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Quote by Fredric Brown

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"FREDRIC BROWN" BOOKS: What Mad Universe / Space on My Hands / Honeymoon in Hell

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Author

Fredric Brown
Fredric Brown

Fredric Brown was an American science fiction writer known for his unique style and profound philosophical insights. His works covered a range of themes from horror to science fiction, and had a significant influence on later writers. more

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“In addition to my new outlook on life, in some absurdly simple way, Anissa gave me several new reasons to live. Above all, I had to see her again and find out what, if anything, would happen between her and me.”

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Book:Anissa's Redemption
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“Where does all that leave the cinema? First, we must acknowledge that a film is a photograph of a drama, and that skilful use of the camera can never excuse the paltriness, sentimentality or weakness of the action. What I have said about modernism and its search for an art that will perpetuate the ethical vision, applies as much to the cinema as it does to the other arts. There are directors who have presented dramas that can be compared with the great modern works for the stage – Bergman, for instance, in Wild Strawberries, where an original situation, conveyed through masterly dialogue, is enhanced by dream sequences and flashbacks of a kind that can be managed successfully only through the skilful cutting that is the essential ingredient in cinematic art. Secondly, however, we must remember the distinction between fantasy and imagination, and the inherent tendency of the camera to realise what it shows – to present not a world of imagination, but a substitute reality. This is never more obvious than in the case of sex and violence, and is the root cause of the fact that these now dominate the cine screen, and would dominate television too, were it not for the censor. With the aid of the camera you can realise violence or the sexual act completely, and so minister to the fantasy which has sex or violence as its focus. If fantasy breaks through the tissue of imagination, then the dramatic thought is scattered, and the imaginative emotions along with it: drama then sinks into the background, and all that we have is obscenity – human flesh without the soul. Hence many people are quickly satiated by cinematic representations, and at the same time deeply disturbed and absorbed by features (violence in particular) which, from the dramatic point of view, have little intrinsic meaning. Imagination withers when realisation blooms, and the ethical view of our condition withers along with it. It is a significant fact that most cinema-goers are disposed to see their favourite films only a few times, and that even people whose interest is not in the drama but in the blood, screams, and orgasms have no great interest in revisiting the last occasion of excitement, and will proceed joylessly to the next one without raising the question of the value of what they watch. This contrasts with every other kind of dramatic art – theatre, novel, opera, dramatic poem – in which the perception of beauty brings with it a desire constantly to return to the source, to re-enact in our emotions a drama which never loses its point for us, since it touches the question why we are here.”

ArtImaginationFantasyCinemaRepresentation
Book:An Intelligent Person's Guide to Modern Culture
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