An honest appraisal of the respective pleasures derived from theater and cinema, at least as to what is less intellectual and more... direct about them, forces us to admit that the delight we experience at the end of a play has a more uplifting, a nobler, one might perhaps say a more moral, effect than the satisfaction which follows a good film. We seem to come away with a better conscience. In a certain sense it is as if for the man in the audience all theater is "Corneillian." From this point of view one could say that in the best films something is missing. It is as if a certain inevitable lowering of the voltage, some mysterious aesthetic short circuit, deprived us in the cinema of a certain tension which is a definite part of theater. No matter how slight this difference it undoubtedly exists, even between the worst charity production in the theater and the most brilliant of Olivier's film adaptations.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The close-up has no equivalent in a narrative fashioned of words. Literature is totally lacking in any working method to enable it... to isolate a single vastly enlarged detail in which one face comes forward to underline a state of mind or stress the importance of a single detail in comparison with the rest. As a narrative device, the ability to vary the distance between the camera and the object may be a small thing indeed, but it makes for a notable difference between cinema and oral or written narrative, in which the distance between language and image is always the same.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Her mind is inferior to that of man, and we know that it requires the strongest of minds to become a good politician.... She has n...ot sufficient stability of character. She would always follow the opinions of her father, brother or husband ... and this might do more hurt than good.... There is no need of it. There are men enough who have nothing else to do who can transact all necessary business.... If permitted to study politics she would understand the art of governing and she might usurp the authority of men and it would be rather revolting to our feelings to see her holding it over the lords of creation.... She is too fastidious. This needs no comment.... If woman should have the control of affairs, we should soon see woman placed in every department of office in the country, thus throwing many of our most distinguished men out of office, and of course out of employment, or they would not do anything else to support themselves, and would soon become pests to security.... she would soon be able to converse intelligently on the subject of politics, and on this subject equal men.... If we should see ladies attending conventions, traveling about the country in great carts drawn by many yoke of oxen, waving their pocket handkerchiefs to assembled multitudes, it would greatly shock our sensibilities.... She was never designed for it. Her eyes were never made to be spoiled in plodding over political trash.... I presume it would be quite as easy to give 40 times 40 reasons why gentlemen should not engage in politics with such fiery zeal that they sometimes do, as it is to give 40 why ladies should not engage in them as well.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The gaze implies a concentration of the spectator's activity into that of looking, the glance implies that no extraordinary effort... is being invested in the activity of looking. The very terms we habitually use to designate the person who watches TV or the cinema screen tend to indicate this difference. The cinema-looker is a spectator: caught by the projection yet separate from its illusion. The TV looker is a viewer, casting a lazy eye over proceedings, keeping an eye on events, or, as the slightly archaic designation had it, "looking in."LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The cinema is going to form the mind of England. The national conscience, the national ideals and tests of conduct, will be those ...of the film.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Beware the dead. And hail them. They teach you drunkenness. You have your own place to drink. Hail and beware them, when they... come.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Such is the never-failing beauty and accuracy of language, the most perfect art in the world; the chisel of a thousand years retou...ches it.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It is not however, adulthood itself, but parenthood that forms the glass shroud of memory. For there is an interesting quirk in th...e memory of women. At 30, women see their adolescence quite clearly. At 30 a woman's adolescence remains a facet fitting into her current self.... At 40, however, memories of adolescence are blurred. Women of this age look much more to their earlier childhood for memories of themselves and of their mothers. This links up to her typical parenting phase.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »