November 14, 1904 [The Suburbanite]
[To watch the film, go HERE.]
The Suburbanite features a collection of mentally deranged and idiotic individuals whose chief occupations seem to be crockery-smashing and hand-wringing.
But I accidentally discovered an intriguing method of viewing when a woman with an extravagant hat caused some small disturbance off to my left. I glanced over, watched her angrily move from her seat—rather than remove her hat—and when my eyes returned to the screen someone was gesticulating wildly, her eyes drawn down in agony—and I could not fathom why. The scene grew mysterious, a single moment divorced from cause—so I tried the experiment again, averting my eyes for ten seconds or so--and returned to see someone—the cook?—in the kitchen randomly throwing cups and plates.
By the end, I'd invented four vignettes of chaos—the slapstick satire of suburban living left behind, the formal relationships among the characters (let alone the plot relationships between incidents) obliterated. True, on its own the thing was episodic; but in creating these "blank spaces" on a cinematic map, if I may steal from Mr. Conrad,* I find myself not only the spectator but the maker of the film—and, if I may say so myself, not bad at it, at least in the blank spaces.
*Editor's Note: The diarist is referring to Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, published in book form in 1902.
The Suburbanite features a collection of mentally deranged and idiotic individuals whose chief occupations seem to be crockery-smashing and hand-wringing.
But I accidentally discovered an intriguing method of viewing when a woman with an extravagant hat caused some small disturbance off to my left. I glanced over, watched her angrily move from her seat—rather than remove her hat—and when my eyes returned to the screen someone was gesticulating wildly, her eyes drawn down in agony—and I could not fathom why. The scene grew mysterious, a single moment divorced from cause—so I tried the experiment again, averting my eyes for ten seconds or so--and returned to see someone—the cook?—in the kitchen randomly throwing cups and plates.
By the end, I'd invented four vignettes of chaos—the slapstick satire of suburban living left behind, the formal relationships among the characters (let alone the plot relationships between incidents) obliterated. True, on its own the thing was episodic; but in creating these "blank spaces" on a cinematic map, if I may steal from Mr. Conrad,* I find myself not only the spectator but the maker of the film—and, if I may say so myself, not bad at it, at least in the blank spaces.
*Editor's Note: The diarist is referring to Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, published in book form in 1902.
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