Abstract
In this article Charles Rees offers his personal insights about how
image and sound can be re-‘read’ in such a way as to transcend current
narrative constraints. He offers examples of films which have influenced
and impressed him, and extrapolates on ways in which cinema might develop
in the future.
My four views stretch over a long period.
Each individual sees differently.
The Camera Image sees differently from humans.
First View: The Eclipse
The first view was only a glimpse. Following an early enthusiasm
for spectacular films - Ben-Hur (Wyler 1959), El
Cid (Mann 1961) – on vast screens that envelop you to put you in
another world, I saw Michelangelo Antonioni’s L’eclisse/The
Eclipse (1962) when I was sixteen. This film put me in another world in a different way. Rather than being swallowed by
a film, I swallowed. I think I discovered my own way of seeing
films. I was bewitched – at least I seemed to have some kind of affinity
with this film. It stunned me into a way of seeing films that I had not
imagined before. I never forgot this revelation of a way of seeing films,
although I subsequently used other ways. It was
always there, a way of having a handle on a film and of keeping one’s autonomy in relation to it.
