CCharles Eidsvik alto suggests that films and books provide similar experiences, but points out that fuzzy semantics have prevented critics ffom reeognizing literature as an art with more than one medium and fle s+ a medium capable of containing many arts. Eidsvik contends that erature has never been a onemedium art; on the contrary, literature © began as an oral art and then contributed to new media as they devel ped. Similarly, no single artform for fl can be identified even though {he narrative mode dominates by way of volume. Eidsvik strongly di {free with Bluestone’'sdistinetions between film asa perceptual art and print as 2 conceptual one, suggesting that scholars do not yet know rough to compare the structures of perception and the structures of ver bal language VIRGINIA WOOLF The Movies And Reality People say thatthe sage no longer exists ins, hat we ate at ¢fagent of civilization, that everything has been said alten, ad tits to late tobe ambitious But thee philosophers have presumably tem the movies They have never seen the savages of the twentieth ary watching the pictures. They have never sat themselves in front the sreen and thought how, fr all the othe on their backs and the father fet no grea distance separates them from those brig naked men who knocked to bars of iron together and. heard in ‘dangor a foretaste of the musie of Morar. “The ba in this se, ofcourse, are 20 highly wrought and so ov- cover with acretions of alien matter tha tis extremely dificult to anything distnely. Al is hubblebubbie, swarm and chaos. We are ing over the edge of cauldron in which fagments ofall shapes and Seem to siuner, ow and again some vast form heaves ill up, szens about to haul ie out of chaos. Yeu, at ise sight, the art of nema seems simple, even stupid. There the King shaking hands ith a football team: there is Sir Thomas Lipton’s yacht) there is Jack ‘winning the Grand National, The ee leks tall up insantane ly. and the bran, agreeably tillated, sees down to watch things sppening without bestiring ite to think. For the ordinary eye, the ish wnacrthetc eye, sa simple mechani, which takes care thatthe oy does not fall down coalholes, provides the brain with toys and meats to keep ie quit, an can be trated to go om behaving ike ipetentnursemaid Unt the Drala comes to the conclasion that iis to wake up. What is i surprise, hen, tobe roused suddenly In the tof ts agreable somnolence and asked for hep? The eye is in aif cu The eye wants help. The eye say othe bran, "Something i hap- 254in black velvet falls into the arms of a gentleman in uniform, and they fs with enormous sueculence, great deliberation, and infnite gestcula- jon on a sofa in an extremely well appointed library, while a gardens: ncdentally mows the lawn, So we lurch and lumber through the mat ous novels of the world. So we spell them out in words of one sylabe tien, too, in the scrawl of an illiterate schoolboy. A kis is love, A cen cup ie jealousy, A grin is happiness. Death is a hearse. None of things has the leat connection with the novel that Tolsioy wrot, dit is only when we give up trying to connect the pictures withthe ok that we guess from some accidental sene—Hike the gardener mows ng the Lawn—what the cinema might do if ic were left wo ts own deview. But what, then, are its devices? If it eeased to be a parasite, bow ould it walk erect? At present itis only from hints that one ean frame ‘conjecture. For instance, at a performance of Dr. Calgon the other ‘a shadow shaped like a tadpole suddenly appeared at one corner of esc, It swelled to an immense sie, quivered, bulged, and sank back jin into nonentity. For a moment it seemed to embody some monstrous, eased imagination of the lunatic’ bran. For a moment, i seemed sf raght could be conveyed by shape more ellectively than by word. The trays, quivering tadpole seemed to be fear iself, and not the wate "ash afraid.” In fact, the shadow was accidental, and the effet intentional. But ia shadow at a certain moment ean suggest so much than the actual gestures and words of men and women in a state of it scems plain that the cinema has within is grasp innumerable abols for emotions that have so far filed to find expression, Tenor besides its ordinary forms, the shape ofa tadpole; it burgeons, bulge, vers, dieappears. Anger is not merely rant and store, red face an ched fits. It is perhape a black line wriggling upon a white sheet ‘and Vronsky need no longer scowl and grimace. They haves thei mand—but what? Is there, we as, some secret language which we and see, but never speak, and, ifs could this be made visible to the 1s there any characteristic which thought possesses that can be ren Jed visible without the help of words? Ie has speed and slownesy dare directness and vaporous crcumlocuton. But it has as, especially joments of emotion, the picture making power, the need to itis bunen another bearer, to let an image run side by side along with it. The tik. es ofthe thought is, for some reason, more beautiful, more comprehen. ‘more available than the thought ite. As everybody knows, spear the most complex ideas form chains of images dough which ‘mount, changing and turning. until we reach the light of day. But pening which Ido notin the leat understand. You are needed” Tog they look a the King, the boat, the hone, and the bain ses at once th they have taken ona quit which dos not belong to