A quote of a quote from the essay:
Last night I was in the Kingdom of Shadows. If you only knew how strange it is to be there. It is a world without sound, without colour. Everything there – the earth, the trees, the people, the water and the air – is dipped in monotonous grey. Grey rays of the sun across the grey sky, grey eyes in grey faces, and the leaves of the trees are ashen grey. It is not life but its shadow, it is not motion but its soundless spectre.
Here I shall try to explain myself, lest I be suspected of madness or indulgence in symbolism. I was at Aumont’s and saw Lumière’s cinématograph – moving photography.
(Gorky, 1996 p.5)
..I just wanna say - as mesmerising as this is - physics noob much?
I know I can say that now, in 2010, after how far the technology's come so far.. but.. I can also say that moving pictures became possible because of the physics behind it.. To me, this quote isn't so great(well, yeah of course it is in another sense, but for now let's take this term colloquially); sure, it must've been shocking back then, but surely for a guy like Gorky, he could've made himself aware of the latest technology..
Perhaps he did, later in his review.
Haven't read it, not going to read it, and if he indeed looked into it, good on him.
