotes)
1. Ive been not productive too long. I must return to middle terms of extended lengths and double spaced lithographic metaphors and expulsions on the sentient behavior of cinematic progress as it relates to the spiritual development of nations and memory and sentimental value of the beautifying aesthetic process (which is far from psychological but not as far from religious icons.
Marilyn Monroe was another kind of icon. She swept the carpet under the rug, don’t open the closet or all my skeletons will fall out and I cant have you seeing those, my secrets. I don’t have a carpet here and the closet is wall to wall my floor.
2. Nonsense makes no sense and no scent for one cent is decent. Forget the math I like it but my formulas are off.
Language is a cheap trick
Cinematic really thought I had something there, lost it before it had a chance
The answer lies in circles