“The difference may be the difference between finding a world and creating one; the difference between using the preexisting materials of reality and organizing those materials into a totally formed vision; the difference between an effort to discover the orders independent of the watcher and to discover those orders the watcher creates by his act of seeing. Voyeurism is a characteristic visual device of the closed film, for it contains the proper mixture of freedom and compulsion: free to see something dangerous and forbidden, conscious that one wants to see and cannot look away. In closed films the audience is a victim, imposed on by the perfect coherence of the world on the screen. In open films the audience is a guest, invited into the film as an equal whose vision of reality is potentially the same as that of the director.” – Leo Braudy 1977, The World in a Frame, p.49
Another passage from Leo Braudy’s book triggered an epiphany of an idea for a scene that could potentially be my research topic:
A character (represented by appropriate camera movement) who somehow became invisible to the world around him. The scene is of him/her watching a scenario between two other characters (or maybe one). The invisible character’s reactions or gestures are not signified. The only way the audience know of its existence is to imagine. Maybe hands and body may appear in the edge of frame to indicate a person; or simply, more subtle, by head movements and sudden panning. Humanly movements but no physical presence.
A few days after this epiphany, I came across this short film The Girl Chewing Gum by John Smith who also directed Blight.
The Girl Chewing Gum, 1976
Blight, 1996