I was really taken with [Jean Epstein’s](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Epstein) "On Certain Characteristics of Photogénie,” where he defines it as ***“any aspect of things, beings, or souls whose moral character is enhanced by filmic reproduction.”*** Wikipedia summarizes this as *“giving a "personality" or a "spirit" to objects while also being able to reveal "the untrue, the unreal, the 'surreal'.“* He takes this further to examine various related filmic properties, especially light, movement, and rhythm. ## Photogenie concerns time-space mobility Things captured in photogenie are inherently *mobile*, as in moving through time and space: “the photogenic aspect of an object is a consequence of its variations in space-time.” He says cinema adds a relief in time by abridging our temporal perspectives: “cinema composed without taking the temporal perspective into account is not cinematic," parallel to drawings being bad for not taking the third dimension into account (although personally I disagree with this parallel; I don’t think all drawing needs to take into account a 3rd spatial dimension to be good). ## Parallel to languages Like language, photogenie bears a semblance of life to the objects it defines. Cinema goes further to endow depicted objects with “such intense life,” especially in the case of closeups: > Through the cinema, a revolver in a drawer, a broken bottle on the ground, an eye isolated by an iris, are elevated to the status of characters in the drama. Being dramatic, they seem alive, as though involved in the evolution of an emotion. > If we wish to understand how an animal, a plant, or a stone can inspire respect, fear, or horror, those three most sacred sentiments, I think we must watch them on the screen, living their mysterious, silent lives, alien to the human sensibility. > Personality goes beyond intelligence. Personality is the spirit visible in things and people, their heredity made evident, their past become unforgettable, their future already present. > An eye in close-up is no longer the eye, it is AN eye. […] And a close-up of a revolver is no longer a revolver, it is the revolver-character, in other words the impulse toward or remorse for crime, failure, suicide. It is as dark as the temptations of the night, bright as the gleam of gold luster after, taciturn as passion, squat, brutal, heavy, cold, wary, menacing. It has a temperament, habits, memories, a will, a soul. He compares the new reality revealed by photogenie / cinema as comparable to the “heightened awareness” that poetry has; with poetry and cinema both having a version of reality that is “untrue to everyday reality” but nevertheless revealing some heightened aspects of it (see also [Defamiliarization](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamiliarization)). ## See also - [[Magnification]] #film #academic