CHAPTER 13

GENRE, CONFLICT, AND DIALECTICS

 

MAKING THE VISIBLE SIGNIFICANT

Memorable cinema communicates an integrated point of view not just as the occasional garnish by subjective camera angle or interior monologue, but as a feeling of access to a fellow spirit's inward eye and outward vision. We're not talking about heroic and idealized characters enshrined by the star system, but rather the kind of cinema that makes you see unfinished business in your life or society.

How else can you go about reflecting such things on the screen? Robert Richardson defines the heart of the problem: “Literature often has the problem of making the significant somehow visible, while film often finds itself trying to make the visible significant” (Literature ...

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