Films are moving pictures. That is, pictures shown one after another. Sometimes, if we’re lucky, there is sound to go with the pictures, as well. Then pictures cease being pictures and soundtracks stop being disconnected sounds. Our minds trick us into perceiving a connection between the individual pictures and even make us believe the sound is in some way relevant or even intrinsic to the experience.
Only rarely, however, is this fundamental characteristic of film taken fully into consideration. What we are commonly faced with is a parade of arbitrary images created as a result of haphazardly available filming locations. This is a great loss, as the essence of film-making enables limitless possibilities, not necessarily bound to the realities of the given world.
Only when film is considered as a fluid canvas in its entirety can film-making realize its true potential. It is perhaps due to the relative youth of film-making itself that such that the possibilities of creative reinterpretation, allegory and compositional order have not been explored as much as in other artistic strands, where they have created wondrous worlds for us to explore.
It is when the City succumbs to the lens and space itself is bent to fit the frame that films come into their own.
(still from Mamma Roma)
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