the simple phot raph of real life They have become not more Deal in the nei Sich pcre are Deal ut shall we call (our vocabulary ism trably inset) moe rea, or veal wih diferent realy rom ‘hich we preive in diy fe? We Bold chem a they ae when we rot there We sce Ife ai when we have no part in fe Awe gage seem tobe remoed from he petines of actual existence, The howe tot knock ss down, The King wll not gasp our handy The wave wil not wet ovr fet From this point of vantage, at we watch the ati tur ind, we have time to fel pity and aamsement o generals to dow man with he atibures ofthe rac. Watching the boat sail and wave break, we have time to open our sins to Bensty and reier top of tthe quer sensation this Beauty will continue and th bea will flourish whether we behold it or not. Further al his happened te Years ago, we ate told. We are Beholng m world which bat gone feath the wave. Brides ae emerging trom the Abhe)—they sre na smother hers are ardent—shey are ow silent, mothes ae tet ues ae joyful: thin hasbeen won and that hs been To, and fe ver and done with ‘The War sprang its chasm atthe fe of ll thi i nocence and ignorance, but tw this tat we danced and poe toiled snd deste, thi chat the wn shone and te dows seulded ap the very ed But the picurematers seem disatsied with such obvious sour ot imteret atthe pasage o ime ad the sggenivenes of reality. epithe Aight of gil shi onthe Thames, the Prince of Wale, Mile End Road, Peedi Chews ‘They want tobe improving, alte raking an art of their own-—natally for soc seem to be wih their scope. So many arts acemed to stand by ready ofr thie hep. FO example, there wa iterate. All the famous novels of the words their'wel known characters andthe famous semen ony asked Seemed o be put onthe is. What could be easier and simpler? tinea fell upon is prey with immense rapacity, and to is mec largely site upon the buy ofits unfortanate victim. Bu the rel are isastros to oth. The alliance is unnatural, Eye and brain a funder ruthlesly ay they try vainly to workin couples, "The eye “Here is Anna Kerenina” A voluptuous lady in black velvet weal pearls comes before us But the brain say: That ino more. AM Karenina than itis Queen Victoria For the brain knows Anna al ‘irl by the ise of her miner charm, her pasion, er dep ‘All the emphasis is ad bythe cinema upon her teth her pears adh velvet Then "Anna fas love with Vronsky’=that st sy the ‘They are compact of a thousand suggestions of which the the most abviows of the uppermost. Even the simplestJuve tke a rede otha’ ney sprung in June” present ws wi impressions of moisture and warmth ad the low of erimson and cotines of petals inextricably mixed and strung upon the Tito hyd whichis ie the woee of the pasion and hsitaton of the lover thi which accetble vo word, and to words alone, the enema neat Yetit so much of ou thinking an festng i connected with secing some residue of vasa emotion which is of no se iter to einer er poet may sll await the cinema, That sich symbols will be quite ul {he rel objects which we sce before ws seems highly probable Smet abstract something which moves with controlled and consis ar, sm thing which eal for the very slightest help fom word or msc tom ‘lf nelle, ye july ss them sbervieny of such movement tnd astractions he fms may in time to come, be composed. Theny deed, when some new syn for expressing though i found, the make has enormous ices at his command. The exact ofreiliy a itssurprising power of suggesion are tobe had forthe aking. Anna and Vionskys—there they aren thee. I'im this reality he could bret motion, could animate the perfect fom with thought, then Could be hale in hand over hand. "Then ax smoke pours rom Ves tre shouldbe able o ee though init wiles, Sis eauty, if ‘ny, pouring from men withthe elbows ona table rom wonten Chee litle handbags sliping tothe for, We shoud sec ie emodam sningling together sid aectng exch other, We should se violent changes of emodon produced by their sion, The most fantasti contras cou be Based before ws with a5 ‘hich the writer cam ony toil wan: the dream architect of Ind batemens, of cade falling and fountain rising, wich times vist im seep or shapes ive in alferkened rooms, could reaited before our waking eye. No fantay could be too arfetche inmutwanta. "The past could be unrolled, stances annhiated, and gulls which dislocate novels when, fr instance, Toso has to pe Tevin to Anna, and in so ding jars history and wrenches and our sympathic) could, by the smenes of the background, bythe fe tion af some sense, be amerhed away. How al thi tobe attempted, much ls achieved, no one at smoment can tellus We ge intimations ony in the chaos of the Peshaps when some momentary sembly of color, ond, movement fests that here isa scene avaitig 4 new art to be transxed. Ad 0 Sines athe cacma inthe mid of is lomeme deaeriey and techniatprofeney, the cotsn parts and we bebol, far of, some own and unexpected beauty, But iti fora moment only. Fora ‘hing has happened ll te other ats were horn aed, eis ungest, has been born fully clothed. Tecan say everything before it has hing to say. It sas i ehe savage tribe, instead of finding two bars of, to play with, ha found, scattering the seashore, dle, fates, x0. jones, srumpes, grand pianos by Erard and Bechstein, and had begun ith incredible energy, but without knowing a note of musi, to hammer hump upon them all a¢ the same ime