CINEMA: La Linea Generale .............Oleg Tcherny

Palazzo Dona'

Events in Venice have something to do with the past...as perhaps most events do in a way. This new

 movie, la linea generale  is totally of the present, while the dialogue

 was written in 1630  by Galileo Galilei from his works 

and read, in italian by Giorgio Agamben.

 The movie was presented by the Signum foundation Palazzo Dona', and there was a

 conversation with Daniel Heller-Roazen, Ernesto Rubin de Cervin

 and P. Adams Stiney after the showing.

A premovie discussion with Oleg Tcherny in the foreground 

setting up the audio...

Just about ready to begin.

..."If the nib of a writing pen which was 
in the ship during my voyage direct from 

Venice to Alexandria, had had the power 

of leaving a visible mark of all its path, 

what trace, what mark, what line would 

it have left? "Simplicio. It would have 

left a line stretched out thither from 

Venice not perfectly straight, or to speak 

more correctly, not perfectly extended in 

an exact circular arc, but here and there 

more and less curved accordingly as 

the vessel had pitched more or less ; but 

this variation in some places of one or 

two yards to the right or left, or up or 

down in a length of many hundred miles, 

would have occasioned but slight altera- 

tion in the whole course of the line, so 

that it would have been hardly sensible, 

and without any great error we may 

speak of it as a perfectly circular arc. 

Sagred. So that the true and most 

exact motion of the point of the pen 

would also have been a perfect arc of a 

circle if the motion of the vessel, ab- 

stracting from the fluctuations of the 

waves, had been steady and gentle ; and 

if I had held this pen constantly in my 

hand, and had merely moved it an inch 

or two one way or the other, what alter- 

ation would that have made in the true 

and principal motion? Simpl. Less 

than that which would be occasioned in 

a line a thousand yards long, by varying 

here and there from perfect straightness 

by the quantity of a flea's eye. Sagred. 

An accurate view of the film.

If then a painter on our quitting the 

port had begun to draw with this pen 

on paper, and had continued his draw- 

ing till we got to Alexandria, he would 

have been able by its motion, to produce 

an accurate representation of many ob- 

jects perfectly shadowed, and filled up on 

all sides with landscapes, buildings, and 

animals, although all the true, real, and 

essential motion of the point of his pen 

would have been no other but a very 

long and very simple line ; and as to the 

peculiar work of the painter, he would 

have drawn it exactly the same if the 

ship had stood still. Therefore, of the 

very protracted motion of the pen, there 

remain no other traces than those marks 

drawn upon the paper, the reason of this 

being that the great motion from Venice 

to Alexandria was common to the paper, 

the pen, and everything that was in the 

ship; but the trifling motion forwards 

and backwards, to the right and left, 

communicated by the painter's fingers 

to the pen, and not to the paper, from 

being peculiar to the pen, left its mark 

upon the paper, which as to this mo- 

tion was immoveable. Thus it is like- "...

The three had an animated and clear discussion of movie making, incorporating comments from the audience and related thoughts as to philosophy, semiotics, and the making of meaning in film.

The film was shot with a long telephoto lens in one take, aboard a ship leaving Venice.  It was then digitally edited to adjust time. One of the effects was that the Alps loomed large and fixed over Venice while the foreground- Venice itself- began to blur.