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Phillpotts, Eden, 1862-1960

"The Red Redmaynes"

The hopeless way you
bitched up this thing interests me quite a lot. Remember that I know
the case inside out and I'm not talking through my hat. So now let's
see how and why you barked your shins so bad.
"Now, Mark, take a cinema show and consider it. Perhaps it's going
to throw some light for you. A cinema film presents two entirely
different achievements. It presents ten for that matter; but we'll
take just two. It shows you a white sheet with a light thrown on it;
it passes the light through a series of stains and shadows and the
stains are magnified by lenses before they reach the screen. A most
elaborate mechanism, you see, but the spectator never thinks about
all that, because the machine produces an appeal to another part of
his mind altogether. He forgets sheet, lantern, film, and all they
are doing, in the illusion which they create.
"We accept the convention of the moving picture, the light and
darkness, the tones and half tones, because these moving stains and
shadows take the shape of familiar objects and tell a coherent
story, showing life in action.


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