ABSTRACT
The window offers views that are more than spectacles; mentally prolonged spaces. Over many varied sequences the film shows the modes of practising the window and the activities that it affords. The dormer window isn't just a means for ventilation and lighting, but provides a perch on the inside for reading and eating a sandwich, a seating space on the outside for smoking and reflecting, a place for looking out during the day or looking in at night. The daring of such cinematographic moves reached its pinnacle with I am Cuba, in the scene where the camera gets inside a cigar factory, entering from one window and exiting through another at the other side of the building, in one uninterrupted sequence shot. In L'Eclisse, there are windows that interrogate, as in the scene when Vittoria first visits Piero's parents' flat. First the camera stands in front of a half-open window, which frames an open window across a courtyard.
