But nothing prepared me for the shock of a face enlarged to the
dimensions of a house, and I am sure that the quasi-divine character
of the apparition played its role in the enchantment. No doubt that's
why I always feel something like aggression in the use of the word
"cinema" for films seen on television.
Godard said it quite
well, as he does sometimes: cinema is higher than us, it is that to
which we must lift our eyes. When it passes into a smaller object on
which we lower our eyes, cinema loses its essence. One can be moved
by the trace it leaves, this keepsake-portrait that we look at like the
photo of a loved one carried with us; one can see the shadow of a film
on the television, the longing for a film, the nostalgia, the echo of a
film, never a film.
-- Chris Marker. Immemory a cd-rom by Chris Marker.
Cambridge, MA: Exact Change, 2002.
Writing of the image of Simone Genevois
as Jeanne d'Arc in the film
La Merveilleuse vie de Jeanne d'Arc (1929)
Directed by Marco de Gastyne
written by Jean-Jose Frappa.