"In a book", writes Mr Mars-Jones, "reader and writer collaborate to
produce images, while a film director hands them down." I disagree. The
greatest filmmakers, like the greatest novelists and poets, are trying
to create a sense of communion with the viewer. They're not trying to
seduce them or overtake them, but, I think, to engage with them on as
intimate a level as possible. The viewer also "collaborates" with the
filmmaker, or the painter. No two viewings of Raphael's "Madonna and
Child Enthroned with Saints" will be the same: every new viewing will be
different. The same is true of readings of
The Divine Comedy or
Middlemarch, or viewings of
The Life and Death of Colonel
Blimp or
2001: A Space Odyssey. We return at different
moments in our lives and we see things differently.