films by sanitising them of anything but hyper-prosaic mythological references, falls

headlong into the traps of both mystification and universalisation. Yet, for all its
sanctimony, the notion of ‘immaculate realism’ does pose some important issues in an
understanding of the transformations of space wrought by the divine object of
‘immaculate realism’: computation (even as it exposes a capitulation to de-realised
visual forms). No longer intent on such vulgar sentiments as correspondence, affinity,
or resemblance, the implication of an “immaculate reality” is neither redemptive
nor, in the end, graven.

Of course, it cannot intend to be so. And this too suggests a troubling resonance
between a sinlessly pious presumption and a condemned empirical description of a
theological (even teleological) mise-en-scène, whose unrepresentability is confirmed
by its very status as immaculate. After all is said and done, an ‘immaculate reality’ is
neither ‘immaculate’ or it would not be realistic, nor ‘realistic’ or it would not be
immaculate (we know too that Lucas is not guiltless). It recalled a remark made in an
interview with Jaron Lanier, where he lamented the coining of the term ‘virtual
reality’ by suggesting that ‘intentional reality’ would have been more appropriate.
The relationship of the conditional with the categorical is a telling description of the
era of the simulacra - even if it is not an entirely original notion. However, while the
replacement of a ‘virtual’ with an ‘intentional’ reality is fascinating, it must be the
topic for another discussion. But, I must say that I hope the two never meet. Can you
just imagine an ‘immaculate intention’!?