Fred, did you mention your view that a total simulation or recreation
of reality as perceived by "weaponless consciousness"* would be the
worst type of art? I sort of agree. However, the failure of cinema
to recreate reality or objects across time (that is, cinema's failure
to be a functioning time machine) is one of the most poignant and sad
themes in film, as evidenced in such great works as VERTIGO, LA JETEE,
LOLA MONTES, and so on.

Instead of replying in substance to everything else, I offer this
ironic desription of realistic literature in Dickens OUR MUTUAL FRIEND
that I like a lot:

"Mr Podsnap's notions of the Arts in their integrity might have been
stated thus. Literature; large print, respectfully descriptive of
getting up at eight, shaving close at a quarter past, breakfasting at
nine, going to the City at ten, coming home at half-past five, and
dining at seven. Painting and Sculpture; models and portraits
representing Professors of getting up at eight, shaving close at a
quarter past, breakfasting at nine, going to the City at ten, coming
home at half-past five, and dining at seven. Music; a respectable
performance (without variations) on stringed and wind
instruments, sedately expressive of getting up at eight, shaving
close at a quarter past, breakfasting at nine, going to the City at
ten, coming home at half-past five, and dining at seven. Nothing
else to be permitted to those same vagrants the Arts, on pain of
excommunication. Nothing else To Be--anywhere!"

Patrick


*"weaponless consciousness" Agee's phrase from LET US NOW PRAISE
FAMOUS MEN:
"[T]he camera seems to me, next to unassisted and weaponless
consciousness, the central instrument of ourtime ; and is why in turn
I feel such rage at its misuse: which has so nearly universal a
corruption of sight that I know of less than a dozen alive whose eyes
I can trust even so much as my own."