Sounds, Images

The issue with associating the image with the eye is that we don't see the world the way a camera does. The image doesn't simply remind us of seeing something – it reminds of ideas behind that something, of tactile sensations, smells, tastes.

The natural progression of things is the face, the voice, the hand. In cinema, they go in that order – in images as in ideas. The face, which of course includes the eyes (and sometimes it seems like the face is that which surrounds them, that which was made to comment on a look). And the eyes (or just an eye) are the first things we think of when we think of cameras. The voice, of course, is that dream of a director's voice, that fantasy that someone talks to us through the images, whether the voice belongs to a reporter, a hypnotist, a lecturer, a debater, a storyteller, a poet. A film is a monologue that becomes a dialogue when delivered. The hand's the next step, though it's taken us a while to get there.