The Past Grows Gradually Around

The Envied Are Like Bureaucrats; The More Impersonal They Are, The Greater The Illusion (for Themselves And For Others) Of Their Power.

Compare The Cinema With Theatre. Both Are Dramatic Arts. Theatre Brings Actors Before A Public And Every Night During The Season They Re-enact The Same Drama. Deep In The Nature Of Theatre Is A Sense Of Ritual. The Cinema, By Contrast, Transports Its Audience Individually, Singly, Out Of The Theatre Towards The Unknown.

In The Average European Oil Painting Of The Nude The Principal Protagonist Is Never Painted. He Is The Spectator In Front Of The Picture And He Is Presumed To Be A Man.

What Is Saved In The Cinema When It Achieves Art Is A Spontaneous Continuity With All Mankind. It Is Not An Art Of The Princes Or The Bourgeoisie. It Is Popular And Vagrant. In The Sky Of The Cinema People Learn What They Might Have Been And Discover What Belongs To Them Apart From Their Single Lives.

When We Suffer Anguish We Return To Early Childhood Because That Is The Period In Which We First Learnt To Suffer The Experience Of Total Loss. It Was More Than That. It Was The Period In Which We Suffered More Total Losses Than In All The Rest Of Our Life Put Together.