ABSTRACT
The Lumiere brothers took their camera to the railroad station and simply photographed the arrival of a train. The audience looked at it and was captivated. It was magical to see on the screen what they had seen so themselves. The audiences looked at G. Melies's films and were captivated; it was magical to see on the screen what they never had seen or could see themselves. Thus were born two fundamental directions in movies which have remained polar opposites since: on the one hand, a tendency toward the documentary or realist—on the other, a tendency toward the imaginary or surrealistic. An internally novel and inventive film would have the merit of baffling an understanding which lived off the supposition that it already understood or was capable of understanding what was shown. A film must be a film and not a visual accompaniment to a sound track. And yet the sound is essential.
