Page 183 - Darko Štrajn, From Walter Benjamin to the End of Cinema: Identities, Illusion and Signification. Ljubljana: Educational Research Institute, 2017. Digital Library, Dissertationes, 29.
P. 183
immediacy as an attribute of cinema as art
film as a “young art” from other arts like literature, theatre, and painting.
As Epstein puts it: “/…/ every art builds its forbidden city, its own exclusive
domain, autonomous, specific, and hostile to anything that does not be-
long” (Epstein, 1974: 1372). Therefore, Epstein strives for “photogenic aspects
of the world” which would provide the distinction of cinema as art. As a
newcomer to the aesthetic regime only twenty-five years old cinema needs
to establish itself:
It is a new enigma. Is it an art or something less than that? A pic-
torial language, like the hieroglyphs of ancient Egypt, whose secrets
we have scarcely penetrated yet, about which we do not know all
that we do not know? Or an unexpected extension to our sense of
sight, a sort of telepathy of the eye? Or a challenge to the logic of
the universe, since the mechanism of cinema constructs movement
by multiplying successive stoppages of celluloid exposed to a ray of
light, thus creating mobility through immobility, decisively demon-
strating how correct the false reasoning of Zeno of Elea was? (Ep-
stein, 1974: 1383)
The point concerning the role of immobility is of utmost importance
as movement in cinema accentuates stoppages and vice versa. Epstein‘s
evoking of Zeno of Ellea clearly heralds that there was an instantaneous
reciprocated proclivity between cinema and philosophy. In a continuation
of movement, the interruption as immobility often appears in still frames,
which gives rise to an anticipation of movement. Therefore, such still
frames happen to be very expressive in many close-ups. Consequently, the
language metaphor becomes, through this, even more credible. Epstein’s
efforts to establish cinema as an art theoretically abundantly attained re-
sults in his own work as a cinematographer. “Epstein’s exhaustive explora-
tions of the sensibility the modern world requires to perceive it puts him at
the advance front of the modernist project, in both artistic and theoretical
terms” (Moore, 2012: 184).
I think that there is no doubt that Epstein did work on changing per-
ception within already decisively transformed conditions for perception
due to cinema. Many fragments of his films resemble what would a few
decades later be described as experimental cinema. An example of Ep-
stein’s film La Glace à Trois Face (The Three-Sided Mirror – 1927) is one
2 Translation from Keller & Paul (2012: 293).
3 Translation from Keller & Paul (2012: 293).
181
film as a “young art” from other arts like literature, theatre, and painting.
As Epstein puts it: “/…/ every art builds its forbidden city, its own exclusive
domain, autonomous, specific, and hostile to anything that does not be-
long” (Epstein, 1974: 1372). Therefore, Epstein strives for “photogenic aspects
of the world” which would provide the distinction of cinema as art. As a
newcomer to the aesthetic regime only twenty-five years old cinema needs
to establish itself:
It is a new enigma. Is it an art or something less than that? A pic-
torial language, like the hieroglyphs of ancient Egypt, whose secrets
we have scarcely penetrated yet, about which we do not know all
that we do not know? Or an unexpected extension to our sense of
sight, a sort of telepathy of the eye? Or a challenge to the logic of
the universe, since the mechanism of cinema constructs movement
by multiplying successive stoppages of celluloid exposed to a ray of
light, thus creating mobility through immobility, decisively demon-
strating how correct the false reasoning of Zeno of Elea was? (Ep-
stein, 1974: 1383)
The point concerning the role of immobility is of utmost importance
as movement in cinema accentuates stoppages and vice versa. Epstein‘s
evoking of Zeno of Ellea clearly heralds that there was an instantaneous
reciprocated proclivity between cinema and philosophy. In a continuation
of movement, the interruption as immobility often appears in still frames,
which gives rise to an anticipation of movement. Therefore, such still
frames happen to be very expressive in many close-ups. Consequently, the
language metaphor becomes, through this, even more credible. Epstein’s
efforts to establish cinema as an art theoretically abundantly attained re-
sults in his own work as a cinematographer. “Epstein’s exhaustive explora-
tions of the sensibility the modern world requires to perceive it puts him at
the advance front of the modernist project, in both artistic and theoretical
terms” (Moore, 2012: 184).
I think that there is no doubt that Epstein did work on changing per-
ception within already decisively transformed conditions for perception
due to cinema. Many fragments of his films resemble what would a few
decades later be described as experimental cinema. An example of Ep-
stein’s film La Glace à Trois Face (The Three-Sided Mirror – 1927) is one
2 Translation from Keller & Paul (2012: 293).
3 Translation from Keller & Paul (2012: 293).
181
