2046, Eye Contact, Et al
6.23.06
I have been struck lately by the power of images, of that which we see and how it is translated into the mind's eye. From a photograph in a newspaper that says more than the thousand words that follow, to the stunning filmography of "2046" and its predecesor "In the Mood for Love" to the image projected onto another person's eyes when you make contact. The other day, I was awash in a certain melancholy that even my morning workout hadn't quelled when I made eye contact with an enourmous hunk of a man. It lasted no more than a second, but contained that acknowledgement between a man and a woman that the vision of both have been appreciated. Three steps later I spy, through a glass door, a bare breast feeding a baby; the rest of the body obscured by angles and paper signs. And for some reason, these two visions lifted my spirits for the rest of the day. My rods and cones processed light and shadows before me and switched off serotonin re-uptake inhibitors. Or is it that these symbols of male animus and female anima triggered my own archetypes and set them dancing again on a hot Los Angeles day?
I think of books and how in reading them we conjur up the pictures in our mind, or when hearing a story being told live. In film, how we live in those very moments as if they were ours. The brocade dresses and the noise they made on the screen of these 2 Hong Kong films still quiver on my retina and have leaked out my fingertips into a story. From the filmaker's internal visions to a piece of paper I will print out of my computer, some idea has lept across continents and media.
I think of how photographs can move and repel us, how in "taking" a photograph we simply capture something, but when "making" a photograph we create another world; perhaps that's why we call cinematagraphers filmmakers and not filmtakers?
Studies have shown that people will see what they want to see when looking at photos or films, will miss the mili-second of a gorilla prancing in front of the camera, because it is unexpected. So our brain can filter as well as find in an image that which we want to see. Did I project onto this attractive man a reaction I wanted to see and did I choose to have a memory of my own milk making because I needed cheering up, a reminder of my feminine wiles? Or was there truly a connection of some sort between strangers, who on their daily paths choose to find what they need in the visual world around them?
I pass people who see only the sidewalk in front of them, or the view out of their windshield or the dirt on their glasses and I wonder what vision would cheer them up? What would/could we all see if we opened our eyes fully and drank in the world around us?
I have been struck lately by the power of images, of that which we see and how it is translated into the mind's eye. From a photograph in a newspaper that says more than the thousand words that follow, to the stunning filmography of "2046" and its predecesor "In the Mood for Love" to the image projected onto another person's eyes when you make contact. The other day, I was awash in a certain melancholy that even my morning workout hadn't quelled when I made eye contact with an enourmous hunk of a man. It lasted no more than a second, but contained that acknowledgement between a man and a woman that the vision of both have been appreciated. Three steps later I spy, through a glass door, a bare breast feeding a baby; the rest of the body obscured by angles and paper signs. And for some reason, these two visions lifted my spirits for the rest of the day. My rods and cones processed light and shadows before me and switched off serotonin re-uptake inhibitors. Or is it that these symbols of male animus and female anima triggered my own archetypes and set them dancing again on a hot Los Angeles day?
I think of books and how in reading them we conjur up the pictures in our mind, or when hearing a story being told live. In film, how we live in those very moments as if they were ours. The brocade dresses and the noise they made on the screen of these 2 Hong Kong films still quiver on my retina and have leaked out my fingertips into a story. From the filmaker's internal visions to a piece of paper I will print out of my computer, some idea has lept across continents and media.
I think of how photographs can move and repel us, how in "taking" a photograph we simply capture something, but when "making" a photograph we create another world; perhaps that's why we call cinematagraphers filmmakers and not filmtakers?
Studies have shown that people will see what they want to see when looking at photos or films, will miss the mili-second of a gorilla prancing in front of the camera, because it is unexpected. So our brain can filter as well as find in an image that which we want to see. Did I project onto this attractive man a reaction I wanted to see and did I choose to have a memory of my own milk making because I needed cheering up, a reminder of my feminine wiles? Or was there truly a connection of some sort between strangers, who on their daily paths choose to find what they need in the visual world around them?
I pass people who see only the sidewalk in front of them, or the view out of their windshield or the dirt on their glasses and I wonder what vision would cheer them up? What would/could we all see if we opened our eyes fully and drank in the world around us?
posted by Barbery at 8:27 PM
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