The camera has a mind of its own–its own point of view. Then the human bearer of time stumbles into the camera’s gaze–the camera’s domain of pristine space hitherto untraversed is now contaminated by human...

Cinema is a mixed form. L’Avventura has characters, it has social context, and these things are not trivial. Its plot is the disappearance of a disappearance. Possibly the most frightening plot imaginable. Forgetting the dead,...